Stranger Passing By. Lilian Peake
world of big business, of which you doubtless know only a minimal amount, doesn’t make decisions based simply on hope rather than the distinctly disappointing, if not to say dismal, sets of figures put in front of it by their accountants.’
‘Nor does it allow,’ she retaliated, sweeping together the crumbs of her courage, ‘for the human factor. I love my job, as I’m sure we all do here, otherwise this crowd,’ she flapped her hand over their heads, ‘wouldn’t have bothered to show up. After all, the letter we received gave no indication of what the meeting was about.’
‘I guessed,’ said someone in the front row. ‘Our sales have taken a shocking dive lately.’
‘Ours, too,’ said another man.
Crystal’s heart sank. They all seemed intent on letting her down, yet if they were all speaking the truth... She would have to fight even harder, the employees as well as the management.
‘So why have ours—Maureen’s and mine—been so good?’ she asked the meeting in general.
There was indulgent male laughter. ‘Must have been a magnet somewhere in your shop that drew ‘em in,’ was one young man’s comment, and he turned his head to get a good look at the lady speaker. ‘A “hidden persuader”, I think they’re sometimes called in the trade.’
‘In the form of a good-looking lady assistant,’ another man qualified, ‘who’s got what it takes.’
On the platform Brent had taken the central seat, sitting back, arms folded, legs crossed, a smile lurking, seeming content to watch and wait, while his two colleagues appeared to share his barely veiled amusement.
Crystal shook her head, her auburn hair swirling around her shoulders. ‘You’re on the wrong track. Our stock appeals to young women—beads, bangles, headscarves, perfumes.’
‘And what about the men?’ Ted Field turned in his seat. ‘Don’t you get a single male in your shop?’
‘Well, yes. Boyfriends, husbands...’
‘All looking for gifts for the women in their lives. There you are, then. They see a pretty girl assistant and in they go.’
Crystal shook her head, bemused by the banter. ‘But I’m—’ I’m not that attractive, she had been about to say. She rounded on the members of the audience. ‘I don’t know how you can take it all so calmly. It’s your livelihoods you’re being deprived of, yours and mine. What about your families, your way of life? They,’ she indicated the platform party, shutting her eyes to the increasingly darkening features of the chairman of the meeting, ‘are threatening to take away your jobs, make you all unemployed—’
Roger’s agitated hand tugged at Crystal’s. ‘Leave it,’ he urged. ‘You’ve said enough.’
‘Yes,’ whispered Maureen, ‘he’s right. Please, Crystal, sit down. It won’t do us, or you, any good at all.’
Brent Akerman got to his feet. ‘Not threatening, Miss Rose,’ he grated, ‘intending. Thank you for your intervention. I think your colleagues have provided the answers to your queries.’
Crystal was on her feet again. ‘A management buy-out,’ she exclaimed, ‘that’s what we want!’
‘It’s the management, Miss Crystal,’ Brent Akerman clipped, with a mocking curve to his lips, ‘who intend to close the chain. Don’t you mean an employee buy-out?’
If his words had been intended as a put-down, he had succeeded. Cheeks hot, hand shaking a little as she smoothed back her hair, Crystal subsided, not completely sure as to just what had come over her. It must have been a side to her character that had been lurking below the surface for years, undisturbed and unprovoked, completely unknown even to herself, until that man, the man who stood on that platform so confidently, had prodded it awake.
More, she thought with dismay, he had prodded awake feelings within herself which she hadn’t been aware of before and which, even as she gazed up at him, were making themselves felt only too plainly.
Maureen nudged her gently. ‘That’s good, that’s very thoughtful,’ she murmured.
‘What is?’ Crystal asked, coming, a little bewildered, out of her dream.
‘Aren’t you listening, dear? You really should be. They’re giving us six weeks’ pay over and above our notice, so that we can keep paying our bills and try and find other employment at the same time. And,’ Maureen paused for effect even as Brent Akerman talked, ‘they’re giving us a very generous sum as redundancy pay.’
‘In addition,’ the chief executive concluded, ‘we will do our best at Worldview to absorb back into the company, or into one of its subsidiaries, as much of the workforce as we can.’
‘How’s that for consideration?’ Roger whispered in her ear. ‘If they can find me only part-time work it’ll help to fund my studies.’
Brent Akerman’s hand waved to the long, laden tables that stretched down one side of the room. ‘Having completed the unpleasant part of this meeting, I invite you all to help yourselves to the food provided.’
The platform party of three filed off, and as they did so Brent Akerman put his hand to his mouth to cover a wide, shuddering yawn. So he’s bored to his core, is he? Crystal thought resentfully, following the others as they beat a path to the consumables. A small bar had been provided as a thoughtful postscript by the regretful, if unrelenting, Worldview management.
Crystal discovered that she was hungry, having had no time even for a scratch meal before leaving home. As she filled a plate and forked the delicious savouries into her mouth, others, doing likewise, joined her.
Maureen picked at the food on her plate, her mind plainly on other things. ‘However will I manage without a regular wage coming in?’ she asked the company in general.
‘Find another job?’ Crystal asked gently. She, like all the others, knew about Maureen’s semi-invalid mother, who lived with her.
‘At my age? And within cycling reach of my home, the way the shop is?’ Maureen shook her head.
‘Heaven knows,’ Ted Field commented worriedly, ‘how I’ll manage to keep going financially. What did you have in mind,’ he turned to Crystal, ‘when you suggested a buy-out?’
‘Yes,’ a rounded fair-haired young woman took him up, ‘have you got access to a gold-mine or something?’
Crystal recognised her as the girl who had spoken to her in the cloakroom after the prize-giving dinner a fortnight or so back. Shirley Brownley, she recalled, was the young woman’s name.
‘I wish I had, Shirley,’ Crystal responded, drinking a mouthful of wine. ‘But we could raise a loan, couldn’t we?’
‘Anyone around here,’ said Roger, grinning, ‘got a friendly bank manager?’
‘Or a rich daddy?’ asked Ted. ‘And I do mean father—nothing else,’ he added as the others laughed.
‘Mine’s with my mother in Denmark,’ Crystal declared, ‘staying with old friends of the family. Anyway, he took early retirement and he’s anything but rich.’
‘Oh, dear. So that’s that idea knocked on the head,’ said Shirley.
‘Let’s try again,’ Crystal urged. ‘What about savings? Couldn’t we all pool them and—?’
‘Mine are non-existent,’ said Ted.
‘Mine are sacrosanct,’ Roger averred. ‘They’ve got to tide me over financially until I get my degree. Especially as I’m now about to get the push.’
Most of the others seemed to be entirely in agreement with him.
‘Mr Akerman did promise,’ Crystal ventured, ‘that those who weren’t offered positions in the company’s other subsidiaries