Julia stood anxiously beside him as he spoke into the phone, watching as he grew alarmed at what he was hearing. She saw him pale, caught his horrified whisper, ‘Sell’; started as his voice rose to a near shriek.
‘Yes, sell! For Christs sake, sell!’
When the person on the other end of the phone spoke again, apparently asking him to confirm his request, he repeated even louder, ‘Sell, damn it! Sell for what you can get!’
What Julia didn’t realize until later was that shares across the board were falling even as he was speaking. Even in the minute it took for them to ask for confirmation of his request and for him to repeat it, shares had fallen still further, things were moving that fast.
Several minutes later, Simon having paced the lounge continuously during that lull, waving his hand dismissively at her when she tried to say anything, the phone rang. Simon almost leaped at it, yanking the earpiece off its hook and making the stand shudder.
‘Yes?’
He listened intently, his expression unreadable, every now and again saying, ‘Yes’ and ‘I see’, his tone dropping. Finally he replaced the receiver, his face chalk-white. He looked bleakly across at Julia.
‘It’s all gone. I’m down tens of thousands and it’s still dropping.’
‘Oh, Simon,’ was all she could say but he seemed not to hear her.
‘The bank advised me to get rid of everything while I could, but they’re worthless. I’ve been wiped out!’ His voice had dropped to a whisper.
‘I’ve nothing left. It’s like a nightmare! How could it happen?’
His voice broke. Julia had never seen him as he was now, his expression completely stark, his eyes reddening, his lips palsied. Her heart almost breaking for him, she ran to take him in her arms and hold him, her own sobs stifling any words she might have spoken, had there been any to speak.
With the market continuing on its downward slide Julia came slowly to the conclusion that it was now up to her to try and pull things together. But could she? She remembered how she had helped her family back on to its feet. She’d been at her wits’ end then. Now she was going to have to go through it all again, this time with the man she loved more than anyone else in this world.
But there had been more fearful news. Hardly had the bank sold him out, as he saw it, than they called him in for a talk the next day. He had hardly slept all night and looked thoroughly drained. When he returned from his interview he resembled a dead man. Julia was reminded of her mother’s shocked and dazed expression when her father died.
‘They said how sorry they are, and that there are thousands of others like me, but they’ll no longer be able extend credit to even their most valued customers. It seems banks are in as much trouble as anyone, they’re down by millions.’ Despite his expression his voice was steady. ‘Our only course now,’ he went on, ‘is to sell all we can of the business.’
‘Simon, we can’t. This is our life, our only livelihood. We’ve worked so hard. There has to be another way.’
Devastated, she wanted to tell him that this wasn’t the end of the world, that somehow things would get better. In America it was being reported that some people had committed suicide because of the Crash, having lost everything. That was not going to happen to him. They hadn’t lost everything. They still had their business. They would limp on, somehow.
But there were overheads to consider and Simon was not slow in pointing them out. ‘There’s rental, the cost of keeping up our stock, paying our staff, the factory, the warehouse, they all want paying. Stationery, postage, lighting, heating, that exhibition you were planning. We were off to Paris, remember?’
With that he walked away, leaving her to mull over what he’d listed. He was wrong, she thought. They would make a go of things, if only on a more modest scale. But in his present frame of mind there was no talking to him. He had lost all interest in the business, leaving her to rack her brains as to how to cope. Over the following week he seemed to sink lower and lower. He was hardly sleeping, had let his work fall away and was constantly on the telephone looking for the slightest glimmer of hope of recouping his losses. It was all useless.
The second of November saw a little of the hysteria fade from Wall Street but the damage had been done. As autumn moved forward businesses and even industry reflected how serious things had become. Workers were being laid off by the thousand, unemployment was suddenly burgeoning again. With people watching the pennies the last thing they were looking for was frivolous clothing and dress shops were going to the wall. Julia too found herself struggling, seeing fewer and fewer orders coming in, the telephone ceasing to ring, buyers seeming to disappear. Even the wealthy, on whom the fashion industry relied, were being careful with their money. Many of them had been hit hard by the Crash, seeing their investments go up in smoke. According to the newspapers the world was falling into decline. Only France it seemed was still apparently thriving, a law unto itself. But that had not helped the London fashion trade to recover.
As they moved towards Christmas Julia felt that her world was slowly falling apart. So many times she was tempted to resort to the metal box she had hidden away under the floorboards of her bedroom. But she told herself that there was still hope; there was no need yet to use those savings. Even so the Slump, as it was beginning to be called, was beginning to bite as the world fell into the grip of depression.
‘It’s all newspaper talk!’ Ginny said when she came to visit. ‘The world will recover. The countries’ governments will
