SIX

      The church was packed out for the funeral, for Brian had been a popular man, but Joe was worried about his mother-in-law, who looked gaunt and frail. He knew, though, however gruelling she found the occasion, she would carry it through to the bitter end for she was that type of person. And so would Gloria, for she had her mother’s backbone. He had such admiration for both of them as he helped them into the funeral car that led the cavalcade of motor vehicles back to the house for refreshments.

      He knew the two women might collapse when the mourners left. When the last one went home and Norah announced she was going to bed, Joe wasn’t surprised.

      ‘Aren’t you ready for bed yourself, my dear?’ he asked Gloria.

      ‘Not yet,’ Gloria said. ‘I will go up in a little while,’ but she barely waited until her mother had left the room before she asked, ‘What is it, Joe?’

      ‘What do you mean?’

      ‘You are holding something to yourself that I fear probably affects us all. Your eyes are quite haunted by something and you have been like this since you came back from the solicitor’s yesterday.’

      Joe shook his head. ‘You don’t want to hear this today.’

      ‘D’you know, Joe, I have the feeling that I won’t want to hear it any day,’ Gloria said, ‘but the burden isn’t one that you should carry on your own.’

      ‘Are you sure?’ Joe said. ‘It’s bad.’

      ‘Then tell me and let me share it,’ Gloria urged.

      Then Joe told her, and watched her eyes widen, her mouth tighten and heard her gasp with shock. Her voice was little above a whisper as she gasped, ‘You mean we have lost everything? The factory? Even the house? Everything?’

      ‘It certainly looks that way,’ Joe said. ‘I don’t know yet how much your father actually owed.’

      ‘He knew this,’ Gloria said. ‘When Daddy took his own life, he knew this.’

      ‘Your father wasn’t himself then.’

      ‘He couldn’t face it,’ Gloria said. ‘That was all. He took the easy way out and, whatever you say, Joe, he knew what he was doing all right when he put the house and the business at risk. He has left us destitute.’ She looked at him in desperation. ‘Joe, what are we going to do?’

      Joe put his arms around her and said, ‘Survive, my beautiful, darling girl. We won’t be the only people that this has happened to. I will find us a place to live and take a job. While I have a pair of hands on me, I will not let us starve, never fear.’

      Joe was to find that, as Brian’s partner, he was responsible for all his debts, which were considerable. In that first week after his funeral, he seemed to discover one shocking fact after the other.

      As the shares had begun to fall Brian had borrowed more and more money, probably hoping to make a killing when they rose again, and he’d used both the factory and then the house as collateral. Quite apart from this, he owed money to many traders in the town. Then the club contacted Joe about the quite excessive gambling debts from Brian’s card games. When he thought he had learned everything, he discovered to his horror that the last two batches of stock had not even been paid for. He had been unaware of this because although he did the accounts, it was left to Brian to pay the bills, and he had neglected to do this. All these creditors would have a claim on the estate.

      There was money in the bank to pay the workers for just one more week. Joe went to talk over the future with Bert.

      ‘There is no point going on making the components anyway,’ Bert said. ‘The industries that we were supplying have gone to the wall themselves. The factory and all in it are worthless. Pay the men off, sir, tell them to go home, and hope to God most of them find jobs elsewhere before too long.’

      ‘What about you?’

      ‘Well, I was coming up for retirement anyway,’ Bert said. ‘I have had good wages for years and invested much of it. In the old days I did make money from shares and although I lost money recently, I had cashed in most of my shares in September when they eventually rose again after the dip at the beginning of the month, so I am all right. Don’t you worry about me.’

      Most of the workforce knew what was coming too, Joe realised when he spoke to them, and though they were worried, they didn’t blame him. They knew whose fault it was.

      That didn’t help Joe much. He locked and barred the factory doors for the last time, shook Bert warmly by the hand and returned home an unhappy man.

      ‘Don’t feel too sorry for them,’ Gloria said when he told her how bad he felt about making his workforce redundant. ‘We’ll be in the same boat soon, and you might be competing with them for the few jobs there are about, for places are closing down every day.’

      ‘It’s a dreadful time for the whole of New York,’ Joe said. ‘I don’t know whether it will ever recover from this. It might be better for us to try our luck somewhere else, and yet we might be no better off. I think what has happened in New York is going to have repercussions throughout the whole of America.’

      ‘To move might totally unsettle Mother too,’ Gloria said. ‘I mean, she has lived here all her life, she knows nothing else, and Daddy and her parents are buried here.’

      ‘Yes,’ Joe said. ‘We must stay here and weather the storm the best way we can.’ He gave a sudden sigh. ‘Now I must speak to the indoor staff and I am dreading it.’

      ‘Have you money for their wages?’

      ‘Not in the bank,’ Joe said. ‘There is very little there, but I have got a stash in that biscuit tin you used to tease me about.’

      ‘Good job you took no notice of me then,’ Gloria said. ‘It’s money that the bank need know nothing about.’

      That was true, and Joe was glad that he was able to pay the wages of the staff for the last time, but he found telling them how bad things were very hard, although they knew that with Brian’s suicide the news would hardly be good.

      ‘I wish you all the very best,’ Joe told them. ‘I will of course give you all excellent references. I wish I could ask you to stay on longer, but we have to be out ourselves next week.’

      ‘Have you some place to live?’ Planchard asked.

      Joe nodded miserably. ‘A two-bedroomed apartment downtown.’

      Planchard