This Time Next Year(96)

Minnie found herself telling her parents about the idea, even going into detail about how she would make it work. She didn’t usually talk to her parents about ideas like this; normally she wouldn’t be able to get to the end of a sentence before her mother pointed out a flaw in the plan. But today, sitting on the step in their garden, both her parents listened to her talk until she had finished. When she ran out of things to say, she looked back and forth between them.

‘Sorry, was I going on a bit?’ she said.

‘Sounds like you have to do it, Minnie,’ her mother said softly. ‘I’m sorry if I wasn’t supportive enough before. I didn’t see how important it was to you.’ Her mother reached over and put her hand on Minnie’s knee. ‘Maybe I didn’t always say the right things, you know. No one gives you a manual on how to be a mother.’

She looked pained at the effort of getting the apology out. Minnie patted her hand.

‘I know, Mum, it’s OK.’

‘So, you’re going to do it then?’ her mum asked, wiping the corner of her eye with a finger.

Minnie wrinkled her nose as she shook her head. ‘I should have thought of it earlier. I couldn’t get the funds together now.’

‘Couldn’t you get an investor, someone who believed in the idea?’ asked her mum.

‘Dragons’ Den,’ said her dad, his eyebrows shooting halfway up his bald forehead.

‘I didn’t invent pies, Dad.’ Minnie pushed her hair back behind her ears. They were both egging her on now, making her think it might be possible. ‘Even if I could persuade some investor to come in, I’d need some seed capital myself. I’d have to be invested too.’

‘How much we talking?’ asked Dad.

‘How much what?’ said Minnie.

‘For this seeding capital?

Minnie shook her head. ‘At least ten grand, I don’t know. More than you’ve got lying down the back of the sofa, Dad, but thank you.’

She leant into his arm, resting her head on his shoulder. It didn’t matter if the new pie plan didn’t happen. Just talking like this with her parents, where they both listened, and believed she might be able to do something – that meant so much.

‘Come on,’ said her dad, removing her head from his shoulder so he could stand up.

‘We’re done, are we? You’re not going to help me dig that concrete base out?’ asked her mum.

‘Not today, my love, we need a drill to break it up first. Minnie Moo, I want to show you something.’

‘Take your shoes off!’ her mum cried as they made to go in through the kitchen.

Dad led Minnie through to the lounge and pointed up at her favourite clock, the one she had given him – Coggie. Minnie looked at him, perplexed.

‘I remember the day you bought this for me. You lugged it back in your school bag all the way on the bus, must have weighed a ton. I bet there were a million other things you could have spent your pocket money on back then.’ He looked up at the clock with rheumy eyes.

‘Well, it looked like a piece of junk then. You polished it up, Dad.’

‘Only four like this left in the world, according to the internet. Apparently it’s worth four thousand quid now I got it working.’

‘No!’ Minnie cried, flinging a hand over her mouth.

‘And there’s a few others around the house that collectors would like to get their mitts on.’

‘You can’t sell your clocks, Dad, not for me.’ Minnie shook her head slowly. ‘You spent so much time on them.’

Her dad nodded solemnly.

‘Maybe I spent too much time on them, didn’t spend enough time on what’s important.’ He stretched his large hand around his chin and squeezed his cheeks together. ‘No regrets though, hey.’ He paused. ‘I see so much of myself in you, Minnie Moo,’ he said, putting an arm around her shoulder. ‘If you’ve got a chance, I want you to have it.’

They stood watching Coggie for a moment.

‘Does Mum know they’re valuable?’

‘Does she heck!’ her dad laughed. ‘I always told her they were junk. She’s going to go category nine ballistic.’

He rubbed both palms up and down across his eyes. Minnie couldn’t believe her dad had been sitting on a small fortune all this time, or that he’d just offered to give it to her. Her heart swelled with affection for both her parents.

‘We’ll just make sure Mum’s in one of her “gardening moods” before we say anything, shall we?’ said her dad.





20 October 2020





Her laptop was charged, the presentation loaded, and Minnie was wearing a new black jumpsuit paired with red lipstick. One of the Instagram influencers she followed had worn an outfit just like this. She’d decided at 2 a.m. last Monday that this was the look that was going to win her the investment.

She’d spent the last few weeks racking her brains as to how she could raise the rest of the money needed to set up her ‘Buy a Pie, Give a Pie’ scheme. It was Greg’s words that rang in her head – ‘Contacts, contacts, contacts.’ Who did she know who was well connected in the corporate catering world? Lucy Donohue, that’s who.

Greg had told her that, since leaving the newspaper, Lucy had a new job running corporate catering for Lexon, one of the biggest banks in London. She was exactly the person Minnie needed to get behind her idea. In the past, Minnie would have just assumed that someone like Lucy would never give her a meeting, would never take her seriously. She would have been too intimidated to ask. Now Minnie felt differently. It would probably come to nothing, but she had to try. No regrets.