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gold stars like some schoolchild.’

      ‘I know, Val. I don’t want to fight. If you ask me to, I’ll have them paint over the sign again right away. I just wanted to keep my promise first. But there’s something more important. I don’t know whether you’ve heard, but you ought to know. Tom Gissing died of a heart attack the night before last. He died quietly, it seems. I’m very sorry.’

      George wasn’t prepared for the reaction he got to this news. Val’s normally strong features collapsed. She sat down on George’s desk, knocking papers to the floor, and wept, her deep-set eyes flooding her wonky face. George offered her a handkerchief, which she took.

      After a while, she stood up. She struggled to compose herself, but George interrupted her. ‘Don’t worry about today, Val. Do whatever you need to do. Take time off. Come back when you’re ready. Just let me know when to expect you.’

      ‘Probably never,’ she responded distantly. ‘There’s no reason for me to stay here on a stupid salary working to save a three-quarters dead company, if Tom Gissing isn’t even around to appreciate the results.’

      ‘How can you say that? What about all the workers here who rely on the place for work? What about their families? What about the company itself?’ George was genuinely appalled. Christ, if even Val Bartlett was deserting him, he hadn’t much hope with the rest.

      Val jerked as though stung. ‘How dare you? How dare you?’ she hissed. ‘When Tom Gissing said that sort of thing he meant it from the bottom of his well-meaning heart. When you say that, it makes me puke.’

      ‘Jesus, Val. What have I done that’s so bad? Don’t I work hard enough? Aren’t I trying to do the right things here? Is there anything more that I could possibly do for this place?’

      ‘Of course there bloody is. Why don’t you open your wallet, pay off the bank, restore people’s salaries and give jobs back to the people you’ve fired? I know costs need to be cut, but the way you’ve done it is just revolting for a man as rich as you.’

      ‘As rich as me? Are you off your head?’

      ‘As rich as Bernard Gradley’s son. That’s right. I don’t know how many millions you’re worth. And I don’t know why you’re pissing your life away here. But you make me sick and I’m not coming back.’

      She turned to go, but George grabbed her by the arm. She would have protested, but George’s face was stone and his grip steel. He pulled her out of the office.

      They walked downstairs, through the reception area and out into the frozen yard. The only vehicle there was the Gissings Transit van, which George had commandeered shortly after taking over. The van hardly ever left the yard, but George refused everybody the use of it all the same. George went to the back of the van, unlocked its doors and flung them open.

      Inside was a mattress and bedding. A paraffin lamp swung from a hook in the ceiling. A camping stove and utensils lay next to a few tins of food and an elderly loaf of bread. A jerry can of water and an enamel bowl marked the beginning and end of the van’s sanitary arrangements. A furniture rail behind the driver’s seat carried a rack of George’s designer kit. Suits, jackets, trousers and shirts. The place had the look and the smell of long occupation. A water spill from the morning had turned to ice on the floor.

      ‘As rich as Bernard Gradley’s son,’ he said. ‘Welcome to the castle.’

      He swung the doors back shut, but, on a gesture from Val, didn’t lock them. He turned and walked back upstairs to his office. Val didn’t return, and after about half an hour George wandered to the front of the building to see what had become of her.

      She was still by the van along with a group of twenty or so workers. More were coming and others leaving on their way back to the factory floor. George realised that for one short hour his van was going to be the region’s top-ranking tourist attraction, with Val Bartlett acting as proprietor and guide. He went back to work, but couldn’t concentrate.

      About fifty minutes later, Val returned. Her broad face was unsmiling, but there was laughter in her eyes.

      ‘I don’t think you’ll have quite the same problem in getting cooperation from now on,’ she said. ‘Especially after one of the lads found one of your bank statements underneath your mattress.’

      ‘I hope you charged admission. At fifty pence a peek, I’d have got enough to keep going another week.’

      The rest of the day passed busily. For the first time, George sensed real enthusiasm from the workers. A committee working to update the product range was suddenly brimful of ideas and creativity, when previously its meetings had passed in stubborn opposition to every whiff of change. Old Gissing had been right. These people did know their jobs. They loved furniture and it showed. For almost the first time, George felt that buying Gissings had been a pound well spent.

      At the end of the day, George and Val walked downstairs. They were, as often, the last to leave, just as they were always among the earliest to arrive. It was a clear night and already freezing. It would be savagely cold. George walked up to the back door of his van. For the first time, he didn’t need to pretend he had somewhere else to go. He threw open the rear doors.

      ‘I’d invite you in for a drink,’ he said, ‘but you know how it is.’

      The elves and the pixies had come while George had been at work. The van was tidied top to bottom. Somebody had constructed a bed frame to hold the mattress. Beneath the bed, two drawers held the clobber which had been lying around the floor. A simple table held the camping stove and a tinsel-draped sprig of pine standing in a red-painted pot. There was a six-pack of beer, and beneath a wrapping of newspaper, George could see a pie dish containing something meaty and hot. With a touch of humour, somebody had pinned an old Gissings marketing catalogue to one of the battens running down the side of the van. ‘The Thunderer! A desk for today!’

      George was moved to the point of tears. It had been a hard and lonely time since his father died, and for the first time someone had stretched out a helping hand. He turned to Val to see if this had been done at her instigation, but she was as surprised as he was.

      ‘Well,’ George commented, once he had found his voice. ‘Someone’s keen to show off their carpentry skills. Gissings’ spirit and all that.’

      ‘Gissings’ spirit or not,’ said Val, ‘you’re not stopping here any longer.’

      ‘I beg your pardon?’

      ‘Think I want to work for a gypsy? You’re coming home with me, especially as it’s Christmas soon. You can park yourself in my lounge until you think of somewhere better to go.’

      George would have protested, but he couldn’t. Val had grasped his upper arm in a formidable grip of her own and frog-marched him to her battered Metro. They drove off leaving the Transit door swinging open in the wind.

      6

      It was a dingy Christmas, that first Christmas. Helen was in a worse way than usual. She’d managed to swallow half a dozen Valium a couple of days earlier because she liked the lift they gave her. But the biochemical pendulum was relentless and by Christmas Day itself she was experiencing all the withdrawal symptoms of one of the world’s most immediately addictive substances. She wept and was irritable and exaggerated the extent of her disability.

      Josie sat in the front room playing patience with her, as George and Matthew contrived to burn the roast potatoes (George through forgetfulness, Matthew from jet lag), while Zack, unbelievably, was on the phone to work.

      ‘Your new employers …’ said George, searching for the name.

      ‘Weinstein Lukes,’ said Zack.

      ‘Yeah, whatever. Do they ever give you a day off?’

      ‘Not so far, but you never know. Besides, these days I’m working mostly on oil and gas deals, so a lot

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