It had been a long, long and very fraught day. A little after 8pm, I said to myself, ‘Enough. The rest can wait until tomorrow.’

I shut down my computer and left my office making sure I double locked the door behind me and headed downstairs.

The place was quiet. Well it was a Monday night in January so that was par for the course. I nodded to Georgina who was manning reception until her shift ended at 10.

I walked the few paces into the bar. I nodded at Harry who was doing what bartender do when they have nothing urgent to do namely, polishing a glass.

 
Harry nodded back at me and after putting the glass down, he began to pour me my usual, a large glass of Merlot.

I went and sat at one the booths. My choice was easy as they were all empty. After the day I’d had, I really didn’t want to talk to anyone.

Harry bought me my drink over with his usual smile.

“Thanks Harry. Can you get Chef to rustle up a BLT for me? Tell him politely that I do not want the back done to a charred crisp.”

“Yes Miss Jackson. Will there be anything else?”
I thought for a second.

“Yes, yes there is. Can you call housekeeping and get me a room for the night? I don’t feel like driving home tonight.”

“Will do Miss. Is everything cleared up after the weekend?”

“Yes Harry, it is. That lot won’t be back again though. They will be getting a bill for just over a grand for damages and cleaning. A fine start for married life eh?”

“It won’t last Miss. I saw the bride snogging the best man a couple of times during the evening.”
I just sighed.

“When will they learn eh? Never choose a man that is hotter than the groom for best man.”
Harry sloped off chuckling to himself.

 
I’d just finished my BLT that thankfully didn’t have crispy bacon when I noticed another customer in the bar.
I recognised him in an instant. The words immortalised by Humphrey Bogart came to mind in a flash. “Of all the joints, in all the towns, in all the world, he walks into mine.”

I really wasn’t in the mood to talk to anyone after the day I’d had and especially someone from a long, long time ago. I kept my head down and took another hefty swig of my wine. There was too much in the glass for me to down in one go.

I didn’t need to see him to know that he was watching me.
 
I was trying to decide if I should make a run for it when ‘he’ slid into the booth opposite me.

He smiled and said, “Hey doll.”
I thought that it was a pretty crude greeting.

We weren’t in America and neither of us was American.

“I’m not your doll. If you don’t mind, I’d like to finish my drink in peace. There are plenty of other booths where you can sit and enjoy your drink.”

“I get sent to this out of the way end of the world place and that’s the welcome I get? Do you know what the weather was like and how hard it was to get here today?”

“That is not my concern. Now If you don’t mind, I want to finish my drink in peace and alone.”

I heard Harry chink a couple of glasses together three times. I lifted my hand to stop him from doing anything for the moment. I knew that he’d come to my rescue if needed.

“Come on Doll. I just need some company and as there is no one else in sight with two legs and wearing such a cute outfit, it looks like you are it. So what about it then?”

“Au contraire. I am not your company tonight or any night.”

That didn’t deter him in the slightest.

“Say, don’t I know you from somewhere?”

Here it comes, I thought to myself. Yes, we do know each other but not on happy terms.
 
“I don’t think so. If I we did, I would have remembered you using that worn out chatup line. Now if you don’t mind I would like to be alone.”

Without a word, he slid out of the booth but the glare he gave me, said everything.
 
I sat there for another 10 minutes trying to calm down. Why did my past keep coming back to haunt me and nearly always when I was just getting on so well. There was nothing for it, this time instead of running, I had the power to act.

I downed the remains of my wine and slid out of the booth. After straightening my skirt, I picked up the empty glass and took it over to Harry.

“Thanks Harry,” I said gratefully.

“What are you going to do to him?”

“Nothing much. But he won’t be staying here again.”

“Good. We don’t need customers like that, this place has proper standards.”

“Well put Harry. Don’t forget, just let me know of any other bar creeps in future so that I can blacklist them too.”

“My pleasure Miss.”
 
I walked out of the bar and into reception.

“Georgina, can I see the guest list for tonight?”

“Sure thing Boss,” replied the receptionist as she handed me the list.

I quickly scanned it. It didn’t take me long to find the name I was looking for.

I handed the list back to Georgina.

“Could you make up the bill for Mr Taylor in 243? He will be leaving in the morning.”

“But he’s booked in for the week?”

“Not anymore he’s not. He was harassing me in the bar and didn’t want to take no for an answer.”
Georgina grinned back.

“Does he know who he was tangling with?”

“Nope.”

A couple of minutes later I had the bill in my hands. I was going to deliver it myself along with an official note of his banning from this and every other hotel in the group.

I headed up to the first floor and my office. It didn’t take me long to compose and print the letter. I carefully cited the rules of the hotel in the letter. I then emailed his details and a copy of the letter to all the hotels in the group.

I signed and dated it before putting it into an envelope.

I afforded myself a wry smile as I slid the two envelopes under the door of Room 243. Job done so I went to bed.
 

 
The following morning came far too soon for my liking but came it did so I prepared for the day ahead.
I walked out of the lift and headed for the restaurant to get some breakfast. What I didn’t expect was to be accosted by the man from the night before.

“Hey you! I never touched you. Why did you get the manager to ban me?”

I turned to face him.

“Mr Taylor, did you read the full text of the letter?”

“What the fuck has that got to do with it?”

“I asked you to leave me alone. You didn’t and under the rules of this Hotel Chain, that constitutes harassment of a customer. It also means that you also harassed a member of staff.”

“You? You work here?”

“Yes I do.”

“I demand to see the manager!”

I smiled at him.

“Mr Taylor. You are speaking to the manager. Now if you don’t mind, I would like to get some breakfast. You have until I’ve finished to leave quietly. If you don’t then I will have to call the Police. With your record, I’m sure that you don’t want that to happen.”

“Eh? How the fuck did you know that?”

Then he glared at me. As it was daylight, he got a far better view of me than the night before.

“Oh fuck. It’s you again! I though I was done with you after the last time? I always knew that you were a fairy and here you are wearing a skirt? Still got that one ball left?”

“Mr Taylor! One more word from you and I will get my staff to call the Police.”

“Yeah, just like last time. No one believed you then did they?”

“Well this time I have witnesses. Look around you.”

He looked around and saw five members of my staff standing within a couple of yards.

“Don’t you know that your Boss is a really man wearing a Dress?”

One of my staff stepped forward and said

“Same here. I was once called Barry. Now my name is Belinda and I’m proud to work here.”

Katie and Leonora did the same.

His already red face went even redder.

“This isn’t over!” he said loudly as he stormed out of reception.

I breathed a sigh of relief. Then I realized that I was shaking.

My assistant manager, Samantha came over to comfort me.

“Did you know him from before? He seemed to know you?” she asked quietly.

“Yes, yes I did know him. He and his cronies made my life hell at school. In the end, they went too far and he spent 18 months in a Young Offenders Institution where apparently he was ‘the fairy’. Still, he’s gone now and won’t be back. We don’t need customers like him here. Are we not proud of our service standards and how we treat everyone?”

“Yes boss. Service first and with a smile, always with a smile.”

“Good. I can see that you understand what we are all about here.”

“What about that threat he made? Won’t he come back?”

“Don’t worry about that. He won’t do anything. He did once and was made to pay for it.”

I looked at my watch and said to her,

“Isn’t it time for your self defense class?”

“Yes boss.”

“Well off you go.”

I smiled as she and three other members of staff headed off towards the gym. That was just one of the initiatives I’d brought in for all members of staff since I’d taken over a little over a year before.

I composed myself before walking calmly into the restaurant for breakfast. As I did so, the classic music radio we had piped into the public areas of the hotel started playing ‘Hotel California’[1]. I afforded myself a little smile as I said to myself, ‘welcome to hotel tranny’. Well, as almost all my staff, myself included were transgendered it seemed rather appropriate did it not?

[The End]

[Authors note]

I know the idea of a Hotel staffed almost entirely by LGBT (with the emphasis on the ‘T’) people might seem a little far fetched but it could work as a way to get those who have a hard time holding down a job get some work experience in as safe an environment as possible. Hold that Idea… I’m sure that I’ll return to is sooner or later.

The story was inspired by the film of the same name.
 
I wrote this little tale a week before the sad news of the death of the Eagles guitarist, Glenn Frey. RIP Glenn.
[1] Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place (Such a lovely place)
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year (Any time of year)
You can find it here

This story is another episode from the ‘Hotel’ run by LGBT people that first featured in this story.

http://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/60571/you-again

The problem with running a Hotel that is part of a larger group is that you have to attend corporate functions and even worse, ‘corporate training’. No excuses, you as the manager have to go and be indoctrinated in the latest corporate ideals/edicts and messages. Then it is your duty to pass all this corporate wisdom onto your staff.

I’d just finished such a training week. It had been held at one of the Groups’ Flagship Hotels near Coventry. As far as I was concerned, it was ok but not the sort of place that I wanted to run. It had no spirit, no atmosphere and certainly no vibe that says ‘Yes this is a place I want to come back to again and again’.

On the Other-hand, my Hotel was a lot more like home. We had lots of little touches that made us different from the other hotels in the area. This got us lots and lots of repeat business. This is what made our place tick and I was very proud of that.

One of the sessions was on ‘Increasing Repeat Business’. What a load of old cock. All the stuff presented was only relevant for places that are close to major roads such as the very establishment where the event was being held. This most certainly did not apply to my little establishment. Truth be told, I almost fell asleep in the session, it was so boring.

That evening in the bar, I told a few of the other attendees about ‘my’ repeat rates.

“We get on average between 65 and 70% repeat business. We also have average 93% occupancy all year round. Not bad for somewhere well off the beaten track.”

The three people at my table looked at me with their mouths open. Then John Lord, a well-known corporate ‘greasy pole’ climber said,
“Well, that’s the place staffed by queers and trannies. I bet all their repeats are johns coming for a quick blow job. Do you rent rooms by the minute or the hour?” he quipped.

The other two looked at him with their mouths open.

Mr. Lord had been a PITA all week. His place did this, did that and was clearly so superior to everyone elses that it wasn’t worth the rest of us being in the same building let alone the same room as him. My carefully laid plan to trap him had worked. The recording I’d just made of his comments would be played to the whole course at the wrap up session the following day.

“Well, John if that is your impression why don’t you come for a visit. I’m sure we could accommodate a blowhard like yourself?”

“Why you… you…”

“Would the words you are looking for be ‘queer transvestite’?”

He just glared at me.

“I am not queer. Besides, what does that mean these days eh? I’m not a transvestite. I am transgendered. There is a world of difference between the two. Perhaps you might like to look up the difference, if you can read the dictionary that is.”

Another strong glare from him and he muttered

“Whore!” under his breath.

I just smiled and thumbed the off button on my tape recorder that was sitting on my knee out of sight.

“Well, I don’t know about you but I’m going to bed. I have to finalise my wrap-up talk for tomorrow.”

As I stood up, I said to John,

“You can pick up the tab tonight John. After all, you apparently run the best, most profitable hotel in the world.”

The other two people who were sitting at the table had trouble stopping themselves from laughing.

I didn’t hang around and left them to it.
 

We all assembled in the main training room just before ten the following day. The last item on the agenda was one where all the participants of the course would summarise their learnings for the week. My talk would be short and simple.

Naturally, John Lord just had to go first. His speech was to be honest total bollocks. But it was what he thought ‘management’ wanted to hear. The ‘buzzword’ count was just silly.

I was next to last to present my learnings from the week.

“Ladies and Gentlemen, if there is one thing I have learned this week is that we as Hoteliers have to be patient and understanding of what sort of people our guests are and what they want from their stay in our Hotels. What we should never ever do is… well, something like this.”

Then I played the recording from the previous evening.

As it played, everyone looked at John Lord. He went very red in the face.

Then it finished, I added.

“That, ladies and gentlemen is in my opinion how not to behave. Our industry is all about how we appear to our customers. The little local touches that you can add to the standard offering can make all the difference to your bottom line. Forget about the ROCI for these touches. The satisfaction of your customers is what it is all about. Our average cost is less than two pounds per customer per visit. Now take a look at our reviews on sites like TripAdvisor. I know that some of you manage establishments in places where it is difficult to do these things but please, make an effort and make your place stand out from the competition. I am sure that you won’t regret it. After all, there is probably another Hotel or Motel just down the road. Make your place somewhere that the punters want to return to.”
As I sat down, a small ripple of applause came from the audience. I breathed a huge sigh of relief. As I did so, I noticed John Lord slipping out the back of the room.

The other downside of these training courses is that they finish at lunchtime on Fridays. It is alright for those who are based within say a hundred miles but for me I had at least a five-hour journey ahead of me. Well, it was the last Friday in July after all and the M5 was going to be a 100-mile plus car park.

After three and a half hours of sitting in stop-go traffic I stopped for a coffee and a break.

As I was walking towards the coffee shop, a tall thin woman emerged. She was wearing a long, floor length dress that looked positively fantastic on her. I smiled at her and she returned the smile. As she did so, she stumbled on an uneven step.

Thankfully, I caught her in my arms.

“Oh, Sorry about that,” she said as she regained her footing again.

“No problem. It was lucky that I was here to catch you.”

“Thanks for that. It’s this bloody dress. My boyfriend likes me to wear it.”

I thought to myself, ‘he has good taste. She’s really hot in it’.

“Oh, is he here?” I said looking around.

“No,” she said slightly angrily.

I tried to look sympathetic.

“We were going away for the weekend but he called to say that he’s been fired. Some silly slag recorded him sounding off last night. She played it to the training course he was on.”

Before I could stop myself, I reacted visually with a huge grin and a bit of a snigger. She saw it.

“Do you know anything about this?”

I looked around for a hole to swallow me up. Just my luck, there wasn’t one. Instead, I said,
“If your boyfriend is who I think he is, then yes I do. Can I buy you a coffee and I’ll explain?"

“Sure. I don’t have anything better to do now that the weekend is off,” he replied in a resigned manner.
 
A few minutes later I carried two cups of Coffee over to the table where she was sitting and fiddling with her phone.

“Here you go. I’ve been sitting on the Motorway for more than three hours. That’s why I stopped here.”

She didn’t answer.

I sat down and looked at her.

“I’m Belinda by the way.”

“Nina, Nina Martinez,” came her matter of fact reply.

“Is your boyfriend John Lord by any chance?”

“Yes? So you do know him then.”

“Yes. Well we were on the same training course this past week.”

“What happened to get him sacked?”

I sighed.

“I think you had better listen to this.”

I pulled my miniature digital recorder from my handbag and played her the episode.
 

“That’s what he said. I played it to the group because he attacked me personally and… well said stuff he should not have. The company we work for has a definite policy of no discrimination. That means sex, rage age or gender. We had two sessions on that this week.”

“He…? Was he attending the course?”

“Yes. He is or rather was the manager of a Hotel just off the M1 near Rugby.”

“What!"

"What do you mean?"

"He said that he was a senior manager at the company HQ in Birmingham.”

I shook my head.

“I have a full description of all the attendees in my car. I can get it if you want?”

She didn’t answer but shook her head. I realised that the implications of what had just been told to her was starting to sink in.
 
A tear started to form in her eye.

“No wonder he was so evasive when I wanted to call at his office,” she remarked.

“Men eh? You can’t trust them an inch can you?”

She didn’t answer.

“So you run this hotel that is staffed by LGBT people?”

“In the main, they are all that. About eighty percent of my staff are LGBT including me.”

“That’s different.”

Then she added,

“Different from most hotels I mean.”

“We are no different from many places in the service we offer. It is just that most of our staff have had some hard times in the past. You know that the people who sell the ‘Big Issue’? Well they get a leg up from the bottom. With us, we take people on the third rung up from the bottom and get them trained and even with qualifications and they go out into the big bad world better equipped to take it on.”

Then I smiled.

“Here endeth my sales pitch.”

I smiled at her.

“So what’s next for you? Is he your ‘ex’ boyfriend now?”

“I suppose so,” she said mournfully.

“And this weekend?”

She sighed.

“He decided that we were going to this posh hotel in Penzance but with this traffic, it will be tomorrow before I would get there.”

“Why don’t you come to my place for the weekend. It is nearer than Penzance. We should be there in about ninety minutes. Just in time for a nice dinner? I know for a fact that we have some very fresh cod on the menu tonight. You aren’t vegetarian are you?”

“No... No I’m not and that sounds great.”

I sat back and looked at her. She was effing gorgeous. I could see why John Lord had snared her.

I took a sip of coffee and asked,

“What do you do for a living Nina?”

“Me? I’m an events organiser. You know, weddings, hen parties, retirements, bar-mitzvahs and the like. Mostly wedding but ‘I’ve just got divorced’ events are becoming popular.”

My heart raced. We’d been after someone like her for a long time.

“Come to my Hotel for the weekend and who knows, you might like it? It’s on me by the way. Think of it as a bit of R&R for being lied to you by that apology of a man.”

With a resigned shrug, she said,

“Why not. It is not as if I have anything else to do.”
 

A few minutes later, we walked out to the car park.

“I’ll be glad to get out of this dress,”

I turned to look at her.

“To be honest Nina, that dress could have been made for you. You look fantastic in it.”

“But… It is so hard to walk in.”

I smirked.

“That’s all part of the attraction. Have you seen the looks you have been getting back there? Most of the men were undressing you on the spot.”

“Yeah I know. John… Well he loved it. I guess he was showing me off to everyone. Telling the world that I was his. Oh god, I've been a real fool haven't I?”

I didn't answer.

After a big sigh, she said,

“Here’s my car,” she said pointing to a Dark Green Rav-4.

“Mines the Silver Volvo V-50 over there.”

I pulled out my card from my purse.

Here’s may card with the address of the Hotel on it. Do you have a SatNav?”

“Yes. Thanks.”

“Follow me but if we get separated just follow the SatNav directions. We are in the middle of nowhere but from the back of the hotel, we have fantastic views right down to the coast.”

“Thanks. Thanks for doing this. You didn’t have to you know?”

I smiled back at her.

“Just come down for the weekend and be my guest. Relax and chill out. The hotel is a good place for that.”
 
Two hours later, I pulled into the car park at the hotel. I looked in the rear-view mirror and her Rav-4 pulled in right behind me.
I’d called ahead and arranged for a room for her on my tab for the weekend. If my grand plan went well, she’d be here a lot more often in future. But, that was the future and even the best laid plans could go wrong. I had many mental scars from ‘counting my chickens’ in the past.

“Here we are. I’ve arranged a room for you and reserved a table for dinner,” I said as we walked towards the reception.

“Welcome back Boss,” said Hayley my current receptionist.

“Hi Hayley. Everything all setup?”

“Yes. Room 12 is that’s ok?”

Hayley handed me the key to the room.

I gave it to Nina.

“Room 12 is along the corridor to your right. The table is for 8:00pm. I’ll see you then.”

“But… don’t I have to register or something?”

I grinned.

“This weekend is on me remember? To help you get over that apology for a man you once dated.”

She laughed.

I loved her smile. She'd cheered up no end since we'd first met.

“Thanks. Yes.”

“Right, I’m going home to get freshened up. I’ll see you at eight if that’s all right?”

She smiled back,

“Yes, I’d like that.”
 
I was busying myself in reception just before eight when Nina came along the corridor. My heart almost stopped. Of all the dresses in the world and we had to be wearing the same one.

As she saw me she smiled and then burst out laughing.

“I see that you have similar tastes to me then?”

“It appears that way but…”

I looked around an we were alone,

“You look far better in it than me,” I said trying to pay her a compliment.

“Should I go and get changed?” she asked.

“Why should you? Does it really matter? I know that for some women it would be a major foo-pah but I really don’t mind one way or the other.”

Nina grinned back at me.

“You are very different from most of my clients. They’d run a mile if they saw someone wearing an outfit even remotely the same as the one they were wearing. You are an odd woman you know.”

I think I must have blushed.

“I mean it in a nice way.”

I smiled back.

“Are you ready to eat, I’m rather hungry. The food at that Hotel where the training was, was not the best.”

As we walked into the Restaurant, Nina said to me.

“Yeah, I know. That’s why we don’t use it anymore. They changed Chefs about a year or so ago. Got someone almost straight out of catering college. The old one was transferred somewhere else.”

I grinned.

“Oh, you mean Jules. He’s my head chef now.”

Nina gave me a look that sent my heart racing.
 

We’d just finished the Cod dish. It was every bit as good as I’d promised when Nina’s phone rang.

She looked at the caller. Her face sank.

“I think I had better take this. It is John.”

“Hello John,” she said in a matter of fact way.

“I’m fine and no I’m not stuck in traffic.”

“Where am I? I really don’t know. But it does not matter to you. We are done. Finished. You lied to me about your job. A hotel just off the M1? You said you worked in your head office.”

“How did I know?”

Nina smiled at me.

“Oh, I made some calls after you told me that you’d been fired and… well I got the whole story. You really put your foot in it didn’t you. Let me say it once again, we are done. Over. Finito. I’m going to block your number as soon as I hang up this call.”

“Yes. Yes, if you must know, there is someone else. Someone who does not need to lie to me right from the outset of a relationship.”

“Yes, I’m having dinner with them right now. I know I can do a lot better than having you in my life. Goodbye John. Don’t call again.”

She ended the call and then switched off her phone.

“Good riddance to bad rubbish I say.”

She then picked up her glass and said,

“To you for rescuing me from that man.”

I did blush that time.

I looked at her for some follow up but none came. My hopes shrank until she said,

“I think I’m going to like it here. Are you free to show me around tomorrow?”

I smiled back.

“I am and it will be my pleasure to do so,” I replied smiling.
 

[Sunday Evening]

“Thanks for a great weekend,” said Nina as we finished our meal.

“No, thank you for being here. I think we both needed to get over a certain Mr Lord.”

“Yeah we did that.”

I looked at her for a few seconds before asking,

“How’s about you come and work for me here. We could do with someone like you to promote our events and everything. We have another 20 rooms being built this winter. We will have to fill them somehow.”

Nina looked back at me and smiled.

“I wondered when you’d ask me something like that. You’ve been dropping little hints almost all weekend.”

“So? What are the downsides?”

“My place in Brum. I’d have to sell it.”

I shook my head.

“Rent it out.”

“What about getting somewhere to live here?”

My heart raced as I prepared to ask her the make or break question.

“There is plenty of room in my bed.”

Nina sat back rapidly.

“Are you saying what I think you are saying?”

“Look Nina, I fell for you big time, the moment you literally fell into my arms. I knew at thinstant that I wanted to be with you for the rest of my life. It was just coincidence that we had both had bad experiences with a man, the same man. I’ve shown you my life and what sort of life you could have down here. So Nina, yes, I would like to be with you and eventually marry you.”

I took a deep breath and continued,

“If you will have me that is. I know that you have not mentioned it this weekend but I really am transgendered. I was born a man and grew up with the name Michael Dawson. I came out and told my parents when I was thirteen. Thankfully they had already guessed about my sexuality. So here I am, legally a woman but can’t have children and totally in love with you.

“I… I just didn’t expect that. I …“

I put up my hand to stop her.

“Don’t say anything now. Go and sleep on it and let me know what you think tomorrow or later if you still can’t make up your mind. But please promise me one thing and that is that you will tell me your decision to my face. I think you are like me in that we don’t like being dumped by phone.”

I’d hardly finished my little speech when Nina got up from the table and came and sat on my lap. Then we kissed. My heart was racing. I felt so happy.

When we came up for air, Nina said to me,

“I wanted to see how good a kisser you are. You passed on all fronts there.”

My heart sank.

“But?”

“You are right. I need to think this over. Even if I say no to you, is there a job here?”

“Of course,” I replied trying hard to hide my disappointment.

“Then I’ll let you know tomorrow before I leave. I do know one thing and that is that I have never met anyone like you or your staff here.

Everyone has made me feel so at home.”

Then she kissed me again and left me alone.

I don’t know how long I sat there just staring into space, my mind was blank. Eventually, I dragged myself home and to bed.
 

I woke up and glanced at the clock. It said 04:25. I groaned. I’d heard the village church clock strike midnight and one and two before falling asleep. There was nothing more for it, I had to get up. Dawn was about an hour away so I threw on a pair of trousers and a top and went downstairs. A few minutes later I was out of my home and heading for the seafront. Ok, so it is not large but there is a small harbour and a few shops facing the sea.

There was no one about apart from a couple of foxes scavenging for discarded fast food. A few Herring Gulls were squawking and going about their business. A slight breeze was coming in off the sea.

I walked past the harbour and began to climb the path up onto the headland. This path was part of the South West Coastal Path. I’d walked about 150 of the more than 200 miles of its length over the past few years. It was my aim to finish it all by the end of the decade.

At the top of the climb, there was a bench. I’d often spend a few hours here in the evening watching the sun go down. This time I was going to watch it come up. That was where I was headed.

As I climbed, I heard a car enter the village. Other than that and a few Gulls the place was still and silent.

The breeze was a little stronger at the top but it wasn’t unpleasant. I sat down and scanned the sea. I could see the navigation lights of a few ships moving about their business.

As the darkness faded and the new day approached, I began to think about what I’d done the previous evening. I could not decide if I had done it right or it I was a complete plonker for asking her like that. Only time would answer that one.

Gradually, the village came to life ending the peace of the dawn and I needed to head home to get ready for work and her decision.
 
I arrived at the Hotel just after 9:00am. I took a quick look in the dining room but there was no sign of Nina.

“She has not left yet,” said Hayley with a grin as I passed reception.

I just smiled back at her.

Hayley was a good sort but had been terribly gullible in the past. A mother of two by the age of Eighteen and both fathers long gone, she was heading for a life on benefits until she came to the hotel for a wedding. We got talking and I offered her a job with prospects almost on the spot. Her mother was willing to look after the children and in the year since she’d been working her, she’d come on in leaps and bounds. She was going to College in September to study Hotel Management. She’d become a confident young woman and if handled carefully, I could see her taking over from me as manager.

“Thanks Hayley. I’ll be in my office.”

“She was here earlier you know. Asking about you and this place. Going to give me the gossip then?”

“Later Hayley. Then there might be something to actually gossip about.”

I didn’t wait for a reply but headed for the sanctuary of my office.
 

I’d just made some tea when there was a light knock at the door. My heart skipped a beat as I opened it and saw Nina standing there wearing that dress.

“Good morning Nina, please come in. I’ve just made some tea. Do you want some?”

“No thanks. I had some with breakfast.”

There was an awkward silence as we stood in my office. Both of us was probably wondering who should go first.

In the end, I asked,

“I’m sorry for being rather abrupt last night but I didn’t know any other way to tell you how I felt about you and everything.”

She smiled back at me.

“Well, it was different that’s for sure.”

“So?”

She looked nervous.

“I’ll take the job. It is just what I need at the moment.”

My heart sank.

“As for you and me, can we see how things go? Being with another woman is a bit new for me. Let me try to get my own place and see how we get on as a couple. After all, you would be my boss as well.”

Then she stepped towards me. My heart skipped a beat.

“I was thinking about what you said about this dress when we first met. You were right about men undressing me. I hadn’t realised it before. John suggested that I buy it and to be honest, I love wearing it. It feels good on me.”

I felt that there was a downside coming.

“This is the last time I’ll wear it in Public. I’ll wear it for you if you wear one like it as well. How does that sound?”

I didn’t get much chance to answer because our lips locked together for what seemed like an eternity.

When we broke free, Nina said,

“I feel actually good when I’m with you. That is something new for me when it comes to a relationship.”

She saw my puzzled look.

“I do actually fancy you quite a lot so lets see how we go eh?”

This time I kissed her.

“You don’t know how much this means to me. I’ve never felt like I do right now with anyone before,” I said slightly out of breath.
 

Nina left the Hotel and headed back to Birmingham. She had a client meeting in the afternoon. Her last words to me that morning were,

“Yes, I can do better than him. You.”

An hour or so later, I left my office and went on a tour of the hotel. I tried to do this everyday if possible. I’d only got as far as reception when Hayley called me over.

“Well? Is she coming to work here?”

“Eh? How?....  How did you know?”

Hayley tapped the side of her nose. Then she grinned.

“She told me when she left.”

I felt relieved.

“She’s a looker all right, and nice as well. You deserve someone nice like her in your life.”

I left her as quickly as I could before I let my emotions show even more than they were.
 
The following Friday, a package arrived for me. I opened it with great anticipation. Sure enough, inside was my version of that dress. Hers was deep burgundy. Mine was a vibrant red.

The accompanying note said,

“Belle, my Belle. I think you would look good as my lady in Red. See you Tuesday. Don’t forget this when you come. I want to see you in it
and then not in it.

Nina.”

I’d just finished reading the note when my PC bleeped. I’d got mail.

The smile I had on my face from reading Nina’s note got even bigger when I read it. It had said that the next management training course would be held at my Hotel because those who had run it wanted to experience the things I’d talked about during the week.

It looked like life was looking up in more ways than I’d ever envisaged.

[the end]

Forsythe Saga – Prologue

The story begins in late 2008, at the time of the Banking crisis. Leman Brothers had gone belly up and the financial world was in meltdown.
It is the AGM of a family owned company, Forsythe Brothers. It was being held at the family home that could have come straight from the time of Cadfael. The ancient stone building is even on the outskirts of Shrewsbury close to the River Severn.

Present at the meeting were the four siblings, David, Stephanie, Dorothy and Adrian, that owned the company and the company secretary, a cousin of the family. It is a family owned company after all...

As usual, the main topic for discussion was about the lack of profitability of the business. Adrian as Chairman was addressing the meeting.

“As you all know, Dad put me in control of the company and yet you all seem to think that I’m unconcerned about the profits that the business is generating.”

None of the others said anything so Adrian carried on.

“At least we are still profitable. Do you want to end up like all those bankers on Wall St? Or the poor sods all over the place where they are losing their houses due to foreclosure?”

“I don’t give a toss about Wall St or other people getting thrown out onto the street,” said Dorothy.
“I have a standard of living that I expect to maintain. This level of profits won’t let me do that and it is all your fault Adrian. So, what are you going to do about it then?”

“What about you two? Are you in agreement with your Sister?”

“I am,” said David.
“I’m due to take delivery of a new boat next month. I need that money to pay the final instalment. If I don’t pay it, I stand to lose the lot so, yes I think it is all your fault Adrian.”

Stephanie didn’t need to say anything. All of her siblings knew of her addiction to Blackjack.

“Well, then I guess I have no choice but to resign as chairman of the company,” said Adrian.

“I’ll take those last comments as a vote of no confidence.”

Adrian gathered up the papers in front of him and as he stood up he said,

“I the light of no candidates for chairman I hereby close this meeting.”

“You can’t do that?” said Stephanie.

“Yes, I can. We can’t have an AGM without a Chair. It is in the rules as laid down by our Grandfather, which as officers of the company you should be fully aware of,” said Adrian.

There was a silence in the room.

“Can he do this Sean?” asked Dorothy to her cousin, the company secretary.

“Yes. Adrian is perfectly right. You effectively voted him out of office. As none of you came forward and were seconded, at this point the company has no Chairperson and the AGM can’t continue without a Chair.”

Everyone looked at Adrian.

“There is another way. Well, there are three that come to mind at the moment.”

“Firstly, I buy you all out. You walk away with as they say on the TV Adverts, ‘A Cash lump sum’ and I run the business as now but without you lot on my back all the time.”

“Secondly, I could run the business into the ground. None of us end up with a penny so we all lose out. Well, you do as my part of the share of the profits in past years will allow me to startup again and again, I won’t have you lot on my back.”

“And thirdly, I carry on running the business as best I can in these difficult times and you accept that we are not immune to what is going on in the world at the moment. As you know, the value of shares can go down as well as up.”

There was silence so Adrian carried on.

“Don’t forget that I have at most ten years left. You are the lucky ones. I drew the short straw so at some point you lot are going to have to face reality and do something with your lives whichever option you decide to take. Well which is it to be then?”

“You could get married, have children and then for you it will be business as usual,” remarked Dorothy.

“A bit late for that. Besides, have any of you read the terms of Dad’s will with respect to the business?”

He knew that none of them had so he quoted from it. It was a section that was ingrained in his mind.

“Should my nominated successor get married then in the event of their death, the spouse will take over the business and the 50% of the holdings of my other three children will transfer to that spouse making her the majority shareholder in the company. Should my nominated successor die without having a spouse then the company is to be wound up and all assets given to charity.”

“That can’t be true,” whined Stephanie.

“It is true. Speak to the family lawyer if you don’t believe me.”

“Well, then dear brother, you had better get married and pronto, then hadn’t you?” said David.

Adrian smiled back at his elder brother.

“I’m not seeing anyone at the moment and besides, I’m far too busy trying to keep our heads above water to even think about dating someone.”

“He does not care if we starve,” complained Dorothy.

Adrian smiled.

“I do care that is why I am giving you three the choice on how we go forward. You control seventy-five percent of the company so you decide what you are going to do. I’ve given you the options. Let me know when you have made a decision.”

Adrian left his three elder siblings to decide what was to be done. He was well and truly fed up with their interference in the business when the only thing they wanted from it was their share of the profits for which they contributed precisely zero.

---

An hour later, Dorothy found Adrian in the kitchen. He was fixing himself some lunch.

“We have decided,” she announced.

“Good. I’ll finish my lunch and join you.”

“Why…. Ohhhh!” she proclaimed and stormed off.

Adrian afforded himself a small smile. ‘Let them wait’, he said to himself.

---

Twenty minutes later, Adrian joined his siblings. He sat down and waited for someone to say something.

“So, glad you could join us,” said his brother David.

“Well, what have you decided,” said Adrian deliberately ignoring his brother.

“We,” said David as he looked at his two sisters.

“We have decided to let you run the company as you see fit but for the time being. We are aware of the problems that banks are having and… and we have decided that you were right in that we need to rein in our spending in the short term while the economy is having problems. As I said, this is for the time being only.”

Adrian nearly burst out laughing but he managed to supress the urge.

“Thank you for that David. I do think you are totally underestimating just how bad the situation is with the banking system. It was only last year that there was a run on Northern Rock. A run on a bank is a serious thing. Confidence in the banking system is at an all-time low at the moment. To be honest, I don’t know how long this will last so I hope your ‘for the time being’ is adequate.”

“What are you saying?” asked Stephanie.

“I’m saying that I will run the company but it is only fair to tell you that in one year, I will resign and go my own way. It will be six years since Dad died and handed the control over to me. His will stipulated that I would be free to do this after six whole years have elapsed. That will have happened by the time of the next AGM.”

“You can’t do this!” complained Dorothy for at least the third time that day.

“He can,” said David with a good deal of resignation in his voice.

“It is in the will. I just remembered reading it years ago. I never thought it possible that, that particular clause would ever come into play.”

“Can’t you stop him?” asked Dorothy.

David shook his head.

“Adrian has given us the requisite notice so we can’t unless we sell him our holdings. I am afraid my dear Sisters that our younger brother has out manoeuvred us fairly and squarely.”

The three of them looked at him searching for some explanation.

“I suppose you want to know why?”

No one disagreed.

“Firstly, the three of you have sponged off the estate and the legacy that our Father left us for far too long. I’ve had enough, well to be honest, far more than enough of your demands for money. So, I’ve setup a new company using my share of the profits from the past three years and will run that business free from your interference starting a year from now.”

“Secondly,” he said carrying on,

“I am going to do things differently. I am going to invest in companies that are doing things differently from the mainstream. These are the very companies that are hardest hit by the credit squeeze. I will take a stake in the company and work with the owners to make it a success. A sort of softly-softly approach to making money. As I won’t have the likes of you three on my back always looking for a handout, I can afford to take a longer-term view with regard to making money.”

“How will you make money to live on?” asked David.

“As I said, I have put enough aside from my share of the profits and what Dad left me in his will to last me around five years. You could have been in the same situation but no, you had to spend almost every penny of your dividends on stupid yachts. How much did you lose on that last one? Fifty big ones? Didn’t you do know that the broker you sold it too made a clear thirty grand on it? He only had it on his books for a month. He saw you coming big time.”

Adrian took the opportunity to drive the stake home hard.

“You three have one year to get your act together and start contributing to the business. If you don’t then at the end of the year, I will seek to put the company into administration.”

There was silence in the room.

“Right. No objections so I’ll declare the meeting closed.”

---

[One year later at the next AGM]
[Adrian declared the meeting open and addressed those present]

“I am really sad that it has come to this. As none of you have seen fit to get even remotely involved in the business, so as of Monday next, the company will go into Administration. I have already engaged a firm of Administrators to run the business down. I fully expect that there will be nothing left after they have taken their cut so well done to you all. Dad will probably be turning in his grave. Any questions?” said Adrian to a very subdued brother and both sisters.

None of those present said anything straight away. It was his brother David who spoke up.

“You are really enjoying all this, aren’t you?”

Adrian glared at his brother.

“You will finally get us off your back and whoosh, you will be gone off to do your own thing just as you planned all along.”

Those last words got Adrian angry.

“Planned? Far from it. How many times have I pleaded with all of you to get involved with the business. Did any of you even bother? No, you didn’t. Then last year I gave you a final chance but the song remained the same, no. None of you even bothered to come into the office in the past year other than for our Board meetings. At each of them I implored you to get off your fat backsides and do some work for a change. Still you didn’t do anything and so, here we are today.”

He looked at his siblings before carrying on.

“You lot are just how Dad told me you would be. Well, you asked for it. He wrote a letter to all of us that was only to be opened in the event of the company going into Administration or Liquidation in circumstances like this. I collected that letter from the lawyers earlier today.”

Adrian pulled out an envelope from the folder that was on the desk in front of him.

He gave it to his brother David.

“As you can see, the handwriting is Dad’s and the seal on the back is intact and dated.”

“He’s right,” said David reluctantly.

“Please open it and read it to all of us,” asked Adrian.

David opened the envelope and began to read.

“To my Children,
If this letter is being read, then my prophecy has come true. The company that my grandfather started in 1901 is either about to go bust or is already bust.

I left the company in good health and with proper management it should have been good for another hundred years. By good management I mean putting aside money from the profits to be used in the inevitable rainy days. We survived the Wall St crash and the 1930’s depression by having cash in the bank to carry on operating through those dark days.

I told you all that this was how I wanted the company run but it is entirely probable that Adrian has finally run out of patience. I don’t know how long after my death this unfortunate event is happening but however long it is, well done Son for putting up with your brother and sisters for so long.

All the signs were there before my demise. You all know how many times I pleaded with you to get jobs. I even paid for you to go to University. Even that wasn’t enough to get you involved so that was why I put these plans in place. I left instructions to this effect in my will to give some legal backing to the actions that Adrian is doing, or has done.

It really depresses me that your mother and I failed so miserably with three out of our four children. We might have been rich and to some extent privileged but it carries responsibilities both to ourselves and to our employees. Adrian understood that from an early age but you David, you Stephanie and you Dorothy, clearly did not.

Adrian, you know what is the next move. Please be successful in whatever direction you choose to go.
You ever loving and decidedly displeased Father.“

There was silence in the room for a good ten seconds. Then Dorothy asked.

“What is that next move?”

“According to the terms of his will, I am to sell the house and divide the proceeds amongst us all equally. Consider it a final dividend, a full and final settlement in our divorce.”

“Divorce?” Remarked Stephanie

“What the fuck do you mean by divorce?”

“It means Stephanie, that Adrian is fed up to the back teeth with us and wants nothing more to do with us. Am I right?” asked Dorothy.

“Yes, you are perfectly correct. I don’t want this but I feel that unless you get the message you won’t leave me alone to do whatever it is I want to do with my life. I don’t want to keep having to look over my shoulder to see if one or more of you is behind me and wanting a handout. Well people, that is not going to happen.”

No one said anything for quite a long time.

“If there is nothing else, then I’ll close the meeting,” said Adrian.

There was a stony silence in the room as the reality of the situation struck home to three of the four siblings.

---

Adrian stayed around and helped with the liquidation of the business. The atmosphere at the family home was decidedly frosty especially when finally, an offer was made on the property and accepted. Due to the situation with the Banks and Finance in general and the difficulty in getting loans, the property market was very depressed and the house sold for close to £100,000 less that what it would have made eighteen months earlier.

Adrian moved out of the family home before the sale completed and bought a house in Reigate, Surrey. He bought it at an Auction and he knew that he’d got a bargain. Having to stump up the whole amount of the price within a month put a lot of people off given the difficulty of getting a loan from the banks. Being a cash buyer made sure that he got a good deal.

Reigate was close enough to London but not in London. He’d saved all the dividends that the company had paid out over the years. As a result of this thrift, he was able to buy the place with cash within the 28 day rule that applies for property sold at auction. He intended to use his home as a base for his newly created company, ‘Lorelei Investments and Consulting’.

He got in touch with a number of the people he’d been at University with and put out some feelers in respect to his new venture. One of those people was Sally Jameson. His renewed contact was fortuitous as she needed some investment to expand her business.

The renewed contact between Adrian and Sally proved to be very fortunate for them both. They worked together to close a few deals when businesses were crying out for finance. This provided a firm foundation for them to work closely together in the future should the opportunity rise.

Adrian engaged the services of a close friend of his father. The man Cliff Donaldson, became his assistant, right-hand man and confidant.

Together they made a formidable team and the business model that Adrian was following proved to be very successful. He was also successful in keeping his activities as far away from the attention of the press as they could. His approach to Investments was very different to the run of the mill Bank or Venture Capitalist.

Adrian was always mindful that he needed to find a successor. Cliff declined saying that he was too old which was true but he’d carry on working with Adrian for the time being.

[We will meet Adrian again in ‘The Forsythe Saga - You did what? Part 2’]
[authors note]
This is the same Sally Jameson who will feature in parts 1 and 2 of “The Forsythe Saga - You did what?”

There are two parts to this tale already on Big Closet. These are separate stories but it was them that gave me the idea for a larger piece of work.
These are You Again!
And You Can Do Better Than Him
If you read them then what happens in ‘The Forsythe Saga - You did what? Part 2’ will make more sense.

Forsythe Saga - You did what? – Part 1
[Authors Note] This part (and the next one) was written in the First Person. Later parts of this tale are written in the Third Person.

The process of going to an interview for a new job is stressful at the best of times but when… when you are doing it for the first time and as a total and absolute fraud is really daunting.

When I saw all the others waiting to be interviewed for the job I almost turned tail and ran for the hills. They were all wearing business suits. All of the three other women in the room were perfectly made up and … well, nigh on perfect. Their flawless complexions could have from a fashion magazine such as Vogue. The six men were all identikit clones in suits with hair just the right length, all freshly shaven and nothing out of place that would really distinguish them from the person sitting right next to them. Even their ties were almost the same shade of non-committal blue. Ugh!

The men were all sitting bolt upright and to a man had their briefcases perched on their knees. It looked slightly comical. The women were more relaxed but again, they all echoed ‘I am not different’. They were reading a selection of newspapers and magazines. It was obvious that they were trying to make an impression but to whom? Apart from the rest of us, there was no one from the company around to impress.

I, on the other hand was dressed almost casually. Well, the position was just for two months and to be honest, I didn’t possess a business suit let alone the mandatory black heels and briefcase, a flawless complexion and the seemingly mandatory, poker face.

Once my panic had subsided a bit, I sat down and waited my turn. There were nine people before me so I got a chance to observe them. None wanted to make eye contact with anyone else. They all stared at me when I came into the ante-room but averted their gaze within a few seconds. I was obviously not up to their standards so I’d been dismissed as a viable competitor in less time that it takes to blink an eye. More than one raised their eyes in dismay and one almost burst out laughing. I was expecting something like that so it didn’t faze me one little bit.

---

Let me introduce myself, I’m Maxine Saunders. Until yesterday, I was Thomas Saunders. I’m only here because of some bad luck on my part and a sister who was about as reliable as a cockerel is in laying eggs.

A few days ago, I’d been driving her car when it was rear ended at a set of traffic lights. What made it worse was that I’d just collected it from the body shop where the damage from where she’d hit a bollard had been repaired. When she saw the damage to her ‘little baby’ she went ballistic. It was all my fault despite the fact that I had been stationary when the accident happened and the other driver had admitted that he was at fault and would be paying for the repair.

No matter what I or our mother said could make her change her mind. She got so worked up with me, that she fell off her impossibly high heels and badly sprained her ankle. I got the blame for that as well. She was the one wearing the heels but that didn’t make any difference in her eyes. Everything was my fault and I’d be made to pay for it dearly if she had her way.

The other thing, was that she was going to be out of action for at least a week. Well, that’s what she said that the Doctor at the local Hospital had said.

Retribution was not long in coming my way once she’d returned from A&E with Mum.

“You can go to my job interview for me!” she proclaimed.

Mum laughed but said nothing.

Dawn, my sister was adamant that as it was all my fault, I should go to the interview in her place. I protested but after a bit, Mum took her side.

In the end, I somewhat reluctantly agreed to go in her place. Well, I had been wearing Dawn’s clothes for years and had been out with her as her sister ‘Maxine’ many times in the past so it wasn’t too far-fetched, for me to take her place given our history. That was all a bit of fun but this time it was serious, deadly serious.

The job advert said that it was for someone to cover for the incumbent who was away on maternity leave. It was for just two or three months but the job had obviously attracted a lot of interest. It seemed that having worked for a former ‘Young Businesswoman of the Year’ was a good thing to have on your CV.

Add to that the fact that I was currently between jobs and my fate was sealed.

My last real job had ended when the company moved their production to Thailand. Since then I’d had a few temporary jobs but nothing even remotely permanent or even the least bit interesting. To be perfectly honest, I was somewhat lost as to what to do next.

Dawn was on the surface, rather different to me. She’d failed her ‘A’ levels but had gone to college and got some good grades last summer. She said that she was off to University and aiming get a Law Degree. She imagined herself as a tough barrister. Well, that’s what she’d tell anyone who’d listen.

The downside to that was that she was had become a bit of a party animal during her time in the sixth form. Her partying had been to blame for her failing her ‘A’ levels in the first place and had only gotten worse since she’d left college.

She was off to some club or party when I broke the news to her about her car. That was why she was wearing really high heels and a lot of bling and very little in the way of clothes.

To me, the two things, being a Lawyer and a party girl really didn’t mix but hey, once she got an idea in her head, there really was no shifting it. A year ago, she’d said that she was taking her year off to party before getting down to studying again in the Autumn. My reaction to that was ‘yeah right, pull the other one, it has bells on it’. I really doubted that she’d take up her place at University at the end of Summer. This was why I was surprised when she announced that she’d got this interview. It made me wonder if our Mother hadn’t done a bit of prodding but no one was letting on.

---

Back to the present and well, here I was, waiting for an interview to a job that I wasn’t qualified for, posing as a woman, and dressed if the other candidates were anything to go by, totally inappropriately. I knew that there was no chance that I’d get the job. But I was here and she wasn’t.

I did afford a little smile to myself. My dear sister Dawn was under the impression that I was pretending to be her. Well, that was the intention to begin with but Mum had other ideas.

She’d taken me aside not long after I’d reluctantly agreed to pretend to be Dawn and said in no uncertain terms,

“You will not pretend to be your sister. That is a fraud. If you go, then go as Maxine.”

Mum was adamant and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

“It wasn’t your fault that you got rear ended so give her a dose of her own medicine and go to the interview as Maxine. If you don’t get the job then all she needs to know is that you didn’t get the job,” said Mum as she laid down the law.

After some thought, I went along with it.
The remote possibility of me getting the job just didn’t come up. We both knew that it wasn’t going to happen.

---

I’d arrived at the location for the interview and signed in. Then I surprised the woman who was managing the event by presenting her with my CV.

“My sister was due to come but has had an accident and is unable to attend. I came in her place.”

After a bit of bluster, the woman relented and agreed that I should be interviewed but I’d have to wait until the very last interview slot. I could have bailed out right then but I decided that as I was here, I’d do it. I didn’t have anything else to do so I sat down and waited.

As I sat there waiting to be called into the interview room, I was confident that there was no way in hell that I would get the job so it appeared that there was light at the end of the tunnel and it would not be long before Dawn would get off my back and life could return to normal. My reason for being confident about not getting the job was that I was going to reveal my true identity as soon as I could. Then I’d not waste anyone’s time, or as little of it as possible.

After what seemed an eternity, my name was called. With a bit of a sigh, I stood up and went into the interview room to meet my fate. I was sure that I wouldn’t be here much longer.

---

Sally Jameson was not as I’d imagined her to be. She was frankly a real looker but one glance told me that there was a steel core to her. The ‘don’t mess with me’ warning signs were everywhere. That made my escape plan even more important.

“Thank you for coming Ms Saunders. I hope you have not had to wait too long?”

I was just trying to work out if what she’d said was a statement or a question when she continued.

“It is nice to see someone who isn’t trying to be a man,” she said smiling.

If I’d been eating or drinking something, I would have choked.

She carried on.

“Why is it that people think that to be successful you have to dress like a man?”

“Ms Jameson, I am a man.”

She laughed and smiled at me.

“I guessed that the moment you came in. Why not sit down, relax, take a deep breath and tell me how and why you are here?”

I spent the next few minutes telling her everything. When I was done, I stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“I’ve told you everything so I don’t want to take up any more of your valuable time.”

She smiled.

“Please don't go. I rather like you and your attitude. You obviously have a good mind. It is very refreshing. I’ve sat here all afternoon listening to so much claptrap and ‘MBA 101’ bullshit that I’m sick of it. I’d like to carry on talking if that is ok with you?”

I felt like my… well, I didn’t know what to feel so I sat down again.

“Maxine, you really are a breath of fresh air. Being perfectly honest, none of the other candidates even came close to you.”

“I… I don’t understand?”

Sally smiled.

“What would you say if I offered you a job? As Maxine, naturally.”

I was even more dumbfounded. When I managed to get some semblance of coherent thought together, I said,

“I’d think you are stark raving mad.”

She laughed.
“That is the right answer to a different question. Well, eould you accept the job?”

She’d cornered me. There was no escape.

“I don’t know. I n… I never thought that I’d even have a chance given how I look compared to everyone else and that I’m clearly an impostor and totally unsuitable for the job you were advertising.”

Sally laughed again.

“That’s why you are the perfect person for the job I have in mind for you. What do you say? Yes or no?”

“My sister will probably want to kill me on the spot when she finds out but, what the heck, yes!”

Sally smiled as she stood up and came around the desk. She took my hand and shook it.

“You will be perfect. I just know it.”

I was still in a state of shock.

“I… I’ll try not to let you down.”

“Good. Now, shall we go to dinner to celebrate?”

For once, I was totally lost for words so I just nodded my head to accept her offer

---

It was very late that night when a Taxi dropped me off at home. I was slightly drunk. Not with alcohol but with happiness. I not only had a job but I felt good about myself for the first time in a long time.

My euphoria was short lived. Dawn was waiting for me with a look of hated on her face.

“What do you mean you got the job? That is my job,” she said angrily when I told her the news.

“No Dawn, I applied for the job as Maxine not Dawn. Mum knows. She suggested that I do it.”

“Why? Why did you do this to me? Having that job would have done wonders for my CV,” wailed my sister.

“Yes, and so did at every one of the other applicants. You would not have stood a chance with all the others who were interviewed. More than one of them had an MBA. I went into the interview with no illusions. Ms Jameson clocked me in a flash. She is one very sharp cookie.”

I was telling a bit of a fib but it helped smooth things over a bit.

“How did you get the job then?” asked Dawn standing there in front of me with her hands on her hips. She had this ‘I am going to get to the bottom of this’, look on her face.

“I honestly don’t know. As I said, she clocked me so I told her why I was there and…”

Before I could continue, Dawn interrupted.

“You told her about me?”

“Yes. I told her everything including why you could not be there. She laughed when I mentioned your accident with your heels. She laughed and told me that she’d done the very same thing in the past.”

“But you still haven’t told me how you got the job?”

“To be honest Sis, I don’t have a clue. I was just being myself and bang, she offered me the job. Well… not the job that was advertised but a very different one.”

She gave me the ‘I do not believe a word you are telling me’ look.

“That was hours ago. Where have you been since?”

“That is my business. You aren’t Mum.”

As if someone had said ‘cue’, Mum appeared at the top of the stairs.

“Well, Maxine, exactly where have you been?”

Bang went my hopes that she’d be on my side.

I sighed.

“I went out for a meal.”

“With her I suppose?” said Dawn in a very sarcastic tone.

“Yes. She invited me. We discussed my duties and other things.”

“Other things! Like getting into bed with her?” exclaimed Dawn.

“Dawn, enough!” said Mum almost shouting.

We both looked at her.

“Dawn, you asked for this. You could have gone to the interview but you were more concerned about not standing out due to your ankle, you wouldn’t go. Maxine went and managed to land a job she was not trying to land and you are getting uppity?”

Mum glared at Dawn.

“You got what you asked for.”

Then she turned to me.

“As for you, young lady? Your problems are just beginning. Now both of you, off to bed and we can talk again in the morning.”

When Mum spoke like that, we knew not to argue with her.

---

Dawn had calmed down quite a bit the following morning. Even so, she was still rather pissed off with me. Mum was just pleased as punch. She’d never had a problem with me dressing up as a girl. She’d always wanted another daughter and then I came along to spoil her grand plan.

The bigger problem was me. I’d always treated being Maxine as a bit of a game. Now it was for real and that was … well a bit daunting. I’d tossed and turned for much of the night trying to work out what I should do. Should I cut and run or go with it and live life a bit on the edge? I was still trying to decide as I sat down for breakfast the following morning.

Mum noticed that I wasn’t saying very much.

“Second thoughts darling?”

I nodded.
“Second, third, fourth and fifth thoughts. It is a big step you know. Being Maxine full time is a hell of a change from just the odd day or night,” said Mum quietly.

“HE,” she said pointedly, “can do it for a few months,” chimed in Dawn.

I glared at her.

“It isn’t just for a few months. Well if it all pans out that is,” I said quietly.

Dawn sprayed tea all over the table and glared at me.

“You didn’t say that last night?”

“Shh darling,” said Mum.
“And Dawn, get a cloth to clear up this mess.”

Dawn glowered at me again but stood up and got a cloth from the sink.

“What changed?” asked Mum

“The job advert said it was for a stand-in during maternity leave?”

“Yes, it was. However, after I told Sally who I was and we got talking, she mentioned another role that would be ideal for me. In the end, I said yes to her offer but with a few conditions,” I replied looking at my sister.

“That certainly makes a difference,” said Mum as she put her hand on mine.

I nodded.
“That’s why I have the weekend to think things over. That is one of the conditions we agreed on.”

“Oh goody,” said Dawn is a slightly sarcastic tone.
“The Faux Prima Donna will be around all weekend! Don’t forget that Dave is coming over tonight.”

Dave was her off, on, off, on boyfriend. He didn’t really like me for some reason. I thought he was a loser so I guess the feeling was pretty mutual. All he cared about was his blinged-up and stupidly loud clapped out Honda Civic and getting into bed with Dawn as often as possible. His latest bit of car bling was Yellow Wheels. I thought they looked silly on a Matt Black car but what did I know eh?

“I think that Maxine and I should go visit your Gran tonight. She needs cheering up,” suggested Mum. I didn’t object because of Dave. He’d have a great time slagging me off. He normally did that when we had the misfortune to meet. He thought I wasn’t a real man because I didn’t have a one or two-track mind and only think about sex and cars. Given my experiences of the previous day and how I was dressed now, he may have been right.

---

My Gran was a lovely old woman. She’d been a bit of a swinger in the 1960’s. She’d often told me that she’d worked at the Biba store in Kensington when it first opened. If you hadn’t been seen there then you weren’t a cool dude. Some of the pictures of her with the celebs of the day were fantastic. Many of the pictures were signed by people such as Twiggy, Cilla Black and Dusty Springfield. I liked my Grandmother and she doted on Maxine. She said that I reminded her of herself in the late 1960’s.

Once I’d explained about my job offer, Gran gave me her blessing and proceeded to tell us about a lover that she’d had in ’69. He was like me, a cross-dresser who was a relative of a celebrity artist from the 1930’s. The artist, a woman who lived as a man, had a series of women lovers and entertained royalty.

I didn’t believe her until I looked up the name of the artist on the Sunday morning. When I saw some of her work, I dashed downstairs with my Laptop to show Mum.

“Look at this?” I said to her.

Mum looked at the screen and shrieked.

“That is the picture that your Gran has on her wall.”
She sat down probably before she fell down.

“I’d heard that story before but I never believed it. Wow!”

The artist’s name was Gluck. Gran was indeed quite a woman.
“That picture could be valuable. I hope she has it insured,” I remarked.

“I’ll make sure it is when I visit her next week.”

I sat back in deep thought.

“Penny for them my dear?”

“Oh…!”
“I was just thinking that Gran had quite an exciting time back in the day.”

Mum grinned.
“Apparently he was a bit of a wild child at times. She used to send me to sleep singing ‘Wild Thing’ by Jimmy Hendrix. Apparently, I was a really terrible as a two-year old.”

Then she hugged me.

“Go where your heart says. If that says go forward as Maxine then you have my backing and despite Dawn’s bluster, I think that she is slightly envious of you. After all, you got off your backside and got yourself a job.”

“Thanks Mum. Yes, I’m going to do it. That story Gran told us yesterday decided it for me. She had no regrets about going and doing all sorts of crazy things.”

Mum gave me an even bigger hug.

“In that case Maxine, we need to get you ready for tomorrow. What on earth are you going to wear?”

I shook my head.

“I need to make a phone call and then I’ll be picked up tomorrow.”

I looked around. Dawn was nowhere to be seen.

“We didn’t only go to dinner, we went shopping. I’ll have a complete wardrobe ready for me by tomorrow lunchtime. My boss helped me pick out a complete set of clothes. All I need to do is let her know ‘yes or no’ and if it is a yes then the clothes we selected will be purchased. And before you ask, it is coming out of my salary which is not half bad.”

“What is not half bad my girl?”

“Thirty-eight grand a year for starters,” I replied hoping that I’d kept my obvious excitement at earning such a salary out of my voice.

Mum just grinned back at me.

“You don’t do things by halves do you darling?”

“It wasn’t like that. If I was to accept the job offer, I’d be going away on business tomorrow night. A bit of forethought and all that?”

Mum just grinned back at me.

“But… what about your driving license and bank and… everything?”

“Mum,” I said taking hold of her hand

“Firstly, I’ll be on a six-week trial. Nothing needs to be done until after that. I’ll have a company credit card to use during that period and I don’t think I’ll need my driving license just yet.”

Mum gave me a look that I’d seen many times before. It was her ‘yeah, pull the other one’ look.

“Mum, I’m not going into this with my eyes closed. I know the risks but I know deep down that I need to do this. If I don’t then I will regret it for the rest of my life.”

Mum smiled.
“I’ll be here for you and if I have any say in the matter, so will Dawn. She’ll get over whatever it is she is feeling at the moment, she always does.”

I picked up my phone and went outside to make a call before I burst into tears.

---

After lunch, Mum took charge and made sure that my eyebrows, nails and skin were properly looked after. I called a halt to her plucking when she wanted to tidy up my nasal hair. I did that bit myself. I did have limits even for my Mother!

Later on, I went out for a walk with our dog, a lovable Irish Wolfhound called Shamus or rather he pulled and I held onto the lead. But, we had a nice time. It gave me a chance to get out of the house and be alone for a while.

When I returned home, I went up to my bedroom to take a shower.

As I walked into my room, I immediately felt that there was something not quite right. I opened my wardrobe and got a shock. It was almost empty.

My drawers were likewise, virtually empty. I almost blew my top but then I saw the wisdom of what had been done. If I was going to have a new wardrobe then I’d need space to put them.

The problem was that I was not going to be here to use the newly created space. The one thing that I’d forgotten to tell my family was that I was going to be based in Chichester. Commuting from where we lived in Trowbridge was not practical even though we lived less than a five-minute walk away from the town’s railway station.

I knew that I’d have to tell Mum sooner or later but when? I could not decide how to do it but I knew that it had to be done.

My chance came over tea that evening.

“Mum, about my clothes?”

She smiled at me.

“They are all bagged up and stored up in the loft,” she replied.

“Thanks… but…”

I took a deep breath and said,
“But I won’t be living here.”

“Eh? You went for the interview in Bristol and that is just a train ride away.”

“I did and that is true. But… The department that I’ll be working in is in Chichester,” I said telling her the party line that I’d agreed with my boss. The less that my family knew of my real job the better at this point in time.

“Oh,” was all that Mum could say.

“Where will you live?” asked Mum when she’d had a moment to think.

“The company is renting a flat for me.”

“That’s a lot of trouble to go to for just a few months, isn’t it?”

I shrugged my shoulders.

“I thought so too but that is what the boss wants. Apparently, a lot of the other candidates for this job really only wanted to work in Bristol or London where there is another office. Besides, Dawn will be glad to see the back of me, won’t she? I’ll wager that she moves into my room by Tuesday evening…”

“That is no way to talk about your sister even if it is true.”

I smiled.

Mum just looked at me. Then she raised an eyebrow and laughed.

“Thomas always did have this knack of coming up trumps. It seems that Maxine has not lost it. I’m proud of you darling.”

---

The following morning Mum was up early to make sure that I went off to work in what she called a ‘presentable’ state. It was her way of making sure that I fledged the nest and didn’t fall flat on my face.

I know she meant well and Mum was being just like any other Mum but there were times when I wanted to say ‘enough’ but I didn’t.

Right on time at midday, a white BMW X5 pulled up outside our fairly modest home.

“I need to go now Mum,” I said as I gave her a quick hug.

I didn’t wait for an answer but picked up my two small bags and headed for the car.

I put my bags on the back seat and opened the passenger door to get in. Then I paused and looked back at Mum. I saw a small tear running down her cheek. I gave her a smile and a wave. Then I got in the car.

As we drove down the road towards the station, I looked back and saw Mum standing on the doorstep.

“Second thoughts?” asked my new boss, Sally Jameson who was driving the car.

“Yes and no, don’t stop, I’m ready for this, whatever this turns out to be and even if I fall flat on my face doing so.”

I looked over towards her. She was smiling.

“That’s what I saw in you the moment that you walked into the interview. Keep that up and you won’t go far wrong in life,” she replied with a grin on her face.

[to be continued]

My job in Chichester was with an existing four-person research team. This was very much an ‘on the quiet’ part of Sally’s group of companies. My task was to add a wider perspective of views to reports that the others were compiling for her. She’d told me that once I’d gotten my feet under the table so to speak, I’d be given my own projects to work on. This made me feel both proud and slightly scared at the same time. Sally had put a lot of faith in me so it was now up to me to not let her down.

On the way down to Sussex, Sally briefed me about the other members of the team. They had all been poached from large financial institutions in London or from Academia. They were enticed by London sized salaries and being able to live in the Sussex countryside.

Sally made the introductions once we’d arrived in Chichester.

“This is Maxine. She will be joining the team for an initial three months. I have high hopes for Maxine within the company so treat her gently. She is to add her point of view to your work bit don’t think of her as my ‘pet’, she isn’t. She will have her own projects and you are to add your thoughts to them. Think of it as adding some fresh perspective to your work.”

Sally looked at the others. They didn’t seem that pleased to see me. Their body language was clear on that subject.

“Before anyone asks, Maxine is Transgendered. She is just starting her RLT, Real Life Test.”

“Any questions?”

One of the two women in the team spoke up.
“Where will Maxine be staying? I don’t have any room at my place.”

“Don’t worry Marta, she will be using my apartment. There are two bedrooms and I only use it when I’m here to visit my Mother and to work with all of you.”

There were a few other questions before Sally called a halt.

“I’ll take Maxine to get settled in at my place. She’ll be here tomorrow morning to start work. Bill Adams will be around later to setup her desk and other things. Please give her every support and assistance she needs.”

When we were walking back to where we’d parked Sally’s car, I said,

“Marta does not like me.”

“She’ll come around. Marta does not like anyone at first. She may give you a bit of a hard time because she is a Lesbian. So am I but I don’t go broadcasting it like she does.”

Sally’s statement shocked me.

“I had no idea,” I said quietly.

“That’s the point. We don’t have to shout loudly, ‘hey, I’m LGBTQ’ to the world at every opportunity. You don’t have to either. I think that with Marta, her German upbringing of conformality is partly to blame. After a while she mellows a bit and she is about the best in the business at what she does.”

“Which is?”

“She is a financial wizard. Most days, she can spot a set of cooked books a mile off. She’s saved me literally millions since she came to work for me. If she says walk away from a deal then I do it. I generally don’t even question it. If one member of the team says something then all of the team have bought into what they are saying. That is why I value them so much.”

“Sounds like I have a mountain to climb then?”

Sally chuckled as we reached her car.

“I think you are going to reach the top. I am that confident in you but it won’t be as easy as getting me to offer you a job you know. The hard bit starts tomorrow.”

I knew it did and as we passed near the Cathedral, I said to myself, “Don’t fuck this up girl”.

---

Sally’s apartment turned out to be just a few miles away in Bognor Regis. Bognor, famed for its Butlin’s Holiday Camp is an otherwise fairly sleepy place. I could take the train or bus to work and even with one or at most two changes of trains, I could get home to see my family.

“You should plan on going home every other weekend. It will give you a break from work,” suggested Sally as we sat down to eat that evening.

“Mum sort of laid down the law on that,” I replied with a wry smile on my face.

“The more I get to know you, the more I see the influence of a good mother in you. Unlike so many young women these days, you have a good head on your young shoulders.”

“It is a good job that my sister never made it to your interview then. She can be a bit of a loose cannon at times.”

Sally laughed.
“I was probably like that when I was her age.”

“Excuse me for asking but what happened to make you… grow up?”

She didn’t answer for more than a second.

“I fell in love, twice. Firstly, with a man which for a variety of reasons didn’t last then with another woman. My family are a bit conservative. Only my mother accepted me as a ‘gay woman’ as she calls me. The rest are so far up their backside with their church that… well they won’t sneeze unless they can find a passage in the bible that allows it.”

I knew exactly what she meant. My uncle Jonathan was just like that.

The following morning, Sally took me into work and got me settled before leaving me… well to get on with things.

---

[three months later on a Wednesday afternoon]

“Maxine, can you look at these figures. I know that they are a pile of shit but there is just something that I’m not seeing behind them?” asked Marta.

I could see that she’d been struggling with the figures. Several times already that day she’d gotten up and gone out for a walk to clear her minds. In the time since I’d started working there, she’d mellowed quite a bit in her opinion of me. I hoped that this request was a turning point in my relationship with her.

“Sure,” I said smiling.
“Can I just finish this paragraph before I forget what I’m trying to say?”

“No rush,” replied Marta.

After a period of coolness from the others I’d gradually been accepted into the team. Even Marta had accepted that I’d made their reports a little less dry and unemotional. This in turn had been well received by Sally.

I finished the bit of my report I was compiling for Sally and went over to Marta’s desk.

“What is it that you can’t see?”

“There is something behind this falsification of figures. They are obviously wrong but why?”

I looked at the sheet of figures that Marta was puzzling over.

At first, there was nothing obvious. Then it hit me.

“There is a third party involved. That is messing up the flow of money in and out. My guess that is where the money is being Laundered. It looks to me that it is a new take on the ‘Double Dutch’ situation.”

Marta looked at the column I was pointing to and a smile broke out on her face.

“Oh! Of course. Thank you, Maxine. I was just looking at it too closely.”

“No problem Marta,”

---

Two days later, I finished my latest report and sent it to Sally. I attached a note to it questioning how relevant the company I’d investigated was to her organisation. It just didn’t make sense to me. The subject matter was totally outside any of the business areas that we normally covered. The others thought so as well which made me happy.

With the email delivered, I sat back and looked at the clock. It was time for me to go. This was one of the weekends that I went home. It was also the late August Bank Holiday Weekend so it would be Tuesday morning before I returned.

I shut down my computer and removed the hard drive. This was duly locked in my safe. Each of us had their own safe. None of us copied things around between systems. This was all part of the way we worked. It had become second nature to me now although I had found it strange at first but once I understood the reasons why it made perfect sense.

I said ‘goodbye and have a good weekend’ to the four others and picked up my bag and carried it downstairs. I was in good time for the train to Portsmouth where I’d change for the Bristol service. If the connection worked, it would be less than 90 minutes from door to door.

Everything went according to plan and I arrived home just in time to see my sister disappearing out for the evening.

“If you want the Bristol Train then you have just missed it,” I said slightly gleefully.

“I’m being picked up, I’ll have you know,” she grunted and slammed the door behind her.

“Come into the Kitchen dear,” called Mum.

I left my bag in the hall and went into the kitchen. Mum was cooking something but it smelt good whatever it was. She did this every time I went home. She was under the impression that I could not look after myself. I could but I always skipped lunch on Fridays just so that I didn’t disappoint her.

Something was different this particular Friday. Then I clocked it, the table was set for two and there was a bottle of wine open. Mum only did this when she wanted to talk to me. A glass or two of Merlot helped her in these occasions.

Mum’s cooking was as good as ever and a glass of wine helped it all go down. When we’d finished eating, I said to Mum,

“Ok Mum, what is it that you to talk to me about?”

She gave me the ‘am I that obvious look’ before speaking,
“Your three months job trial is almost up. Have you given any thought to what you want to do next?”

I’d guessed that this subject would have to be addressed sooner or later.

“Mum, Maxine is who I am now. I’m not going back. Thomas is no more.”

I reached down and picked up my handbag. I opened it and pulled out my purse. I showed her my new driving license.

“There, it is official. I changed my name last week and this came yesterday. A new passport will be coming whenever the passport people can get their act together.”

“Oh!”

“Mum, I am happy. For the first time in my life I am doing good work and with people who appreciate that. They don’t care about my sexuality and besides, I feel good about myself. I've never felt that way before. At first, I wondered if it would go away or simply stop but it hasn't. If anything, these past two weeks, it has become even clearer that I am doing the right thing.”

Mum reached over and took my hand.

“Are you really, really sure about this?”

I smiled.

“Mum, I am. I have thought long and hard about this. One of the others Marta is a Lesbian. She didn’t like me at first but now she regards me as an equal. Thomas could never have done the work I’m doing. It is as if I’m a totally different person. Think of it as a beautiful butterfly emerging from a cocoon.”

“Oh!” she said again.

I squeezed her hand a bit.

“Don’t worry Mum, I’ll tell you in advance if I go to the next step,”

“Just be careful my love,” said Mum in that voice that only mothers have.

“I will Mum, I promise.”

I decided to change the subject a bit.

“Did I see right or was that a Tattoo that Sis had on her wrist?”

Mum sighed.

“That’s down to her new boyfriend, Jason. A right creep if ever there was one. Dawn has had some dodgy boyfriends over the years but this one is clearly up to no good.”

“I take it that she’s passed on University again?”

Mum nodded.

“She spends all she earns on clothes and makeup. She was supposed to be saving up. Fat chance of that,” said Mum with a huge sigh of disappointment in her voice.

“Mum, I’m not going to go crazy like her. Her spraining her ankle and me going to work in Chichester has opened up doors for me that I never knew existed but I’m not going to rush into anything so don’t worry about me.”

“It is a Mothers job to worry about her children. You won’t stop me from doing that so don’t even try…”

That put me in my place but I was glad to have cleared the air.

---

Saturday mornings when I was back at home had evolved into bit of a pattern. My first task was to get my washing done so that it would be dry to take back with me on Monday. Sally had a Washer/Dryer but there really wasn’t anywhere to hang things to air in her apartment. I guess that Mum had ‘brung me up right’ in that I didn’t like wet things hanging in the bathroom unlike my dear sister. Her room always smelled damp even in summer.

I was in the middle of hanging my freshly washed clothes out to dry when Mum called out,
“Maxine, you have a visitor.”

I tried to guess who would be calling here on a Saturday morning and asking for me but failed miserably.

“I’ll be in when I’ve finished hanging these out,” I called back.

“Maxine, get yourself in here this instant,” replied Mum with that ‘do not mess with me voice’ that mothers seem to be able to call upon at will.

I put down the blouse that I was hanging up and after sighing to myself, I went back inside my home.

When I saw who it was, I got a bit of a shock.

“Ms Jameson, I wasn’t expecting to see you before the middle of next week?”

“Sally please. We aren’t in the office at the moment, now are we?”

“Sally?”

“I know that this is a bit unannounced but that report you sent in yesterday has caused a bit of a stir.”

“Eh? Did I do something wrong?”

Sally smiled.

“Far from it. The note you added to the report was perfect. That note reminded me just how far you have come in such a short time. The report you did, did indeed have nothing to do with my business. Your note to that effect was right on the nail. As a result, I made some calls last night and there is someone I want you to meet tonight if you are free.”

“Eh? I don’t get it?”

“Maxine, Ms Jameson has clearly given up her weekend off to come here and invite you out to meet someone tonight. What about that don’t you understand?” said Mum.

“It is all right Mrs Saunders. I think a little more context would help here,” said Sally.

“Maxine wrote a report as part of her work for me. How the task got sent to you I don’t know but it did and you completed the task perfectly. What was the icing on the cake was the note about the business you investigated not being one that I would normally have any interest in. You again are perfectly correct. When I read the report and your note, I realised that the request for the report must have gotten mixed up with some other papers I recently received from an old friend of mine. I sent your report and notes to him last night.”

“All clear so far?”

“I think so.”

“Good. Less than an hour later, my friend phoned me and said to quote, ’I must meet this person’, end quote. We talked about when and where and that is why I am here now. If you are interested in really being yourself and by that, I mean Maxine and really making something of your life then this is as good an opportunity as anything I can give you.”

“Ms Jameson, I get the impression that you know a lot more than you are letting on?” remarked Mum.

“I do, but if think it only fair for Maxine to hear it directly from the horse’s mouth so to speak. Then there can’t be any mistakes or presumptions.”

“Mrs Jameson, I like you. I like your straight talking,” said Mum.

“Sally, please and thanks for the compliment. I’m afraid that my straight talking does sometimes get me into trouble but more often than not, I get through when the bull shitters stumble and fall. As the saying on that old BBC sitcom, ‘Reggie Perrin’ said, ‘I didn’t get where I am today by…”

Sally smiled at both of us.

“I can see where Maxine gets her common sense from. You did a great job in bringing her up,” added Sally.

Mum went a bit red in the face.

“So, you know why I’m here and yes there is a meeting for tonight all setup in Bath. I thought that it might be nice for Maxine to have a makeover and her hair done and get something nice to wear, all on me, I might add.”

There was a stunned silence around the kitchen. I looked at mum who after a few seconds nodded her head.

Before I could say anything, Sally said,

“The person you are meeting is named Adrian Forsythe. He and I go back a long way. We met at University and became good friends. I lost track of him after we graduated but a few years ago, I looked him up. I was getting nowhere with my business. Don't get me wrong, it was successful but I needed to expand and for that, I needed capital. The problem was that since the financial meltdown of a few years ago no bank or legitimate financial institution would even consider lending money to a single mother who is both gay and blonde. There were just too many stereotypes against me in traditional institutions. Then I remembered a small piece in the Times about Adrian changing his family business to become a more ethical investor. I contacted him and he invested in my company. He still owns around 10% and is there for me should I need funds in the future. I could pay him off but he is a good person to have on your side.”

“I didn’t know that you were a Mother?” I asked.

“Not many people do. You do know my daughter, Jasmine though…”

“Mum, she’s Sally’s Secretary. I’ve spoken with her on the phone many times.”

“She’s in the car waiting for us. She is a bit off the wall when it comes to how she looks and dresses but she has a good mind so I tend to let her do her own thing.”

Then Sally added.

“Adrian is a perfect Gentleman. He is Gay but not one of those who’s every action shouts it. He is a very astute person and I would not have set this up if I didn’t see a good future for you working with him. I won’t say anymore apart from if you are going to look stunning for tonight then we had better get a move on?”

“Well Darling?” asked Mum.

“I’d better get ready then.”

“Better pack a bag for overnight. Adrian has booked you a room in the Royal Hotel in Bath.”

I was stunned. There I was expecting a lazy weekend and suddenly I’m off for the job interview of my life.

“Go on dear, don’t keep Sally waiting,” said Mum smiling.

---

I broke all records for Maxine to get ready to go out. I threw a few clothes into a holdall and after starting to put on some makeup, I stopped. If I was going to have a makeover then it would all come off anyway. I just put some lippy on, brushed out my hair and headed downstairs.

When I came into the Kitchen, Sally and Mum were in deep conversation. I guessed that it was about me but something inside me said it would not be prudent at this time to raise the issue.

“I’m ready as I’ll ever be,” I said from the door into the kitchen.

After a quick goodbye, I left home with Sally. Her car was nowhere to be seen.

“I couldn’t find a parking spot here so I parked at the station,” she explained.

“Yeah, Saturday’s is the worst day. People park here and go into town to do their shopping. That way, they don’t have to pay to park.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Sally.

We reached Sally’s X5 and she said,
“Why don’t you sit in back with Jasmine? I am sure that you two will have lots to talk about.”

I didn’t argue so I opened the rear door climbed in.

“You must be Maxine? I’m Jasmine,” said the other passenger.

“Jasmine? You… you look so different to what I’d imagined.”

“Yeah, I have that effect on people even though Mum makes me tone it down for work.”

‘It’ was her total goth look. She was all dressed in black and purple. Her makeup was dramatic especially her eyebrows which were well… unique.

Then I noticed her lips. Instead of the usual black or purple ones she had a blue cupids bow. Her cheeks were also pierced.

“Wow, that is some look,” I said totally lost for words.

“Thanks,” said Jasmine smiling.
“Most people react a lot differently.”

Then I noticed her chest. It was flat. It wasn’t that she wasn’t wearing a bra but it was dead flat.

She saw that I had seen her boobs or the lack of them.

“I had them removed last year. I have the same gene thing as Angelina Jolie. I wear falsies in the week. It is no big deal but Mum gave me some grief for not having reconstructive surgery but I kind of like not carrying all that weight around for a change. I had DD’s. I got that from my Father’s side. Gran is big in the boob front.”

She made it all sound so matter of fact for something that is so life changing for most women.

“It is nice to meet you after all this time,” said Jasmine.

“Mum said that you are meeting Adrian tonight. I think you will like him. He’s one of the good guys.”

“I hope so,” I replied.

---

More than three hours later I emerged from the makeover feeling… well a lot better and looking like… a different person. My hair was now a very nice chestnut colour and styled in a way that made me look a lot older which wasn’t such a bad thing. My makeup was done so professionally that it made my efforts seem rather pathetic.

Sally had left Jasmine to hold my hand through my first makeover. She was an interesting person despite her looks. I had to think that Sally was hoping that that she’d grow out of the Goth phase. I had my doubts but I needed to spend some more time with her to be able to come to a sensible conclusion.

When I realised how logical I’d been, I chuckled internally to myself. A few short months ago, I would have probably not been so circumspect and jumped to a conclusion and got a bit uppity if I’d been challenged on it. Perhaps I was growing up?

“Wow!” said Sally when she saw me coming out of the beauty salon.
“What a transformation!”

“Yeah, she scrubs up quite well,” added Jasmine.

We all laughed as we got into the BMW.

“Pleased with the results?” asked Sally.

“Yes but… There is no way I can put all this on every day,” I complained.

The other two laughed.

“That’s what I said to myself the first time I went Goth. But you soon get used to it.

Sally drove us into Bath and after parking the car the three of us went shopping.

Despite our best efforts, nothing suitable for the evening leapt out at any of us. In desperation, we retreated to a Coffee shop. We were about to order when Jasmine said,

“There is a little place down the next street that might have something. They do lots of second-hand and retro clothes.”

I looked at Sally who rolled her eyes. I wondered if this was where her daughter got her goth clothes?

“Let’s give it a try. We don’t have any other options at the moment,” I said slightly desperately.

A few minutes later with Coffee’s forgotten, we walked into the shop. For some reason, I knew that we’d find something here as soon as we walked through the door.

“Hello, can I help you?” asked the assistant when we entered the shop.

“Yes, I need something for a dinner tonight. Not quite an LBD but…” I said.

The assistant looked at me and I knew that she’d clocked me. Then she smiled.

“I have something that will be perfect for someone like you,” she said confidently.

That confirmed it, she’d clocked me.

“I’m Saffron by the way. My friends call me Saffy. Please come into the back with me,” she added.

I followed her into the depths of the shop leaving Sally and Jasmine looking a little lost.

“I have a very dear friend of mine who is a special lady like you. Now where are you having this Dinner?”

“A… at the Royal.”

“Then, I think this will be perfect,” said a grinning Saffy as she pulled out a dress.

“Wow!” I said when I saw it.

“And I think that it is your size. Go and try it on?”

I didn’t waste any time and disappeared behind a curtain.

“What shoe size are you?” asked Saffy from the other side of the curtain.

“Eight and a half,” I replied.

“I’ll get you some shoes. Don’t come out until you have the shoes on.”

The dress was perfect. I’d never worn anything with petticoats before. There were three but I only put on two. I felt like a million pounds.

“Here, put these on,” came the voice of Saffy from outside the cubicle.

A hand appeared holding some heels.

I stripped off my socks and put the shoes on. I noticed an immediate difference to my posture.

“Well?” asked the voice.

“I think I am going to need a wrap or something,” I said hesitantly.

“I have one here. Don’t be shy.”

I pulled back the curtain and Saffy just grinned.

“Didn’t I say that we had just the thing for special ladies such as yourself?” she said as she handed me a mahogany coloured wrap.

I couldn’t argue.

“Going to show your friends?”

“I think I’d better.”

I walked back to the main part of the shop. Sally gasped. Jasmine grinned.

“I told you that you’d find something here,” said Jasmine trying not to say the wrong thing.

“I like it,” I said trying to be modest.

“You will need some decent stockings or tights. The sheerer the better I think,” said Saffy from behind me.”

“She’s right,” echoed Jasmine.

“I’ll go and get changed,” I said before I started crying from happiness.

“Hold on,” said Jasmine.

Suddenly there was a flash and she’d taken my picture with her phone.

“Please don’t post that on Social Media,” I said.

“Yes darling. This is for us and no one else,” echoed Sally.

“Ok, Mum,” said Jasmine sadly.

I disappeared back into the depths of the shop to get changed feeling good.

---

My phone burbled just before 7:00pm. I saw that I had a message from Adrian.

“I will be waiting in the bar. Adrian.”

I checked my hair, makeup and everything for the umpteenth time. I even checked that my seams were straight. Jasmine had insisted on them and even paid for the stockings herself. I’d never worn stockings let alone seamed fully fashioned ones before so it was all a bit new to me. Walking in heels and wearing a dress with a petticoat and a full skirt was also a new experience. I savoured every step as I preened myself in the full-length mirror.

I left my room and walked towards the lift. I felt good in myself but I had to keep repeating the words that mum had said to me before I went to the original interview with Sally and that was ‘be yourself’.

As I exited the lift, I had a sudden feeling of panic. Instead of turning towards the Bar, I walked out of the Hotel and into the street. A gust of wind made the petticoats of my dress move. I had all sorts of thoughts such as, ‘what am I doing?’, ‘I must be crazy’ and worse. Then I got my brain into gear and walked back into the Hotel.

Adrian was waiting for me in the bar. Sally had described him to me but she needed not have worried. There was no mistaking him. He was very handsome.

“Adrian, pleased to meet you,” I said as I walked up to him.

He grinned.

“I should be the one saying that,” he chuckled.
“Shall we have an aperitif?”

I nodded.

“Two Kir Royal’s please,” said Adrian to the barman.

“Shall we sit down?”

I sat down remembering to sort my skirt out and to sit ladylike. God, how I hated that thing men do with their legs wide open. Ugh. Then I realised what I’d said. Then I smiled inwardly at how much I’d changed since I’d been working for Sally.

The barman brought over our drinks.

“Cheers and to a long and lasting relationship,” said Adrian.

“Cheers,” I said nervously.

Ten minutes later, a waiter came up to Adrian and whispered something in his ear.

“Dinner is ready. I took the liberty of arranging for it to be served in a side room. We can talk business in there without being overheard by other diners”

Adrian stood up and offered me his hand. I needed it as I’d never sat down so low wearing such high heels. Still, they felt good, I felt good and that is what it is all about…

---

Adrian escorted me to a side room off of the main dining room. As Sally said, he was the perfect gentleman. He even held my chair as I sat down at the table. I could get used to this…

Once we’d chosen our meal, Adrian poured some wine.

“I took the liberty of selecting this. I have an interest in the Vineyard,” he said as he poured me a glass.

I took a sip and it tasted ok. I’m not the best judge of wine by any means but this was drinkable, very drinkable.

“I expect that you have a million questions for me but if I may, I’d like to tell you a story about me and my company. Then we can talk about you and everything else. Does that seem fair enough?”

“It does.”

“As you probably know from what Sally has told you, I am an investor in companies. My business was not always like that but I saw the writing on the wall in late 2006. In 2007 and the financial crisis, the Banks suddenly stopped lending to just about everyone and everything. A lot of good companies went to the wall just because they could not get the finance they needed to carry on let alone expand even if they had full order books. The Banks got scared and withdrew almost all company overdrafts pretty well overnight. This was where I saw a niche. I stepped in and invested in companies. You might think that this is like Venture Capitalists or as I describe then ‘Vulture Capitalists’. But, unlike them, I’m in it for the long term and want the companies I invest in to succeed not to load them up with mountains of debt. So, I take a stake in the company thus giving the management much needed capital. Then over time, the profits are used to buy back the stake in the company.”

“Does this make sense?”

“Sort of a cross between a ‘fairy godmother and a dragon?’”

Adrian laughed.

“Very much. I usually keep a stake in the company and in most cases, I’m very much part of their business for the long term. And my terms are probably better than any of the more well-known dragons out there.”

Adrian spent the next fifteen minutes going into more detail about how he sizes up a business.

Over our food, he told me about himself. I started to understand what made him tick and why Sally liked him.

Then came the crunch time.

“Sally showed me the report that you did for her. Well, it was really for me as your note suggested. What do you think I should do? With the opportunity that is?”

I hadn’t expected that sudden change of tack. He’d put me right on the spot.

I thought for a moment before replying.

“As I said in my report summary, there is a clear window of opportunity. If it passes then it will be gone for ever. What I could not work out was why you are interested in this place?”

Adrian laughed.

“I would not normally be interested but I was in the area earlier this year and happened to stay there and found that I liked the way that they do business. The management have a great attention to detail and customer satisfaction is totally about what they do.”

Then he hesitated for half a second.

“They are very LGBT friendly and the managers appear to a lesbian couple but the manager is a male to female transsexual.”

That last statement hit me right between the eyes. I began to understand Adrian a little more.

“Your forecast for the profitability of the hotel with another sixteen rooms is impressive. I agree with it and so does Sally.”

“What I’m trying to say Maxine is that I want you to work alongside me as a partner and eventually to take over from me provided that a few things happen.”

“Eh? A partner?”
Then I heard the last part.
“What things?”

“This is the hard part,” said Adrian.

“Yes, I’ll do it,” I said.

“But you don’t know the conditions?”

“I am ready to step up to the challenge and if that means me transitioning and shacking up with you to appear as a viable couple then I’ll do it. What I don’t understand is why you want to give up?”

As I said it, I wondered if the excellent wine had gone to my head but I’d only had half a glass. Then I remembered the two glasses of Kir Royale we’d had before dinner. Even so, I didn’t think that I was drunk or even tipsy.

Adrian sat there a bit stunned.

Then he shook his head.

“Sally said that you were impressive. That was an understatement if ever there was one.”

Then he sighed and opened his jacket and removed an envelope.

“You had better read this tonight. It explains everything in ways that I can’t even begin too.”

I took the envelope.

“It sounds serious?”

“It is and that is why I want you as my partner. I think that we can work well together.”

“What about benefits?” I asked remembering something that Jasmine said to me earlier.

Adrian chuckled.

He pulled back the envelope and after retrieving what looked like a vintage fountain pen from his jacket pocket, he wrote a number on it. Then he pushed it back to me.

“That would be for starters plus benefits.”

I looked at the figure. I tried my hardest not to react but I failed miserably. The sum was more than double what my mother and father paid for their house.

“That is impressive. Where would we be based?”

“I live south of London in a small town called Reigate. The house has six bedrooms. You can choose one from the five that are free.”

I didn’t know what to say. Before I could ask anything else, our coffees arrived.

I decided that I needed to try to digest the huge amount of information that Adrian had given me during the evening.

“I think I’ll pass on the Coffee. I have a lot thinking to do before I can make a considered decision.”

Adrian smiled.
“It is a bit daunting but I think you are more than up to this opportunity.”

“Thanks for your confidence in me.”

Adrian smiled.

Then I remembered something that I didn’t put in the report so I said,
“Oh, and it might be worth checking where the key players in my report are going to be this coming week. I got the impression that things were about to move. It wasn’t in the report because I didn’t have any real evidence but it all points towards sooner rather than later.”

I left him sitting alone in the room. He was looking at me and smiling.

When I got back to my room, I found that I was shaking. I wasn’t drunk but it was as if I’d hit the jackpot.

When I’d calmed down, I sat in the chair and knew what I had to do. It came to me very easily. If truth be told, I had been thinking about what was next for several weeks. Adrian had given me an opening and therefore a way forward.

The only worry was the subtext of what Adrian was hinting at. Then I remembered the envelope he’d given me at Dinner. I picked up the envelope and saw the figure he’d written on it. I smiled as I thought back to the supermarket where I’d been working six months ago and earning little more than minimum wage and then to what I could be earning very shortly. Part of me thought that I didn’t deserve it but at least two people thought I did.

I opened the envelope and read the enclosed leaflet.

It was very educational, informative yet sad, very sad. It answered a lot of questions that had and more not been asked. I saw where Adrian was coming from and importantly the chance he was going to give me if I was up for it. Instead of putting me off, it made me more determined.

But it left me wondering why he was working rather than living lifer to the full.

---

The cold light of a Sunday morning hadn’t changed my mind in the slightest. If anything, I was more resolute about what I should do. My problem was going to be my family. Mum might not be so difficult but Dawn would be another kettle of fish entirely.

I looked back on the period since Maxine had appeared full time. Before that, the odd outing as Maxine was more of a lark than anything to my sister and her friends but since Thomas had left the building, she’d been really bitchy towards me. For so long she’d been ‘top bitch’ she now resented that I was on the scene and making something of my life. This next step could be the straw that broke her back.

I decided to face things sooner rather than later so I forgo breakfast and left the Hotel. I felt relieved when the front desk said that my room was all taken care of and that I was ‘good to go’ so, I went. Less than an hour later, I arrived home.

“Hi Mum,” I said as I breezed into the kitchen.

Mum was peeling some potatoes. She looked up and saw me. Like mothers do, she read my mood in a flash.

“Hello darling. Last night went well then? I do like your hair and …”, she laughed.

“How are you getting on with those nails? That colour suits you though.”

How do Mum’s do this? She’d summed up everything from just a single glance at me.

“Is Dawn here?”

Mum shook her head.
“Not a sign. I guess you want to talk about last night?”

“I do.”

“Put the kettle on, there’s a love?”

I did as she asked with a smile on my face.

I went and got my dress from the hallway.

“This is what I wore last night.”

Mum gasped.

“That is beautiful. It must have cost a packet?”

I grinned.
“It was bought from a second-hand shop in Bath so it wasn’t that bad.”

“What else did you wear with it?”

“I had this wrap, and heels.”

“I hope you had something on your legs?”

I grinned.
“Seamed stockings.”

“You she-devil, you!” exclaimed Mum with a huge grin on her face.

“I felt good and I think I looked good.”

“I should hope so. Sally thinks the world of you. She and I had a long talk while you were dining in Bath.”

The smile that was on my face disappeared in a flash. Mum noticed this.

“Look darling, Sally explained some of the options you are going to face to me. One mother to another. If you tell me today that you are going to really become my second daughter then I am here for you. I don’t care what Dawn will say and do. You are making something of your life and life is full of sacrifices. We all have to make them at one time or another.”

She looked at me and I could see a small tear forming in the corner of her eye.

“Don’t cry Mum!”

“These are tears of joy my darling. I really am happy for you, you know.”

“But this is a big step,” I said.

“I know it is darling but knowing you, you have been thinking about this possibility for weeks.”

She was right. That’s what Mum’s do.

She took my hand in hers but before anything could be said, the kettle started to whistle.

“Cut off at the pass!” I said using a phrase that had been used in this kitchen many times over the years.

“I’ll make the tea if you finish the spuds? I’m not sure I could with these nails. They are going to take a lot of getting used to.”

Mum sniffled her approval.

“You will make someone a great wife one of these days,”

I stopped in mid pour when I heard those words. I quickly carried on. I was now in no doubt that Adrian’s description of a partner was really that of a wife. That was the only way he could guarantee that I could carry on his business after… I shuddered and didn’t want to think about it but I was determined to do what was needed when I needed to.

“Mum, enough of that!”

“Just stating the obvious my dear. You have a great mind and with a little bit of work, you’d be as attractive as Dawn and you won’t need so much makeup.”

“Mum, it wasn’t Dawn’s fault that she got Teenage Acne and I didn’t.”

That subject was a sore point in this household. I decided to change the subject.

“What else did Sally say?”

Mum smiled and tapped her nose.

“Mum?”

“Don’t worry darling, I didn’t betray any of your little secrets.”

The word secrets hit home. I remembered something.

“Be back in a minute,” I said to Mum.

I literally ran upstairs and into my old bedroom. Dawn had taken it over within a couple of days of me starting work for Sally. I moved her bed a few inches and pulled back the carpet. The loose floorboard came away and I pulled out the plastic bag that was inside.

It was empty.

I swore several times.

“Guess what Dawn has been using to party with?” came Mum’s voice from behind me.

“Mum, I am going to kill her. There was more than two thousand pounds in there and now it is all gone.”

Mum smiled.
“Not all of it. She got through almost half before I discovered your stash.”

“It is all my own fault. I should have known that she’d find it once she took over my bedroom.”

Mum shook her head.

“She’s known about it for years.”

“That was my redundancy from Hallett’s.”

“I know. I put the rest in the bank.”

“She has gone too far this time Mum!”

“And speak of the missing person, I do believe that is her coming up the garden path.”

I moved to go towards the bedroom door.

“Just leave this to me,” said Mum.
“And put everything back as you found it.”

Then she disappeared downstairs.
I did as she instructed and then went downstairs.

Mum was verbally laying into my Sister in the kitchen.

“This is all your fault Thomas,” said Dawn as she saw me.
“You took my job so I took your money.”

“Well darling,” said Mum.
“From now on, you have to pay me for room and board. Why don’t we start at two hundred a week?”

“Mum?” wailed Dawn.
“I don’t have a job. How can I pay that much?”

I was having trouble keeping a straight face.

Dawn turned to me.
“Don’t even think of laughing. I saw you last night in Bath. All dolled up with nowhere to go. it was so pathetic,” said Dawn gleefully.

“If you must know, I landed a job that will pay me more than a hundred grand a year. Not bad for an impostor, and a pathetic impostor at that who was all dolled up with no place to go?” I replied.

The smirk disappeared from Dawns face in a flash.

“That’s my job. I should have it.”

“No Dawn it is not your job. I got it due to the work that I’ve been doing these past few months. That means it is my job and yes, my new boss knows all about me and that was one of the reasons why I was employed. Perhaps you should think about getting a job so that you can pay Mum and also me for the money that you stole from me.”

Then I added,
“I’m sorry Sis, it is you who is rather pathetic. You have a brain but you can’t even be bothered to get it into first gear. Oh, and by the way, you will need all the money you can earn with a baby on the way.”

Mum looked at me with alarm.

“There is a pregnancy test with a positive result sitting on the floor under Dawn’s bed.”

Dawn was very red in the face.

“Well, young lady,” said a very angry Mum to Dawn.
“I’m not having your baby living here. I know you and you will leave it to me to look after and I’m not doing it understand.”

“I don’t care,” said a defiant Dawn.
Then she stormed out of the house.

“Sorry Mum,” I said after the front door slammed shut.

“It is all right darling. That has been coming for a long time. Dawn… My eldest daughter seems to be having her period of teenage angst in her mid-twenties. You, my newest daughter is certainly not to blame for that so don’t get all het up about it. She will calm down now that… that her pregnancy is out in the open. Then we can talk about it.”

“Should I give you and her some space? Me being around seems like a red rag to a bull with her.”

“It might be wise.”

I looked at the kitchen clock.

“If I hurry then I can catch the next Portsmouth train. It is due in twenty minutes.”

Mum gave me a big hug as I left home.

“Don’t make any final decisions without talking to me first you hear.”

“Don’t worry Mum. I won’t but my mind is made up but I think you know that.”

“You might be an adult and a girl but I can still tan your hide!”

A few minutes later, I walked away from home with a smile on my face.

[to be continued in ‘Forsythe Saga – Doing Business’]

[Authors Note]
I was writing this part when I got the idea of 'The Forsythe Saga' and including the two other stories in the canon. This part and the preceding part are written in the First Person. This won't work for the rest of the piece which will be written in the Third Person.
Sorry for any confusion this may cause.

[Sunday Lunchtime at Exeter St David’s Railway Station]

Adrian’s driver, Cliff was waiting for him as he got off the train from Bristol.

“How did last night go Boss?” asked Cliff as he got into the car outside the station.

“I think she will go for it. As Sally said, she has a great brain and she looked pretty good last night. As I’d hoped, she has gone away to think about things.”

Then he changed the subject.

Adrian had worked late into the night following Maxine’s tip about things starting to move. He’d made a couple of long phone calls to contacts of his in the USA before going to bed.

“Any news from Georgia? They should be online about now even if it is a Sunday?”

“Yes. We received an email from Lance a short while ago. The team from the UK is meeting with their counterparts, again this morning and then going to play Golf. Someone is really putting out the red carpet because they are playing at Augusta National. Both teams worked long into the night. Lance thinks that a deal might be concluded tomorrow.”

“That soon?”

“Didn’t take them long. I guess the intermediary had done his job well beforehand.”

“Do we know who it is?”

“Yeah, Lance sent me his bio. Apparently, he worked for the UK company until he was fired around a year ago. Since then he has been working as a freelance consultant. He’s been hawking around the idea of getting another Hotel Company to take over the UK one and do some ‘housecleaning’. His proposals have always entailed getting rid of the more esoteric hotels in the group and concentrating on taking the whole chain downmarket.”

“As if that end of the market is not crowded enough. I guess the recent Whitbread and Travelodge results have given his argument more weight. Do we know how much he stands to make from the deal?” asked Adrian.

“At least ten percent on the sale price. The book value of the company is around sixty million. I’d expect at least a ten-percent premium at least in order to tempt the shareholders.”

Then Cliff added,
“Lance also sent over some interesting facts on this intermediary. It is pretty obvious that his lifestyle can’t be funded by his declared employment. All the details are in the folder.”

Adrian sat back and thought for a few minutes as the car headed towards the Devon Coast.

“Cliff, we need to make a diversion.”

Cliff smiled.
“I thought we might. I’ve already programmed it into the SatNav.”

“Cliff, you are a star you know.”

“I know but as long as you keep telling me then we are good,” came the reply from the front seat.

---

Thirty-five minutes later, the car pulled up at an Hotel on the Devon Coast. Adrian got out and went inside.

“Hello, my name is Adrian Forsythe. I’d like to see the manager if this is possible?” he said to the receptionist.

The receptionist did as she’d been trained to do, gave him the once over.
“Are you a rep? We don’t accept rep calls without an appointment especially on a Sunday.”

“No, I’m not a rep. I’m here to see her about the Hotel and its future.”

“Ok, I’ll call her but she might not want to see you today.”

“That’s fine,” said he replied hoping that it would not be the case. But he added.
“Please tell her that the very future of the Hotel could be under threat.

The receptionist picked up the phone and quickly punched in an extension number. A few seconds later it was answered.

“Ms Jackson, there is a Mr Adrian Forsythe in reception asking to meet with you. Something about the Hotel and its future.”

The receptionist listened for a moment.

“Thanks boss, I’ll tell him.”

Then she put the phone down.

“Ms Jackson said that if you go into the bar and order tea for two, she will see you in a few minutes.”

He smiled.
“Thank you… Hayley. That’s a nice name.”

Then he walked away from reception and into the bar.

---

Around ten minutes later, the manager joined him in the bar.

“Mr Forsythe? I’m Belinda Jackson, Manager of this Hotel.”

“Pleased to meet you Ms Jackson. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Belinda smiled back at him.
“Not all bad I hope?”

“Far from it. You seem like a very go-ahead person to me.”
She visibly relaxed at the comment.

Adrian poured them both cups of tea. He hoped that she noticed this and decided to let him give her his pitch before sending him on his way.

“So, what’s all this the Hotel and its future? You do know that this place is part of a hotel chain don’t you?”

He smiled back at her.
“I do know that. That is why I’m here.”

He took a deep breath before continuing.

“At this very moment, a high-level team from the chain that owns this Hotel is meeting with a team from GeoStay Inc in Georgia and discussing a takeover by GeoStay of the UK company. If you don’t know, GeoStay is mostly owned by Frederick Mangan. Frankly, he is not someone I would want to do business with. GeoStay run a chain of low cost motels in the Southern USA. If you know the French Budget Motels like ‘Formule 1’ then you get the sort of thing I mean. Part of the takeover would probably mean that Hotels like this one would get sold off or closed down. They are all about bodies in, bodies out and most certainly not customer service. If you look at the ratings sites you will see their places hardly ever get above a one star in the ratings yet they are very profitable. It is all about profit and most certainly not customer satisfaction with them.”

Then he added,
“The TripAdvisor and Trivago ratings for this Hotel are, by a long way the highest in the group. That is if you don’t mind me saying, down to the management and the employees.”

Belinda sat looking at him for several seconds. He thought from her body language, she knew that I was sincere about what he’d just said.

“Do you have any proof of this takeover? Or is this just some scam on your part?”

“If you were to call your head office first thing on Tuesday morning and ask for any of these people, you would be told that they are unavailable. They all flew from Birmingham to Atlanta last Wednesday by Geostay’s private Jet. There is a UK company board meeting scheduled for a week tomorrow. The MD, Hugh Bannister would love to be able to present the takeover as a done deal then. As you know, he was appointed when Drake-Wilson Capital took a majority shareholding two years ago. He’s turned around the group so it is time for the VC’s to take their money and run. This deal will let them exit stage left with a hefty profit and the company with a whole load more debt. The new owners will see that when they get a look at the real books, not the ones used for the Due Diligence and Companies House reporting.”

He presented Belinda with a list of senior company officials.
Again, from her reaction, she knew that he’d had done his homework. The ‘debt’ thing was new to her.

“This debt thing? And the two sets of books? I don’t get it at all?”

Adrian smiled.
“I’ve been tracking this group for a while ever since that announced their plans to spread into Europe. The UK is a great place to start that invasion from, for one thing we more or less speak the same language.”

“As for the second set of books, I’ve seen it time and time again where a company that is owned by some Vulture Capitalists are taken over leaving the polish of a profitable business behind only to be sold again a few years later for a few pounds. All the value in the business is ‘poof’ gone. Ask yourself where that value went and why the new owners didn’t cry wolf when they discovered the falsification of the books?”

He didn’t wait for her to answer.
“Reputation that’s what. Look at what is happening with Autonomy. HP took them over and suddenly after a change at the top they are having to basically write the business down. That means either that the due diligence was not done properly or the books as presented at the time of the takeover did not represent the true picture of the business. My guess is the former but there is still a twenty percent chance of the latter. HP will probably not let this rest and this may well take years and years to resolve in the courts. Therefore, it is often better for the management to just shut up and let the business fail and move on elsewhere.”

“Oh, and in addition, you were granted planning permission for a new wing to the hotel more than a year ago, but the funding from Head Office has not been forthcoming despite your pleas if I am right? You have been fobbed off with all sorts of reasons but my guess is that it was all part of the plan to get the company ready to be sold off. As you are no doubt aware, a site with planning permission is always worth more than not.”

“If this all were true, what can I do about it? Nothing that’s what. This place is a mere pawn in the game of corporate roulette.”

“That is probably true but as the group needed a VC to save the day, perhaps this hotel needs one as well. A proper investor that would take a long term view of the business rather than just the next few quarters. An investor that would buy the hotel, build the new wing and then put in place a plan to gradually transfer ownership to the management without taking out value or leaving a mountain of debt. An investment company that has a proven track record of doing just that over many years.”

“You sound like my Fairy-godmother and as we all know they just don’t exist.”

“Oh Belinda, we do exist believe me. It is just that we don’t like to advertise ourselves.” Adrian replied smiling.

Adrian took a hefty swig of tea before continuing.
“Nicely made cup of tea by the way.”

“Let me leave you this file. It tells you a lot of information about my organisation and what I have been describing. You can verify most of what it says with the Internet. By all means make some enquiries of your own. Make your own mind up and then give me a call. If I am right about the takeover, then a bid to take this property off their hands at a good discount might well succeed if done quickly.”

“I have had my lawyers prepare a bid document. All it needs is for us to formalise our arrangement and agree a price and it will happen. Don’t worry Belinda, if you say no then I walk away and you will never hear from me again. The draft agreement is in the file. It is a draft so if you do come on board then don’t be afraid to offer up some changes but I think that you may well find the terms agreeable to you and your partner, Nina.”

Adrian stood up and took one step away from the table before stepping back.

“Let me leave you with one last bit of information. There is one person who stands to make a lot of money from takeover and that is this man. My spies told me that you were instrumental in getting him fired from the company. If the reports I have seen are correct, then you are a formidable business woman if you don’t mind me saying so.”

He took out a small folder from his briefcase and gave it to her.

Belinda opened it and saw the picture of Jon Lord.

“How did you know?”

“Background research. As I said, I’ve been watching the group for around ten months. Most Venture Capitalist companies are involved in businesses for a limited time. Their business model is to get in, fix a few things and get out again hopefully with a profit. That often leaves the business with a lot more debt than when they became involved. I monitor a number of these companies and from time to time, I see an opportunity to take a longer and a more strategic view and where I work with their management to improve the business to the benefit of the business and the owners. The way I work is far removed from the asset stripping that many VC’s use to turn a quick profit and leaving more debt than when they stepped in to supposedly ‘rescue’ the business in the first place.”

Adrian continued,
“Once I had identified that it might be time for Drake-Barnes Capital to move on the group and I’d seen the reviews of this hotel on sites like TripAdvisor, I had an associate of mine do the research on the business you have here. A copy of that report is in the folder. I know from first-hand experience that you run a great business here and I don’t want that to change.”

Then he added,
“A good country hotel like this one just does not fit in with the model that GeoStay would impose if were they to take over the company.”

He took a deep breath.

“I’ll be in Plymouth until the end of the week. It has been nice meeting you Ms Jackson. I hope that we can get together and do some business that will be beneficial to both of us in the near future.”

He left Belinda sitting there wondering what the hell had just happened.

[some 30 minutes later at the hotel]

Belinda’s thoughts were still buzzing from her meeting with Adrian when they were interrupted by her partner Nina.

“Ah, there you are. Those people at head office are just impossible.”

“Hi Nina. What’s wrong this time?”

“You remember we ordered some new flip chart pads for the course next week?”

“Oh yes. That was two weeks ago. What’s the problem?”

“They won’t be coming. I got an email today. For some reason, it was sent on Friday and only just delivered. Some bean-counter has deemed that they are capital expenditure and there is a hold on all ‘capex’ for some reason.”

Suddenly she started to understand, put two and two together and certainly made four. This was just the latest problem they’d been having with getting things done by Head Office.

She tried to smile at her lover and assistant but all she got was a feeble smirk.

“What’s up?” asked Nina.

“I think I know what the problem is. Can we leave it until we get home tonight? I don’t want to talk about it here.”

Nina glared at back at her. She almost asked ‘why?’ but she got the message.

“Bring your laptop with you. I think we will need two machines tonight. We could be in for a long night.”

Nina didn’t want to argue with her boss and lover. She’d learned in the year that she’d been working here to trust her. That was one of the reasons why she loved her but also found her at times to be one of the most frustrating person she’d ever met. She knew that this was Belinda being herself and she knew that life with her would never get stuck in a rut.

Later that evening, Nina returned from the kitchen after putting away the dinner things. She found that Belinda already setup both their laptops on the dining table. In the middle of them was a folder. It wasn’t open. Nina gave me a little smile. Belinda was waiting for her.

“Ok, what is the real reason why we can’t get the pads?” asked Nina as she sat down next to me.

“Out of the blue this afternoon, I had a visitor at the Hotel. That’s why I was in the bar. I got him to pay for some tea in return for letting him speak. It wasn’t planned but as it wasn’t a sales rep and I needed a cuppa, so I listened to what he had to say. This is him. Adrian Forsythe. As soon as I heard his name, I knew I’d heard his name before but couldn’t remember where or why it was.”

His face was on the screen of Belinda’s laptop.

“Who is he?” asked Nina, “I’ve never heard of him.”

“He’s an investor. Very much the under the radar sort. He invests in all sorts of businesses and most of the time he helps the management buyout the business and make a go of it. From what I’ve learned in the past few minutes, everything of what he said to me is true. After a period of time, he gradually reduces his stake in the business and the management become the true owners. He sometimes keeps a minority stake and is ready to act as an investor if needed in the future. He seems to be very much of a silent partner as well as an advisor.”

Nina seemed no wiser.

“But how does that apply to us?”

“Well, my darling it seems that our Head Office are selling us out to an American Chain. That chain operates at the bottom end of the market and may well want our nice little establishment off their books ASAP for a variety of reasons.”

“Eh? What reasons?”

“We don’t fit in with the sort of hotel these guys run in America. Then the owner is pretty right wing and might not appreciate us and our bunch of social and sexual misfits.”

“So, they’ll want rid of us then?”

“Yes. That’s where Mr Forsythe would come in.”

“I think I get it. If the bean counters in Birmingham can make the books look good, then the VC’s might get a few more pence per share in the sale.”

“That’s sort of exactly what he said to me earlier.”

Then Belinda went silent.

“What’s up? Isn’t that a good idea?”

“On the surface, it seems that it is. But I just don’t know. This is all a long way from running a Hotel. Being an owner is a big step.”

Nina smiled and put her hand on Belinda’s.

“That’s why I’m here to help. What’s in the folder?”

“I don’t know. He said that everything I needed to know would be in there but I daren’t look.”

Nina didn’t waste any time. She pulled the folder towards them and opened it.

Half an hour later, they’d read all the documents in the folder together. Nina was angry. It was the section on the ‘Intermediary’ that did it. As soon as she saw the name Jon Lord, she almost exploded.
“Mr Forsythe seems to have covered all the bases.”

“Grrrrr” answered Nina.

“No Nina, not Grrrrr but a chance to get even. He once took you for granted and I think his plan is get this place closed down once the merger is all done and dusted. His way of getting revenge on us and making a shed load of money for himself at the same time.”

“How much money?” asked Nina.

Belinda sat back and thought for a moment.

“I don’t know exactly but Mr Forsythe seemed to indicate that it was a percentage of the sale price. Around ten percent seems to be the norm.”

“I want to kick him where it hurts,” said Nina.
“Hard!”.

Belinda sat back thinking. She’d been doing a lot of that these past few hours.

“So, it seems that it is down to us then.”

“Eh?” asked a still angry Nina.

“Do we want the Hotel to be ours? In the long term? I’m talking about us you know.”

Nina didn’t reply right away.

“Nina?”

She smiled at back at Belinda

“Do you remember when you asked me to marry you, right at the outset of our relationship?”

“How can I forget? You gave me the best put down ever.”

They both laughed briefly.

“The question still stands you know?” She said gently.

“And I’ve been far too much of a coward to answer. Yes?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“No but as time has gone by I’ve dithered and dithered about giving you an answer. Don’t we have a good thing going here?”

“We do my darling, we do. But this thing about the Hotel has just… brought it all to the fore again.”

Nina nodded.

Then she said quietly,
“Yes and Yes.”

“Eh?”

“Yes, to marrying you and yes to wanting to own the hotel. I just love if here. Damm it Belinda, I love you and I really have been too much of a coward to tell you. I love this area and want to stay here with you.”

Then she added,
“Fuck Jon Lord and fuck those numpties in Birmingham! We can do this!”

Dawn was breaking when Nina called a halt to their work.

“I am too tired to do any more,” she said as she closed her laptop.

“Yeah, I’m beat too.”

“Can we just review where we are before we crash?”

Nina chuckled. This was the Belinda she’d grown to trust and then to love.

“That is simple. This Adrian guy is kosher. He runs a very much in the background investment company. From the data, he provided and so far, it seems 100% correct these businesses are varied but the two common factors we have been able to determine are one, he invests in small businesses that have had real issues getting funding for investments from banks and two, he isn’t afraid of investing in businesses that are run by members of the LGBT community. That good enough?”

Belinda smiled and leaned over and kissed her partner and lover.

On the Tuesday morning, Belinda took some time away from the hotel and went into Exeter. There she paid for and received legal opinion on the draft contract at two different law firms. Belinda was amazed that both companies reported that it was a fair contract all around.

On the Friday, Belinda and Nina signed the contract and sent it by messenger to Adrian. Then, all they had to do was wait.

[one week later]
“I’ve just received this email from Head Office,” said Belinda to Nina with a resignation in her voice.

“Is that what I think it is?”

“It is. I think we need to call a staff meeting.”

“I’ll get it organised for this afternoon once the cleaners have done the rooms,” said Nina.

“Adrian was right in his assumptions, wasn’t he?”

Belinda nodded.

“Damm it darling, he was. Why do I feel so empty when I should be happy?”

Nina went and hugged her partner.

“As Adrian said, it is all down to the acceptance of his bid. If they reject it, then we are all up shit creek without a paddle.”

“And there is nothing we can do one way or the other. It is all out of our hands but at least we are trying.”

“I’d better let him know about the email but it wouldn’t surprise me if he already knows about the take-over, and the planned disposal of this and three other properties.” said Belinda.

Nina had to agree with her but could not help feeling if a huge great chasm was about to open up and everyone would just disappear from the face of the planet.

[to be continued]

Maxine is on the phone to her boss Sally on the Bank Holiday Monday evening. The events described in this part run in a parallel timeframe to those described in ‘Doing Business’.

“I want to do things right Sally. To me, that includes working out my notice. I don’t want to suddenly up and disappear. What if at some time in the future, I need to use your research team? I don’t want to burn my bridges and all that.”

There was silence down the phone.

“Sally?”

“No, I’m not some monster that you created. I’m trying to be reasonable and behave like an adult.”

“How about two weeks instead of a month?”

“That’s a deal then.”
Then she added,
“Thanks for all your help so far Sally. Well, both you and Jasmine have been instrumental in seeing what I need to do with my life.”

“Yes, Jasmine. The way she talked about things made me see a lot of things differently. A different perspective I suppose. But it really helped. Sort of like the icing on the cake.”

“Please tell her thanks and that I’ll see her soon.”

“No Sally. I don’t have any romantic intensions towards your daughter. She is a friend so Jasmines ‘Mum’ you don’t need to worry about me.”

Maxine laughed.

“Thanks again Sally. Will we see you as usual on Friday?”

“Ok, see you then, bye.”

Maxine hung up the phone and stood motionless for nearly a minute.

Then she called someone else.

“Hi Mum.”

“No. I’m in Chichester. I’m going to work a two week notice here. I’ve just discussed that with Sally.”

“Then? I’m going to work for Adrian.”

“Mum, I will see you on Friday evening. Then we can talk so get the curry in and we can make an evening of it. Ok?”

“That’s what I promised Mum and I intend to keep it.”

“Ok. See you Friday, bye.”
Then she added,
“I love you Mum and thanks for being there for me.”

Maxine had one more phone call to make but she would do that the next day.

---

Sally came down on Friday to Chichester for her regular meeting with her research team. They all knew of Maxine’s departure.

“As you know, Maxine here is leaving us at the end of next week. But, I don’t think that will be the last you see of her. She is going to work for a dear friend of mine. He and I have similar aims in business but we go about things in a different manner. But, from time to time, our paths cross. The report that Maxine did on the Hotel Chain has spurred my friend into making an offer or will be doing that very shortly for one of the hotels that they will want rid of. Well done Maxine. It has also opened up a new opportunity with my friend for Maxine and just to let you know, she has my blessing.”

There were smiles all around the table.

Then Sally said,
“To celebrate, I’m taking all of you out for Lunch.”

She looked at the clock on the wall.

“Yes, I know it is only just after ten but I think that there is time for you all to go home and get smartened up. We are eating up at the Racecourse. Our table is booked for one.”

There was a stunned silence around the table. Then Marta spoke up.

“What about the report I was supposed to finish today?”

“Marta, when the boss is taking us out to lunch then that does not matter,” said Ralph, the oldest of the team.

“Ralph is right Marta. Tuesday will do fine. So, people?”

The meeting broke up and the others went home to get changed leaving just Sally and myself left in the office.

“Don’t say a word my girl. I know that you don’t have a thing to wear. Neither do I. I only decided to do this on the way down here this morning. I phoned and booked the table from my car. Well Maxine, shall we go shopping?”

Two hours later, the pair were back at Sally's apartment with the clothes they bought. Sally had to stop Maxine going over the top with her choice but she ended up with a decent business suit. The cut of the jacket seemed to hide most of the fact that Maxine didn’t have any real girly hips but what worried her the most was the skirt. It was really tight. She’d never worn anything that tight before. What made it worse was that it ended well below the knee.

Thankfully, Maxine had brought the shoes she’d worn on Saturday evening with her. A quick trip into M&S procured her some stockings. Sally asked why not tights.

“Hips or rather the lack of them," replied Maxine
"As I don’t have any, tights start to sag after a bit of walking. I never noticed it before but wearing stockings on Saturday not only made me feel better, there is nothing to sag.”

Sally laughed but understood. The more she worked with Maxine, the more she realised what a find she’d been. She chuckled internally at how well her intuition had worked out but was also sad that her protégé was about to move on to bigger and better things.

---

Lunch at the historic Goodwood Racecourse where people have been racing horses for more than two hundred years was brilliant. They had a table that looked right out over the famous horseshoe shape of the course. Then the views to the north over the Weald were as brilliant as the weather.

Maxine was saddened to leave such a nice group of people. They’d accepted her into the team but now she was leaving them. She did appreciate the efforts that everyone especially Sally was going to for her. She made a mental note to try to do the same for others in the future. Being nice to people can pay dividends if used in the right situations.

---

“Hi Mum,” said Maxine as she arrived home that Friday evening. She was still on a bit of a high from the lunch.

“I’m in the kitchen,” said her Mother.

Maxine took off her coat and after hanging it up, she went into the kitchen.

When her mother saw her, she was shocked. She dropped the bowl of chutney she was holding.

“Maxine!”

“Hi Mum,” said her daughter smiling.

“What on earth are you wearing? You don’t go to work looking like that, do you?”

“No Mum I don’t. I bought this to go out to lunch with the team and Sally. We ate at a place that is part of Goodwood Racecourse. I had to look the part, now didn’t I?”

“It is… It is just that you… you look so lovely.”

Maxine went and hugged her mother.
“Thanks Mum. This skirt is a pig to walk in though.”

They both laughed.

“You look good my darling. I guess that you are going the whole way then?”

“Mum?”

“A mother knows her children. Part of being a mother.”
Then her eyes dropped.

“There was a point when you started working for Sally that I wanted you to see that you were doing the wrong thing and Thomas would come back to me. Yes, I know I supported you but… I wanted my son back. I hope that you will forgive me for having those doubts?”

“Mum! I know that you had a hard time accepting that I was going to do this. No one especially me expected that I’d get a job offer from Sally. Then things sort of snowballed. But these past weeks I became sure that Maxine was who I am meant to be.”

“Maxine…?”

“Mum please. I need to say this. Perhaps then you will understand?”

Maxine’s mother nodded her head.

“I was happy as I am…. Well perhaps I’d get some implants but generally I was happy being a man but living as a woman. Then I met Adrian.”

“Things changed?”

“Mum?”

Maxine continued.
“Adrian has offered me a chance to become my own boss. Not soon but in a few years. Then I’d run his company lock stock and barrel. The downside is that I’d need to become a woman and marry Adrian. Before you ask, Adrian is gay and I prefer women so yes, it is a marriage of convenience but it is the only way that Adrian avoid leaving his business to his idle, good for nothing family. This is why it will work.”

Maxine passed over the leaflet that Adrian had given her.

“You should know what this means with your nursing training,” added Maxine.
“It should add some context into what I just said.”

There was silence in the kitchen for quite a while. Eventually, Maxine’s Mother spoke.

“This is an awful big step to take you know. There is no going back once… well, you know that.”

Maxine leaned over the table and took her mother’s hand.

“Mum, I know all that but look at me now and then think how I was after I got made redundant. Don’t you like who I’ve become? I do. I’m so much happier now. It is as if the real me has come to the surface after all these years. I don’t know. Only a shrink can tell me that but be honest Mum, don’t you think I am happier now that I’ve ever been?”

“Oh Darling, it is hard for me. To lose a son and to get another daughter especially as the original one is giving me such a hard time.”

“I’m not Dawn and I will never be like her. These last few months in Chichester have really made me grow up. I have proved that I can do good work. My old boss was forever giving me grief no matter how hard I tried. Now I get thanked and even praised for my work. You really don’t know how good that feels especially after being told for years that I was a useless SOB. Perhaps Thomas was just that but Maxine is a totally different person. I am proud to be your daughter. I won’t let you down I promise.”

The two looked each other right in the eye for several minutes.

“Maxine… I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Mum, I know you do. I love you.”

Then Maxine sighed,
“But I am going to do this.”

“I know love but just be careful eh? There are only a finite number of times a mother can take instances of her babies coming home with their tails between their legs.”

Maxine understood the point her mother was trying to make.

---

[one week later]

“That’s it, I’m all set to go.” Said Maxine to her Mother.

“Did you pack the kitchen sink?”

“Mum!”

Then they both laughed. The ‘kitchen sink’ thing was a joke that was always played by Maxine’s late Father whenever they went off on Holiday.

They both hugged for several seconds.

With a small tear in her eye, Maxine headed for the Black BMW that Adrian had sent to take her to his base in Reigate.

The driver was Adrian’s assistant ‘Cliff’.

“Miss, welcome aboard. I’m Cliff,” he said as they left the town and headed for Devizes.

“Thanks Cliff. Can you stop the car please?”

He found a place to pull off the road.

Maxine got out of the rear and climbed into the front.

“I only ride in the back if I am with someone else or it is prudent to do so. Such as if I am wearing evening dress.”

Cliff smiled and shook his head. Maxine was living up to the picture that Adrian had painted.

“Is this a problem Cliff?”

“Miss, it is not going to be a problem at all.”

“Enough of the Miss. Maxine please. Unless it is really needed.”

“Understood Miss Maxine!”

“Drive on then James!”

Both of them had a laugh as they settled down for the drive east.

---

Adrian was waiting for them when they arrived at his home. Maxine marvelled at the size of the place. Her family home was a small 3-bedroom terraced house. This was huge by comparison. It even had its own in and out drive.

“This is some place you have here,” said I slightly overawed Maxine.

“It is a great place to live and work and convenient for London,” replied Adrian in his matter of fact manner.

“Well, to me it is huge.”

“Come on in and I’ll show you to your rooms.”

Maxine was about to question his use of ‘rooms’ rather than ‘room’. She stopped. She’d find out soon enough.

Adrian led her upstairs and into a large room at the front of the house.

“This is your sitting room. Your bedroom is through those doors. There is also your own toilet and bathroom and a walk in Wardrobe.”

Maxine was a bit in awe. Adrian saw this.

“The house was built in the late Victorian period. This was the lady of the house’s day room. Here, she could entertain her friends in here away from the men. I added a toilet and bathroom when I bought the house some years ago once I’d stripped the place back to bare walls and removed the changes made in the early 1960’s.”

“Thanks. I am sure that I’ll be comfortable here.”

“Good. Cliff will bring up your things. Take some time and get things put away. We will go out to a local pub for dinner if you are agreeable?”

“Yes. What time?”

“Seven ok?”

“Great, I’ll be there.”

---

Maxine started to put her things away but soon got diverted by that perennial problem, ‘what to wear’.

By the time virtually all her clothes were strewn on her bed she’d finally decided. She’d wear the outfit that she’d worn to the lunch at Goodwood. She’d grown to like wearing the very tight skirt with the longer jacket.

The evening went off very well and Adrian being the perfect gentleman impressed itself on Maxine. This was a very new experience to her and one that she could get to like.

The following day, they got down to business. Maxine was surprised when Adrian said,

“We will be putting in a formal offer for the hotel in Devon later this week. I went down to there and explained what was going on to the manager and her partner. They agreed to come in with me or rather us. They signed the contract with me on the following Friday and had it couriered up here.”

“I wasn’t expecting things to happen that quickly.”

“Neither was I but I indirectly greased a few palms with a couple of secretaries at their head office. That resulted in me getting a call telling me that several key board members were on their way to Atlanta. So, I went to Devon and laid my cards on the table. Where we are today is all thanks to you, you know.”

“I didn’t see any notification of the deal being announced on the news wires?”

Adrian smiled and thought, ‘she is very clued up already’.

“It will be more than likely tomorrow. There is a board meeting in the morning. The deal will be rubber stamped so a formal announcement will be made in the afternoon. They will need to sync it with the American company so that the LSE and Wall St are informed at the same time. My guess is Wall St will get the announcement at 5pm Eastern and the LSE will be notified before the market opens the day after.”

Maxine felt herself shaking.

“But… what if I was wrong with my projections?”

Adrian smiled.

“Then I lose some money and you learn a valuable lesson.”

Then he leaned over the table and took Maxine’s hand.

“Don’t worry. Your work was perfect. I could not fault it. If anything, it was rather conservative. With people taking more short breaks hotels like this will do very well as long as they keep up their level of service. That’s why the extension makes perfect sense.”

Then he smiled.

“Besides, as I said in Bath, the manager is like you. They are very LGBT friendly especially with their staff. The whole ethos of the place is to give really excellent service which is why they are so profitable.”

“How do you know this?” asked Maxine slightly confused.

“Simple really, I paid for Cliff and his wife to spend two nights there in the week after I received your report. I’d stayed there for one night but didn’t get the chance to get to the bottom of why they were doing so well. Nothing like a bit of first-hand experience to fill in the missing blanks. A few subtle questions here, a few there and a lot of the unknowns became a clear as day. It is amazing how many people who were staying there that week were repeat customers. They rated the place very highly indeed. That was more than enough to confirm what you’d put in your report.”

Adrian continued.
“This is very how I work. I get the background research done, check it, and if I like what I see, I do at least one bit of personal on the ground investigation before making a move. It does work believe me. You can only go so far with online research.”

“I have so much to learn,” said Maxine with a deep sigh in her voice.

“You will, in time.”

“But how long?”

“Enough but, the clock is ticking.”

Adrian’s matter of fact reply did worry Maxine. She wondered how he could talk like that about something so important. Then she wondered how she’d be if she was in his shoes. His slightly fatalistic attitude was totally understandable but still rather unnerving.

As had happened many times since she’d first met Adrian and before that, Sally, Maxine was troubled by two questions. Firstly, and always uppermost in her mind was the ‘why me?’ question. Why had she been so lucky in getting a job even though she was a total fake and then how lucky she’d been to have gotten the job for Adrian. Then the other question was ‘am I up to this and what happens when I fall on my face’.

She didn’t know the answers to either of them but from her expression when talking with Adrian was that she was going to do her hardest to not fall flat on her face each and every day.

[to be continued in ‘Forsythe Saga – Done Deal’]

Maxine continued her task of trying to understand the business and how Adrian worked. A lot of it seemed like magic to her but slowly his approach to doing business became clear.

All the time, the bid to buy the Hotel in Devon was on the table. Adrian’s lawyers tried to get a decision about the bid but for a while, they were fobbed off by the phalanx of Amercian Lawyers and Accountants that seemed to be pouring over every aspect of the UK Company’s operations. Adrian was perplexed as this should have been done as part of the ‘due diligence’ before the deal was signed. He wondered more than once if there was something in the books that was very dodgy.

Six weeks after the bid had been put on the table, the reason for the delays became obvious. Two of the former UK company directors were arrested on suspicion of money laundering and employing illegal immigrants. Jon Lord was also implicated in the wrongdoing.

Nevertheless, a week before Christmas, the bid was accepted.

[at the hotel in Devon]

“How much longer?” asked Nina for the umpteenth time that afternoon.

Belinda sighed.

“He will be here.”

“I want to know what happened.”

“We know that they accepted Adrian’s offer.”

“But what about him?”

“Nina darling, you should have realised by now that Adrian does things in his own way by now. He will tell us when he gets here. And for that we have to wait for the traffic between Brum and here.”

“I know but….”

“Yes darling, waiting sucks but we will get there just a little bit longer to wait.”

What the women didn’t know was at that very moment, Adrian was in Trowbridge picking up his assistant Maxine who had been visiting her Mother.

Two hours later, Nina spotted Adrian’s car pulling into the car park.

“He’s here,” she exclaimed.

“Good. Now will you sit down. Let the poor man get himself together before pestering him with questions ok?”

Nina glared at her lover but deep inside she knew that she was right as always.

Then Nina spied that Adrian had someone with her.
“Who the heck is that with him?”

“Nina, there are times when you need to learn to keep your trap shut. This is one of them.”
Then I added with a smile on her face.

“That must be his assistant or associate. Someone called Maxine did that report on us for him. We both recognised that it was well done when he showed it to us.”

Then Nina exclaimed.
“I think she’s like you,”

Belinda looked harder at the woman accompanying Adrian.

“I think you are right my darling.”

“We still really don’t know what he really wants from us.”

“Yes, you do my darling and so do the rest of the staff. Adrian hasn’t stumped up close to a million and a half quid out of the goodness of his heart now has he? Don’t forget that there is a lot more to come for the extension. He wants to get his money back and that is down to us isn’t it?”

“I guess so.”

“So, put on your best face and bite your tongue eh?”

“Yes Boss.”

“Good. Let us smile and go and meet our new boss or is that bosses?” suggested Belinda.

---

Adrian, ushered Maxine into the Hotel foyer.
“Don’t worry Maxine, they won’t bite.”

“But…”

“Just let me do the talking.”

Maxine shut up but followed him into Belinda’s office.

“Well, ladies we did it. We three are now the joint owners of this fine establishment.”

“But what happened to Jon?” asked Nina.

“Ah yes, him. Patience Nina. I expect that he will get his comeuppance in a day or so. The Inland Revenue will be taking a really deep and thorough look at his banks accounts especially the ones he had his fee from the takeover paid into. He does not seem to have thought about declaring the income or the tax due. Using a certain one of the banks in the Cayman Islands is going to be his downfall. It just happens to be a front for the US Tax People. They’ll gladly share all the gory details with our tax people. My sources indicate that he and two of the former directors have been laundering money through the Hotel chain for the last few years.”

“Is that all?” asked Nina.

“All? What more do you want? Half a pound of Heroin?” exclaimed Belinda.

“That would do nicely,” said Nina being serious.

“Again, my sources indicate that a good deal of that money more than likely came from the drugs trade. That is every chance that little scumbag will be serving at least 10 years in prison here. When the UK is done, the US will want to have more than a word with him. Apparently, he didn’t revoke his US Citizenship when he became a British one. As a result, he has to file a US Tax return every year. It seems that Mr Lord has not been doing that. My Tax people estimate that with all the fines and back taxes to pay, Mr Lord will be bankrupt even before the jail terms are included. They are sure that he is guilty of tax evasion.”

Nina visibly calmed down at the news.
“And to think I almost fell for his charms.”
She shivered at the thought of the past.

“You can put that behind you and maybe in time, you might even smile at it and consider it just part of life and besides, without him, you would not have met Belinda, now would you?” said Adrian.

Nina smiled at her lover. What Adrian had said was very true.

“Now ladies, this is Maxine, my assistant. You will be seeing a lot more of her in the future. She will be responsible for this place on my behalf. As you know, she did the initial report into the sale of the Hotel chain so I am totally confident that you will be in good hands.”

“But in the meantime, I think we should celebrate the birth of our partnership,” said Adrian.

Then he produced a very decent bottle of Champagne where they all toasted the future.

Belinda took Maxine aside a little later.

“How long have you been full time?” she asked.

“Almost six months,” said Maxine hesitantly.

“You are pretty good. Nina clocked you though, but that is probably because she lives with me.”

“You?”

“Yes me. I was once a man, a pretty ineffectual man but a man nevertheless.”

Maxine relaxed.

Then Maxine asked quietly,
“Will my running our end of the business be a problem with you?”

Belinda thought for a moment.

“Well, we wouldn’t all be here today if it wasn’t for you so I don’t think so.”

Maxine smiled.

“Then my first request is for you to get the builders in and get those quotes for the new wind updated. If we move quickly, the work could be finished in time for the summer season.”

Belinda smiled.

“You don’t hang about do you?”

“Why ever should we? The sooner you can start filling those rooms then the sooner you can start to own more of the business.”

Belinda could not argue with that.

“Please don’t think that this is the end of our investments in this area. However, nothing will happen without the buy-in of both you and Nina. I want our relationship to be more of a partnership than anything else. Adrian and I can see a good future for everyone in this part of the world.”

Belinda was slightly stunned by that revelation.

“Are Adrian and you an item?” asked Belinda.

Maxine smiled.
“We are but we want to keep it very much in the background until I get fully up to speed with the business. Adrian’s investments are many and varied. I am having a hard time getting my head around some of them. He does weave a complicated maze at times.”

---

[later in the car heading home]
“Well Maxine, how did you think that went?”

Maxine smiled.

“As well as could be expected. I think Belinda will begin to trust me if we can deliver what we have promised.”

Adrian smiled.

“Well my dear, that is all down to you, now isn’t it?”

“You make it sound so easy…”

Adrian laughed.

“I had to start somewhere. Don’t worry, I’ll be here to back you up.

---

Maxine spent a lot of time in Devon working directly with Belinda and Nina at the Hotel. The new wing opened in late July and was soon fully booked until late September. It was originally planned for June but some late changes to the specification put that back for one month. These changes were related to putting solar panels on the roof of the extension. The main part of the Hotel would be done in the winter during the quiet period.

Maxine had done a report on the viability of PV systems for Adrian and he’d accepted her findings without question. Alternative energy systems were an interest of his even before Maxine had joined up with him.

[At a Board meeting at the Hotel in early August]

As had become the norm, each of the three women took it in turns to chair the meeting. It was Maxine’s turn for this meeting.

“Now, onto any other business. Has anyone got anything?” said Maxine.

“I have one thing,” said Belinda.
“The Anchor pub down in the Village might be closing. The tenant is retiring and as the place needs a lot of money spent on it, the management company might not be willing to do that so it might come onto the market.”

Maxine smiled.
“And you see a possible investment there?”

“Yes. The place used to offer B&B accommodation. It was pretty basic by today’s standards but it could be a great place for our staff. God knows we have enough problems getting decent digs for them around here. Then we could offer our residents the opportunity to eat at the pub and charge it to their rooms. We could even run a minibus so that they don’t have to drive. There is a lot of scope there if we think about it.”

“You seem to have done a lot of that work, already haven’t you? What about you Nina?”

“I was surprised when Belinda brought this up, but on the surface, it looks good and could be profitable for us,” said Nina.

Maxine smiled.

“Then we need a full report with all the figures. Then we can consider the project as a whole. May I suggest that we don’t make it obvious to the management company that we are sniffing around. It might be better to let the place close before putting in an offer?”

Belinda laughed.
“That way, we can get it cheaper than if we took it over before it closed?”

“Exactly! Anyway, if we can get all the figures together. Thanks to Adrian, I know of someone who values pubs etc for a living. I’ll engage him to look at the place on the ‘qt’ and give us the costs if that is ok with you? This is your baby ladies but I’ll help out in any way I can.”

Both Nina and Belinda knew that Maxine would let them run with the project once she’d done her bit.

Maxine seized her opportunity to mention something that she’d been thinking about all week.
“I have one thing,” she said.

“I know that this might sound a bit strange but everyone here including both of you have worked wonders this year so I propose that we close the Hotel in early November and everyone and I mean everyone has a week off on full pay as a way of saying thanks for their efforts this year. It should coincide with the installation of the Solar Panels on the roof of the main building. What do you think?”

Belinda looked at Nina with her mouth wide open. Nina grinned.

“I think that it is a great idea. We can have a staff party as well. Then it will be heads down for the Christmas season. We are full right through December and most of January already,” said Nina.

“Belinda?”

“Can I come up with a cash-flow projection?”

Nina looked at her partner.

“We aren’t very busy that week. It is after half-term and I happen to think that it would do wonders for staff morale. Aren’t we ahead of forecast?”

“Yes… but… Oh heck, why not. We are already fully booked for Christmas and New Year then I can’t see how it can hurt.”

“Good,” said Belinda.
“That’s settled. Can you find a room for Adrian and me? I think another two pairs of hands might help over the holidays?”

“Eh?” remarked Belinda.

“I’m volunteering Adrian and myself to come and lend a hand here. We all know that the staff want as much time off as possible to be with their families so if we can lend a hand doing anything that can ease the burden on the staff then so much the better.”

“This is a bit unexpected but welcome,” said Nina.

“We don’t have to decide now but if you do the rotas and then do them again with us included you might be able to let those with families spend more time with them. Just trying to help out. If it means washing dishes then we are prepared to do this. But as with everything, you two are the bosses. If you say no then fine. The real reason I suggested it is that would get Adrian away from business matters for a few days. That man never relaxes. After a bit of dithering, he agreed as long as both of you are happy.”

Belinda smiled and nodded her head.

“Good. Then if there is nothing else, then I declare this meeting over.”

[Belinda’s office a few hours later]

“I didn’t see that AOB coming. Did you?” said Belinda to Nina.

“No, I didn’t but isn’t that what we have come to expect from her and Adrian. That’s the bit that I find so hard to accept. At business school, we were told all about the role that Venture Capitalists play in a business. We saw that with the sale of the chain but here we have a VC that is hands on but in a helpful way.”

“Could she be manipulating us?” asked Belinda.

“Look, if someone wants to get their hands dirty over Christmas and New Year for no reward who are we to argue. Have we reason to doubt anything that Adrian or Maxine has said or done since they took over? I can’t find one. Look my darling, I think we need to trust Maxine. I can’t see a devious streak in her. This plan to close the Hotel while the builders are in is, if you ask me brilliant. The staff will love it. She is right, we all need a break and before Christmas is perfect.”

Reluctantly, Belinda had to agree.

“Don’t get me wrong darling. You are right to try to find the negatives in this. That is only right but I think that she and Adrian really want us to succeed here. That way, they win and we win. Aren’t we ahead of our planned repayments to them? I think that we need to get it in writing from her that they closure won’t come back to hit us financially and we will be good to go,” said Nina.

Belinda looked at her lover and yet again, Nina had proven that they were a great team and that she was so lucky to have literally ‘bumped’ into Nina.

Less than a week later, Belinda informed all staff that the Hotel was closing for a week and that everyone would get paid for the break. Even Belinda was astounded at how much morale had improved after the announcement. Her only regret was that she hadn’t thought of the idea herself.

[January 2nd, at the Hotel]

“I’m glad that is over,” said Belinda to Nina as she finished the figures for the New Year.

“I thought we did well?” asked Nina.

“We did. Very well and that extra help we got from Maxine and Adrian was really useful.”

“I had my doubts but they just mucked in and got on with things.”

“Which is what they promised. Why the doubts about them?”

Nina sighed.

“I still can’t accept that they don’t have an ulterior motive for doing what they do here.”

Belinda grinned.
“I think they like us because of Maxine and me.”

“But? But that does not make business sense. Everything about them is business, isn’t it?”

Belinda leaned over and took her lovers hand.
“You didn’t see them working in the kitchen washing dishes until the small hours of yesterday morning. By all accounts they were having a great time. That does not seem to be all business now does it?”

“Ok, you win. They are the good guys.”

Belinda smiled.
“You are right to be sceptical because of the past but so far those two are more than doing their part and for that we must be thankful. Adrian and now Maxine have put a lot of trust in us. It is up to us to deliver and become the majority owners on this place.”

Nina stood up and embraced her lover.
“You are always so sensible,” said Nina.

“One of us has to be,” joked Belinda.

[Continued in Forsythe Saga – French Connection]

One of the many businesses that Adrian had fingers in was a 40% stake in a Vineyard in the Languedoc region of France. Maxine was still getting to grips with the affairs of the hotel in Devon when he said that it was time for them to visit it.

She looked up the location on the map and it was clear that it wasn’t the easiest of places to get to. A quick internet search revealed that one airline flew direct from London to Carcassonne a few times a week.

“Shall I book us some flights? They go from Stanstead,” asked Maxine.

Adrian laughed.

“Already booked for next Tuesday,” he replied grinning.

“But… they don’t fly there on Tuesdays?” She responded slightly confused.

“That’s because we aren’t flying commercial.”

“Eh?”

“Wait and see my dear, wait and see,” he replied grinning like a Cheshire cat.

Nothing that Maxine could do could persuade him to let on how they were travelling so she changed tack.

She started delving into the company finances. The old adage, ‘Follow the Money’ came to mind and that is what she did.

It didn’t take her long to discover a regular payment to a Business Charter company. Then, thanks to their website, she understood what was going on. Armed with all the data, she approached Adrian.

“I found this payment to this charter company. I guess we are flying with them then?”

Adrian smiled back at her.

“Yes. Well done. You followed the money. We subscribe to a Charter Service. That allows us to reserve a plane for flights like this. The subscription is a sort of membership fee. Depending upon how much we pay, we a certain number of flights at low rates in a year. If we want more flights after that, then we pay a higher fee. These are all based on flights up to two and a half hours. If we wanted to go across the Atlantic then another company could be used but for that I prefer to fly commercial and then get a Charter in the US to get us close to our destination.”

Another old adage came to mind when he’d finished telling her about how they’d travel. That was ‘Time is Money’. While they did spent a lot of time in the Office time wasted at airport Check-in and security and travelling to the airport, were not on his list of ‘good things to do with time’.

“Where are we flying from?”

“Farnborough. About forty-five minutes away by road depending upon the traffic. A bit less by train.”

---

The following Tuesday morning, Cliff drove the pair to the Airport. It wasn’t like any airport that she’d ever used before. They only had a few metres to walk from the car to the plane. The plane was a sleek twin engine Jet. This was the sort of plane that you see on films when rich people travelled. It was then that Maxine realised that she was in a different league. The figures that she’d seen on the balance sheets and bank statements all started to make sense. She was definitely in a different league now although Adrian was never flashy with money. Subtle was more like it.

The car that they normally used was five years old. Adrian’s and now her home didn’t have all the latest electronic kit. The Computer she was using on a daily basis was at least three years old and she knew that he’d had an old pair of shoes resoled and heeled instead of buying a new pair. Maxine was starting to learn about being careful with money.

She’d thought that she was careful with Money. Her Mother had drilled into both her children about keeping a lid on expenditure. Thomas/Maxine had always been a saver while his dear sister spent every penny she got either from work or as pocket money from their Mother.

Money had been tight after their Father died but even so and until now, the sums of money on company balance sheets had been just figures on a page. She started to realise that they were more than that. They represented people’s hard work and often their lives.

As the flight crew prepared for take-off and she cradled a glass of Champagne the enormity of the task ahead of her. It wasn’t just a case of upping her game. It was more like a total change in outlook.

---

As Maxine watched the French countryside change beneath them, she began to make a list of changes that she’d have to make to her life if she was going to carry on the business once Adrian… As she thought about the future she shuddered. She didn’t want to go there at least for the time being. She had to develop a hard side to her character. Her dear sister had always taken Thomas for a bit of a softie. Those days were over. Well, that was her intent.

“We will be landing in fifteen minutes can you please fasten your seatbelts?” said the hostess.

Her words broke Maxine’s daydreaming. She’d been thinking of how little time had passed since she’d been unemployed and was roped into going to an interview in place of his sister. She’d come a long way in that time. Now she was flying on a private jet to visit a Vineyard.

Maxine smiled back at the hostess. Her name was Ann-Lee and she was to put it bluntly ‘effing gorgeous’. Her uniform helped a lot but nevertheless, she was drop dead beautiful.

She buckled up and looked across the aisle as Adrian. He was as ever engrossed in some papers. He’d remarked many times that reading financial papers came easy to Maxine whereas he had to work at it. She’d already put her foot in it a few times because of that so Maxine had become more cautious about offering her opinion unless she was asked. She knew the papers he was looking at and importantly, she knew where the problems were. She’d scanned them the previous evening but she bit her tongue after all, he was the boss.

Ann-Lee went about her business of making sure that things were stowed away for landing. Maxine watched every move she made and fell more deeply in love with her by the second. She was all the woman that she dreamed of being. In the end, she looked away and went back to watching the scene outside. She saw the walled city of Carcassonne as the plane circled to make its final approach. Then she saw all the tourist busses and wondered if there was ever a time when it wasn’t mobbed by them. It looked like an interesting place to visit but only when the tourist hordes were not there.

All too soon, they were on the ground and the flight was over. It had been a very pleasant experience when compared to the budget airline Thomas had flown with to Tenerife a couple of years before.

“Give my thanks to the all of the crew for a nice flight,” Maxine said to Ann-Lee as they stepped down onto the tarmac. She smiled back at her. Maxine couldn’t decide if it was a plastic smile or a real one.

---

An immigration officer merely glanced at the couple’s passports and waved them through. A few steps and they were in the car that had been sent to pick them up. Being driven everywhere might be ok for Adrian but there were times when Maxine wanted to get behind the wheel and drive but today was not going to be one of them.

The pair were driven along the road that was signposted ‘Narbonne’. It didn’t take long before they were amongst the vineyards of the Minervois Appellation. Their destination was a few miles from the village of Minervois itself.

“We are here,” said Adrian as the car pulled into a courtyard. Two women emerged from a barn to greet us.

“Hi Adrian, so very nice to see you again,” said one of them.

“Hi Francoise, I’d like to introduce Maxine. Maxine, this is Francoise and Jules. They are the proprietors of this fine place.”

“Bonjour Maxine,” said Jules.
Jules was a stunning brunette.

“Bonjour Jules et Francoise,” Maxine replied in school level French.

“Come on inside, we have everything setup for you,” said a beaming Francoise.

Maxine appeared a bit bewildered and looked at Adrian for guidance.

“We will be tasting the wine from the latest harvest.”

Maxine had read about the latest ‘Beaujolais run’ a few weeks before. She couldn’t see the fascination with that stuff. Mind you, and to be honest, she’d rather drink a pint of ‘6X’ than fancy wines but Adrian was trying his best to educate her in what he called the finer things in life but if she saw some cans or bottle of ‘6X’ for sale, she’d buy them in a flash.

Jules led them all into the barn. Inside, there was at least a dozen large stainless-steel vats in two lines. Between them a cloth covered table was setup. On it were half a dozen bottles of wine. Another table was laden with food. Maxine thought that there was enough to feed twenty but didn’t say anything.

There were glasses and also plates of cold meat and cheese.

They all sat down as Jules opened the first bottle.

“Here we go. This is our ‘Syrah’. We think it is our the best yet,” said a beaming Francoise.

It was mid-afternoon before they emerged into the daylight. Maxine felt a little pissed but happy. The wines were brilliant. Well, her uneducated palette thought so. Their hosts were clearly dedicated to their craft. She’d felt it strange that two women were so passionate about wine until they’d explained how they’d gotten together when they were students at the Sorbonne in Paris. They were in a Restaurant and both had ordered a particular wine only to find that there was only one bottle left. They’d agreed to share it and thus began a friendship. Later, they became lovers and moved to work at a Vineyard in the Rhone Valley. There they’d learned their trade and were looking for a place to take over when they’d run into Adrian a few years before. He was on holiday in Carcassonne. The rest was as they say, history.

Since investing in the operation and on at least an annual basis, Adrian would come here for the tasting and to look at the books. It had become something of a working holiday for him.

---

The next day, Adrian and Maxine went over the books and pronounced that the place was making a bigger profit that ever.

Over another good lunch, Jules offered to pay an extra fifteen percent off of their debt to Adrian.

“Don’t you like me being a shareholder?” he asked.

“It isn’t that Adrian,” said Francoise.
“We don’t like having debts.”

Adrian smiled.

“What do you think Maxine?”

“Well, they have an admirable aim but it really shouldn’t be considered a debt.”

Adrian grinned.

“What do you mean?” asked a slightly indignant Jules.

“Well,” said Maxine carrying on.

“If you think of Adrian as a silent partner. At the moment, he owns around forty percent of the equity in the operation. That gives the two of you the majority holding so you can pretty well do what you want without him being able to overrule you. It is pretty obvious that you are ambitious and want to expand the operation here in time. That expansion will require capital. If you went to the bank to borrow the money, that would be a debt. A debt can be called in. Adrian’s investment won’t be called in. That’s why I don’t consider it a debt.”

There was silence around the table.

“Now, if Adrian were to fund the expansion then all that would change would be the amount of equity he owns in the business. As before you would pay that off using the same terms as before. Isn’t that a better arrangement that being in debt to the banks?”

“How do you know that we are looking to expand?” asked Jules.

Maxine smiled.
“There are what twelve vats in the barn where we tasted the wine? I saw the foundations for what looks like another twelve, possibly more but a significant expansion nevertheless. It was probably sensible to put in all the infrastructure at the outset but as far as I know, the biggest expense are the vats. That means, to expand production you will need to put more vats in and that needs money not only here but for the land and the vines unless you are contracting in fruit from the local area. There are other costs such as staff and transport to consider. I can see that you don’t bottle the wine here. I think that means that you use the local cooperative. That all involves cost. More production might also mean higher costs there because you could be competing for space in the bottling plant. Then there is storage of the bottled wine and increased transport costs to the customers. Am I good so far?”

There were no objections.

“I told you that Maxine was a smart cookie,” said Adrian with a huge smile on his face.
“She’ll be taking over from me after this visit.”

Then he added,
“I only told her about the trip a few days ago.”

There were appreciative nods from their hosts.

The day finished with a tour of the vineyard and then everyone sat down to dinner which consisted of some delightful local specialities including a Cassoulet made with Wild Boar.

---

The next morning, there was time for a bit of sightseeing before the flight home. Adrian suggested that they went to the coastal town of Sete where they had a great seafood lunch.

“Is it always like this?” asked Maxine as they sat at a table that overlooked the sea.

Adrian laughed.
“The weather down here is generally pretty good all year around but they do get some fogs rolling in from the mountains to the south. These used to be a problem for planes landing at Gerona but no longer. Apparently, the fogs are great for the vines but I’m clearly no expert in the matter.”

She decided to change tack.

“What time is our flight?”

“We are due to leave at five.”

“Do we have time to get something for Cliff?”

Adrian smiled.

“What were you thinking of?”

“Some of that delightful fig jam we had at breakfast.”

“That would be much appreciated I’m sure.”

With the help of their driver, they found some at a local Deli before heading for the Airport. It was then that they found that the return flight was going to be delayed. Adrian received a text message saying that the aircraft had developed some trouble and was still at the airport in Ajaccio, Corsica. It was expected to be with us at around 8pm.

As they waited for their plane to arrive, Adrian asked.

“What do you think of Jules and Franciose?”

“An interesting couple. They seem very determined to succeed in the wine business.”

“They are and they need it. There was a lot of opposition and even ridicule when two women turned up and announced that they were going to make wine. The wine business in this part of the world is very male dominated. In other parts there are women owners of estates or chateau’s but very few are actual winemakers. They have been going for six years now and their wine has improved by a huge amount. So much so that they just missed out on a Silver Medal at the Concours Général Agricole in Paris much to the chagrin of many local producers. Despite them being women, it was a general feather in the cap for the whole appellation.”

“I liked the wine but didn’t think it was that good. Perhaps it is not to my taste? Shows what little I know eh?”

Adrian laughed and took her hand in his.
“Don’t worry, you have plenty of time to learn. I knew very little about wine before I came down here for the first time on Holiday.”

Then he sighed.
“It was meeting with them that made me decide to change how I was doing business. Before that I was running the Family business but something was missing. Meeting them for the first time changed all that. I have a lot to thank them for and I hope that you will carry on it after I’m gone?”

“I will but I have some very big shoes to follow.”

Adrian smiled back at his protégé.

“I think you will do just fine. You are already exceeding my expectations.”

She really hoped he was right on that and could keep it up.

---

The flight eventually left Carcassonne at 10:20pm local time. The crew was just as anxious to get home as Adrian and Maxine were. Ann-Lee was very down. It was obvious to them that she was forcing a smile on her face.

“Why the long face?” asked Maxine once the plane had levelled out.

She sighed.

“Oh, nothing really.”

Maxine didn’t believe her at all.

“What is it really?”

She sighed again,
“We won’t get back to Farnborough in time for me to get the last train home.”

“Where do you need to get to?”

“Dorking, I live on the south side of Dorking and the last train from North Camp leaves at just after Midnight.”

She smiled.
“Well, we have plenty of room in our car. We are going to Reigate.”

“Really? I don’t want to cause any trouble?”

“I’m sure that it won’t be any trouble… Will it Boss?”

Adrian looked up from the newspaper he was reading and smiled.
“It will be our pleasure to take you home Ann-Lee. Relax and do your job and we’ll get you home.”

Ann-Lee breathed a sigh of relief.
“This means a lot to me, an awful lot. Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. We can go through Dorking just give us directions when we get there,” said Adrian.

---

The plane landed at the historic Farnborough Airport at just after 11:30pm. They were lucky as the tower normally closes at Midnight. Cliff was waiting for them when they came out of the ‘Jet’ Terminal.

“Hiya Boss, Miss. Didn’t think you were going to make it tonight,” said Cliff.

“Touch and go but we are here. We need to go home via Dorking. We have someone to drop off there. They will be joining us in a couple of minutes.”

“Sure thing Boss,” replied Cliff as they got into the car.

Ann-Lee joined them a few minutes later.
“Sorry to keep you waiting, I had to give instructions for the cleaning crew. The plane will be going to Oslo and Helsinki tomorrow,” she replied as she buckled up in the back of the BMW alongside me.

“Are you going with it?” asked Maxine.

“Thankfully no. I’m off until Sunday. Then it is Athens, Ankara and Kiev. Back on Wednesday.”

“All set in the back?” asked Cliff.

“We are,” replied Maxine.

---

Thirty-five minutes later, they arrived outside Ann-Lee’s home. A small terraced house south of the Town Centre.

“Thanks for the lift. It is much appreciated,” said Ann-Lee.

“Don’t mention it. We were happy to help out,” said Adrian.

“Thanks again, goodnight,” she said as she closed the door.

Cliff waited until she’d gone inside before he moved off.

“So that’s Ann-Lee then?” said Cliff.

“Yes Cliff, that is her.”

Adrian turned in his seat and said to Maxine,
“I tried to recruit her about eighteen months ago. She’d just left a ‘think-tank’ in the City after a bit of a scandal but she wasn’t interested in going back into business.”

“For my job?”

Adrian smiled.

“Yes and No. Yes, because I needed someone to work alongside of me and no because I didn’t think she was capable of taking over from me. That good enough for you?”

She glared back at him but she understood where he was coming from but the encounter with her had left an impression on Maxine.
As Adrian said goodnight to Maxine, he took her hand in his and said,
"You did very well on this trip. You handled the issue of the expansion very well."

---

Once Maxine had finished working on the internal report on the Vineyard she was at a bit of a loose end. Adrian was as usual working on some deal but it was too soon for him to share things with me. They had agreed that they’d only share when there was some possibility of a deal or investment happening.

“I’m going shopping,” she said to Adrian over breakfast one morning.

After a little groan he asked,
“Where? I don’t need the car so Cliff can take you?”

“Only as far as Redhill Station or I can take the bus from the end of the road.”

Adrian got the idea that this was a ‘me’ day.

“Don’t you… Oh never mind.”

She smiled at him.
“Were you about to say, ‘don’t you have enough clothes as it is without buying new ones?’”

He grinned back at her.

“Don’t forget that I’m a relative newbie to this side of the fence so to speak. I don’t have lots of clothes lurking at the bottom of my drawers or wardrobe. Besides, don’t you want me to look smart? I could revert to leggings or jeans with bits ripped out of them like pretty well every other woman my age?”

“Ok, ok. I get it. It is your money after all.”

Then Maxine leaned over the table and took his hand in hers.

“I have something specific in mind to buy and I might not even spend anything but fares and lunch.”

Adrian almost sprayed the mouthful of porridge that he’d just put into his mouth all over the table.

When he’d recovered his composure, he said,
“I’ll believe that when I see it.”

Cliff took her to Redhill Station so that she could get the train into London. Well, she wasn’t going to the West End or Knightsbridge but to Wimbledon. She had an appointment at 10:30.

---

Right on cue at 10:30, Maxine walked into ‘Emma’s Brides and Dressmaking’ shop in Wimbledon Village.

“Hello, can I help you?” asked the assistant.

She was standing in a shop filled with Wedding Dresses.

“Yes, I have an appointment at ten-thirty.”

The assistant looked in the diary.

“Ah, you must be Maxine Saunders.”

“That’s right.”

“The owner of the shop, Emma Francis, will be with you in a minute. Why don’t you have a look at some of our stock. You might get some ideas for your dress.”

Maxine chuckled.

“I’m not here to get a Wedding Dress although, they all look very nice. I’m not planning on getting married for quite a while yet.”

“Oh… It is just that… Well, most of our customers are here for Wedding Dresses.”

“Yes, Emma said that when we spoke on the phone. My requirements are a little different to that.”

Just then a tall woman in her early fifties emerged from the workroom at the rear of the shop.

“Maxine?”

I nodded.

“Yes.”

“Welcome to our shop. I’m Emma. Won’t you please come through to the back. I have one or two sketches to get us started.”

“Thanks,” she replied quite nervously.

The pair of them sat down in the workroom. There were a couple of sketches in a pad that was sitting on a large cutting table.

“I had to admit that your call took me by surprise. As you can guess most if not all our work is on Wedding dresses. We do lots of alterations but to be honest it is a long time since we made one from scratch. It would be nice to make something from the ground up again.”

“Thanks. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear. I’ll be wanting at least five dresses but with a few small differences between them but the main part of the dress will be almost identical for all of them.”

“Oh,” replied Emma.
“That’s nice. That’s even more of a surprise.”

Maxine took a deep breath and said,
“Before we begin, do you have an issue working with someone who is Transgendered?”

Emma smiled.
“You would be surprised at how many wedding dresses we supply to Trans people these days. So, no, it isn’t a problem.”

“Good. Shall we begin?”

“As I said, I made a couple of sketches to get us started. Based upon what we discussed over the phone I came up with this.”

She showed Maxine the first one.

Her heart skipped a beat. It was so close to what she wanted.

“That is really good,” She replied as she pulled her phone out of her handbag.

“This is what inspired me.”

Maxine then showed her a picture of Ann-Lee on the tarmac at Carcassonne.

“Oh, I can see it now.”

“That’s what I want but different if you get my meaning.”

“I think I do.”

The pair spent the next hour refining the design and getting measured. At the end of it Maxine felt that Emma had understood what she was after. Maxine paid her a decent deposit and left Emma's shop feeling happy with life.

Maxine found a café just around the corner from the Dressmakers and got herself some Lunch while she figured what to do next.

Over a bowl of soup which was excellent, she made her mind up. She would go home and then do a bit more shopping on the Internet.

---

A little over an hour later she arrived home.

“Successful trip?” asked Adrian as she walked through the door.

“What do you think?”

“Well, I don’t see any shopping bags?”

“That’s because I didn’t buy anything,” she replied stretching

“That’s not like you to come back empty handed.

Maxine grinned back at him.

“Next time I’ll have lots.”

“This came in the post while you were out,” said Adrian as he handed her an envelope.

She looked at it and instinctively knew what was inside.

[to be continued in ‘Forsythe Saga – Real Life Test’]
[Authors Note]
At first glance this episode does not fit in with the other parts of the story so far. Rest assured, all will become clearer in later episodes.

[One month after Maxine had received that letter upon their return from France]

“Hello, I’m Maxine Saunders. I have an appointment with Dr Hillier at 2:30,” said Maxine.
She was the offices of a doctor just off of Harley St. Adrian had insisted that she do her transition properly but privately. Today was her first visit to the Psychologist who would supposedly help her transition.

“Dr Hillier is a little behind schedule today. Please take a seat. She should be ready to see you in ten minutes. Please take a seat,” said the receptionist.

Maxine looked at her and mentally shook her head. From the bad hair colour, to wonky and obviously well past their best false eyelashes and even worse lip liner to clothes that would only be suitable for a twenty-year-old and not someone in her fifties, she hoped that she’d never ever get to look as bad as that.

Maxine shuddered at that thought as she sat down and picked up a glossy magazine. She put it down when she realised it was about properties in the country. Then her mind kicked in and she picked it up again.

Her interest was even more piqued when she saw an advert for a property in Reigate that was on the same street as Adrian’s house. She gasped when she saw the asking price for the house. It was close to fifteen times that of her family home. She’d known that their bit of Reigate was expensive but it hadn’t hit home until now just how expensive it was.

This one fact hammered home yet again that she was in a different league now. The fun days out with her sister when she pretended to be Maxine seemed an awfully long time ago. She was in a different world now and she’d never been happier in her life.

She smiled to herself when she remembered approving a contract worth almost half a million pounds only the week before.

---

When she was called into see the doctor, Maxine was almost ready to flee but she gritted her teeth and went into the Lion’s den or to be more accurate, the doctors consulting room.

“Please take a seat, Ms Saunders, said the doctor. Maxine sat and looked at the doctor.

“Thank you for coming to see me. I would not normally see someone without a referral but Mr Forsythe was very persuasive and I owed him a favour from when we were at University together.”

He looked directly at Maxine before continuing.
“Well, we are here now. Why don’t you tell me how Maxine came into this world and what are her desires in life?”

Maxine smiled and took a deep breath before answering.

“Some years ago, my sister Dawn and I would go out together with me wearing her clothes. I treated it as a bit of a lark. Even our mother was in on our little games. I didn’t treat it seriously but it was fun. Then a little over a year and a bit ago, my sister had a little accident the day before she was due to go to a job interview. To cut a long story short, I was persuaded to go in her place as Maxine. The plan was to pretend to be her my Mother said that it was wrong so I went and presented my CV at the Interview.”

Maxine spent the next fifteen minutes relating how she’d gotten to where she was today.

“That really is some story Maxine,” said the doctor when she’d finished.
“What about the future? What do you think it will hold for you?”

She thought for a second and then said,
“I wasn’t sure at first but as time went by and the people I was working with treated me as a woman and appreciated what I was doing I began to realise that Maxine was who I was. I mean really who I was and what I was...”

She paused for a second,
“What I was and to use a horrible business expression, what I was bringing to the table. That never happened with Thomas. Then,”

Maxine smiled again,
“Then at the beginning of last month, I was doing some shopping at Sainsbury’s in Redhill when I found myself being chatted up. When I got home, I tried to find any trace of Thomas in me. He was gone. Being a logical sort of person, I then weighed up my options. I was pretty sure what I was going to do in general terms with my life when Adrian offered me a job and a completely new direction to my life. It also confirmed what I needed to do for me. Nothing that has happened to me since has caused me to change that view. If anything, events since then have confirmed to me that I'm doing the right thing. Maxine is who I am and will be for the rest of my life. There is no way in hell that I'd want to be Thomas again. He's like some fuzzy doppleganger now.”

The doctor thought for a moment.

“You seem to have covered all the bases.”

Maxine smiled.

“I’d like to think so but I’m sure that there are things I have not thought of but they will come in time and possibly with your help and guidance.”

The doctor laughed.

“Many of my patients are nowhere near as determined and sure of what they want out of life as you clearly are.”

“A lot of that is down to my Mother. She has been testing me since I first became Maxine. A lot of my thoughts and decisions have been prompted by her.”

“You seem to have a really good relationship with your Mother?”

“I do. She has been a rock to me these past months.”

“Does she not mind losing a son?”

“Probably, but it was her who christened me Maxine. That would have been my name if I had been born a girl. To be honest doctor, when I look back, I was very much a non-entity as a male. When I went shopping for the first time as Maxine after my job interview, I felt good. I never felt like that when shopping for male clothes. Then it was in, get something and out again. Now it is different.”

“What about your sister? Wasn’t she pretty instrumental in you going to the interview as Maxine?”

Maxine visibly sighed before answering.

“My sister is a mystery. One minute she was getting her act together and going to University to study Law and then she got the party and clubbing bug. Now she’s living on benefits, doing nothing with her life despite having a young son to look after and to top it all, she hates me. She is still resentful of me getting the job that was apparently hers. I’m sure that she could have gone to the interview but to be honest I think that she couldn’t be bothered.”

“Do you have any regrets?”

“About taking her place? None in the slightest. I seemed to impress my old boss by my directness right from the start. She offered me a job but not the one that was advertised. Dawn is and always has been a bit of a wild child. I’m the more logical, sensible child.”

“Where is she now?”

Maxine sighed.

“She’s sofa surfing in Devizes or Frome or somewhere. Well, that was the last we heard from her. It is a shame really but she had a hard time when Dad died. She seemed to grow up pretty quickly and helped Mum a lot. Around the time of her ‘A-Levels’, she seemed to revert to a rebellious teenager.”

“How does that make you feel?”

“Sad. I know that she could make something of her life but she seems to feel that the whole world is conspiring against her and owes here a living.”

“How does she feel about you?”

“As I said, she says that she hates me. I don’t know if that is real or just a bit of envy.”

“Does that bother you? I mean how she sees you?”

“It does and it does not. It does because she is my sister. It does not because I know that both my Mother and I have tried to get her to grow up and face reality. So far, she has refused. Perhaps one day? I don’t know. I’m not her but if she needs me than I’ll be there for her. The same applies to our Mother but even her patience is wearing a bit thin these days.”

The Doctor smiled at Maxine.

“You seem to have a pretty sanguine view of the world?”

“As I said, she had to grow up pretty quickly after my Father died. He was killed when the helicopter he was a passenger in crashed as it took him out to an oil rig off the coast of Nigeria. He’d always told us that going to work was a risk and that doing his job was a risk. He’d been in the oil industry for all his adult life and had become one of the best if not the best wellhead engineer on this side of the Atlantic. We… we missed him and still do but he always told me to be myself and to look after my Mother. I am being myself now. Maxine is who I am. I have a great opportunity to make something of my life. Dad did it and so can I. We are different people but a lot of what he said to me when we’d go fishing on the Canal sort of sunk in. At the time, it didn’t but now his words make a lot of sense.”

The Doctor looked up at the clock.

“Sadly, our time today is almost up. I need to think on a lot of what you have said but honestly Maxine, if there were more people like you coming to see me then I’d be out of a job.”

“Eh?”

“Maxine, you are about the most level-headed person I’ve seen this year. I think a lot of that is down to your parents.”

“Thanks Doctor.”

“You have been living as Maxine for almost a year now. I could sign you off as having done your RLT but I rarely do that. Let’s say that you are ten months or so into your RLT. You are doing well, very well indeed. I will prescribe some testosterone blockers and we can take things from there. Then I’ll see you in a couple of months to see how the blockers are working.”

“Doctor?” asked Maxine.
“I’d like to wait on the blockers if I may. I want to get some of my sperm frozen. I really do prefer women rather than men and if… if I get into a long-term relationship we may want a child.”

The doctor smiled.

“Maxine, what did I just say about your level headedness? Then I will see you in a month to start the blockers.”

Then she thought for a second as Maxine stood up to leave.

“Please wait a moment Maxine. I’ll let you have the details of a good facility for storing your sperm.”

She did a brief search on her computer and wrote down the details.

“Here you are,” she said handing the details to Maxine.

“Make an appointment for one months’ time. If you have your sperm sorted then we can give you a full physical and then start you on those blockers and some low-level female hormones.”

Maxine smiled.

“Thanks Doctor. I’ll see you in a month.”

Five minutes later Maxine walked out onto the street. She was visibly shaking. The last hour had been harder than she’d envisaged. Then slowly a smile spread over her face. As she walked towards Marylebone High Street, she said to herself, ‘well done girl’.

---

Adrian was eager to hear all about the visit to the Doctors. Maxine was a bit reluctant to say anything other than,
“It went as well as I hoped it would. But, he said that I had my head screwed on right.”

Adrian was happy with that.

Maxine followed up on the sperm bank and with Adrian’s support donated what the nurse called ‘a good viable wad’ for storage. Maxine had not thought anything about it but once Adrian mentioned it, Maxine was sold on the idea. She knew that in her heart that one day, she would marry a woman.

---

[one month later]

Maxine returned to see the doctor for her second appointment. This time, she underwent a full medical so that the Clinic had a base level of data for later in her treatment.

“Maxine, I’m very pleased with all your stats especially the BP. If you are ready, then I’ll prescribe the blockers and a dose of female hormones to start you off on the next phase of your transition.”

Maxine grinned back at the doctor.

“It won’t be a bed of roses. You could suffer any number of side effects in the next few months. I have a leaflet describing them. Read it and give it to your partner. If you suffer any of the more severe ones then make an urgent appointment here. We keep one or two slots free every day just for this purpose.”

Maxine didn’t respond.

“Please promise me that you will do this? You are not alone on this journey. We are here to help as I hope will be your partner.”

“I promise Doc.”

“Good. Now you can get dressed while I prepare your prescription.”

On her way home, Maxine took a slightly roundabout way home and went to the dress shop in Wimbledon. Her dresses were ready for collection and she couldn’t wait to try them on.

“Ah, Maxine,” said the proprietor, Emma Francis.
“Your order is ready. Won’t you please come on through to the back?”

The two other customers looked at Maxine and then proceeded to look down their nose at her. They were dressed in expensive outfits which were a far cry from Maxine’s chain-store skirt and top. To her they were functional but she hoped that these dresses would up the stakes a bit when it comes to business meetings.

As Maxine walked through to the rear, another woman appeared from what was obviously a changing cubicle. The wedding dress that she was wearing was in Maxine’s opinion, hideous. The skirt was so full, it could have been from pre-civil war America or even late Georgian England. The wearer brushed past Maxine as if she wasn’t there. As she went into the main shop there were ‘oohs’ and ‘ahhs’ from the other women.

Maxine went into the back of the shop shaking her head. She hoped that her wedding dress would be a lot more elegant than that.

“Rather gross wasn’t it?” said Emma.

Maxine was unsure about how to answer.
Emma smiled.
“It is and I made it but the Mother is paying for it and her desires and those like her make this place possible. But is does mean that there are times when I have to grit my teeth, make the dress and take their money. Mrs Constance Hargreaves-Thompson is one of those times.

Maxine understood perfectly.

“Now down to business,” said Emma.
“I think that these will satisfy your requirements.”

Emma pulled back a curtain to show six dresses on a rack.

Maxine’s heart started beating a lot faster. This would be the first time that she’d had anything made for her.

Emma pulled one dress off the rack and presented it to Maxine.

Maxine’s smile told her that it was just what she wanted.

“Why not go and try it on?” suggested Emma.

Maxine didn’t say anything but took the dress and headed for another changing room.

A minute or so later, she emerged with a huge smile on her face.

Emma checked the fit and pronounced it perfect.

“Is it what you wanted?”

Maxine’s smile told Emma that it was.

Twenty minutes later Maxine left the shop carrying her dresses with a huge smile on her face.

---

Cliff picked Maxine up from Redhill Station an hour later.

“Been shopping then Maxi?”

“Sort of. I just collected something that I ordered a couple of months ago.”

“You seem very pleased with yourself?”

“I am Cliff. These are the first bits of clothing that I’ve had made for me.”

“I guess that Adrian will be pleased then?”

“He knows nothing about these.”

“Oh!” was all he’d say but he did it with a big smile on his face.

Adrian was involved on a conference call when Maxine arrived back in Reigate so she went upstairs and changed. For this reveal, she went the whole way and with different makeup, one of the dresses and tights and shoes. When she looked at the result in the mirror, she thought that she looked the part.

After a little bit of preening in the mirror she went downstairs.

As she went into his office, he looked up from the papers he was studying and said,
“Oh, you are back then?”

Maxine was about to tear him off a strip when she saw a faint smile on his face.

“You look very nice by the way. Very professional indeed.”

“Thanks. I wanted something that said that I meant business but also said that I was a woman, well looked like one at least.”

Adrian chuckled.
“You are all woman as far as I’m concerned.”

Then he added,
“How was the Doctors?”

“Very good. No, make that excellent. I have the prescription for the blockers and female hormones. I’ll go into town and get them tomorrow.”

Adrian got up from his chair and came around to Maxine’s side of the desk.

“You really do look the part. Not that you didn’t before but the dress makes you look so professional. So many businesswomen seem to think that they have to dress like a man to succeed. I have never thought that and seeing you like that just reinforced that view.

Then to Maxine’s surprise, he took her in his arms and really kissed her. This was the first time that Adrian had done that.

Once the initial surprise had worn off, she responded and the kiss became quite sensual.

When they broke free, both of them were smiling.

---

[three months later, at her Doctors]

“Well Maxine, I can see from your blood test results, that you are handling the hormones very well. Any side effects to report?”
“Just some itching here,” she replied pointing at her upper chest.

The doctor smiled back at her.
“That is to be expected. You are developing breasts.”

Her grin told him that she was pleased.

Adrian was just as pleased when Maxine told him later in the day. The pair went out to dinner that evening at a very nice place somewhere deep in the Sussex countryside.

[to be continued]

[Authors Note]
That’s all from this story for the present. There is a lot more to come but I’m having some issued with juggling some timelines and for once, I know where it is going to end. Getting there is a bit of a problem as my imagination is… shall we say, quite fertile at the moment. It will come but I’ll need some time to get there.

What Every Woman Wants (is a decent hairdresser)

The dust had finally settled from the purchase of the Hotel in Devon and the fallout from the fraud that many of the top people had been undertaking at the Hotel Chain. The new owners, Geo-Stay Inc had gone to the high court in an attempt to get the sale nullified but it was pointed out that Geo-Stay had almost two months of access to the fake books and their people nor their business advisors had found the errors in the accounting process. They tried and failed to sue their advisors who pointed out that they had told Geo-Stay in writing that the books looked dodgy and that they should walk away. That failed and left them with another very large legal bill to settle. It seemed that the American Company had forgotten that in the UK, the loser pays the other sides costs by default.

Apart from the criminal proceedings against most of the previous management team being taken, Geo-Stay instigated civil proceedings to recover the money that had been taken fraudulently from the company. The general feeling in the business world was that this move was strictly a face-saving exercise and that they’d have to wait in line to get the money. The ‘Proceeds of Crime Act 2002’ would allow the defendants to have their homes and all assets seized in the event of guilty verdicts being handed down in the criminal trials.

Adrian, Maxine and the staff at the Hotel in Devon watched on as it all unfurled. Many breathed a sigh of relief at how they’d escaped being caught up in the mess.

This event was a salutary lesson for Maxine. Although she’d done the initial research into the possible takeover the implications of things that businesses could and would hide proved to be an excellent lesson for her for the future. She resolved that in the future, she would look a lot more into the possible liabilities a company might have before recommending an investment.

Other than working on the Hotel, Maxine had been getting to grips with all the other business interests that Adrian had acquired over the years. Despite going with him on trips and being involved with decisions on business opportunities she had not done anything on her own. Adrian kept telling her not to worry and that it would come. He usually ended those conversations with the saying, ‘Rome wasn’t built in a day’. Even so Maxine was getting a little frustrated.

In order to placate her, Adrian gave her a pile of folders that related to possible investments that never came to fruition. He’d removed any direct reference to why he’d walked away. Her task was to work out why he’d said ‘No’. After a week of working on them she’d learned her lesson.

However, the first opportunity to come her way of a possible investment was almost under her feet so to speak.

Moving from Chichester to Reigate meant finding new places to get her hair and nails done. She’d only just found a decent place in Bognor that did her hair to her liking and it was time to leave.

On her second to last day at work in Chichester, Maxine took a few hours off with Sally’s approval and went back to Bognor to have a word with her hairdresser, Angie.

“Reigate eh? Far too close to London for me,” said Angie with a definite London twang to her voice.
“I escaped and I’m not going back,” she added.
“But let me think for a while I get Tamsin to do your nails.”

Maxine relaxed as Tamsin worked her magic on her nails. This downtime allowed her to think back to how nervous she’d been the first time she’d had her hair and nails done. Sally had come with her to a place not far from where she worked in Chichester. It had been an unmitigated disaster from start to finish. They’d clocked Maxine from the moment they walked in the door and had made it clear that the LGBT community were not welcome there and that there was a place at the other end of town that catered for the likes of Maxine.

This had riled Sally.
“And what about me then? How long have I been coming here eh?” Sally had said in a loud voice. Everyone in the shop turned to look at what was going on.

“You are fine,” said the manageress.
She was totally unaware of the trap that she’d fallen into.

Sally laughed and said in an even louder voice,
“I’m a lesbian and have been for twenty years.”

Then she took Maxine’s arm in hers and they marched out of the shop. Three people waiting followed her.

It didn’t take long for the incident to make it onto Facebook. The salon closed down less than two months later as customers went elsewhere.

After that event, Sally had taken Maxine to a place that she’d used from time to time that was close to her flat in Chichester. This was far more down to earth and therefore much more to Maxine’s liking. It was here where Maxine was having her nails done.

Tamsin had just about finished with Maxine’s first hand when Angie returned.

“I’ve made a few phone calls and this is the place I’d go once you move to Reigate.”

Angie handed Maxine a slip of paper. On it was and address in Crawley.

“It’s only ten miles from Reigate and has great reviews. I’d give them a try.”

Maxine had tried them out and once she’d gotten used to the South African accent of the owner ‘Bea’, her salon, ‘Bea Beautiful’ became a regular place for Maxine to visit. It was well located in the old part of Crawley, just off the High Street and only a few minutes’ walk from both the bus and railway stations. A car park was also just around the corner at the local ASDA supermarket.

---

Maxine was in Crawley for an appointment. She’d decided to change her hair colour.

“Hello Maxine,” said the owner Bea as she walked in the door to the Salon.

This was one thing that Maxine liked about the place. The owner, Bea knew the names and faces of all her regulars and greeted them personally when they came into her salon.

“Hi Bea. Nice day isn’t it?”

The weather had been unseasonably cold and wet but that day, was bright and sunny.

“Not bad. Cheryl will be looking after you today.”

“Thanks Bea.”

Maxine was sitting in the chair at Cheryl’s station when the Postman arrived with the mail.

Bea started going through the various items. From where Maxine was sitting, it was obvious that her mind was on other things. That remained until she opened one letter.

Bea read it and suddenly let out a whole string of heavily accented expletives in Afrikaans. Everyone in the shop knew that whatever was in the letter, it was bad news.

Bea had been sitting at the reception desk looking angry for some time so, when Maxine’s new light brown colour was taking hold, Maxine went up to Bea.

“Bad news?”

“Too dammed right. I’m being evicted.”

Bea thrust the letter at Maxine.
“At least that’s what I think it says.”

Maxine read the letter twice.

“That’s what is seems to say to me as well. You must get legal advice on this.”

Bea shook her head.

“I should have seen it coming. The bastard landlord has been evasive about giving me a new lease. I have six months to get out of here. All my hard work will have gone down the drain.”

“Can’t you find somewhere else?”

Bea glared at Maxine.
“This place is pretty cheap for a reason. I’ll bet that bastard landlord wants to put another of his Turkish Barbers in here. He has four in town already. How many more does this shithole of a town need eh? Five years ago, there was at most three barbers shops left. Heck, we even did a few cuts for men from time to time. Now every shopping area has at least one so called ‘Turkish Barber’, sometimes two. I wouldn’t put it beyond reason to find that there are more barbers than Hairdressers in the town now.”

Maxine let her rant. All the time, Maxine’s brain was starting to work. The last thing she wanted was to have to find a new place to get her hair, nails and lashes done.

“What am I going to do eh? There is no way I can afford a lease and pay the fees as well,” moaned Bea.

“Bea, I’m sure that there is someone in your customer base that would be able to help you find somewhere new?”

“Who exactly?”

Maxine bit her lip and went back to where Cheryl was waiting to carry on with her work.

Cheryl wasn’t happy either.
“It took me ages to get a job that allows me to get my kids from school. Bea is a great boss.”

Those words clinched it for Maxine. She had to at least try to do something.

---

When Maxine returned home to Reigate, she didn’t take the problem to Adrian straight away. She knew that the first thing he’d say would be…

“So?”

That one word would be enough to put her in her place. Like with the deal for the hotel, she needed to do some research and put a plan together before taking it to him.

Adrian could not help but notice the look of determination on Maxine’s face that evening.

“Care to share what is making you frown like that?”

“Eh? Oh sorry.”

Adrian looked at her obviously waiting for an answer.

“Not yet. Perhaps tomorrow?”

“Ok. Just don’t keep it to yourself for too long eh?”

Maxine smiled and nodded her head.

---

Over breakfast the next morning, Maxine asked Adrian,
“Are you busy with Cliff this morning?”

Adrian smiled.

“Is this anything to do with that thing you were so busy with yesterday?”

“Yes, it is and before you ask, I need to do some more research before I share anything. If all goes well then I may have something ready for later today.”

Adrian knew when any further argument was going to be fruitless.

“I’m sure Cliff would like a little trip out. It is going to be a nice day after all?”

“Humph,” was Maxine’s reply.

---

Maxine got in the front of the car alongside Cliff not long later.

“Ok, Maxi, where to? I like magical mystery tours?”

Maxine chuckled as she opened a folder on her lap.

“First stop is Northgate Parade in Crawley.”

“Your wish is my command.”

---

Cliff took Maxine on a tour of all the different neighbourhoods in the town of Crawley over the next two hours. At each one, Maxine took a brief walk past all the various shops. As she passed each Barbers Shop and Hairdresser, she pretended to be doing something on her phone but was in reality taking a photo of the shops.

“That’s all of them Cliff.”

“’Fraid not Maxi.”

“Eh?”

“There is the barbers shop on London Road. My Dad used to take me there every two weeks after school on Fridays to get my hair cut.”

Maxine could not resist the urge to laugh at the thought of Cliff as a child.

“Sorry Cliff but the image of you being dragged kicking and screaming to get your hair cut and wearing short trousers as well!”

“Very funny I don’t think.”

Once Maxine had seen the barbers shop she said,
“How many more are there?”

Cliff smiled.

“Just a few but why are we doing this? You go to the place in Ifield Road. As far as I know, you don’t have any complaints about your hair?”

“That’s just it Cliff. Bea is being evicted at the end of her lease. She suspects that the landlord wants to expand his chain of Turkish Barbers.”

“Oh, I get it.”

“Sorry Cliff. I don’t think you do. I’m looking at investing in Bea’s business and helping to find her a new place to work out of.”

Cliff smiled.
“Naturally. Today is a research trip then?”

“Partially. I’ve been on the lookout for a new location for Bea. Her present place is rather small.”

“Have you seen anything yet?”

Maxine sighed.
“No and that’s the problem.”

“What are you going to do next?”

“I’ve got to get everything together for Adrian. I said that I’d get it to him for later today.”

“He won’t mind it being a bit late. This is your first solo project isn’t it?”

Reluctantly Maxine nodded her head.

“Then take the time to get it right. He won’t bite your head off especially if you come up with a plan to take this forward.”

Maxine was quiet for several minutes.
“I’ve got such a lot to learn, haven’t I?”

“Don’t rush into it Maxi. Reigate wasn’t built in a day you know.”

Cliff’s little joke resulted in a smile from Maxine.
“At least it didn’t take a long as Rome to get built!”

That got a laugh from Cliff.

“There are plenty of vacant shops but…” said Maxine a little later.

“They aren’t really suitable in your eyes?”

“They aren’t and that’s the problem.”

“What about an alternative?”

“That’s the problem. I’ve tried to think of something but can’t get even a whiff of an idea.”

Cliff laughed.

“Stop worrying Maxi. It will come.”

“Have you discussed this with… with your Hairdresser? I forgot her name. Sorry.”

“Its’ Bea. Bea from ‘Bea Beautiful’.”

“Sorry. That’s a really good name. Far better than some salons.”

“Cliff. Can you drop me off close to the town centre? Near that bowling alley I think it was. I’m going to speak to Bea.”

Cliff just grinned and put the car into gear.

“Give me twenty minutes and be back here. Then we can go home,” said Maxine as he pulled into the Supermarket Car Park. Her destination was less than 100yds away.

“You are the boss Maxi!”

“Cut the crap Cliff. I’m not the boss and we both know it.”

“Yes Boss!”

---

Maxine left Cliff and walked over the High Street and turned into Ifield Road which was where Bea had her Salon.

After a brief hesitation, Maxine went inside. To her relief. Bea was manning the reception desk once more.

As Maxine walked in, Bea automatically began to scan the appointment book.

“I…? Wait, weren’t you in yesterday? Maxine isn’t it?”

“That’s me I’m afraid.”

“Did we do something wrong? Is your hair colour all right?”

Maxine smiled.
“It isn’t quite what I wanted but it will do for now. I’ve come about something else.”

Maxine’s words caused Bea to stop what she was doing, put down her pen and give all her attention to Maxine.

Maxine took a deep breath.

“If you remember, I was here when you got that letter about your lease.”

“Yeah. That was not welcome news.”

“Bea, I work for an Investment Company.”

“Sorry not interested. Didn’t you hear what I said yesterday. In a few months I’ll have nothing to invest.”

“Bea, I’m sorry if I didn’t make myself clear. We may well be able to help you find a new place to operate out of.”

Bea laughed.

“And get me into hock for the rest of my life? No way.”

Maxine could see that she wasn’t going to get anywhere fast standing in her shop.

“Bea, why don’t you come for dinner on Saturday. No pressure I guarantee it. Then we can explain things a bit more clearly.”

Bea didn’t respond.

“Bea, I come here because you look after me. I’d like to do something in return.”

“I don’t know.”

“Come to dinner. No strings I promise you.”

Finally, Bea nodded her head.

“Let me give you my address.”

Maxine opened her handbag and pulled out a business card. This was the first one she’d ever given away that had her name on it.

“Shall we say seven?”

“Can my partner come too?”

“Absolutely.”

Maxine smiled at Bea.
“We’ll see you on Saturday.”

Bea looked rather sad.

“If we can work together then you can continue weaving your magic on people’s hair. I really don’t want to have to find a new hairdresser ok?”

Maxine left Bea to think things over and returned to the High Street to wait for Cliff.

---

“Here you go,” said Maxine as she placed her report on Adrian’s desk.

Adrian looked up from his computer.

“I take it that there are unanswered questions then?”

His words deflated what little enthusiasm Maxine had left.

Adrian smiled.

“How about you give me an overview of the problem and what you are thinking of?”

Maxine briefed Adrian about Bea’s problem, her proposed solution. Finally, she showed him her report and the photos of all the competition in the area.

Her final words were,
“But there are a significant number of mobile workers in the sector. These go to people’s homes and do their hair. This is mainly for the elderly but I heard of one man who looks after men in the same way including giving them a wet shave.”

Adrian sat for a while looking into space. Maxine had learnt that this was his way of clearing his mind and concentrating on the matter at hand. It had frustrated her to begin with but once Cliff explained the behaviour she had accepted it. To her annoyance, she’d started looking out of the window from her desk but never focussing her eyes on one thing. It allowed her to concentrate her mind on a problem.

Eventually, Adrian smiled and said,
“An interesting proposal. Well done for taking the initiative here.”

“I don’t think I ever told you how I got onto the Hotel sale did I?”

Maxine had often wondered that very thing.

“I was on a train back from a meeting in Stafford. I missed my planned train so I took the next one but that went via Birmingham. Two people got on the train at New Street. They were obviously excited about something. We’d just left Birmingham International when one disappeared to the buffet car to get them a drink. Then the other one went to the toilet leaving a folder on the table between us. I took a brief look at the title on the folder. It mentioned the name of the hotel group and the words ‘preparing for sale’.”

“Was that it?”

“I did a bit of sniffing but essentially yes. I didn’t even have to look inside as it turned out. All it takes is a bit of information and you could end up with a deal. You just happened to be in the Salon when Bea received the termination of lease letter.”

“Why not call it what it is eh? It is an eviction?”

Adrian shook his head.

“Not quite right. Bea’s lease is running out. The landlord has declined to renew it. That is his prerogative. Bea has to leave at the end of the lease. To me, an eviction is where you are forced to leave before the end of the lease. It might be that the landlord wants to give her a helping hand so to speak…”

“Humph”

Adrian laughed.

“No Humph about it. The landlord was doing what he is statutorily required to do. He had given Bea good notice so she should not complain too loudly. I do however agree with you about the likelihood of a ‘Turkish Barbers’ shop opening there not too long after Bea leaves. We must mention to her to offer to sell the landlord the sinks and chairs. That would confirm one way or the other on that topic but we must not let those minor details get in the way of finding Bea a new place to ply her trade.”

Maxine finished taking down the note about the sink and looked at Adrian.

“You like the idea then?”

Adrian chuckled.

“It is not down to me to like or dislike. You are going to run with this all the way. I’ll be here to offer advice and any help you want but I think this should be your first real project.”

“Really?”

“Yes, really!”

“I… I didn’t think that you would let me loose so soon? I know we talked about this sort of thing but… Well I didn’t!”

“This is your project. You have at least a partial relationship with Bea so run with it. What is the worst that could happen eh?”

“We don’t find anywhere and Bea Beautiful goes out of business?”

“Exactly. There is very little financial risk until a suitable place is found. If it is another lease then again we would have very little exposure apart from some legal and fitting out costs.”

Maxine twigged onto what Adrian had said.

“You are prepared to buy somewhere then?”

“If needs be. That has to be one of the options. Obviously, it is all down to location as to the viability of other business using the premises but from what you say in your report Bea has a loyal clientele so looking outside the normal places for a site might save the day. I’m afraid it is going to need a lot more legwork. There is nothing like viewing a location and its situation to get an idea of what it would look like with Bea’s name above the door. I’d certainly do that before even thinking of contacting the agents acting for the landlord.”

For a moment, Maxine thought that Adrian was trying to take over. Then she realised that he was giving her some possible directions for her next moves.

“I get you. Leave all options open but not on the table?”

“It is your project my dear.”

Then he turned back to his spreadsheets.

After a few seconds, he looked up at Maxine once more.

“I won’t be needing Cliff for the rest of the week.”

Maxine smiled and took that as a sign that at least one more trip to Crawley was going to be required before the weekend.

---

“What’s the plan today then Maxi?” asked Cliff as she got into the car the next morning.

“Have another look around the town including the industrial areas and look for places not only to lease but for sale.”

Then she added,
“Look at everything.”

Cliff laughed.

“That’s what Adrian suggested isn’t it?”

Maxine hesitated for a second.

“Sort of. I want to look at all sorts of sites. Even empty fields if there are any that is.”

Cliff raised his eyebrows and smiled.

---

“I think we have driven down all the roads in the town now,” complained Cliff almost three hours later as the pulled up at a set of traffic lights.

“Time for a break and a review of what we have seen so far?”

“And some Lunch perhaps?”

“Good idea. Where do you suggest?”

“That Pub opposite Three Bridges Station?”

“Which just happens to be around the next junction?”

Cliff laughed.

“No pulling the wool over your eyes eh Maxi?”

The lights changed to green before she could answer.

---

The Pub wasn’t that busy so they were able to find a place to sit where they could talk softly and not be overheard.

“I’ve ordered the food,” said Cliff as he sat down with their drinks. Coffee for him and an Orange juice and Lemonade for Maxine.

“Did anything leap out at you?” asked Maxine.

Cliff sighed.

“Not really. Some of those small business units on Gatwick Road could be interesting but parking is the issue.”

“Cars! They get us from A to B but everyone else’s just gets in the way eh?”

“Nice one Maxi. I’ll have to remember that.”

“Pah!” was her remark to that.

“That car wash place we passed that was for sale might be good,” suggested Maxine.

“Isn’t that already a business?”

“I don’t know but the operators may just have a short-term lease until the place is sold.”

Cliff nodded.

“But what about buildings. Bea could not operate out of a shipping container?”

Maxine laughed.

“Do you remember that new development we passed? The one where we got held up by that huge mobile crane?”

“Yeah. I don’t know how it got down that road with all those cars parked either side?”

“Did you see what it was lifting?”

“Not really. I had to keep my eyes on the road. Red Traffic lights mean nothing these days.”

“Well, I did. It was lifting the marketing suite or whatever they call those temporary office thingies that entice buyers in!”

Slowly a smile spread on Cliff’s face.

“Ah! I get you.”

“Portable buildings come in all sizes. It looked like that was almost an off the shelf item. Two of those plus a twenty-foot shipping container for storage could make a really nice salon.”

“Time to head back to the office for some more internet sleuthing then?” joked Cliff.

“Not yet. Lunch and drink first. Then we’ll visit that housing development again.”

“Yes, Boss Maxi!” said Cliff with a cheesy grin on face.

---

“How was your little expedition?” asked Adrian late that afternoon.

“Frustrating, boring but eventually interesting.”

“You have certainly been hitting the keys hard since you came back. We could hear you in the conference room.”

“How did the meeting with the auditors go?”

“All done and the accounts are all signed off. I’ve never had them done so early.”

“You didn’t have my excellent assistance before now did you eh?”

“Ok, ok, don’t get too big for your boots. You will have to do this yourself one day.”

“I know and I have an excellent teacher who is preparing me for that day.”

“What did you find out?” asked Adrian changing the subject.

“I think we need to speak to an architect. They will know how to proceed or even if what I’m thinking of as a solution is possible.”

Maxine took out some photos of the possible new location for Bea’s business.

Adrian laughed.

“You can’t be serious?”

With a perfectly straight face, Maxine produced a picture that they’d taken after lunch. Luckily the crane was still working.

“You cunning devil! You let me walk right into that one, didn’t you?”

“Not really. Your reaction was just like mine until I remembered seeing the crane delivering that building to the housing development.”

“Don’t these things cost a lot?”

Maxine smiled.

“Not really and there are even second-hand ones on the market. The site has power and water which means that only some bits of foundation is needed and connecting up to the services.”

“If it were only as simple as that!”

“That’s why I suggested an Architect.”

---

[Saturday Evening]

Maxine kept pacing up and down in the Kitchen. The clock moved so slowly around towards seven. She had one eye on the oven, one eye on the clock and an ear listening out for the sound of the front door bell.
This was to be her first time as host. Adrian was taking a back seat on this one but he was ready to come to her aid should it be needed.

Maxine’s first panic happened when she could not decide what to wear. The last thing she wanted to do was out do her guests on the fashion front.

Adrian didn’t have to worry on that front. He’d just wear some decent trousers, a white shirt and have a jacket to hand.

He just grinned when Maxine told him of her dilemma.

“It isn’t too late to go back you know?”

Maxine glared at Adrian.
“Bog off!”

“Why not just wear the same sort of clothes as you used to at work wear in Chichester?”

Adrian got another glare as if Maxine was saying ‘Effing men just don’t get it’!

Nevertheless, Maxine chose a simple outfit for the evening. She didn’t want to overdo things.

---

Maxine’s level of ‘fret’ was climbing rapidly when at almost ten past seven, the front door bell rang.

She stopped herself from answering it. Adrian was going to do that. It was the easy way of introducing himself to their visitors. Maxine waited for them in the lounge.

“Sorry we are late. We got held up at the Level Crossing. They let two trains pass through,” said Bea as she saw Maxine.

“That’s all right. That happens a lot I’m afraid,” explained Adrian.

“Maxine, Adrian, this is my partner Nathan.”

Maxine was slightly surprised by Nathan. Bea was an African from Cape Town. Nathan was tall and very white.

“Pleased to meet you Nathan. We are both glad you came tonight,” said Maxine.

“Can I get you a drink?”

---

Once everyone had something to drink, Maxine said,
“I thought we might talk business first and then eat? Is that ok with everyone?”

No one objected so she carried on.

“Since I spoke with you Bea, we have done a lot more work. This is what we know so far.

Right on cue, Adrian removed a sheet that was covering a large board. On it was a map of Crawley, the photos of all the competition with string connecting the photos and the locations on the map.

“There is a lot of competition in the town. The number of barbers has grown rapidly. We discovered that ten years ago, there were only three barbers operating in the town. Two salons in the town centre were in addition, unisex operations.”

She paused for effect.

“During my travels around the town I saw this location.”

Maxine pointed to a site on the edge of the main Industrial Area of the town.

“This is currently a car wash and has been for selling used cars. The site is up for sale. There are no women’s hairdressers close by and it is in my eyes, perfect for getting clients from the offices and factories on the estate. It also has parking which I know is a problem at your current location as there isn’t any without paying heftily for the privilege.”

Maxine looked at her guests. So far, they were with her.

“This is what we propose for the site.”

Adrian revealed a large sheet of paper that had been folded over the top of the board.

“The site is essential a blank canvas. It has power and water at these points and most of it is already tarmacked.”

“But that is just two portable buildings?” remarked Nathan.

“Three actually but yes you are right.”

“Two of them are what builders use as ‘Marketing Suites’ on their developments. You know the place where the sales are made and then removed when the builders move on to another site. The third is a secure workmen’s store that would be accessed from the main part of the building and used as a storeroom. These units can come with small ante-rooms that contain things like a small kitchen and a toilet. The windows and doors can be covered by security roller blinds.”

“This all sounds very, very expensive?” remarked Bea.

“That’s where we come in. I’ll come onto costings in a minute. This proposal is based on the finite amount of time that you have left on your lease. There are used units available for almost immediate delivery. We spoke with an architect yesterday and he sees no problem in getting planning permission for a change of use for the site. Getting outline permission is essential for the purchase of the property to proceed. He also estimates that there is two to three weeks of work needed to get the site ready for the buildings then once they are in place, three further weeks for fitout to your specifications.”

“The timeframe is tight but doable,” said Adrian.
“I know of a couple of builders who can do the fitout given time.”

Nathan was nodding his head. Bea was looking at the photos of the units.

“Those buildings don’t look anything but temporary?” she remarked.

Maxine smiled.
“That is exactly what out architect said. He suggested getting them clad in additional insulation and then a cedar or larch exterior. Very low maintenance and would hide the original nature of the buildings. This can be applied once you are operational.”

Bea was still looking non-committal.

“There is no way I can afford this. Not in a million years.”

“Why don’t we sit down and I’ll go over how we work and the deal that I’m proposing?” suggested Maxine.

“Bea, firstly, this is your business and always will be. You run it. We are very much in the background partners. We take a share of the business and you pay us back over time from your profits. Remember, you won’t have any rental payments to make to your landlord. The holding company that we will form and you would sit on the board along with me, would own the land. Your payments to the holding company reduce the share of the business that is owned by Adrian and myself. Eventually, if you so desired you could pay us off entirely and own it all outright. However, many of our clients like to have an investor who is in it for the long term on tap so to speak and because of their knowledge of the business, are ready to invest in the business without the sorts of hoops and hurdles that banks put in your way today.”

“Sort of like a Dragon?” asked Nathan.

“Sort of but not so aggressive and very much in it for the long term and definitely not in it for any publicity,” replied Adrian.

“There is so much to take in?” remarked Bea.

“No one is asking you to sign on the dotted line tonight. Adrian and I have prepared a fully detailed information pack that tells you about us and how we work, the details of the deal we are proposing along with costings based upon both used and new units and a draft contract.”

Adrian saw the concern in Bea’s eyes.

“Take them to your accountant and get legal advice on it all. Then think about it and let Maxine know how you want to proceed. If the answer is no then we won’t pressure you in any way whatsoever. That is not the way we work.”

Adrian looked at his watch.

“I think the food will now be ready. May I suggest we eat and get to know each other a bit better?”

---

“How do you think that went?” asked Adrian as they watched Bea and Nathan drive away some two hours later.

“Nathan seemed to get what we are on about. Bea? I’m not so sure.”

“Exactly my thoughts. Bit of an odd couple.”

“That was my thought too until Nathan explained how they’d met and the fact that mixed race marriages can still be a problem in South Africa. It is obvious that they are devoted to each other.”

Maxine smiled.
“Before tonight, I could not imagine that being seasick over someone could lead to romance but our guests seem to have proved me wrong.”

“That is a good one to tell the grandchildren all right.”

Then Adrian looked at Maxine right into her eyes,
“You handled yourself very well tonight. Well done.”

“Thanks, but my heart was running on overdrive almost all the time. I’m not sure that I could have lasted much longer. I need a drink. Coming?”
“Good idea,” replied Adrian.

---

Neither Adrian nor Maxine heard anything from Bea or Nathan for over a week. They were not rushed. They had engaged an architect to draw up proper plans for the site. If Bea didn’t go ahead then it was not a huge amount of money down the drain. Even if this happened, Adrian reckoned it was good exposure to some of the contacts that he’d built up with various different trades and professions.

It was the Thursday of the second week when Maxine got a call from Bea. She sounded quite agitated.

“Can you come over now? The landlord is being a bit of a bastard.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can. Probably around forty minutes.”

Maxine guessed that this was the landlord wanting to know when Bea would be vacating the premises.

Adrian was at that moment on a train to Newcastle so that was little he could do at the moment so Maxine took it upon herself to phone their Lawyer.

“Mr Hall please. This is Maxine??? I work for Adrian Forsythe. It is quite urgent.”

The twenty seconds or so that Maxine had to wait seemed like an eternity.

“Ah Mr Hall. Do you remember that project in Crawley that we talked about?”

“Good. It might be that things are coming to a head rather sooner than we envisaged.”

“I just received a call from the shop. Bea told me that the Landlord was trying to put up ‘To Let’ signs over both windows to the shop thus cutting out almost all daylight.”

“Yes, I’m going to go and see for myself. I was wondering if you could join me there. It might be that this is just what she needs to sign on the dotted line. Naturally your advice on how to handle this situation would be most welcome.”

“I agree. Given the size of her business, she hardly needs a solicitor on speed-dial.”

“Ah. Good. I’ll see you there then.”

“No, I’ll take a taxi.”

“Bye.”

It was clear to Maxine that the landlord had really overstepped the mark with his actions as soon as she turned into Ifield Road. Both front windows of ‘Bea Beautiful’ had been covered up by two huge ‘To Let’ signs.

Maxine examined them and found that each one had been secured by twelve screws. These screws had gone right into the wood of the window frame. This was not good.

She took some photos of the front of the shop. She now had the before and after photos of the front of the business.

Then she walked into the salon. Bea was sitting alone. The place was really dark despite the sun shining outside.

Maxine could tell that Bea had been crying. She doubted if anyone could have survived what had happened that day and show not emotion.

Her first move was to comfort Bea. She sat next to her and put her arm around her shoulders. She felt Bea stiffen up for a second and when saw who it was, she relaxed.

“Why? Why did they do this?”

“To make a point. My solicitor is on his way. Then we will take them down.”

“The bastards had someone filming the whole thing just in case I reacted.”

“They are in the wrong and they know it. I expect that my solicitor and I will be making a visit to the agents named on the signs. If I had my way, the manager would be made to eat them right there and then.”

Bea managed a small smile.

“I’m going to fight this,” she muttered.

“Which is exactly what they want you to do. They want you to spend money that you don’t have fighting them. This is ‘Intimidation tactics 101’.”

“Why? The landlord has served me notice to quit.”

“He needs to make a point that he is serious about getting you out at the end of your lease if not before. By doing that he saves himself a lot of time and money to go through the courts to evict you. That would mean sending in the Bailiffs. That costs money. He can’t do that while you have a lease.”

“Everything was fine until the old landlord sold out to Ergun. Then it has been one thing after another. Just because I am a woman he thinks that he can order me around like he does with his wives.”

“Wives?”

“Yeah. He has three. One here and two back in Eastern Turkey. Well, that’s what I’ve been told anyway. One of my customers lives next door to him. The wife here can’t leave the house without him or one of his brothers going with her. She is one of those who wears the Nicab even at home. She is allowed to speak with my customer because she is also Muslim but does not wear the Hijab.”

Bea’s words told me a lot about Mr Ergun. We would have to tread carefully.

A few minutes later my solicitor arrived. He was not amused by the signs.

“This will not do,” he said.
“I will call a builder friend of mine. He’ll take them down right away.”

“Then what?” I asked.
“My guess would be that the landlord, a Turk by the name of Ergun will just put them back up again.”

“Then we will go to court and get an injunction to stop him.”

“Mr Hall? To be honest, I don’t think that will do any good. According to Bea, he had someone videoing the signs going up just in case she retaliated. He’ll either ignore the injunction or do something else. I’ve seen this sort of thing before when I lived in Trowbridge.”

My solicitor thought for quite a while.

“We have to be seen doing something. As the saying goes, you can’t let the bastards grind you down.”

“Mr Hall, I’m not sure what we can do. I really don’t have the money to sue him. What if we lose? It will make me bankrupt.”

Mr Hall smiled.

“Didn’t Maxine tell you? I’m on a retainer for her and Adrian’s company. Most months they don’t use us at all. This won’t cost you a penny!”

“Is this true?” said Bea looking at Maxine.

“It is perfectly true. Besides, I want to look after a prospective partner now don’t I eh?”

Bea didn’t answer that. She was saved by Maxine’s phone ringing.

“Hello Cliff. What’s the problem? Is there something that I forgot?”

“Oh! Yes, I know it. Why?”

“Really? That might be the answer to our problems.”

“What problems? Oh, the landlord of ‘Bea Beautiful’ has only gone and put ‘To Let’ signs all over the shop windows.”

“I mean all over. No daylight at all.”

“That’s what Terry Hall suggested.”

“Thanks for the heads up. I’ll take a look once we get this issue sorted out.”

“Yeah, enjoy your weekend.”

Maxine hung up. Then she realised that she was smiling and the others were looking at her.

“Sorry. That was my assistant Cliff.”

Maxine turned to Mr Hall.

“Shall we go to the letting agents and get this sorted out?”

“What about me?” pleaded Bea.

“My builder friend will be here soon. Tell him to wait until I call. Then he can remove these panels.”

Bea wasn’t very happy but she deferred to Mr Hall.

“Hello, how can I help you?” asked an agent when Maxine and Mr Hall walked into the letting agents shop.

“Who is in charge here?” asked Mr Hall.

“Eh? That will be me. Mr Jensen is out on a viewing.”

“Ok. Take a look at these photos and tell me what you think?”

Maxine showed him the photos of the outside of the shop.

“I don’t see anything wrong.”

“Look again. The hairdressers, is still a legal tenant and operating as a business. Those signs block all the light out from the salon.”

“Oh!”

“Yes oh. I have arranged for a builder friend of mine to remove them very shortly. I’ll be sending you the bill as after all they are your signs, aren’t they?”

“You can’t do that. They don’t belong to you.”

“Then I’ll remove them and bring them back here. Then you have not lost any property.”

“You still can’t remove them. The landlord would not like it. He was very insistent that they be put up today.”

Mr Hall smiled.

“Was he? That is very interesting. Those signs will be removed and delivered here shortly thereafter. If they appear again, then I will be taking the matter to the court and believe me, you won’t win.”

“I must get hold of Mr Jensen. He is dealing with that property.”

“Too late. I’m instructing my people to remove those signs immediately.”

Then he turned to Maxine.

“Come on Maxine, we have business to attend to.”

Maxine was not used to being spoken to like that but she knew from what Adrian had said that this was his way and it was not personal.

Once they were outside, Mr Hall phoned Bea and gave her instructions for his builder friend.

Thankfully, no one tried to stop the removal of the signs. Mr Hall and his friend delivered them to the letting agent which meant that no one could be accused of stealing anything. Bea was still in a state. She’d been forced to cancel half of her clients on the busiest day of the week. Maxine comforted her until it was time for Bea to close up for the day.

Maxine took a taxi home. She was still trying to understand what had really gone on. One thing was clear to her and that was when it came to legal stuff, she was well out of her depth. Her Open University Law Course was really aimed at contract law and not this sort of stuff.

She directed the taxi to take her past the property that Cliff had mentioned in his call. On the surface, it looked like a possible solution but given the events of the past day, it could not be that easy.

[the following Monday]

Maxine had spent the morning looking at a lot of sites on the Internet. Adrian watched on from afar. He saw that she had this frown on her face that meant ‘I’m in the middle of something… do not disturb!’. He left her alone knowing that when she was good and ready, she’d involve him.

In late morning, Maxine had left the house in Reigate after telling Adrian that she was going for a walk. He watched her leave and smiled when he saw her turn towards the town rather than the other way and the lane that led up onto the North Downs. He guessed that she was going to follow up with whatever it was that she had been busy on that morning. She was very much like him in that respect which was why they’d gotten on so well right from the start.

He thought back to the night when they’d first met. He knew beforehand from speaking to Sally that Maxine was something special. It had taken him all of ten minutes to not only get what Sally was on about but that she would be a worthy successor to him in the business. She was proving that was the right decision each and every day.

Maxine returned later in the afternoon. The weather had changed from the bright start to the day and was now dull and wet.

Even though her hair was wet, he could see that she’d had her hair done. He thought that was strange as she’d only had it done a few days before at ‘Bea Beautiful’.

Adrian welcomed her home and took her wet jacket from her.

Her only words were,
“I’m going for a bath. Then we can talk.”

Maxine kicked off her equally wet shoes and disappeared off upstairs.

---

Adrian waited patiently for Maxine to come downstairs after her soak in the bath. He saw the ‘frown’ on her face when she’d returned so he knew that her mind was churning. He was in the kitchen preparing their evening meal when he heard her coming down the stair.

The first thing he noticed was that the frown was gone.

“Sorry for being a bit uncommunicative earlier. I was trying to get things straight in my mind.”

Adrian smiled.
“Better to get them straight than to come out with a load of rubbish. Is your mind straight now?”

“Yes, it is.”

Adrian waited patiently.

“In the middle of all that kerfuffle… on Saturday over Bea’s salon, Cliff gave me a call. As you know, he shops at Waitrose in Horley. He noticed that a salon not far from the store is closing. The owner is retiring.”

Adrian smiled.

“And you thought that it might be a perfect location for the new ‘Bea Beautiful’?”

“Yes, I did. As Bea lives in Charlwood, it is just as far as Crawley is from home. The other good thing is that there is parking outside.”

“Is that where you went earlier?”

“Yes. Nothing better than doing a bit of personal research.”

“I guessed as much. Even though your hair was wet, even I could see that someone had done something to it.”

Maxine gave Adrian a punch on the arm. Then she realised that he was joking.

“It would be perfect for Bea. Lots more room that her current place. It would need a total refurb though. It looks like nothing has changed since…? Well a long time. The electrics are in dire need of work.”

“Did you say anything to the owner?”

“Nothing more than to say that I was new to the area and that I was looking for a decent hairdresser. Pauline… That’s the owner is retiring but would like to hand the business over to someone else. The client’s seem to be a lot older than Bea’s though.”

“What are you going to do next?”

“I think I should mention the alternative to Bea and see what her reaction is. If it is favourable then get her and Pauline together.”

Adrian thought for a moment. Then he asked,
“What about the lease for this new place? It would be silly for Bea to take over only to find herself in the same mess?”

“I agree. One snippet of information I did obtain is that the owner of the block has been trying to get planning permission to knock the lot down and build some expensive new apartments but the district council are having none of that. The three other businesses and the six tenants keep objecting. The developer has been told to find alternative housing for the tenants at the same cost and to accommodate the existing businesses in his plan. He even went to appeal and lost so it might well be a dead duck.”

“How did you find that out?”

“The local paper was very useful.”

“What deviousness are your thinking of?” asked Adrian.

“Me devious? You are the devious one here!”

They both laughed.

“It might be that the developer would be willing to cut his losses and run. We could be able to pick up the block and then there would not be a lease problem for Bea.”

“That would mean becoming a landlord then?”

“It would but after refurbishment of the whole block, we could turn it over to a management company to run but I’d make sure that it was the right one though and not the cheapest.”

Adrian smiled.

“We’d better get Mr Hall briefed then. Write it all up and send him an email with it all in fine detail. Make it for information only at this stage apart from getting him to sound out the agents for the developers about a possible sale.”

“Ok, I’ll do that after dinner,” suggested Maxine.

“This will be a while so get it done before and then we can relax.”

[two days later]

Maxine said goodbye to Bea outside the salon. Bea had met the current tenant, Pauline and the three of them had talked about Maxine’s proposal.

She sat in the car for several minutes collecting her thoughts. Cliff was waiting to take her home.

“Ok Cliff, we can go home.”

“Trouble Maxi?”

“No, not really. Best laid plans and all that.”

“Didn’t the two women get along?”

“Sort of. Their target age groups are the issue. Bea is used to doing the hair of people my age. Pauline’s clients are more my Mother’s age.”

“Ah, I get you. As you get older, your tastes change.”

“Yeah. But I think we can get this done. The problem will be refurbishing the place and keeping the existing clients happy. With some careful management, it can be done.”

“Having second thoughts about this life?”

Maxine chuckled.

“Just about every minute of every day. Sometimes I wonder when this dream will end and I’ll find myself back in Trowbridge and on the Dole.”

“This is real Maxi. People are depending on you.”

“I know it and I’ve just received notice that the purchase of the pub in Devon has gone through.”

Cliff laughed.

“No rest for the wicked eh?”

“Humph!”

---

[Ten days later]

“Ah, you are back,” remarked Adrian as she came into the house in Reigate and slumped in a chair.

“I just missed the Gatwick Train in Reading. If we hadn’t been held up outside the station for ten minutes, I would have had plenty of time.”

“How did the meeting go?”

“The first bunch of cowboys masquerading as builders were a total waste of space.”

“Why could you not have got the same team that built the extension?”

“We tried but they are fully tied up until next year.”

“Did you find anyone suitable?”

“That is going to be an issue. They all have five or six projects on the go. None can commit to be on site and working for the duration of the build. That is a frigging nightmare. No wonder those TV programmes that show up cowboy builders are so popular.”

“Welcome to the wonderful world of property development.”

“Don’t I know it. Yet we have a good bunch for the Salon refurb.”

“And people slag off Polish Builders something rotten.”

“I wonder if Zachary and his team fancy six weeks at the seaside?”

Adrian laughed.

“No harm in asking. Especially as the Freehold owner is playing hardball at the moment.”

“But we agreed a price. Half the money is in escrow. They can’t back out now? Can they?”

“They can if they get a higher offer. Which is what I think that they are trying to do. Then they’ll come to us and try to weasel out more money from us.”

“What brought this on? They were seemed happy with the offer?”

“I think that they thought that we were bluffing. That’s why they asked for a hefty payment into escrow. I would imagine that they got a bit of a shock when their legal people told them the next day that it was there. We should have asked for a one-month exclusivity clause. I forgot all about that.”

[one week later]

Maxine had been out shopping in nearby Redhill. When she returned she could tell that Adrian was pretty excited about something. She’d hardly put the bag of groceries on the kitchen table when he said,

“It’s ours!”

“Eh?”

“The new home for ‘Bea Beautiful’. The confirmation came through half an hour ago. They have signed the contract and the remaining money has been transferred.”

Maxine sat down, her shoulders slumped.

“What’s the problem? I thought that you would be so happy?”

Maxine looked Adrian right in the eyes.
“I am but this is all so difficult and the really hard bit is to come.”

“But darling, that’s why we have architects and project managers. They do all the heavy lifting.”

Maxine looked startled.

“Adrian?”

He didn’t wait. Adrian kissed Maxine properly for the first time.

“I wasn’t expecting that,” said a slightly breathless Maxine when they broke apart.

“Sorry but…”

This time Maxine kissed Adrian.

Neither of them said much but they knew that this represented a sea change in their relationship. Both of them knew that it had to come but certainly Maxine had not been expecting it to happen just then.

[two months later]

Maxine was with Bea as she prepared to open her new business for the first time. Part of the salon was still undergoing refurbishment but all the hard work had been done. The previous owner, Pauline was fussing with the piles of new towels that Maxine had supplied as an opening present.

“Ready to go?” asked Maxine.

“I think we are. The first appointment is in ten minutes.”

Maxine smiled.
“Then you should turn over the sign on the door. At least you can tell the world that you are open.”

The business had been closed for two weeks while essential work was carried out on the electricity supply and plumbing to the whole salon. Half of it had been re-decorated. A plastic screen separated the two parts while the builders finished working on the rest.

All their pent-up anxiety disappeared as the first customer arrived a few minutes later.

Maxine left a little later. Bea was clearly happy with being back in business. Her business was secure with a twenty-five-year lease all signed sealed and delivered.

The refurbishment of rest of the block had been started. The first two empty apartments were nearly done and would soon be ready for occupation. They were lucky in that some of the former tenants had left due to the uncertainty about the future of their homes. The existing tenants would be moved into newly finished apartment while their old homes were worked on.

Maxine felt satisfaction that the job was nearly done but it had made her cautious of investing in property like this ever again. Investing in companies was a lot more straightforward.

Adrian took her out to dinner that night to celebrate what he called ‘her coming of age’ in business terms. She was far more sanguine in her view of the matter. She knew that without both Adrian and Cliff to back her up this whole thing would have fallen on its face very early on. In the future, she’d have to face up to doing projects on her own once he was unable to help her. What she didn’t know was how far or near that future was away.

[to be continued]

Maxine was alone the Reigate House. Adrian and Cliff were away in Sheffield looking at a prospective deal. She was dealing with paperwork and the accounts. This was the one part of being in business that she hated but it needed to be done on a regular basis. All the businesses that Lorelei had invested in made regular financial reports. These needed to be collated and various profit and loss projections made. This, along with the expenditure of the business allowed them to see a picture of how things were doing with the business.

Adrian had been very patient with her when he introduced her to the intricacies of doing the books for the many different companies that she and Adrian controlled. What was hard for her at the start was getting to grips with the different requirements of other countries had for business accounting and reporting.

More than once she had proclaimed,

“Why don’t you get a bookkeeper to do all this?”

His reply would invariably be,

“I do it this way so that I always have an accurate view of what state the finances are in at my fingertips. My Father did it this way and it works for me so why change eh?”

Maxine knew that he had a good reason for keeping things the same but the sheer amount of time it took her every month to make everything balance was testing her patience to the limit. She knew that one day it would have to change. She had already investigated a computer-based accounting and modelling package but that would have to wait for another time. Until then it was all to be done by hand.

When the phone rang, she smiled. The phone call would provide some temporary relief from trying to find a missing £26.43 from the local business accounts.

“Hello, Lorelei Investments and Consulting?” said Maxine in her best ‘receptionist’ voice.

“I’m sorry, Mr Forsythe is not available today.”

“Not tomorrow either. He is away on business and won’t be back until Thursday. May I ask who is calling?”

“Oh!” she exclaimed when she heard the name.

“I will be sure to let him know that you called and will be calling again on Thursday.”

“Thank you, Mr Sansom.”

“Sorry Mr Sansom. I should have introduced myself. My name is Maxine Saunders. I’m his number two.”

“No, I fully understand that some things are best not discussed on the phone. I’ll tell Adrian that you called when I speak to him later today.”

“Thank you for the call Mr Sansom. Goodbye.”

She put the phone down and sat still. She was visibly shaking. She had just spoken to an American multi-billionaire. Furthermore, this man had wanted to speak to Adrian. For some strange reason, balancing the books was just not that important anymore. Maxine’s inquisitive mode kicked in and she set to work with a level of enthusiasm that had been totally absent before the phone had rang. To be honest, doing anything other than balancing the books seemed more important to her at that moment.

By late afternoon, she’d produced a two thousand-word report on Garth Sansom, the American multi-billionaire who had called them totally out of the blue. This included a timeline of all his major purchases and disposals, references to articles and profiles of him and a whole host of quotes about this normally secretive man. Direct quotes from him were almost as rare as hen’s teeth. She was in a bit in awe of him for getting to where he was without a lot of public speaking was an admirable achievement.

What she didn’t like was some of his more well documented habits after he took over a company. He invariably cleaned the house of senior executives. She understood why he did this. Most of the time, it was pretty obvious that it was their cockups and inability to take key decisions that had caused the problems in the first place. Then he’d appoint a new management team from outside his organisation. Almost always this resulted in a huge change in fortune for the company. As a result, he became very, very rich. In the few cases where this didn’t happen, the result was very messy. Those events had given him a fearsome reputation which made the call even more surprising.

The Caller ID that had appeared on her phone told her that the call had either been number spoofed or had originated from around twenty miles away in Farnborough, Hampshire. A reverse number lookup soon found that the call came from the Aviator Hotel which is adjacent to Farnborough Airport.

With her interest piqued even more, she checked the flight tracking sites and found that a Lear Jet that was registered to one of Mr Sansom’s companies had flown from an airport on Long Island close to New York to Farnborough the previous day landing at Farnborough just before the airport closed for international business for the night at 23:00.

The mystery deepened but nevertheless, she added all this extra information to her report. If truth were to be told, she enjoyed this side of the business far more than actually dealing with people and problems. She thought back to those heady summer days in Chichester and her first faltering steps in becoming a woman. All that seemed to have happened a million years ago.

There were some things that needed to be tied up but she felt satisfied with her work. She’d been so engrossed in the work that she’d totally missed getting something to eat for Lunch. It was too late for that now and too early for an evening meal so Maxine went out for a walk.

The route she took was one that she and Adrian had done many times before. It went up onto the North Downs and followed the route of the ancient ‘Pilgrims Way’. This was the route that people took when making a pilgrimage from Winchester to Canterbury. Now, much of the route was a long-distance footpath called the North Downs way. The views from the top of Reigate Hill on a clear day were stunning.

But, to her annoyance, the cloud base was low, very low. Even, the top of the TV relay tower was lost in the mist but the physical exercise was allowing Maxine to clear her mind.

As she reached the bridge that crosses the A217 at the top of the hill, she chuckled as she remembered the first time she’d gone walking after her breasts had healed. She winced at the pain of a badly fitting bra and how she’d literally fled home to her mother in tears.

Naturally, her mother did what good mothers do and sorted everything out. She’d taken Maxine to get her properly measured for a bra. The difference once she was wearing a good bra had made was as different as chalk is from cheese.

By the time Maxine returned home, she was feeling hungry. After a quick shower, she prepared some food. Once again, she gave thanks to the cooking lessons that her mother had given her and Dawn as children. The memory of her and Dawn throwing flour over each other as they were being taught how to make pastry made her smile but it soon disappeared as she wondered what Dawn was doing now. More than once she had considered hiring a Private Detective to find her but had chickened out. This was another of those times and that it might be better to let ‘sleeping dogs lie’.

---

As her food was cooking, she sent her report on Garth Sansom to Adrian along with the gist of his phone call.

It didn’t take long for Adrian to call back. Immediately she regretted not sending it until she had finished eating.

She saw his number on her phone.

“Lorelei Detective Agency!”

“Perhaps I should leave and do just that eh?”

This was a little game that they played with each other.

“Yes darling. I really do think it was him. He’s staying at the Aviator. That is the Hotel right next to Farnborough Airport.”

“What if he uses a phone that uses CDMA in the USA. That won’t work here as we use GSM technology?”

“Yes, I did tell him that you would be away until Thursday. What time will you be back on Wednesday?”

“That late?”

“No, I won’t wait up so just be quiet when you come to bed.”

“Yes,” sighed Maxine.

“The books are all done. Only a small discrepancy.”

“Small, less than thirty quid. I was looking for it when he called. I’ll get back on it tomorrow don’t worry.”

“Yes, I’m sure I’ll find it.”

“How’s your trip going? Have they said yes yet?”

“Oh, I see. Still more work to do. That is what you said might happen isn’t it?”

“Good luck for tomorrow. See you soon,”

“Bye.”

Maxine put the phone down and dashed into the kitchen. The potatoes were nearly about to turn into mush so she mashed them and added lots of butter and black pepper and her pork chop was overdone but still going to be eatable even though it was a bit tough.

While it rested, she fried some onions and garlic. Adrian was not a fan of garlic so when he was away, she could indulge to her hearts content just as long as she wasn’t meeting clients or worse, Adrian if he was due back that day.

---

[Thursday]

“Time to get up sleepy. You don’t want to still be in bed when Mr Sansom calls!” said Maxine as she shook Adrian awake. It had been almost one in the morning by the time he arrived home.

“Five more minutes,” muttered Adrian.

Maxine shook him again.

“That’s the last five more minutes you will get. Next time I’m tipping you out onto the floor.”

Adrian responded by pulling the duvet tighter around his body. All without opening his eyes.

Maxine turned back to applying her makeup. She was due at ‘Bea Beautiful’ just after nine that morning. A new set of nails and eyelashes were the order of the day for her as well as a touch-up of her ‘roots’ should Bea decided that it was the right time.

Ever since Jasmine had arrived for dinner with her and their mothers in Trowbridge with the longest lashes you could ever imagine and calmly told her mother that they were individual lashes and that they were staying for at least a month, Maxine had been a convert to fake lashes even if it meant regular trips to the salon to get them done again. She had struggled with applying traditional false lashes so these were a godsend to her. All they needed was a few strokes with the mascara brush and she was done. No more waiting for glue to dry or hoping that the ends of the false lashes stay put.

She thought about applying another coat of mascara but decided against it so she did her lipstick.

As she did so, she looked for any sign of Thomas in the mirror. This was not unusual. Ever since she’d had what little beard he had possessed, lasered away and a little bit of work done around the eyes Thomas was nowhere to be seen. When she was satisfied with the results, she stood up.

She returned to Adrian’s room. He had not moved an inch.

“Right, you asked for it,” she said defiantly as she gripped the duvet and pulled it off of Adrian’s naked body. He always slept naked. His reaction was just not quite fast enough and she won.

He opened his eyes.

“Did you have to do that?”

Maxine stood in front of him with hands on her hips.

“It is nearly half-eight. I’m due at the Salon at nine. Unless you get going now you won’t be downstairs before nine. What if he calls then eh?

How will that look?”

“So?” responded Adrian.

“His reputation in business is not pretty. Not pretty indeed. I’m not sure that I want to get mixed up with him.”

“Until you know what he wants, you can’t decide one way or the other. How many times have you said to me about rushing to conclusions and repenting at leisure eh?”

Adrian returned a look that told Maxine, ‘ok, I know, I know. Now stop nagging and get me some tea!’.

Maxine smiled.

“I’ll put the kettle on! You can make you own tea. I need to get going.”

Adrian grumbled something unintelligible but Maxine was able to guess what it was about.

As she left the house she called out,

“The kettle is boiling!”

Then she walked out the door and came straight back in.

She laughed. That had to be her ‘Doh!’ moment for the day. She was still wearing her bedroom mules.

The second time she left home she was wearing some proper shoes and was totally ready to face the world.

---

Three hours later, she returned with a new set of lashes to see through and a nice new set of nails topped by some dark blue polish. The colour had silver and gold flashes in it which had sold it to Maxine in a flash. For someone who normally eschewed bling this was as close as she wanted to go at being daring.

She found Adrian sitting in his part of the Office just looking out the window at the garden.

“What’s up? Did he call?”

Slowly, Adrian nodded.

“Well, what did he say? Does he want to buy you out?”

“No… Nothing like that at all.”

Maxine took off her coat and after hanging it up, she sat down next to him.

“Right then Adrian, spill the beans. What did he say?”

“That’s it. That’s the thing I don’t understand. It just does not make sense at all…”

“What does not make sense? At the moment, all you are saying is total gibberish.”

Adrian sat back. Then he smiled.

“I wasn’t expecting it at all.”

“Expecting what?”

“He wants my or rather our help!”

“What?” replied Maxine trying to stop herself from bursting out laughing.

“Is that all?”

Adrian looked at Maxine and then realised that she was joking.

“Ok, you got me. How do you do that?”

“I don’t know. It, sort of comes naturally. I was always able to do that to my sister.”

Adrian thought for a moment.

“He said that he heard about us in relation to Frederick Mangan.”

Maxine thought for several seconds.

“Oh, the guy behind Geo-Stay Inc?”

“That’s him. Apparently, Mangan is a business rival of his and has been for years.”

“So, what has that to do with us?”

“He heard what we did to Mangan and loved it. He thinks that Mangan took a hit of around fifty million dollars on the deal. According to the limited figures the Hotel Chain has to file at companies house, he’s loading up the company with debt and will more than likely bail out in a year to eighteen months. There won’t be much left. Oh, and he’s already sold all the land that the hotels sit on a lease back deal. That’s covered the losses he made on the take-over. Now he’s preparing the thing for a sale. I’d expect some ‘vulture capitalists’ will step in, load even more debit and exit leaving a shell that will more than likely go straight into liquidation.”

Neither of them said anything for a while.

“I feel sorry for the staff. They’ll all be out of a job when it folds. Who will buy such an ‘up the spout business’ eh?”

“That’s where Garth comes in,” said Adrian.

“Garth? What happened to Mr Sansom?”

“He asked me to call him Garth. That’s all.”

“Ok, so what is he going to do and how does that implicate us?”

Adrian smiled.
“Always right on top of it.”

“Naturally. And who trained me to be like that then?”

“Ok, ok.”

“So?”

“He wants us to front a company that buys what is left after Mangan bails out in order to rescue it and save the jobs.”
Maxine thought for a moment.

“That’s risky. That’s an awful lot of money to stump up.”

“It is indeed. There is a lot to do before this all happens.”

“But why does he want our help?”

“That’s what I thought. He said that it is a long and complicated explanation but he saw my next question coming a mile off. He’s sending me an email with some of the background. I was wondering…?”

Maxine smiled.

“You were wondering if I’d do a research job to see if he is telling porkies? Am I right?”

“Exactly. And he’s giving us a week. If what we find tallies up with what he told me then he wants to meet. He’ll be back in the UK on the eighth.

He’ll be flying into Farnborough from the States.”

“What did he say was the history?”

“I’ve been thinking about that. How about I don’t tell you and you do your job and then we can see how the stories match?”

“Do I get a gold star if I get the right answer?”

Adrian grinned.

“We’ll see.”

Maxine leaned over and gave him a kiss.

“You say the nicest things… sometimes!”

---

[one week later]

“That’s it, I’m done,” said Maxine as the laser printer burst into life.

“How many pages?” asked Adrian.

Maxine grinned and looked at the screen on her computer.
“Forty-Nine Pages and another ten in a spreadsheet.”

“You have been busy.”

“Frederick Mangan and the rest of the Mangan clan are very active bunnies indeed. If you thought that Garth Sansom was the bad guy, that lot are off the scale. Financial rape and pillage are the name of the game for them.”

Adrian didn’t react so Maxine said,

“Have you heard of the Hatfield’s and the McCoy’s?”

“Yes? Don’t say that the Mangan’s and the Sansom’s are bitter enemies?”

“You bet. I can find public records going back to 1825 of their feuding. Back then, they lived on opposite sides of the same Valley in Kentucky. They have been knocking each other off for generations. That stopped after the Mangan’s turned in the Sansom’s during Prohibition. The Sansom’s took down six feds in a fire fight. The rest of the family escaped into the woods. The feds spent two months searching for them but like a magician, they’d all gone.

When the feds had gone and things had quietened down a lot, the Sansom’s returned they blew up the Mangan homestead and all the outbuilding and killed most of their livestock. After that they seem to have called a truce at least from violence but they both went into business in a big way and became business rivals who love at getting one over on the other side… Even if it costs a few million dollars.”

Adrian was by now grinning from ear to ear.

“Read this…”

He handed Maxine a printout.

“This is what was in the email that Garth sent me.”

Maxine read it and laughed.

“So, I get a gold star then?”

“You do. Two actually.”

“There is a lot more.”

Maxine stood up.

“I’m going for a long soak. I’ve been hunched over these screens for far too long. Why don’t you read what I have produced and we can take this up again in the morning?”

Adrian smiled.

“Glass of Wine?”

“Red and large, very large please. A bottle of very nice Paulliac would be ideal.”

---

[the next day]

Adrian had worked long into the night going through the facts and figures of her report and spreadsheets. The level of detail in her analysis was amazing. It was the sort of report that companies like IDC and Gartner charge their clients thousands of dollars for. Maxine had learned a lot of those skills from the team on Chichester.

The spreadsheets listed all the myriad of companies that both families owned. Some of the acquisitions had hardly warranted more than a couple of lines in the WSJ[1] yet, Maxine had got most if not all of them recorded including references, previous SEC filings and links to long since defunct websites that were archived somewhere on the internet.

Most members of both families were strictly small time in both business and criminality. The declared incomes and expenditures just didn’t add up. Maxine had surmised that Garth Sansom and Frederick Mangan were supporting their families to the tune of one and a half million dollars each per year sometimes a lot, lot more.

Adrian sat back and smiled. This report was pure dynamite. In the hands of the right law enforcement agencies, a lot of people would get their collars felt and could even face jail time. How she’d gleaned all of this from sitting at a computer more than three thousand miles from where their operations were based was truly amazing. He did wonder if Maxine might well have access to sources of information that might not be truly legal. It didn’t matter to Adrian. The picture she painted was really vivid.

Then he turned his attention to Frankie aka Frederick Mangan and Garth Sansom’s business dealings past and present.

Maxine had even highlighted the instances when their business dealings had crossed. Most of the time they did not but it seemed that every few years, Frankie Mangan deliberately tried to interfere in a deal that Garth Sansom was involved in. He usually failed but in at least eight cases, the price of the deal had gone up considerably. Maxine’s estimate was that these activities had cost Garth some sixty to seventy million dollars extra to purchase these companies.

Then he smiled as he looked at the corresponding list of disposals and found that Garth had more than covered that extra expense incurred in purchasing a company when it was sold on. One of those companies had been recently bought by a huge multi-national at ten times the price that Garth had sold it for five years before.

Both men were billionaires and were feeding large sums of money to their families. Not huge but sufficient to keep their families solvent at least on the surface.

The final section of the report detailed how Garth went about business. As he suspected he was ruthless. For years he went about wheeling and dealing and taking no prisoners. He acquired a reputation for firing almost all of the ‘B’ and ‘C’ level management of any company he gained control of. The report also made it clear that his reputation for ‘slash and burn’ did not hold up if you took a 3 to 5-year view. As Wall Street works on 90 day forecasts and figures the long-term turnaround of the companies was largely missed by the market especially as the deals were mostly between privately held companies.

Maxine’s analysis also showed that five years after the takeover these companies were almost always in far better shape than before and with minimal long-term debt which surprised Adrian. These companies often employed more people than before and the profits swelled Garth’s already fat coffers. None of this was ever reported in the press, of that Adrian was very sure. Her report contained lots of cuttings about what happened when Garth took over a company but little about what happened one, two or more years later. Good news was not news.

He tried to put himself into Garth’s shoes. Keeping the bad-guy image would be to his advantage as long as the turnaround of the company he’d bought and cleaned house was kept out of the public eye. He assumed that a very strong NDA was put in place with all the executives of his companies. The costs of cleaning house were mostly well hidden

Adrian looked at the clock. It said 03:52. The night was almost over and he was tired yet elated. Maxine had done a tremendous job. Once she had got the bit between the teeth she had ran with it and the result was beyond his wildest expectations.

His problem was what was he going to do next. Garth was not due to call until Monday. It was Thursday already.

---

Adrian let Maxine sleep in that morning. He even treated her to breakfast in bed.

“I take it that you liked what I put together then?”

“I did. What you did was fantastic. No brilliant. Well done.”

“What’s next?” asked Maxine between mouthfuls of a toasted Cinnamon and Raisin Bagel.

“As you have worked so hard, I thought that we might go away for the weekend.”

“Where? Will it be hot? What am I going to wear?”

Adrian laughed.

“I’m just pulling your leg.”

“Good. I’ve booked us two tickets on the Eurostar to Lille and then by TGV to Tours. I’ve booked us into a Hotel that sits on an island in the middle of the Loire. A change of scenery will do both of us the world of good.”

“Relaxation, wine and food then?”

“Perfect. When do we leave?”

“In about an hour and a half. That ok with you?”

“Fine. How dressy do I have to be?”

Adrian smiled.

“I thought it might be nice to dress up tomorrow night. I’ve booked us into a very nice place in Samur?”

“How nice is very nice?”

“Two stars nice.”

“Oh. Then I’d better look extra good then. Are you taking your DJ?”

“That’s the plan.”

As Maxine drank some more of her coffee she smiled.

“Do you think that outfit you bought for my birthday would be nice enough?”

Adrian laughed.

“What they can’t see can’t do them any harm now can it?”

Maxine gave Adrian a kiss.

“Now get lost. I need to start getting ready.”

Adrian picked up the breakfast things and ‘got lost’.

Ninety minutes later, Adrian was anxiously looking at his watch when Maxine came downstairs carrying two large suitcases.

“All that for three nights?”

“Pack for every eventuality. Isn’t that what you do?”

He sighed. She had him there.

“Time to go then?”

The short break away proved very beneficial to both of them. Maxine slept a lot and Adrian for once was not reading reports and articles on business. Instead he had read most of War and Peace by the time they returned home. He was a speed reader after all but once he’d gotten into it, he slowed down and really began to enjoy the story although it was a bit bloody in places.

Both of them felt ready to meet Garth Sansom the day after their return from France.

---

Maxine was back in the groove before Adrian.

“Garth is flying in from Galway. His plane landed in Ireland yesterday morning and it has just taken off and from the map, it could well be heading for Farnborough.”

“We’d better get going then…” replied Adrian as he rapidly finishing his coffee.”

Cliff took them to Reigate Station where they were just in time to get the Reading train. This one was the fast service from Gatwick to Reading. They should reach North Camp in time to get a Taxi to the Hotel that was close to the airport and where they’d hired a meeting room for the day. Even so, they were cutting it fine.

---

“Hi Y’all!” said Garth as he was shown into the meeting room.

“You must be Adrian and you must be Maxine?”

He shook Adrian’s hand and gave Maxine a light kiss on the cheek. Neither of them reacted as this was his well-known way of greeting people for the first time in business meetings. Some women had complained but Garth responded by saying, “If you want to be a man then great. Dress like one and I’ll treat you like one. I’m complimenting you by giving you a light kiss. In some parts of the world it would be two or three kisses.”

That was just one of his ways that was not going to change.

“Please… Take a seat Mr Sansom,” said Maxine.

“Darlin! Call me Garth. None of this Mr Sansom PC crap. I prefer first name terms at people I want to do business with.”

That set the tone for the day.

At the end of the day, Garth said to Maxine.

“Maxine, if you ever want to stop working for Adrian here, just give me a call. I’ll have you on my top team in a flash. I really would not like to come up against you in business. You are far too well briefed.”

He picked up a copy of Maxine’s report from the desk in front of him.

“My enemies would pay dearly for what is in this. Yet you clearly got it all from available sources. If I was wearing a hat, I’d tip it to you. There are not many people who could have put that together on their own in such a short time. I can only think of one other person who could come close to your undoubted skill and she’s no longer with us.”

Maxine felt like that she was walking on ‘cloud 99’ let alone ‘cloud 9’.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence Garth. It is much appreciated,” said Adrian.

“No Adrian. Thank you. All the comments I heard about you have been confirmed today. You two make a formidable team. I’m glad that we are on the same side.”

For the first time that day, Adrian let his guard down and smiled.

“Now I’m taking you two out to dinner. None of this Hotel crap. I fancy a pub meal out in the country. Do you know anywhere good?”

Adrian thought for a few seconds.

“I know of a place that is about ten miles away. It fronts onto a Village Green where they play Cricket. It is in a village called Tilford. I nearly bought a house there a few years back.”

Garth grinned.

“That’s the sort of place I’m taking about.”

The meal was a great success. Garth even drank the local bitter. At the end of the evening, Garth said,

“Are you ready to help me put one over on my arch nemesis?”

Adrian looked at Maxine who smiled.

“I think so. We are willing to go with the plan that we agreed.”

“Good. I’ll set the wheels in motion at my end when I get back home. You know what you need to do?”

“We do and we’ll got on it in the morning. In the meantime, we have to hope that Frankie Mangan does not get wind of what is going on…” said Adrian.

Garth shook his head.

“As I said, he’s a bit busy in Minneapolis dealing with a Union problem at a place he owns. Well, if he will try to impose a ten percent pay cut just to make the books look good for a sale then there is little wonder that the Teamsters are angry. My sources tell me that he flew in there last night and will have to sit down with the Union by the end of the week. The blockade that they have put on shipping any cargo going to or from all Mangan owned companies is starting to hurt and, hurt real bad if you get my meaning.”

“Oh, and before you ask, this is none of my doing at all. He’s brought this all on himself. The world knows that the Unions back home and I generally don’t see eye-to-eye on a whole range of things, but I’d never impose a unilateral pay cut on any of the Union members who work for me. That is just asking for trouble.”

Then he stepped up to Maxine and gave her a kiss on both cheeks. She went a bit red in the face.

“Don’t forget little lady. If you get tired of Adrian and want a new challenge then give me a call. I’d be honoured to have you at my side when doing business.”

Maxine was quiet for much of the following day. Her mind was still on the meeting with Garth. Adrian let her be and got on with setting up the company that they were going to use as a vehicle to buy the Hotel Chain for Garth.

[to be continued in ‘Business is not all plain sailing’]

[Authors Note]
Garth Sansom will be a major character in a forthcoming tale called “What Story?”

[1] WSJ = The Wall Street journal.

There is a saying that goes something along the lines of ‘The best laid plans of mice and men’. There is another one that thanks to Monty Python, has become common place. That is ‘No one expects the Spanish Inquisition’.
No one in the business world expected Frankie Mangan to do what he did a few weeks after the meeting between Garth, Maxine and Adrian.

Mr Mangan flew into the UK in his private Boeing 767 direct from Chicago and spent a day locked away with lawyers in London. He’d recently had to give in to the Teamsters and re-instate the pay cut or they’d literally freeze many of his businesses into bankruptcy. Then he went to ground somewhere in the US Mid-West until…

A week later, Garth had sent them an email suggesting that something was afoot with in the Mangan ‘empire’. He’d said that he might be coming their way which piqued their interest.

Maxine was using the same aircraft flight tracking website as she’d used to track where Garth was to track Frankie Mangan. Frankie Mangan had two Boeing 767’s at his disposal. One was in Texas for an overhaul and the other had flown from Memphis to Chicago and then flew to Madrid overnight. After twelve hours on the ground in Madrid, it had flown north and landed at Stanstead Airport. After that, Maxine had lost track of him until just after the London Stock Market closed a rumour appeared on the newswires about a possible takeover involving Geo-Stay Inc.

As a result of this rumour, shares in the two main operators in that segment in the UK immediately took a dive. They were both down some 15% in after-hours trading. The prospect of Geo-Stay taking over one of their biggest competitors was bad news for all concerned.

That evening, the Financial journalists were set to work to find out if there was any truth in the rumour. The early morning business news had confirmed sightings of him and his entourage going into the City offices of his Lawyers.

Something was afoot but no one knew what it was. The rumour mill was working overtime but lips were remaining tightly sealed. Nothing concrete was leaking.

Adrian emailed what little information they had to Garth. He had little more to add at that time except for Adrian and Maxine to keep on watch. He also said that his sources on Wall Street and in Kentucky were also totally in the dark.

For most of the next day, either Adrian or Maxine was glued to the newswires and stock exchange data feeds. The shares in Hotel groups that were quoted in London and in Frankfurt continued on their downward trend. One of them was down a further 25% on the previous days’ closing price. The market was understandably nervous.

---

The London market closed that afternoon with no more news about a takeover. Just as everyone was going home for the day, the bombshell hit.

News was flashed across the main feeds of Bloomberg and Reuters. Geo-Stay was liquidating their UK operations with immediate effect.

The previously depressed shares in Hotel groups rallied in a flurry of after-hours trading immediately on the news. There was no takeover in the offing. Everyone had it wrong, totally wrong.

By the time Wall St closed that evening speculation was rife on both sides of the Atlantic as to the reasons why this course of action had been taken.

Garth video-called Adrian and Maxine after Wall St had closed for the day.

“Do you have any news on why this is happening?” asked Adrian.

“I do but it is not confirmed yet and may not be until tomorrow,” replied Garth.
“My sources tell me that he has a been hit with huge tax bill which will need paying sooner rather than later. The last thing he needs is a full IRS Audit of all of his enterprises. Writing off the value of the UK operations will more than cover that tax bill.”

“That’s what Donald Trump did isn’t it?” said Maxine.

“Almost,” replied Garth.
“One of his bankruptcies was estimated to have absolved him from paying Income Tax for eighteen years. Now he claims that he is a billionaire. Pah!”

Adrian had to chuckle as the derision coming from a billionaire about another one.

“So Frankie Mangan gets away with possible jail time and close on a thousand or more people are suddenly out of work?” asked Adrian.

“On the surface, it looks that way,” replied Garth.
“I’m flying over tomorrow. Now that he’s put the company into liquidation, he no longer controls the company. The Administrator is in charge and he has little say in how the assets are disposed of other than to get the best value for creditors. If we move quickly we can snap the whole thing up for less than 50cents on the dollar.”

Adrian shook his head and said,
“It can’t be that easy can it?”

Garth laughed.
“It won’t be easy believe me but in principle it is pretty simple. If I offer seventy-five cents on the dollar he’ll still get a whacking tax bill when he takes the residue back to the USA. Remember, I’m finding this from money that is already domiciled in Europe. I’ll be stopping in Dublin tomorrow evening then going to see my bank about getting the funds over to their London Office. I’m going to go in hard here. I’ll pay whatever it takes to get control of the group. Frankie won’t like it but there is little he can do about it but take the money and take the tax hit when he takes it back into the States.”

“Garth, let me get this clear,” asked Maxine.
“You are willing to pay a large premium to get one over on Frankie?”

Garth laughed.
“Yes I am. That’s the way of the world where I come from. But as I said to you, I’m looking at properly turning this group around unlike Frankie whoose sole aim was to run it into the ground, load it with debt and bail out with a profit. It will need a good deal of investment to rectify the damage he’s done since he took it over but I’m not going to sell out overnight. Besides, even if I lost everything on the deal, it is less than three percent of my net wealth. I didn’t get where I am today by not taking risks and this is not a risk believe me.”

“Oh, and as I said, he has to pay the Tax on the money when he takes it back into the country and then he still has to pay the tax bill. That is a win-win in my book. There is nothing the Mangan clan like less than paying Uncle Sam. They’ve been tax dodgers since the days of the Confederacy and he’ll lose a lot of face inside his family and then even more when he finds out who is buying his former assets for literally cents on the dollar will really rub his nose in it. That is a big win for me.”

“What do you need us to do?”

“Nothing at the moment I’m afraid. He’s out manoeuvred us in that respect. I have engaged a firm of Lawyers in London to start the ball rolling with regard to buying the group as a single entity. Naturally, if I succeed, I’ll be cleaning house at the top. They are all Geo-Stay appointees and some of them are on secondment from over here. They’ll all have to go at the very least.”

“Thanks Garth. If you need our help then just let us know.”

“Hey, you guys are the best there is. I would not like to come up against you in business. I have learned a lot from both of you during that day we spent together. That report of yours Maxine had been a real wakeup call to me. Both of you are more than welcome to visit me on this side of the Pond at any time. I consider you friends from here on in ok?”

No one said anything for a bit.

“This may come as a bit of a shock to you two but meeting you and seeing how you work is going to change the way I do business from now on. Well, this deal is a bit exceptional but from then on, I’m not in it for the money. It might be that I’m turning into a bit of an Andrew Carnegie in my old age. You two have shown me that life should not be all about money when you have enough to almost buy a country if you get my meaning.”

“Garth, thank you for those kind words but we really didn’t do much,” said Maxine.

“Maxine, that’s the point. You did your normal job and for that I’m going to be every thankful. Other companies I’ve worked with often try really hard to curry favour with me. Neither of you did anything like that and then you produced that humdinger of a report in just a few days. Magnificent.”

Maxine was visibly blushing. Adrian smiled at her and gripped her hand.

“Thanks Garth. We really appreciate your kind words.”

“Guys, you deserve it. We can get together when this deal had been done ok?”

“Cheers Garth,” said Adrian as he hung up the call.

Neither of them said anything for several minutes.

“What just happened?” asked Maxine.

“I don’t know but we seem to have a very rich friend now.”

“But… for him to change the way he operates because of us? Did he really say that?”

“He did indeed. Well, we must be doing something right then. He did drop a few hints when we met him in Farnborough but… this is a complete change of direction for him.”

“Time for bed I think?”

“Yeah. You go on up and I’ll tidy up down here,” said Adrian.

Maxine was about to say something but thought better of it.

---

The Administration and subsequent purchase of the Hotel Chain by Garth was headline news in the business world off and on for several weeks. Adrian and Maxine followed it with interest. This was piqued when Frankie Mangan went to court to stop the sale. The High Court in London gave him a choice of either outbid Garth or shut the hell up. The Administrator was just doing their job and getting the best result for the creditors one of which just happened to be him. The court reminded him that it was his decision to put the group into liquidation and when the books did not show a dire financial situation, there were some suspicions of a possible fraud. Frankie Mangan disappeared from view.

Maxine tracked his 767 at if flew from Stanstead to Bangor, Maine and then on to Smyrna, Tennessee which was just a short helicopter ride to the family home.

“He seems to have gone home with his tail between his legs,” said Maxine to Adrian. He agreed.

Frankie was not happy and because of the generous price Garth paid for the business Frankie had a combined tax bill of over fifty million dollars. That made him even unhappier but he really had zero control over the sale. It was his own silly fault or rather the fault of his legal team. Garth issued a huge law suit against the team but that got nowhere due to the contract of engagement that he’d signed with the law firm when he bought the Hotel business in the first place.

Nothing more of any significance was heard from Frankie once the deal was done and their normal business operations took precedence. The Wall Street newswires speculated that he’d gone home to Kentucky to lick his wounds. Maxine knew that it was very possibly the case but was always on the alert for him to strike back.

---

[six months later]

“Maxi? Come and look at this,” said Adrian one afternoon.

“What is it?”

“Come here and see for yourself.”

Slightly reluctantly, Maxine got up from her desk and walked over to where Adrian was sitting. He wasn’t at his desk but sitting in the afternoon sun that was streaming through the windows.

“Read this…”

Maxine read an email that was on Adrian’s screen.

“I don’t get it?”

“I thought he was pretty clear. We are being invited to a weekend in Southern France by Garth.”

“But why?”

“That my dear is the sixty-four-million-dollar question.”

“Is that US Dollars or Zimbabwean Dollars?” replied Maxine trying to make light of whole thing.

“At the moment I don’t care. Why has Garth done this now? We have not had so much of a whisper from him once he’d installed a new management team at the Hotel Company and now this?”

Maxine grinned.
“It is almost the end of the grape harvest in the south of France. Perhaps that is why? Don’t we usually visit Carcassonne about this time of year anyway?”

“Yes, we do.”

“Then let’s do it. Lets’ combine both things into one trip. It can’t be all that far from Carcassonne to where he’s going to be unless he’s going to be over in the Basque Country.”

As was becoming more and more common, Adrian could not really argue with Maxine’s logic.

---

Maxine and Adrian flew to Toulouse from London just over a week later. Their first destination was the Vineyard near Carcassonne where Francoise and Jules had their business.

Maxine had been here before and loved the place. It was so different to Reigate or any other place that she’d visited before. It had a warm vibe whereas the gothic thing that she and Adrian lived in Reigate nearly always felt a bit cold. Even in Autumn, she always felt warm and cosy when she was in that part of France.

While Adrian drove their hire car from Toulouse Maxine sat back and enjoyed the view. The increasing frequency of Vineyards told her that they were getting close to the Languedoc Region. Although nowhere near as famous as Bordeaux or the Rhone regions for wine, the efforts of the vineyard that they partially owned were very good indeed. The Silver Medal that they’d received the previous year at the Paris Expo was testament to that.

Jules came out of the winery to greet the couple as their car drew up at the Vinyard.

“Bonjour Maxine, bonjour Adrian. Sa Va?”

Before Maxine could reply, Jules gave her a hug and a kiss on both cheeks. She did the same to Adrian.

“Did you have a good trip?”

“Yes, we did. Very little traffic on the Autoroute from Toulouse.”

“But, you did not fly into Carcassonne as usual?”

“The aircraft wasn’t available so we flew from London to Toulouse.”

“Ah! Please come inside, Francoise has lunch waiting for us.”

The three of them went inside the farmhouse. It was much cooler inside. Even for an early October day, it was hot in the sun.

As usual, the spread of food that was on the table was as if they were feeding forty rather than four.

At the end of the meal, Jules said,

“I am glad that you have come this week.”

“It is the end of harvest and that’s when we normally come over,” remarked Adrian.

“That is true but we have some serious business to discuss this year.”

Maxine looked worried. Adrian’s face remained non-committal.

Jules carried on.
“The harvest has been great. Actually, this year has seen the best quality of grape since we came here. It is the future we are worried about. Two very good producers in this Appellation have had a very bad year. Much of their fruit turned into Raisins almost a month ago. This is all down to the heat. This summer has been hotter than ever and we have had no rain for months. We were lucky as the variety of vine that we have is a good deal more tolerant of the heat and our location is slightly different to theirs. Even so, one part of our lower planting was affected.”

Adrian looked at Francoise who was the plant expert of the pair. Her face was sad.

“Will this get worse?”

Almost together, the hosts said,
“Yes.”

“What ideas do you have to combat this problem? Do you have to plant different varieties of vine?”

Both hosts shook their heads.

“That is not viable in the long term. The soil here is really only good for growing a few varieties of vine. Even the Syrah is touch and go until it is about five years old.”

There was silence around the table for almost ten seconds.

“We are proposing that we sell up here and move north. Start afresh there where it is cooler,” said Francoise.

“Are you going to come to the UK?” asked Maxine.
“There are vineyards popping up all over the place. There is a really good one less than twenty kilometres from us.”

Jules smiled but shook her head.

“No. We are looking at somewhere between Cote de Beaune and the Champagne region. Think of Dijon and go north towards Troyes.”

Adrian smiled and nodded his head.

“That is a nice part of the world. What about a buyer for this place?”

“We think that we can sell up here with all what you English call ‘goodwill’ and buy a place in the north and leave us enough capital to get setup and not need any extra investment but... it would be nice to have some available if we needed it.”

It was Maxine’s turn to get involved. She turned to look at Adrian.

“We did agree some funding for the extra vats which has not been used. It is still in our budget for next year now that Garth isn’t needing our help.”

“That is true so in principle, we are agreed on the move but I’d like Maxine to see the property before you make an offer. Is that acceptable?”

Francoise and Jules looked at each other and visibly relaxed.

“We… we thought you might object?” said Jules.

“Jules… You should know by now, that is not the way we work. You find a place, do the research, put the business plan together and if it is viable then we will back you all the way. You two have proved that you can run a great business here. A very profitable one I might add. Your Medals from Paris are just confirmation of what we have known for some time and that is, that you are great winemakers.”

“However, the different soil, land, weather and everything else may present all sorts of problems. We will have to revise the financial projections for the business once you get settled. That is in the future.”

Jules in particular looked very relieved. She was the one who did the books.

“To the future,” said Francoise as she raised a glass.

Everyone toasted the future.

---

Adrian and Maxine dined alone that evening at their Hotel in Carcassonne.

“You seemed to give in to their plan to move north very easily?” asked Maxine as they waited for their food to arrive.

Adrian smiled.
“I read a report in the Economist a couple of weeks ago about agriculture and how it will have to adapt or move towards the poles due to climate change.”

“So, it was no surprise to you then when they mentioned moving north?”

Adrian shook his head.

“You felt how hot it was earlier. In past years, the autumn rains would have come but nothing significant has fallen yet. It feels more like mid-summer when we used to come to Narbonne on holiday rather than well into Autumn.”

“What about their payments to us?”

“I’d forget about them for this year. They will need all the cash that they can muster for the move. I’m pretty sure that they’ll sell all of this year’s wine in a couple of months. Unless they can hedge the sale of their wine, they won’t have the cash until the end of March when it is bottled. Those two are going to be mighty busy for the next six months. If I were you I’d be looking into the best way to get to… where was it? Ah yes Troyes. Very close to the source of the River Seine if my memory serves me right. Dijon is on the TGV network.”

Maxine remained silent for a while.

“Penny for them?” asked Adrian

“Oh, I was just thinking.”

“Yeah, I can hear the cogs whirring from here!”

Maxine glared at Adrian.
“I it all right for you. You have had how many years at all of this? I’ve had what two and a bit?”

“You will manage just fine,” said Adrian as he reached over the table and gently took hold of her hand.

“I know you will.”

Maxine looked down at the table.

“At times like this I feel so inadequate.”

“Do you think I didn’t when I started this business? I got nowhere for several months. Then I went to a trade show at the NEC where I met Johnny Wynn. I liked his dream and since then his company has gone from strength to strength.”

“It is easier for you. You are a man. I’ve seen the way his brothers look at me especially Andrew. I’m sure that… Well… You know what. I have been on the other side don’t forget. I saw many of my former work colleagues do look exactly like them when a woman they wanted to undress walked into the room.”

Then Maxine added,
“There are others. You really don’t know what it is like to feel that you are being undressed by the very man you are supposed to be doing business with. There are some whom I can do business with. If I have to, I’ll walk away from any deal that involves someone like that.”

Adrian smiled.

“Well said. It seems to me my dear that you have just made a big step forward in becoming a woman mentally. You are starting to assert your own personality.”

“Humpf!”

“Not Humpf! From now on, we will do business your way. Anytime you feel that way let me know and we will walk away from any deal.”

“Fair enough but that still does not resolve the issue of the Wynn brothers?”

Adrian laughed.

“I’ll deal with the Wynn’s and especially Andy. He’s the makeweight of their business.”

“And when you can’t?”

“Ok, ok, I’ll try to get them off the books before… Well, as soon as possible. Deal?”

“Deal!” replied Maxine with a smile and a kiss.

---

The couple concluded their business with Francoise and Jules the following morning. It was agreed that Jules would start looking for a new location for their business in a few weeks once the harvest was all in and in the vats. There was a Wine Expo in Beaune at the end of the month. Beaune is the other side of Dijon from where they were going to look but it was a good excuse for sniffing around in the area.

It was also agreed that if anything looked even a half decent prospect, Maxine would join them to view the property before any offer was made. The whole issue of cashflow was foremost in everyone’s mind. The availability of funds and the timing of any sale and purchase would have to be managed.

After an early Lunch, Adrian drove them southwest from Carcassonne towards their rendezvous in the village of Ascou. There wasn’t a lot to the village but there was a ‘Bureau de Poste’ which was where they were due to be met by a person or person’s as yet unknown.

Once they were at the agreed place, Maxine made a call to the number that Garth had supplied. She was slightly nervous as she’d be terrible when it came to learning French at School.

To her surprise, the person who answered the call had a perfect British accent. She’d been expecting either Garth or someone with a French accent to answer. This had thrown her briefly but she managed to grasp what they needed to do. Once she was clear, she returned to the car.

Adrian looked at her anxiously.

“We are to take this road for twenty point four kilometres and someone will be standing by the side of the road. I told them what car we were driving. The person that we are meeting will direct us to the farm where Garth is staying.”

“A farm?” remarked Adrian.
“Oh well. I guess it must be like back home for him then.”

Both of them were slightly anxious by the time the odometer clicked over to twenty kilometres. They needed not have worried as almost immediately, they saw a woman standing by the side of the road. Adrian slowed down and stopped by the woman.

Maxine let out a gasp when she saw who it was.

There was no time for her to explain to Adrian that she’d recognised the woman.

“Bonjour!” she exclaimed.
“You found us then? Bon!”
“Can I get in? We have about one kilometre to go.”

Maxine reached over and opened the door behind Adrian. The woman got in.

“Voilia! Please drive up the track opposite.”

Without a word, Adrian started up the track.

“Do not worry about the surface. It is not that bad.”

Adrian shot a glance over at Maxine and rolled his eyes.

The track passed through some woodland and came out into a Valley. Two farmhouses were ahead of them.

“That is where we are going,” said the woman pointing at the one that was slightly farther away than the other.

Adrian parked in front of the designated building. Maxine got out and literally ran around to the other side of the car and embraced the woman.

After a typical ‘French’ greeting, the pair separated. A slightly bewildered Adrian was looking on.

“Adrian Forsythe, meet Natalie Dechamps. Natalie was a former supermodel.”

“Natalie, please meet Adrian my erstwhile boss and partner in crime.”

Both of them laughed.

“Welcome to our little part of heaven on earth. Please come on inside. Everyone is waiting for us.”

Both Adrian and Maxine were a bit puzzled by the use of the word ‘everyone’ but they followed Natalie inside the building.

Garth was waiting inside. He had a huge grin on his face.

“I’m so glad you could make it. I want to introduce you to some friends of mine.”

Maxine knew at least two of them from their past but Adrian was never much of a TV watcher. The expression on his face told her that he was feeling a bit uncomfortable.

“You’ve already met Natalie of course. It is wasn’t for her then I would not be here today.”

Then he turned to the other two women.

“This is Helene Harris and her wife Isabelle.”

The name obviously meant something to Adrian.

“Oh! I loved your Spoof on James Bond.”

Helene smiled and gave Adrian a light kiss on both cheeks.

His face went red. Adrian was not used to all this attention.

Garth laughed.

“Isabelle will show you to your room. If you want to get freshened up then dinner will be at seven,” said Helene.
“I’m a bit of a crock at the moment.”

She looked down and both of them could see that her foot was encased in plaster.
“I came off my bicycle ok!”
“I rode around Cambridge for years and survived the council designed pothole course and here, I came off after I hit a cow pat! Oh, the ignominy!”

Everyone had a good laugh at her misfortune.

---

Once they were in their room, Adrian asked in almost a whisper.
“Why didn’t you tell me who was meeting us?”

“I didn’t know until we pulled up for her to get in the back.”
“I’m mystified how Garth came to know her and Helene?”

“Patience my dear,” said Maxine.
“We may well find out tonight. You should know by now that Garth does nothing without a reason. Perhaps he has decided to come over to the ‘dark side’ and wants to be called Gail from now on?”

Adrian glared at Maxine for half a second before he saw the funny side of what she’d said.

“Why can’t I be angry at you for more than a few seconds?”

“Perhaps my dear, it is because I’m so lovable.”

The inevitable question of what to wear for the evening raised its head a little later.

“Just wear what you wore last night?” suggested Adrian.

Maxine glared at him.
“You really don’t have a clue, do you?”

He got the message and shut up.

Luckily, Maxine had one outfit with her that had not been worn on the trip so she made do with that. She did put her foot down at Adrian when he began to put on a suit and tie. He wore both every day. Maxine often wondered if he’d been born wearing a suit such was his attachment to the beastly things. She’d even considered taking a pair of scissors to all of his collection several hundred ties on more than one occasion but so far, she’d held back from that particular show of rebellion.

---

Dinner was a very relaxed affair. Natalie was joined by her husband, Jean-Claude. He’d put their two children to bed and had the child monitor on the table beside him. He hardly said anything during dinner but it was obvious to Maxine that Natalie was totally devoted to him.

At the end of Dinner, Garth tapped his wine glass with a spare knife.

“I want to thank Isabelle and Helene for giving us such a lovely meal.”

No one disagreed and a toast was made to the couple.

“Most of you will be wondering why I’m here and why you are here? Oui?” said Garth.

“I hope you are not going to try to speak French Garth?” asked Isabelle.

“No, my dear lady I am not. ‘Oui’ and ‘Non’ are about it when it comes to French and me I’m happy to say. No, I arranged for this evening because all of you and that includes you Jean-Claude, so no sloping off and I know that your English has improved a huge amount since we first met so please sit down and listen ok?”

Everyone turned to look at Jean-Claude who was on the verge of leaving and by the way he was caressing his pipe, going outside for a smoke.

He relaxed and put the pipe down on the table. He gave a slight nod of the head.

“As I was about to say, meeting Natalie and Jean-Claude in LA at the Oscars ceremony was one of those days that I’ll remember forever. My late wife was with me and she recognised Natalie when we took our seats in the row behind her, Jean-Claude, Isabelle and Helene. I was only there because my wife persuaded me that investing in a film was a good thing to do. All I know is that it lost me a lot of money but it made my wife very happy so it was lost in a good cause. You may not know it but she was very ill at the time of the Oscars with Stage Five Bowel Cancer. She died just over a month later but she was still talking about how brave Helene was to come out like that right up until a few hours before she died.”

Garth paused and took another sip of wine.

“The chaos that Helene’s reveal caused at the event has gone down in history but I could see several nasty pieces of work… aka Journalists heading for Natalie. My wife and I took Natalie and we got her out of the event and into my Limo. Several of those hacks were getting really nasty in their attempts to get a statement from her. I dealt with them. To be honest, it gave me a lot of pleasure sticking one on them for a change.”

Everyone laughed.

“We gave Natalie a lift to the Airport but during the journey, she didn’t say much but nothing really needed to be said. I gave her my card and told her to give me a call when the heat had died down a bit.”

“However, the events of that night got me thinking. My late wife noticed this as well. If I look back on that day, it was the first of a series of events that may well change my life.”

Garth had everyone’s attention.

He turned to Adrian and Maxine.

“The next event of note was meeting Adrian and Maxine. What brought us together is far too messy to explain here but I saw in them a lot of what I had been when I first started in business. Then I went astray. Looking back at it, it was no surprise. It was very much a case of eat or be eaten. Very much, ‘do unto others before they do you in’ was the order of the day. I found that I was rather good at this game. After one failed marriage and much better one to a wonderful woman and forty odd years later and I’m stinking rich, own fifty-two companies outright but something was missing.”

He looked around at everyone. He had the audience in his hand.

“Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t have an epiphany and wake up one morning and decide to right the wrongs I have done. No sir, it was more of a gradual dawning that there was another way. That was cemented when I came here for the first time earlier this year and met Helene and everyone else. Even Jean-Claude gave me time and his honesty which I shall forever be in his debt. The result was that I learned several things about myself from him.”

Jean-Claude looked rather embarrassed.

“I have decided that it is time to slow down. I don’t intend to be another Rupert Murdoch and still be trying to expand my empire in my late eighties. I want to enjoy life a bit. What I’m proposing is not going to happen overnight. I think everyone can imagine what would happen if I started disposing the of companies I control overnight but I will not be looking to add any more to my portfolio unless I have sold at least two already. Even doing what I propose will take time. The last thing I want to do is sell any of my companies to Vulture Capitalists. That is a disaster waiting to happen in my opinion. My modus operandi all along has been to rescue companies and make them profitable without loading them with debt. I have been brutal at times in the past which is where my reputation comes from but now I know that there is another way to make money that does not make as many waves as I have often done in the past. It does not mean that I’m going soft in my old age but think of it as refocussing my efforts in a slightly different direction.”

He took another sip of wine.

“Now… onto other matters.”

“Natalie, I know that you have a book about to hit the streets but I’d like to arrange for you to come to Long Island just before your next one is published and do a reading for some people in the area. They were all friends of my late wife and I’ll donate all the money and a lot more besides to a local Hospice. It will also give you a chance to check up on progress of my new grand plan.”

Then he turned to face Adrian and Maxine.

“Don’t think that you have seen the last of me in the UK. The recent bit of business that I did there has whetted my appetite for the country. People there in the main, do not know about me and my reputation unlike back home so it might be that I settle there at some point in the future. I don’t know yet but it is on my wish list. I just need a reason to move there.”

“I’ve just about had my say. May I suggest that we sleep on this and if you have questions we can talk about them in the morning. There are many that simply don’t have answers at the moment but that’s all right. Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

“One last thing, Adrian, if you could give me a lift to Toulouse tomorrow? One trip in Helene’s decidedly ancient Land Rover was one trip too many. I’ll call my pilot tomorrow morning to come and fetch me. He’s in Galway visiting some family. He’ll fly me back there tomorrow and then hop over the Atlantic to Long Island the next day.”

Then he raised his glass.

“I want to toast all of you and say thank you from the bottom of my heart. And Jean-Claude, you can go and smoke your pipe now!”

Everyone laughed including Jean-Claude.

---

Both Maxine and Adrian didn’t say much when they went to their room.

Eventually, Maxine said,
“Ok, out with it? I can tell when you want to say something but don’t want to offend anyone. It is only me here remember!”

Adrian looked at Maxine and smiled.

“You can read me like a book, can’t you?”

“Yes, I can. I can’t do it with everyone but I can with you but don’t worry my love, what I know stays with me.”

“Are you going to go and work for Garth?”

Maxine laughed.

“No, I’m not going to go and work for him tomorrow, the next day or any day after that. The answer will still be no! That does not preclude me from working with him but I am not going to work for him. I do know the difference.”

Adrian appeared relieved.

[to be continued]

[Authors Note]
Helene, Natalie and their families appear in ‘Promises can sometimes get you into trouble’.
Garth Sansom, will play a major role in a tale of mine called “What Story”. Maxine will play a small part in that story as well.

Adrian was away in Scotland doing on what he called ‘a fact-finding mission’, which left just Cliff and Maxine in the Office when the phone rang.

Maxine saw the caller ID and answered it.
“Oh, hello Mum. What’s up?”

“Why am I asking? Didn’t we speak for nearly an hour at the weekend?”

“No. I don’t think I am busy tomorrow night. It could work out pretty well as I’m due at a meeting in Devon the following day.”

“No, he won’t mind. He’s busy with a different project in Scotland.”

“What time and where and why?”

“Ok, I’ll see you just before six thirty.”

“Ok Mum, gotcha about that. What’s the special event? It isn’t either of our birthdays?”

Maxine sighed when she heard her mother’s reply.

“Ok Mum. See you tomorrow.”

She hung up and sat for a moment.

“What’s up Maxi?” asked Cliff using his pet name for her.

“Something’s up with Mum but she’s not telling me what it is.”

“Saving the surprise for tomorrow then?”

“It looks that way. I’d better get on with changing the train booking. I’ll go down to Devon from Mums the following morning.”

“You really do need to take the time and get yourself a car,” suggested Cliff.

“Yeah, yeah but the slave-driver keeps me far too busy as it is… and besides, anything I take an interest in Adrian poo-poos as not being very suitable for an aspiring Company Executive…”

They both laughed at her feeble attempt of a joke.

“I’ll have a word with him when he returns from Scotland. He tends to forget that there are other people with different likes and dislikes to him in the world,” said Cliff.

Maxine chuckled. At times, Adrian was away in his own little world.

---

[the next evening]
Maxine walked the short distance from Trowbridge Railway Station to her childhood home wondering what it was that Mum wanted especially after they’d talked at length only a few days before.

The front door opened as she walked up the very short path. That didn’t bode well. In past times, that had only happened when someone was in deep do-do and about to get a right royal ticking off from their Mum.

“Hello Dear. I’m so glad you could come at such short notice.”

“Hi Mum. No problem. As I said, I was going down to Devon anyway.”

Maxine hung up her coat and took off her shoes as she’d done for years and followed her Mother into the Kitchen. The table was laid which meant that she had something to tell me. Then she realised that it was set for three. Maxine wondered if she’d made peace with Dawn at last.

“Sit down and I’ll pour you a drink.”

That statement told her that Dawn wasn’t involved.

She sat as instructed and Mum poured her a glass of wine. She could see from the label on the bottle that it wasn’t the normal ‘not quite the cheapest’ plonk on sale in the local supermarket. Something was indeed up. The quality of the wine said ‘something special’.

Maxine was about to ask her when the front door bell rang.

“That’ll be our third for dinner,” said Mum calmly as she went to answer it. She closed the kitchen door behind her which was strange. Maxine could hear some muffled voices. Then the door opened again.

In walked Mum followed by Sally Jameson. Both had huge smiles on their faces. Could they? Nah, not possible thought Maxine.

“Hello Maxine. You are looking well,” said Sally with a broad smile on her face.

“Hi Sally. I wasn’t expecting to see you tonight,” she replied.

Sally looked at Mum and grinned.

“We thought that we should both be here when we told you the news,” said Mum.

Maxine had a sudden sinking feeling in the pit of her stomach.

Mum poured Sally a glass of wine and they both sat down.

They looked at each other and smiled.

“Your Mother and I have been seeing each other for the past few months.”

The bottomless pit in her stomach suddenly opened up into a huge chasm the size of the Grand Canyon.

“Sally used to stop by periodically to let me know how you were getting on in Chichester. For one of those visits, I cooked her a meal. Then you went to work for Adrian,” said Mum.

“Even so, I carried on visiting. I began to really like your Mother. One thing led to another and we fell in love,” said Sally carrying on the conversation.

As much as Maxine had wanted Mum to find happiness, she had never in a million years thought that she’d go over to the ‘dark side’ as her Mother had described being a lesbian so many times.

Maxine looked at her mother. She had that look of happiness in her eyes.

“Two nights ago, I asked Pauline if she’d marry me and she said yes,” Said Sally as she took hold on Mum’s hand.

Maxine was glad that she was sitting down. Never in a year of Sundays did she ever think that Mum would… would… become a Lesbian.

“Mum?”

She smiled back at her daughter.

“I know darling. It does seem strange to me as well. But since your Father died I’ve never even looked at another man but after a while, I started to… to have feelings for Sally. You could have knocked be over with a feather when Sally told me that she had feelings for me. We decided to let our relationship cool for a bit but it was no use. We still felt the same so… Well, we are here today to let you know about us.”

Then Mum added with a large amount of sadness in her voice,
“I got word to Dawn that she should be here today but she phoned me up and told me what I could do with myself.”

“Pauline is going to sell up and move in with me. I’ve been rattling around in my house in Clifton for far too long. We can make a home of it together,” said Sally.

She saw the look of concern on Maxine’s face.

“Don’t worry, I’ll promise you right here and now that I’ll not touch one penny of her money. I know only too well, that sometimes things don’t work out so Pauline would need somewhere to go should that happen. We are both mature enough to not rush things but I really don’t want to be with anyone else and it is a very long time since I’ve felt that way.”

Maxine sat still for what seemed an eternity.

Eventually, she said,
“What does Jasmine say about this?”

Sally looked a bit sad.

“I don’t know. As far as I know, she’s somewhere in Peru or Bolivia or Chile. She went off on some holiday with a bunch of friends a few months ago. I heard from her when they arrived in Santiago and then about three weeks later when they arrived in La Paz. Since then… nothing. I’ve left messages for her but so far she hasn’t called back.”

“Aren’t you the least bit worried about her? Who she is with and where?”

“Not really. I’ve been talking to the parents of her friends. One of them spoke to their daughter only a week ago. The daughter confirmed that everyone was all present and accounted for. I expect that she’ll call soon. Probably when she needs some more money.”

“What about Dawn? She’ll explode when she finds out?”

“I think your sister already knows. She saw us when we were out in Bath last weekend. She saw me and was going to speak to me then then she saw us holding hands. She went as white as a sheet and fled after giving us a right verbal thrashing at the top of her voice. It was not pretty.”

“Was she with her daughter?” asked Maxine.

Mum shook her head.
“She was nowhere to be seen. As I have no idea where she is living, I can’t begin to know what is happening to her daughter. I only found out that her daughter’s name was Arianna, by accident when I was in the post office in town at the same time as her then boyfriend who was showing off a photo of his daughter to his friends.”

To Maxine’s surprise, Sally didn’t go home at the end of the evening. That simple fact really hit home to her that her mother was changing. She went to bed with a lot on her mind. It wasn’t troubling but seeing her mother and Sally together was not what she’d expected at all. Her final thoughts were that both of them were changing and she wondered if things between them would ever be the same again.

---

[The following day in Devon]

“Ladies, as there is no more business, I call this board meeting to a close. Any objections?” asked Nina who was chairing the latest board meeting at the Hotel in Devon.

No one objected so the meeting closed.

Maxine sat back in her chair with a smile on her face.

“Adrian asked me to tell you that he appreciates the work you have both put in since the sale was agreed.”

“Thanks Maxine,” said Nina.
“And tell him sorry for doubting him when he came to us with the proposal. Both of you have delivered what you promised.”

“No need to do that. He knows.”

“Shall we adjourn to the Restaurant for Lunch?” suggested Belinda.

“Do we have time?” asked Maxine looking at her watch.
“Aren’t we meeting the surveyor at two?”

“Chef knows and has prepared something appropriate,” said Belinda.

Just over an hour later, the three of them met up with the surveyor that they’d employed to look at the now closed pub down in the village.

“Mr Simms?” asked Belinda when he approached them.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Good, I’m Belinda, this is Nina and Maxine. We are the directors of the Hotel outside the town and have engaged your services.”

“Pleased to meet you. I must say that it is very unusual to be engaged by a company with only women on the board. I hope that we can do business here. From what I’ve seen from the outside, the place seems structurally sound and the roof shows evidence of being re-done within the last ten or so years.”

“That’s good. Do you have the keys?” asked Belinda.

“Yes, the agents gave them to me earlier. Shall we proceed?”

As they moved towards the back entrance Mr Simms said,
“One moment. You need to wear hard hats. We have no idea what the inside is like.”

“Is that strictly necessary?” asked Nina.

Mr Simms smiled.

“At this time yes. One pub I looked at last year had been totally gutted by the last set of tenants before they left. Half the floorboards were missing.”

He opened the rear of his car and pulled out four yellow hard hats.

“Please put these on and we can go inside.”

Less than a minute later, they realised that his advice was very apt. Everything had been ripped out. Even the light switches and fittings were gone. Bare wires were everywhere.

“This is the worst one yet,” remarked Mr Simms.
“I hope the Electricity is off. Please stay here while I check.”

He pulled a meter out of his pack and knelt down close to a place where a socket had once been.

“All clear but just don’t get too close to any bare wires just to be sure. If I see the fuse box, I’ll switch it off but that’s probably down in the cellar.”

Half an hour later, the party emerged into the back yard of the Pub. No one was speaking much. Inside the building had been a scene of total devastation. Even the bar had gone.”

“I think the place was stripped professionally. To take the mahogany bar would require a lot of people and a large van to cart it away.”

“What’s in there?” asked Nina as she pointed to a large building.

“According to the details I have it was used as a store.

Everyone was pleased to find the whole bar in the store. It seemed that the Pub Company had managed to ger the bar removed from where it had say for close on a hundred years and had it locked away from prying eyes.

“That is a surprise,” said Nina.

“A good one. That means we could use it in the new Pub,” commented Belinda.

At the end of their tour, the three discussed the outline of their plans with the surveyor.

“To be honest, I’ve seen a lot of these schemes over the last ten years. Pubs are regarded as prime real estate and developers love to snap them up, knock them down and put up a few identikit houses and pocket a load of money.”

He paused for half a second.

“But I like this one. It keeps an amenity open for the locals and tourists alike and also provides much needed accommodation for people working in your Hotel.”

“With the right plans, do you think that the planners would go for it?” asked Nina.

“Yes. There really is nothing to object to and you aren’t really applying for a change of use. I saw from the sign over the door that this had an Entertainment License. That is even more valuable. It is really hard to get them these days.”

Back at the Hotel, the three of them sat down to review the meeting with the surveyor.

“I think we should go ahead and buy the place,” said Maxine.

Belinda looked at Nina for a second.

“It is a huge undertaking you know,” said Nina.

“Indeed, it is and we need an on-site Project Manager to… well manage things,” said Belinda.
“We are really wiped out with keeping this place running…”

Maxine smiled at her friends.
“I think I have a solution that will keep everyone happy.”

Nina and Belinda looked at Maxine and both of them burst out laughing.

“What was that for?”

“You… you sounded just like Adrian did when he pitched buying this place.”

Maxine felt both sad that he wasn’t there to see this but proud that she’d learned so much from him.

“You had all this worked out before you came here today didn’t you?”

“Sort of. I had an idea of how to solve the problem.”

They looked at her expectantly.

“The guy who project managed the build for me in Horley. His name is Jerry. He did a great job and comes from Exeter. Just before we completed the project, he let it be known that he wanted to scale down his work and move somewhere a bit nicer as he approaches retirement. I think he’d jump at this chance.”

“He did a great job for me and there is no reason why he could not do the same here.”

Belinda grinned but Nina seemed to remain unconvinced.

“If he accepts then they’ll need time to complete all their present work and then get up to speed on the project here but my guestimate is that we would not be ready to start building for around a year anyway.”

“How do you work that out?” asked Belinda.

“Firstly, we need to put in an offer and go through legal and all that. Optimistically that would take three to four months. Then we can get plans drawn up. Another month. Then getting planning approval, at least six or more likely eight weeks. Add in time for a re-submission to cover all objections and that takes us to say nine months. Then finding a contractor and suddenly it is a year.”

“And you just happened to have all that worked out before you came down here?” remarked Nina.

Maxine shook her head.
“Not me. Cliff. He did all the digging especially around how long planning takes here for a development like this. He knows a lot about councils and planning. He was one for twenty years before Adrian enticed him away.”

“You knew that we’d want to go ahead then?”

Maxine smiled.

“The idea is a good fit for this place and barring that the building was going to fall down, I knew that we’d want to go ahead. It was to me a real ‘no-brainer’.”

“Can you afford it?”

“That’s for me to worry about but yes, I can especially given the time that will elapse before the building work would start.”

“I estimate that it would take around a million to do properly,” said Belinda.

“One point five is my guestimate,” replied Maxine.
“Five hundred to buy the place and seven to refurb it to the sort of standard we’d want but I’d add a contingency of two hundred grand.”

“You make it sound so easy,” remarked Nina.

“It won’t be easy but that’s why having Jerry manage it works for all of us. He knows how this place runs and also how my business runs. He’s also a tightwad when it comes to money. The books for the build in Horley are a thing of beauty.”

After a slight pause, Maxine said,
“What about it?”

“You seem to have this all sorted out?” remarked Nina.

Belinda laughed.

“I seem to remember you saying very much the same thing about Adrian when he first appeared on the scene with that crazy offer to buy this place…” said Belinda.

Then she added,
“Maxine has obviously been doing a lot of thinking and research into this whole thing. We are far too involved with running a business to go to that level of detail. That’s why I for one value her judgement.”

“Thanks for the vote of confidence Belinda. We don’t need to make a firm decision today. As you said, from what the agents have said, there has been little interest in the Pub but we can’t rest on our laurels. Why don’t I put down my ideas and send them to you and we can meet again this time next week. I’ll have my legal people prepare an offer document for the pub just in case. If we decide to go forward then we really do not want to sit back and let someone else get in first. I honestly believe that this is a really good business opportunity for all of us.”

Neither Belinda nor Nina had any objections.

---

That evening, the three of them discussed the plans for the Pub.

After an hour, Belinda said,
“Then we are agreed. We’ll put in an offer for the pub using the company that Adrian uses for these things. Hopefully, that will hide our interest in the place from the current owners. Then we’ll renovate it as a restaurant and accommodation for our staff.”

No one disagreed.

“We should aim for it to open by next Easter,” said Nina.
“The start of the tourist season would be a good time to open.”

“Are you sure that Planning will be easy to get?”

“It should be pretty straightforward. We are not applying for a change of use or any new external structures. As the building is not listed we are pretty free to do as we please internally. Besides, there are have not exactly been a rush of potential buyers have there. The selling agent said that there had only been one other preliminary inquiry.”

“If the sellers really don’t have any idea that it is us buying the Pub then we should not have to pay over the odds,” said Maxine.

“But we all know there are a lot of things that can go wrong before the deal is done. I’ll get the architect we use to draw up the detailed plans so that the day the deal is done, we can submit the planning application that same day.”

“What about the finance?” asked Belinda.

Maxine grinned.
“All sorted. Adrian and I have moved some money around and it will be all there in the bank account for our building company ready to go.”

Nina picked up her wine glass.
“To a successful conclusion of Phase 1.”

---

When Maxine returned to Reigate, she was still troubled by the events in Trowbridge. It didn’t take long for Adrian to notice that something wasn’t right upon his return from Glasgow.

“Ok, out with it!” he said as they cleared away the dishes from their evening meal.

“Out with what?”

“Whatever is on your mind. At the start of the week, you were full of beans. Now? It is as if you are carrying the world on your shoulders. So? What is it?”

Maxine sighed. Then she sighed again.

“Mum is getting married again.”

Adrian smiled.
“Isn’t that a good thing? Don’t you want to see her happy?”

“To Sally…”

It took Adrian a moment to grasp what Maxine had said.

Then he laughed.

“It is no laughing matter you know!” retorted Maxine.

“I didn’t expect that at all. Sally is a dark horse.”

Then Adrian took hold of Maxine and gave her a big hug.
“I guess suggesting a double wedding is taking the piss then?”

“What? I thought we’d decided to wait until I had my operation before…”

“I know we did. But I have some news of my own.”

Suddenly Maxine knew what Adrian was about to tell her. Another Grand Canyon sized hole opened up in her world.

[to be continued]

Adrian took hold of Maxine’s hands and said,

“It is time,” he said softly.

That was all he needed to say. Both Cliff and Maxine knew what he meant in an instant.

The revelation that Adrian’s life was about to change for the worse shocked Maxine right to her core.

Maxine fled to her room and cried her eyes out. It seemed that her world was crumbling around her. First her mother becoming a lesbian and now Adrian. What would be next.

It took her more than a day to get mentally stable enough to even begin to speak to Adrian about the situation. He was very patient and understanding with her. She didn’t or rather couldn’t even begin to grasp the situation he was in. His world was ending and there was nothing he could do about it.

He might have appeared sanguine or even cold about the inevitability of his situation but he’d had years to prepare himself for the day when he would be told, ‘it is time’. That was before Maxine had entered his life and literally turned it upside down. Despite his best efforts what had started out as a purely business arrangement had developed into something a lot more than that. From his protégé to companion to someone he actually loved had just happened and he didn’t want it to end but… within a few short months he’d be unable function properly as a human being.

Maxine came downstairs looking for Adrian. She found him pounding the hell out of some bread dough in the kitchen.

“How long have you been doing that?” she asked quietly.

Adrian almost jumped out of his skin when she spoke.

“Sorry!”

“It’s all right. I’m just happy that you are back in the land of the living.”

“Well? How long?”

“About an hour.”
Then he looked at the clock.
“Nearer two.”

“But I realised that I won’t be able to do this for much longer. I thought…”

Adrian looked a Maxine.

“I know we have talked about this time many, many times. But it was a shock to finally hear that I’m going to start going downhill pretty rapidly now.”

“What if they are wrong? Can’t you get a second opinion?”

Adrian took her hand and squeezed it gently.

“That’s why I went up to Glasgow. I had a load more tests and the results were identical to the ones I had at St George’s two weeks ago.”

“And you never thought to tell me about them?” replied Maxine in a much angrier voice.

“I know and I’m sorry. But I wanted to be doubly sure before telling you. This is going to change your life as much as it is mine you know?”

Maxine knew what he meant. What he didn’t know was that Maxine had severe doubts about her ability to take over running the business from Adrian. She might ‘talk the talk’ but inside, she was winging it more often than not.

---

Now that the inevitable bad news had arrived, it was time for the plans that had been discussed at length for months and months to be put into action.

The following Monday, Adrian, Maxine and Cliff met formally to start the process with a board meeting of the company. Adrian resigned as Chairman and Managing Director and Maxine was elected in his place. This was a mere formality but still a sad day.

Adrian tried to put a brave face on it but his whole-body language said ‘I’m done’.

His general ‘fug’ continued for over a week. It was understandable but his mood transferred to the others especially Maxine.

Eventually, Maxine got a bit fed up with the sullen atmosphere. She had to do something different so she went down to Devon.

---

“Hi,” said Maxine as she walked into the Hotel.

“Oh! Miss Maxine. We were not expecting you for another two weeks?” said the receptionist Sara.

“A bit of a spur of the moment thing. Are Nina and Belinda around?”

“Nina is in her office. Belinda is out dealing with a problem at the Laundry. They mixed up our kitchen staff order… again.”

Maxine smiled. That was one of the things she was glad that she didn’t have to deal with on a daily basis.

“I’ll pop in and see Nina. I’ll be staying the night if my room is available?”

The receptionist, Sara smiled.
“It is but, I’ll send in Housekeeping to give it the once over.”

“Thanks Sara,” said Maxine as she left the reception area.

---

“Come” said a voice from inside the Office.

Maxine opened the door and went inside.

“Maxine! What are you doing here? It isn’t time for a board meeting yet?”

Maxine smiled.

“I needed to get away for a day or so. So, here I am. Why not come to my favourite hotel eh?”

Nina looked at Maxine and said,

“And the real reason?”

Maxine’s attempt at bluffing had failed.

“There is something but I need to tell it to both of you.”

“This sounds serious.”

The look on Maxine’s face told Nina everything she needed to know.

She looked at the clock on her computer screen. It said 16:43.

“Belinda will probably be going straight home when she’s done at the Laundry in Exeter. Why don’t you come over for dinner?”

Maxine thought for a moment.

“That sounds like a good idea. I’ll see you later. Shall we say seven?”

Nina smiled.

“That sounds about right.”

---

Right on the nail of seven, Maxine arrived at Belinda and Nina’s home. As she walked up the path, she realised that it was a real home unlike that gothic monstrosity she lived in. She really wanted a home like the one she grew up in despite it being a small terraced house.

Belinda opened the door just as Maxine was about to ring the bell.

“Perfect timing,” said Belinda as she showed Maxine through to the kitchen-diner at the rear of the property.

“Nina was beginning to worry that her latest creation might be overcooked,” joked Belinda as Nina wiped her brow of perspiration.

The three of them laughed as they sat down to eat.

Belinda and Nina knew Maxine well enough by now to know that when the time was right, she’d tell them whatever it was that had brought her down to Devon that day.

The right time happened to be after they’d finished the excellent dessert that Nina served up.

“Not my doing I’m afraid. Chef created this. He’s trialling it out before it goes on the menu,” said Nina when both Maxine and Belinda commented on the excellence of the dessert.

Maxine sat back and looked at the other two. She took a deep breath.

“I have some bad news. Well news of something that is going to happen in the future.”

No one said anything.

“Adrian is dying.”
“He has this faulty gene that means he is a carrier of Huntington’s Disease. He’s been fighting it but the docs say that it is now progressing quite quickly.”

Both Nina and Belinda came and gave Maxine a big hug.

“Sorry to ask this but how long does he have left?”

Maxine managed a small smile.

“No, you are right to want to know. He thinks about eight months but I think that is a bit optimistic. After five or six, he’ll be bedridden. Then it is the Hospice.”

Then she carried on,
“I am telling all of the people and companies we have a financial interest in personally. I just happened to think of you first.”

“I’ve known that this day would come right from the first time I met Adrian but… It was always in the future.”

Belinda looked at Nina. Neither of them had much of an expression on their faces.
“It this why Adrian handed over his end of our business to you?”

Maxine nodded.
“Yes and No. As you know, I did the original report that led to his approach to you. He thought that this project would be perfect for me as a rookie but it has gone way beyond that. As I’m now MD, of the company nothing formally will change. Hopefully it will be business as usual and just to be sure, I have no intention of pulling out or selling the stake I… sorry we have in this or any other business. I’ll make this promise to you here and now. If I do ever think of selling out then you will have first refusal but I don’t think that is likely in the short or medium term. I rather like it down here so why would I sell up eh?”

“I’m sorry to spring this on you like this but there really isn’t any other way of passing on news like this but in person.”

Belinda took Maxine’s hand and squeezed it gently.

“What about you inheriting the business?”

“Adrian and I will be getting married as soon as we can arrange it. It will be a small ceremony and an even smaller reception. We’ll probably go away for a few days. We have not discussed it yet. Doing that makes it all legal and above board when it comes to taxes and the like. It also keeps his brother and sisters out of the way. They hate what he’d done with his life and only want his money. Nothing really new there then. It is a good job my Sister knows nothing about what I’m really doing with my life. She’d throw a mega wobbly that would be worth an Oscar.”

“What about your transition?” asked Belinda.

Maxine sighed.

“I’m scheduled to have the operation the week after next. This has been booked for several months. The idea was that I’d have it and have three weeks to recover before the next board meeting. Now… I… really don’t know.”

“Is it what you want?” asked Nina.

“It is but the timing…”

“Sucks big time,” said Belinda.

No one disagreed with that.

“You know that you and Adrian are welcome to come down here for your recovery,” said Nina.
“We’ll look after you.”

Maxine smiled.

“Thanks for the kind offer. At the moment, everything is up in the air. I don’t even know if I’m going to have the operation as planned at the moment.”

The three of them spent the rest of the evening talking. Belinda and Nina knew that Maxine needed someone to talk to that could relate to the problems she was facing.

As they watched her drive off into the darkness Nina turned to Belinda and said,
“We should get hitched as well.”

Belinda smiled and kissed Nina long and hard.
“I think so too,” she said when they came up for air.”

---

Maxine left the Hotel well before dawn the following day. She had to see someone before they went to work that day.

“Hi Mum!” said Maxine as she arrived at their family home in Trowbridge.

“Oh, hello darling. I wasn’t expecting you today.”

Then she saw her daughters face.

“Something’s wrong isn’t it?”

Maxine sighed.

“Its Adrian. It is time.”

That’s all she needed to say. In fact, it was all she could say as her mother wrapped her arms around her daughter.
“Oh, you poor thing!”

“You have known that this day would come all the time you’ve known him, haven’t you?”

“I have and that’s what makes it worse. Until now, it was always tomorrow, next month, next year. Now it is here I really don’t know what to do.”

Maxine stayed with her Mother for three days and then went back to Reigate.

---

Adrian had some good news waiting for her when she arrived home.
“Are you doing anything on Thursday?”

“But… that’s the day after tomorrow?”

“Yes? Are you doing anything at three in the afternoon?”

Then Maxine twigged what Adrian was going on about.

“How… how did you manage to get a license?”

“There was a cancellation and I showed the people the letter from my consultant at St Georges. The rest was a formality. I took the liberty of taking your passport and other records. All you need to do is sign in the relevant places and we can get married.”

Maxine glared at Adrian.

“Only?”

“What am I going to wear? What about my hair? Men! Pah!”

“Oh, and I phoned your mother after you had left. She’ll be here tomorrow.”

“You really don’t get it do you?”

Maxine stormed out of the house and headed for the station. She knew exactly where she was going but hoped that she’d get to the shop before it closed for the day.

---

Maxine made it to Wimbledon and the shop of her dressmaker.

“Hello Maxine,” said Emma as she walked in.
“I wasn’t expecting you, today was I?”

“Sorry Emma. I left my phone at home otherwise I would have called.”

“Is my dress finished?”

Emma smiled.

“Ready and waiting for a final fitting.”

“That will have to do. I’m getting hitched the day after tomorrow.”

“You sound like you don’t want to do it? You seemed so up for it on your previous visits?”

“I do but… yes I want to get married but it won’t be a long marriage. The bad news is that Adrian has between six and nine months left to live.”

“You poor thing. Let me put the kettle on and we can go through the alterations I made over a cuppa?”

“That sounds perfect,” replied Maxine.

Maxine left the shop almost two hours later with her wedding dress carefully wrapped up and in a garment bag.
She afforded herself a slight smile. She’d been working with Emma for a while on the wedding dress. Luckily for her, the last set of alterations had been done to Maxine’s satisfaction. It was close to perfection but not quite but it would have to do. There was no time to waste with her wedding less than two days away.

On the return trip to Reigate, Maxine did consider apologising to Adrian for her little strop but decided to leave that one in her handbag for later.

Adrian was very apologetic when Maxine returned home. He almost failed to notice that she was carrying a garment bag. Slowly he twigged what was going on.

“It isn’t perfect but it will do!” exclaimed Maxine.

Adrian started to protest but stopped himself just in time.

---

Maxine’s Mother arrived late the next morning and immediately started to fuss over her daughter.

“Mum!” said Maxine after just over an hour.
“Please stop!”

Her Mother stopped as she was about to say the same thing about how wonderful it is to get married… again.

“I’m getting married to Adrian and there are a lot of things to be done today.”

Then she added,
“Tomorrow morning I’m getting my hair and nails done. You can get yours done at the same time if you want to?”

“Are you saying that my hair is not good enough for you?”

This retort took Maxine slightly by surprise.
“Mum! That’s not what I said at all. If you want to have your hair and nails done then I’m sure that Bea can fit you in alongside me. Once I get back from Horley, there will be just enough time to get dressed before we head off to the Registry Office.”
Her mother stood motionless for several seconds. Slowly, she realised that Maxine had everything under control and it was her that was in a bit of a tizzy.

“Don’t fret Mum. I know what I’m doing.”

Her mother didn’t answer but looked around for something to do. There was nothing out of place, nothing that needed dusting, cleaning or moving half an inch to make the aesthetics look better.

“It is time we went downstairs,” said her Mother after another check of her watch.

Maxine gathered up her skirts and led the way. She’d been practising wearing all those layers for several months and was now fairly proficient at going down the stairs. At first, the heel of her boots kept catching in the hem but she’d persevered and was now pretty efficient at wearing a floor length dress with several layers of petticoats underneath.

Maxine rather liked the look and how it felt to move in the dress. Unbeknown to her Mother or Adrian, she’d ordered several dresses to be made with skirts as long as this one.

---

Their taxi was waiting to take Maxine and her Mother to the Registry Office for the ceremony. Maxine’s mother was still tut-tutting over the height of Maxine heels when they arrived at their destination.

Maxine saw a fairly nervous Adrian waiting on the steps. Cliff was standing at his side. He looked relaxed which pleased Maxine no end.

After carefully getting out of the Taxi and settling her dress, Maxine picked up the front of it and climbed the steps to where Adrian was waiting.

He whispered,
“They are running about ten minutes late.”

“Can we go inside the building? That wind is perishing,” remarked Maxine.

Adrian ushered Maxine and her Mother inside.

After all the rushing around of the past few days, actually getting to say ‘I do’ was remarkably easy for Maxine. After all, she’d dreamed of this moment ever since a week after she’d taken the job with Sally in Chichester. It was then that she realised that her life as a woman was far nicer than that of ‘Tom the loser’.

Her only regret was that Sally could not be there due to previous business commitments. Maxine owed her a lot but she would have loved for her to be there as support for her Mother

Once their marriage was confirmed, the small party adjourned to a pub deep in the Surrey Countryside for a late lunch. Maxine’s dress had caused a good deal of head turning when the party had arrived. She just ignored them after all, she wasn’t showing any cleavage.

The weather was fine so they ended up eating outside. The regular sound of planes flying overhead after taking off from the nearby Gatwick Airport was a reminder that the newlyweds would be on one of those planes within a few short hours.

---

Four and a half hours later, Maxine and Adrian boarded a flight from Gatwick. Their destination for a few days was the island of Phuket. Then it was off to Bangkok and time for Maxine to become the woman that she’d wanted to be for what seemed an age.

Adrian had discussed the taking of this step with Maxine many times since she’d come to work for him in Reigate. Every time she’d shown more determination to take this step than the last until he’d given up asking her about it.

That was until they were on the beach in Phuket.

“Don’t be silly darling,” said Maxine.
“It is what I’ve wanted since the first week I was working down in Chichester. I knew then that my destiny lay in becoming as proper a woman as I could. In three days, that will happen and that is what I want.”

Adrian knew when he was beaten and didn’t raise the subject again.

[to be continued]

“Hello darling,” said Adrian softly.
He was sitting in Maxine’s room waiting for her to come around after her operation.

She didn’t answer straight away.

After a bit, she said,
“It hurts.”

Adrian smiled. Maxine could not see his reaction as her eyes were screwed shut.

He put a control device into her left hand.
“Nurse says to use this to help with the pain.”

Maxine squeezed the plunger on the top of the device. That released some painkiller into her drip.

It didn’t take long for her to be ‘away with the fairies’ as her doctor had described it.

---

[the next morning]

“How are you feeling today?” asked Adrian as he entered her room. He’d been there until the early hours and had fallen asleep. The nurses had sent him back to his hotel to get some proper sleep as they called it.

Maxine groaned.

Adrian smiled.
“Still living then?”

Another groan from Maxine. She searched for the pain relief device. It had been removed by the nurse in the night.

“I think you used too much ‘goofy juice’ in the night.”

Maxine just sank back into the bed.
“Why the fuck did I agree to this?”

Adrian took her hand and gently stroked the fine hairs on her arm.

“Doctor Kuo said that everything went fine. No, not fine but perfect.”

Maxine didn’t answer but her stomach rumbled.

“Do you want some breakfast?”
“Only if it is laced with really strong hooch!”

“Sorry love, that’s not on the menu. The Coffee is good though.”

Maxine opened her eyes and glared at Adrian.

“Tea. Early Grey!”

Adrian laughed as he headed off to find some food. He knew that Maxine was on the mend.

---

Maxine felt a lot better after something to eat and some tea even if it wasn’t Earl Grey.

“Your Mother has been on the phone almost every other hour,” said Adrian.

Maxine grinned.
“There I was starting to feel better and you have to go and spoil it!”

“She’s only wants to know how you are getting on.”

“What did you say? That I was away with the fairies?”

Adrian chuckled.
“No. I simply said that you were resting and that everything went fine. I also promised her that you would call her tomorrow.”

“Thanks. Mum is kinda possessive over me since Dawn went AWOL.”

“I know she is but that’s what Mum’s are put on Earth to do.”

Maxine sighed.

“Did the Doc say when I might get out of here?”

“Three days. They want to change your dressings first. Then we can go to our hotel as planned. After three more days, you come back here for the dressings to be removed and for you to be introduced to the delights of Dilation!”

Maxine sighed. Her body language told Adrian that she wanted to be back at home.
“Patience my dear, patience. You can’t rush anything after your operation. Remember what Dr Kuo said about lifting things? Nothing more than a 1 kilo bag of sugar for three months.”

“I know but… I’m only thinking about you?”

“And that’s what nurses and carers are for. We talked about this point in my life before remember?”

“That was so long ago,” said Maxine with a sad tone to her voice.

“And now it is time for me to care for you. Your turn to care for me won’t be that far away now will it?”

“I know my darling but I had hoped for… for a bit more time as a proper married couple.”

Adrian smiled and gripped her hand a bit tighter.

“I’m not going anywhere… at least until you are better so get used to it and let me make sure that you don’t undo all that nice work that Dr Kuo did on you.”

---

Maxine was discharged from the clinic two days later. The moved into a suite at a very plush hotel not far away. The plan was that she’d return after a few days for her dressings to be removed although a nurse would be coming into the Hotel every other day to change them. Then they’d head back to Phuket for a week before returning to Bangkok and a final examination on their way home.

As the days went by, Maxine became more and more frustrated by not being at home but mostly by her inability to do even simple tasks such as lacing up her trainers without experiencing a lot of pain from her nether regions. She began to question how well the operation had gone but Adrian was firm with her that it went well and that it would take time for her body to readjust to its new configuration. His favourite words were,

“Rome wasn’t built in a day and nor was Maxine”.

The words annoyed her yet still provided some comfort to her at this time.

---

It was with immense relief that Dr Kuo pronounced that Maxine was healing well and was fit to travel home. The last few days had gone by at a virtual snail’s pace because she knew that her body was starting to heal but they had to wait for the Doctor to examine her before they could finally confirm their flights home.

Adrian kept up his fussing of Maxine. She wanted to tell him to stop all the time but stopped herself from doing so. She knew that it would not be long before their roles were reversed and she’d be the one fussing over him so she sat back, bit her tongue and let him get on with it.

---

Maxine was for once glad to see the house that she called home but really wasn’t. It was Adrian’s place and would be that way forever.

Adrian kept up with the fussing until the arrival of her Mother and Sally. They arrived and took over the fussing over the patient. Adrian smiled and disappeared into the office that they shared. He knew when he’d be better off getting out of the way and letting the women make the world right once again.

Maxine on the other hand, knew that Adrian was itching to catch up on business. She’d caught him looking at several reports while they were away. She knew him well enough to know that was Adrian being Adrian and he’d never change. Well that would be true for a few more months then he’d not be able to do it and then it would be down to her and Cliff to keep him informed even though he would be no longer part of the decision-making process. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be part of it but he’d handed over the business to Maxine when they’d married. It was all part of his succession planning. Maxine agreed with it but whenever the words ‘succession planning’ were mentioned, she felt somewhat guilty even though she shouldn’t have done so. Deep down inside her there were the remnants of Thomas telling her that her blatant fraud would be discovered sooner or later and that the whole world would get to know about it.

Maxine made it clear to her Mother and Sally that she was recovering very well and that they really didn’t need to be there. Naturally, their collective ‘deaf ears’ sprung into action and they took over.

Neither Maxine nor Adrian were allowed to do anything. Cliff kept well away but kept in touch with Maxine via Facetime and emails. He’d gotten on the wrong side of Maxine’s Mother at the Wedding Reception and had no desire to have a repeat of that episode. Maxine understood completely but for a whole week, there was no sign of her mother nor Sally wanting to leave. In the end, Maxine had to give them a nudge.

“Mum… I don’t want to appear ungrateful but don’t you and Sally have your own lives to get on with? I’m not really an invalid you know and Adrian isn’t on his last legs quite yet.”

Sally came and gave Maxine a big hug.

“We only want to make sure that you are coping well,” said her Mother.

“How can I know if I can cope when you do everything for me eh? There will come a time then Adrian will be unable to do anything. Then there will be nurses and carers doing the heavy lifting. As Adrian said, all I need to do is sit back, let nature heal my body and look beautiful.”

All three of them laughed at that.

---

Sally made sure that Maxine’s mother left them the following morning without too many tears. There one positive to come out of the whole episode was that Maxine had seen how close her Mother and Sally really were. Her previous doubts paled into insignificance when Maxine realised how happy her mother really was. She’d never seen her that happy since before she could remember. The only fly in the ointment was the whereabouts of her sister Dawn.

Maxine had mentioned this to Sally who had taken her aside and told her that Dawn was living in a squat just outside the city centre in Bristol. Dawn’s child had been taken into care when she’d had been busted for trying to sell a fifty gram bag of Meth to an undercover Police Officer. Dawn had shown no signs of really being attached to the child and had been more concerned with not telling the Police where she’d scored the bag from that she’d been trying to sell that worrying about the welfare of her daughter. At least Maxine knew approximately where her sister was which helped her no end. As long as they kept apart, life could carry on. On the rare occasions when she ran into Dawn, it was Dawn who went for Maxine’s jugular.

---

[Autumn that year]

Adrian was sinking fast but he kept refusing to go into the Hospice. There was a bed waiting for him but… he was determined to keep going and going.

Maxine had engaged a nurse to be available 24/7. She’d also engaged two carers to come in during the day. Normally, Maxine would have done the hard work herself but her recent surgery meant that lifting anything was totally out of the question for another month at the very least.

The carers wondered why Maxine wasn’t helping with Adrian’s care but once she’d told them that she’d had surgery for a congenital women’s problem they stopped asking which pleased her no end.

Maxine spent her time mostly doing much about nothing. The business was now hers to run but thanks to the preparations they’d done, there was little to do on a day to day basis. Many companies had put a hold on investments since the BREXIT vote. That had worked well for the business. There were no ‘hot’ or even ‘warm’ leads. It gave a her a chance to evaluate their holdings and possible opportunities but her mind was not really on the task. It was more focussed on caring for Adrian.

Telling all their partners that Adrian was terminally ill was not a job that Maxine relished. Thankfully, Adrian had prepared a letter for each of them explaining the situation and how Maxine was going to take over his role and importantly, it was to be 'Business as Usual'.

Maxine gave regular updates to her Mother. More than once she wondered why is it that giving bad news to your parent who had been there for you through thick and thin was often harder than informing virtual strangers. Ok, so they weren’t really strangers but none of the other businesses that the company had invested in were as close to Maxine as Nina and Belinda were. That was probably because Belinda and her shared something more than most people could ever imagine.

Cliff was always there trying his best to support Maxine. There was little he could do apart from giving her some moral support.

There is only so much twiddling of thumbs and office paper shuffling you can do before it drives you mad. Stir Crazy is very aptly named. Maxine was a virtual prisoner and had to be here for Adrian should she be needed.

There is an Album by the 1970’s Rock Band, ELO called ‘On the Third Day’ that Tom had bought her Sister as a Birthday present. At the time, Dawn was into a totally different kind of Music so she threw it back at him. Their Mother had laughed and made Dawn listen to it ten times before she was forgiven. It turned out that Mum had been a big fan of ELO in her youth.
Maxine played it and other music from her childhood as a way of escaping what was going on with Adrian.

Three days was all she lasted before she had to get out at least for a while. Cliff drove her up to Leith Hill where she went for a brief walk despite the October drizzle. It felt so good to get out of the house just for a bit.

As a way of saying thanks, Maxine treated Cliff to lunch on their way home at the Wotten Arms. She did feel a bit guilty actually enjoying herself when Adrian was getting worse almost by the day. Cliff tried to make her feel proud of being there for Adrian.

“Every Florence Nightingale needs a bit of R&R from time to time.”

Maxine felt rather ashamed to admit to myself that he was right.

---

[two days later]
The Doctor had just left the house after yet another failed attempt to get Adrian to go into the Hospice when the front door bell rang.

Maxine answered it thinking that it was the Doctor coming back for something. It wasn’t. A grey-haired man in what Maxine estimated to be his early 60’s stood there. He was dressed in clothes that probably came from Saville Row rather than TopMan or M&S.

“Yes?” she asked.

“Maxine Forsythe?”

“Who wants to know?”

“My name is John Blair. I’m not here to try to sell you anything like that. I was given your name as being someone who could help us in our work.”

Maxine’s alarms and suspicions that were already high started running at maximum.

“Exactly who is us?”

He deftly opened his suit jacker and removed a card from a pocket in the front of his waistcoat. He handed it to her.

She looked at it.
“John Blair, Ministry of Supply,” said Maxine just to confirm what it said.
Apart from that and a single ‘0207’ phone number the card was blank. No physical address, email or social media contact details which seemed to her to be rather OTT but what did she know…

“That’s me.”

“Forgive me for being very suspicious but you don’t look like you represent the US Clothing Manufacturer one little bit.”

He smiled.

“I can see that what my friends have said about you is correct. You are very sharp indeed. No, I represent the original ‘Ministry of Supply’ that was created in September 1939.”

“Yeah, and wasn’t it shut down after the end of rationing in this country around 1955 or so?” Replied Maxine trying to remember those boring history lessons from her days at school in Trowbridge.

“Officially it was but the Cabinet Office kept a small bunch of us on and we work on special projects for the government.”

“And my real name is Lord Lucan,” she retorted, not believing a word of it.

“Actually, your given name was Thomas Saunders, then Maxine Saunders and lately, Maxine Forsythe.”

“So? You have done your homework… What is the scam then? Blackmail? Want to expose me to the press for a payoff? Those clothes don’t exactly come, cheap do they?”

Maxine looked beyond him and there was a Chauffeur driven Rolls Royce waiting in the drive.
“Nor do wheels like that.”

Mr Blair smiled back at her.

“Indeed, they don’t come cheap. The Government can and does pay well when the recipient deserves it. I’m willing to pay you a considerable sum of money to do some work for us. Work that I understand you excel at.”

“And pay at least 40% of that back to the Government.”

He shook his head.

“I think that you misunderstand me. This is an off the books payment. Nothing our department does appears in Government Records. Call it ‘Black Ops’ if you like but my section does nothing but investigate money, where it comes from, where it goes and why.”

The prospect of some easy money was always tempting but she resisted it.

“Is there some way that I can verify your bona-fides?”

“Indeed, there is. I do understand your caution but the piece of work that we need you to do is fairly time critical.”

“I’m not touching anything until you check out. If you know all about me, you will also know that my Husband suffers from a terminal disease and won’t last more than a few weeks.”

“I do and for that you have my best wishes. One week of your time is all we need for now. For that I am willing to pay you £10,000 cash. Obviously if I check out as you say.”

“How do I check you out? Your card has no address, website or social media details.”

He smiled back at Maxine.

“In an hour or so, you will receive an email from your MP. The email will come from a verifiable address and will contain his contact details which can be verified online. Please call the number and verify that it came from him. Read the email and check out what it says. When you are satisfied that I am not some scam artist call me on that number day or night. It will be answered. Then the details of the work that we need you to do will be couriered over within four to six hours. Time is of the essence and we don’t use anything but the phone to communicate. When the work is done, it will be collected by the same courier that delivered it. He will give you the money, take the work and go.”

“You are awfully sure that I’ll agree to do this?”

“You have an inquiring mind. From my reports, it is clear that once you get your teeth into something, you really don’t like to let go until you are done. I’m talking about the report you did that led to you meeting Mr Forsythe specifically, the one you did for Sally Jameson. That is exactly the sort of resource we need. If you do this bit of work for us to the standard that we know you can, then you can expect to have three or four similar operations per year until you say ‘no more’. Ms Jameson was the person who recommended you to us for this particular investigation.”

Maxine knew that he was trying to butter her up. She wondered how he’d gotten to know about Sally Jameson.

“Obviously, if you accept then in the first work package will be a copy of the Official Secrets Act for you to sign. This work is not just classified but could even be top secret.”

“Now you are talking bollocks. I’d need to be properly vetted for anything like that.”

Mr Blair smiled and pulled out a sheet of paper from the inside pocket of his jacket. He handed it to her.

“Who says that you have not been vetted already? If you were deemed to be a security risk, I would not be standing here.”

Without waiting for an answer, he said,
“I’ll bid you goodbye. I don’t expect that we’ll meet again but I do hope that you can be of service to your country in the future.”

He turned around and headed back to his car. The Chauffeur opened the door to him. Then they were gone leaving Maxine totally gobsmacked by what had just happened.

Her first thoughts that who the hell was he to come barging into her life at a time like this?

---

The sheet of paper that Mr Blair had given her contained a full family history and her profile examination. It didn’t pull any punches but was totally accurate which irked Maxine all the more. In her view, only the Government or more accurately, one or more of the departments of ‘spooks’ could have gotten that sort of information.

The email from the local MP arrived as he’d promised. Maxine didn’t open it. In fact, she almost deleted it but eventually, she left it there unread for the rest of the day. Every time she read or replied to an email, the lure of that email grew larger but she resisted the temptation. It was hard but she managed it.

Maxine didn’t bother Adrian with the tale of the mysterious visitor. Cliff was right behind her in that respect. He’d found the story of the caller a bit far-fetched but they agreed to leave things until the morning and even more emphatic that Adrian was not to be informed.

---

The next morning, Maxine was tempted but didn’t open the email until after breakfast. It gave the contact details of the local MP and his schedule for yesterday and today.

The rest of the email contained the details of a company with a registered address in Leeds but who was operating out of an address in Slough. Their business was import/export. They were suspected of being a front for a criminal gang and the export part of the business was used to remove stolen property from the country. The man from the Ministry of Supply wanted to know if what they suspected was true.

Mr Blair was right and her interest was piqued but she still had huge doubts about how kosher the man was. The sheet of paper showing the results of her security vetting was impressive but any fool with a computer, a colour laser printer and a bit of software could have knocked one up in a few minutes.

Just before ten that morning, Maxine called her local MP at his parliamentary office. His secretary answered.

“My name is Maxine Forsythe. I was supposed to call the Member. I am a constituent of his.”

“He is? Thanks.”

She was put on hold while the call was connected to him. Maxine almost put the phone down but he came on the line before she could make the decision.

“That’s me.”
Maxine recognised his voice from the regular appearances on TV when he was a Minister.

“Yes, he did. That’s why I’m calling today. He told me what amounts to a very tall tale and offered…”

He interrupted her.

“Sorry. I do understand the need for confidentiality.”

She listened to what the MP had to say.

“Are you saying that he is genuine then?”

“I understand. I will think about what you said. Thank you.”

The line went dead. It was then that Maxine found that she was gripping her phone so tightly that her knuckles were white.

Maxine put the phone down on the table. It seemed that Mr Blair was what he said he was. Now it was up to her.

“You stupid woman. It isn’t just up to me!”

She went to see Adrian.

---

“Hello love, how are you doing?”

He managed a smile. It was clear that he was struggling badly. She knew then that he’d have to go to into the Hospice either later that day or tomorrow at the latest. He was just about beyond complaining now. It was sad to see him like this but it was as he described it too her all those months ago.

“I had a visitor yesterday. A man named Blair. No, it wasn’t Tony Blair but someone else…”

Maxine proceeded to tell Adrian the whole story including the outline of the work Mr Blair wanted her to do.

“He’s genuine.”

Adrian managed a smile.

She gripped his hand. He squeezed it.

“I’m going to do it. I can’t do much else at the moment.”

He squeezed her hand twice. He agreed with her decision.

Then she told him.

“It is time and I’m not having any arguments understand…”

He managed a weak smile and squeezed her hand twice.

---

The following morning Adrian said goodbye to his home for the last time. An Ambulance took him to the Hospice that was about 10 miles away in Crawley. Maxine followed in her car feeling sad that it was the end of an era. She knew that Adrian was fighting but it was not going to last much longer. Even though she knew it had to come it meant that her companion and friend and lover was not going to be with us much longer.

The people at the Hospice were very welcoming and started to make a fuss of Adrian. It was clear that he wasn’t impressed but that was Adrian through and through.

“Please don’t fuss over Adrian he’s not that sort of person,” she said to the team.

Two of them looked at her as if she was from a different planet.

“My husband is a man with simple demands. Make him happy and I’ll be happy.”

The team leader grasped what she was on about. They’d discussed Adrian’s little foibles when they arranged the bed and outlined his needs a month before.

“Just make him comfortable at the moment,” she said.
“Then we can settle him in later.”

Maxine stayed around until he was happily settled in his room.

“I’m going home now but I will be back tomorrow.”

Adrian squeezed Maxine’s hand just once.

“No?”

“The day after?”

Again, one squeeze of her hand.

“Ah, you want me to do that little research job?”

Two squeezes.

“Ok but two days and then I’m coming back.”

Maxine didn’t wait for an answer as she pulled her hand away.

As she left the room, she looked back and it was almost as if he was grinning.
[to be continued]

When Maxine returned home from the Hospice, she sat still for a while. The carers were busy cleaning the Bedroom where Adrian had slept for the past two months. The medical equipment … The medical equipment was all being boxed up to be sent back to the rental company. It all seemed so final. She just had to accept that Adrian was not coming home again. Now it was up to her to run her life and the business. For the first time since she’d gone to that interview with Sally Jameson, she felt truly alone. She mentally sighed to herself. There would be many more days like this in the days, weeks and months to come.

Maxine sat at her desk and gazed into space for god knows how long thinking about everything and nothing at the same time.

It was only when the carers came to say goodbye that she returned to something approaching reality. She wished them well and then the house was silent. Even Cliff was out. He was having a cataract operated on and was going to stay close to the hospital that night.

Maxine wandered into the kitchen and tried to think about food. Nothing seemed to even be the slightest of interest so she passed on that for the time being.

There was nothing for it, she had to make that phone call.

It was answered after two rings.

“This is Maxine Forsythe. I will do the project.”

A voice on the other end said,
“Thank you. A delivery will be made inside three hours. The driver will wait for the form in the brown envelope to be completed. Thank you.”

Then the line went dead.

She sat back and smiled to herself and thought…
“All very James Bond isn’t it?”

Then she laughed out loud. It didn’t fill the emptiness left by Adrian’s move to the Hospice but even if it the work was a pile of dog poo, it would give her something to think about for the next few days. The business of ‘Lorelei Investments’ was ticking over just nicely and all their partners understood the situation with Adrian.

There was a file of prospective leads sitting on her desk but those could wait until after…. After the inevitable and into the next year. Because they’d had time to plan for this event, there was very little for her to do in terms of organising the funeral and everything. It felt rather nice to have something different to do. The vote to leave the EU that June had messed up a lot of their plans. Most of the prospective clients had put their plans on hold due to the uncertainty about the economy and what would happen when the UK truly left the EU.

Maxine spent the time waiting for the delivery of what exactly she didn’t know but there was some information in the email that allowed her to start organising my thoughts.

Those heady days in Chichester or what she’d taken to call ‘BA’, ‘Before Adrian’ came back to mind. Back then she just ploughed into a project and to hell with it. It was probably just luck that she’d been given the wrong file and turned up the deal that allowed Adrian to buy the Hotel in Devon. The rest is history but the relatively short-lived era of Adrian and Maxine was over. In a few short days or at most weeks, it would just be her. That would have been quite daunting to most people but she had to give Adrian his due, he’d trained her well but his death would be a big hole in her life and one that would take a rather special person to fill.

Maxine set about preparing her computer equipment for the investigation. Adrian had instilled in her that just about any activity on the internet left a trail of crumbs. Those crumbs could be used to tell an awful lot about a person, their life, their habits and everything else. Then, he’d introduced her to the wonderful world of VPN’s and TOR. The company kept a laptop computer just for this purpose. After each use, it would be wiped clean and restored from a safe backup. At first, Maxine had questioned this but once he’d shown her just how much information there was about Thomas sitting out there on the internet, she adopted his methodology.

With her investigation system all setup, she went into the kitchen and fixed herself something to eat. Then she waited.

A little over two hours after her call the front door bell rang.

A man was standing outside carrying a cardboard box. His white van was parked in the road. It had a sign on the side that read ‘DeliverMe Parcels’. It looked just like a hundred other parcel delivery vans.

“Maxine Forsythe?” asked the man.

“That’s me.”

“Please take the box and check the contents. There is a form for me to take away.”

“I understand. Please wait here,” she said as she took the box from him.

Maxine went into the kitchen and opened the box. On top was a list of the contents. There was just one item on the list. That was another box that was totally wrapped in tape.

She checked and signed the shipping list. Then she opened the brown envelope. It was as he’d said, a copy of the Official Secrets Act. It was all filled out apart from her signature and the date. She did the deed and signed it. Then she looked at it again. More than once since the visit of Mr Blair, she had wondered what the hell that she was getting into. At that moment, she had nothing better to do so she put the signed form back in the envelope and sealed it shut.

“Here you are,” she said to the delivery driver as she handed him the envelope.

“Thank you. Mr Blair says good luck.”

He took the envelope and returned to his van. Maxine watched him drive off before going back inside.

Back in the kitchen, she removed the heavily wrapped box from inside the other one. The whole surface was covered in tape but a sharp knife soon revealed the contents to her. As she expected, there was a lot of paper. Most of it was photocopies of account ledgers. There were also copies of shipping manifests and expense claims. All the sort of things that you’d need to have when running an import/export business. Right at the bottom was a load of customs declarations.

She took each type of document into the office that she had shared with Adrian. His last task when handing over everything to her was to clear his desk. It was totally clear. His computer was in a box in the storeroom. She had a total backup of it on the company server should she need any files. But the result was that his desk was totally clean.

She did feel a momentary twinge of guilt as she sat in his chair. She’d often remarked at how low the chair was set. Maxine adjusted it to her satisfaction and began the task of reading each document, giving it a number and adding her conclusion of its contents. This was all entered into the laptop that she used for this sort of work. This is a very boring task but one that needs to be done if any sort of collation is to be done later on.

When she’d done that, she sorted the documents into what was to her a logical order. Then she returned with the next set of documents.

By the time she’d finished collating everything, it was nearly midnight and it was time for bed.

---

The next morning and with a fresh mind, Maxine started looking at the documents for patterns. People are creatures of habit. If we find one thing that works well then, we will often repeat that again and again until it no longer works. She remembered a TV program on how the wartime code breakers at Bletchley Park had looked for patterns in the messages. An operator would often sign off a message in the same way. This was a weak point that was exploited to great effect. Pattern recognition is one of the tools of the analyst. Some are easy to find and others aren’t.

There were some obvious patterns from the documents Maxine had spread out on the desk before her. Not all of them would be suspicious. Far from it. For example, the company always did its travel arrangements using one Travel Agent. The same was true for the shipping of goods. That was often good practice and, on the surface, there was nothing nefarious about it at all.

She spent the rest of the day cross referencing all the most commonly used businesses, hotels, shipping companies and suppliers. Gradually, a picture of the business began to emerge from the myriad of facts and figures. She finished work early and made herself something to eat. All the time those facts and figures were rattling around in her brain as it looked for the code that would unlock the secrets of the company.

The following morning, she went to the Hospice to see Adrian. He smiled when he saw her come into his room. He was now hooked up to a drip. She read the label. It was just saline. He needed fluids and this was the best way to give them to him.

She talked to him for over an hour. Then Cliff arrived with one eye covered in a bandage.

“A right bunch of invalids, aren’t we?” remarked Cliff.

That got a smile out of Adrian so she left them alone to talk for a while.

An idea that had been rattling around in her mind for a few hours had bubbled to the top while she was explaining to Adrian what she’d been doing with her time. Maxine went and got herself a cup of tea and then composed an email to herself on her phone. To anyone who read it, it would be gibberish but it made sense to her. She sent it and finished her tea happier in the knowledge that at least one problem had been solved.

Maxine returned to Adrian’s room and relived Cliff who went home by taxi with firm instructions not to come to the office for the rest of the week. He wasn’t allowed to drive so it made sense but like many men, he hated the idea of twiddling his thumbs at home. Besides, she didn’t want him to see the files she had literally strewn over Adrian’s desk and floor. Cliff was a well known ‘neat freak’ and there was every chance that he’d start tidying it all up if he was given half a chance. Maxine was determined not to give him that chance.

Maxine spent until it was time for Lunch with Adrian. He’d made it clear that when the time came for him to be fed, she wasn’t to do it. The carers took over and Maxine left him alone. As she walked to her car, she tried hard but found it impossible to put herself in his place. What must be going on in that mind of his as his body fell apart from underneath him. She wasn’t sure if she would have been able let it go on like this if she was in his place.

After leaving the Hospice, Maxine didn’t go straight home but instead, she went to ‘Bea Beautiful’. She had an appointment to get her lashes and nails done. Maxine always received a warm welcome from Bea and today it was going to be even warmer when she updated her on Adrian’s move to the Hospice.

After lots of hugs and tea, Maxine got her new lashes and had her nails refreshed. Ready to face the world again, Maxine went home and after getting herself something to eat, she settled in for a long session with what she was calling ‘todays ultimate sudoku’. The work she was doing was like starting with a totally blank sudoku square and adding pieces until you got a complete puzzle. Rules just like those of Sudoku applied.

Maxine finally called it a day at just before one in the morning. By then, she had a good idea where the business was sending their more lucrative cargoes and how but what their value was worth was as yet unclear.

The package also contained where the details of how she should submit her report and how to ask for more specific data. There were a lot more unanswered questions that needed some data that had to be obtained from a source overseas. She doubted that it could be obtained but she asked for it nevertheless. Included in the details was the login information for a webmail account on a service that operated out of Germany. This was how she was to ask for more information. Maxine used a VPN to access the site and logged in. There was just a welcome to the site message waiting for her. It had been sent the previous day.

She sent the email and went to bed.

---

Maxine slept in the next morning so it was around 11:00 when she checked the email on the German System. There was a reply waiting for her.

“The data you requested will be delivered at 18:00 today.”

That was it. The sender address gave no indication as to who had sent it but these were obviously the way these people did business. she wasn’t sure if she could work like that for any length of time. She needed someone to bounce ideas off. Working in secret was hard.

Maxine’s inquisivity got the better of her. Instead of waiting for the package, she fired up the laptop and after chaining together five VPN’s that were spread across 4 continents, she started searching. A lot of the data seemed almost too easy to find. Then she realised that the data was false. She quickly disconnected the VPN network and used a new one. This time she got past the false data and had the real data all safely copied to a cloud service in Brazil. As she initiated the transfer she thought back to ‘before Adrian’ and how inept Thomas was when it came to using the internet for anything other than a bit of Social Media activity.

After visiting Adrian that afternoon, she returned home in good time to receive the next lot of data. She was particularly keen to see if the ‘Man from the Ministry’ was going to give her the fake data or the real McCoy.

She was expecting the same delivery driver or at least the same delivery company to arrive. At 18:05, the bell rang. It wasn’t who she was expecting at all.

Standing there was a really hunky man in his late 40’s or early 50’s. He had the sort of tan that you get from working outside in all weathers but like Mr Blair, he was impeccably dressed but the style was a little dated compared to Mr Blair’s. With a briefcase under his arm, he looked like a Lawyer.

“Maxine?” he asked.

“Yes. How can I help you?”

“My name is Jacques Chelon. I work for Mr. Blair. I have some data for you. May I come in?”

“Oh! Please come in.”

The arrival of Mr Chelon, had wrongfooted her all right. She was not expecting a delivery in person like this. Add to that, the fact that Mr Chelon was certainly a bit of a hunk especially given his age. The grey hair at his temple gave him a rather distinguished look. Then she reasoned that he spent his time outside and his suit was rather dated. How he fitted into the company that Mr Blair worked for was another mystery to be solved.

She let him in and closed the door behind him. After taking his overcoat and hanging it up, she said,
“Please come through to the kitchen. You look as if you could do with something warm inside you?”

He smiled back at her. It was a nice smile.

“Thank you. Some tea would be nice. I’ve been travelling since lunchtime.”

---

After some refreshments, Jacques showed her the data he’d brought with him. It was all that she’d asked for and a lot more besides. One bit of data interested her. Most of it was the same set of real data that she’d found earlier. She actually had more data than this but it was good to know that they were working from basically the same reference point.

“It is going to be useful then?”

“You bet. This is just about everything I need to complete the puzzle.”

He smiled back at her.

“We hope so.”

Then he took a deep breath.

“Time is of the essence. Some things have happened in relation to the main players since Mr Blair was here.”

“Oh!”
Then she thought.

“You mean the next shipment to Germany? That is due to leave tomorrow.”

He looked at her with a slightly startled expression on his face.

“How did you know?”

This was the question that she was not expecting. It was like when a maths teacher sees that you have the right answer and then demands to see your working. A lot of her work has no method that could be turned into an algorithm unless it can work on a whole load of very random Fuzzy logic.

Maxine and Thomas before her was always one of those annoying people who could resolve anagrams in under a second, work out abstract puzzles with ease. The answer just appeared to her. It was the same with the datasets that she’d received. She could see the links between what looked like otherwise totally separate sets of information as long as you don’t ask her to explain why. She couldn’t do that in a month of Sundays.

Maxine tried her best to explain her reasoning to Jacques. He said that he understood but his body language said differently.

She tried a different tack.

“Normally, a container is would to leave the warehouse and go to Harwich. It is booked on the Thursday overnight sailing to ‘The Hook of Holland’. That is how it works for most of the month. However, on the last Thursday of the month the container is sent to Hull for the Ferry to Zeebrugge. This load never gets to the distribution centre in Maastricht. The bills of lading appear to show that it does but the delivery notes are always signed by a different person. That person has a pretty unique name and according to Facebook, they live close to Strasbourg which is as you may well know on the German border. I’d track that container if I was looking for you.”

Jacques looked at the wall to her Office where she had laid it all out. He seemed very non-committal until…

“That is brilliant,” said Jacques.

The smile disappeared from his face.

“Can you pack all this up? I’ll get the courier to collect it in the morning.”

She felt deflated.

“Is that it?”

“Sorry but yes, it is. Now it is for others to take over and work the case.”

“Does that mean you?”

“It certainly looks like that it is going to be me. I’m fluent in Dutch and German as well as French. I’ll be off across the channel tonight or early tomorrow morning.”

Then he went outside to call his boss. When he returned he said?

“Mr Blair is very pleased with your work.”

Beyond that there was very little that he could say.

He didn’t hang around long after that.

As she packed everything away she started feeling a bit sad.

---

Once the courier collected the box of documents the following day, Maxine went to the Hospice.

She had just walked into the building when the nurse in charge came up to her with a serious look on her face.

“I’m so glad you are here. Adrian has taken a turn for the worse.”

Maxine felt herself get visibly smaller. She had thought that she was prepared for this moment but she wasn’t. She didn’t know of anything you could do to prepare you for the death of a loved one even if it had been on the cards for months.

“Is it time?”

“Nearly. The Doctor is with him now. He sort of sagged at breakfast. It is often a sign when people are near the end.”

A great pit opened up in Maxine’s stomach. To her credit, the nurse took her arm and led her towards a chair.

She sat Maxine down and took her hand.
“The Doctor will be out in a few minutes. Then you can be with him,” said the Nurse.

“Th… thank you.”

The pair sat in silence until the doctor emerged from Adrian’s room. Right away, she saw that he had a grave look on his face as he approached them. The two women both stood up as he reached them.

“Mrs Forsythe?”

Maxine nodded.

“Please go and be with your husband. His time is near.”

Maxine simply nodded her understanding and walked towards Adrian’s room. When she reached the door, she hesitated. She wasn’t sure what she’d find inside. After what seemed like and age but was more likely only a few seconds, she went inside.

Adrian was lying with his eyes closed. A monitor showed his heartrate. Thankfully, there were none of those annoying bleeps they seem to make on all TV shows that are set in Hospitals.

Maxine pulled over a chair and sat next to him. She put her hand in his and squeezed it. He didn’t respond.

“I’m here darling,” she said quietly.
He didn’t respond.

“Cliff sends his best wishes.”

Maxine sat there talking to him for over an hour. She didn’t remember what she’d said but it didn’t really matter. It wasn’t until one of the nurses came in and gently tapped her on the shoulder.

“He’s gone.”

Maxine looked at the heart monitor in horror. It was showing a single flat line. She was so engrossed in talking to Adrian that she hadn’t noticed the change.

“I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. It was peaceful and you were with him at the end. That’s what matters isn’t it?”

“Yes, I suppose it is.”
“What happens now?”

“We get the Doctor to certify the death and then the plan that you and he agreed to swings into action. There really isn’t much for you to do apart from registering the death.”

Maxine felt a bit foolish for forgetting that.
“Oh yes of course.”

The Nurse looked at her.
“Are you all right to drive home? We can get a Taxi?”

The nurse was right. Maxine didn’t feel much like driving at all.
“Yes, I think that would be for the best.”

She gripped her hand.
“Don’t worry Mrs Forsythe we are here to help you just as much as for your husband.”

Her words were comforting but seemed to go in one ear and out of the other. Maxine’s mind was on other things.

---

A Taxi dropped Maxine off at her home some two hours later. She wasn’t really in a fit state to do anything but Cliff appeared as if out of nowhere and proceeded to take charge of proceedings.

“Don’t argue Maxi. I’m staying for the duration. You need someone to be here for you.”

A couple of hours later Maxine’s mother turned up and all was well as it could be given the circumstances although Maxine hadn’t called her to inform her of Adrian’s passing. She decided not to press things for the time being.

Maxine’s Mother took Maxine to the Hospice to collect the Death Certificate the following morning and to collect her car. They duly registered the death and filled out numerous forms to change her status to ‘widow’. It felt really strange to think of Maxine as being a widow but that’s how she now appeared to the world. To her, the fact that her Husband had died made her a widow and that was good enough for her.

Because of the nature of Adrian’s disease, he’d planned his funeral down to the last detail. It was also all paid for in advance. The funeral director came around to check to see if there were any last-minute changes. There were none or at least none that Maxine could think of.

The only issue was that they’d have to wait a week before there was space in the Crematorium schedule.

The time between a death and being able to finally say goodbye to your loved one is a horrible sort of limbo. You can’t even begin to think about what’s next until that day and then the reading of the will is all done and dusted.

Maxine hated it. It was like being in limbo. She’d never felt as empty in all her life. It is just not fair. It made no sense at all for someone as good as Adrian to die so early. All she could think of were the good times they had together and now that it was down to her to carry on his work.

The only bit of good news was that Maxine’s very own car was ready for delivery. The current one was Adrian’s choice but she’d never really gotten on with it. As she read the email from the dealer, she fondly remembered the days that they’d argued over her choice of car, the colour and what options it would have. It was just Adrian’s way of making sure that she’d really thought things through. Adrian wasn’t sure about her choice but they’d gone on a demonstration day the previous spring. One lap of the Millbrook circuit was enough to convince him that going electric was the right choice. Maxine had already decided to call her car Adrian in memory of the man that had done so much for her. That way, she’d always remember him. She’d always remember him because one of the features of the car was that you could name it. As soon as she’d found out about this, she’d decided to call it ‘Adrian’s Folly’.

[to be continued]

[The day of the funeral]
“Ready darling?”

“As ready as I’ll ever be Mum,” replied Maxine.

“The car is waiting.”

Maxine pulled the heavy veil down over her head. She was dressed head to toe in black. Her dress was black silk and very full. Her whole outfit could have come from the late Victorian era. Long before Adrian had become bedridden, they discussed the funeral and everything in great detail especially what she was going to wear.

With the aid of Jasmine, Sally Jameson’s daughter, she found a wonderful dress in a second-hand shop in Stratford-upon-Avon. Maxine’s dressmaker in Wimbledon had made the alterations needed as well as a providing a hat with a thick veil. Black lace-up boots with a 3in block heel and long black lace gloves completed her outfit.

Jasmine had done her makeup earlier and for once Maxine agreed that black lipstick was the order of the day. Jasmine was all in purple including her hair.
Sally was waiting for Jasmine and her Mother. The three of them would be travelling in the lead car with Jasmine, Nina and Belinda in the second car.

The funeral was to be held at the Surrey and Sussex Crematorium. It was not far from the nearby Gatwick Airport. Adrian had wanted… no demanded, a simple service and that was what he got. He’d insisted that the music to be played as his coffin disappeared was Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side”. Adrian was the epitome of conservatism. He always wore a suit and tie even on Sundays. His Father had done the same so he saw no reason not to follow suit. The song represented how he wanted to be in the afterlife.

To everyone’s surprise, Adrian’s siblings turned up for the Funeral. Adrian had left instructions that they should be informed of his death but he expected that they would not bother to come all the way from Shrewsbury to say goodbye given how they’d been when he left them to stew in their own tears when he’d dissolved their family business.

Sally Jameson read the eulogy. She’d known Adrian longer than anyone else at the Funeral apart from his Brother and Sisters. She described him and his approach to life perfectly. She pulled no punches when it came to describing his siblings. Maxine saw them wince more than once.

Her words also praised Maxine and how her introduction into his life had given him a new purpose. She went on to say how his new business would be in good hands with Maxine at the helm. What she didn’t say was that this was said at Adrian’s request if his siblings dared to attend his funeral.

The looks on their faces told Sally that Adrian’s words had hit a sore point with them.

“Walk on the Wild Side” played as his coffin slowly disappeared out of sight. Maxine dabbed her eyes with a lace handkerchief as the curtains closed and this part of the day was over.

Outside, Maxine greeted everyone who had come and thanked them for coming along. Once all the thanks had been given and the flowers inspected, they adjourned to a Pub just to the west of Reigate for a lunch/wake.

For the first time since they’d left home, Maxine lifted the veil of her hat. This was the first time she’d ever worn a women’s hat but it would not be the last.

She made a bee line for Adrian’s siblings but they hardly said a word to her so she took the hint and moved on to talk with Jules and Françoise who’d flown in from France that very morning. They loved Maxine’s outfit. She glanced over at Jasmine who was grinning from ear to ear.

Then she went to talk to her very special guests, Garth Samson had flown in that morning direct from the USA. With him in a small group was Helene Harris and her wife, Isabelle.

“It was nice of you to come,” said Maxine.
“It was the least we could do,” said Garth.
“Are those his brother and sisters?” asked Helene nodding to where they were standing silently.
“That’s them. I guess that they are here to see if Adrian left them a morsel or three. He was adamant right to the end that they basically get nothing.”

Garth laughed.
“That’s the Adrian I got to know.”
Then he became all serious.

“If you don’t mind, I’d like to come to the reading of the will. I have a few relatives that could do with a good put down when it is my time to pass over. You never know, I might learn something.”

Maxine’s smile told him that he’d be more than welcome.

[That afternoon in a Solicitors Office in Reigate, Surrey]

“This is the last Will and Testament of Adrian Forsythe being of sound mind and body. It is dated some eleven months ago.” said the Lawyer, Marcus Bridges.

“I leave all my estate to my dear wife Maxine Forsythe. She will be a worthy successor to me in my various business enterprises.”

The Lawyer looked at the people who’d gathered in the room before him before continuing the reading.
“These are the words dictated to me by Adrian Forsythe,” said Marcus slightly nervously.
“To my family, I leave nothing. Dorothy, you have not worked one day in your life. You are nothing more than a useless idle bitch. David, you are a gambling addict. If anyone gives you any money, then you will just put it on the next race or football match.”

“As for you Yvonne, you are even worse than your sister. Thankfully, your two failed marriages have left you well provided before. I’ve said it before and I will say it one last time, get a job and stand on your own two feet. No one owes you a living so for the sake of your children”

After another pause, Marcus carried on.

“If any of my siblings want to challenge this will just ask yourself this, ‘have you done even one thing to enhance the value of my estate’. The answer for you three wastrels is an emphatic ‘No’. That is clearly against the values that were instilled in us by our parents. Those values which to date you have all rejected were really simple. How many times did Dad say, ‘you don’t get owt for nowt’. Maxine has been my companion these past few years. She knew that I’d die soon right from the outset. I drew the short straw in that I was the only one of us to carry the Huntington’s gene and that is why we didn’t have children. I have trained Maxine to take over from me and carry on the good work that I started. The rest of you, my siblings and relatives can go to hell and beyond.”

Maxine looked around me and at the others in the reading. Adrian’s relatives were a motley crew with not one bit of black between them. But they did have one thing in common and that was a really pissed off expression on their faces. She chuckled to herself and said silently,

“Adrian you old goat, you have done it again. You always had the knack of saying the right thing at the right time.”

Mr Bridges carried on with the reading for another few minutes. When he was done, everyone stood up and mingled apart from Adrian’s siblings.

“You won’t get away with this!” said Dorothy to Maxine in a very nasty voice.
“We should have it all. We are family not you.”

Maxine returned a weak smile.
“I am his wife but it was his choice where his estate went.”

“You are nothing but a gold digger. You deserve nothing,” said David.

“Really? I worked with Adrian these past years to develop the business. I nursed him when he was ill and I deserve nothing?”

“Goddam right!”

“Then I humbly suggest that you consult a lawyer before saying another word. My lawyer will happily provide you with a notarised copy of his will. Please show that to a lawyer and explain how you have contributed to the business and why you deserve it all. I really hope that the lawyer laughs you out of their office. Your brother was a canny person. He used some of the best legal brains in the country to draw up his will with this very response in mind.”

This time Dorothy piped up.
“Why would Adrian marry you? You are nothing?”

“I don’t know about that. I do know something and that is your brother saw something in me and that turned out to be very profitable for the company unlike the three of you or was Adrian lying when he said that you three were idle lazy spongers.”

Before they could respond, Maxine said,
“I must leave you and talk to others. Please feel free to speak to my lawyer about the will and thank you for coming. I owe the local hospice fifty pounds as he and I had a bet for that sum over your attendance so thanks again. That same Hospice made his last days a lot easier. If you recall, there was a gift to them in his will. If you challenge the will, you will stop them from getting the money that Adrian wanted.”

Then she turned on her heels, lifted the skirt of her dress and went to talk to some others.

---

That evening, Maxine, her Mother, Sally, Jasmine and Cliff were relaxing at her home. She was still wearing the black dress.

Her mother said,
“You really handled that dress very well today.”

Maxine grinned.
“Thanks Mum. I kind of like it. I love the skirts.”

Her mother smiled and shook her head.
“And to think I had my doubts about Thomas going to work with Sally???”

She gave her daughter a big hug.
“I was so wrong. Do you forgive me darling?”

“Of course, I do Mum. Worrying is all part of what being a Mother is all about.”

Maxine’s answer caused her Mother to give a little shudder.

“What’s wrong Mum?”

“Sorry darling. You sounded just like I did when I was carrying your Sister.”

[the next day]

“That’s everyone gone home now. Your mother has gone shopping but will be back later. The flight to Toulouse left on time,” said Cliff as he returned from taking the four visitors from France to Gatwick Airport.”

“Thanks Cliff,” said Maxine.

“What are you going to do now?”

She paused before answering.

“To be honest Cliff, I don’t know. These last six months have been rather full on, haven’t they?”

“They have so why don’t you take a holiday eh? When was the last time you really switched off for more than a day or so at a time?”

Maxine laughed.
“Last Christmas when Adrian and I worked in the kitchens in Devon. There was no time to think about business. Far too many things to do for that.”

“Maxi? I think you will find that it was the Christmas before last.”

She didn’t answer.

“I thought so. You need a change and I’m not meaning just your clothes.”

Maxine was wearing that same black dress as she’d worn to the funeral the previous day.

“Why? Don’t you like it?”

“Maxi… it is not that. We aren’t in Spain or Italy where women who have been widowed wear black for the rest of their lives…”

Maxine laughed.

“I just like how it feels on me. Having to lift up my skirts when coming up the stairs is… well different. Everything just feels different. Strange even but right.”

Cliff sighed.
“Wimbledon then? You really should buy the place given how much you spend there.”

Maxine smiled back at him and managed a small smile.

“Not just yet. This look isn’t quite right. Jasmine said something yesterday that got me thinking.”

Cliff laughed.
“I know I can hear your brain going up the gears from here…!”

“You can hear nothing of the sort but I know what you are trying to do.”

“And what is that if I may be permitted to laugh?”

“Take my mind off of losing Adrian perhaps?”

“So? What’s wrong with that eh?”

“Time Cliff, time. It is too soon.”

Cliff knew that but he knew that Maxine could take days if not weeks to properly get over things. This was possibly the biggest upheaval she could have to face in years. He felt that it had yet to really sink home. He also knew that she’d gotten through the previous day on adrenaline and that she’d have to pay for it before long.

---

The house was silent now that her mother had finally left Maxine alone. It had been a long and tiring day. Her mother had kept fussing over her as all good mothers should but in the end, she’d left Maxine truly alone for the first time since Adrian had died.

The place had always been chilly even with Adrian there. Now that he was gone it felt positively cold. She could never really hate it because of the memories of Adrian that were everywhere but, she could never love it.

The Victorian Gothic Revival styled house had never been the sort of place that she would have chosen but Adrian loved it. He always said that it reminded him of his childhood home.

Maxine would either have to get used to being alone in the house or she would have to sell it and move away. That was a decision for the future but it was one that would have to be made sooner rather than later.

She’d only ever had two homes in her life. The small terraced house in Trowbridge where she’d grown up and then this place which was clearly far too big for one person and then there were memories of Adrian everywhere. She didn’t need those artefacts to remember him but most of them were of his choosing from before she came into his life.

Apart from her rooms, the house was all his. Maxine had made a real effort to create a space that was all hers. She could shut the world out and be safe and secure in her own space. Adrian had rarely ventured inside once she’d made it her sanctuary.

Maxine let out a big sigh and sank into her favourite chair.

“Oh Adrian… why did you have to go and die on me like that?”

She pulled out a black handkerchief from the sleeve of her black dress and wiped her eyes. The tears didn’t stop. It was time for her to start to properly grieve.

---

That payback time came the following weekend. Maxine slept for thirty-five hours straight. That was the first bit of sleep of more than three hours that she’d had in months.

When she eventually came around her first move was to check to see if Adrian was still there. When her arm found just an empty bed, she sat upright. Then she saw that black dress on its Mannequin on the other side of the room. She collapsed back onto the pillows and had a good cry.

When the tears subsided, she lay on the bed for almost an hour. In that time, she came to a decision about the house. While she could never and would never forget Adrian especially the first time they had proper sex the house was all Adrian. He and his influences were there in every room, every alcove and every molecule of the fabric of the building. If she was going to move on with her life and find someone else, she’d have to sell the place. Not right away but eventually she would have to do it.

Her problem was finding the right time and place to tell Cliff. She had to think of his desire to retire as well. Such were the problems facing Maxine in her life as a multi-millionaire.

She thought back to those now distant days when she would dress up for a lark and go out with her sister and her friends. She remembered the first time she went into the Ladies loo at a Mall in Bristol. Then how after a couple of trips people started to treat her as a young woman. She gave a little shudder when she remembered how Sally read her in a flash and then how it had not mattered one little bit to her and that it was what was in her mind that was important.

Then she remembered getting dolled up for that first meeting with Adrian and how good it felt to be wearing proper women’s clothes and not something cheap from the likes of TK-Maxx or Primark, for the first time. When going out with Dawn, she’d basically copied what Dawn was wearing rather than being her true self.

Then she laughed as she recalled how she went into the dressmakers in Wimbledon for the first time. Buying something that was made for her was a totally different experience from wandering around the High Street Shops or going online.

With some sadness, she wondered what Dawn was doing now? The last time she’d seen her sister, she was not a pretty sight. Dawn was even smoking ‘roll-ups’ which was something she’d hated with a vengeance before… before that eventful day when Maxine went to an interview with the intention of not getting a temporary job but instead began the path to where she was now.

As she got out of bed and stretched she felt lucky to have taken that particular turn when she did. Fate had been kind to her apart from losing Adrian.

Despite their initial arrangement being purely business, they’d become very close indeed. When she’d said ‘I do’ to Adrian there was no doubt in the minds of everyone present that they were in Love. It was far more than a marriage of convenience to them both. They were far more than just two people who worked together and were probably far closer than most couples so getting married while sensible from a business point of view, was more of a sealing of their partnership in law.

But to Maxine, Adrian had not been the be-all and end all of a relationship. There was always something missing.

It was Adrian who had noticed this even before they got married. Maxine remembered his words at the time.

“When I’m gone don’t mourn me forever. Go and find the one person out there who will make you truly happy. I’m sure that she exists somewhere.”

She laughed silently to herself when she recalled his exact words. It had taken her a couple of seconds to realise that he was right and that deep inside her there was a little bit of Thomas left alive and that part of her definitely fancied women. She’d pretty well shut it away ever since she’d decided to go into a relationship with Adrian. That relationship was indeed strictly business but had soon gone way beyond that. The words of an old pop song came to her mind at that moment… “You were meant for me, everybody tells me so.”

They had been meant for each other at that time and at that place. She would never forget Adrian, her teacher, her guru, her first love.

As she did some stretching exercises to bring some life back into her limbs she made the decision to try to move on with her life. Then she laughed as she remembered that she’d done that very same thing only a few minutes before.

---

After a shower Maxine threw on some clothes and wandered downstairs. The house was very quiet.

There was a note on the kitchen table from Cliff.

“Gone out for Sunday Lunch. Gave up waiting for you. See you tomorrow!”

Sunday!

She picked up her phone and realised that it was indeed Sunday afternoon. She glanced outside and it was a grey November day.

Then she saw another note on the fridge door.

“Bacon inside. Fresh rolls in the bread bin. Enjoy.”

Then she read the P.S.

“Beer also.”

Maxine smiled as she mentally thanked Cliff. Bacon and Onion rolls were her favourite food. None of this namby-pamby stuff that Adrian liked. She was a person of simple needs. Cliff was very much like her in that respect.

Suitably refreshed, Maxine settled down in front of the TV. She lasted less than ten minutes. This was what she and Adrian used to do on a Sunday afternoon. There were far too many memories of him still so fresh in her mind so she got up and put on her coat and shoes fully intending to go out for a walk.

As she stepped outside her home she found that it was raining. Not hard but that sort of rain that even the most rugged waterproofs struggled with after a while. Nevertheless, Maxine pulled up her collar and started walking north along Coppice Lane. She’d done this walk many times with Adrian. It was one of their favourite Sunday afternoon walks.

She put her head down and carried on walking. Twenty minutes later she had climbed up onto the North Downs and came to the junction with the ‘Pilgrims Way.’ Here she hesitated. Turn left and go to Winchester or turn right and end up in Canterbury.

With a slight chuckle she turned right and carried on walking. After passing the TV relay tower, she turned right again and went down the hill. It didn’t take her long to get back home.

As she approached the building, she stopped. She was sure that there was someone in Adrian’s bedroom. She checked her phone and the alarm system had not detected any intruders.

She stood for a while almost wishing that it was him waiting for her to come home but he was gone.

She’d only been home a short while when her phone started ringing. It was her Mother.

“Hi Mum.”

“No, I’m fine. I’ve just been out for a walk.”

“Yes Mum. Even in this rain.”

“No, I won’t get a chill. I did wrap up well.”
“Mum, I’m not a child any longer and yes I know that it is your duty to worry about me but I am grown up now.”

“Yes. I slept for well over a day.”

“No, I’m here all alone. Cliff got fed up waiting for me to wake up and went home.”

“Yes, Mum I have eaten.”

She sighed.

“Two... repeat two large bacon and onion butties.”

“And some coffee. Then I went for a walk as you know. Now I’m back and I’m going to make myself something to eat.”

“A Chicken Stir-Fry good enough for you?”

“No Mum. I’m fine. I mean it.”

Another sigh.

“Yes, I will call you if I’m feeling down. I promise.”

“Bye Mum.”

Maxine ended the call with yet another sigh. She loved her Mother dearly but since Adrian had become really ill, she’d been over protective with respect to Maxine. She'd reached the 'enough is enough already moment'. It was time for her to start to live her life again but that was going to be easier said than done.

[to be continued]

[Cliff and Maxine are discussing their plans for the next few days]
“Well, are you going to go?”

“What do you mean?”

Cliff, Maxine’s assistant sighed.

“To the board meeting in Devon? What with everything that has been going on, you have missed the last three.”

“Oh that. I don’t know.”

“Look Maxi, it has been almost three months since… since he passed. You need to get back into things. It will take your mind off everything.”

“It’s all right for you… I actually loved the sod. I promised myself until I was blue on the face that I wouldn’t do that and that we had just a business relationship but this past two years, I fell in love with him and I'm in no doubt that I still fancy women. Can’t you see that my mind is a total mess of conflicts?”

Cliff smiled.
“That’s why you need to get back into work. Besides, Belinda and Nina will be on your side you know. They know…”

“Know what?”

“That you loved him. Nina told me so at the funeral.”

Maxine sat motionless for quite a while.

Eventually, she got up with a sigh.

“You might be right. Things need to be done. He… He was very clear on what I should do but…”

Cliff smiled.

“Take your time. The girls in Devon won’t bite you know.”

Maxine smiled.

“Thanks Cliff, you are a rock.”

“Hey, I’m not dead yet!”

They both laughed.

A week later, Maxine drove down to Devon for the scheduled board meeting. Her mind was not on the meeting but she felt that she had to go if only to show face. When she arrived at the hotel, both Belinda and Nina were waiting for her.

They each took one arm and literally marched her into the restaurant. As it was mid-afternoon, it was deserted. They sat her down at a table that was set for afternoon tea.

“Now Maxine, we won’t be having any of this fug. We know Adrian is looking down on us tut-tutting at you and we are going to make sure that you get back to normal.”

Maxine sat motionless. A few tears started to form in her eyes.

“I feel such a fraud.”

Nina laughed.

“You are not a fraud my dear. You are the real deal. You are a woman despite what the cells and genes in your body says. Am I right darling?” said Nina.

Belinda held her partners hand.

“Yes, my darling you are so right.”

Maxine cried. She’d not had a good cry for months and she could not hold them back any longer. He hosts hugged her tightly until she had cried out. The conversation they’d had earlier with Cliff had worked wonders.

When Maxine had regained her composure afternoon tea was served to the three by the head chef, Jules. As usual, he had a huge smile on his face.

Over a cup of tea, Maxine’s brain started working again.

“Why are you so good to me?” she asked.

Belinda laughed.

“Without you and Adrian we would not be here today. The work that the two have done made and will continue to make all of this possible.”

Maxine smiled.

“Bollocks and you know that. It is the hard work that you and your team has done that has made this possible.”

“And who supplied the money and a lot of ideas and inspiration?” said Belinda’

“You did and that’s why we are sitting here today,” added Nina who sat back with a huge smile on her face.

Both Maxine and Belinda noticed this.

“Why the smile darling?” asked Belinda.

“I was just reflecting how much Maxine has changed since we first met her.”

Belinda nodded her head.

Maxine looked concerned.

“Don’t worry darling,” said Nina.
“When we first met you, you were totally out of your depth. But since then we have seen you grow into a lovely woman.”

“Nina’s right you know. That first day your looked and acted like a scared cat. Now, you are in charge of a business empire.”

Maxine almost choked on her tea.

“Business empire my ass!”

The three of them laughed.

“But…”

Belinda interrupted Maxine.

“You are part of this place whether you like it or not.”

Maxine tried to say something but failed. Instead, she mouthed ‘Thank you’ to her hosts.

When tea was over Maxine asked,
“About the board meeting?”

Belinda and Nina laughed.

“I thought we just had it? Do you have anything for AOB?”

Maxine was speechless.

“No… No, I don’t.”

“Then I declare it over for another month,” said Belinda.

Then she added,
“We are taking you out to dinner. There is something you need to try.”

No matter what Maxine tried neither of the others would divulge where they were going nor what new food she was going to experience.

Maxine left the reception to go and collect her bag from the car. As she did so, a fairly decrepit ex-Army Land Rover drew up outside the hotel. Maxine thought nothing of it until she saw who the driver was.

“Mr Chelon!”

He was as shocked as she was.

“Ms Forsythe. Nice to see you again.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Me? I’m delivering some herbs. I received a message telling me that the Chef has changed what is going on the menu.”

Maxine looked troubled.

“I grow them at a smallholding a few miles away. That other work is done on an as needed basis. By the way, it went very well. Sixteen people are now in custody and charged with art smuggling and most it was down to you.”

Maxine tried to stop herself from blushing but failed.

“What are you doing in this neck of the woods? It is quite a way from Reigate is it not?”

“Business I’m afraid.”

“If you get some free time, come and visit my smallholding. The reception can give you the address.”

“I may just do that Mr Chelon.”

“Jacques please.”

Maxine hurried off before she got herself into a mess. There was something about that man that made him impossible to ignore.

---

Just before one that afternoon, the trio arrived at a small pub somewhere on the edge of Dartmoor. The name of the pub was ‘The Red Cow’.

“Well, you have got me here to the back of beyond. Why are we here?”

Nina smiled.

“We did a big wedding last month as you know. One of the items we served on the menu was at the insistence of the groom. We are here so that you can taste it. Jules got the chef from this place to come and cook it for the reception. You know Jules, he has a lot of pride, but the pragmatic side of him won. He let the chef into his kitchen which was a big wrench for him. Still, he came out of it knowing how to cook the dish.”

Maxine was stunned. She knew just how Jules was when it came to strangers coming into his kitchen.

“It must be very special then?”

“Oh, believe me, it is.”

Maxine smiled.
“Shall we go in then?”

Nina led the way into the pub. She had to duck or she would have hit her head on the low door frame. Maxine had been in places like this before and was glad that she’d worn shoes with for her low 2in heels for the day.

The place smelt of wood smoke. Maxine saw the flickering of a fire in another part of the pub. She also smelt cooking. It reminded her that she had not really eaten that day.

They were at the pub to experience the beef. The organiser of the wedding had specified ‘Devon Red’ Beef for the reception. The chef at the pub was an expert at cooking it. The chef at the hotel, Jules had allowed the chef into his kitchen to help him cook it to perfection for the reception and had been raving over it ever since.

Maxine was not really a foodie but she knew from the first taste that this was a bit special.

When she finished her meal, she realised that both Nina and Belinda were waiting for her. She could read their minds.

“That was very nice,” said Maxine as she tried to be a bit non-committal.

“Nice?” exclaimed Nina.

“Well… It was excellent.”

All of them smiled.

“Am I to understand that you want to serve this at the Hotel?”

Belinda laughed.

“No way. This is for the Pub.”

“Eh?” said Maxine a bit puzzled.

“We’ve been doing some market research about the sort of people we want to attract. Now that the building work is progressing well, we need to think about décor and how it will be presented,” said Nina.

“And that is Nina’s forte,” said Belinda.

Maxine sat back with a smile on her face.

“What’s so funny?” asked Belinda.

“You don’t need me to make this sort of decision. I approve of this sort of food. Food miles are very important. If I recall correctly then I have mentioned it a few times in the past. The pub gives you both a chance to spread your wings a bit and … well make a name for yourselves.”

Belinda and Nina looked at each other with a look of concern on their faces.

“Are you … wanting out?” asked Belinda.

Maxine smiled.

“No chance. There is no chance of me wanting out but it is clear that you make a formidable team and have come on a long way in the last year or so. You have had to do that since I took more of a back seat to look after Adrian.”

Then Maxine leaned over and took hold of one of Belinda’s and Nina’s hands.

“I’m here should you want to expand the business again but you two and your staff have made the Hotel a success and I’m sure that you will do the same with the pub.”

Both Nina and Belinda did impressions of drowning fish. Maxine came to their rescue.

“Adrian… Well, his brain was working overtime almost to the end and we discussed giving you a little more freedom so to speak. His words were more eloquent than mine but I hope you understand what I mean. The Hotel has changed so much since we bought it from that bunch of American slimeballs. That is all down to the hard work that you and your team have put in. I might… or rather Adrian might have supplied the money but now you own a good deal more than half the equity so I can be outvoted if an issue is put to the vote but thankfully, we have not had to do that since you took that brave step and agreed to Adrian’s crazy idea about owning a Hotel.”

Maxine looked at both of them and smiled.
“Adrian and I were in total agreement that there really is no need to pay off any more of your borrowings. Use the money for the business.”

There was still silence so Maxine gave them both barrels.

“Go for it girls. Just remember that I’m here if you need the bank of Maxine.”

She squeezed their hands.

“For heaven’s sake, say something!”

Belinda wiped a tear from her eye.
“You sound just like him.”

“He was a good teacher and he taught me all I know.”

After lunch the trio went with the Chef from the Pub to visit the farm where the Beef came from. Both Nina and Belinda had a spring in their step. Maxine took a step backwards and let them get on with doing business.

As they crossed the moor on their way back to the hotel, Nina stopped the car by the side of the road.

She turned to face Maxine.

“Out with it Maxine! I have the distinct feeling that you are in the give and take mode that Adrian was so good at. You have given so what do you want in return eh?”

Belinda laughed.

Maxine smiled.

“Well… It is just a small thing and might not come to pass but…”

Nina and Belinda groaned loudly.

Then all three laughed.

“You know Cliff, Adrian’s and now my assistant?”

They both nodded.

“He’s been banging on about retiring for… well ever since I came on the scene. Now that Adrian has gone, I can sense that he wants to do it sooner rather than later. But he won’t leave until I get an assistant or partner but when I do… I think he might be suitable as the manager of the Pub. He’s run one before and know books and importantly, he knows both of you. What do you say eh?”

Belinda looked at Nina and laughed.

“What does he say about this? And more importantly, what about his wife?”

“Neither of them, know about this idea of mine. I wanted to bounce it off you first.”

“Do you have someone in mind to take over from him? Time is running out you know?” said Nina.

“Yes, I do but there really is a lot of water to flow under that bridge before it can be crossed.”

Nina chuckled.

“Are you sure Adrian is really gone? That’s the sort of thing he’d do.”

Maxine sighed.
“Yes, the old devil is gone but I know a bit of him lives on inside me. He was a one off and in time I’ll develop my own style.”

Then she added,
“You don’t need to say anything at the moment. I need to get my end sorted out before we even start moving forward and as you say, time is of the essence.”

“See! What did I say, give a bit take a lot!” exclaimed Nina.

All of them laughed for quite a while. Then Maxine changed the subject.

“I met one of your suppliers earlier. A man named Jacques Chelon. He’s quite a charmer.”

“Oh-la-la,” exclaimed Nina.
“If I didn’t love this one so much, I’d be after him in a flash.”

“But he’s so much older than you or me?” protested Maxine.

“So? Did you see that body? He lives off grid and grows all our herbs,” said Nina.
“He also sells at a couple of Farmers Market’s in the area.”

“Don’t tell me you are interested in him?” asked Belinda.

“No, I’m not. Adrian was a one off. If I get involved with anyone, it will be a woman but even so, he seems to be quite a man.”

“He’s French and I’m sure he could charm his way into your life,” joked Belinda.

“He did invite me to see his smallholding but I’m not going there…” replied Maxine entering into the spirit of the conversation.
“There… being his bed and I’ll have no more to say on the subject. I’ve done some work for him and he has powerful friends. I have no reason to risk everything with him. Got it!”

All three of them laughed.

---

When Maxine returned home, she wasted no time in talking to Cliff.

“Thanks for getting me to go down to Devon, it did the trick.”

Cliff smiled.
“Thanks Maxi. It went well then?”

“More than just well. But…”

Cliff groaned.

“You know that you keep on about retiring?”

Cliff smiled.
“I do and you are about to say that I’ve done nothing about it?”

“I was talking with Nina and Belinda over lunch yesterday about this and there might be a solution looking us in the face.”

Cliff’s face fell.
“Go on then. Give me the bad news.”

“There is no real bad news. You know that we bought the pub down in the Village?”

“Oh! I get you.”

“You’d make a great person to run the Pub and Restaurant.”

“I don’t know.”

“Good. That’s the response that I wanted. Why don’t you and Sheila go down to Devon, see the Pub and talk things over with Belinda and Nina?”

“What about you? You own a third of it don’t you?”

“I do the finance. They run the place. It is them you’d have to work with on almost a daily basis. That is of course you don’t mind working for a couple of women?”

Cliff glared at Maxine.

“Don’t look at me like that. You know what I mean.”

“Humph!”

“Don’t humph me. I am trying to think ahead.”

“And that is getting rid of me then?”

“No, it isn’t. I do know that I’ll need to find a Number 2 before you even think of retiring. Am I right?”

“Too darn right you are. I promised Adrian that I’d look out for you and I’m still doing that.”

“I know you did but with me starting to get my act together, it is time to look forward and not backwards.”

“And that means putting me out to grass?”

“I don’t think running a hopefully successful Pub and Restaurant is being put out to grass.”

“Humph.”
“Who have you got lined up as my replacement?”

“I didn’t have a clue until we were at a pub on Dartmoor yesterday lunchtime.”

“Skiving off?”

“Far from it. I was being introduced to some of the best beef I’ve ever eaten which hopefully will be on the menu at the Pub Restaurant. I remembered someone who would more than likely fit the bill as your replacement.”

Cliff didn’t look very happy.

“But I’m not going to make any moves in that direction until you have been to Devon and seen the place for yourself.”

Cliff wasn’t convinced.

“Call up Nina and take your wife down to Devon. Do it today.”

“Yes Boss.”

Cliff wasn’t totally convinced but Maxine knew that she’d sewn some seeds in his mind.

---

Two days later Cliff came into Maxine’s office in the middle of the morning. He’d had to move his desk to an adjoining room when she started working for Adrian and now that he was gone, she’d tried to get him to return but he refused to sit at Adrian’s old desk so now, she was on her own.
“I’ve just spoken to Belinda and Sheila and I are going down to Devon tomorrow. Sheila more or less told me that we are going as soon as I mentioned your conversation with me.”

Maxine smiled.
“Smart woman your wife!”

Cliff glared at her for all of half a second before he realised that she was pulling his leg.

“You didn’t have a quiet word with her by any chance?”

“I did not. Now… if you hadn’t done anything about it for a few weeks then I might but in this instance, I am most certainly ‘not guilty M’lord’.”

Cliff went away happy.

The news meant that Maxine had to do something about getting a number 2. She’d had a good idea about who she’d approach but she really had not got a clue about how she’d approach them but as she sat there gazing out of her office window, all sorts of weird and wonderful ideas started to form in her mind.

She dismissed all of them in a flash. Then she went out for a walk up on the North Downs. The space gave her time to think. Life without Adrian was proving a lot harder than she’d ever invisaged.

[to be continued]

Jacques Chelon plays a major part in my next story that will start to be posted here next week. Maxine also makes several appearances.

[Authors Note]
The events described in this part take place after Maxine’s trip to Devon. She had been there on a Spa retreat with her friend Delphine and Delphine’s step-daughter Gabrielle. This is all described in part 24 of 'Sixty is not that Old'.
https://bigclosetr.us/topshelf/fiction/89023/sixty-is-not-th...

Gabrielle took Delphine home while Maxine headed up onto Dartmoor and parked her car for a while. The purpose of the trip to the spa had been to get Delphine out of a fug that came from the showdown with her daughters. Many of the conversations they’d had while aimed at Delphine had resonated with Maxine. Now that the spa trip was over, she needed some time to think about some of the conclusions that had been staring her in the face all week.

Maxine parked her car and went for a walk through a piece of ancient oak woodland[1]. These were not the more normal majestic oaks that we see all over the country. These were small and gnarled. The wind that often ripped across the moorland had kept them very stunted, but the branches were all covered in moss and lichen. Their abundance signified a clean atmosphere.

Maxine saw something that looked out of place in the sea of green, so she went to investigate. She marvelled at a white blob that was clinging to a branch. She'd seen nothing like it before.

With her interest piqued in the 'thing', she started searching on her phone. The answer was soon staring her in the face. It was a 'slime mould’.

One article mentioned the possibility of using a slime mould and all its 700+ sexes to solve the famous 'travelling salesman ' problem.

She looked around and sighed. So much of what we did was hell-bent on destroying places like this. Just that one creature helped Maxine decide on how she wanted to move on with her life. Being based in Reigate was holding her back. The ever-presence of Adrian, while a pleasant memory, would not help her take the steps that she needed to move forward with both her life and business.

Back in her car, Maxine found herself a bit lost. The appearance of a menacing stone building soon brought her back to reality. She was looking at the old Dartmoor Prison. A place where so many lost souls ended their lives. Now it was a tourist attraction. Maxine shook her head. She was never one for the morbid side of life, but the juxtaposition of the prison and all the hardship and the slime mould which can heal itself in minutes if cut in half merely served to reinforce the decision that she'd come to less than half an hour earlier.

Her immediate problem was that the change would not be easy. Just like becoming Maxine had not been easy or plain sailing, making this change would take time and money. She had both of those but the experience of the past four days had reminded her that she was missing something important. Maxine longed to have someone in her life. The question of who that would be would have to wait for a while. A sudden rain squall appeared out of nowhere and dropped its load of wetness right on the village of Princetown. Maxine escaped the worst of it, but its intent was clear.

“This will never do,” she muttered to herself.

Maxine drove towards the main A30 road and headed east. A glance at the remaining charge in her car's battery told her that she would need to charge somewhere on the other side of Exeter to get back to Reigate that night. That made her next decision easy. She turned off the A30 and headed south. A good meal, a comfortable bed and somewhere to charge her car was waiting for her at the Hotel.

---

"Hello, Maxi," said Nina who was operating the reception desk when Maxine walked in.
“We were not expecting you this weekend.”

Maxine smiled.
"I've been at that fancy spa on the north side of the moor with a few friends. I didn't fancy driving home tonight, so here I am."

Nina smiled.
“I’m glad that you are here. Do you want to come over for dinner? Belinda and I have something to tell you.”

“Are you two getting married at last?”

That was a running joke between the three of them. Belinda and Nina were both in the 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' camp when it came to getting married. Maxine tended to agree with them. They seemed to Maxine that they were almost the perfect couple. She would, if pressed hard, admit that she was a bit jealous of them and their relationship.

"Not yet. One of these days, she will say yes, and I’ll probably faint on the spot,” joked Nina.

“Sounds like I’ll have to give you away from my wheelchair!”

"Don't fret so much, Maxi. You'll find a nice person to share your life with."

"One of these days maybe, but from where I stand, they are a bit thin on the ground. Adrian was very much a one-off."

Nina laughed.
“He was that.”

“What time do you want me?”

“Let me check with my SWMBO. If I don’t say otherwise, seven will be fine.”

“Ok, I’ll see you then.”

Nina handed over the keys to the room that was kept ready for Maxine.
“No need to get dressed up like that fancy spa place.”

Maxine laughed as she left Nina alone in reception.

---

Maxine didn't hear to the contrary from Nina, so she turned up at the house that the two women shared just before seven that evening.

"Come on in, Belinda is just getting changed. She had an accident with the Tempura Batter. It went everywhere."

“Is there any clearing up I can do to help?”

“No, it is all under control.”

“Are we having Japanese tonight?”

"Belinda's attempt at it. Jules has been serving it at the Pub for a while, and it has been going down very well. The freshness of the ingredients helps a lot."

Maxine laughed.
“And to think that a few of the locals tried to stop us reopening the place even after we said that we’d use local ingredients wherever possible.”

“Yeah. Those doubting Thomas’s have been made to, as the American's say, 'eat crow' by the rest of the village."

Just then, Belinda appeared.
“Has Nina been regaling you of my woes with the batter?”

“She has but don’t worry about it. We all make mistakes from time to time.”

When they’d finished the big dish of Tempura Langostines, Belinda took hold of Nina’s hand with a smile and said,
“We want to take up your offer of donating some sperm. Nina here has been very broody recently. Even more so after Jacqui from housekeeping gave birth to twins.”

Her words gave Maxine a bit of a shock.

“Maxi, I know that it was a long time ago that you made the offer but… If it still stands, we’d love to have you as a parent.”

“I’d almost forgotten all about it.”

“It was when you decided to go the whole way but only after getting some of your sperm frozen first,” said Nina.
“You were sitting right where you are now,” she added.

Maxine sat quietly for almost a minute.

Slowly a smile appeared on her face.

"Yes. Yes, of course, the offer still stands. I… I was hoping to father my own child one day, but as that seems to be a remote possibility at the moment, I'll gladly donate some of my 'stuff' for you. I'll even pay for the treatment. How does that sound?"

Belinda looked lovingly at Nina. Maxine could see a tear form in their eyes.

Maxine leaned over and took hold of their hands.

“Why didn’t you mention this to me before?”

It was Nina who eventually answered.
“We weren’t sure. It was what… more than four years ago now.”

“I am bloody sure that I want to be the third wheel in your family. Why else do you think I made the offer in the first place. What's even better is the fact that I've decided to sell up in Reigate and move down here. If it is ok with you, I'd like to play my part in your family. If you ever want a babysitter, then you know who to call, Auntie Maxi."

She nearly said it in the style of the original ‘Ghostbusters’ theme tune but managed to stop herself in time.

Belinda and Nina hugged each other. Tears rolled down their cheeks. Maxine knew from past conversations that Belinda regretted not freezing some of her sperm before she had begun to transition.

"There is one condition, though. It isn't a huge one."

“Whatever it is, it is yours,” said a still tearful Belinda.

"I want you two to get married. You are a great couple, and I know that you are devoted to each other. Please do this for me?"

Nina looked at Belinda, who nodded.

"You two need a kick to get you to tie the knot. Isn't the prospect of having a baby together a good enough one or not?"

They both nodded.

“When did you decide to move down here? It wasn’t just tonight, was it?” asked Belinda.

Maxine shook her head.
"I have been thinking about it for quite a while now. The break at the Spa with Delphine gave me time away from the business to think very hard about my future. Then today, as I came across the moor, I stopped at an old oak wood. There I saw this thing called a slime mould. These creatures are very simple organisms. They have the ability to repair themselves in minutes if you cut them in half. Strange as it may seem, that's when I finally made up my mind to move down here."

“Then welcome to Devon Maxine,” said Belinda.
"I came down here just after I'd transitioned, and I never want to leave."

"Then don't. You two have a nice home here. It has always to me felt like a proper home, not like that Victorian monolith that I live in at the moment. It was always Adrian's home, not mine."

Then she added,
"If I can make my home even half as nice as this one, then I will have done well."

There wasn’t a lot more to be said on the issue.

---

Maxine stayed at the Hotel until Monday. She spent most of the time in one of the spare offices working hard on a project. She was keeping pretty tight-lipped about what it was all about.

"If I say nothing, then I can tell you no lies," she told anyone who inquired about her work.
“It is all a lot of wishful thinking at the moment.”

She'd sent an email to Cliff telling him that she would not be back at home until late on Monday. Cliff replied with words that said, 'it is alight for some' but, Maxine knew that she was joking.

"Hello, Michel. Hard at it as usual?" said Maxine when she arrived at Michel's and Delphine's home in Devon.

"Hi, Maxine. Delphine is up at the house if you want her?"

"It is you that I came to see."

“Me? Why?”

“Is your neighbour Janice still wanting to sell her home?”

A smile appeared on his face.
“Are you finally going to move? You have been talking about it for a while now.”

“I have finally decided that I am going to move down here, and her place seems to be ideal for me."

“There is more to it than just the house you know.”

"I do, and that's why I'm interested. Do you know if she is still interested in selling?"

"As far as I know, she is but, she does not want the hassle of going through Estate Agents. She was gazumped several times before she bought her present home."

"Then a direct sale might be the perfect solution for both of us. No sense in paying for a service that neither of us wants. Are you very busy? If not, could you introduce us?"

Michel smiled.
“Of course, I can do that but Delphine will be sad to have missed you.”

“I’m here for a board meeting tomorrow. I could come over tomorrow afternoon if that’s convenient for the two of you. I have something to discuss with you both.”

"That sounds serious. I don't think that Delphine has anything marked down for then. She's going to get her eyes tested tomorrow morning, but after that, I don't think we have anything that would stop us from meeting up later. I was planning on doing my deliveries in the morning anyway."

“That’s good for me.”

“I take it that you’d like to go over to Janice’s now?”

"If possible, then yes."

"Ok. Let me wash my hands, and we can go."

---

“Janice? Are you there?” called out Michel.

We’d walked across the fields from his home to hers. It had taken almost as long as it would have if we had driven.

We heard a noise from the upstairs part of the house.

Suddenly a window opened, and a woman poked her head out.

"Oh, it is you, Michel. I was expecting a delivery, but as usual, they seem to have got lost. I'll come down."

Shortly afterwards, a woman of about the same age as Delphine opened the door. Maxine saw right away that her hands were very arthritic. She wondered if this was the reason for her wanting to move.

“Janice, this is my good friend Maxine.”

"Oh. I've heard a lot about you from Jacques… sorry Michel. One of these days, I'll get it right."

"Don't worry, Janice. At least half of my customers plainly refuse to call me anything but Jacques."
“Janice,” said Michel becoming more formal.
“Maxine here might be interested in buying your house. If you are still interested in selling that is?”

Janice’s ears pricked up right away.

“Won’t you both come inside? I don’t like talking on the front step.”

Maxine thought ‘She sounds just like my mother’.

“Thanks, but Delphine will be wondering where I have gotten to,” said Michel.
“I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Don’t forget tomorrow Maxine.

With that, he left. That was him all over. He wasn’t one for idle chit-chat.

Maxine followed Janice into the house. It seemed far more homely than her home in Reigate could ever be. She warmed to it right away.

Maxine was asked to sit down in the very spacious kitchen. There was an old wood-fired Aga range in the middle of one wall. She couldn't see any evidence of a Gas Boiler.

"Thanks, Janice. I hope that this isn't too much of a surprise. I thought it better for Michel to introduce us rather than coming here on my own."

Janice smiled.
"If you had done that, I probably would not have answered the door. There are some unsavoury people around at the moment. They trick their way into a house with some story and see if there is anything worth stealing. If there is, they and their friends come back when the occupant is out and rob the place."

“Thanks for the heads up,” replied Maxine.

“Janice, Michel told me that you were looking to sell up.”

"I am, but honestly, I don't want to go through the whole selling and buying process, dealing with multiple estate agents who do nothing but lie to you."

"I know what you mean. If we can come to some sort of agreement between ourselves, then there is no need to involve an agent in the sale."

“What do you suggest?” asked Janice.

"If you could get a couple of valuations and I'll pay the average of the two prices. I will be a cash buyer, so there won't be a chain to worry about from my side."

“It sounds like you have given this some thought?”

Maxine smiled back at her.
“I talked things over with my Accountant and the Company Lawyer.”

“You have an Accountant?”

She grinned back at Janice.
"I don't, but my company does."

Maxine dived into my handbag and pulled out a card.
“That’s got all my contact information on it.”

Janice took the card, and after studying it for a moment, she smiled.

“How about I give you the grand tour?”

“That’s great. Lead on.”

---

“Well, Maxine, what do you think of my little kingdom?” said Janice with some pride.
She’d showed her all the house and the outbuildings, especially the 1970's cowshed.

“I think it will do me perfectly. The large empty barn is just what I’m looking for.”

“There are some restrictions on what you can do with it. You can’t run a food production business from it without applying for planning. As you can see, I park my car in there. The rest of the things are mostly junk that I’ve never gotten around to taking to the recycling centre.”

“I certainly won’t be doing anything that would break planning. My first aim would be to cover the roof with solar panels.”

Janice let out a small laugh.
"Jacques has been on at me to do that. It is a mystery to me how the two of them manage with a pile of old car batteries as their source of electricity. Before he met Delphine, I could understand it but now that there are the two of them… It must be touch and go."

"I know. Delphine is a little worried as well. Perhaps I could sell him some of my excess power?"

Janice laughed.
“I’d love to be a fly on the wall when you tell him that!”

“Do we have a deal on how to proceed?” asked Maxine.

“I think we do.”

"Good. I await the findings of the valuations. Please don't let the agents try to sign you up there and then on one of their so-called 'sole agent' deals."

"I know all about them, and I'll put on my dithering female act for them at the appropriate time."

Maxine laughed.
“If you were only my age Janice, I’d have a job for you.”

"Thanks for the compliment. I'm retired and, when this goes through, I'm going to move to somewhere a lot smaller. I'm afraid that my eyes got the better of me when I bought this place. It has been just too much for me to manage. Don't get me wrong, I love the place, but I have things I want to do with my life and… and being here just didn't allow that to happen."

“I know what you mean.”

“You do know that there are animal care duties to consider living here?”

“You mean feeding Michel’s flock?”

“Yeah. You’d better get used to being given the run around by those geese when trying to round them up at night.”

"I know about them. Even Michel has problems at times with the roundup. I've seen him end up face down in the stream but don't tell him about that. It was not his finest hour."

---

"Morning Cliff," said Maxine on Tuesday morning.

“Ah… the wanderer returns. Have a good week off?”

"Don't you start? I did a good deal of work while I was away if you must know."

“Yeah, having a massage is really hard work…”

“Ok, if you want, I’ll book you and your wife in for a trip. Then you can see how easy it is.”

“Pah!”

“The trip did allow me to do a good deal of thinking. Don’t groan because it concerns you as well.”

Cliff sat down. His eyes went towards the kitchen.

“Tea can wait.”

"Ok, Maxi. Let me have it. Both barrels."

“Cliff, it isn’t like that at all. If you must know, I’ve decided to move down to Devon.”

Cliff smiled.

"At last. Took you long enough, didn't it."

"I don't know what you mean?"

"Adrian told me the day before he moved to the Hospice, and I quote, 'Don't be surprised if eventually, Maxine decides to sell up and move to Devon.’ I’m just saying as how he told me.”

“That does not surprise me. We did discuss it before he got the final diagnosis.”

“When and where?”

“The when is open. The where is I’m going to be a neighbour of Delphine and Michel.”

“It sounds like you have made an offer on a place already?”

"Not quite an offer. I have come to a verbal agreement with the owner to pay the average of two valuations.”

Cliff sat back in his chair and looked at his hands. This was a sure sign that he was thinking hard.

"Don't think so hard, Cliff. I'd like to move down to Devon before October. However, until I get myself established down there, this will still be our base of operations. If you press me hard, then I see this place going on the market around Christmas time. That means, Cliff, that when this place is sold, and empty, you can retire and move down to Barnstaple.”

Cliff just glared back at Maxine.

“Did I say anything wrong?”

“Moving to North Devon is out as far as the wife goes. Her sister has taken up with a man that is a total loser. He’s living out of the back of his camper van that is currently parked on her driveway. It is pretty obvious to everyone but her that he is only after her money. He's been bankrupt three times and owes a lot of maintenance to his two former wives. Do I have to go on?"

Maxine chuckled.
“How? How did you find all that out?”

"I just googled his name. One of the former partners is out for blood. They got back together just long enough for him to make her pregnant again. Within an hour of her telling him the news, he was gone leaving behind a load of debt that was somehow in her name. It is all there on Facebook."

“Does your sister-in-law know this?”

Cliff nodded his head.
"That's what caused the rift. She told us to loudly and with a good deal of profanity to never darken her door again."

“At least you tried. So where is next on the retirement list?”

"North. The Far north. Just to be a long way away for when it all goes pear-shaped."

“You mean Scotland? Or farther north than that?”

“I mean Berwick upon Tweed. I have a couple of cousins who live near there. One has fishing rights on a section of the Tweed.”

Maxine laughed.
“That sounds like a good place to be a cast-away!”

Cliff just groaned but managed a smile.

[to be continued]

[1] The wood in question is called Wistmans Wood and was in the news recently
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-devon-57602915

The picture of the interior of the wood on the BBC site shows how strange it is.

“Come on Maxi… Out with it… Something has been bothering you ever since you came back from Devon. Don’t you think sharing the problem might help? Two minds and all that crap?”

Maxine looked over her desk at Cliff. Once again, he was right on the ball. There was something on her mind.

She sighed before saying,
"Cliff, there is something on my mind, and yes, it became a problem when I was in Devon. I'm trying to work out what to do next."

“What did I just say about sharing?”

“The problem isn’t to do with work.”

Cliff smiled.

“Who is she and is she married?”

“Cliff! It is not like that.”

“Really? From where I sit, it is as clear as a bell.”

Maxine didn't say a word, so Cliff continued.
“Just face it, Maxi, you need someone in your life. Didn’t you make a solemn promise to Adrian about moving on with your life outside the business? Don't even think of denying it. I was there when you told him that you would not sit on your backside and do nothing, remember?”

"It isn't like that."

“Maxi! Stop lying. I know your tells. When you lie to someone’s face, you briefly go cross-eyed. You did it just now. If you ask me and I know that you won't but, I'm going to say this anyway. You are just a bit scared of moving down to Devon and being on your own. You have seen how your friend Delphine found a soulmate in Michel, and even though you won't admit it, you are just a bit jealous.”

Maxine sighed again.

"It isn't that at all Cliff, it is worse. Delphine's husband Michel has a daughter who lives in Paris and was with us at the spa."

“And you fancy the daughter?”

"I do fancy Gabrielle, but she's spoken for. She's involved with a corsetiere from Paris."

“Corsetiere?”

"Someone who makes corsets. Delphine wears his work. Gabrielle is just beginning her journey."

“Did you ever? You know?” asked Cliff with a bit of a smirk on his face.

Maxine chuckled.
"Adrian did suggest it, and we had some great fun with me wearing one but not having someone to help me lace it up every day is a real PITA, but that's not the point."

“Now move on with plan ‘B’.”

“What plan ‘B’. Was there ever a plan ‘A’?”

Cliff grinned back at her.

“Think back to when you were half the woman you are now? Think back to your first trip with Adrian that wasn’t to Devon?”

“You mean when we went to France?”

“Go to the top of the class. Who did we give a lift back from the airport to?”

“Oh, you mean Ann-Lee?”

“Give the woman another gold star.”

Maxine glared at Cliff but didn't say anything, so he carried on.

“I happen to know that the charter company that we used to use for the trips to Carcassonne is relocating to Maastricht because of BREXIT. They are closing down their Farnborough base and giving the UK the finger. Naturally, they are not using those exact words. A mate of my son works at the new Citation base at Farnborough. He told me that their mechanics are all looking for work as of the end of the year. The plane-maker, Citation, is building a big new base at the airport. They are likely going to employ a lot of the people that the charter company will make redundant. It is a perfect fit because they are all already Citation certified, but that's getting off the point.”

“And you think that she’ll be looking for a job?”

“It is worth finding out, isn't it? Is there anything to lose?"

“Only my pride, only my pride and a load of rotten egg on my face for good measure…”

Cliff just smiled. He knew that he'd sown a few seeds, and it was now up to Maxine to see if they would germinate and bear fruit.

---

Maxine didn’t do anything for almost a week, but she thought about Ann-Lee quite a bit. But somehow, work always seemed to get in the way of her doing anything about it. It took Cliff to give her a gentle nudge late on Friday afternoon.

“Why don’t you take a trip to the Farmer’s Market in Dorking tomorrow. You know who may well be there.”

It took a second or so for her to understand what Cliff was hinting at.

"Oh… I see. How do you know that 'she' might be going to the market?"

"SWMBO and I went to the market last month and saw her selecting some cheese. I think that she bought some Cornish Yarg. Nice cheese that, but the SWIMBO hates it."

"Stop calling your wife of what, nearly thirty-two years, SWMBO. She deserves better than that, and you know it."

"I know, but this health kick that our darling daughter has got her on is getting me down.”

“Then call your daughter out? Just because she was dumped aged twenty-nine for a younger model who just happens to be a blonde model with oodles of money does not mean that she can come and start interfering with your life. It's not as if you are fat. Most men your age would have a bit of a paunch, but you don't."

“Easier said than done. Firstborn daughters and their mothers are very close, but Jacqui always has been an interfering busybody. The latest is whenever the wife puts on a pair of heels. Jacqui goes on and on about how bad they are for your feet. Jacqui got rid of all her shoes with anything even resembling a heel and now wears nothing but Doc Martens in various lurid patterns and colours.”

“Doh! And? Could that be part of the reason that Jacqui was dumped by Hubby?”

“Yes, and it is as clear as night and day, but for some reason, my dear daughter can't see it at all. But you have done it again, Maxi. Got me talking about my problems and not yours?"

“Why didn’t you introduce yourself to Ann-Lee at the Farmers Market?” said Maxine changing the subject.

"I was with the wife, and we were a little short of time. I think the odds are pretty good that she'll be there again tomorrow. You don't have anything to lose if you don't see her now, do you, but if do you go, a loaf of the spelt and barley bread from the bakery stall would be nice.”

Maxine started to look around the office.

"What are you looking for, Maxi?"

“Only the barrel that you have me over?”

---

Despite a lot of reservations and some last-minute nerves, Maxine took the train from Reigate to Dorking the next day more out of hope than anything. Parking in Dorking could be a nightmare at the best of times and is even worse on market days, so taking the train made perfect sense to her.

The town was busy as you’d expect on a sunny Saturday in summer. On her first pass through the market, Maxine didn't see Ann-Lee. She bought the loaf of bread for Cliff before heading for the Butchers Shop farther down the High Street. Maxine had used the shop several times before and knew that they sold a particularly nice type of sausage that had been a favourite of Adrian's. The least she could do was buy some for herself.

Just as Maxine emerged from the relative coolness of the shop into the bright sunshine and right away, she saw Ann-Lee walking along the other side of the street. Ann-Lee wasn't going towards the market. She was going in the direction of her home that was in the southwestern part of town.

Maxine knew that Ann-Lee would have to cross over to her side of the road on the other side at the traffic lights, so she hurried along to meet her.

To Maxine's surprise, Ann-Lee didn't cross over but carried on along what was formerly the old A25 main road. She followed her and crossed the road but stopped right away.

"I'm being, silly," she told herself.
“I can’t do this.”

For a moment, she almost turned tail and fled back to the railway station, but she didn't. She saw Ann-Lee go into a Wine Shop.

Maxine stood rooted to the spot for almost a minute before turning away with a shake of her head. This was not going to work. For her, it was far too contrived, far too public for her to feel comfortable.

---

Just over an hour later, Maxine called at Cliff's home. She was carrying the loaf of bread that she had purchased for him at the market.

“How did it go with Ann-Lee?”

Maxine had spent the entire journey back from Dorking trying to work out what she was going to say to Cliff about her dismal failure with Ann-Lee. In the end, she just had to confess her sins.

"I wimped out. I just could not go up to, her in the street and say 'fancy meeting you here… wanna come and work for me?'"

Cliff laughed.
“What’s the next step then?”

“I’m going over to her place on Monday morning. Be direct. Isn’t that what Adrian always said?”

"He did and, that's how he would see the situation, but you could have been direct with her earlier”

“It was far too public for my liking.”

Cliff just shook his head and muttered ‘coward’ under his breath.

Maxine glared at Cliff.

"Don't give me that look, Maxi. I know you too well. Just remember to lay it all out for her, and for heaven's sake, don't pressure her for an answer. I know you don't like ditherers, but this is one case where a little dithering is a good thing. Give her time to think things over.”

Maxine left Cliff smiling back at her. There were some days when Cliff was so like Adrian it was uncanny. That was why they'd been such a great team and even, more importantly, great teachers.

She was going to miss having Cliff around when he eventually called it a day. He, like Adrian, was going to be difficult, if not impossible, to replace.

---

Feeling both apprehensive and hopeful, Maxine drove over to Dorking the following Monday morning, and to her relief, she managed to get a parking spot close to Ann-Lee's home. She sat in the car for a few minutes trying to focus her mind on the task ahead. Instead of clarity, all she got were a jumbled-up mess of random thoughts.

“This will never do,” she muttered to herself as she finally got out of the car and walked up to Ann-Lee’s front door.

Maxine swallowed hard once again before ringing the bell.

After what seemed an age, the door opened, and there was Ann-Lee. Maxine's heart skipped a beat. For a few milliseconds the urge to turn tail and flee almost won through, but she stood her ground.

"Hello, Ann-Lee. Do you remember me?"

“It’s… Maxine isn’t it?”
Ann-Lee looked around.
“You normally travel with… Adrian. That’s it. Adrian Forsythe.”

“I’m afraid that Adrian passed away nearly two years ago. I’m running the business now.”

“Oh, I’m sorry to hear that. What can I do for you?”

"This may sound a bit crazy, but I'm here to talk to you about a possible job with my company?”

That was not what Maxine meant to say, but it got a reaction.

“Do you fancy going for a walk? We can talk while we walk?”

“Where do you suggest?”

“Holmbury Hill? It is generally quieter than Leith Hill.”

That brought a smile to Ann-Lee’s face.

“You told me on one of the flights that we took with you that you liked that walk,” added Maxine.

“Me and my big mouth, eh?” replied Ann-Lee smiling.
“Let me get my coat and walking boots. It won’t take long.”

“I’m parked just up the street. The blue Jaguar,” said Maxine pointing at her car.
“I’d better get back to it just in case a traffic warden comes by.”

“Ok. See you in a few minutes.”

Maxine smiled as she turned away. Deep down inside, she was dreading the next part of the operation.

---

“This is a nice car,” said Ann-Lee as Maxine drove away from Dorking along the A25.
“You were in a Beemer the last time we met?”

"That was Adrian's car. This one is my little baby.”

“It is so quiet and smooth,” remarked Ann-Lee.

“It should be. It is fully electric.”

"Oh, this is the first one of those that I've been in."

“I like it. It leaves all those boy-racers in their Vauxhall Novas standing at the traffic lights,” said Maxine grinning.

"I know the type. There are a couple of them who live up the hill from me. All loud noises and not a lot between the ears if you ask me.”

Then Ann-Lee asked,
“Maxine, why me? I'm sure that there is plenty of other fish in the sea?”

Maxine chuckled.
“My associate, Cliff. He was the one who drove us back from the airport one time when the flight was late… He said that your company was in the process of relocating to Maastricht due to BREXIT. I need a partner in the business so... given your background in the city and well… here I am.”

“Oh! I didn’t think that it was common knowledge that the base at Farnborough was closing?”

"Cliff is a veritable gold mine when it comes to gossip. He heard a whisper which he later confirmed," said Maxine.
“When is your last day with them?”

“End of November unless I find something new,” replied Ann-Lee with a tinge of sadness in her voice.

"Not looking forward to going back to the City, I take it?"

“I’m most certainly not looking forward to starting at the bottom again and getting up to catch the 05:52 train to Waterloo.”

“Rather you than me,” replied Maxine.

---

“Here we are,” said Maxine as she parked the car opposite the Holmbury St Mary Youth Hostel.

“I’m surprised that you know about this place. Most walkers would park in the village and struggle up the hill past the pub.”

“Blame Adrian for that. He was never the one to follow the herd.”
“Besides, it is a much easier walk to the top of Holmbury Hill from here.”

Ann-Lee laughed.

Maxine felt that she’d made at least some sort of connection with Ann-Lee.

---

They reached the top of the hill where they were treated to a great view south towards the South Downs, some twenty-odd miles away.

After sitting down and having a drink of water and a banana each, Maxine began to explain.

“As I said, I’ve been running the business with Cliff since Adrian died. Cliff wants to retire so I’m looking for a No 2 to work with me as I develop the business.”

Maxine went on to explain the different companies that Lorelei Investments were involved in and how the company operated.

“I begin to see what you are trying to do,” said Ann-Lee.

“We are most certainly not the normal run-of-the-mill investment company. I’m closely involved with the operations of each business. I work with the management to develop and grow their business. This is for the long term, unlike many City investment firms. We commit to working with a company for at least five years. That allows a company to think and plan strategically rather than be in reactive mode all the time.”

“You seem to be different to the tactics employed by Venture Capitalists? Swoop in, buy a business and leave a few years later with that business laden down with huge amounts of debt?” replied Ann-Lee.

"Exactly. That only benefits the vulture capitalists. To hell with the employees. They don't matter one little bit. We make it clear to the businesses that we work with, that we are not going to sell up, leaving them high and dry. My company has only divested itself completely from one company. That was when the original owners decided to retire. The new owners wanted total control. We struck a deal to remain on the board for three years. When we finally exited the business, the company was more than three the size, it was before we took over and had more than doubled the number of employees. We felt that we did right by everyone in the end."

Then Maxine added,
"Besides, those vultures would not look at the sort of companies we work with unless it was a personal project for the CEO’s pension fund.”

Ann-Lee laughed. She had much the same opinion of VCs as Maxine.
“Sounds like good business,” said Ann-Lee.
"What role do you want me to play? It has been several years since I had anything to do with investments."

“I know but isn’t it like riding a bike? Once learned, you never forget.”

“I suppose so.”

"I am working on a big project, and I can't do it alone. That's why I need a partner and especially someone with more financial acumen than me.”

“What sort of project?”

“First things first. Are you at least a bit interested in coming to work with me?"

“It depends.”

“On what?”

“What the catch is?”

Maxine laughed.

“There are two. The first is that I’m moving down to South Devon. That's where the project is based, and besides, my current home in Reigate was Adrian's. I don't comfortably fit into a Victorian Gothic style house."

“What about my home here?”

"Rent it out just in case things don't work out, but Devon is a much nicer part of the world to live and work, believe me.”

“Ok, so what’s the second?”

“This is the hard one. Ever since that first trip to Carcassonne, I’ve…”

Maxine looked Ann-Lee right in the eyes.
“I fancy the heck out of you.”

“But…?” stuttered Ann-Lee.

Maxine knew that it was crunch time.

“There is something you should know about me. I was born a male. Through a bizarre sequence of events, I went to a job interview posing as my sister. I wimped out on that and fessed up to the person who was recruiting. That’s how I met Sally Jameson. She changed my life.”

“Hold on there just a moment. The Sally Jameson? The one that puts on a lot of “Women in Business” events?”

"If you mean the one that has won several awards, then yes. I went to work for her for a while and loved it. At one point, I did a bit of research for her. It turned out that it was actually for Adrian. The result was that I went on to work for him. At that time, I was still very much a fish out of water in women’s clothes. Thanks to Adrian’s persistence, patience and then love, I became the person that I am today.”

Ann-Lee didn’t reply. Instead, she went thumbing through some pictures on her phone.

“See this?”

She showed Maxine a picture of Sally Jameson giving a talk. She could see her mother in the background.

“I went to this seminar where Sally told the tale of someone crashing an interview and winging it and that she took a risk and employed them to great success. That story was about you, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah, it was minus the fact that I’m trans.”

Just then, Maxine's phone bleeped. She looked at the message.

“Sorry, I need to reply to this. I’m supposed to be presenting at a conference session next week,” said Maxine.
"If you want, you can come along. Garth Samson is the keynote speaker."

Ann-Lee just shook her head as Maxine quickly sent off a text.

“Sorry about that. His wife can be a bit of a stickler for wanting copies of what I’m presenting well in advance. I’ve told her that I’ll send it to her tonight.”

“You certainly know some important people.”

Maxine smiled.
"I'm lucky in that I have met some good people over the years. I've had to prove myself, many many times over, but despite his reputation, Garth has become a good friend of mine. I'm a board member of the Charity that he has set up."

“Can I see your phone again?” asked Maxine changing the subject a bit.

Ann-Lee handed her phone over.

“That picture of Sally Jameson. See the older woman in the background? That’s my mother. She and Sally are getting married very soon. I’d love it if you were my plus-one?”

Ann-Lee sat silently for several minutes before she said,
“That is a lot to take in.”

“But you aren’t a lesbian?”

“And I’m not really a woman.”

That caused her to smile.

“That’s why I told Sally who I was right at the beginning. I told her that I was there because my wimp of a sister would not go to the interview due to a sprained ankle. I went and grabbed the chance. I had no idea that it would lead to where I am today. Why not give it a try?”

“All of it?”

“First the job then? Who knows eh?”

“I don’t know,” said Ann-Lee with a good deal of hesitation.

“That’s fair enough. I would have said ‘on yer bike’ if you had agreed to anything today.”

Maxine stood up after a brief look at her watch.

“Shall we go? It looks like we are in for a shower in those clouds over Ewhurst are anything to go by?”

Ann-Lee looked towards the approaching clouds. She could see some rain already falling.

“I think you are right. If we don’t hurry, we are in for a soaking.”

---

"Here is a breakdown of the company finances. Everything there is a public record. I put it together just to save you the time," said Maxine when they arrived back in Dorking.

“Thanks. Won’t you come inside to dry off?”
They’d been caught in the rain just before they reached the safety of Maxine’s car.

Maxine shook her head.
"Thanks, but no. I need to get back. I have a lot of work to do before the end of the day. Presentations don't grow on trees, you know.
“When do you need to know… about my decision and all that?”

"There is no great rush. I'll send you the details of the conference for next week. It is being held in Birmingham. Garth is hosting a private dinner the night before. If you are interested in going, then we can go up together."

“No pressure then?” replied Ann-Lee.

“Absolutely no pressure from me. I’m going because I have to be seen as supporting the charity. I have a bone to pick with Mrs Samson because I’d rather not be that visible but…”

“So… you are under pressure and want some moral backup from me?”

“Only if you are comfortable. I mean it. The people at the event can be a bit frightening at times until you get to know them. Even Garth can be a bit fearsome, but if you start talking about Birdwatching, he’s like a cuddly toy.”

“Thank you… for being open with me about what you expect and all that.”

"I find honesty is the best policy, especially in business. I was open with Sally at that first interview, wasn’t I?”

---

Once back home, Cliff was waiting for all the gory details.

“How did the plan go? Was she impressed?” he asked not even waiting for Maxine to get out of her slightly damp coat.

“Yes and no. She’d been to a seminar given by Sally Jameson. She even had a picture of Sally in full flow with my mother in the background.”

"That's good, is it not?"

Maxine shook her head.

“I was in full flow when Garth sent me a text. Margot wants my paper for the conference. That might have put her off a bit.”

“Well?”

“Well, what?”

“Have you written it?”

“No, I bloody haven’t. I don’t have a clue about where to start.”

"Oh, dear."

"Yes, my dear Cliff. I'm up shit creek without a paddle. I'd much rather not have to do this."

“I know. I was here when Morag twisted your arm in the first place. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, would she?”

"I guess I'll have to have a go at it. If it is bad enough, my session could be cancelled?"

"Maxi! That isn't you. The real you, I mean. Not the lovestruck one I see before me."

Maxine laughed.
"I'm not love-struck as you so calmly put it. I just don't want to prattle on about how it is to be a female boss. I'm a fraud pure and simple."

“You are no fraud Maxi. You never have been. I’ve been here since the first day that Adrian bought you home remember. You have always been more comfortable as a woman.”

“Stop right there, Cliff. You have no idea what I was like before… well, you know what.”

"Oh, Maxi, Maxi. I know only too well. I was much like you when I was around twenty. I had no idea what I was going to do with my life. Then I got a job as a driver to Adrian's Father. He steered me in the right direction. Like with Adrian, I became his ‘go-to’ person which carried on to be that with you here today. His dad showed trust in me just like Sally and Adrian did with you, and you have prospered if you don't mind me saying so.”

"There you are, Maxi, that's your presentation written. Easy-peasy if you ask me.”

“Pah!”

Once Maxine had some time to reflect on what Cliff had said, she began to understand what he was going on about. Much of what she’d said to Ann-Lee could be used as the basis for her presentation in Birmingham.

It was well after midnight when Maxine pressed ‘send’. Her draft presentation was on its way to Morag. Her next task was to email a formal invitation to the Conference to Ann-Lee. It was more of a speculative invite than anything else she hoped that it would be accepted.

Just before she went to bed, Maxine had a chance to reflect upon the day. Ann-Lee had been fairly non-committal about the job offer and everything. She hoped that the new day would bring good news, but the trip to Dorking had given her some inspiration for her presentation, so it hadn't been a total waste of time.

[to be continued]

[At a Conference Centre in Birmingham (UK)]

“Ready for your big day?” asked Garth Samson.
He was waiting to be called onto the stage to deliver the keynote speech of the conference.
Their friend, Sally Jameson had organised the event for the Foundation that Garth had set up almost a year earlier. This was their first big event since the launch of the enterprise.

“Ready for my death by social media more like,” replied Maxine.

“It can’t be that bad? Can it?”

“It would be just my luck for my sister, Dawn to appear and be the party pooper.”

“It does seem that you have an issue with her?” asked Garth.

“Not me with her but her with me. I went to the interview with Sally in her place. If I hadn’t and if Sally hadn’t seen something in me, I would not be here today. She thinks I owe her big time.”

“Is there a chance that she could be here?”

Maxine shrugged her shoulders.
“Who knows. Since Sally and my mother got together, she’s kept well away and her social media has even toned down since her original diatribes about her perverted family were posted.”

“Do you keep tabs on her posts?”

“My assistant Cliff does. She’d block me in a flash if she saw me or anyone who could even by some remote possibility be me, want to friend her.”

Garth smiled.
“I’m sure that you will knock them dead in your session. Margot was very impressed with the outline that you sent her. You have a story to tell and this is as good a place as any to do it.”

Maxine smiled.
"Thanks, Garth. Changing the subject… You do seem far more relaxed than I’ve ever seen you.”

“I feel good. Norfolk is very agreeable to me. The virtual snail’s pace of life there is good. Then there is the time difference to my operations Stateside. I can go out before dawn, and spend several hours just thinking about the birds before the USA wakes up. That is very therapeutic, you know. Both Kim and Bryony have remarked on how calm I am. Margo just smiles. I should have made an effort to look her up years ago. Thanks to you, Kim and Bryony, we are together, at last."

“But you were married, twice and from all accounts pretty happily to your last wife.”

“I was happy, and at times, life sucks. Still, Margot and I are together now, and that's what matters."

“The foundation seems to be going well?” remarked Maxine.

“You will have to ask Margot in a month or two, and then we'll see. That’s when we start getting the first formal financial and status reports from the initial tranche of projects, but you know all that already,” replied Garth, who was at last showing some nerves.

Just then, Kim waved at the pair.

"That's the signal for me to do my thing. This is going to be as nerve-wracking for me as it is for you,” said Garth.

Maxine laughed.
“Yeah. For two people who normally shun all publicity, this is right there in the lion’s den for us isn’t it.”

Garth smiled.
“Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more…”

“Since when have you taken to quoting Shakespeare?”

“Since Margot took me to Stratford to watch Henry the Fifth. She seems to think that I need a complete education in the finer arts. If you bothered to ask me, I'd prefer to be sitting at home beside the fire with a good book and a glass of something nice. Mind you, it was a good show, but most of the period language went right over my head.”

Maxine shook her head. It seemed that Margo was making Garth catch up for lost time on the culture front.

[two hours later, Sally Jameson was on a different stage introducing the next speaker]

“It gives me great pleasure to introduce a woman who left school with only a single GCSE and now runs a small but very successful investment company. I give you Maxine Forsythe…”

Maxine stood up and walked to the lectern that was at the centre of the stage. There was a smattering of polite applause.

She put her notes down and took a deep breath.

“Thank you for the introduction Sally,” began Maxine.

She looked around the seminar room. There was hardly a spare seat. As this was a ‘breakout session’, she was very surprised. With that surprise went an increase in nerves.

“Sally often tells a tale in her seminars about seeing the potential in a person that she was interviewing for a summer job and deciding that it was worth taking a risk.”

“She goes on to tell how that, person, was dropped in at the deep end and how that person not only swam but raced ahead and just a few months later, moved on to bigger and better things. The risk that she had taken had paid off."

Maxine looked over to the side of the stage where Sally was standing.

"That person was me. I was the out of work person who came to her looking for a job, any job. She took a risk and trusted her gut feeling that this person had the potential for bigger and better things. Thank you, Sally, and that's from the bottom of my heart."

Maxine let that sink in for a few seconds.

“Sally took a risk in employing me. We all take risks every day. In our private lives and at work. Most are small things like trying a new type of tea or coffee.”

Maxine moved away from the lectern before saying.
“I’d like to try a brief survey.”

"How many people here have tried Lapsang Schon tea. Please raise your hand?"

About half the audience did that.

“Put your hand down if you hated it.”

About 30% of those with their hand up lowered them.

“Put your hand down if you went ‘Meh’ to the tea.”

Over half of those remaining did so.

“Of those still with their hands up, keep them up only if you drink it more than once a week.”

Less than a dozen people remained with their hands raised.

“Thank you. Those of you with your hands up may put them down now.”

She paused for a second.

"Those of you who tried it and didn't like it did so because you took the risk and then made an informed decision about the tea. Rather than dismissing it out of hand because it is different, you took a risk, a small risk but, nevertheless, a risk."

"Columbus took a risk sailing west over the horizon when millions thought that the Earth was flat yet, we know now that the Earth is to all intents and purposed a slightly squashed sphere."

"As I said just now, life is a risk, but far too many of us are becoming increasingly risk-averse. Going to the same place year after year for our holiday's, to buying the same brand of washing up liquid, to what we do in business. A lot of this is down to the increasingly litigious society we live in but, we can still take risks and live to see another day."

“In my business, the first and biggest risk is deciding if the company I’m looking at is worth investing in. Once I've decided to invest, I have to decide how to work with the company to minimise my risk in the long term. Not the next 90 days. Not the next year but the next three to five years. In my very humble opinion, such market-based short-termism is killing risk and creativity in the western world.”

"By returning to what might euphemistically, be called the 'good old days and giving the market two fingers, when it comes to their 90-day show increased profits or go bust attitude, we can plan how to take our business forward and make our investors happy in the long run. If that pissed off the short-sellers then that's a welcome bonus. We are there to run the business for the benefit of everyone and not just the tranche of increasingly short-term investors.”

“Once upon a time, many institutional investors such as those who are in the Life Assurance market did take the long view. Back then, fifteen years was considered short term. Sadly, this is no longer the case. We have to ask ourselves why this is?"

She paused for effect.

“In my mind, far too many MBA, or as I call them, More Boring Assholes, have brought their get super-rich quick and get out mantra into almost every cranny of the business world. That is why my cardinal rule is to never even think about investing in a listed company and especially any with MBA’s anywhere near running the business.”

Maxine smiled at the audience.
“I did say running and not ruining but in many cases, there is not a lot of difference.”

There was a good deal of laughter from the audience.

“My second rule is never to even think about investing in a business that has the children or grandchildren of the owner chomping at the bit to take over, sell everything off and cash out. Families and stock markets are frankly immovable objects. However, that does leave a lot of SME’s that are literally crying out for the right sort of investment so, I am never short of opportunities.”

Maxine paused and looked at the audience. She could see many heads nodding.

"I see that many of you agree with me, at least in principle. Thank you for that."

“As I said, Investing in companies and people for the long term is very much not what the markets want at the moment. Having to report increased profits every 90 days or watch your share price take a hammering because of speculators, and even worse, 'shorters', is not good for your stress levels as business leaders. To me, it is fundamentally wrong. Yes, you have to report how your company is doing but, in many industries, investments take 3 to 5 years or even longer to come to fruition. To be expected to show a profit on a long-term investment after one or two quarters or at the most a year is ridiculous and verging on stupidity in my opinion. Hence my rule No 1.”

"If you were to break ground on a new factory today that produce large quantities of state of the art silicon chips, it would be 3-5 billion dollars and upwards of 3 years before that investment started to produce worthwhile quantities of product. For many on Wall St and elsewhere, that is far too much capital and far too long a time before it starts to pay back. They'd want to impose a very high rate of return just to consider lending the money. Plus, it does not even take into consideration that the plant might be operating for 10 or even 15 years.”

“Yet, other countries don’t get hung-up about short-termism and the need to satisfy the so-called analysts. In my very humble opinion, those analysts speak out of their backsides.”

“Many years ago, the Rock Band Queen, released a song called 'I want it now'. To me, that sums up the markets perfectly."

She paused for a few seconds.

"Sometimes we get our decisions about risk-taking wrong. The choice we made may initially seem to be the right one and we could even reap the benefits of that choice. However, we may not find out for years that we did get it wrong in the long term. Let me give you an example."

“Back in the late 1820s and early 1830s, the railways of the world were in their infancy. Steam engines were very underpowered. The Engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, was engaged to build a railway line from Bristol to London. I say Bristol to London because it was the merchants of Bristol that initially financed the project. London was the destination for much of the merchandise that arrived at the Port of Bristol.”

“Because of the hills in the way, he had to find a route that was as flat as possible. The result was the line he built didn’t follow the much more direct route what we now know as the A4 but went north and then west once you pass Reading to pass through a gap in the hills that had been carved by the River Thames. He also reasoned that putting the rails 7ft apart would allow his chief engineer, Daniel Gooch, to put a bigger boiler on the engines. More steam could be produced, therefore giving more speed and pulling power. In 1840, his railway was running trains at 60mph when others were struggling to reach 30mph but, we have to ask ourselves, was this a success or failure?”

She let the question stew for a few seconds.
“I say short term success but ultimately a long-term failure. Eventually, the 7ft gauge the Great Western Railway had adopted had to go because every other railway in the land and most of the world had opted for a gauge 4ft 8.5 inches. The last broad-gauge train ran in 1892, by which time locomotive boilers had become much more efficient, and the size wasn't so important. But, the legacy that Brunel left was a railway line that is almost flat from London to Bristol. That is a success, but the people of the Victorian era didn't know it, but I'd like to think that Brunel did know that he was building a legacy.”

“The thing I am trying to say is that we don't know what the future holds at the time when we have to make decisions. Many times, the ultimate result is not that clear cut. The risk-averse world we live in seems to be increasingly dictating that no decision is better than the wrong decision. We can't make progress as a race that way. No decisions mean stagnation and eventual decay. If we make a decision that turns out to be the wrong one, then sometimes, we have to accept that it was the wrong one and do an about-face. It is a pity that more politicians don't admit that sometimes that they got it wrong before and, with the benefit of hindsight, they'd make a different one today. Instead, we get their failures dragged up in the press time after time simply because they won't admit they got it wrong. They used to say that no one got fired for buying IBM. Now it appears to be… ‘no one ever got fired for making no decision’.”

“That ‘do nothing’ or ‘just say no attitude’ is what many parts of the world are seeing now. The old 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it attitude' will nine times out of ten, eventually come back to bite you where it hurts. Not right away, not tomorrow, perhaps not next year but come back it will."

“I guess many of you are asking how this all fits in with the aims of the Foundation?”

“When Garth first pitched the idea of the foundation to me, I knew that it would have to take risks when selecting the right projects to invest in that will ultimately fulfil the long term aims of the foundation. There would be failures along the way, but if the work it set out to do was to make an impact for the long term, these would have to be lived with and learned from."

“Learning is a lifelong thing. We learn new things every day. To have an inquisitive mind, is to me, a huge asset. Not accepting the status quo. Questioning decisions made by Politicians and much more. That's where you all come in."

"As ambassadors to the foundation, we expect two things. Honesty and an attitude of questioning what others are saying are impossible. That involves taking risks, rocking the boat and much more. If we don't, then much of the money that the Foundation will raise and subsequently spend will be wasted which, is just not right. Pitch your ideas. Don’t be afraid to think big and think long term.”

Maxine saw a few nodding heads in the audience.

“As long as you have considered the downsides as well as the upsides, we won’t bite your head off. In fact, as a board member, I will make it my duty to work with promising ideas and develop them into ones that will have a better chance of success and benefit society as a whole. Not today, not tomorrow but next year and beyond.”

"I read a story some years ago where an employer said to a prospective employee something like, 'I don't care if you are a green-skinned lesbian pigmy. If you are right for the job then you are my sort of person.' That is the attitude we want from our ambassadors."

Maxine walked to the front of the stage before saying,

“My question to each and every one of you is… are you up for it? Are you up for the task ahead? Are you willing to take the rough with the smooth and everything else? If you are then, welcome aboard. If you aren't then, we wish you all the best for whatever you do in the future."

“Thank you for listening to me today as I rambled my way through this little talk. I hope at least some of it has made some sort of sense to you. Good luck for you all in whatever direction your future lies.”

Maxine walked to the side of the stage. As she did so, applause broke out from the audience.

---

“You had them right in the palm of your hand,” said Sally when Maxine had recovered from her ordeal.

“I don’t want to ever have to do that again,” said Maxine.

“I think you need a drink,” said a voice from behind her. She turned around to see Cliff smiling from ear to ear.

"Lead on, Macduff!"

---

[Later that day at a post-event gathering]

“From all reports, you had the audience eating out of your hand,” said Garth.

“Why do people keep saying that? From where I stood, it was very much a blur because I was more terrified than anything.”

He laughed.
“Want to do it again when we take the roadshow to Washington?”

"No thanks, Garth. This was strictly a one-off thanks."

“Margot and Kim would love it if you could, but it is your call."

"I know but, I have had my 15 seconds of fame thanks. I'll be quite happy to go back to working behind the scenes. Besides, those hacks at News Max and Fox News, not to mention the New York Post, would love to get at you through exposing me.”

Garth smiled.
“You have a good point. After decades of shunning the limelight, I’m in it even more now than ever. The slimeballs at Fox have already had one go at me. They accused me of running away from a huge tax bill. Thankfully, I have good lawyers who soon put a stop to those accusations. I know that they can't and won't resist any opportunity to have a real good go at me. If they dare to do it again, they'll be hit with a multimillion-dollar defamation suit. I have paid all my taxes and then some and I have the proof from the IRS that I don’t owe a penny.”

Garth smiled.
"Come next May, I'll publish my tax records for them to drool over, not that there is anything to hide. I know why the likes of OAN hate me. That is because one of their biggest advertisers is my old enemy, Frederick Mangan. He’s become even more of a pest since I married Margot. As for paying tax? He’s a past master at avoiding it just like our President [1].”

“We all know that the foundation needs a star to get it noticed. That star is you, my dear Garth. That will pass then you can get back to birding.”

“I’ve discovered that there are Hares in the field behind the house. I’m working at buying a bit of land from the farmer so that I can build a blind this winter. Then we can watch them without disturbing them. They are cute little animals,” said Garth, deliberately changing the subject.

“Blind?”

“Sorry. You call them hides.”

“Ok. I get you. If you don’t mind me saying so, you are close to ‘going native’,” said Maxine.

Garth just laughed.

"I think that someone is trying to attract your attention?" said Garth as he pointed off to Maxine's left.

She turned and looked at the person.
“I know I’ve seen her before but can’t place where and when,” said Maxine.

"I saw her in one of the seminars earlier, but she isn't wearing a delegate's badge. I'll leave you to deal with her. Margot wants to issue a press release and, she has declared that it needs my approval."

Garth walked away leaving Maxine in a bit of a bind. Should she find out who this vaguely familiar person was or ‘do a runner’?”

Before she could make a decision or as she'd just told everyone, 'take a risk' and go over and speak to this woman, her Mother appeared out of nowhere.

“I hear that you had them eating out of your hand in your session?”

Maxine smiled at her mother.
"That is exactly what Garth said to me, less than five minutes ago. I did what was expected of me and, I very much don't want to have to do that again."

“That's rubbish darling, and you know that."

“Who said that I had them eating out of my hand? You weren’t there. I checked before I started speaking.”

Maxine’s mother grinned.
“Someone from your past gave me an update.”

Maxine was dreading finding out who it was and how they’d embarrass her.

After a slight pause, she added,
“No, it wasn’t Dawn. I’d have kicked her sorry backside out of the conference centre and down the road to the Bullring. The people on the front desk have strict orders not to let her come inside even if she turned up.”

"If it wasn't Dawn then, who was it then? I don't think I recognised anyone but, I wasn't really on the lookout for anyone in particular."

“Hayley Brown.”

The mention of that name temporarily threw Maxine.

“Hayley? What was she doing here? I wouldn’t have thought that she was sort of person we were appealing to?”

Her mother smiled.
“Hayley now works for me. She did a lot of the organising and publicity for the event.”

Once again, Maxine was thrown way out of kilter.

"She had been manning the front desk earlier but made sure that she could attend your session. I sat in for her while she watched you speak."

“I… I never knew.”

“I think that she wanted to admire you from afar.”

“How long has she been working for you?”

Maxine’s mother smiled again.
"We originally took her on as a temp just to organise one of Sally's Events. She was so good that we may well offer a permanent position. Hayley had been working as an event organiser for a wedding company but, they went bust around seven months ago. We… that is Sally and, I are thinking of making her job permanent. Unless… that is you'd like to give her a job."

Mothers have this uncanny knack of blindsiding their offspring with a few simple words. Maxine had just been well and truly done over by her mother.

“It isn’t as easy as that. I have approached someone about the position. I’m waiting for their reply.”

“Oh, you mean Ann-Lee?”

“Mum? How did you know about her?”

"Sometimes, Maxine, you can be a thick as two short ones. She’s down as your guest. Then I remembered you speaking about her in glowing terms way back when you had not long gone to work for Adrian. I put two and two together. Was I wrong?”

Maxine shook her head.
“But… why didn’t Hayley make herself known to me?”

"Perhaps she just wanted to see you in action from afar and then make up her very own mind. Perhaps she had seen enough?"

“Anyway, Hayley has just about finished with her duties for the day. She’s over there talking to the caterers.”

Maxine looked across the large foyer in the direction her mother was pointing. After a second or so, she saw Hayley. It was the face from the past that she just could not place only a few minutes before. Hayley had certainly changed a lot since they’d last met. Hayley had been one of Dawn’s and by implication, Tom's/Maxine's circle of friends before Dawn had gone bonkers.

"A lot of things have changed since then, my dear. Both of you are a lot older and wiser."

“That’s true. You say that she has been working on the conference for several months?”

Her mother immediately read Maxine’s mind.
“If you think that she got the job just to meet you, you are wrong. If my memory serves me right, you only agreed to speak about five or six weeks ago. It was only then that you provided me with a brief bio of you for the event publicity? Before that, your slot on the programme was open."

“And Hayley read it and ….?”

“She knew that it was you. There was no point in denying it. After that, whenever I saw her smiling, it was usually because she was looking at a photo of you and her together. She always had a very soft spot for you, you know.”

“It didn’t feel like it at the time. Dawn just wouldn’t let it go for weeks afterwards.”

“Dawn always had a nasty side like that. That is so different from you my darling. I’m so proud to be your mother. Don’t ever forget that.”

Maxine didn’t reply.

“Getting stage fright?” said her mother grinning.

"Mum, please! Once today was bad enough."

“Ok, ok. But please bear in mind that I do know you, and I also know the sort of person you are looking for, and I just happen to think that Hayley would fit the bill perfectly."

Maxine’s reaction to that statement told her mother everything she needed to know.
“Are you afraid of meeting your old girlfriend?”

"Mum! It is not that. I'm a very different person to the one that got used to hanging around with her and Dawns cronies all those years ago."

“Daughter of mine, please don’t lie to me. I know all your tells. That is part of being your mother.”

"Mum! Please. I'm old enough to make my own mistakes, and I'm not going to be railroaded by you or anyone ok! That's all I have to say on the matter! Besides, I have an appointment in Banbury to go to."

Maxine’s mother didn’t argue, her daughter’s body language told her that she wasn’t lying about the appointment.

[to be continued]

[1] This refers to President Trump.

Maxine escaped the hustle and bustle of the conference centre before anyone else could congratulate her on the rambling speech that she’d just given. She felt exhausted from the ordeal and was just glad that it was all over.

Once she was sitting alone in her car, Maxine calmed down and tried to compose her thoughts in preparation for the drive to Banbury and the meeting that would follow. She felt a lot happier with one-on-one encounters. The event today was going to be not only the first but also the last if she had any say in the matter.

Maxine arrived in Banbury with almost an hour to spare before her meeting so she took the opportunity to put some electrons into her car’s battery and to grab a coffee and sandwich at the Café in the adjoining Supermarket.

Her phone had been bleeping almost incessantly during the drive from Birmingham. Most were texts from people thanking her for her speech but one stood out like a sore thumb. I was from a reporter on a daily newspaper who was asking about getting an interview with her.

That particular newspaper was well known for ‘kicking people while they were down’. That was partially down to the rating war that they were engaged in with other tabloids but this particular one had swung very much to the right of centre in recent years. People like her were regarded as cannon fodder in their ‘get readers at all costs’ war with other papers.

Maxine started to key in a response to the request for an ‘in depth’ interview but something at the back of her mind stopped her from sending it. The words that she had used so far in her text would have been interpreted as being more like a red rag to a bull than anything sensible.

When she had time to think a bit more, Maxine knew that she had to forward the text to Morag and Kim. She was assuming that the interview would be about her work for the Garth Samson Foundation. If it wasn’t then there was a baseball bat right by the front door of her house just in case they came calling. Whatever it was, a sense of foreboding fell over her. In her mind, any attention from the press was unwelcome. It was ok for the likes of Kylie Jenner to mouth off about trans people. She had her clan and a few billion dollars behind them. Maxine was very much on her own compared to those super-rich numpties.

She followed up the text to Morag with another one asking either her or Kim to deal with it and also how had this reporter been allowed to attend the conference when it was intended for potential beneficiaries of grants from the foundation and as far as she knew, the press was, not on that list.

Once she’d sent it, she began to feel a bit guilty for ranting like that so she sent another one apologising for the rant.

Just before she left the Supermarket car park, her phone went ‘bleep’. There was a text from Kim.
“Don’t worry about the ranting. You are right. We didn’t invite any members of the press and especially this one. He and I have crossed swords before. I’ll deal with him.”

Maxine relaxed and sent a brief “Thx” back to Kim. Then she turned her thoughts towards her next meeting and how it had all come about following a discussion that she’d had with Michel about their power needs now that they were soon to be neighbours. She had done some research into the sort of technologies that she would soon be seeing in action but there was a nagging feeling that it would all be overkill for their collective needs.

She dismissed those doubts until after the meeting in the hope that all her questions would be answered. It was at times like these that Maxine missed having Adrian around to bounce ideas off of.

---

“My name is Maxine Forsythe and I’m here to see Mr Bromley. He is expecting me,” said Maxine when she drove up to the housing development on the outskirts of Banbury.

The man at the gate consulted his list. He returned a smile when he saw her name on his list.

“Ah yes, Ms Forsythe, you are on the list. Do you have a hard hat with you?”

For half a second, his question threw her but then she understood what it was all about.

“No, I don’t.”

“Stay there. I’ll get you one. Site rules insist that you wear one. Don’t forget to return it when you leave.”

Maxine smiled at the man who disappeared into the small cabin that served as the site entrance office.

He soon returned with a white plastic hat.

“Safety regulations require you to wear this whenever you are not in your car or inside one of the portacabins.”

“Thanks, I’ll make sure to return it when I leave.”

"Please drive over to the double-height portacabin and park next to the black Volvo. Mr Bromley’s office is right there.”

“Thanks a lot,” said Maxine.

She took the hard hat and drove the short distance to the large group of Portacabins. For once, she was glad to have worn trousers instead of the normal skirt or dress that she preferred. Before leaving the car, she changed her shoes into something more suitable for a building site. A pair of well-worn black lace-up boots would have to do. At least the place wasn't a sea of mud like so many sites around her home in Reigate were thanks to the recent heavy rains.

Maxine got out of her car and put the White Hat on her head. She saw several different colours of 'hard hats' around the site. She wondered if there was a colour coding system in place.
She didn’t have much time to ponder about the various hard-hat colours as a door to the Portacabin opened and a man with a purple hard hat emerged. He made a beeline for Maxine.

“Mrs Forsythe? I’m Paul Bromley. Welcome to our site.”

"Thanks, Mr Bromley. Please call me Maxine. Mrs Forsythe is so formal."

"Welcome, Maxine. I'm Paul. I gather that you are interested in our development here. Are you looking for a three or four-bed house? We only have a few left unreserved in the current release.”

Maxine smiled.
"I'm not here to look at the houses. I'm more interested in the technology being used in them to make them carbon neutral. I read an article about how you were trialling several technologies that reduce the carbon footprint of the build."

“Are you a journalist by any chance?”

Maxine laughed and shook her head.

"Believe me, Paul, when I encounter a journalist, I run for the hills. Most of them are just out to dig dirt on people and spread it without even pausing to consider the impact of their actions."

It was the turn of Paul to smile.
“What is your ultimate aim if you don’t mind me saying so?”

“There are two parts to my project. The first is to gain total control over my energy use and consumption. The second is a bigger and, a more longer-term thing in that I'm looking at improving the complete energy footprint of the local supply chain where I am going to live. That second one might sound like some politicians wish-list, but with the right investments, I have already reduced the carbon footprint of a fifty-room hotel by sixty per cent. Therefore, I'm looking at taking some of the things that you are doing here and adapting them firstly for my personal use and then hopefully to use that as a showcase for others to see what is possible.”

Paul nodded his head and smiled.

“I can see that we do have very similar goals but in different fields. Let me give you the grand tour but without the sales pitch waffle if that is ok with you?”

“Lead on. Please don’t mind if I ask silly, stupid or obvious questions. I won’t get offended if you tell me to my face that what I’m asking about is impossible.”

"I think I get you. Let me show you the technology that we are putting into each house to make them zero-emission buildings."

[one hour later]
“That’s the end of the grand tour. I hope it has been useful?”

“Very much so, thanks. I had a lot of grand ideas that I now see are clearly impossible at the current time but very well might not be so in a few years. Some of the technology that you are putting into these houses is impressive, and I can use a lot of it as it is. This site is a beacon of light in a sea of mediocrity when you look at the 'little boxes' that the other builders are throwing up all over the place. Thanks for spending the time.”

“From your questions, you seem to have the whole project already mapped out in your mind.”

“Nearly but what I’ve seen today has been very, very useful indeed but as I said, some of what I want to do is currently impossible so there will have to be a re-think.”

“I’m glad that I have helped at least in a small way to spread the word of what we are doing here.”

“Thanks for your time. Perhaps I can repay you in some small way?”

“We aren’t allowed to take gratuities from potential suppliers.”

“I’m hardly a potential supplier to you, am I?”

Maxine opened her purse and took out a business card. It was for the Hotel in Devon.

“There is a fully inclusive two-night stay waiting for you and your wife. Just give them a call and mention my name. I own a third of the place, and they keep a room reserved for me. This is the same Hotel that I mentioned earlier. That is yours if you want it. What the bosses don't know about, they can't object. If you give it about six months, then you can call it a reverse fact-finding trip. You played host to me then, it will be my time to play host to you. Can't say fairer than that, can we, eh?”

“Maxine, as I said, I’ll have to think about it.”

"Please do so. What you are doing here should be hammered home to the major builders. If they come on board, then we might see some real changes in the homes that get built in the future."

“That I can agree with.”

"Thanks for your time, Paul. I'll drop my hard hat off at the gate. Good luck with the work here and in the future."

"Thanks for coming, Maxine. I guess I won't be reading about your project in the papers then?"

“Not if I can help it, you won't, but there may come a time when I can't avoid the attention of the press.”
As she said that, she shuddered as she remembered her performance from earlier that day.

Maxine got in her car and drove away from the building site a very happy woman. The plan that she’d dreamed up just before Adrian had died was looking more promising by the day, but if there was one lesson to come out of the site visit, and that was 'Rome wasn't built in a day. She would have to try hard not to rush into things and end up paying the price. Otherwise, her use of the 'I want it now' would end up applying to her. If she was going to do what she'd outlined to Paul, it was going to take a lot longer than she had even dreamed about as a worst-case scenario.

---

“The ‘superstar’ returns then?” said Cliff as Maxine appeared in the office the following morning.

“I returned home early yesterday evening if you must know. My appointment in Banbury proved to be very helpful indeed.”

“Oh yeah? How?”

“First things first. Have you made the coffee yet?”

"I think that there is a cup left in the pot. There isn't any milk though. Someone forgot to get some when they said that they would. I wonder who that might be eh?"

“Ok, ok, you don’t have to rub it in. I’ll go and get some.”

Cliff grinned.
“Don’t bother, I brought a litre in with me.”

“Thanks’ Cliff, you are a star.”

Maxine poured herself a mug of coffee and sat down at her desk.

“Well?” asked Cliff after more than a minute.

“The ‘Well’ is that I have found the solution to all the energy needs for not only myself but for Michel and Delphine.”

“How much will it all cost?”

Maxine laughed.
"Ever the bean counter then, Cliff?"

He shook his head.
"No, I'm just being realistic. Any solution to going 'off grid' will cost some money. It all depends on how much that 'some' is."

"In this case, for me, it is about sixty thousand. For Michel, it would be slightly less. Most of the difference is down to labour costs."

"It is worth it? Is it worth spending that sort of money? What is the rate of return?"

"Did you get out of the wrong side of the bed today?"

"Come on, Maxi, you know very well what I'm on about. What is the total cost of ownership? Have you done the cost-benefit analysis?"

"I have, and you darn well know it. Why don't you run the figures and tell me the bad news? I’m going to Wimbledon when I have finished this coffee. I have an appointment at midday. One thing to remember is that I'm thinking long term here. None of your five-year ROCI, this, will be more like twenty years.”

Cliff glared at Maxine. Then the glare turned to a smile. He knew that she’d already run the figures and was asking him to validate her findings.

As she finished her coffee, Cliff did run her new costs through the model that she’d created a few months earlier.

“Ok, ok, you were right. It will work over seven years.”

“That’s our benchmark for this sort of project, isn’t it?”

“Can a dog bark?” remarked Cliff.

“Then we are good to go then?”

"So far, we are but, who is going to manage the checks and balances when you are in Devon? You know that when I'm done here, I'm done."

Maxine looked at Cliff with a stern face.
“Is that you or your wife talking?”

“No comment,” replied Cliff.

“What are you going to do when you do hang up your blue pen?”

“No comment.”

"Cliff, I'm serious. You need a plan for your retirement and not just moving somewhere else. That won't keep you occupied for more than about six months, and you know it."

"Yes, teacher!"

"I am very serious, Cliff. You know what happened to your father when he retired. After little more than sixty rounds of golf, he keeled over on the 12th tee. That was his life. As you don't play golf, what are you going to do?"

“I know Maxi, and as you well know, it is something that I have been putting off for years."

“Then you are not retiring until you have a plan.”

“Is this change of heart just so that you don’t have to find a partner?”

"No, it isn't, but I was talking to Garth. He has his exit plan. A major part of that was moving to Norfolk and getting married again. He looks happier and more contented than ever with his life. He’s the yardstick I’m going to measure you by, ok?”

Cliff smiled back at Maxine. He knew that she had his best interests at heart. She had promised Adrian that she’d lookout for him when it came to his retirement.

---

Maxine walked into the Dress Shop in Wimbledon in good spirits. The owner, Emma Francis, was busy fitting a wedding dress on a client.

"Go on through to the back, Maxine and make yourself a drink. I'll be done here in about twenty minutes."

The client said,
“Ouch!”

“Miss! Sorry, but I did ask you to stay still. If you keep on moving, then there is no way that I can get this hem straight.”

"It just does not feel right, and besides, I look fat in this," complained the customer.

"If I recall correctly, your Mother did suggest that you wore a corset, but you were having none of that."

“I’m not having my baby squashed into nothing!”

Maxine took this moment to disappear into the workroom at the back of the shop and put the kettle on. From where she stood, the client going to be a real PITA. She admired Emma’s patience and determination.

While she waited for the kettle to boil, she went in search of the dress that she was going to wear for her mother’s wedding to Sally Jameson that weekend.

It didn’t take her long to find it hanging on the rail marked ‘final fitting’. As it was covered in a plastic sheath, she refrained from taking it down. She did let out a sigh and adjusted her waist clincher a little bit.

Maxine had originally wanted a 'dropped waist' dress for the event. That would hide her lack of a proper waist, but Emma had twisted her arm enough to make her choose a more fitted look. Sadly, that meant either wearing a corset or a waist clincher. Whist Maxine, had been tempted by the figure that Delphine was developing, she didn't have someone like Michel to lace her up every day. Without help, she just found the whole thing tiresome, frustrating and pointless. The corset that Adrian had got specially made for her now languished in her bottom drawer and there it was going to stay, for the foreseeable future.

She made a pot of tea and waited for Emma to finish with the customer.

---

“A penny for them,” said Emma as she came into the workroom. Maxine was miles away.

Her mind was on the ever-growing list of jobs that she would have to do when she moved. She’d received the news that very morning from her lawyer that contracts had been exchanged, and completion was less than a month away now that all the money for the house purchase was in 'escrow'. Thanks to Adrian's financial planning, she was financially secure and, that was without liquidating the assets held by the business. While this was good, it was a strange feeling. For someone of her age to be financially independent and not a celebrity or a lottery winner was unusual, to say the least. She owed it all to Adrian, and it was down to her to repay his faith in her.

“Sorry. I was thinking about the list of things I’m going to have to do when I move.”

“Move? Am I going to lose you as a customer?”

Maxine smiled.
“Far from it. I was thinking about investing in your shop. The place next door is still empty. If I could pick up the freehold for a good price then you could move next door and not have to worry about stupid rises in ground rent. Business rates are bad enough but, some commercial landlords are just nasty. You told me about them squeezing you to make repairs that they should have done yourself. If I were to be your landlord, I'd make sure that you got a fair deal. How does that sound?"

Emma sat down and looked Maxine right in the eye.

“Is this something that you just thought up or what? If it is the ‘or what’ then why the hell haven’t you mentioned something about it before now?”

Maxine smiled.
“The reason I have not mentioned it before is that I have gone through this process on another property I own. The owner of the salon, where I get my hair done, now has a stake in the bricks and mortar of the building she works out of. If that sort of thing interests you then, we could talk more. If you aren't then, please just forget all about it.”

“Isn’t this a change in your business focus?”

Maxine nodded her head.
"It is but about six months ago, I saw an advert on YouTube about someone gloating that they made thousands and thousands from the commercial property by forcing their tenants not only to pay ever-increasing rents but to pay for all maintenance as well. If I rent a house, then the landlord is responsible for the fabric of the property. It struck me that commercial renters such as yourself can get stuck with a hefty bill for no good reason.”

“In my case, I bought the freehold of the property where my hairdresser works, and I own part of the business. I restructured our agreement to make her part-owner of the property. If she decides to buy me out then she ends up with the freehold of the property that she uses. This is not a 1–2-year commercial loan but a clear partnership. If you are interested, then we can talk more.”

“Oh,” remarked Emma.

"Just take some time and have a good think about it. The property next door is slightly larger than this one and, I think that a better cutting room would do wonders for your output. Who knows… you could even take on an apprentice?"

Emma laughed.

“Are you trying to become the next big property tycoon?”

“Far from it,” replied Maxine with a grin on her face.
"Adrian, my late husband, always stressed to me that there are two main types of a deal in business. Good deals and good deals that end up going bad later because of the small print. I don't like the small print. One former boss of mine hammered that into me. It is her wedding that I'm going to at the weekend."

“But… didn’t you say that it is your Mother’s wedding?”

“Yeah. My Mum is marrying my old Boss.”

Emma shook her head.

“You are always full of surprises Maxine. You are completely the opposite of most of my normal customer base, thank god! You are the antidote to bridezillas like the one who was in here when you arrived. She was trying on her dress for the eighth time.”

Maxine laughed.
“I’m lucky in that I’ve had some good people in my life. They helped shape who I am.”

“And speaking of that, let’s try your dress on. I have another neurotic bride and an even worse mother coming in for a fitting in under an hour.”

“You are the boss when it comes to the dress,” commented Maxine as she started to undress.

[45 minutes later]

“That’s it. The last of the final alterations are done. All you need is a hat!” remarked Emma.

Maxine shook her head.
“Thanks, but no thanks. I have worn a hat twice since I became Maxine. One was for my Marriage to Adrian which, lasted for less than a minute after the ceremony. The other was for his funeral. Twice is more than enough, thank you. I think I look horrible in a wedding hat."

“So, no going to Ladies Day at Royal Ascot for you then?”

“Fat chance of that.”

“Someday Maxine, you will be a superstar!”

"That's what I'm dreading. Then the tabloids will have a field day with my history. All they'd need to do is track down my sister Dawn, and they'd have enough for a week of scandal headlines."

Emma finished wrapping up Maxine’s dress.
“I’m sure that you will look good giving away your Mum at the weekend.”

"That's all I can hope for, isn't it? As long as Dawn stays away, then I'm good."

“Are you going with anyone?”

Maxine shook her head.
"I had hoped too but, they said no dice,” replied Maxine with definite sadness in her voice.

Emma just smiled back at her. She’d heard those very words far too often in the past and would again in the future.

[to be continued]

[Authors Note]
The building site that is mentioned in this part does exist and is near Banbury and all the homes are built to a zero-emission standard. Their carbon footprint includes the energy used in their construction.

“Cliff, you were right,” said Maxine as she arrived for work the next day.

“I’m generally right about most things. That’s my job. What was it this time?”

“Don’t go being smart with me. Cliff.”

Cliff just ignored Maxine and got on with making some tea. This was always his first job of the day and had been since his wife decided to serve only de-caffeinated tea and coffee at home. This had only started after his daughter, had been dumped by her husband for a younger model who was very beautiful but, in his words, 'as thick as two short planks'.

"Well, Maxi? What was I right about?" asked Cliff as he sat down with his ‘fully leaded’ tea.

“Ann-Lee texted me this morning. She’s not interested in coming to work for me. I suspected she would say no when she didn’t appear at the Birmingham Conference.”

“Hey! I never said anything of the kind.”

“But I can read your face. When we discussed it a week or so ago, I could tell that you were not 100% behind my idea of inviting her to the conference.”

Cliff just grinned back at me.
“So, what is plan Z then?”

“Have we reached ‘Z’ already?”

“It seems that way.”

“Pah. Anyway, I have to head off to Devon. I have a board meeting tomorrow if, you recall. I'm going down there early. There are a couple of places that I want to visit on my way down. I collected my outfit for the wedding yesterday so, I'll probably stay there until Thursday afternoon and head up to Bristol to give my moral support before the big day.

“Are you still set on buying that place near Delphine and Michel?”

“I am. The contracts were exchanged yesterday and, completion is scheduled for two weeks now, that all of the money is in their solicitor's client account."

“What about your Hair? Bea won’t be happy to see you desert her?”

“I’m not going to desert her. Far from it. I’ll be back one day a month to look over the books and to get my hair and lashes done. I can get the train to Reading and then to Gatwick if I don’t want to drive.”

Maxine deliberately didn’t say anything about the offer that she’d made to Emma in Wimbledon the previous day about investing in her business. Cliff would consider it very much a non-strategic investment but, what he didn't know about, he could not complain about.

Cliff just shook his head.
“Ok, I’ll get on with collating all the files for the accountants. That is one job that I will not miss when I retire. You had better train my replacement well because the system you use is not the most efficient one ever devised.”

Maxine laughed.

“Have you contacted any agents about selling this place yet? Don’t forget to include the fact that there is planning permission in place for a four-person office to run from here.”

"It is on my list of things to do for today. I need to walk into town, and I'll see a few face to face and decide on the best ones to get in to do a valuation. I can use it as a dry run for when we sell our place."

“Have you both agreed upon where you are going to go?”

"Nah. We'd sort of set our hearts on going to Barnstaple or Ilfracombe, but the bust-up with my sister -n-law has put the kybosh on that move. I'd like to go to somewhere like Ludlow or Malvern, but the wife has set her heart on somewhere near the coast."

“There is always North Wales.”

Cliff laughed.
“You mean somewhere like Rhyl or Prestatyn with their endless caravan parks?”

"No, I don't. I mean Anglesey or the Llyn Peninsular. Much quieter than Rhyl, but you'd probably have to learn Welsh just to fit in…?" said a grinning Maxine.

"That's out then. Neither of us is any good at foreign languages. I can order a beer in about five different ones, but that is about it."

"There is always Norfolk. If you want a part-time job, then all you need to do is ask.

“Norfolk is a big county. Lots of caravan parks around the coast if I remember correctly.

“And the middle is bypassed by the tourists.”

"But for how long, eh?"

“Think about your options. That is all I’m asking.”

"Yes, Boss!"

Maxine sighed and got on with preparing a bid for the premises next to Emma’s Dress Shop in Wimbledon. She hoped that she'd sown a few seeds in her discussions with Emma about expansion.

---

[Friday morning in Bristol]
"You look, great Mum," said Maxine as she admired her mother's 'getting married outfit'.

"Not a patch on yours," came a slightly grumpy reply.

“Mum, I did offer to have outfits made both of you or had you forgotten that?”

"I know, but we want this to be a small-scale affair. I’m worried about Dawn. ‘It’ was all over the Trowbridge Facebook page yesterday, said Pauline.”

“Don’t worry about her. I have engaged a few gentlemen that won’t let her mess things up.”

"Some stonking great bouncers, I suppose?"

"No, Mum. Just two former Gurkha Soldiers. They come highly recommended by Michel. I took them over to the registry office and then to the hotel, where the reception is being held yesterday afternoon.”

“How much is all this costing?”

"The cost does not matter, Mum. What matters is that you get married to a lovely woman in peace."

Maxine's mother returned that look that mothers have that said, 'I don't believe a word that you are telling me, but I'm not going to argue as I have better things to do'.

“Shall we go?” asked Maxine.

“I suppose so.”

“Are you having second thoughts?”

"Third, fourth and fifth. I would never have believed that I could ever fall in love with a woman, but I do lie in bed some nights and wonder if I am doing the right thing?”

"You are, and I expect that Sally is as well. I just want you to be happy. I've seen how happy you are when you are with her."

“That’s what makes me worried. For almost all of my life, I was told that falling in love with a person of the same sex as me was wrong. I've seen plenty of gay men and women live happily, but I never thought that it would ever apply to me."

Maxine smiled.
“Isn’t it good to experience something new? Live dangerously for once in your life… Take a risk for once? I did, didn't I?”

"Don't go lecturing me, young lady. Your love life is nothing to write home about!" said her mother putting her daughter firmly in her place.

Maxine picked up her mother's handbag and held it out for her. The message she was sending was loud and clear.

“Hayley will be there. You won’t be able to avoid her today.”

Maxine remembered her recent brief encounter with Hayley in Birmingham.

“I’ll handle it. You have other things to worry about today. And before you ask, I have the rings.”

Maxine received a glare from her mother. That turned into a smile.

---

Despite all their collective worries, the wedding went off without issue. Both brides looked so happy as they said their vows. Maxine was proud of her mother and Sally for tying the knot. Even Maxine's grandmother seemed happy with the event, especially when Sally made a point of helping her with her coat when the party emerged from the registry office. The promised rain had arrived a little early, but it didn't dampen everyone's spirits.

Maxine looked around the room where the reception was in full swing. There were so many strange faces. Her mother had made a lot of friends since going to work for Sally, which made Maxine a little envious. She checked her phone and thought…

‘Only three hours before the happy couple have to leave on their honeymoon’.

Her daydreaming was broken by a light tap on her shoulder. She turned to see Sally's daughter, Jasmine.

“Hello Jas, long time no, see, eh?”

The last time they’d met was at Adrian’s funeral. Jasmine had arrived just before the end of the service and had been rightly scolded by her mother.

“Hi Sister,” remarked Jasmine.

“Late again I see,” said Maxine.

“Yeah. Car troubles.”

Maxine sighed. As far as she knew, Jasmine was living with a much older man named Charles in Hackney. They’d met some years earlier when Jasmine was in Peru and had moved in together a few years before.

“Is Charles here with you?”

“Nah, he’s bunked off back to Peru for a while. He has a wife and three children there.”

Maxine shook her head.
“Leaving you to look after your place in Hackney?”

“It isn’t so bad. I can manage.”

Jasmine’s body language told Maxine that she was putting on a good face.

“They look good together, don’t they?” said Maxine changing the subject.

“They do. I wasn’t all that happy at first but my Mum seems very happy with yours.”

“That’s what matters isn’t it?”

“I suppose so,” replied Jasmine with a definite sigh.

“Are you going to do the toast to the happy couple?”

“Me? Why? That’s your job, isn’t it?” replied Jasmine.

“It is yours if you want it. I think that you might know more people here than me.”

“I’ll pass,” said Jasmine.

“Ok. I had to offer it to you as we are now step-sisters.”

Jasmine just smiled back at Maxine.

---

“Can I have your attention please,” Maxine said after chinking a spoon on an empty glass.

Gradually, the level of chatter died down.

“Thank you.”

She looked at the happy couple and smiled.

“I want to thank you all for coming here today to celebrate the marriage of Sally and Pauline. To say that I was a bit shocked when they told me that they were in love and wanted to get married would be a huge understatement. That was then. Now, I see how much they love each other and I give them both my blessing for the future. I’d like you all to stand and raise a glass to the happy couple.”

Everyone stood and waited for Maxine to speak.

“To Pauline and Sally.”

Everyone raised their glasses and the toast was done.

---

If she had just been a normal wedding guest, Maxine would have ducked out of the reception before the dancing started. But… she wasn’t and had to be there for her mother until they departed for their honeymoon. That duty didn’t stop her from socialising. Maxine’s first call was to sit down near her grandmother. She seemed to be a bit tipsy but she knew that Cliff and his wife would look after her when they took her home.

"Hello, Gran.”

"Hello, love. You did well standing up there and speaking to everyone.”

"It was my pleasure, Gran. Mum is looking good, isn’t she?”

“She is.”

“Gran? You could seem a bit more pleased for Mum!”

“It isn’t right but I’ll have to accept it. Sally is a nice person but..”

“Gran? What about me then?”

“I knew that you were a girl from the first day I even held you as a baby. You were only a few hours old, but something told me that you had been born wrong. That's why when you became your true self, I supported you, but with your mother, my daughter it is different. She loved your dad."

"I know that she loved dad, but she could never find any man who could come close to him. After a few years, she gave up looking for ‘Mister Right’ as you well know. Sally is a good person, and I think that they are good together."

"I know all that love, but I just can't get my head around it. All my friends at the Institute think I'm mad for doubting my daughters wish to move on, but perhaps I am just too old to change?"

“Give it time gran and I’m sure you will come around.”

Maxine’s gran just glared at her.

“Hello Gran,” came a voice from behind Maxine. She stiffened up immediately. The voice belonged to Hayley.

"Hello, Hayles,” said gran using her childhood nickname.
“You look nice.”

Maxine managed to stop herself from reacting. Her gran had not commented on how she looked but did to Hayley.

"Hi, Maxi. You did well with your speech,” said Hayley.

Maxine could not take the stress any longer. She just fled from the reception and headed for the car park. Then, she burst into tears.

---

Maxine was still feeling like crap when there was a quiet knock on the window of her car.

Through bleary eyes, she saw Hayley. Hayley was about the last person she wanted to talk to at that moment. Maxine didn’t move.

“Maxi, come on. Don’t be silly. I’m not the enemy you know?”

Maxine still didn’t move.

Hayley found the button on the door lock and pressed it. The doors opened, and Hayley took her opportunity and go in and sat in the front passenger seat.

Maxine could not look at Hayley, but Hayley took her opportunity.

"Maxi, I have always loved you. Right from the first day at primary school. I knew that I was gay and that while you were a boy, there was a woman inside just waiting to come out. She did come out when Maxine appeared for our shopping trips. You looked so happy on those trips, and then for weeks afterwards, you were a grumpy old sourpuss. It was no coincidence that was when you usually lost your job and had to start again. Then when you rubbed Dawn's nose in the dog shit and became Maxine full-time, suddenly you were happy again. You were able to be the real you for the first time in your life. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

For a good ten seconds, Maxine never said a word. With her eyes still screwed tightly shut, she nodded her head.

"From what your mother has told me, something went out of your life when Adrian died. I never met him, but he seemed to be an incredible man. He made you the confident woman that I saw on stage in Birmingham, but it was clear to me from what you said, that something was missing in your life. Remember that I've seen you grow from a stubborn five-year-old into the woman that you are. Do you understand this?"

Once again, Maxine remained silent. Hayley was not going to be deterred from her course of action.

“Seeing you speaking from the heart in Birmingham made me feel proud. Proud that the Maxine, I grew up with is being her own woman, but I was also worried that you were trying to take on the world on your own. Perhaps I do exaggerate a bit, but from where I stood, it seemed that you were immersing yourself in work as a substitute for real life. That is not good, and I know that your mother is worried about you, but as you know, you close up when she tries to mention it. I know this because I've been party to some of her calls to you."

This time Maxine turned her head and looked at Hayley.

“What?”

"Maxi… There are people, who are worried about you, and that includes me, especially me. Seeing you in complete command of that audience rekindled my feelings for you.”

Hayley didn’t wait. She leaned over and took hold of Maxine’s head with both hands and kissed her. She wasn’t going to take no for an answer.

After a few seconds, Maxine relaxed and eventually began to respond to the kisses.

When they broke apart, Hayley continued.

“That was nice, thank you.”

Maxine managed a little smile.

"I've wanted to do that for years and years, but Dawn saw how I looked at you. She told me in no uncertain terms that if I made even one more move on you, she'd out me to my parents. That's why I dumped you when I did. When you went off to Chichester to work for Sally, Dawn, was as you know, even angrier with the world. She tried to out me, but I beat her to it. My mother didn't want to accept it at first, but to my astonishment, Dad simply said, ‘about time too’. Dawn’s outburst a few days later was enough to get Mum 100% on my side.”

“Why didn’t you say anything back then?”

"Yeah, I am a coward. I hoped that you would come back, and then I'd tell you, but Adrian took you away, and that was it. Whenever I had the misfortune to encounter Dawn in the street or a shop, she’d blame me for your success even though we all knew that it was down to you.”

Maxine nodded her head.
“Dawn is a total fruit case and has been for years,” commented Maxine.

"Then I found myself working for Sally and your Mum. She told me about Adrian and how deeply you loved him and how his death had affected you, so I didn't do anything about getting to know you again until the conference in Birmingham. You were brilliant, but you were gone before I had a chance to talk to you."

“I had a meeting in Banbury to get to,” said Maxine softly.

"I know, your Mum told me that it wasn't an excuse. That led me to today and, I was determined to let you know how I felt then and now about you.”

“Has there been anyone else in your life?” asked Maxine.

“A few that got past a second date, but they didn’t work out because I kept comparing them to you.”

Hayley took Maxine’s hands in hers.

“Maxine, you are my first love and my only love. Do you at least feel something for me?”

“Hayley?”

“Come on Maxi, stop beating about the bush. You aren't a frigging politician up for election. Yes, or No?”

Maxine sat quietly for a while with her eyes closed before she said,
“Yes.”

Then she added,
“But…”

“It is complicated, isn’t it?”

Maxine nodded her head.

"Please don't say that you are too busy to even think about a relationship. From what your mother has told me you promised Adrian that you would not become a workaholic. It seems that that is exactly what you have done. Is there no place in your life for someone to love and who loves you and has always loved you?"

Hayley’s words had put Maxine right on the spot. She remembered the promises she had made to Adrian and suddenly felt very guilty about letting him down.

Hayley gripped Maxine’s hands tightly.

"I know it isn't going to be easy for you, but I'm here for you all the way."

Maxine replied with an even bigger smile.

“Why don’t we repair our makeup and go back inside? People will be talking…”

Maxine knew very well what Hayley was hinting at.

This time Maxine leaned over and kissed Hayley.

“You taste nice,” said Maxine when they broke apart.

“That’s the blackcurrant flavoured lip gloss.”

“I like the taste.”

Hayley smiled.
“That’s more like the Maxi of old.”

[to be continued]

Hayley and Maxine returned to the reception after repairing their makeup. They walked in holding hands. This was noticed by Maxine's grandmother, who made a bee-line towards them.

“About time too,” she said smiling.
Then she added,
"Don't either of you mess this up, or you will have me to answer too. Got it?"

"Yes, gran," said the couple in unison.

"Good. Now, where is Cliff? It is time he took me home."

Maxine smiled as her gran headed off towards the cloakroom.

"She is some woman, your gran," remarked Hayley.

"She is, and I love her to bits."

“Then we had not screw this up then?”

"What if it does not work out? Us, I mean?" asked Maxine.

“Then we go and tell her together. Deal?”

Maxine smiled.
“Deal.”

"Good. Now, are you going to give me a dance?"

“Who will lead?” asked Maxine.

"Dumb question," muttered Hayley as she almost dragged Maxine onto the dancefloor.

---

Before Pauline and Sally left for their honeymoon, Sally came and found Maxine and Hayley.

"I see that something has happened between you two. Maxine, your Mum is very happy and that makes me happy.”
That made Maxine blush. Sally turned to Hayley.
“Hayley, take some time off and work out whatever it is that you two have to work out. I just want both of you to be happy with each other and what you decide for the future."

Maxine let out a small groan.
Sally looked concerned, but Hayley came to her rescue.

“Her gran has already read us the riot act.”

Sally laughed.
“That’s ok. Maxine’s Gran is not someone to get on the wrong side of. I was read it too when we told her about you Mum and me. I mean it Hayley, go and work out what the two of you want to do. If it does not work then, your job will be waiting for you but believe me, when I say that I… we wish the two of you well."

"Thanks, Sally and sorry for the groan."

"Don't worry about it, my new daughter. You could never hide your feelings from me. Now I have to go. Our ferry won't wait."

“Ferry?” exclaimed Maxine.
“Where are you going?”

“We have to get down to Portsmouth for todays’ ferry to Santander. We are going to Galicia for a week. Pauline knows that we are going abroad but nothing else. I have rented us a villa for the week. Very quiet and peaceful.”

“Have a good time,” said Hayley.

“Don’t forget what I said,” said Sally as she turned away.

---

Maxine steered Hayley away from the crowd as the newlyweds prepared to leave.
“Don’t you want to catch the bouquet?” asked Hayley.

“Bouquets. Plural. And, no, I don’t.”

Hayley gripped Maxine’s hand.
“Don’t want to appear in the spotlight then?”

“Exactly.”

“Then I’m good with that.”

---

“What do we do now?” asked Hayley once the happy couple had left.

“I was planning on going down to Devon. I have some papers to sign at the Solicitors on Monday.”

“Is this to do with the property that you are buying?”

“Yeah…”
It was clear to both of them that Maxine wanted to say more but couldn’t.

“Are you inviting me to come with you?”

"Yes. It will be your home as well, you know… If we make a go of this, that is?"

“You don’t sound so certain?”

Maxine looked Hayley right in the eye. Hayley gave a momentary shudder. This was more like the Maxine that she'd seen in Birmingham. Positive and to the point.

“It is not that. This is very much uncharted territory for both of us, isn’t it?”

"It is and, it makes me excited. What about you?"

“I’m not so sure.”

"Don't be afraid of falling flat on your face. You did that to me once before, remember?"

Maxine looked puzzled.

Hayley grinned.
“The first time you tried on a pair of high heels. You were trying to out-Dawn Dawn when it came to how high they were. You put them on, took one step and fell over.”

Maxine went red in the face.
“That wasn’t my finest hour, was it?”

“No, it wasn’t.”

Maxine laughed.
“Dawn went back to that shop later and bought those very shoes. Those were the ones she fell off and twisted her ankle.”

“Oh! I’d forgotten about those shoes. That is the best sort of Karma striking home, isn’t it?”

"Without those shoes, the Maxine as you see here today might well not exist,” remarked Maxine.

“That’s where you are wrong. She was always there and just needed to find the right opportunity to be let loose on the world. I like to think that was what your Mum wanted to see as well. I know Dawn saw it when we were out shopping and hated you for it. Isn’t it true that your Mum, told you to be upfront with Sally?”

“She did. That was just as well as Sally saw right through me in a second. I was sort of prepared for being read but no way was I ready for what happened.”

“You didn’t pretend but were yourself. That’s what got you the job…”

“Humph!”

“Don’t go all ‘Humpfy’ on me. Are we going to go to Devon or what?”

“I think we are.”

"Good. Then let's head to my place where we can change out of these wedding duds!"

---

“There it is,” said Maxine.

“But…? It is a Farmhouse?” remarked Hayley.

"So? I'm only buying the buildings. Most of the land belongs to my friend Michel. He lives down the valley with his wife, Delphine. I get about twenty hectares of land.”

“What are you going to use that… that big shed for?”

"All in good time, my dear. Let me show you over the house. I know where the keys are kept."

“When does the sale complete?”

"In two days, all being well. The money has been with the lawyers for over a month, so hopefully, there won't be any last-minute hang-up's. I’m signing the last papers later today.”

Hayley looked worried.

Maxine smiled.
"Don't worry. When my home in Reigate is sold, I'll be well over two hundred grand in profit. I'll use that to make improvements to the property."

Hayley wasn’t convinced. Maxine could see that.

"I want your inputs on the changes to the house. It needs modernising, but I'd like something classic in the kitchen. None of that grey so-called contemporary stuff. I find grey so dull and lifeless.”

“Me?”

"Yes, you. Are you part of this team or not?"

“Well… yes.”

“Then this will be your home as well, won’t it?”

“I hadn’t thought about it that way before.”

Maxine smiled and looked at her friend. Things had moved on a lot between them since the wedding in Bristol only two days before.
“Better get used to it. I never want to move again.”

“Never?”

"Yes, never. This place is somewhere we can put our stamp on and make it ours."

“Sounds like you have everything worked out already?”

"I have an overall plan. If I didn't have some sort of idea about what I was going to do in the future, we would not be standing here today. As for the detail and implementation? Other than a few things, it is a huge void."

Maxine soon found the keys to the back door and let Hayley into the building. It seemed cold and lifeless. That was because it was empty of furniture and all the other ephemera that signifies a place being lived in. The only thing of significance that remained in the kitchen was a huge range cooker.

It was then that Maxine saw that Hayley was looking a bit worried. She was staring at the range cooker.

“That monster heats the house and hot water. It is wood-fired."

“No gas?”

“There never has been any gas to this property.”

“How will we keep warm in winter?”

“There are radiators supplied from this beast plus we will have plenty of electricity. A heat pump will supplement its output.”

“Isn’t that very expensive?”

Maxine grinned.
“Not when we generate it ourselves. I’ve already ordered solar panels for the roof of the barn.”

Hayley didn’t look convinced.

"Don't worry, Hayley. I'm sure that it will all work out in the long run."

“As I said before, you seem to have it all worked out already?”

“I have some of the major items sorted. I had to work out a lot before I said, 'yes, this is the place for me'. Beyond that, there is little or no detail. There will be plenty for us to argue over."

Hayley didn’t look convinced.

Maxine took her hand and squeezed it.
“My ultimate aim is to go off grid like our neighbour Michel has already done. I’m taking a lot of inspiration and help from him. He’s where we’ll get all our wood from. That’s his wood that we passed on our way up the drive. He coppices the trees mostly for charcoal but also for firewood. There are piles of it all over the wood drying out naturally. Four cubic metres of that is ours as soon as the sale completes.”

Hayley still didn’t look convinced about what Maxine was saying.

“Come on. Lets’ finish the tour outside, then we can go and meet Delphine and Michel.”
"I'm sure that they'd love to meet you, and then you can see their setup."

“Won’t they mind?”

Maxine chuckled.
“They’ll be only too pleased to see their neighbours.”

“Do you know them well?”

Maxine grinned.
“They have me to thank for introducing them in the first place. For Delphine, it was just about love at first sight. When you meet them, you will see why that is for yourself.”

“Oh?”

“Yes Oh! I first met Delphine when she was having a bit of trouble charging her car. I helped her out, and we became friends. I already knew Michel. He is a supplier to a business that I'm one of the owners."

"What sort of business? You have been very circumspect about what companies your business owns?"

“Sorry. I’ve sort of gotten rather protective of them since… since Adrian died. That’s business and for later. Right now, this is about us, isn’t it?”

Hayley smiled.

“The move is a big step for you, isn’t it?”

Maxine nodded.
"And you. Life down here will be very different to what you have experienced in the big city of Bristol or even small town, Trowbridge. Working for Sally is one thing, but Lorelei Investments is basically me… and soon to be you, I hope?”

Maxine squeezed Hayley’s hand.

"Michel runs a smallholding where he grows Herbs. He sells these to restaurants and hotels in the area. He also has a stall at the Saturday Farmers Market in Totnes. He also raises Ducks, Geese and Chickens. He and Delphine live totally off the grid. By that, I mean that they generate their own electricity. They even supply their own water."

"Isn't life a little difficult being off-grid?"

“Since he married Delphine, they have a dire need for more electrical power. The two of us have been working on a solution to resolve that. My end of that will be that two shipping containers may well be occupying one end of the barn before long. They will contain batteries that will store the electricity generated by the solar panels. My grand plan was to run the house off those batteries as well as being able to charge our cars."

“Our cars?”

“Yes, our cars,” replied Maxine.

“You have seen mine. Delphine has one just like it. She is a wickedly fast driver. You can have a car of your own as long as it is 100% electric.”

“You are really into this green revolution thing, aren’t you?”

"Why not? If there is no need to burn hydrocarbons, then don't. Once you meet Michel, his infectious enthusiasm will convince you that this is the way of the future."

Hayley wasn’t that impressed.
"Don't worry, Hayley. I was even more sceptical about all this stuff before Adrian put me on the board at the Hotel. Once I understood how much power they used, it was a no brainer to put in solar. In a couple of months, they should be self-sufficient for over half the year in Electricity consumption, and that includes providing charging for Electric Cars."

Maxine decided to change tack.
“Why don’t we go and see Michel and Delphine tomorrow. Then we can go to the Hotel after I sign the papers at the Solicitors in Totnes. Then you can relax for a bit. I’ll make sure that Jules cooks up something nice for us tonight. The Hotel is one of the businesses that I own a part of.”

“You don’t have to go to any trouble just for me?”

Maxine chuckled.
"This isn't for you. We always have something a bit special on the menu on Mondays. This is the quietest night of the week so putting on something different gets the punters in. The last time I was down here, we had 'Black Beef', slow-roasted. It was so good that it almost melted in the mouth."

She added,
"We are so lucky here. Almost every item on the menu is sourced from within twenty miles. If it is outside that, then it comes from Cornwall, Dorset or Somerset. Both the Hotel and the Pub in the Village have a very good reputation for their food."

“Pub?”

"Yeah. We bought a former hotel in the seaside village that is less than a mile from the hotel. We use the rooms above it as places to live for the Hotel Staff. The rest is a small pub with an attached Restaurant.

Hayley just shook her head. She'd heard about some of the projects that Maxine was involved in from Maxine's mother but seeing them up close and personal was a very different matter.

Maxine noticed a frown on Hayley’s face.

“What’s wrong?”

“I… I never expected things to be so big as this. The projects you are involved in seem huge.”

“Compared to things like building the second Severn Crossing, mine are small, close to minuscule, but there is a lot to get your head around at first. I felt totally out of my depth for a long time when I first went to work for Adrian. Then he shoved me in at the deep end and put me on the board of directors at the hotel. Luckily, Adrian knew what he was doing. Belinda and Nina are a great couple. They clocked me in a flash, but it didn't matter as Belinda is like me."

“As in Trans?”

Maxine nodded her head.
"It was through the purchase of the hotel that they managed that I got to eventually, know and meet Garth Samson."

"Your Mum told me about him. I'd never met a billionaire until the conference. I only had a brief chat with him on the phone about the conference, but he seemed a nice person.”

Maxine laughed.
“He is a very down to earth man from Kentucky which is totally the opposite to his reputation in business. He now lives over in Norfolk with his 3rd wife. You met her at the conference. He’s become an ardent birder, so Norfolk is like living in nirvana for him. He’s a nice guy unless you are from the media. Then it is no holds barred. Over in the US, he has a fearsome business reputation, but once you get to know him, he isn't so hard-nosed.”

Then Maxine said,
“Sorry, I was repeating myself. Garth is a one off sort of guy. I’ve seen both sides of him and I know which side I don’t want to be on.”

"I think, I understand, a bit.”

“I’m on the board of the charitable foundation that his wife runs. Over time, it will spend all his billions of dollars. I’ll have to take you with me the next time I go up there for a meeting.”

Hayley just shook her head. She had been doing that a lot in the past few days. This version of Maxine was proving to be a very different beast to the one she knew from their home in Trowbridge yet, underneath it all was the old Maxine.

---

Maxine emerged from her solicitors into the wintry late afternoon sun. For the first day in what seemed like weeks, it had stopped raining.
“That’s the last of the papers signed. Two days from now, I’ll be the owner of the cottage, the land and the buildings that go with it.”

“Unless you are gazumped?”

Maxine shook her head.
"I doubt it. The current owner Janice, and I agreed on a plan. If she pulled out once all the purchase price was in her solicitor's client account then she'd have to pay me twenty thousand. All she wanted was a quick sale without the complications of a chain. I was able to provide that.”

Hayley shook her head.
“I would not want to cross you in business.”

Maxine laughed.
“I had a very good teacher. For him and now me, it is straight down the line. I don’t get off playing one customer off against another. It just does not achieve much in the long run. I know that some businessmen and it is the men… do it for the sheer pleasure of it but the side effect is that those who do that get a bad reputation. It is like paying bills. With me, they are done at least a week before the due date. That way, companies know that we pay on time or before it. In many cases, that allows them to give us slightly better prices. For a small business to survive, is all about managing their cash flow. We have the cash in the bank and with interest rates close to zero, holding onto it does not earn the company much money in interest so why not pay your debts and get some goodwill in return. That is the whole ethos of the company.”

“What about the sharks, scammers and grifters?”

"In the age of social media, there is little that is bad that does not get posted sooner or later and usually sooner. Even though I have no real visible presence on those cesspits of drivel, my assistant Cliff does. He has become immune to the crap and can filter out the good from the bad, and the truly awful. Before I do any business with a company or an individual, I make sure that I know an awful lot about them. That is both good and bad. That allows me to make up my mind when we finally meet. If I get a bad vibe despite good reports from Cliff, I walk away. I watched Adrian do that on more than one occasion. Am I making sense?"

“That’s the Boy Scout in you coming out?”

Maxine laughed. Her former self, Tom, had briefly been a scout. Their motto of 'Be Prepared' was how Adrian and now Maxine approached their business dealings.

"If you put it that way, then yes. But Adrian was also always prepared to simply walk away from any deal, even at the last minute. It takes a lot of guts to do that."

"Have… have you ever had to do that? You know, pull out of a deal at the last minute?"

Maxine shook her head.

"No, thank god. I've never been closer than a week before the deal was due to be signed. But… those are very rare occasions. The first time it happened to me, Adrian was still alive. He told me to sit back, watch and learn. The company in question was taken over by some Vulture Capitalists less than a month later. Within six months they'd sold all the assets, licensed production to somewhere in India. They made all their UK staff redundant. A year after that, they sold the business at a great profit and a huge debt burden for the people who bought it. It went bust less than a year after that. I decided that was not the way I wanted to do business.”

---

[That evening over dinner at the hotel]

“What do you think so far?” asked Maxine.

“I'm not sure. There is one thing that I do know, and that is you can't carry on like you are."

“What do you mean?”

Hayley didn’t reply for a few seconds.

“The load is all on you. You are the company. What would happen if you were run over by a bus?”

Maxine smiled.
“I have asked myself that very same question many times since Adrian passed.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“What answer did you come up with?”

“None. A big fat zero.”

“Isn’t succession planning a big part of business and its success? Weren’t you the planned successor to Adrian?”

“You got me there. Are you up for the job?”

Hayley laughed and shook her head at the same time. Maxine remained impassive.

Then Hayley asked,
“You are serious, aren’t you?”

[to be continued]

[Hayley and Maxine had been talking about who would take over from Maxine should she get run over by the proverbial bus]

"Yes, I am serious. You asked me what would happen if I was run over by a bus… Well with some training, the answer could be you."

“You make it sound like an old advert for the National Lottery?”

Maxine laughed.
“I did a bit didn’t I?”

Hayley didn’t answer.

“Well? Are you up for it?”

“It isn’t as easy as that.”

"Why? Is there a problem with Sally? She very much left the decision about your future up to you, didn’t she?”

Hayley nodded her head.
“Then there is the little matter of having to give three months’ notice on my flat.”

“What if you found a new tenant?”

“The letting agents are complete barstewards. There was a leak from upstairs a few months ago and they tried to make out that I had to pay for the repairs to my flat. Total bollocks but it took a stern letter from Sally’s Company Solicitors reminding them that there was a comprehensive landlord insurance policy on the whole building. They soon backed off after that. Even so, it still took them almost a month to get a plumber in to fix the problem.”

“I get you. Let the clock run down and hope that you can get out without too many fines for damage?”

“Something like that.”

“What if we…? What if we don’t work out?”

“Is there any reason for it not to?”

"We haven't talked about much at all. Yes, you have told me what you want, but you haven't asked about what my hopes and desires are?"

Maxine was visibly stunned by Hayley’s words.

Hayley smiled and leaned over the table, and took hold of Maxine's left hand.

"Getting upfront and personal with a woman is a new thing for Maxine Forsythe, isn’t it?”

Maxine had no choice but to agree by nodding her head.

“I am not a business that can be bought and sold. I have feelings. I’ve always had feelings for you, but if you think that I don't have my own set of desires, then we have a problem."

"I'm so sorry, Hayley. You are right. I am a mere beginner at this romancing another woman thing.”

Hayley leaned over and kissed Maxine.

"I can help here… If you want to, that is?"

Maxine went red in the face again.
“Please.”

---

The couple talked long into the night once they were back in Maxine’s room. It was close to 02:00 before Hayley left Maxine alone and went along the corridor to her room.

Neither of them slept much. When they appeared for a late breakfast, no amount of makeup could hide that fact.

“We must look like a couple of old hags,” commented Maxine after Hayley had given her a brief kiss on the cheek.

“Speak for yourself… Darling!”

Both of them laughed.

“Did you sleep well?” asked Hayley.

Maxine shook her head.
“You?”

“Nah. Too much to think about.”

“Same here.”

Maxine was in the process of picking up her coffee cup but put it down.

“Thanks for last night. I needed someone to talk to me like that. Adrian… Well, he was always there to keep me on the right track but…?”

“But since he has gone, you have ploughed on regardless?”

“Something like that. Cliff… bless his often-mismatched cotton socks has tried to help, but recently, it has been very much a case of 'Maxine knows best'. So, thank you for telling me straight that I was being silly with my plans.”

Hayley shook her head.
"No thanks needed. It was just that you needed someone fresh to look at what you were doing. Consultants earn thousands of pounds a day for that, and you got it for the price of a great meal and a bottle of wine."

“Cheap at half the price,” said Maxine with a huge grin on her face.

“Pah and Bah Humbug!”

Maxine broke out laughing.

“What’s so funny?”

“That’s exactly what my gran would say.”

“Great minds and all that jazz?”

“Yeah.”

“What’s the plan for today?”

“First off, I think that I should introduce you to Belinda and Nina. They are the brains and the energy behind this place.”

“Then?”

“I think we should drop in and see Delphine and Michel. There is something that I need to talk about with him.”

“As a result of our discussions last night?”

Maxine shook her head.
"No. The part of my now former grand cunning plan to rule this part of the world that involves our power supplies still stands. They require more power than their current system can supply. It is about the provision of that, that I need to speak to Michel.”

“I thought that you had already broached the idea with him?”

Maxine shook her head.
“Only in general terms. There is a chance that we can see the units that I would like us to buy on Thursday afternoon. I received an email about it late yesterday.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

“It wasn’t relevant to what we were talking about last night. That was more strategic whereas, the email was about more practical things.”

"That's where you are wrong. If we are going to make this thing work then, we need to not keep things to ourselves. I mean even those little bitty practical things to ourselves. Isn't that what we agreed to last night or… was it early today?"

“Sorry. I didn’t think to mention it earlier.”

“That’s where you are going to have to change.”

“I know but it will be hard at least at first,” replied Maxine.

“Apology accepted but I may not be so forgiving in future,” remarked Hayley as she buttered her toast.

Maxine sighed and took a big gulp of her second mug of tea. Then she began.

"I discussed the idea of big batteries with Michel, and he was supportive. Since then, I have been looking at options, and there is one company in the Midlands that may be able to supply us in a timely manner."

“What is a timely manner?”

"Before winter finally hits us or even the end of the year? That good enough?”

“Sounds like a plan. I suppose this visit will be all technical?”

“Very much so. Space for the units, capacity and delivery. That sort of thing.”

“What about the cost? These things can’t be cheap or everyone would have one already?”

“That’s very true, but for Michel and Delphine and myself for that matter, the price isn't an issue. These things are an investment not a cost. What is more important is to have a reliable source of power. Delphine hates it that they need to run a generator five or six hours a day in winter, just to be sure that they have enough power for the evening. Before they were married, Michel could just about manage on his own without the generator. With the two of them, it is impossible.”

“Can’t you run a giant extension lead from your new home?”

Maxine laughed.
"I did propose something like that. Michel explained to me how much power would be lost over the length of the run. I spoke to a retired transmission line engineer, and when he had picked himself up off the floor, he explained that it was possible but would not be cheap and would take at least six months to get planning permission if it was even possible. We might not be inside the National Park but… Getting permission for that sort of thing would not be easy.”

“Won’t you need that for yours? Planning can be a bit tetchy if you try to get around their petty rules.”

“As it is all inside an existing structure and as it contains its own fire control system, the two planners I have spoken to say no. It would be done under permitted development.”

Hayley wasn't sure if Maxine was leading her up the garden path or not but didn't want to argue with her again, and they still hadn't finished breakfast.

“Are you going from here to visit this place with him? I guess that you want him along with you?”

“No and yes. I have to go back to Reigate once the purchase of the cottage completes tomorrow morning. Cliff has the company accounts for filing at Companies House for me to sign off.”

“Can’t they wait?”

“Normally, they can but wait. But because of Adrian's illness, and everything, we were late filing last years accounts. That sort of excuse even, if it is true, does not work with the Taxman, so were put on warning so… They are due on Friday, and Cliff will courier them once I have signed them with off in the presence of our accountant."

"Gotcha on that. Mum missed paying a lot of bills after dad did a bunk. We were just days from having the Electricity disconnected when I discovered them hidden under the cushions of the chair that always she sat in. It took me a month to get things sorted."

“I remember that. Dawn thought that you were dissing her by not hanging out with her and her cronies. My mum soon put her straight, but you know Dawn."

“We all felt the end of her tongue at least once, didn’t we?”

"Those were the days, eh? All innocent and sweetness and light," joked Maxine.

---

It was late morning when Hayley and Maxine arrived at Michel and Delphine’s smallholding.

“This place is right off a chocolate box,” exclaimed Hayley when she saw the place for the first time. The ducks and geese were enjoying a brief period of wintery sun.

“Hi Michel,” said Maxine as the couple walked towards his charcoal kilns. Michel was working on something in wood.

“Oh, hi Maxine. Did you want Delphine? She’s up at the house.”

"Not especially. Michel, this is Hayley. She and I go back to our first days at school."

Michel saw that they were holding hands. He raised an eyebrow.

“Yes, we are trying to be a couple.”

"Good for you but, that isn't why you are here? Why don't you go down to the cottage and put the kettle on? I'll call up to the house and get Delphine down. I expect that she could do with a break?"

"Thanks, Michel," said Maxine.

When they were in the cottage, Hayley remarked.
“I see what you meant about Michel. He is a bit of a hunk, isn’t he?”

"He is and happily married to a woman who had found a new life thanks to him. When you see her, just try to remember that she was head of a tax collection department at the HMRC less than a year ago.”

Hayley was starting to understand Maxine and her understatements. This Maxine V2.0 was a very different beast from the old one of their teenage years. Then she realised that her sister Dawn had always made herself the centre of attention, and rabbiting on was Maxine's only way of reminding the others in their group that she was there.

“I can’t wait,” said Hayley with a degree of uncertainty in her voice.

---

Michel arrived in the cottage kitchen first. He was washing his hands when Delphine appeared.

"Hello, Maxine. This is an unexpected surprise. What brings you to our humble abode?"

"Hi, Delphine. This is my friend Hayley. We have known each other since we were five, and we are giving it a go at being a couple."

Delphine smiled.
"Pleased to meet you, Hayley. Look after this one. Maxine here is one very special woman."

“I know that she is, and I’ll try to keep her out of mischief,” replied Hayley.

It was clear that Hayley felt a bit excluded but soon relaxed when Delphine sat down next to her and put her arms around her.

“You are welcome here at any time,” said Delphine.

“Thanks.”

"When do you become the owner of Janice's house?" asked Michel as Delphine made the tea.

“Tomorrow morning.”

“That’s good. Are you going ahead with your plans for Solar and everything?”

“I am. That’s why I’m… we are here,” said Maxine.
“I have made an appointment to meet up with a supplier of Battery equipment on Thursday afternoon. Do you want to come along?”

"I do and, Thursday will be fine by me, won't it, Darling?" said Michel.

Delphine chuckled and shook her head. The smile on her face told the girls that she was on board with the plan.

“When and where?” she asked.

"Sutton Coldfield at three in the afternoon, but I'm not going up from here."

Delphine poured the tea and said,
"Come on, Hayley, let me give you the grand tour while these two grumpies talk shop?”

Hayley looked at Maxine in surprise before nodding her head. She and Delphine picked up their mugs of tea and left the kitchen of the cottage.

“Hayley seems a nice person,” remarked Michel.

“She is.”

“I sense a but coming?”

“Yeah. I’ve changed a lot since we dated as teenagers.”

“We all change a lot when we have responsibilities.”

“That’s very true. It will take us a bit of time to get used to each other again.”

"Patience Maxine. She can't replace Adrian, and you aren't him. Your personal drive is different from hers, and it will take some time to get them into sync. It was the same when Vivienne first came here. I’d got so used to being on my own… Well… it was hard but worth it.”
The gleam in his eyes told Maxine far more than a few words could ever do.

“I know that she can’t ever replace Adrian, so I'm going to have to work hard.”

There was a brief silence between the two, so Michel changed the subject.
“As my dear wife asked, when and where?”

“The place is Sutton Coldfield. That is just to the north of Birmingham. The when is three on Thursday afternoon. I could pick you up at Birmingham International Railway Station. I can bring you back here afterwards.”

“Sounds like a plan. Will this place sell us what we need?”

"According to their website, they can. If they can meet what we want, then it is just a case of when can they deliver and how much."

Michel grinned.
"She, who must be obeyed has given me instructions on that matter. Get it no matter what. She has become rather fed up, with having to feed the generator. I have to agree with her on that matter."

Maxine laughed.
"You'll do anything for her, won't you?"

"I will, and it is thanks to you that I have such a wonderful woman in my life, and she's made me want to live again. She's right on this. We don't have enough power to support the lifestyle we both want."

“I’ve been wondering where you will generate more power from?”

“I was wondering about that as well until Delphine suggested the end of the lane.”

“You mean beyond where you turn off into your yard?”

"Yeah. That overgrown mess of brambles. I've got a local farmer coming in with the hedge cutter attachment on his tractor next week. Once it is clear, we can see how much space we have to play with. I estimate that we should have a space for solar panels that is a bit larger than that of your cow shed.”

Maxine smiled.
“Sounds as if you have a solution then?”

“I have no idea about how we can set them up though. I’ll need to give it some thought. It will need to be movable otherwise the planners will get a bit shirty. They hate fixed structures.”

Maxine knew exactly what Michel was talking about. They'd had all sorts of issues with getting planning for the solar array that was in the field behind the hotel. The timely intervention of the local wildlife trust on their side had swayed the day in their favour.

“Planners are the bane of our lives at times,” remarked Maxine.

“Are you ok for Thursday?”

“I’ll have to be, won’t I?”
Then he laughed.
“I don’t have anything important lined up for that day that can’t wait so yes, I’m ok. I’ll get a train up from Totnes and change at Birmingham New St.”

"Just text me your arrival time, and I'll meet you outside the main entrance to the NEC [1]. That is just a short walk from the main entrance to the station."

“Sounds good. Shall we go and find the others?”

---

Michel and Maxine found the others up at the house that Michel had built himself. Delphine was giving Hayley a demonstration of her pole dancing exercises. Hayley was enthralled by how supple Delphine was even, with her waist restricted by a corset.

"I wish I was as supple as that," remarked Hayley.

"I could install a pole in your new home if you want?" remarked Michel, half-joking.

“Don’t go giving her ideas darling. Dancing the pole isn’t for everyone you know,” said Delphine.

“This is a lovely home you have here,” said Hayley changing the subject.

"Thanks, Hayley. It was Delphine that put the finishing touches to what you see before you. Before that, it was a bit bare but, now it is a real home.”

Delphine went a bit red in the face.

“Michel did all the hard work on his own.”

Michel gave his wife a big hug.

“It is time we were going,” said Maxine.
“We have another call to make today.”

Hayley looked at Maxine with a surprised look on her face.

Maxine took hold of her hand and gave it a gentle squeeze.

"After tomorrow, we will be neighbours. I'm moving some of my things down on Friday, so don't be strangers, ok?”

“We won’t… neighbour,” said Delphine.

---

“Delphine is quite a woman,” remarked Hayley once Maxine had driven them away from her home.

“She is. Meeting Michel was the best thing that could have happened to her. She is being allowed to act out her fantasies by a loving husband. How many couples can say that eh?”

“Does her fantasy include going commando?”

Maxine laughed.
"She has given herself to Michel. That includes allowing him to have sex with her at any time and anywhere he wants. I expect that might be exactly what they are doing right now."

“Now?”

"Yes, now. Delphine told me a while ago that she has become a bit of a nympho, and after twenty-odd years of being a dutiful mother and grandmother, she is loving every minute of it. Is that so wrong?"

"No, but I'm sure that a lot of people would turn their noses up at their slightly hedonistic lifestyle."

“That is very true.”

For a while, Hayley was silent as Maxine drove towards Plymouth.

“Maxi, did you ever… ever do it with a woman?”

Maxine gripped the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles turned white.

“I take it that you didn’t?”

“Correct.”

“Where are we going?” asked Hayley changing the subject.

“To buy a bed. I’m getting rid of the old one that I have in Reigate and if I’m going to stay down here, I’m going to need a new one.”

“And you need my help with that?”

Maxine looked at Hayley and sighed.
"Ok, we are going to buy ourselves a bed. Is that so bad? That is if you want to try living as a couple, that is?"

[to be continued]

[1] National Exhibition Centre. This is adjacent to the Railway Station and Birmingham Airport.

[Birmingham International Airport Railway Station]
"Sorry, I'm a bit late. My mother called while I was getting ready to leave and… well, she just would not stop talking,” said Maxine.

Michel laughed as he got into her car.
“I’m glad mine is several thousand miles away.”

“Lucky you,” said Maxine as she drove away from the Station.
“Don’t get me wrong Michel, I love my Mum but there are times when she just won’t shut up.”

Michel laughed.
“That’s what my daughter tells me. The thing is that I’m usually done on the phone in just a few minutes but Delphine spends literally hours on the phone to her.”

Maxine giggled as she negotiated the next roundabout.
“Michel… Men talk, women gossip. Two entirely different things.”

“Will we get there on time,” asked Michel as he changed the subject.

“We’ll get there for three no problem.”

“That’s good. How long do you think that we’ll be there for?”

“If everything is as they say it is, then we should be on the road again in an hour or ninety minutes at most.”

“How long will it take to get home?”

“Missing Delphine already?”

"No, it is not that. Delphine had to go to the dentist this afternoon. She broke a crown last night when she fell off the pole. That’s why she’s not with me.”

Maxine tried hard to resist laughing but failed.

“It was funny for a while. It is not the first time and won’t be the last but boy, has it done wonders for her suppleness. Those yoga freaks can eat their heart out besides, having someone pole dancing just for you in your own home is wonderful entertainment.”

Maxine could read between the lines at what he meant.

“We’ll need to stop to charge the car on our way south. I was thinking about stopping at a pub on the edge of Bristol. We can get something to eat while the car charges. Forty minutes will see us have enough charge to get back to South Devon.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

“Are you clear on your role today?”

Michel grinned.
If anyone has asked him even a year ago if there would be two very strong women in his life then he would have laughed them out of court. Delphine and Maxine were unlike any women he’d ever encountered. He wasn’t sure if he could handle another one permanently.

"I am your business associate. If he starts talking to me rather than you, I am to correct him."

"Great. Don't forget that if you have something to say, then say it. We are equal partners in this little venture despite the dog and pony show that we are going to put on today.”

Michel raised an eyebrow. There was no doubt that Maxine was in charge, but he knew that his home needed the sort of solution that they were going to look at that afternoon and had been putting it off for far too long. It had taken the arrival of Delphine into his life to make fixing the problem an imperative. Maxine had offered a solution that would have been overkill for him alone, but it was what Delphine deserved.

"I am. This could be fun!"

Maxine just laughed. It had been a while since she’d been ‘two handed’ on a job. She hoped that her nerves would not get the better of her over the next two hours.

---

“Here we are. J.T. Brown, Engineering,” said Maxine as she drove her car into the car park of the company HQ in Sutton Coldfield.

They’d hardly come to a stop when a man in what looked like his mid 30’s emerged.

“Maxine Forsythe? I’m Ray Symonds, the Sales Manager for Plant Services," he asked.

“That’s me. This is my business associate Michel La Fontaine.”

"Pleased to meet you both. We are expecting you. If you would follow me, then I can show you the units. I have to say that it is most unusual to have potential customers that are not in the construction industry."

Maxine looked at Michel, who grinned.

“We might well be the first of many such customers in the future if the government is going to meet its decarbonisation commitments.”

Mr Symonds didn’t reply but smiled. In his mind, the more of these units that they sold, the bigger his end of year bonus would be.

“Here we are,” said Mr Symonds opening a door into a large workshop.

---

The three of them stopped alongside two 20ft shipping containers.

“This one is the control unit,” said Mr Symonds as he opened the doors of one of the units.

He led the way inside.

"Feeds from the grid comes in here," he said, pointing at a large switch unit.
"Solar here and any auxiliary supplies such as wind enter here," he said, pointing at two further items of switchgear.

"The control panel is here. This is the heart of the system. It regulates the use of grid supply and battery charging."

He added,
“The batteries are in the next unit. We keep them separate for fire protection purposes, but both units have their very own fire control systems. One of our early systems caught fire when a builder's cigarette caught the whole thing alight. Normally, there is no need to go into the other container from one week to another. The monitoring system shows the detailed state of all of the batteries.”

He showed them the contents of the other container. There wasn’t much to see when compared to the other unit. Most of the racking was empty.

“How much capacity has this one installed right now?” asked Michel.

Mr Symonds went into the container and looked at the batteries. He emerged and said,
“Ten Kilowatt Hours.”

Michel nearly choked. That was almost three times his current setup. One small rack would more than replace his three large racks of lead-acid batteries.

“How much capacity are you thinking about?” asked Mr Symonds.

Maxine answered first.
“At least one hundred kilowatts but preferably closer to two hundred in each unit.”

Mr Symonds almost choked. The ‘£££’ signs racked up in his mind.

“Is that going to be a problem?” asked Michel.

“Surely you will have a grid supply overnight to keep the batteries charged?”

“Who said anything about a grid connection?” asked Michel.

“But… Isn’t everyone connected to the grid? Even building sites put that in very early on in the construction process. Often that is a limited supply so that's where units like this come into their own. Even with a good connection, one JCB digging in the wrong place, and the whole site can go dark. That’s when the batteries come into their own.”

“I understand your reasoning but, my home and business is not and has never been connected to the grid,” said Michel defiantly.

“And mine will be disconnected once devices like these are installed.”

“How will you keep the batteries charged?”

“The prime source will be Solar and a small amount of water. I have a waterwheel on my property," said Michel confidently.

“That size battery is going to need a lot of solar,” stated Mr Symonds.

“Is a 30kWh solar array good enough?” said Maxine smiling.

“Oh. That’s not the normal domestic system then?”

"No, it is half the roof of my cowshed," replied a grinning Maxine.

“It seems that you have everything covered. What do you think of these units?”

Maxine looked at Michel, who returned a brief nod.

“We think that these will be perfect for our needs. Can you supply two pairs of units and say 200kWh of batteries by the end of January? With another 200kWh by April?” asked Michel.

The directness of his question threw Mr Symonds quite a bit.

“Well… I don’t know.”

"Please find out and let us know. If you can, then we'll sign the contract."

“These won’t be cheap with that amount of battery capacity?”

“We both have a good idea of the costs of such a system, and they will be within our budgets.”

Maxine decided to help things out.

“If you are wondering why we think that we need such large capacity battery units, is mostly down to transportation. The car that we arrived in has a 90kWh battery. I want to be able to charge it from close to zero to 90% full from the battery as well as run the whole house with plenty to spare.”

"I have to say, that is a most unusual use case but, you are the customer. I'll need to check on the supply of batteries with the maker in China. I'll let you know as soon as I find out."

“Don’t you have a supply nearer at hand?”
Mr Symonds thought for a moment.
“Well, the battery trays that we use comes from Germany. I could make a call?”

“Please do. We’d like to wrap up this deal today if you get my drift.”

Mr Symonds went off to make a call.

“Are you going too far?” asked Michel.

“Getting the units without any batteries is a total waste of time. They can’t be used without at least some battery installed. For the amount of money that we are going to spend, we don't want to be left with four containers of nothing until a ship arrives from China."

Michel smiled.
“But you are willing to compromise, aren’t you?”

"Only on the amount of capacity, we get on day one. As I said just now, I want 100kWh in each unit by the new year or end of January at the very latest with the other 100kWh as soon as possible after that.”

“You are certainly ambitious, aren’t you?”

"I know what I want and, I'm willing to pay for it. Those control units have been sitting here for fifteen months since Carillion went bust. He needs to get rid of them. If he can fill them up with batteries, then he can go home a happy bunny. That a win all around in my book."

This was the first time that Michel had seen Maxine in full business mode. He already knew that she was not to be trifled with but, the way she'd handled Mr Symonds had impressed him no end.

Mr Symonds soon returned with a smile on his face.

“I can get the full 400kWh shipped to us by the time the German company shuts for Christmas. They should arrive here in early January. Normally, they'd come by ship and, that amount of battery capacity can't be flown by air so, we are left with rail. The supplier in China has just started shipping by train to Germany. That takes about nine days.”

“That’s good, very good indeed,” said Maxine.
"If you can prepare some paperwork that explains all of that, I'll get my lawyer to go over it. You can have my decision by the end of the week if that is acceptable to you?"

“It is perfectly acceptable if you can agree to sign a letter of intent.”

“As long as it states ‘subject to contract’ then we have a deal.”

“If you’d come into the office, we can get the paperwork started.”

---

Michel was still admiring the way Maxine had handled the deal with the power units when they came to a grinding halt just after they had turned onto the M5. The traffic started to move but slowly. He had forgotten just how very busy the main Motorways could be in rush hour.

Just south of Worcester Michel, let out a little shriek.

“Are you ok? Do you want me to stop?” asked Maxine.

“No, I’m fine. That lorry ahead of us is the solution to my solar panel problems.”

They were following an articulated lorry that had two flat-bed trailers on top of a third. It was clear that the empty trailers were being taken somewhere for their next load.

"Those trailers. They will be perfect for mounting the solar panels on the top. By putting the panels on a trailer, they will be considered movable and outside the planning laws. If our homes were inside the National Park then, they'd be banned."

“How will you mount them?” asked Maxine.

"I'll make up some frames out of wood. I have a load of seasoned oak just waiting to be used. There will be more than enough for sixty frames."

“Won’t that be an awful lot of work for one person?”

Michel laughed.
"It will but, I have all the charcoal ready for the next season already bagged, so I will have plenty of free time.

"It is nearly wintertime. Shouldn't you do something about your workshop?" asked Maxine.

At that time, Michel did all his carpentry under a structure that had started its life as a Gazebo. All that was left was the roof which, had been strengthened with an industrial-strength tarpaulin.

“You have a point there. I’ll need to move a lot of things around before those containers arrive. If I get that done, then I’ll have the space. This will give me the incentive to put some walls on my workshop for the winter.”

“Sounds like a plan then.”

Michel laughed again.
“You sound just like my wife when you say that.”

Maxine drew an imaginary zip across her mouth. She smiled at the same time.

---

“I was watching an expert back in Sutton Coldfield,” said Michel as they grabbed a bite to eat while the car was charging.
“You pretty well had him wrapped around your little finger.”

“Thanks. That was all down to Adrian. He used to drum into me that I should be firm but don’t be overly stubborn. I have tried to keep to that advice. So far it is working but some men still take objection to dealing with a woman when it comes to money and contracts.”

"I know and, I've seen Delphine give people like that a good dressing down. I would not have like to have been investigated by her department at the HMRC.”

"She's not the same woman since then and, that is down to you," remarked Maxine.

Michel just shook his head.

Maxine just smiled. She knew a lot more about the relationship between Delphine and Michel than either of them would admit in public. A couple of bottles of bubbly and a hot tub had worked wonders for making Delphine open up.

---

[The following Wednesday morning in Bristol]

“Mum? What’s so important that you couldn’t tell me on the phone?”
“Come in and sit down my daughter dear.”

“What do you want? I’m due to meet Cliff at two. We are discussing a possible investment in a company in deepest, darkest Herefordshire and I need to meet his train.”

“Always in a rush, aren’t you?”

"Not always but, today I am."

"Please stop pacing about. Cliff won't disappear, at midnight you know."

Maxine sat down with a sigh. She knew that she had to let her have her say.”

“Ok Mum. What is it?”

“You made a great impression at the conference.”

“Stop right there. I made it clear that my performance was a one-night stand and will never be repeated.”

"We know. Sally and especially Garth have been very clear with me on the matter. We have it all on tape and the edited version will be used at future events."

“So?”

“You and Hayley?”

“Yes?”

“Well? Come on darling, you can tell your old Mum?”

"Not so much of the old, and besides, who got married again a few weeks ago?”

“Stop trying to change the subject. What about you and Hayley?”

“It is early days.”

"Early days my foot. Ever since she came back to work after being with you, she's been in a dream world."

“Mum, it is early days. It won’t be easy for us. Both of us will need to change. That applies especially to me, ok? It is going to take time for us to work out how we can live together. This isn't Trowbridge anymore and, we aren't those lovesick teenagers that Dawn tore apart. Living with Hayley is a very different thing to being with Adrian.”

Pauline raised an eyebrow.
“Mum! I want to do it my way.”

“I know that you do my darling.”

“I sense a but coming?”

“Not exactly a but! Can’t I look out for my only daughter?”

“Only daughter? What about Dawn?”

“She’s no daughter of mine. After what she has said and done about you, I disowned her last year. I told her to her face a week after you buried Adrian. She’d been spouting off on Facebook media about your apparent sham marriage. I put her straight once and for all. I also gave her this.”

Maxine’s mother opened a folder that had been sitting on the desk. She handed Maxine a sheet of paper.

"That is a summary of a report that I had done on her by a Private Eye. It clearly shows that she is involved in dealing in Class A drugs. I told her that she is to stop taunting you or the full report goes to the Police."

“Ok, I get you on that, but please stop trying to get Hayley and me together. You are too late. As I said, we are trying to work things out between ourselves. Moving down to Devon will be a big step for her. It means burning her bridges here in Bristol.”

“Why am I too late?”

Maxine smiled at her mother. It wasn’t often that she got one over on her.

“Garth Samson bent my ear last Thursday after our charity conference call. He went on for over an hour. I understand how he used to operate in business. That man can talk forever. But as you know he does not take no for an answer. Hayley is coming down for the weekend to help me move in. Garth told me in no uncertain terms to get off my backside and tell her how I feel. Hayley made a big impression on Morag and Kim at the conference.”

There was silence in the office for well over a minute.

"Say something, Mum?"

“I feel so small.”

"No, Mum. You are just being a good mother and caring for her brood."

“Will you forgive me?”

Maxine smiled at her mother. She came around to face her directly and gave her a big hug.

“You are forgiven… This time but in future?”

“I know. Just stay out of your love life.”

"Thanks, mum but I have to hit the road. Cliff will be waiting for me if I don’t get a move on."

“Why don’t you take the train from Parkway? Can’t Cliff drive you to wherever you are going to go?”

Maxine briefly hesitated.

“The place we are going to is well off the beaten track.”

Maxine's Mum just shook her head. Maxine took her cue to, as they say 'exit stage left'.

---

[The following weekend]

“Is this all your stuff?” remarked Hayley as she surveyed the pile of boxes that almost filled the dining room of the cottage.

"It is all my stuff. Cliff will pack up the office next week and drive it down himself on Friday."

“So, we have to do all this again next weekend?”

“No, we don’t. I’ll sort out the business stuff. A lot of it can go into long term storage. I’ve been meaning to do it since Adrian passed but I never got around to it until now. Some of the files go back almost thirty years. Those can be sorted and shredded.”

“Isn’t it an ideal opportunity for me to start getting into the business?”

They hadn't fully discussed the role that Hayley would do in the business. Maxine had not been looking forward to this.

“I’m not sure.”

"Not sure of what? Me or me working in the business? I have a good idea from your mother, about the role that Cliff plays and, I'll be the first to say that I could never replace his years of experience or his network of contacts. I was thinking about this on the train coming down today. Why don't you offer him a part-time research role? That's what he is good at and, he can do that from just about anywhere with a half-decent internet and phone connection?"

Maxine was slightly stunned by what Hayley had just said.

“I hadn’t thought about that.”

Hayley smiled.

“Then think about it while we sort this lot out.”

Maxine was starting to look at Hayley in a different light. Perhaps all her reservations about her childhood friend were groundless.

They only dealt with a small amount of the pile when there was the sound of a car arriving.

“That must be Delphine. She said that she’d come and help us.”

“From the size of what is left here, I think that we will need all the help we can get.”

---

[Two weeks later]

“I’m going to give Sally my notice in on Monday,” said Hayley.
"I’ve already told the letting agents that I'm leaving. They seemed pleased, which surprised me. I met one of the other tenants that evening, and he said that the owner was looking to sell the property. It would sell a lot easier with vacant possession."

“Does this mean that you won’t have to wait three months to leave?”

“It does mean just that. The agents said that as I have paid up to the end of the month and if I can leave by then, that will be it,” replied Hayley with a grin on her face.

“I got it confirmed in an email. They specifically said 31st of December which is good because of the Christmas and New Year holidays.”

Hayley saw the colour in Maxine’s face drain away.
“What’s wrong? I thought that you would be happy?”

“I am but that leaves us the little issue of Christmas to deal with,” said Maxine.

"It would be nice to spend it on our own but, I guess from the expression on your face, that will not be possible."

Maxine shook her head.
“Pauline and Sally have asked us for the 25th and 26th. That would be good and would allow us to clear out your place and get any remedial work done before the end of the year.”

“It would but, you are thinking about my family, aren’t you?”

Maxine nodded. Hayley's family were famous for the large gathering that took place on Christmas day. It was an open house not only to relatives but friends as well.

“We’d have to make an appearance at some point during the day.”

“As long as your brother Phil isn't there when we are then I'm game."

“You still haven’t forgiven him, have you?”

“Would you for what he did to me?”

“I see your point.”

“The point is my darling is that he has promised more than once to do it again if he ever met me again when I was wearing women’s clothes. Pulling down my skirt and knickers in the middle of M&S is one thing but I could never be sure that he would not do it in front of your family.”

Hayley remembered that incident only too well. Ever since then, she and her brother had hardly spoken not that they met more than once a year. Phillip had gone off to and started working for a finance company in Edinburgh. Phil now had a wife and two children, but as far as Hayley was concerned, he was still not to be trusted. He was like an Elephant in that he would never forget about making good his promises.

“I think I should ask my Mum about Christmas Day. She’ll know what my dear brother is going to do. How about that?”

“Good idea. Does your Mum know what he did to me?”

“She does but, it can’t help to remind her just in case.”

Maxine didn’t look too happy. The prospect of meeting Hayley’s brother at Christmas was up there with meeting her sister Dawn… something to be avoided at all costs.

[to be continued]

[2nd January 2020]

“It is good to be back,” exclaimed Maxine as she unloaded the last of Hayley’s belongings from the back of the van that they’d rented.

“Yeah. Yesterday was hard going. My dumbass brother was out to cause trouble right from the start of the day. Mum texted earlier. She says thanks for not rising to his baiting.”

“He did rather broadcast his intentions for the day when he turned up half drunk.”

“My brother could never hold his beer, but it seems that recently he's been drinking vodka, and by what happened yesterday, lots of it."

"Your mum was giving him a right tongue lashing when we left last night."

"She was, but that was probably to make herself feel better. Knowing him as I do, it won't even go into one ear."

Maxine smiled.
“We both know someone else like that, don't we?"

Hayley laughed.
“You mean Dawn?”

“Give the lady a prize!”

“She had a great opportunity to get on in life but threw it all away. It was only a good tongue lashing… well a stern talking to from my mum that got me out of Dawn’s sphere of disintegration, and attend the interview in her place.”

Maxine laughed. Hayley looked at her slightly surprised.

“’Sphere of disintegration’. I’ll have to remember that. That’s a good one.”

Hayley saw the funny side of what she’d just said and joined in.

Christmas and New Year had seen them grow a lot closer. With Hayley only in Devon at weekends, while she worked out her notice at her job and flat, their relationship had had its ups and downs. Now that Hayley was living with Maxine both of them hoped that things would get very serious but, neither of them was rushing into things. Both of them knew that a lot of adjustments to their lives would have to take place before they were able to move forward with their relationship.

“Are we taking the van back today?” asked Hayley, who was referring to the van that they'd rented to move her things from Trowbridge and Bristol down to Devon.

"I think so. The site is open until six, and it has just turned three now."

“Do we have time for a drink first? That apology that is called coffee that we had on the Motorway is still sticking to my mouth,” asked Hayley.

"There is and, we can have one of those cakes that your mum baked for us at the same time.”

“Just what I was thinking,” replied Hayley, with a big grin on her face.

[8th January 2020]

“That went rather well,” said a contented Hayley to Maxine. She received a small grunt in response.

Hayley had to deal with the arrival of the containers that contained the Battery Systems on her own. Maxine was laid up in bed with a stinking cold and was feeling very sorry for herself. Thankfully, Michel had been on hand to supervise the operation. Hayley had let him run the show while she kept everyone warm by supplying copious cups of tea.

The delivery lorries had arrived almost on time to the minute and had deposited four containers in the area outside the former cattle shed at Maxine's house. Those vehicles were simply too big to put one pair of containers into the cattle shed. Thankfully, Michel knew a friendly farmer with a bit of machinery that could do the job, with ease. That expensive-looking bit of kit had arrived just after the delivery lorries had left.

In less than ten minutes, Maxine's containers had been moved into the barn. Now, they were waiting for the installation to be commissioned. That was due to take place in two days.

Michel’s system had been loaded onto a farmers flatbed trailer and taken by road to his home. They would be moved into place the following day and installed the day after that.

"Thank you, darling," croaked Maxine from underneath a thick duvet.

"Your Mum says to keep drinking the hot lemon. It will keep you from getting blocked up," said Hayley, who was having a hard time stopping herself from laughing.

"Mum always said that, and it never made any difference," croaked Maxine.
Her voice had been badly affected by the virus.

“I’ll bring you something to eat in a while.”

“I’m not hungry,” replied Maxine.

“Nonsense. Your Mum would say, 'feed a cold and starve a fever' which is just what I am trying to do, isn't it?”

Maxine cursed from underneath the duvet. The 'Mum's know best' thing was wearing a bit thin, in her opinion.

“I’ll tell her that when I report back later,” joked Hayley as she left Maxine alone.

Maxine just groaned in despair but was still thankful that Hayley was around. It was far better than suffering on her own.

---

[20th January 2020]
“Maxi, I think this might interest you,” said Hayley as she brandished a copy of that morning’s Financial Times.

“What am I supposed to be looking at?”

“This report from their central China business correspondent,” said Hayley pointing to a short article.

Maxine read it and shook her head.

“If this is even half true, then we are fucked."

“How do you mean?”

Maxine sighed.

"Hey, I'm not at school now, you know?" said Hayley as she remembered the times that Tom would help her with her homework. Those sessions would usually involve a good deal of ‘sighs’ when Tom would get a bit frustrated with Hayley’s inability to grasp the problem that they were working on.

This was all the stranger because Tom left school with just one bare pass grade GCSE in Maths while Hayley got nine good GCSE’s.

“Ready for a history lesson?”

Hayley shook her head. She knew what was coming, so she sat down and waited for the lecture to begin. She sat with her hands crossed in her lap just like they did when they were ‘on the naughty step’ at school.

Maxine laughed and began her tale.
“Towards the end of the First World War in late 1918, and then into 1919 and on into the early 1920s, there was a pandemic of what was called ‘Spanish Flu’, even though it may well have not originated in Spain. It killed millions around the world, and that was what made it a pandemic. You have to remember that this was all taking place in the days before planes began crisscrossing the planet in hours. It is generally accepted that much of the spread was down to soldiers going home at the end of the War. Never before had there been so many men concentrated in one place for so long on the Western Front. More people died in late 1918 from the flu than died in the whole of the war. A staggering fact when you think about it. There were many millions of men and some women on both sides of the conflict. The sheer concentration of people both, at the front and on the transports that took them home again was the perfect vector to spread the virus around the world. By that, I mean that there were troops from all of the British, French and German empires plus those from the USA and a few dozen other nations. That was how it spread around the world. Are you with me so far?”

Hayley looked a bit bewildered but nodded her head.

“If you fast forward to now and unless the Chinese are really, really tough and can get this under control, we can look forward to this spreading around the world in weeks, not months. Then we’ll see the propaganda starting in earnest.”

“That’s a very fatalistic attitude?”

"It is and, it is just what a lot of scientists who specialise in the spread of diseases have been saying for years. Like the 'Big One' earthquake in California, it is according to some sources, well overdue. Ten or fifteen years ago, there was another virus that was called SARS. Many epidemiologists said that we got away lightly with that, and when the next one hit, we might not be so lucky.”

“What do you mean about the propaganda?”

Maxine shook her head.
"In the USA, the president at the time, Woodrow Wilson, almost banned the reporting of the pandemic, in case it affected the production of Arms for the war effort. Then various events happened that made it impossible to hide the size of the pandemic as the march in Philadelphia that caused more than 12,000 people to die in a week or so. OTOH, no one knew for certain what a virus was back then even though there had been vaccines for things like Smallpox for about a century. The medical system back then was out of the stone age in comparison to today's health system. Even so, I fear that vested interests will be out in force with fake news and fantastical conspiracies."

“How do you know all this stuff? This is a far cry from anything remotely related to the sort of businesses we have invested in.”

Maxine sighed again. Hayley reacted with a glare.

"Don't worry, darling. I'm just cursing myself for not getting you to read a lot of the things that Adrian made me do in the early days. When I moved on from working with Sally, I knew very little about economics and business in general, even less about economic history and business cycles. Adrian, made me read up the way economies go up and down and, in particular, the reasons why it happens. It might sound a bit strange but I found the period between 1911 and 1933 very interesting. The things that all came together to make the rise of Hitler so much easier, can be very fascinating if you like that sort of thing.”

Maxine took Hayley’s hand in hers.
“You are not me. There is still part of Tom in me and it was that part of me that understood Adrian’s desire for me to understand that sort of thing. I don’t know if I would be interested in doing that now.”

“Maxi… That is you! Be it Tom or Maxine you always had an enquiring mind. From what your mother told me about Adrian, that is a lot of what he saw in you. Who else would have dug and dug and found out the link to the Hotel group and what was going on with them?”

She smiled.
“Don’t ever change. Don’t mind my little foibles. Adrian moulded you in his image to take over from him. It is your destiny.”

Maxine managed a small smile.

Hayley had never liked history at school, but this was different. History had a bad habit of repeating itself that one thing had stuck in her mind for some reason.

“I’m ready to carry on with my history lesson.”

Maxine laughed.

“After a bit of hinting… Well, lots of hints and suggestions from Adrian, I spent hours reading about how the big industrialists exploited their workers allowed me to begin to understand why Adrian did business in the way that he did. Compassionate Capitalism is not easily understood especially, by die-hard profit at all costs capitalists. Many equate it to socialism or worse, communism. Don’t get me wrong, even 100 years ago, some Industrialists did care for both the health and welfare of their workers but most didn’t. That is even truer today than it ever was.”

It was Hayley’s turn to shake her head.
“I guess I’m going to have homework tonight?”

Maxine laughed.
“Not homework. When you have the time and the inclination, I can point you in the right direction. Then your inquisitiveness can take you in the direction it wants and, not in the one that I want it to. That is what Adrian said to me and applies just as much to you as it did to me.”

“This report from China? What can we do? Can we stop it?” asked Hayley deftly bringing the conversation back onto the original topic.

“We as individuals can’t but… we can monitor this very closely but in the short term, I think that we may need to modify a lot of our plans and prepare our businesses for the worst. We can support them but only so far.”

“Why?”

Maxine sighed again.
“You never paid much attention in History, did you?”

“Most of those dates and the like didn't even go into one ear, I'm afraid. I memorised the ones I needed for my CGSE. Once that was over, I mentally erased them.”

"I agree that most of it was irrelevant shite but, there were some interesting parts. The Black Death and the Plague that swept London just before the Great Fire."

“More killing? You must like reading about dead people?”

“It is true that a lot of people died but, the way those events were dealt with might just be a hint as to what is to come when it hits here. Out of adversity, comes strength.”

Hayley thought for a few seconds before replying.
“You dodged my question, didn’t you?”

Maxine just smiled.
“Then you said ‘when’ and not ‘if’?” asked Hayley.

“When is more likely if this thing escapes that part of China, then it will probably get here within a month or six weeks at the outside. Just ask yourself how many long-haul flights are there from China to Europe or the USA on any given day. Multiply that number by say 250 passengers on each flight, and you get some idea of the number of potential carriers of the disease spreading around the world.”

“How did they deal with the plague before?”

“Essentially, the entire population was kept at home in isolation. If you don't have any contact with others, then you can't spread it. Eventually, the thing will die off if it can’t spread and evolve. That is why they put people into total isolation with that Ebola epidemic in West Africa some years back. George Washington did the same when smallpox hit his army during the revolution. He isolated his troops and then vaccinated them. A few historians think that his actions then were a turning point in the war. The Chinese knew that war was more than just fighting.”

Hayley sat down and looked out of the window. A watery sun had just climbed over the trees. Nothing moved other than a few crows going about their business.

Maxine leaned over and took Hayley’s hand.

“Just when we were getting ourselves together…?”

"Yeah. That is a bit of a bummer but, we will have to do what we can to mitigate things."

“Like what?”

“I don’t know at the moment. I need to think about things and how this will impact the businesses.”

Maxine then said,
“You should as well. You look at problems from a different point of view. Take a few days and we can compare our thoughts.”

“What about us…? Here?”

“The Solar panels are being installed next week so that will make us pretty well energy self-sufficient."

“Do you think that it will get that bad? Power cuts and the like?”

Maxine shook her head.

"No, I don't but, that is down to us using more renewable energy than even 20 years ago. Those systems require little human intervention, unlike Coal Mining. It is more than likely that the first hint of trouble people will panic buy all sorts of things for no good reason. We have seen it before. One rumour about a possible problem in the supply of something and people go crazy trying to stock up on it even if they don't need it at the time. Human nature, I'm afraid.”

“We did a big shop last week and stocked up. Will we be, ok?”

Maxine smiled.
"I don't know but, I think we need to take a good look at what we have in the house. If we know what we have and how much we are using, then we can guestimate how much we will need going forward. Not the exotics but the staples like toilet rolls, baked beans, canned and frozen food. That sort of stuff.”

“You sound like you think that it could last for months?”

"That article said that this virus has an incubation period of seven to ten days. Double that and double it again, and that is the minimum. Forty days and that's a low estimate. I'll try to dig up the articles I read a few years ago about the spread of infectious diseases. The Spanish Flu pandemic lasted well over a year.”

“Why did you gen, up on that stuff?”

Maxine smiled again.
“We were thinking of investing in a medical technology company at the time. They specialised in field-deployable diagnosis kits for things like Ebola and Nile Fever. Adrian made sure that I was up to speed on the sort of equipment that they were making before we went to see them.”

“But you didn’t invest in them?”

“No, we didn’t. Before we could come to a deal, they were bought out by one of the giant American Medical equipment makers. It turned out that the UK company had been shortlisted for a contract for the US Military simply because none of the big players in the US was looking at this very seriously. Then word got out and… the rest is history.”

“Ok, I get you.”

---

[10th February 2020]

“Have they gone?” asked Hayley when Maxine came into the kitchen. Hayley was having another go at making bread. Her first few attempts had been disastrous. After the last debacle, she’d talked to her mother who was an excellent baker. This was her first attempt since then.

“Yeah. All installed and connected up. The batteries are starting to charge.”

Hayley smiled.
“At last, but they won’t get a lot of energy today. It is pretty dark out there. It has started to rain just as the forecast said it would.”

Maxine looked out of the window and nodded her head.

“At least now we can get to grip with our Electricity usage."

Hayley shook her head.
"If you got any more anal about that stuff, anyone would think that you are obsessed with it?"

“Someone has to do that. What would you do if the lights went off?”

“Get the torch from my handbag, go to the cupboard under the stairs and get the candles out.”

Maxine laughed.
“You have a torch in your handbag?”

Hayley grinned.
"What I keep in my handbag is strictly need to know, and you don't need to know."

They both laughed. It brightened up an otherwise very dull day.

---

[Late February 2020]

The two women had just finished watching the early evening news on TV.

“That does not look good. All those towns and cities in Italy locked down for 23 hours a day,” remarked Hayley.

“It isn’t good at all. I think we should move forward with our plans starting tomorrow.”

Hayley could see that Maxine was worried.
“We’ll get through this.”

Maxine smiled.
"I think we should try to grow our very own veggies."

Hayley laughed.
“Michel will fall about laughing when he hears about it.”

“He had to start somewhere. He knew nothing about growing herbs before he came down here.”

“They’ll take months to grow big enough to be harvested, won’t they? Are you saying that there is going to be a shortage of veggies?”

“If we are going to be put into some form of lockdown like Italy then what else will we have to do all day? Watch other people make oodles of money on YouTube?"

The seriousness of the situation was starting to hit home to Hayley.

She came and cuddled up to Maxine.
“There will be plenty of time for sex won’t there?”

Maxine sighed.
“You always had a one-track mind, didn’t you?”

Hayley giggled.
“I did try several times to get you into bed… but?”

“I know you did but it didn’t feel right at the time. I was full of teenage angst and a huge fear of making you pregnant. It is a little… well a lot different now.”

“It has to be. You don’t have your ding-a-ling now do you,” said Hayley using their infant school name for a penis.

“And good riddance to it,” replied Maxine.
“It never would do the right thing at the right time… But yes, there will be time for us to explore each other’s bodies.”

Hayley kissed Maxine. As she did so, memories of them fumbling around in Tom’s bed came flooding back to her. They weren’t pretty memories. She gave a small shudder.

“We didn’t know what we were doing back then,” said Maxine who has guessed what had flashed through Hayley’s mind.

“It wasn’t our finest day, was it?”

“That’s all in the past. We are both different people, older and hopefully a bit wiser.”

Hayley smiled.

“We are going to have to adapt to a different world when this is over. We did it when we stopped being teenagers and became adults so we can do it again,” said Maxine.

Hayley ignored Maxine and started to tickle her. That brought some brevity back into their lives even if it was just for a short period.

Just then a squall blew in from the Southwest. Both of them saw it as an omen.

[to be continued]

[authors note]
This piece was mostly written in July 2020 and updated in Oct 2021.

As the virus spread around the world, Maxine and Hayley made plans for when they'd have to go into isolation or as everyone in the media was calling it, lockdown. All the businesses that were part of the Lorelei Investments portfolio were given updates on what Maxine was expecting from them. Mostly it was a complete freeze on both payments to Lorelei and investment in the companies with a few exceptions if a government mandate forced the business to completely close or severely restrict their operations.

The major exception was the Vineyard in France. Their crunch point would come in the Autumn. What mattered was getting the vines ready for the growing season. The ever-present threat of frost was of more concern to Francoise and Jules than anything else at this point in their year. They had a local worker who would move to some accommodation at the Vineyard. He’d help out when and if the country imposed a lockdown.

Their main job was to give reassurance to the businesses that they were there for them if and when they needed help. That was welcomed by all the companies and was a brief moment of brightness in an ever darkening world.

[20th March 2020]
“Emma, it is Maxine. Have you given any thought to what I suggested in my email?”

Maxine’s long-time dressmaker and friend had become the most recent partner for Maxine’s company early in January. With a nationwide lockdown seeming to be inevitable, Maxine and Hayley had invited Emma to decamp from London and come down to Devon for the duration of the lockdown.

“You have?”

“That’s good. When will you pack up and get on the road?”

“Ok. I understand about getting the dresses to the brides to be. Give me a call when you get close and I’ll meet you. This place is not the easiest in the world to find in the dark.”

“No. Just bring as much as you can. We have a place for you to work ready and waiting.”

“Just drive safely, ok?”

“Yeah, bye.”

Hayley who had just come into the kitchen after doing some watering of the seedlings that were growing in a small poly-tunnel that Michel had given them was waiting patiently for Maxine to get off the phone.

“Was that Emma?”

“Yep. She’s coming down on Monday. She hopes to leave around midday.”

“Ah. That’s why you suggested meeting her then?”

“Yes. Is that a problem?”

"No, but we'd better get that room you were talking about ready sooner rather than later, hadn’t we?”

"Yes, Boss!" replied a grinning Maxine.

[23rd March 2020]

"That's it then we are in lockdown for the foreseeable future," commented Maxine as she switched off the TV. They'd just watched the Prime Minister tell the nation that things were up shit creek and none of them had any solid ideas about what to do next but locking down the country seemed like a good idea at the time.

“It is pretty much what you predicted isn’t it?”

“We have all seen what Italy is going through and it does not need a degree in rocket science to have predicted that it was going to happen here besides, every newspaper, TV and Radio station has been predicting it for almost a week.”

“At least all the businesses are as prepared as they could be given the information we have at the moment. That is all down to you, isn’t it?” argued Hayley.

Maxine shook her head.
“Who was it who drew my attention to the outbreak in China in the first place? That was all down to you, Hayley.”

“Just doing my job ‘boss’,” smiled Hayley.

Maxine sighed and sat back in her chair.
"We got lucky, and we are, or were ahead of the game. This is not going to be a short-term thing, unlike what President Trump is saying. It is pretty clear to everyone that this is not a mild dose of the flu. All those people dying in Italy and elsewhere is evidenced enough of that. This is a pandemic, and the sooner the people in charge all over the world realise this, the better.”

Hayley squeezed Maxine’s hand tightly.
"We shall have to wait and see what the Chancellor announces in a few days. Everyone is expecting some sort of support but at the moment any guesses about what it will be is just that guesses."

Hayley just nodded her head. She wished that she had even half of Maxine’s confidence about the future.

“We are going to be ok, aren’t we?”

“As a couple? I hope so.”

“No, I meant about the business. With no income from our investments in the foreseeable future, we are going into a debit mode.”

Maxine smiled.
“Yes, we are. We don’t exactly spend a lot in a normal week do we?”

“True but…”

“We’ll be ok. I think it is time that you got to grips with the accounts. Then you’ll see for yourself the financial state of the business.”

Hayley was about to say something when Maxine’s phone rang.

“It is Emma.”

Hayley smiled and let go of Maxine’s hand.

"Hi, Emma."

“Yeah, we watched it. Where are you now?”

“Ok, give me a call after you turn off the A38 at the point in told you in my text. There is a place to pull over just a few hundred yards past the junction. Stay put and I’ll come and find you.”

“See you soon. Drive safely.”

Maxine hung up the call.

“Emma’s just stopped for some petrol in Taunton. There is a lot of traffic. It seems that a lot of people are as they say, ‘getting out of town’.”

“That’s at least an hour away if the traffic is heavy. Why don’t you go and wait for her, in half an hour or so?” suggested Hayley.

"Yes, Boss."

---

Thanks to the heads up from Maxine and Hayley, Emma had been able to deliver a lot of dresses to the brides to be in the previous week. She’d done a deal with many of them for between 50% and 75% of the cost of the dress and from then on, they were on their own even if they had not had a final fitting, Emma's cash flow had blossomed, but Maxine had made sure that it was kept safe for the inevitable rainy day.

Because Emma had no close family, Maxine had invited her to come down to Devon and stay with Maxine and Hayley in what the Government was calling a 'bubble'. In return for room and board, Emma was to make several garments for her hosts as well as a special dress for Delphine that would be worn at Michel's 51st birthday party that was due to be held at the end of April. Delphine and Michel would also be part of their ‘bubble’.

---

[23rd March 2020, 22:30hrs just off the A38 in Devon]

“You made it then,” said Maxine as Emma got out of her car at the agreed meeting point.

"I did, but it took a lot longer than I thought it would. It took me an hour to get past Stonehenge."

Maxine smiled. She knew exactly what Emma had been through.

“Well, you are here now. If you would follow me, I’ll lead you to ‘Chez Maxine’. It should take us about twenty minutes.”

“That’s good because I’m bursting to go. I stopped at Cullompton Services but the queue for the ladies was out of the building. They are limiting the number of people inside to three at a time.”

“Then there is no time to waste.”

Emma smiled
“Just remember that I’m driving this clapped-out old Transit that is loaded up to the roof and not a sports car.”

“I will,” grinned Maxine.

---

"Hello, Hayley. Sorry, can't stop. I need the loo?" said Emma as she dashed inside the house some twenty-two minutes later.

“The downstairs one is under the stairs on your left,” said Hayley as she stood aside.

“Thanks.”

Maxine came into the house.
“She made it to the loo then?”

“It looks like it. Couldn’t she stop on the way down?”

“She tried but the queue for the ladies was miles long. They were limiting the ladies to three people at a time. You know what that means…”

“I get you. Shall we start unloading her van?”

“Let’s wait. Emma might decide that we can wait until morning.”

"Fair enough. She must be knackered, from all that packing and driving."

Emma emerged from the toilet, looking a lot happier with herself.

“Sorry about that,” she said apologetically.

“No need to apologise. This is now your home for the duration of the lockdown,” said Maxine.

"It is very good of you to invite me to stay. It certainly beats staying on my own in my flat in Mitcham.”

“Do you want to unload tonight?” asked Hayley.

“I think we can leave it until the morning. I just need to grab one bag and we can all head off to bed or if possible, a drink? I ran out of water near Yeovil.”

---

Emma fitted right into life in Devon. Much of that was down to having known Maxine for several years. Hayley had cleared out one of the bedrooms for her to use as a workroom. It had good views of the cowshed as compensation. Her bedroom compensated for that as it had splendid views over the countryside.

The trio spent a good deal of time working on a new vegetable plot. Michel was on call for help, and it was him who suggested fencing it all in but, that was poo-poohed by the trio only for the rabbits to eat almost all the seedlings one night.

Michel supplied all the materials and much of the labour to install a rabbit proof fence. All the time this was going on, Emma was busy making Delphine, that very special dress for Michel's birthday.

Some weeks before lockdown Delphine had showed them her diary from 2015 and the sketch of the dress that she had made some fifteen years before after a weekend in Paris where she had visited the Follies Bergère, there was a collective sharp intake of breath from Hayley, Emma and Maxine.
It was from that event that Maxine had gotten the idea of involving Emma in the grand scheme.

Delphine described the idea to Emma the day after she arrived.
"When the dancers came on to do the can-can, they lift the hems of their skirts to show a lot of leg. This is just what I fantasised about. Can you make one like this for me?"

“Are you really going to wear that to the party? Everyone will be able to see everything?” exclaimed Emma.

“Delphine gave herself lock stock and barrel to Michel. This is her giving herself to him,” said Maxine.

"Thanks, Maxine," said Delphine.
She turned to Emma.

“Emma, for more than twenty years, I lived for firstly my children and then my job at the HMRC. When Maxine introduced me to Michel, that was it. Something inside me said that I had to give myself to him. Something in me went click and all my inhibitions went out the window. That means he can have sex with me anywhere and anytime he wants. The spontaneity of it makes it all the more enjoyable. I’ve been commando every day other than a few exceptions for almost a year. I love the freedom. I know that you might think it odd but I would not want to go back to my old life even for all the tea in China.”

“But Delphine? You are wearing a corset and are tightly laced.”

"I do, and I am. That is all part of my freedom. I do this for me because I want to. Michel took a while to get used to it, but now he enjoys lacing me up every morning. We are not a conventional couple by any means, but we don't care what others think. It is our life. We are both getting on a bit so, why the hell should we conform to everyone's norms? Neither of us wants to do that at least for a few years."

Delphine carried on.
"This dress is a statement to my Husband. With both my breasts and fanny exposed, I consider it to be a renewal of my giving myself to him."

Emma just shook her head.

"Before I met Maxine, I truly had no idea what I was going to do in my retirement. Now I am happier than I have ever been before. I work a lot harder than I have ever done, but that is not difficult coming from sitting behind a desk for thirty years, but I love my life. Is that so wrong?"

“Henri sends a message,” said Delphine as she changed the subject.
“The package is on its way,” she added grinning.

Maxine looked at Hayley and smiled.

“Should I be worried?” asked Emma.

"Maxi and I are getting our very own corsets," said Hayley.

Hayley had taken some convincing to start even try wearing one, but some careful but persistent persuasion by Maxine, and to a lesser extent from Delphine had brought her around. Henri had supervised the measuring of their bodies via Skype in early March. Now, he had made their training corsets.

“I suppose that means alterations to lots of clothes?” said Emma.

Maxine grinned.

“Now I get why you invited me down here?” quipped Emma.

Everyone laughed

It was to be a rare moment of levity as both the national and international death tolls mounted by the day.

[that evening]

“Emma, you are pretty quiet tonight?” asked Hayley.

“I’m still trying to get my head around Delphine.”

“Don’t even bother to try. Just go with her eccentricities. As you saw for yourself, she is very happy with her life, so who are we to want to change her?" replied Maxine.

“But how did you two meet? I would imagine that you and the HMRC are not the best of friends?” said Emma.

Maxine laughed.
"Oh, the HMRC and the company are on good terms. We don't even try to cheat. It is just not worth it in the long run. The saying about life, death and taxes is so very true. We are honest with our returns, which is just what we want the companies we invest in to do. That's why I spent almost a week going over your accounts before agreeing to invest in your business.”

No one said anything, so she carried on.

“As for meeting Delphine, we first met when she was struggling with charging her car just off the A303, so I stepped in and helped her out. That was it, and she became my friend from then on. She travelled with me for five days while I carried out some research for my grand and now not so cunning plan. One of the places we went was to speak to Michel. I saw right away that both of them saw something in each other. So much so that hardly before I knew it, she'd sold up and moved in with him. They were married last summer and have not looked back since."

“Can you make that dress?” asked Hayley.

“I can. I’m going to need lots of material though. All those frills.”

Hayley looked a Maxine. Both of them grinned.

“Better order enough for three more but a little less… shall we say risqué?” said Maxine.

It took a second before Emma realised the implication of what had just been said.

“Are you serious?”

"We are. Are you game? It is only going to be the five of us at the party. Obviously, it is down to each of us how revealing they would be but why not? We have to do something proactive if only to keep some level of sanity in the lockdown. I’m not suggesting that they be anywhere near as revealing as Delphine’s dress would be but would be a lot of fun to really dress up for once in a while, wouldn’t it? Besides, what else do we have to do other than growing stuff?”

Hayley laughed.
“A lot of people would think that we are mad just for thinking like this.”

Emma’s eyes darted between those of her hosts.

Slowly a smile appeared on her face.

“It looks like I’m going to have my work cut out but yes,” replied Emma shaking her head in disbelief.

---

Emma soon had all the materials for the dresses ordered and got her workroom setup. A few days later, a large package from France was delivered.

It sat on the kitchen table for a while before Hayley said,
“If no one is going to open it then I am.”

Without waiting for any dissent, she quickly but carefully opened the package. Inside were as expected, two corsets. Underneath them was a surprise package. There was no label on it to help them identify what it was.

This time, Maxine opened it. Inside were a dozen pairs of fishnet stockings in various colours and a note.

“Enjoy these with your corsets at the party. Henri.”

Hayley grabbed a pair of red stockings.
“I bags these,” she said grinning.

“They will be perfect for those dresses,” commented Emma.

“I wonder if someone had a little word with Henri about the plan for the party?” asked Maxine.

“That must have been Delphine. Didn’t she tell us that these were on the way the same day as she showed us the design for the dress that she wanted me to make?"

There was a general agreement between them that this must have been what was had happened.

“She is a smart cookie,” said Emma.

Maxine grinned.
"I knew that from the first day that she travelled with me. She asked all sorts of very relevant questions. It was only over lunch that she told me that she had just retired from the HMRC. During that week, she made a good impression with many of the people we met but giving them tips on saving tax. If it is simple and saves people money, they will remember you. Make it complicated then people will think that it is a scam and ignore it. She was more helpful to me than I could have imagined."

---

As the lockdown progressed Emma took to life in the country s if she had been born there. Every few days, she would walk over to Michel’s and return with half a dozen eggs.

Hayley played her part by doing a lot of experimenting in the kitchen. Her mother was teaching her via a video link just like millions of others around the world were doing. Maxine and Emma were willing tasters because in the main, while the results might not have looked like the recipe, they mostly tasted excellent.

Maxine chiefly looked after the garden and the house. The good weather that the country experienced through most of April helped everyone adjust to lockdown life even if it was still almost impossible to buy staples like toilet rolls, baked beans and tinned tomatoes in the shops. Somehow, the mere fact that the sun shone almost every day, did its best to keep the morale of everyone high.

None of those in their Devon bubble could have dreamed of how the year was going to turn out.
[to be continued]

[10th May 2020]
“There… that is the last of the alterations done,” said Emma as she put her scissors down.

In the workroom, there were four very similar but different coloured dresses hanging up. There were also four bolero style jackets on separate hangers. None of these dresses would look out of place on the stage of the Follies Bergère in Paris until you looked very closely at them.

“Well done,” said Hayley who had been helping Emma for the past week.

“Now all we need is the latest delivery from France and we will be all set.”

Michel’s birthday party was just a week away and it was proving difficult to hide the preparations from him. He knew that something was going on but so far, he’d been unable to find out what they were. It had been strange enough to have the very eccentric Delphine in his life for the past year but to now have three more women in his life was a completely new experience for him. There were times when he thought that he was no longer in control of his life. They only lasted a few minutes. Deep down he knew that whatever it was would be fun for him as well such was the trust he had in his wife.

In order to take his mind off his forthcoming birthday, he’d immersed himself in his charcoal business. He knew that very soon, more of the lockdown conditions would be relaxed and people would start having BBQ’s and they’d for them they would need charcoal. He had prepared almost double the amount that he’d sold in previous years at the farmers market. Those events had all been cancelled since lockdown began so, he was preparing to take his charcoal and herbs on the road starting in late May, early June. His plan was to go around the local villages and try to sell his produce.

For a few days, he was a bit resentful of the idea but given that the whole country was in lockdown, anything that would make his wife and their friends happy for a few hours was ok by him. They were playing games with him and he was playing with them. He made a few attempts to discover their plans but he wasn’t really serious. Seeing everyone smile when just a few miles away, people were dying of the virus was payment enough for him.

---

Maxine and Hayley had been helped with their corset wearing by Delphine. Her experience was proving to be a godsend to them. Emma looked on and wondered that if lockdown went on for much longer it might be her turn to step back in time to Victorian England where every self-respecting lady wore the blessed things.

Despite many of her brides opting to wear dresses that had some boning, they were mere child’s play compared to the masterpieces that Henri had made for Maxine and Hayley. Being a seamstress, she could appreciate the care and craft that had gone into making them. Then she tried to imagine wearing one herself and just shook her head.

After lockdown had been announced, there had been a period of good weather but in recent days, it had been pretty miserable. Maxine had rigged up a clothes line in the cow shed to compensate for not being able to hang the washing out in the garden.

Even with three women in the house, the energy generated by the solar panels exceeded the amount consumed. That pleased Maxine. Her gamble of having her electricity supply disconnected in March was paying off. A lot of the excess energy would have been used to charge her car but as they were hardly going anywhere at the moment, it didn’t need charging for several weeks on the trot. The same applied to Delphine’s car.

Hayley had gradually given in to Maxine’s ‘suggestions’ that trousers and leggings were not really the ‘done’ thing in their household. It wasn’t that Maxine didn’t like them but she just preferred the feeling that a skirt or a dress gave her. This had been the original reason for her to engage Emma to make a set of similar but different dresses for her not long after she had started working for Adrian. Her aim was to look smart and professional and definitely a woman not a woman trying to be a man.

That sort of comparison had always amused her but the simple act of smoothing a skirt out before sitting down in her mind emphasised the fact that she was a woman when the reality was at that time, a man pretending to be a woman. The other advantage of not wearing trousers was that a full skirt would hide her manhood on the odd occasion that it got a mind of its own. That problem was long gone but it didn’t matter to her. Her default was a skirt rather than trousers for daily wear.

Emma was more than happy to carry on wearing the skirts and dresses that she normally wore in her shop. At one point, she took Hayley to one side and gave her a few words of advice that ended with ‘resistance is futile’ with a nod in the direction of Maxine. She did offer to make her a set of business clothes that would emphasise her figure when her corset was starting to have some effect. Hayley was beginning to get used to Maxine almost always getting the last word in every conversation. She almost began to complain about it when she recalled their childhood and it was the same then. That was Maxine for you.

Hayley put up some resistance but, in the end, she gave way and Emma suddenly had another project to occupy her time.

---

[10th June - Michel’s Birthday]

“Are we all ready?” asked Maxine.

“As ready as we will ever be,” replied Emma.

“Then let’s go.”

Delphine was the last to get into Maxine’s car.
“Second thoughts?” asked Emma from the back seat.

“Some. Michel knows that we are up to something.

“He knows nothing!” exclaimed Hayley.

“Remember the plan ladies…” commented Emma.

Maxine didn’t wait for anymore dissention in the ‘ranks’. She drove away from the cottage and headed for Michel’s home.

As the crow flies, the distance between the two houses is less than half a mile but to drive between them, it is a distance of almost three miles. Normally, the women would have walked the short distance but that might have ruined their dresses and besides… they were all wearing high heels.

For once, the weather gods had smiled on their part of the world and it was a lovely sunny evening. He’d prepared a fire pit and was open roasting a locally produced Lamb. He’d bartered with a local farmer for the animal. Two Geese and two dozen eggs had secured
Their food for the evening.

The Lamb had been slowly cooking for several hours while he prepared the salad. Everything came from his greenhouse or animals. This made him very happy. The goal of being self-sufficient in terms of food and energy that he’d set himself when he bought the smallholding had come to fruition. The advent of the Pandemic had made that decision even more fortuitous. Since he’d had Delphine lending a hand his quality of life had improved beyond even his wildest hopes.

Michel was unsure what it was that his dear wife and her friends were planning for the evening but whatever it was, it was sure to be different. The combination of Delphine and Maxine in his ‘bubble’ was a force to be reckoned with. From having no one close to having two and possibly three women in his life was uncharted territory for Michel.

He owed Maxine an awful lot for bringing Delphine into his life. He
Life had changed beyond his wildest dreams in the past year and she was responsible for much of those changes… her and Delphine.

The only person missing from the evening was his daughter, Rosalind. He’d spoken to her earlier in the day but it wasn’t the same. He would have loved to have her present but the situation with Covid and travel had prevented her from being there. She might not be present in body but she was there in spirit and that made him happy.

His daydreaming was cut short by the sound of voices. His birthday treat had arrived.

The four women walked in arm-in-arm with Delphine near the centre. Maxine used a remote control to start the music. Appropriately, it was ‘The CanCan’.

In unison, the women marched forward and lifted their skirts before stepping back. In time with the music, they continued to dance for Michel. Lots of stocking clad leg was shown every time they came towards him.

At the end of the song, they all collapsed on the floor laughing and trying to get their breath back.
Michel clapped their performance and gave each of them a kiss on the cheeks. The party could begin.

---

[two hours later]

The lamb had been consumed along with the salads that came from the smallholding. Most of a 5ltr container of local Scrumpy had also mysteriously disappeared. The only sober person was Maxine. As the designated driver, she’d only consumed less than half a glass of the evil drink while eating the truly delicious feast.

Maxine tipped the wink to the others just as the sun was going down. It was time for her, Hayley and Emma to leave.

Each of them went to Michel and gave him a birthday kiss. Delphine stood by grinning like the proverbial Cheshire cat. She knew what was coming next.

Just as the three got into Maxine’s car to leave, Maxine started the Cancan music again. This time it was just Delphine performing for her husband. This time, she was going to remove the front panel of her skirt just before the climax but that was for her husband’s eyes only.

---

[Back at Maxine’s house]

“That was fun,” said Emma.

“It went well didn’t it,” agreed Hayley.

“Delphine is a lucky woman,” said Emma.
“To have found someone like Michel who is clearly devoted to her is… just nice.”

“That’s all down to Maxine,” said Hayley.

“Guilty as charged,” replied a smiling Maxine.

---

[Two days later]

“Are you sure that you have everything?” asked Hayley for what seemed like the hundredth time.
Emma was going back to London now that some of the lockdown travel restrictions were being eased.

“I think so but if I have missed anything then… Next time perhaps?”

“You are coming back then?” asked Hayley.

“I am. This is such a nice part of the world.”

“All you have to do is say the word and we’ll help you setup shop down here,” added Maxine.

“I know and I did promise that I’d consider the offer. I just want to see how things pan out back in Wimbledon before making any decisions,” said Emma as she got into her van.

“Drive safely,” said Maxine.

“I will… and thanks for having me to stay. It beat being on my own that’s for sure.”

“You are welcome any time,” said Hayley as she stood close to Maxine.

The two of them waved at Emma as she started her journey home.

“I’ll miss her,” said Hayley.

“Me too but as things are starting to open up, We, are going to start getting busy.”

Hayley nodded her agreement.

“Speaking of business, isn’t is time for our Zoom call to Rosalind?” said Hayley.

Maxine looked at her watch. This was just about the last thing she had that dated back to before Maxine. It had been given to Tom by his grandmother when he left school.

“Five minutes to go. We’d better get setup.”

---

[one week later]

Maxine was doing some weeding of their Herb Garden. It was not a patch on the one over at Michel’s but it served its purpose for her and Hayley. Hayley was hanging out the washing in the late morning sun when her phone rang.

“Oh, hello Mum. Can I call you back in a minute? I’m in the middle of hanging out the washing,” said Hayley.

“Someone has to do it and Maxine volunteered me to do it,” said Hayley as she smiled at Maxine.
Maxine responded by sticking her tongue out at Hayley.

Hayley finished hanging out the washing all the time wondering why her mother had called her. They normally spoke in the evening.

With the washing drying in the gentle breeze, she called her mother.

“Hi mum. Sorry about that.”

Hayley listened intently to what her mother was saying. After less than 15 seconds she waved at Maxine who came over to Hayley.
“I’m going to put you on speaker. Maxine is standing beside me,” said Hayley.

“Hello Maxine, I just told Hayles that her grandmother had a bad fall yesterday. She’s not broken anything but is badly shaken. She was given the once over at the hospital but naturally, given the situation with COVID, they don’t want to keep her in any longer than absolutely necessecary.”

“That’s not good. At least she hasn’t broken anything,” said Maxine.

“Hayles, can you come up and look after your gran for a while? I know that it is a big ask but I can’t have her to stay with me as the builders have not finished wrecking the place.”

Hayley looked at Maxine who nodded her head.

“I’ll do that Mum. Maxine says yes. I’ll get a train up to Brizzle, and change there. I suppose that trains are running to Chippenham?”

“I saw one in the station when I took your gran home an hour ago so I’d say that they are,” said Hayley’s mother.

“Ok, I’ll get there ASAP. Will you still be there?”

“I’ll hang on until you arrive. Then I’ll go and do her shopping.”

“Ok Mum. See you soon. I’ll let you know when I’m due to arrive. See you soon and give my love to gran.”

Hayley hung up the phone looking serious.

“Gran should really be in a home but she’s just so stubborn,” said Hayley.

“Perhaps this might persuade her that it is time?” suggested Maxine.

“I don’t know but we’ll have to try. I need to go and pack,” said Hayley.

Maxine gave Hayley a brief kiss.
“Take as long as you need with your gran. I’ll be there in spirit if not in body.”

Hayley gave Maxine a big hug.
“I know you will but I am worried about gran.”

“Do whatever you think is right. If you need me there then I’ll come up but don’t keep things bottled up.”

Hayley managed a brief smile before heading into the house to pack her things.

---

The house felt strangely empty without Hayley being around. Maxine had gotten used to her being there with her all the time. They’d become a close-knit team since Hayley had moved in with her. Lockdown had made them become even closer and not just in terms of business but as a couple.

Maxine shrugged her shoulders and got on with life but Hayley was never far from her thoughts. Those thoughts turned to marriage. It had not been mentioned by either of them but for Maxine, it felt that it was the right thing to do when things returned to normal.

[to be continued]
[Authors note]

Maxine appears in parts 12 and 13 of my story ‘Down but not out’. They will be published next.