After the meal in the Sybaritic the family and Sir Nigel gathered in Jinnie’s living room for an impromptu celebration where they were eventually joined by Paolo, Penny and Dan. Jinnie had warned Paolo they had already eaten so he picked up cod and chips on the way from the station. He sat at the kitchen table tucking in and being pestered by Larry who he eventually gave a bit of fish to. Jinnie came to say hello to him, and he shoved a copy of the Evening Standard across the table to her. The lead story was the by-election result, and the accompanying photo was the one of the whole family with the beaming twin at the front.
Jinnie had a quick read of the headline story and was directed to another article on page 5. Turning there she read a story about her and not her dad. The story explained how the new MP for Finchley and Golders Green had two daughters, one who was a senior civil servant in the Foreign Office and the other was a famous restaurateur. It continued saying that his elder daughter had been made a Dame for services to the restaurant trade and for introducing the now annual event of high-class restaurants providing a lunch at retirement homes. It pointed out she was COO of The Trattoria Trevi Group of Companies and MD of their 50% subsidiary Dark Kitchens Limited. It went on to tell how the millionairess had been shot in a mugging outside the British Embassy in Bridgetown, Barbados, had been unconscious for several weeks and still had not returned to work.
Jinnie chuckled, the story was right in some parts and so wrong in others, obviously the media had bought the cover story of the mugging, and just brushed over Penny’s job. Of course, her two jobs were matters of record and her being a millionaire was just them speculating. But whoever wrote the article clearly didn’t get their information from anyone associated with Trattoria Trevi who would have known she had a new job and that she had been cleared to return to work.
Jinnie had finished the article and was making Paolo a mug of coffee when Penny arrived in the kitchen. “So this is where you are hiding,” she said. “I have a message for you from Alan, can you give him a call when you are cleared to go back to work, he needs to chat with you.” “Well, I’m officially back at work on Monday, so I’ll ring him then,” answered Jinnie. “Any idea what he wants?” “Not really,” replied Penny. “We have been busy with this Russo-German thing, but it’s mostly been getting intelligence people in place. We need to know what’s going on. But it has mainly been Russian speakers, we seem to have plenty of German speakers already there. But as neither you nor I speak Russian I don’t think we are going to be needed.”
Jinnie suddenly said, “Pen, I expect Mum told you, I have come into a lot of money, well I want to spread a bit around so if you write down your bank account number and sort code, I will transfer a million pounds into it tomorrow morning. I intend to do the same thing for Mum and Dad. You can do what you like with the money, pay off your mortgage, go on holiday, save it. I don’t care, it’s your money.” Penny threw her arms around her sister and said, “Thank you, thank you, thank you. You know Dan and I earn a good living at the SIS, but a big chunk each month goes on the mortgage, it would be wonderful to be mortgage-free.”
They all rejoined the rest of the group in the living room and Jinnie accepted a glass of champagne from Sir Nigel who had brought over several bottles from his ‘cellar’, actually a big wine fridge in his kitchen. Jinnie sipped from her glass and said, “My, this a good champagne.” Sir Nigel smiled and replied, “I would have nothing less, it’s one of my favourites, Bollinger, I understand it’s also one of the favorites of the Royal Family.” Eventually Jinnie managed to get her Mum and Dad on their own and told them about her plan to transfer money to them. Her Dad said, “Thank you darling, but there is no need. Your mother and I are comfortably off, the house is paid for, we have our state and teaching pensions, quite a lot of investments and now my wage as an MP.” “But this is that little bit extra,” said Jinnie. “I know how you loved your Christmas cruise, just think you could go on a luxury one in the summer when Parliament is not sitting. The money will be paid in on Monday morning.”
***
On Monday morning Jinnie and Izzy dropped the twins at school, and they happily skipped across the playground. Izzy said, “Gosh aren’t they happy to get back to school! I think I’m going to have trouble keeping them entertained during the long summer holidays.” Jinnie said, “I haven’t told you, but I am going to buy a holiday home in Barbados. Last summer was lovely in that rented house, but I would like one of my own with an office. I’ve started looking for somewhere, I want it near where we were on Sandy Bay. It got to be secure, with the beach close by and near Belinda’s house. In my mind’s eye I see six en-suite bedrooms, air conditioning, a big pool and lots of garden. I think the twins would entertain themselves on the beach and in the pool!” “I think you are right,” replied Izzy.
Jinnie headed to her garden office where the first thing she did was transfer the promised money into her sister’s and parent’s accounts. She had a few things she wanted to do that morning, but she had promised her mum she would accompany her to Parliament that afternoon where her dad was to be presented as a new MP at the start of business at 2:30. Sir Nigel, being an ex-PM, had a full Commons photo-pass and access to most places. He even had a parking space in the underground car park, so he offered to drive them in and take them to meet Mr. Walsh in a tearoom afterwards.
But first Jinnie had a look at her Trattoria Trevi email where she found a message from Belinda with costs for adding a sandwich outlet to the Sybaritic and was amazed how cheap it was, much less than she had anticipated. She decided that she would like to prepare a little presentation for the board and to try it out first on Alberto, so she started a ‘to do’ list with a version of the new ‘Purchase Spreadsheet’ as the first item. Then she rang Alan to say she was officially back at work but had been advised to take it gently for a week or two. Alan said there was no rush about their chat, and they agreed an appointment in two weeks’ time.
Jinnie’s next job was to ring Ro and tell her she would be in on Crawley on Wednesday and Thursday, and could she let Nigel know as he needed to carry on with her SAP instructions. Ro said she would do that and that there was nothing urgent awaiting her. Ro continued saying everyone would be happy to see her back, especially Brian who was looking tired from doing two jobs. Jinnie finished her chat with Ro and had hardly put her mobile phone down when it buzzed and displayed Miranda’s name as the caller.
Miranda explained that she had been busy looking at the Wedding Dress Bargain’s business and agreed that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with the business, it was making a small profit, and the staff all were working hard and pulling their weight. Miranda said she agreed with Jinnie that it was too small and lacked anyone directing them. She told Jinnie she had been in Crawley at the weekend and seen a shop to lease in the County Mall shopping centre. It had previously been a dress shop, so it had display space and changing rooms. Miranda explained that she would like to take it on as a start and move Elspeth over to it as manager and the person in charge of taking measurements. But first it needed a quick makeover, it shouldn’t be too expensive, but she wanted to use a specialist shopfitter as her mum didn’t have experience in dress shops and was madly busy anyway.
Miranda continued saying that she would like to open several more shops, starting in the Southeast before moving up the country and to turn the unit they were currently using into a production centre. At the moment it should be easily able to cope with the work coming from one shop, but without the salesroom being there they should be able to expand with additional dressmakers, machinists and cutters. In fact, the upstairs of the unit was due to become available soon and it may be worth taking it up with an eye to the future. Jinnie thought for a moment and said, “I’m in Crawley on Wednesday, how about you pop over to the DKL office about one o’clock and we can chat about things and have a sandwich lunch? If you book an appointment with the agent for, say two thirty, I can get a look at the shop.”
***
Jinnie, her mum and Sir Nigel had places reserved in the Stranger’s gallery and had arrived a bit before the traditional start of the Commons week’s business at two-thirty on Monday afternoon. As usual the day started with prayers and then the Speaker said that he understood there was a newly elected MP to take the oath. The guests watched as two MPs escorted Mr Walsh down the chamber stopping several times to bow to the Speaker. He read the oath and signed the register before he passed the front bench, shook hands with the Mr. Speaker, who said a few words to him before he slipped out of the Chamber behind the Speaker.
“That’s it,” said Sir Nigel. “We can come back when James makes his maiden speech, that’s always a big occasion. But we have an appointment with him outside the Pugin Room for a cup of tea and a chat.” Mr. Walsh was waiting for them outside the room and showed his members pass that allowed him to take in up to three guests. However, Sir Nigel waved his pass, and the doorman greeted him like an old friend, and they stopped and chatted for a few moments before he joined them. After they had ordered tea and cakes, Sir Nigel said, “James, my tip for surviving in this place is always to be polite and pleasant to the house staff. They run this place and know it inside out. Upset them and they can make your life hell. Go out of your way be nice to them and they can make things easy for you.”
He continued, “Jock on the door, can always find you a table when it looks full in here, but only for people he likes. A hello to him and a smile goes miles, as it does with all the other staff whether someone in the Table Room or the woman who cleans your office. Learn their name, their partner’s name, give them a little gift on their birthday and Christmas. Nothing much, it’s the thought that counts. One evening when I was first here, I was working late in my office and the cleaner arrived. She busied herself and we chatted about how cold the office was, the heating here is very patchy. The next day there was an electric fire in the office.”
Mr. Walsh told them that he was lucky, because he was taking over a seat of an old party member the whips had allocated him the same office. Sir Nigel smiled and said, “When we first arrived it was chaos, the whips had to allocate offices, and didn’t know what were good or bad, some people got big offices with windows and some got inside offices with no natural light, you should have heard the moaning!” “I guess I am lucky,” replied Mr. Walsh, “arriving on my own and not at a general election. I have agreed to take over all the old staff here and Tamara has been wonderful sorting out my Finchley office, I feel I have hit the ground running.”
“Have you thought about your maiden speech yet?” asked Sir Nigel. “Not really,” replied Mr. Walsh. “I need to look at the Order Paper to see what’s coming up and then notify Mr. Speaker when I see something appropriate.” “That’s right,” replied Sir Nigel, “but you know that a maiden speech is not supposed to be controversial, and that there are several unwritten rules, like you must praise your predecessor even if you can’t stand them, it has to relate in some way to the debate in question and you have to talk about your constituency. You can see previous maiden speeches in your constituency at the Commons Library and they will supply you with up-to-date statistics.” “Now that’s worth knowing,” said Mr. Walsh.
***
Jinnie dropped the twins at school the next morning and then drove into Maple House. She purchased a cup of coffee on her way in and carried the cup up to her new office. It was just before nine and the office was filling rapidly with many people she had never seen before. She settled herself at her desk and turned on her PC. While it started up she sipped the coffee and decided it was quite decent. A middle-aged lady knocked and walked into Jinnie’s office. “Hello Dame Jinnie, I’m Janet Evans, Alberto’s secretary. He said you would be in this morning, and I should make you welcome. As you don’t have a permanent secretary, he suggested that you could share me until you find someone.”
“Good morning Janet,” said Jinnie, “firstly please call me Jinnie. Now I don’t think I will need a full-time secretary; I only will be in the office a couple of times a week at the most and I can type most of my own stuff. I do it in my home office already. Now if it’s OK with you and Alberto perhaps we can make the sharing permanent. I don’t think I will be a very difficult person to work with, provided you supply coffee from Alberto’s machine whenever I call for it and are happy to fetch me a sandwich at lunchtime from downstairs.” “I don’t think that will be too taxing,” said Janet.
Next in the office was Nigel, who waved to Jinnie and disappeared into his office, closely followed by a man clutching a pile of computer printouts. Jinnie opened her emails and skimmed the ‘inbox’. On a first read through of the 30 odd e-mails at least half were junk mail, a few more were her being cc into things she had no need to know about, like a note to everyone asking if there were any cricketers who wanted to make up a Sunday team for the summer. Catching Janet’s eye, she called her into the office and asked if it would be possible for her to keep an eye on her emails and get rid of the obvious rubbish. Janet said of course, she already did just that for Alberto, but it would need her to have access to Jinnie’s emails. Jinnie said, “I have no idea how to do that but I’m certain Nigel does.”
“Are you talking about me?” said a voice from the office door and Jinnie looked up to see Nigel stood there, cup of tea in hand. Jinnie explained what she wanted, and Nigel said “Easy” and it was set up in seconds. Janet left them and Nigel sat down on a visitor’s chair saying, “The view from your office is much better than mine, but then you are the boss. How do you feel about a SAP lesson?” “That would be good,” replied Jinnie, “but can we wait an hour or so? I need to do a few things first. There are a couple of emails I need to read and possibly reply to. I want a word with Alberto who I see is in his office, I would like five minutes with the directors who are in, and I think I should introduce myself to all the new staff I see in the office.”
Jinnie closed Alberto’s office door and sat down before saying, “I’ve had an idea.” Alberto laughed and replied, “I might have guessed, what is it this time?” Jinnie explained how she had been outside the closed Sybaritic canvassing for her father and how the people she had temporarily relieved had been moaning the only place for lunch was the Tally Ho pub and they were teetotal. Jinnie said she thought an Artisan Sandwich Shop was just what was needed. “So, you want us to open an Artisan Sandwich Shop in North Finchley?” asked Alberto.
“Well yes and no,” replied Jinnie. “What I was looking at was a building that was in the ideal place for a sandwich shop/cafe, but it was a successful restaurant. It got me thinking, the Sybaritic doesn’t open until 17:30 so the building is unused all day. An Artisan Sandwich Shop opens about 07:30 but it is closed by 15:30, could they share? I have had a chat with Brooke, as you know I want both businesses to now fall in her division, and she thinks it’s possible. The idea is we have two independent teams, under two managers. Brooke suggested that we may have to cut some covers from the Sybaritic to put in a sandwich counter, but perhaps it could be used as a serve-yourself salad bar in the evening. If we could sell side salads to customers, it could well make up for the covers we would lose.”
“My first reaction is I think it’s clever,” said Alberto, “but have you any idea of costs?” “A quick estimate says if the Artisan is as successful as all the others,” said Jinnie, “we will be quids in. Belinda has given me a quick cost for the conversion, and it is way less than I imagined. But I wanted to run it past you before I build a spreadsheet.” “I think you should build the spreadsheet,” said Alberto. “If it looks good, I will support you with a presentation to the board.” “There’s one thing you need to know,” added Jinnie. “If it works, I’ll be pushing for all future Sybaritics to also be joint Artisan Sandwich Shops.”
There were only six directors in, so rather than using the boardroom they gathered in Jinnie’s office. The only director Jinnie didn’t know was the new HR director and she was a functional director. Jinnie explained to them that she had called them together to thank them for keeping the business going so effectively while she had been off sick. She told them that she had big plans for expanding the business, particularly in the Caribbean with several new branches of TT Continental and a host of Aunty JoJo’s. In the U.K. there would be new Trattoria Trevis, Sybaritics, Artisan Sandwich Shops, and the rollout of Aunty JoJo’s was going to be speeded up.
Alberto said, “I like the idea but how are we going to fund that lot?” “Well,” said Jinnie, “we are currently cash-rich. I have spent the last few days reviewing our financial position and I am happy we can do this. But if we need more cash, I am now in a position to put a substantial sum into the business as a director’s loan. I need to talk to Brian to confirm things, but I think he would be suggesting a large special dividend at the next board meeting. I will counter that proposing we retain the money and invest it in expansion.”
Alberto called the office staff together in the open plan area and introduced Jinnie. Jinnie had decided that she was going to keep this short and sweet. She said, “Good morning everyone. I just wanted to introduce myself to you as I see that we have grown considerably since I was last in the office. As you probably know I was shot in a street robbery in Barbados and have been off recovering. Well, I am back now, and I have big plans for the group. You will soon be involved in a massive expansion of the group. I suspect that we are going to need many more staff and more office space. As you are aware we have recently migrated our systems to SAP and the beauty of it is it is highly scalable. So, we wouldn’t have to worry about systems slowing down like the old systems. Now I will probably only be in the office a couple of times a week, but please don’t hesitate in speaking to me if you have any problems. When I am here, I am available to you. Now I can’t give you any details of the expansion as the plans are still confidential, but I suspect some of you will be working on parts of it very soon. I ask you not to discuss what you are doing outside of the office as rivals would love to know. Now I am going to be in the office for the rest of the day and back again on Friday so please don’t hesitate in speaking to me if you have questions.”
***
Following Jinnie’s chat to the employees, Nigel started her instruction in using the new Enterprise Software. He explained his intention was to show her enough about the new systems so that she could check up on all the data she already could under the old software. Jinnie was quickly shown how to access financial data from the various divisions. Jinnie was pleased to find that within minutes she had learnt how to see the current sales of Artisan Sandwiches, not only as a division but also at the level of an individual branch. Nigel explained that this was the same for all branches and Jinnie learnt how to switch to Aunty JoJo’s (U.K.) and after looking at the numbers for a few minutes said, “No one told me we had opened a new branch of Aunty JoJo’s in Tottenham. But it seems to be doing a roaring trade this morning.”
“In your absence, Brooke has been pushing hard to expand the chain,” replied Nigel. “We seem to have hit a hot spot with the chain, and the board was quick to agree the Tottenham branch. If you weren’t told about it you won’t know that Brooke has us working on two more branches, at Harlesden and Hackney which should be ready later this month. I guess you need to talk with her.” “I’ll ring her later,” said Jinnie. “But I’m more than happy she has got on with things and didn’t wait for me to come back to work.”
Jinnie was soon familiar with how to access all the individual division’s figures even those from the Caribbean which were of course closed as it was still early morning there. But she could look at the previous day’s summaries which she was delighted to see were excellent. “Can I see our DKL sales,” asked Jinnie. “Yes,” answered Nigel, “we can see our sales for both TT Continental and Aunty JoJo’s kitchen. But I’m sure Jed will show you how to see the information from the other four kitchens on each site and the delivery business next time you are in Crawley.”
“How up-to-date is the data from the Caribbean?” Jinnie asked. “It’s not quite instant,” replied Nigel, “but it’s as good as, there is a tiny lag as the data goes from our servers in Barbados to the SAP servers via a satellite and then back down to the U.K. to either us or DKL, I reckon our data is about 1 second behind real-time and the data we get from DKL in Crawley is about 2 seconds as it comes via the SAP servers for a second time. But it is far better than I expected, and Brian loves it. He has instant oversight of sales in the U.K. and Caribbean.” “That’s tremendous,” said Jinnie. “I’m astounded. Will it slow down as we add more branches?” “It shouldn’t be any slower no matter how many branches we add, our contract with SAP says they will add bandwidth and computer power to keep response the same, but it might cost us more.” “I’m back in on Friday,” said Jinnie. “Can we carry on with these lessons then?” “It’s a date,” replied Nigel.
***
Jinnie was dreaming about a wonderful house on the beach at Sandy Bay when a little voice penetrated her consciousness. Millie was shouting, “Mummy, Mummy wake up, it’s Willie he is rolling on the floor in pain.” She leapt out of bed and ran to Willie’s room where she found him hunched up in pain and crying. Jinnie held him and asked what was wrong. Between sobs, he said he had woken up with a stomachache and it had got worse and moved to his side. Jinnie looked up at Paolo who had followed her and Millie into Willie’s room. He had his mobile in his hand and said, “I am calling an ambulance. You go and get dressed so you can go with him. Izzy and I will look after Millie, and we will join you as soon as we have got everything here sorted. Don’t forget your mobile.”
As Jinnie threw on some clothes she could hear one end of Paolo’s conversation with the ambulance service. “Yes, the patient is a four-year-old, nearly five-year-old boy.” “The pain had woken him up and it had started in the middle of his stomach and had moved to his right-hand side.” He said he would put the outside side light on to be ready to guide the paramedics in. Then she heard him warn the operator that armed police guarded the road to their house and they should expect to be stopped.
Jinnie grabbed her phone and rang the contact number she had for the police post. Barely holding herself together she told them that an emergency ambulance was coming to one of the twins and please not to hold it up. Jinnie realised she was cold and grabbed an anorak before heading back to Willie’s room where Izzy was holding his hand and talking to him, telling him an ambulance was coming to take him to hospital where they would make him better and take away the pain. Millie was standing watching, with worry all over her little face and tears running down her face.
Jinnie went over to Millie, kissed her and said, “Thank you for waking me, you did very well. Now go and get dressed, your jeans, blouse and a pullover. I’m going to go to the hospital with Willie. As soon as you are all ready, Daddy will bring you and Izzy over. Show Izzy how a big girl like you can get herself dressed”. In the distance Jinnie could hear the two-tone ambulance siren and soon the blue flashing lights were bouncing off the windows. Paolo led two paramedics and an armed policeman into the bedroom. The policeman stood to one side as the paramedics did some quick checks on Willie before one went to fetch an ambulance chair. Willie was quickly scooped up and before she knew what was going on they were in the back of the ambulance; Willie was being given gas and air and the policeman was asking where they were taking him. On being told Barnet General, the officer said, “There are two motorcycle officers at the end of the road who will escort you.”
In Chapter 12 – An emergency operation
© WorthingGooner 2024
