CHAPTER 1
As the world financial crisis bit deep at local level, clients were cutting back and new business had slumped, hitting the business of accountancy partnership Brown and Dempsey. Smiles and some cheer persisted as did the worry lines on faces each time someone in the offices cleared his or her desk.
Thompson Harris felt the threat personally when called into the managing partner's office for coffee. He left the meeting, face ashen. As last senior accountant to be hired, he'd been told he would be losing his senior PA and was asked to hand over his company-lease car at the end of the day.
"Am I fired David? Give it to me straight."
"Let's say you remain hanging on Thompson. Times are grim and the cutbacks because of recession will be extending well past you. I'm sorry buddy but you know I have to do what I'm doing."
Thompson decided it was useless fighting. He'd have to adapt to the times. What the partners were doing was picking off the weakest links. Being last on he'd been given core business but he'd failed to add cream... the new clients he had been expected to generate personally. In the three months he'd been on board he'd not added one major client to his personal list and only two minnows.
Thompson's mouth tightened when he arrived back at his office to find his PA Kelly Copeland clearing her desk. God David and his razor gang were efficient.
"Kelly I'm..."
"Don't. It's okay Tommy. It's not your fault."
He waited helplessly, watching her finish.
"Well it was a real pleasure working with you Tommy and I really mean that. I like you more than you realize. I've been told a junior clerk will be drafted to replace me here."
"Her stay will be temporary. I'll be pushed out soon."
Kelly bit her lip and gave Thompson and look he'd not seen on her face before. Sympathy? Perhaps but he'd guess it reflected genuine concern. She was finished packing and held out her hand and he moved in rather like clockwork, his mind slowed right down and emotions static, to shake her hand. Then Kelly gave a little cry and raised her lips and Thompson worked in a kiss to her cheek. That was proper but his also pulled her a little tighter against him, thinking she'd appreciate that. Other than that he didn't know what to think.
"Goodbye," Kelly said thickly, and left with her cardboard box topped by her handbag, not looking back. Thompson heard her sniffing.
He left the office early at 4:30 in contrast to his usual departure time of 6:00. He thought of leaving his car keys on his desk but decided that was the action of a loser and so handed them smiling to Dave Dempsey's PA who said grimly, "Thank you Tommy."
Eye contact between them was very short.
Thompson knew he was simply one of a long line of victims of the economic squeeze but that didn't make him feel any better. He paid off the cabbie and entered the house. The house would have to go because they'd be unable to keep up with the mortgage repayments.
Melanie a schoolteacher was already home. She smiled at his early arrival time but her greeting died on her lips when she caught the look on his face.
Thank god there were no kids yet, thought Thomson as he told Melanie he was being eased out of his job and what had happened that afternoon.
She burst into tears and ran from him.
Well that figured.
Two months later the jobless Thompson left that house, now empty, for the final time and took the keys in to his attorney. The property had sold, for a much better price than expected. He was still one of the victims of economic depression though, having lost his home, his wife and twelve days earlier his job. Melanie was living back home with her parents and had filed for divorce. The only surprise about that was she'd filed without giving him a chance but then the heartless bitch would believe she saw the writing on the wall. He'd never thought they were suited but she'd probably thought she'd attached to the only guy of substance she'd managed to find and had pushed successfully for marriage. Well after the split of assets she'd find as a divorcee she was much better off financially than when she'd proposed marriage, very much better off.
* * *
An only child, with his mom deceased and his father remarried and living in France, Thompson had struggled with loneliness at first. He purchased a reasonably cheap studio apartment, figuring he could be out of work for perhaps two years so had budgeted accordingly and had taken over his medical insurance plan from the company.
It was a ground floor studio apartment of approximately 600 sq ft comprising the main room, a granite finished bathroom and a tiny separate kitchen. The small dining alcove in the main room was now an office. He was attempting to write a handbook, 'Finance for New-Start Business Operators'. A publisher had expressed 'possible interest'. Thompson was even smiling again and knew his emotional crisis was passing and he was healing.
The block had twenty-eight units and already Thompson knew most occupants at least vaguely and was reasonably friendly with more than a dozen of them. For the first time in his life he was developing relationships with people as if his life depended on it. As a result he was earning petty cash from some of the occupants helping them with their tax including two couples operating 'cash and carry' businesses. One of his older female associates had offered sex but he'd taken a rain check on that. With his confidence returned Thompson knew he only had to wait and keep active and something would turn up.
It did.
"Hi Tommy," said a sweet-sounding voice.
Thompson was out in the tiny garden in front of his apartment that gave direct access to the street. He was dressed just in shorts, weeding around cabbages and wondering when the first one would be ready to harvest. He knew the voice.
"Hi Kelly," he grinned, straightening up.
She smiled. "You never returned my calls so I asked David's PA for your address."
"Thank you for those calls. I listened to each one of them several times. But it didn't seem right to respond."
"I then stopped calling."
"Yes, as other callers did, not that there were many. Unless the message had the suggestion of a job offer, and none ever did, I just shrugged and turned away."
"Being jobless is not a criminal offense Tommy."
"I have accepted that now and actually have become cheerful again. We humans are capable of being very adaptive if we try. Are you here for sex?"
"Tommy please."
Kelly had lost her smile but she stood firm. Thompson felt ashamed.
"I apologize. If you can believe it I didn't mean that. I... Oh dammit. Please come through for coffee."
"I think I understand Tommy," Kelly said, coming through the gate and offering her cheek.
It was kissed lightly and old Mr Bentley went by with his dog Ruff-Ruff and called, "Good morning Tommy. Good morning miss. You are bound to brighten young Tommy's day."
"Mr Bentley this is Miss Copeland, a former work associate of mine."
"Hi Miss Copeland. We asked Tommy to be chairman of our Residents' Committee but he turned us down. I'm telling you that to indicate just how popular he is around here although he's only been with us three months."
"That's interesting to know. I love the look of your Wheaten Terrier Mr Bentley."
"Thank you Miss. I'll tell Ruff-Ruff he's admired when we get to the park seat."
Kelly took Thompson's arm as they walked up the path and inside. "So you are Mr Popular around here?"
"They are good people. I turned down the deputation explaining that the principal role of the chairman was to deal with complaints and that I desired to escape negativism for the moment. They understood and were very good about it, so good in fact that I felt I was gaining a de facto family."
"Oh that's lovely for you Tommy. David's PA indicated your wife is divorcing you."
"Well who could really blame her except me? But enough of that, coffee? Don't walk through the far wall; the apartment is rather small."
"Why it's lovely Tommy. This hardwood floor is pristine."
"It was a mess when I arrived. Teddy our maintenance guy told me how to bring it back into shape. I was very interested and tried my hand at it and continued on to paint the kitchen and then modernized the bathroom. I had not worked like that before and that made it hard going and I made mistakes. Teddy showed me how to undo what he called my fuck-ups."
Kelly laughed and said Teddy sounded quite a character.
"True, he spent most of his life at sea and came ashore broke and with an artificial leg, having lost it in an accident when drunk at a port in China. He's only just turned sixty but looks fifteen to twenty years older."
