Maria looked uncertain for a moment but then relented. ‘Ok.’
‘So… what do Daddy and Archie talk about when you can’t hear the telly?’ Phoebe lifted Maria clear of the bars on the swing seat and they began to stroll towards a rubble-strewn ditch that passed as a pond in these parts. Council funds were being splashed around in Millrise in an attempt to make it a place that tourists and day-trippers might like to stop off at, but it obviously hadn’t reached as far as here. There wouldn’t be a team from Spring Watch stopping by any time soon, but the ducks were entertaining enough for someone young enough to use their imagination.
Maria shrugged in answer to Phoebe’s question and reached for her hand. Phoebe was at once touched and surprised by the gesture. She’d never be Maria’s mum, but when she reflected on their blossoming relationship it gave her a warm feeling to imagine that she might become something close one day. Who knew what the future held, or how things would work out, but for the first time since meeting Jack and Maria, Phoebe felt that she might like to embrace motherhood in all its terrifying glory. She wondered what it would be like to hold a new, tiny world of possibilities in her arms, a brand new life.
Maria’s voice interrupted her thoughts. ‘They talk about money and they talk about Archie’s college and they talk about bookies.’
‘Do you mean books?’
‘I don’t know. Daddy just tells Archie to stop going in them. He says all Archie’s friends in there are bad.’
‘What else does he say?’
‘That I can’t tell granny.’
‘About Archie?’
‘Yes. About the bookies.’
Was this all about gambling? It sounded the most likely explanation. But it still didn’t explain why Jack had to get so involved and why he was so stressed about it. He cared, of course, but this was more than brotherly concern.
‘There’s two ducks having a fight!’ Maria shouted, pointing at the pond. Phoebe looked in the direction of her outstretched arm. She didn’t know much about ducks but it looked like a male and a female to her and what they were doing certainly didn’t look like fighting.
‘They’ll stop in a minute,’ Phoebe said, hoping sincerely that they would. There was something deeply unsettling about animals getting it on in full view of Sunday afternoon families. ‘Is Daddy cross with Archie?’ she asked in an attempt to refocus the conversation.
‘Hmmm… I don’t think so. He doesn’t tell him off that much or say that he can’t have TV time.’
‘It must be alright then,’ Phoebe said in a soothing voice. She was suddenly struck by the worry that she might be planting anxieties in Maria’s head that hadn’t been there before and wouldn’t be healthy for a five-year-old. Jack had considered it necessary to keep her out of things but Phoebe might be undoing all of his good work. ‘Race you back to the playground!’ she cried.
Maria immediately hared off, back in the direction they had just come from. Phoebe gave her a good head start before she took off after, theatrically feigning exhaustion as she almost, but not quite, caught up. Although, by the time she had she was beginning to wish she had brought her asthma inhaler with her. Much more running and she wouldn’t need to fake breathlessness.
‘Oh, you’re just too fast for me!’ Phoebe said with a grin.
‘I am fast!’ Maria giggled.
Phoebe glanced at her watch. ‘One more go on everything and then we’d better get back.’
‘Awwww, not yet…’
‘I promised your dad we wouldn’t be out late. You want him to let us come out again together, don’t you?’ Maria gave a reluctant nod. ‘We’d better not keep him waiting then,’ Phoebe continued. ‘You need a bath too. Personally I think you smell like peppermints and rainbows and he’s the stink bomb who needs a bath, but that’s just my opinion.’
Maria clapped a hand to her mouth and giggled raucously from behind it. ‘Does Daddy need a bath?’
‘I think he might.’
‘Will you bath me tonight, Phoebe?’
Phoebe froze, taken by surprise. ‘Me?’
Maria nodded vigorously.
‘I’d like that.’ Phoebe smiled, that maternal warmth spreading through her again. ‘I’ll try to do it properly.’
‘All you have to do is make bubbles on me.’
‘That sounds easy enough; making bubbles is one of my favourite things.’
‘YAY!’ Maria raced back towards the slide. Nobody would ever be a replacement for Rebecca, and Phoebe didn’t want to be, but it might be nice to be a close second.
*
Jack was still sitting at the kitchen table, staring at his phone, when Phoebe and Maria arrived back. This time Phoebe had used her key to let them in, knowing that Jack was expecting them. He looked up with an absent smile.
‘Had a nice time, spud?’ he asked Maria.
‘Yes! Phoebe raced me and we saw some ducks fighting and she swung me really high!’
‘It wasn’t nearly as eventful as it sounds,’ Phoebe added.
‘Can Phoebe do my bath?’ Maria asked.
Jack gave her a bemused smile.
‘I don’t mind if you don’t,’ Phoebe said.
‘If you’re sure…’
‘Of course. It’ll be fine.’
‘Maria…’ Jack began, ‘why don’t you go and find your pyjamas and your hairbrush ready for Phoebe to bath you and she’ll be up to run it in just a minute, ok?’
‘Ok.’ Maria skipped from the room. Phoebe and Jack listened to the patter of her footsteps on the stairs, before Jack spoke.
‘About before…’
‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘I was wrong not to let you in. You had every right to ask me for an explanation and I owe you that much at least. It’s just that… I suppose I was ashamed.’
‘Of what?’
‘Of my family. I thought if I told you about Archie then we’d all look bad.’
‘He can’t have committed that much of a terrible crime, surely?’ Phoebe asked, thinking back to what Maria had told her in the park and hoping not to slip up now. ‘Besides, you’re not his keeper. His actions aren’t your actions. Why would anything he does affect the way I feel about you?’ She forced a laugh, more to put him at ease than because she found anything remotely funny. ‘Seriously, my dad pretends to kill people at the weekends so I can hardly point the finger at anyone else for their family.’
Jack gave her a weak smile. Phoebe’s attempt at reassurance seemed to be working. ‘What did I ever do to deserve you?’
‘You were obviously very wicked in a former life.’
‘Obviously.’
There was a heartbeat’s pause. ‘Archie has a gambling problem,’ Jack said into the silence.
‘It changes nothing. I want to support you if I can. Are you trying to help him? Is that what the phone calls and visits are about?’
Jack’s jaw muscles twitched. ‘I wish it was that simple. He doesn’t want help, just money. Helping him would be a lot easier to do.’
‘He asks you for money?’
‘Me and anyone else. He’s convinced that he’s actually doing people a favour, borrowing money from them, like he’s cutting them in. He thinks the next big win is just round the corner and that he’ll be able to pay everyone back with handsome interest. I know he really means this, and would do it if it happened, but of course, we all know why gambling is big business. Punters hardly ever win everything back.’ Jack gave a hollow laugh. ‘He’s so deluded it’s almost funny. At least, it would be if it wasn’t ripping the family apart.’
Phoebe frowned slightly. ‘Do you give him money to gamble?’
‘No, of course not! At least, I try not to. But he comes to me saying he’s skint for this and that and I help him out with a few quid; in the end, though, I don’t know what he’s doing with it when he leaves here. I suppose I’m just as guilty of feeding his addiction as he is in that respect. But I can’t see him go without. I hate it, but I always ca
ve in when he asks.’ Phoebe went to him and ran her fingers gently over his hair. His eyes closed at her touch and he gave a deep sigh. ‘I’m sorry…’
‘Hey, stupid… you want to talk about it, I’m all ears.’
He looked up to hold her in a sorrowful gaze. ‘Not tonight. I don’t want to waste another precious moment thinking about it when I should be thinking about you.’
Phoebe bent down to kiss him. ‘You can think about me any old time. Family is important.’
‘You’re important. Tonight I want to enjoy you being here and worry about everything else tomorrow. Ok?’
‘If that’s what you want then ok.’
*
‘Are you alright?’ Phoebe glanced across at Dixon again. For the past ten minutes he had been massaging his temples and staring at his computer screen in a way that suggested he wasn’t seeing what was there. He’d been distracted all morning, and Phoebe had put it down to tiredness or Monday morning blues – God knows she felt the same – but now she was quite worried.
‘Hmmm?’ He looked up with an absent expression.
‘I was asking if you’re ok. You look sort of… troubled.’
He smiled, fleetingly. ‘I’m always troubled. It’s working in this place.’
‘Ok then, more than usual. Nothing wrong, is there? Something I can help with?’
‘You’re already doing a great job of helping me.’ The earnest sincerity of his tone caught Phoebe by surprise. It wasn’t like she’d saved him from a burning building or anything.
‘Oh, I just sit here and clutter the place up,’ she laughed awkwardly. ‘And occasionally give you logistical headaches trying to work out how to persuade all the shop floor staff to paint their faces and wear dog ears.’
Phoebe expected Dixon’s customary belly laugh, but he gave her a quiet smile and turned back to his work. She watched for a moment, uncertain whether to push for more information. But then she decided that perhaps it was something in his personal life that he needed to tackle alone, and she didn’t want to pry.
Framed by the high window that slanted down the attic roof, there was a square of cornflower sky and Phoebe stared at it. Outside, the pavements would be glittering from the morning’s rain, as the early summer sun bounced off them. This had always been her favourite time of year – too early to be plagued by wasps or suffocating heat, but warm enough for the gardens to start bursting with lush flowers and blossoms. Later, perhaps, she, Jack and Maria might take a picnic tea out somewhere to make the most of the warmer, longer days.
‘Phoebe, I haven’t been completely honest with you…’ Dixon’s voice put all thoughts of summer out of her head.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Our jobs – yours and mine – they’re not safe.’
Phoebe sat back in her seat and stared at him. ‘Not safe how?’
‘We have to prove that there is a need for us at Hendry’s. Old Mr Hendry is not convinced – never has been really – that we need PR. He thinks it’s part of the modern malady.’
‘But I thought… I mean, you’ve been here for years, haven’t you?’
Dixon nodded. ‘And PR used to be as easy as the occasional ad in the local paper and sponsoring the annual Millrise carnival. The customers came because we were here – it was as simple as that. But things have changed and life is so much tougher now. The market share is shrinking for us.’
‘You told me that at the interview,’ Phoebe smiled. ‘I knew what I was getting into. I know you took me on to help.’
‘And you’re doing a fantastic job.’
Phoebe felt a little kick of pride and excitement deep inside. She had certainly hoped to prove herself and to hear that she was doing that was a real boost.
‘I’m just afraid that it might be too little too late,’ Dixon added.
In a cartoon, Phoebe would have seen her fluffy dream balloon pop in the air above her. She eyed him silently, not sure what she should ask next and even less sure that she wanted to hear the answer.
‘Hendry’s is in trouble,’ Dixon continued. ‘They have been for a while now. Only a few people know. Adam is here to help his father try and pull things round and part of his plan is to step up on the PR and see what that can do for us. There are other things in place… things that haven’t yet been implemented because they would be a last resort and nobody wants to see them happen. Mr Hendry may seem reserved and aloof, but he cares deeply about his staff and this store. Not only that, but making redundancies sends out very bad signals, and rats are first off a sinking ship.’
Phoebe shook her head slowly, trying to digest all that he was telling her.
‘Shareholders,’ Dixon clarified. ‘Nobody wants to be stuck with a load of worthless shares.’
The conversation was taking Phoebe into unfamiliar territory. She had always been somewhere around the bottom rung where jobs were concerned – in fact, she was often holding the ladder up – and had never needed to think about decisions at the top end. But she could see the logic in what Dixon was saying. She certainly understood the new pressure of responsibility it transferred to her.
‘So we have to get results here?’ Phoebe asked, although the answer was obvious.
‘You’re doing so well already. Adam is delighted with what you’ve done so far, and so am I.’
Phoebe wondered when Adam and Dixon had been having their cosy chats because she certainly hadn’t seen them. Had they deliberately waited for times when she wasn’t in the office? What else had they said about her and her role in all of this? What, exactly, were they expecting of her. She wanted to ask but for some reason the question wouldn’t come out.
‘Not well enough, though,’ she said. ‘We have to get more people in. Lots more?’
‘And it has to be a sustainable market, not just one-offs.’
Phoebe leaned her elbows on the table and fiddled with a lock of hair tugged free from her ponytail. ‘What do you think? Where do you think our best chances lie?’
‘If I had to, I’d put money on your costume department. But you’d need to bring people in from further afield than Millrise to make it work and that’s the problem. Our town simply isn’t big enough for a strand of the business as specialised as that in the long-term, but I do believe there is money in it… according to my research, anyway.’
Phoebe nodded. ‘I know there is. People spend hundreds on outfits for conventions and it’s not only one every now again – they go back two or three times a year to different ones, year in, year out. We just have to get those people coming here. How about a big internet push? That’s a really good way of getting the message wide.’
‘Yes, but it’s also full of competition from established suppliers, people with lower overheads who can undercut accordingly; likewise sellers from countries like China who can cut out the middle man and sell directly at little more than cost price straight from the factory. We have to give people a reason to come to us, a unique selling point, some edge that makes customers seek us out – either online or in person. If we can give them that we’ll have them.’
Phoebe was thoughtful for a moment. Dixon really had done his research – he already knew the cosplay market far better than she did. ‘I was planning to go out to some conventions and mingle – talk to stallholders and attendees, hand out leaflets, that sort of thing. But if I do that we’ll need have to have the stock in when they come to look and it would have to be a good enough selection to impress them enough to come back and bring their friends too. And I think it needs to be a fun experience, shopping here, so that they can’t wait to get back for their next purchase,’ Phoebe replied, airing the thoughts as they ran through her head.
‘I’ll speak to Adam about the stock if you finalise some ideas. I was thinking I could use my contacts at the Echo to drum up some local interest too, which means we’ll need to come up with a story angle good enough to make it worth their while.’
‘What if I could get some big stunt going on, something that
would pull big crowds? Maybe we’d even get media interest bigger than the Echo?’
Dixon smiled, looking like his old self for the first time that morning. ‘We should brainstorm this; see what we can come up with.’
‘I know just the person. One of the girls on the shop floor is as crazy and fun as they come and she’s really into this scene. It might help us to bounce ideas off her.’
‘Your friend with the purple hair?’
Phoebe nodded.
‘I don’t see why not. If she can bring in some valuable ideas then I’m in. To be honest, right now, if your budgie had some good ideas I’d be in.’
‘Sadly I don’t have a budgie. Although there is a particularly bright looking pigeon I sometimes talk to on the roof…’
Dixon laughed. ‘I feel better already. I’m so glad I have you working with me now.’
She knew it was meant to reassure her, but that made Phoebe feel even more anxious. He had put a lot of faith in her – everyone had – and now it seemed that there was more riding on her success than she had ever imagined. How was it that they had tasked a young, uneducated, inexperienced shop girl with this terrifying responsibility? Of course there were others working hard to save Hendry’s, but knowing that her part in it was so much bigger than she had been aware of was enough to make her stomach turn. Dixon, Old Mr Hendry, Adam, every member of staff down to Jeff the drunken janitor – they were all relying on her. She was terrified she would let them all down.
*
Phoebe found Midnight sucking on a Mr Frosty in the stockroom. As her gaze fell on the open box, the various slushy making components strewn across a shelving unit, she let out a little gasp.
‘It was a return, before you start lecturing me,’ Midnight said. ‘Want one? Won’t take me a minute to whip it up.’
Phoebe frowned. ‘No thanks. Aren’t you supposed to box up returns and send them back to the suppliers for a refund rather than use them yourself?’
‘I will,’ Midnight grinned. ‘Just as soon as I’ve had a nice refreshing frosty drink. They’ll only throw it out at the factory anyway… think of it as quality control if it makes you feel better. I’m actually doing everyone a favour by trying to ascertain the nature of the fault.’
Mishaps in Millrise: Parts 1-4 in one book – plus a little extra… Page 12
