Polly's War (36 page)

If Lucy had got herself into some sort of a muddle then she must, as both Minnie and Charlie insisted, get herself out of it. What could she do to help the daft eejit anyway? Benny had a battle of his own to fight and was waging it well. She admired him for the care he took of his son, and for the work he was putting into the business. Shouldn’t she be the happiest woman in the whole world to have him here with her at last? Yet she felt swamped by worry.

Although some of their customers came into the new shop by chance while out and about in the street, most came via the credit club operated by Hubert. In many ways this was an advantage. It was a sure market, necessitating very little in the way of advertising. They were paid within thirty days for every sale, no matter how long it might take the customer to pay Hubert on a weekly basis. And if customers got behind in their payments, or did a moonlight flit, which was common enough in these parts, this would be dealt with by the ubiquitous Ron. Polly suffered no financial loss at all. In addition, the profit margins were excellent. It was largely because of this side of the business that she was able to expand her carpet manufacturing side quite so rapidly.

Because of these benefits, Polly was reluctant to complain to Hubert when she experienced difficulties. Inevitably some items moved less quickly than others, while some wouldn’t shift at all. Right at the start he’d assured her that he had other outlets in the city as well as in Rochdale, Stockport and Bolton, so could easily move goods on to there. Unfortunately, he consistently failed to do so and Polly became increasingly frustrated and finally infuriated by the delays.

‘You’ll have to tackle him about it,’ she curtly told Benny one day, after counting sixteen unsold balloon-backed chairs. ‘Nobody wants these Victorian monstrosities. Haven’t I told him so a dozen times.’

‘He’s asked us to give them a proper chance.’

‘So we have. Far longer than any other shop would tolerate.’ She smoothed a hand over the chair seats. ‘Feel that leather. It’s cracking already. Cheap, that’s what they are, just like those dratted book shelves which are coming apart at the seams. Tell him I’m still waiting for compensation on losses there too. No wonder we aren’t selling these chairs. Manchester folk have too much sense than to buy outdated rubbish. See you get rid of them. If you don’t talk to Hubert, I will.’

She could tell by the way Benny’s mouth folded into a tight line that he didn’t care for her blackmail tactics.

‘Don’t sulk, laddie. Business is business. Sale or return means exactly what it says - if they don’t sell you return them. Have ‘em packed up this minute and Tom can drive them to Hubert’s warehouse this very afternoon.’

The next morning on her way to work Polly called again at the shop and there the chairs still were, all lined up against the wall as if they were at a ball waiting for some Victorian young ladies to recline upon them. She felt a tide of hot-blooded Irish fury bubble through her veins as Benny patiently explained how Ron Clarke, in charge at the time Tom had called, had absolutely refused to unlock the stockroom doors so he’d been forced to bring the chairs back again.

 
‘Something about the proper paperwork not being done.’

‘Proper paperwork? Sure and won’t I give the pair of them proper paperwork indeed.’

Benny wagged a placating finger. ‘Mam, don’t interfere. This is my part of the business remember, and Hubert Clarke is my father-in-law, er - ex father-in-law. I’ll deal with the matter.’

‘ Then see that you do,’ Polly warned him tartly. Jesus, Mary and Joseph, if it wasn’t one of her children creating havoc in her life, it was the other.

Chapter Twenty-Three

Once the new loom had been set up to her satisfaction Polly spent a quiet morning in the office pouring over the accounts, which were becoming a real source of concern. She wished now that she’d waited a bit longer before taking on a third loom, even if the manufacturing side of her business was doing well. It was the retail part which troubled her.

Charlie was perking up, insisting on getting out and about more as the pain subsided a little and Polly was glad about that. But the responsibility of being the main bread winner in the family still lay heavy upon her.

After a quick sandwich lunch, the first of several young girls answering the advertisement for spool setters began to arrive and she went to interview them. This took an hour of her valuable time and even when she’d set two girls on, neither of them much over thirteen since they’d just left school, Polly wished with all her heart that Lucy too would come into the business. She would have made more of the job than the pair put together. What an old stick-in-the-mud Tom was, to be sure. Should she have a word with him herself? she wondered.

Charlie was against the idea. ‘So how would you speak to him, as his employer or his mother-in-law? Leave well alone or you’ll make things worse for Lucy.’

That was hard to do as Polly was only too aware she’d neglected the girl lately, fussing about her own affairs when all the time she might need her. Something was wrong. She could sense it. What had Minnie said about Tom? Shifty! Polly promised herself a private word with Lucy, at the very first opportunity.

The next morning she put one of the young girls with Maisie to learn about spool setting, the other she took over to Joyce, who checked faults in the newly woven carpets; created because the hessian hadn’t properly been woven in or gaps had been left where they shouldn’t, or the warp had broken.

‘Show her how to mark the faults, Joyce. If she cottons on to that in six or seven weeks and watches you carefully, I’ll mebbe let her have a go at mending them. Work hard and you’ll be happy enough here, lass. Though the pay’s terrible, isn’t it Joyce?’

‘Crippling,’ Joyce agreed, and took the young girl under her wing, grinning widely.

It was half past seven by the time Polly got home. Charlie was trying to read the paper and complaining his eyes weren’t focusing properly. ‘I think I need specs.’

‘You’ve already got some. Put them on.’

‘They don’t work any more. I need new ones. New eyes too,’ he cheerfully told her.

Polly sighed, wondering if he’d given any thought to what they might eat. Her stomach felt as if it were full of razor blades, all sawing at each other, yet she felt too exhausted to do anything about it. ‘No part of your old body seems to work as it should according to you. I’d ask for a complete refit if I wasn’t so fond of the old one,’ and she kissed him on the nose.

‘How’s it gone at the warehouse today?’ he enquired, setting down his newspaper and fetching a dish of hot pot from the stove.

The steaming aroma made her juices run as he spooned it out. Polly mumbled a reply as she gratefully forked the first load into her hungry mouth, the meat so tender he’d clearly had it in the oven for half the day. ‘Ooh bless ye, this is good. Unlucky in business but lucky in love, eh?’

Charlie chuckled. ‘Shop not going too well then?’

‘Don't ask.’ Steam issued forth on her breath and it wasn’t till she’d half emptied her plate and sated some of her hunger that Polly addressed the question properly. ‘I’m going to see Hubert Clarke first thing tomorrow to tackle him about this furniture, whether our Benny likes it or not. A deal’s a deal and if he promises sale or return, that’s what I mean to have.’

Polly and Charlie spent all that evening going over the accounts yet again; bank statements, petty cash books, details of loan payments and profit ratios and their worst fears were confirmed. If the business was to prosper and all payments were to be met, drastic action was called for. But the next day, faced with Hubert Clarke’s solid figure, he proved to be as arrogant and unruffled as ever, setting out to pacify and urge Polly not to panic, to show faith and courage in the enterprise.

‘It’s not courage I lack, it’s money,’ she bluntly informed him, planting herself in his office as if she’d taken root there. ‘If you don’t stand by your promises, Councillor Clarke, then I’ll be forced to take my business elsewhere.’

He smiled at her, moustache twitching, only the dark eyes beneath the ridge of bushy eyebrows giving any indication of his irritation. ‘Nay Polly lass. Don’t get in a lather. It’ll all come out in the wash as they say.’ He chortled good-humouredly at his own silly joke.

Polly frowned. ‘It’ll have to come out somewhere for sure. I’m not going on like this. Haven’t I shown the patience of a saint, to be sure? Over twelve months I’ve had those chairs and sold only two. You promised me faithfully that you’d take ‘em back, yet still I’m waiting and still you’re delivering more stuff each and every week. Incidentally, that sideboard Benny ordered the other week never arrived, and we’ve a customer waiting.’

‘I think you must be mistaken. That lad of yours must’ve got in another muddle over paperwork. Ron delivered it personally.’ He smiled benignly at her, his expression seeming to challenge her to deny it, which Polly most certainly did.

‘I don’t think so. We’re very particular with our invoicing and docketing. I’ve too much money tied up in stock and some of it must go.’

‘Go?’

‘Don’t you deliver stuff whether we order it or not? We’ll have furniture coming out of our ears soon, so we will. It’s not good enough, Hubert.’

‘There’s no need to worry lass,’ he assured her, coming from behind his great desk to pat her shoulder with a placating hand. He went on to promise that Ron would persuade one or two of their better off customers to take the balloon chairs or, failing that, he’d mebbe agree to her returning half a dozen. When Polly insisted he should take the lot, due to the state of the leather seats he instantly backtracked, saying he couldn’t take defective goods, not at any price.

‘But they were in that state when you delivered them,’ Polly insisted, shocked by his attitude. ‘And what about those bookcases? Like cardboard they are, coming apart at the joints.’

‘Happen they’ve had careless handling in your shop,’ Hubert gently scolded, as if she were a naughty schoolgirl. Polly felt a strong urge to smack his arrogant face but managed to curb her temper and leave without doing any such thing. She did bang the door rather louder than she should on her way out. Later, she gritted her teeth with frustration when she told Benny that the chairs would need to be reduced in price and sold off at whatever they could get for them.

‘And next time you take a new delivery check every single item. We take nothing that isn’t perfect. Check your paperwork. Check everything.’

Benny resented being taken to task over paperwork which was, in his opinion, perfectly correct. He insisted she was fussing, that there was little wrong with the chairs and he would sell them given time and a bit of luck. ‘You just have to fix the right price and find the right customer.’

‘And not go bankrupt in the meantime,’ she tartly informed her son. This wasn’t what she’d expected, not at all. Something smelled fishy to her. Polly believed that trust was essential in any business partnership. It seemed to be sadly missing in this one and she’d have to keep an even closer eye on Hubert Clarke in future, and his so-called bargain furniture.

Within two weeks she was knocking on his office door again complaining that she’d ordered a batch of kitchen tables and chairs that had never arrived, nor the sideboard that they were still waiting for. Hubert called in Ron, who insisted he’d delivered them personally. ‘If you don’t know what stock you do have, Polly lass, how can you hope to succeed?’

Polly returned to Benny in a lather of embarrassment but despite searching the entire shop and stock rooms from top to bottom the consignment remained elusive, as did the paperwork.
 

‘No invoice or delivery note,’ Benny insisted. ‘How can they have been delivered?’ There was a copy of the orders, plain as day. Unfortunately it proved to be their word against his.

Polly next asked to return two dining room suites. ‘They’re in good condition but everybody passes them by. Too expensive for our neck of the woods. You’d do better sending them Cheshire way. I’ll have them brought round tomorrow.’

Hubert refused point blank to take the suites back and also denied ever having agreed to a sale or return arrangement in the first place. Polly gaped at him open mouthed. ‘Will ye say that again. I reckon me hearing has gone on the blink.’

‘Whatever you take, you keep, Polly lass. I should’ve thought that was obvious. It’s usual business practice, after all. However, I’ll be generous on this occasion, since its you.’ He rocked back and forth on his booted heels, as if considering the matter then offered the now familiar placating pat on the head. It was such a patronising gesture that in different circumstances she might very well have slapped his hand away. Just the way he called her
lass
all the time, set her hackles rising.

‘I tell you what I’ll do for you, lass. I’ll take back the two suites in question and swap them for four good sofas. How about that? Fair enough deal, wouldn’t you say?’ Polly found herself forced to agree.

‘Your father-in-law changes his mind with the wind,’ she told Benny as she strode through the shop half an hour later, blind with rage and only too ready to land one on anyone who happened to be handy. ‘The divil take the man but I’ll have his guts for garters if those sofas don’t sell. I’ll cancel the whole deal, so I will, but I’ll not be put upon.’

 
The four sofas sold within two weeks and, mollified, Polly grudgingly agreed to allow Benny to take a further consignment, covered in a lovely blue velvet-like fabric this time. It wasn’t till several days later that she found time to examine them closely. The fabric showed clear signs of mould.