‘How are you both managing?’ Julia asked, looking from Ginny to Robert.
He smiled and tilted his head. ‘We’re just about holding up. We’ll be OK if we can ride this out.’
‘And James still has his bank position,’ Ginny cut in.
‘Yes, thank goodness,’ said Julia, then asked about Stephanie.
Ginny let out a wry laugh. ‘You know Stephanie. She always lands on her feet somehow. I think they’re all right. She should get in touch with you more after all you’ve done for her, for all of us. But Stephanie has only ever been interested in Stephanie.’ To which Julia had to agree.
Around the end of November a tiny light was seen on the horizon as the US Government promised action to lift the world out of the decline. At home the Labour Government announced a forty-two-million-pound public works programme, hoping to lighten the situation. This initiative was seen as too little too late by sceptics, but it was encouraging all the same. Simon brightened for the first time since the disaster.
‘I knew something would be done,’ he said to Julia. ‘I think we’re probably going to make it. If we can just get over the next couple of months we’ll be back on track – a good start for this little one.’ He patted her midriff, which was already thickening slightly. It was the more noticeable as she had always been so slim. She laughed happily; it was good to have him acknowledging the baby. Catching his hand, she held it there and he bent to kiss her. It was so good to have him like this, to see him looking a little brighter. For his sake she hoped he was right about a better future for their child to be born into.
For all the Government’s promise about its public works programme, the New Year came and went with unemployment still rising.
‘We’re going to have to lay off most of our people,’ Julia told Simon in January. ‘And that might have to include Betty.’
Simon looked shocked. ‘Surely we can’t do that.’
‘If we want to keep afloat, we’ve no option.’ It would be one of the most painful things she had ever had to do. ‘If we don’t cut back somehow, we’ll be facing bankruptcy in a few months.’
Simon could only agree miserably. But it was becoming a downward spiral.
Julia had kept quiet about her own savings in case he thought to try and increase them by further investments. But even if she used them, there wouldn’t be enough to keep them in business.
‘How are we going to manage without machinists or cutters?’ he asked.
‘I’ll have to go back to doing much of the work myself.’
‘You can’t. Not in your condition.’
She gave a small laugh. ‘There are months of work left in me yet.’
‘Even so, where are you going to get samples made up in bulk?’ There were no factory outlets now as they had little money to pay them. She was down to using any means to induce shops to take her creations. Often she was turned away with apologies; shops too were finding it hard going. She knew she had to try or go under, but even she was losing heart. The cash she’d stowed away over the years would not be enough to keep them going for many months. Banks had long since been scared off lending money and Simon’s jewellery side of the business was almost non-existent now.
‘At least you can do the books,’ she had joked. They had been forced to dispense with their accountant a while ago to try and save some costs.
‘What books?’ he had joked in return, though it no longer seemed a joke.
She kept wondering how she would manage when she grew near her time, trying to bend and stretch to cut out patterns, her stomach impeding her. What then? Would she have the will to carry on?
And when the baby was born? What a world to bring a child into. They owed the bank thousands. If in the end they couldn’t pay, unable even to afford to rent out this place, they’d be forced to sell up. What would they get for a business in this financial climate? Whatever they realized, the bank would take all that was owed to them first. She and Simon would be finished. There was no place for sentiment in business.
Thirty
The New York Stock Exchange had lost over ten billion dollars. The richest country in the world had seen its lovely bubble burst. The dreams of big spenders were gone. The poor of America could only see themselves getting poorer as big businesses tightened their belts.
It was the same in Britain. Like so many others, Layzell Creations owed the bank thousands. Despite having once been a good customer, Simon found that his bank was in no position to offer kindness. Like many other private and public companies, it was feeling the draught. Simon was left fighting a losing battle.
‘If we do go bust,’ he said gloomily as spring brought less and less sign of their business ever getting back on its feet, ‘they’ll surely call in their loans. And then we’ll have had it.’
‘Something might turn up,’ Julia said desperately. ‘All we need is one good fashion show. I could organize one.’
‘And who will come to see it? Even the big fashion houses are starting to feel the pinch. What chance has a small establishment like ours?’
‘Just one small show might keep us going a bit longer,’ she said stubbornly but he shook his head.
‘It could be years before this country recovers, not to say the world. People think we had bad unemployment in the twenties. You just wait. This new decade will make all that seem like a tea dance!’
She hoped not. She’d known sudden descent into poverty before. She didn’t want to experience it again. All she prayed was that Ginny, Stephanie and James, together with their families, would all be able to weather the storm. Having come through their first
