Jeffrey Archer - As the Crow Flies

I stared at the miniature MC that hung from a gold chain around Cathy's neck, the missing link that Mr. Roberts always insisted had to exist. Cathy was still unable to recall a great deal of what had taken place in her life before she had come to work in London, but I agreed with Dr. Atkins' assessment that we should no longer waste our time with the past but let her concentrate on the future.

None of us doubted that when the time came to select a new chairman we wouldn't have far to look. The only problem I had to face now was how to convince the present chairman that perhaps the time had come for him to make way for someone younger.

"Do you have any strong feelings about upper limits, Chairman?" asked Cathy.

"No, no, it all makes good sense to me," said Charlie, sounding unusually vague.

"I'm not so sure that I'm able to agree with you on this occasion, Chairman," said Daphne.

"And why's that, Lady Wiltshire?" asked Charlie, smiling benignly.

"Partly because you haven't been listening to a single word that's been said for about the last ten minutes," Daphne declared, "how can you possibly know what you're agreeing to?"

"Guilty," said Charlie. "I confess my mind was on the other side of the world. However," he continued, "I did read Cathy's report on the subject and I suggest that the upper limits will have to vary from customer to customer, according to their credit rating, and we may well need to employ some new staff in future who have been trained in the City, rather than on the high street. Even so, I shall still require a detailed timetable if we're to consider seriously the introduction of such a scheme, which should be ready for presentation at the next board meeting. Is that possible, Miss Ross?" Charlie asked firmly, no doubt hoping that yet another example of his well-known "thinking on his feet" had released him from the jaws of Daphne.

"I will have everything ready for the board to consider at least a week before our next meeting."

"Thank you," said Charlie. "Item number six. Accounts."

I listened intently as Selwyn presented the latest figures, department by department. Once again I became aware of Cathy questioning and probing whenever she felt we were not being given a full enough explanation for any loss or innovation. She sounded like a better informed, more professional version of Daphne.

"What are we now projecting will be the profit forecast for the year 1965?" she asked.

"Approximately nine hundred and twenty thousand pounds," replied Selwyn, running his finger down a column of figures.

That was the moment when I realized what had to be achieved before I could convince Charlie he should announce his retirement.

"Thank you, Mr. Selwyn. Shall we move on to item number seven?" said Charlie. "The appointment of Miss Cathy Ross as deputy chairman of the board." Removing his glasses, Charlie added, "I don't feel it will be necessary for me to make a long speech on why—"

"Agreed," said Daphne. "It therefore gives me considerable pleasure to propose Miss Ross as deputy chairman of Trumper's."

"I should like to second that proposal," volunteered Arthur Selwyn. I could only smile at the sight of Charlie with his mouth wide open, but he still managed to ask, "Those in favor?" I raised my hand along with all but one director.

Cathy rose and gave a short acceptance speech in which she thanked the board for their confidence in her and assured them of her total commitment to the future of the company.

"Any other business?" asked Charlie, as he began stacking up his papers.

"Yes," replied Daphne. "Having had the pleasure of proposing Miss Ross as deputy chairman I feel the time has come for me to hand in my resignation."

"But why?" asked Charlie, looking shocked.

"Because I shall be sixty-five next month, Chairman, and I consider that to be a proper age to make way for younger blood."

"Then I can only say—" began Charlie and this time none of us tried to stop him making a long and heartfelt speech. When he had finished we all banged the table with the palm of a hand.

Once order had been regained, Daphne said simply, "Thank you. I could not have expected such dividends from a sixty-pound investment."

Within weeks of Daphne's leaving the company, whenever a sensitive issue came under discussion with the board Charlie would admit to me after the meeting was over that he missed the marchioness' particular brand of maddening common sense.

"And I wonder if you'll miss me and my nagging tongue quite as much when I hand in my resignation?" I asked.

"What are you talking about, Becky?"

"Only that I'll be sixty-five in a couple of years and intend to follow Daphne's example."

"But—"

"No buts, Charlie," I told him. "Number 1 now runs itself more than competently since I stole young Richard Cartwright from Christie's. In any case, Richard ought to be offered my place on the main board. After all, he's taking most of the responsibility without gaining any of the credit."

"Well, I'll tell you one thing," Charlie retorted defiantly, "I don't intend to resign, not even when I'm seventy."

During 1965, we opened three new departments: "Teenagers," which specialized in clothes and records with its own coffee shop attached; a travel agency, to cope with the growing demand for holidays abroad; and a gift department, "for the man who has everything." Cathy also recommended to the board that after almost twenty years perhaps the whole barrow needed a facelift. Charlie told me that he wasn't quite sure about such a radical upheaval, reminding me of the Fordian theory that one should never invest in anything that eats or needs to be repainted. But as Arthur Selwyn and the other directors seemed in no doubt that a refurbishment program was long overdue he only put up token resistance.

I kept to my promise—or threat as Charlie saw it—and resigned three months after my sixty-fifth birthday, leaving Charlie as the only director who still survived from the original board.

For the first time in my recollection, Charlie admitted that he was beginning to feel his age. Whenever he called for the minutes of the last meeting, he admitted, he would look around the boardroom table and realize how little he had in common with most of his fellow directors. The "bright new sparks," as Daphne referred to them, financiers, takeover specialists, and public relations men, all seemed somehow detached from the one element that had always mattered to Charlie—the customer.

They talked of deficit financing, loan option schemes and the necessity to have their own computer, often without bothering to seek Charlie's opinion.

"What can I do about it?" Charlie asked me after a board meeting at which he admitted he hardly opened his mouth.

He scowled when he heard my recommendation.

The following month Arthur Selwyn announced at the company's AGM that the pretax profits for 1966 would be 1,078,600. Charlie stared down at me as I nodded firmly from the front row. He waited for "Any other business" before he rose to tell the assembled company that he felt the time had come for him to resign. Someone else must push the barrow into the seventies, he suggested.

Everyone in the room looked shocked. They spoke of the end of an era, "no possible replacement," and said that it would never be the same again; but not one of them suggested Charlie should reconsider his position.

Twenty minutes later he declared the meeting closed.

It was Jessica Allen who told the new chairman that a Mr. Corcran had phoned from the Lefevre Gallery to say that he accepted her offer of one hundred and ten thousand pounds.

Cathy smiled. "Now all we have to do is agree on a date and send out the invitations. Can you get Becky on the line for me, Jessica?"