The Spirit of Ecstasy

Gina smiled as she looked up. "Ahh, here's Junie with our food."

My pie was nicely done, thick brown gravy, solid chunks of meat and a crisp flaky pastry topping. Clearly home made by the pub rather than bought in and warmed through. It tasted as good as it looked, too.

"Mmm, this is excellent. Thank you for your recommendation," I said after my first taste. "Now eat up, enjoy your meal, and then I can give you my sales pitch during coffee."

The meal was enjoyable and we had eaten it without reference to work, asking only where we came from, what interested us and we discovered lots of little things about one another.

Gina found out that I had two grown up children, but hadn't spoken to my son more than twice since the divorce and only corresponded with my daughter by letter. I hasn't had a fixed address since the divorce started and stayed in hotels when I got "home" to Birmingham at the weekend. I was a lifetime supporter of Aston Villa football club and was excited that they were back in the First Division again after almost a decade in the doldrums.

After the main course, we had a simple ice cream for dessert followed by coffee before going back to the factory. Gina said she was happy to allow me to gather information about King's annual nuts and bolts requirements for my company's products.

"If you have a storeman who keeps inventory of what materials you use, all I need is to spend this afternoon with him," I said.

"Yes, Bert Brown has been with the company forever and is apparently every bit as tight with his stores as the legendary Scrooge," Gina laughed.

"I know, I've come across a few classic storemen in my time but, strangely, so many firms have recently taken the attitude that they can save costs by laying off storemen and allow staff to just help themselves from an unmanned storeroom. In no time at all, usage and wastage is no longer recorded, stock doesn't get put away properly or items are hard to find and no-one has a handle on how much stock you have, nor anticipating when items need topping up before you run out and hold up production. A good storeman is worth far more than any savings on his wages, I find."

"You'll get on well with my father, Harry," Gina smiled, "Head Office recommended laying Bert off five years ago, but Dad resisted them. It would be interesting to see how other firms in the group manage their stocks."

"I can ask him tonight at dinner. I am interested in your group of companies, does everything go through your head office?"

"Yes, all orders, invoices, payments, wages, etc, all go through head office. That's why we don't have a purchase manager as such at this factory, all procurements go through HQ."

"And they are based in London?"

"Yes. Does that make a difference?" asked Gina, noticing an odd look in my face.

"London's outside my area, so any sales will be attributed to the boss's son, he's assigned the London area. I will still look after the subsidiaries deliveries in my geographic area and check in regularly to make sure everything is all right, but the bonuses are paid on where the invoice is issued, not by deliveries."

"So you'd still service our account, if King's had one with you, even though you'd be unpaid?"

"Essentially, yes, but that wouldn't affect you at all, our account with you is important to the firm so you would still get exactly the same excellent service. The London office has its financial perks, but then I would hate driving round there every day, however comfortable my car is."

"Yes, my father used to take the train when he attend monthly board meetings, and work in the quiet of a first class carriage. It is only now that he has to travel up every day, that he gets driven in by car. You could do the same if you had a chauffeur to drive you," Gina laughed.

"The thought has occurred to me before while driving and I've even calculated the costs in my head, it is the cost of digs for both of us that tips that idea into the red."

"What about an amenable woman driver, one prepared to share ... your digs, provide creature comforts?"

"Mmm, tempting thought, my dear, but where would I find such an amenable treasure? A lot of women my age never even learned to drive."

"You might be lucky, Harry, or you might have to train her up yourself."

"There's a thought." The pair of us laughed at our relaxed and possibly flirty conversation that we both knew was going completely nowhere between a confirmed bachelor and a married woman and mother, but we were comfortable in each other's company.

We found out quite a bit about each other at that meal. I admitted to being 45, she indirectly let slip that she was 34, which I calculated from the age she was married, how long before the wedding her son was born and the age of her son. I was divorced, while she was married with one child, but then she admitted in whispers that her husband Eric Tremblett, the industrialist, was suspected of being a player upon a wide number of female emotions, but was in hospital in a coma in a vegetative state following a motor accident on a sharp bend on a country road. He appeared to have run off the road and his car rammed a tree. The passenger had been identified as some kind of girlfriend, and she died in the accident. It has become clear that Gina had sufficient grounds to, but couldn't divorce her husband while he was in that critical condition and unable to answer for innocence or otherwise of his actions.

"I will, in good time, divorce him for adultery, if he recovers," she said.

In the meantime she added, and this was while we were alone as we drove back to the factory, Gina set out what she was looking for in me, in addition to my supplies of screws and bolts.

"Plain and simple, my first choice after discovering Eric's cheating, was originally to take a lover for myself, Harry, or at least someone who others would regard as being a lover," she said quite bluntly as I drove out of the pub car park onto the by-pass.

"Oh." I was gobsmacked and speechless. With me on autopilot driving back to the industrial estate, Gina continued to talk rapidly, wanting to get all her thoughts off her chest.

"All right, I have slightly exaggerated, I'm not as desperate for intimacy as I may ashamedly sound. I really want someone honourable, but who I can be reasonably attracted to. Harry, I need someone straight as a die who I can trust to treat me with respect. Possibly a potential future partner would be perfect but without any guarantees of commitment on my part. At the very least, though, I need an escort to functions, a companion who I feel I can rely on for advice, protection, company and, maybe, even if it is in the long run, love." Gina took a deep breath. "I know I have looks that attract men and, even employed within the comparative safety of the Group there are lots of sharks swimming around that think I'm vulnerable, mostly because I'm a woman trying to break into a man's world of business, and the sharks simply cannot rationalise why I would want to be in a man's world unless it is to play with men, to be promiscuous. That is not me, Harry, definitely not me. I need an escort that keeps the sharks at bay, probably because they would regard him as my lover, a lover they cannot compete with, like one who drives a Roller as if it is his everyday car. I know I have only known you for ninety minutes, Harry, but I believe you are a true gentleman and I want you to consider fulfilling the role of being my escort, not forever, of course, but for the next few months."

"Gina, you are a beautiful woman, a truly lovely lady," I said after swallowing, taking in her beauty and sincerity with a sidelong glance. She was looking directly at me as I tried to concentrate on the road and drive safely. "I know you are angry with your husband for his disloyalty, and you must be frustrated—"

"—I'm most certainly frustrated, not just sexually, but I'm also lonely, Harry, and I'm scared about my life drifting away into middle age and not having fun, companionship and ... and, yes, I fear the prospects of still being alone and having only a lone child to spoil when I reach 40 in a few years."

"Gina," I said softly, gently, "I'm not a player, unlike your husband appears to have been. I cannot switch on and off my emotions at will. I am still, even after seven years apart, torn between my long-held feelings for my ex wife, and my ex-children. I was rejected, in the same way your husband's actions appear to have rejected you. We are both hurt, I would love to salve our pain but I can't help myself, I have a heightened sense of propriety. I only ever had one girlfriend, Gina, and that single sweetheart became my wife. I loved Mavis without reservation until I discovered by her own admission that she had abandoned my love years before and had taken another man on to share with her all her love. If she walked back into my life today I would seriously consider forgiving her and taking her back, my heart is that empty. I would never forget her betrayal, of course, but I know that at some level I still love her."

"And that is why you are such a gentleman, Harry, and why I feel I can trust you," Gina said, "please just consider being my 'go to boyfriend with no strings attached' when I need to attend a function, or want to go to the pictures, or have a picnic or a walk and talk in the park with. Do you think you could do any of that for me, please?"

What could I say? One of the most beautiful mature woman I've ever met wanted to go out with me, to be seen with me and through me convince her peers that I was her intimate friend? She'd even hinted at love and sex at some future point, even though those was really the last things on my mind for consideration at this point. It suddenly hit me that for the last few years I had lost contact with my family and I really was lonely moat of the time and I had never admitted it to anyone before. And this was one of my loneliest sales patches, where I did less business, the Thames Valley and Cotswold hills; an area too convenient to the sharks of London and not too far from Brum, but I still had to cover it at least one week every quarter throughout the year. What a place to discover someone like Gina!

"Yes, Gina, I would be happy to be your friend and escort." I confirmed and confessed. "I'm lonely too, am often at a loose end in the evenings during the week, and it would be wonderful seeing more of you, even if it was unreal, all in public and on show for effect. I have enjoyed your company, and it would certainly boost my ego no end to serve this ti,e, even if I turn out to be too rough a diamond for you to extend the arrangement."

"Being seen with me might help fend off all those ladies that bother you so much," she laughed, "but I think you have enough polish as a diamond to pull it off and put off the more competitive ladies."

"There is the point about appearing to be spoken for, to consider, and would also be a fillip to my empty social life. Tell you what, I'll even come visit with you at the hospital when you next see Eric, if you think that would help you cope with seeing your comatose husband more often. I get the impression that visiting him on your own, knowing without any doubt now what you know about his affairs, must be an ordeal."

"It is, which is why I only visit once or at most twice a week and talk to him for a couple of hours. It is supposed to help his recovery, and I now do it out of duty, not affection. His doctor wanted me to visit every evening, but I can't face that commitment to him after what he has done to destroy our marriage."

"Does he have any other visitors?"

"He has an older half-sister, a clergyman's widow, who lives in Yorkshire and can't get down very often except my train, so far once only in fact, but no-one else comes calling. His countless cousins don't visit. I have taken my son once, but Giles really doesn't have any relationship with Eric, he was a terrible father, and Giles had told me that he doesn't want to go again."

"Then I'll go with you, Gina. Perhaps we can help him get out of the coma. The sooner he's awake the sooner you can get on and live your life again."

"I would love that, Harry."

xxxXxxx

I pulled into the MD's parking space at King's again and turned off the engine.

"Shake on it?" I said, holding out a hand to agree our deal about my escorting.

Gina took my hand, but pulled me to her and kissed me softly on the lips, a long kiss that surprised me rigid at first but, as I relaxed my lips, her tongue gently probed its way in and licked my tongue briefly before she broke off the kiss.

"Wow, that's some kiss," I told her.

"Well, I thought it was important to get that out of the way as soon as possible. I know what I said by way of a shock tactic about you being my lover, Harry, and I'm not really looking for a bed companion quite yet, but I do enjoy kissing. You're a wonderful kisser, Harry, gentle and passionate without being pushy."

"Well, it's a relief that if you're going to jump me immediately, it's just for kisses, however scorching they are. Well, Gina I do like kissing too, and that was among the most memorable of any kisses I've enjoyed."

She giggled and kissed me again, quickly, then used her thumb to wipe off any telltale lipstick off my lips, giggling all the while. "Come on, I'll introduce you to our storeman Bert Brown, so you can make a start on preparing your quote."

Bert Brown was a short, sparely-built fellow in his late fifties and had been in sole charge of the King & Son's stores for fifteen years, he boasted. During that time he had kept ledgers of everything coming in and going out of the stores. He had ledgers in the form of exercise books going back to include his predecessors long before he even started at the firm as an apprentice.

"This is great record-keeping, Bert," I told him, his records were better than I could've expected, "I can use this info to put together a chart of recent annual usage and supply over the past three years."

"Oh, I've got that already," Bert said proudly, and dug out one of a number of rolls of wallpaper from a drawer. "I didn't have no paper big enough so I used the backs of these rolls. This is this year's to date."

I unrolled it and Bert pulled four metal blocks from the same drawer and held the curly roll down at the corners. I was confronted with a chart of figures, with the months of the year running down the page and across the top pairs of columns of all the various screws, nuts, bolts, and other fixings, materials and consumables supplied to and issued by the store. For each heading there was an 'in' and 'out' column, at the foot was a total, then an adjustment and a final annual stocktake figure at the bottom.

Bert saw that my eyes had reached the bottom figures. "I do a rough stocktake every month and keep a tally that I drop into the adjustment box. I works 8 to half 4 Mondays through to Fridays, but the shop floor always has evening overtime and working Saturday morning's is normal, and if they is behind with orders they might even works a whole weekend. The store ain't locked up so they helps 'emselves. So therefore I do a weekly rough stock take and make an adjustment. Of course, I can't take account of what stock each assembly line is holding in their toolboxes either, but as they are not held in my stock, I consider them issued and used."

"I see. Can I borrow these rolls covering the last three or four years for the rest of the afternoon?"

"Help yourself, mate," cheerfully replied Bert. "You know, you're the first bloke what ever bothered to ask for these figures."

"And I appreciate that you maintain them," I replied.

I took the rolls up to Gina's office. "Anywhere with a desk I can spread out and work on some figures?"

"Yes," she smiled, tucked her arm in mine and led me into the board room right next to her office, "the auditors always work in here for several days each year."

"Oh, I don't need any more than two or three hours, Gina."

I set down the rolls as well as a case containing a mobile typewriter I had brought up from my car. Gina watched me set my typewriter up with a couple of sheets of paper and a carbon paper between the two sheets.

"We have a thermal photocopier in the secretaries' office, if you would rather make a copy."

"That's all right, the carbon copy is all I need, I do a copy for myself more by habit than anything, so I have a copy I can file away in loose-leaf folders for existing and potential customers. Those thermal photocopier pages fade quickly in daylight. Do you have a facsimile machine that I could use at the end of the afternoon? I will need to send four or five pages off to my office to get a price for you, otherwise I'd have to do it at the library tomorrow." I spread out the first of the charts, from three years earlier, and held down the corners with Bert's four metal blocks.

I could imagine Gina was intrigued but she clearly didn't want to interrupt. I had demonstrated that I was clearly well organised and confident that I could come up with a more than competitive bid to supply what King & Son needed and I was sure that Gina was feeling very positive about my professional approach to the process.

"Yes, there's also a fax machine in the secretaries' office, but it's quite an old one and only sends one page at a time. It's one of those things that I've noticed needs upgrading as nowadays we find we are using fax more and more often between here and head office and also increasingly with our customers."

"That's fine, thank you. I carried one around in the boot of the car four or five years ago, but as more companies started installing them, it wasn't worth paying the maintenance contract on it."

"Just use it whenever you're ready to. I'll leave you to it then. Would you like a cup of tea?"

"Thank you, I would like that, if it's no trouble."

"One of the girls usually does a tea run about three in the afternoon, how do you take it?"

"Strong, industrial tea, with a hint of milk and two sugars, please."

"All right, I'll make sure she knows you're in here. I'm just next door, so sing out if you need anything at all."

Gina later told me that she could hear me typing away from inside her office. She said she had felt quite comforted by my activity and found herself smiling all through her own work during the afternoon. When she was finished, about quarter to five, she decided to look in on me. I wasn't in the board room by then, although my typewriter was still there. The wallpaper rolls had also gone. She went to the secretaries' office and there I was, sending pages through to my office on their fax machine.

I looked up and smiled while I listened for the tone and answering warble on the machine before pressing the 'send' button.

"Nearly all done," I said. "Just one more sheet to go after this. I've given Bert all his paperwork back before he finished for the day, so I should be all packed up and ready to go in five minutes. Are you going to give me directions to where my new digs are?"

"Even better than that, I'll leave my car here overnight and you can give me a lift in your lovely car so I can direct you there. I'll wait while you get washed and changed and you can take me to dinner at my parents' house. We don't dress formally."

"No problem. If you're leaving your car here and departing with me, won't that start tongues wagging?"

"Oh, everywhere has some sort of rumour mill grinding away, Harry, King's is notorious."

"I don't want to make you notorious, Gina."

"You won't, but I might encourage them a little," she grinned, looking around the secretaries' room. It was only then that the office was quiet, as the half-dozen girls suddenly resumed their earlier bustle.

"Aah, then I can collect you from your parents' house in the morning, if you like, and bring you into work. I am seeing a couple of old customers later in the morning and scheduled to do some cold calling in the afternoon, so I do like to get an early start. You should get a quotation from my company in response to this fax by close of play Wednesday afternoon, so perhaps we can get back together and discuss our proposal on Thursday afternoon after you've had a chance to consider the proposal?"