The Mixture As Before

by Rosie Harris

  In some ways he was good company. He enjoyed being petted and he was always eager for any scraps of food she fed him in between his scheduled meal times.

  ‘You should be called “Belly” not “Bellamy”,’ she told him reproachfully after he had devoured some slices of cold chicken she had left out on a plate on the worktop while she went out into the garden to collect a lettuce to make a salad.

  He also exasperated her by the way he followed her round. He would even follow her upstairs unless she ordered him to stay down in the hallway.

  When she did this he would wait patiently at the foot of the stairs and watch her every movement as she came back down them, then dog her footsteps as though afraid to let her out of his sight. It was the same as Reginald had done so she would try and ignore him until she could stand it no longer. Then she would shout at him to ‘stay’ or ordered him into his basket in the hallway.

  The devotion and bewilderment in his eyes when she did this made her feel guilty and she usually ended up rewarding him with a biscuit or treat of some kind. She knew this was strictly against Gordon Bond’s instructions but it appeased her conscience.

  Taking Bellamy for walks was often a nightmare. He would walk along docilely at her side until he spotted another dog and then the sudden jerk on his leash as he darted to make its acquaintance was so strong that often she was in danger of losing her balance.

  Then there was the occasion when he almost pulled her into the duck pond. She had simply had to let go of his leash and inwardly pray that he wouldn’t attack the ducks. They had squawked wildly as he swam towards them and flew up into shrubbery at the far side of the pond where he couldn’t reach them.

  When Bellamy emerged from the muddy water he had shaken himself so vigorously her legs and skirt had been so badly spattered that she’d had to go straight home and change.

  After the first few days she decided that it might be better to let him loose in the garden instead of going for walks. The problem was that invariably he simply settled down on the lawn and did nothing. In order to make sure he had exercise she had to go out there and throw a ball for him to chase after.

  Sometimes he enjoyed this; at other times he simply ignored her efforts. He either put his head down on his paws and went to sleep or else roamed round the garden disappearing out of sight so that she was in a panic in case he had escaped and wandered off towards the main road.

  The grandchildren’s reaction to Bellamy was very mixed. The boys enjoyed throwing sticks for him to retrieve or chasing after him until he tired of such antics and turned his back on them and ignored them. When this happened they walked away in disgust saying he was a stupid dog anyway.

  Petra was the only one who seemed to really like him and who spent hours simply talking to him. Bellamy responded by listening intently and then raising one of his paws to shake her hand. Margaret sometimes wondered if he actually knew what Petra was saying to him.

  ‘I do wish he was yours, Gran,’ Petra said. ‘Are you going to get a dog of your own when Bellamy goes home?’

  ‘I’m not sure. They are rather tying, you know. I don’t like going out and leaving him on his own.’

  ‘Why ever not? He’s supposed to be a guard dog isn’t he?’

  ‘I’m not too sure about that. He certainly barks loud enough when people come to the door.’

  ‘Well, there you are then. He’s trying to protect you. That’s exactly what you need when you are living on your own.’

  ‘Yes, but I have a feeling that he doesn’t stay in his basket but wanders round the house because I find dog hairs everywhere.’

  ‘Does that matter?’ Petra laughed. ‘I think he must be wonderful company. You can’t possibly be lonely with Bellamy around. Does he sleep on your bed?’

  ‘Good heavens no!’ Margaret exclaimed. ‘I certainly wouldn’t want that. No, it’s the fact that he chews things. He ruined one of my slippers the other day while I was out and on another occasion he practically devoured a leather belt I left lying on the chair in my bedroom.’

  ‘That’s a sign of his affection for you,’ Petra explained, her young face very serious. ‘It’s because he was missing you and he could smell you on those items that he chewed them.’

  ‘I see!’ Margaret didn’t really but Petra sounded so positive that she let the subject drop.

  Both Charles and Helen thought she was mad to be looking after Bellamy when they discovered that she was doing it for nothing.

  ‘That newsagent is taking advantage of you,’ Charles told her. ‘If he’d had to put the dog in kennels it would have cost him hundreds.’

  Alison claimed she didn’t like dogs and shuddered every time Bellamy went near her.

  Steven was enthusiastic but mystified as to why she was considering having a dog now. ‘You’d never let us have a dog when we were kids,’ he said reproachfully.

  By the time Gordon Bond came to collect Bellamy and all his paraphernalia Margaret was feeling that the strain of looking after a dog was more than she could stand.

  She was extremely grateful to him for giving her the opportunity of finding out first hand if she wanted to have a dog or not.

  Nevertheless she breathed a deep sigh of relief when Gordon Bond returned from his holiday and came to collect Bellamy.

  It had certainly been an experience, she thought, as she watched him and an excited, yelping Bellamy walk away down the path. It most certainly wasn’t one she wanted to repeat, she told herself as she closed the front door behind them.

  Twenty-Five

  ‘What on earth do you mean, Charles?’ Margaret felt frustration and anger welling up inside her as she faced her eldest son.

  Charles frowned in exasperation. ‘You still can’t accept it, can you? The company has been in financial trouble for years and things have got worse. We’re on a knife-edge! Everything is mortgaged up to the hilt. Even Willow House and my home. We rent the factory; we lease all our cars including the BMW that Dad was driving. Even the new computer system we had installed is on rental. Now do you understand the situation?’

  She shook her head bewildered. ‘But I’ve got to have a car, Charles! How on earth can I get around?’

  ‘I don’t know, Mother, but there certainly isn’t any money to buy you one at the moment. Dad used up all his personal capital years ago trying to bail out the company.’

  ‘I need money to live on,’ Margaret protested. ‘You’re not going to stop the cheque that’s been paid to me from your father’s account each month to cover the housekeeping are you?’

  ‘Not completely, but I will have to reduce the amount.’

  ‘Reduce it! Don’t talk nonsense, Charles. I’ll be at starvation level if you do that. I simply can’t economize any more.’

  ‘It would help if you moved into something smaller.’

  ‘Leave Willow House!’ Her eyes widened in horror. ‘You must be out of your mind. Do you really expect me to give up my home, where I have lived for forty years, where you were all born and brought up and that I have just had completely redecorated and refurbished and move into a flat?’

  ‘It doesn’t have to be a flat. There are some attractive little cottages …’

  ‘Poky little one-up one-down places with rooms not large enough to swing a cat in.’

  ‘There are some delightful Elizabethan-style cottages in Wooburn Green that would be ideal for someone living on their own,’ Charles went on ignoring all her protests.

  ‘Move from Willow House to one of those!’

  ‘Alright, alright!’ Wearily Charles raised a hand to stop her tirade. ‘We’ll leave things as they are at the moment, but do remember it may come to that. There’s no spare cash at all, and unless there is an upturn in business we may be forced into liquidation.’

  ‘That’s out of the question! Wrights have been an established name in engineering since Reginald’s father, your grandfather, started the business on the Slough Trading Estate fifty years ago. It must be something to do
with the way you run things.’

  ‘Mother! You’ve not listened to a word I’ve said, have you? It’s nothing to do with the way we run things at all. Ninety per cent of the engineering firms on the Slough Estate are in the same predicament.’

  She shook her head as if refusing to believe what he was telling her.

  ‘Come to that,’ Charles went on, ‘so are most of them in the rest of the country. We’ve all got to pull our horns in and hope things will pick up again soon.’

  ‘Of course they will. It’s always a question of swings and roundabouts in business, isn’t it?’

  He shrugged. ‘Perhaps! In the meantime, the coffers are practically empty. There’s no money to buy you a car, and there’s a possibility that your monthly income will have to be cut in the very near future. If we do go under and things are put into the hands of the receiver then there will be no alternative but for you to move out because Willow House will be repossessed,’ he told her harshly.

  Margaret stared at him in silent disbelief. Perhaps it was a good job she hadn’t mentioned that she was planning to use her own savings to buy a car. By the sound of things she might need her little nest egg in order to survive.

  ‘I didn’t intend to be quite so blunt,’ he told her apologetically, ‘but it seems to be the only way to impress upon you the seriousness of the situation.’

  ‘I see.’ Margaret picked up her handbag from where she’d laid it down on the desk. ‘Perhaps I’d better go and look for a job,’ she muttered scathingly.

  ‘I’m afraid you wouldn’t find it very easy to get one,’ Charles told her wryly.

  ‘Don’t be too sure. I was a first-class secretary when I married your father.’

  ‘Shorthand and typing are as dead as the Dodo. These days, Mother, you need to be able to use a computer. That was something else that put a terrible strain on Father. Your generation find today’s skills far too demanding for them.’

  Margaret bridled. Why did Charles always have to put her down; to ridicule whatever she said or suggested.

  ‘You’re saying I’m past it, are you?’

  ‘Frankly, as far as a business career is concerned, I’m afraid it’s the truth.’

  She bit down on her lower lip to stop it trembling. ‘So what do you recommend I do?’

  ‘You could always take in a lodger.’

  ‘A lodger?’ She looked puzzled. ‘Why ever should I do that?’

  ‘To help pay the overheads of Willow House if we do manage to stay afloat and it’s not repossessed.’

  ‘That’s not even amusing, Charles.’

  ‘It wasn’t meant to be. I was deadly serious.’

  ‘Yes. Very well.’ Margaret looked at her watch. ‘I must be going. I’m having coffee with Jan and the others at eleven.’

  ‘You’ve plenty of time. It’s only half past ten.’

  ‘I want to call at the nursery, I ordered a plant for Jan, and I must collect it to take with me.’

  ‘Mother! You can’t afford gestures of that sort.’

  ‘Nonsense! Joseph always lets me have them at trade price. That’s why I ordered it from there.’

  ‘Well, don’t spend any more money, not until we receive the end-of-year figures from the accountants and know exactly where we stand financially.’

  ‘Very well. Now, will you call me a taxi?’

  ‘A taxi! You’re going to take a taxi after all I’ve told you about the state of our finances?’

  ‘Since I haven’t a car I have no alternative, have I? Perhaps you’d like me to buy a bicycle?’

  Charles shook his head in despair. ‘Come on!’ He stood up, picked up his car keys, jangling them impatiently. ‘I’ll run you to Maidenhead to Jan Porter’s place.’

  ‘Thank you. We must go to the Chapman Nurseries first,’ she reminded him. ‘Still, it is on our way if you take the Hedsor route.’

  They drove in silence. Margaret’s thoughts were occupied by what Charles had been telling her.

  Was she really too old to get a job, she wondered. Charles obviously thought so. It might be amusing to prove him wrong. It would give her something to do. Take her out where she could meet new people. She might even be able to get a job where they provided a car. Now that would be something! That would certainly show Charles she was not the outdated, empty-headed old woman that he so obviously thought she was.

  As he sat in his car outside the Chapman Nurseries waiting for his mother, Charles contemplated the situation.

  He was very much afraid that although he had tried his best to outline their financial position he hadn’t made much impression on his mother and it worried him.

  He had already discussed the matter of his mother’s extravagant lifestyle and his concern about how she was going to manage in future with the company accountant.

  Jack Winter not only handled Wright Engineering’s affairs and knew how grave the situation was but Charles knew that he had also handled his father’s personal affairs.

  It might have been better if he had let Jack Winter be the one to talk to his mother, Charles reflected. She might have taken more notice of him. It irked him that she still seemed to think of him as a small boy who knew nothing about business matters and didn’t take what he said seriously.

  He was extremely worried about how she would react if they did go under. Then, whether she wanted to or not she would have to sell Willow House.

  There wouldn’t be a lot he could do to help her because his house was also mortgaged up to the hilt and they would have to downsize. Furthermore both he and Helen would lose their company cars. He was worried, too, that they might not even be able to afford the fees for Petra to be able to take up the university place she’d attained and Amanda’s future education would also be affected.

  Neither of them mentioned the subject when Margaret came out of the nursery, nor when he pulled up on the forecourt of the block of luxury flats in Maidenhead where Jan Porter lived.

  As he drove away, he studied the flats in his rear mirror and prayed his mother wouldn’t decide that she wanted to live there. The upkeep of one of those would be even higher than Willow House.

  Twenty-Six

  The plant that Margaret had brought for her delighted Jan and she kissed her friend warmly.

  ‘You really shouldn’t have done that,’ she said contritely as Margaret handed it over, ‘but it is lovely. I ought to be the one giving you a present as I was rather a bitch about Jason the last time we met.’

  ‘Let’s forget about it,’ Margaret murmured with a bright smile.

  Despite Margaret’s air of false cheerfulness, Jan was quick to notice her preoccupation.

  ‘Something on your mind?’ she asked, as she refilled Margaret’s cup.

  Margaret shrugged her shoulders and gesticulated helplessly with her hands.

  ‘Are you still feeling lonely? Pity you don’t like the idea of having a dog; they can be such good company. Have you thought about having a cat instead?’

  ‘No, I don’t want a cat. They’re almost as much trouble as a dog, hairs everywhere, on the cushions and so on. They jump up on to the worktops, too.’

  ‘Well, that’s true. So, if it’s not loneliness then what is it that’s upsetting you? I saw Charles drop you off so I assume that means you still haven’t got your own car? Is that the problem?’

  ‘Partly! According to Charles there’s no chance at all of my ever getting one,’ she said bitterly.

  ‘Oh?’

  Thelma and Brenda were now listening avidly. Margaret tried to explain in a light-hearted way about Wright Engineering’s financial plight, but the pressure of the morning exploded inside her, and everything came bubbling out in a torrent.

  ‘You are quite sure Charles is telling you the truth?’ mused Jan. ‘He’s a very shrewd businessman. Reginald trained him from a very young age remember. He might just be telling you a hard luck story to keep you from spending too freely.’

  ‘I don’t think so. I’ve already had a l
etter from the bank manager telling me that the joint account I had with Reginald is frozen.’

  ‘That’s the normal practice … until after the will has been sorted out,’ Brenda assured her. ‘I remember when Jack died …’

  ‘I would have thought Reginald would have had a small fortune stashed away in shares in his own name or yours,’ interrupted Thelma.

  Margaret shook her head. ‘I thought so as well because he was very thrifty but it seems there is absolutely nothing like that at all. What’s more, absolutely everything that I thought we owned like the house and car belongs to the company and is mortgaged in some way to the bank.’

  ‘That’s dreadful! So you really think that Charles wants you to move out of Willow House?’

  ‘Either that or take in a lodger.’

  ‘That’s certainly a pretty grim thought but if it saves you from having to move then I suppose it’s not such a bad idea,’ Thelma said briskly.

  ‘I took in a lodger after Jack died,’ Brenda reminded them. ‘She was a schoolteacher. Such a nice young girl and from a good background.’

  ‘She wasn’t with you for very long though, was she?’ stated Thelma.

  ‘That’s right!’ Jan’s eyebrows lifted quizzically. ‘What exactly happened?’

  ‘It became rather difficult. She wanted to have her boyfriend to stay at the weekends and there was no spare bedroom.’

  ‘So she left simply because of that?’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t having them sleeping together like she wanted. Not under my roof, I mean,’ Brenda defended herself. ‘I didn’t think it was right.’

  ‘You’ve never had another lodger since then?’

  Brenda shook her head, a tremulous smile on her plump face. ‘I find I prefer to be on my own. Such a nuisance and a responsibility having to consider someone else all the time.’

  ‘My sentiments entirely,’ agreed Thelma with a hearty laugh. ‘Two women never get on in the same kitchen and if you take in a man he wants waiting on hand and foot. Either way, they’re far too much trouble.’