Deadlight-Hall(53)

‘If you could make it double-fronted,’ said Godfrey, ‘that’d make really lovely premises. The thing to do is to get a good builder to take a look. You don’t want to go smashing sledge hammers into supporting walls and bring the upper floors and the roof crashing in.’

Nell remembered Michael’s serene ghosts, and said, no, certainly she did not want to do that.

‘I tell you who’d be good to ask about the work,’ said Godfrey. ‘Jack Hurst. His firm have been builders in Oxford for ages – he did that archway for me last year. Wait a bit, I’ve got his phone number somewhere.’

Nell took the phone number gratefully, and went back to her own shop to phone the bank, pleased to be told that someone could see her later that day. After the meeting she would tell Michael what she was considering. Would she find she could open up to him about the finances of it all? Money was one of the few things they never really discussed. When, two years earlier, it had been decided that she would move to Oxford and she had found the Quire Court premises, he had made a cautious enquiry as to how she would be financing the move – doing so with a diffidence that suggested he found the subject a difficult, unfamiliar one. Nell, who had still been finding her way through a number of minefields after her husband’s death, but who had been determined to be independent, had said, rather abruptly, that she was fine, thank you, there was enough dosh in the kitty.

Michael had said, ‘Well, if not …’ and left it at that.

Remembering this, Nell wondered if he would make a similar semi-offer when she told him about Godfrey’s shop, and if so what she would do about it. To have a business partnership of any kind would cement their relationship in a rather odd way. Not matrimonially but fiscally. Always, of course, assuming he had money to invest and that she had not misunderstood that previous conversation. She had no idea what a don’s salary was, or what he earned from the Wilberforce books.

How likely was it that he had been subconsciously or subliminally thinking the two of them might eventually get together under one roof? Nell had a sudden tantalizing image of a tall old house somewhere on the city’s outskirts, not too far from Oriel or Quire Court, filled with books and music, often invaded by Michael’s colleagues or even his students. It was a good image, but Nell was not sure if it was a workable one. Michael’s place seemed to be his rooms at Oriel. Her place seemed to be here, in Quire Court.

She locked up and went out to the little house behind the shop to put on a business-looking suit for the meeting with the bank. Assuming it was all favourable, when she got back she would telephone Godfrey’s builder, Jack Hurst, and ask him to give her a quote for the work.

She was perfectly prepared for the bank to try to dissuade her from cashing in the bonds, and to counsel extreme caution over the proposed plan. What she was not prepared for – what she angrily realized she ought to have foreseen – was that the bonds, if cashed before their expiry date which was two years away, would not yield anywhere near as much as she had calculated. There were penalties for early redemption and, to compound the problem, the bonds themselves had suffered from the disastrous economic situation of the last couple of years.

‘They’d recover if you left them,’ said the Small Business Adviser, whom Nell was trying not to think looked as if she had just left school. ‘The interest would roll over and mount up in the last twelve months, like endowment mortgages used to. See now, going on the figures you’ve given me, you’re several thousand short of the amount you want. It’s not a huge sum, though, and it’s not necessarily unreachable. We could see if a short-term business loan might be accepted. To cover that shortfall.’

‘I’m a bit hesitant about that. If I’m going to draw on these bonds and have a loan on top …’

‘Yes, you wouldn’t have much of a safety net, would you?’ She nodded, obviously understanding this, and flipped to another screen on her laptop. ‘You’ve got that separate fund for your daughter with us as well, haven’t you?’

‘Yes, but that’s cast-iron untouchable. I used one of my husband’s insurance payouts for that.’

‘It’s looking fairly good,’ said the adviser, turning the laptop so Nell could see. ‘Enough to put her through university comfortably, or provide a deposit for a house.’

‘Or backpack round the world,’ said Nell, smiling.

‘And why not? I’ll do a printout for you so you’ve got up-to-date figures for that.’ She set the printer whirring, then said, ‘I like your concept for these two shops, though. I think it could be profitable, and I hope we can work something out for you. That idea you’ve got about using the annexe behind your own shop for weekend courses – I love that.’