"Aaah, so that's what a warrant does," Hari says.
Gemma nods.
"Remind me why we issued the fuckers in the first place?" Agnes asks, then gets back to gnawing at a piece of liquorice root.
"Because it lowered the interest rate on our first loan by almost two percent a year."
"Cool. And what percentage of the warrants do those wankers at Montage need to exercise before they've got us over a barrel?"
"Just over a half. I'm so sorry I..."
"Stop saying that," Agnes snaps, then gets back to chewing her liquorice stick.
Apparently she'll have to quit even that if her blood pressure goes up. Every Queen Bee has been praying her own private deity that it never does, because to say that Agnes is struggling with the combination of pregnancy hormones, all-day morning sickness and nicotine withdrawal would be the understatement of the Millennium. Right now it feels to Gemma as if that disgusting piece of chewed up wood is all that stands between Agnes and a complete meltdown.
And who could blame her? Certainly not Gemma. She bites her lips and looks down. Agnes is actually taking this remarkably calmly. Especially considering she's also not allowed to stand on her head anymore. But by the time Gemma looks back up, her business partner is almost tearful:
"I'm sorry I'm such a jerk, Gemma! I didn't mean to snap, I love you so much! It's all my fault, really. I shouldn't have signed that purchase order in the first place. And I pressurised you and then you had to snog Frank..."
For the last time I never snogged Frank! Gemma feels like saying, but instead she goes with:
"Agnes, you didn't pressurise me, I'm the one who shouldn't have signed…"
And then th-wack: full hormone swing again. There's been about twelve of them in the time it's taken Gemma to fess up and explain Queen Bees' sorry predicament. This latest one takes poor Agnes from unaccountably tearful to trembling with wrath:
"Fuck that, Gem! Fuck it, if anyone's to blame it's that fucking tosser Frank. I swear next time I see him I'm gonna rip his tiny balls off and…"
"Can I help?" Hari asks. Her even-better-than-usual mood has proved amazingly resilient to the news.
What a godsend that's been.
"Tempting though that is, ladies, we're going to have to come up with something even better than slow-boiling Frank's balls in front of his pretty eyes," Gemma reminds them, "So go on, shoot. Remember you two are queens, and there are no dumb ideas."
"All three of us are queens," Agnes corrects her.
"Thank you," nods the newly self-appointed Queen of Epic Fails.
"Sssooo," Hari says with a small finger by her mouth, "why don't you buy the warrants, boss? I mean your family's rich, right?"
Gemma smiles:
"It's a bit more complicated than that, Hari. I can't actually take money out of the Trust, I'd have to borrow against it and then, yes, I suppose I could just about manage to buy half the warrants. But it's the French warehouse guys we've got to worry about paying. I'm not sure all the Woodhouses put together could do that."
"Can't we just back out of buying it?"
"It's iron clad, I checked again with our Queen of Legal, Montage really did their homework."
"Fuckers," Agnes spits in between chewing on her stick.
"Clever ones too."
"So if we need their money," Hari says, "but we don't want them to buy the warrants, we just need them to hand over the money before they buy the warrants, but after you buy the warrants."
Well, yes, if only… Agnes' hormones shoot Hari a less than queenly glare.
"That's right, Hari," Gemma says gently, "But that's precisely why Montage keep stalling. They're not going to commit their own cash until they know for sure they can vote us out using the warrants too."
"Can't we just get someone else to invest?"
Can't we just? Gemma takes a moment to remind herself: she's the one who said there weren't going to be any dumb ideas:
"Montage were the only one who showed any real interest, Hari, and now we know why," she says bitterly. "Our margins are ridiculous: if we had to pay for this warehouse out of our own earnings right now it'd take about twenty-five years."
"Pu-tainn," Agnes says, "Fuck, sister, I'm real sorry I made you sign up to this."
"You didn't, it wasn't your fault, OK? We both got carried away. Remember they did give us an incredible price."
Agnes sighs, then takes the liquorice root out of her mouth again:
"Are we actually allowed to ask anyone else to invest? Or do we have some… exclusivity clause or something with Montage?"
"We did to start with yes, a couple of weeks… I guess technically, that's probably run out by now, what with that dreadful fake jet ski accident."
"Frank really is so evil!" Hari says, stamping her foot, "I'm so sorry you had to kiss him, boss. Vikas can't help it he's gay but Frank…"
"Thanks, Hari. Anyway, like I said I don't see why anyone else should suddenly want to invest in us. I'm going to try and boost our profitability but it's going to take a year before we see any real difference and I'm not sure we can keep Geoff's daughter in a coma that long. Plus the warehouse guys will want to deliver and get their cash."
Silence, then:
"I know!" Agnes says, wagging her liquorice stick at Gemma with excitement, "What if we went back to Nicky Lam? What if we explained we'd wangled this amazing deal on the warehouse and we're going to improve our margins? Surely that increases the value of our business to her, right?"
"You're right, it does, but people like her don't give people like us second chances, Agnes. I'm afraid we blew it."
More silence, during which Gemma suddenly feels utterly deflated. Agnes and Hari have been incredibly composed and supportive, considering. Contrite, even, in Agnes' case, which really is above and beyond the call of friendship.
Hence, as Gemma's just realised, she had foolishly allowed herself a moment of hope. She had dared to dream that, together, they could resolve this. But that's all it was, a dream, and oh, at times like these how:
"I miss Dylan! Sorry, queens, I know it's stupid and totally irrelevant but… no, forget it. Forget it, I'm sorry, forget I said that, I'm such an idiot."
"Hey, if what we needed was to joke, blag, bluff or bullshit our way out of this, he'd be just the guy," Agnes says, followed by, "I'm sorry, girlfriend, you'll be OK, I promise. All is well, right?"
"Of course, thanks," Gemma lies. She should never have mentioned him, it's only made her feel worse and it's side-tracking everyone else. Keeping Agnes focused was hard enough before she went and got herself pregnant.
"Bluffing might work," Hari says.
"What?"
"Or maybe that would be more like bullshiting, I don't know," Hari says, with that way she has of frowning at the ceiling when she's thinking out loud, which she all too often does: "but all we need is to get Montage to believe that we're about to sign with someone else, right? It doesn't have to be true. Just, you know, make believe, like the jet-ski accident."
Agnes and Gemma stare at each other. It's not a bad idea, not at all, but:
"We can't just invent some Venture Capital fund, it's too a small world, everyone knows everyone else. We'd have to convince a bona fide firm to play along and I don't think anyone would put their reputation on the line for us."
Damn, so close. That could almost have been fun. To screw Montage in the exact same way they'd screwed Queen Bees, by getting them to sign just a few days too early. And to get their cash at the end of it too... To get Montage, in other words, to do precisely what they've been promising to do all along, except they've been lying. That would be neat, yes. Really neat.
Hari is still daydreaming out loud:
"Imagine if we knew someone who looked like a Venture Capitalist, like when Candy falls for Anthony because he looks so exactly like the Prince of the Hills, except of course he couldn't be because of the age difference but, you know, that's the only reason Candy falls for Anthony instead of Alastair, who's just as nice and probably better fun, and of course that's because Albert was really Anthony's uncle, but we don't find this out until the end."
"Wow, there really is an anime scenario for every situation in life," Gemma says with a bitter irony which, thankfully, goes right over the top of Hari's head.
"Oh, yes! It's just like Friends in that respect - and just as fattist. But imagine, if we knew someone, like at the grocery store or the gym or somewhere who looked just like, you know some really famous VC, like…"
"Nicky Lam!" Gemma and Agnes gasp at the exact same time and stare at each other. Agnes's liquorice stick drops to the floor, they stare at each other a moment longer and both cry:
"Jane Fairfax! Hari! Oh, Hari you are a genius!"
Hari looks from one of her bosses to the other, a genius as yet misunderstood even by herself.
"Jane Fairfax!" Gemma says, "Hari: two decades older, and she'd be the spit of Nicky Lam and then..."
"And then we could get her to pose as Nicky and to leak to Frank accidentally-on-purpose that she's offering us better money than they are," Agnes fills in, "Given her experience with Frank, I'd say Jane's going to be more than willing to help us kick him where it hurts."
"In the carry," Gemma says.
"Is that posh slang for his junk?" Agnes asks.
"No, it's Venture Capital slang for cashing in your bonus."
"Great: let's make sure he doesn't get one of those for a while."
"Oooh, fun! Where do we start?" Hari asks, clapping her hands.
"Why don't you get on to your friends in dress-up and make-up, Hari? Show them pictures of Jane and Nicky and see what they could do. Agnes, since you have Jane's email, maybe you can get in touch and explain? Tell her to call me anytime if she wants any further assurance that I had nothing to do with Frank."
"OK, will do,"
"And we'll reconvene to arrange the sting itself once I've actually managed to buy those warrants. Better get onto to Rob - nothing happens until then."
"Is your Dad going to be OK with you doing that?" Agnes asks.
"Probably not, but thankfully it's not up to him."
"Because what are we?" Hari asks.
"We are queens!
x
"Hi, Daddy!"
"Why hello, Gemma," Mr Woodhouse says, smiling up from his desk.
"Oh hi, Mrs Weston," Gemma says, to her old nanny standing behind him. Not that Mrs Weston is so very old, probably only late fifties, but she's not been Gemma's nanny for over a decade.
"Hello, Gemma, we were just going over the photos of the golf trip, for the club's website. But I can come back for that another day, can't I Mr Woodhouse?"
"Absolutely, Mrs Weston, absolutely, I'll call you in the morning to set something up."
"It's so nice to see you again, Mrs Weston, you look very well."
"Thank you, you too, Gemma. But I'd better go. Goodbye, Sweetie!"
Both Gemma and her father smile after her as the leaves. Mrs Weston hasn't called Gemma Sweetie in ages.
"She really is looking well, did she enjoy her first trip with the golf club?" Gemma asks when Mrs Weston has left.
"I believe she did enjoy herself, yes. She's getting quite good at it, you know, golf."
"Excellent. It's nice that she's getting on at the club. I believe even her accent is getting better for it," Gemma says as she settles into her Chesterfield.
Mrs Weston, originally from Poland, joined the household at Heath View Lodge as a tragically young Falklands war widow in 1984. She's been a devoted live-in nanny to both Isabella and Gemma, then a diligent housekeeper to their father. But Gemma did worry about her when she finally retired and moved out a few years ago, so she got her father to co-opt her into his golf club. This early retirement regime is clearly working wonders both for Mrs Weston's complexion, and for her vowels.
With Mrs Weston gone, Gemma's father is bringing her a small glass of Vermouth. It's time to face the music:
"Daddy?"
"Yes, my darling."
"Daddy, I'm going to be taking out a mortgage on the trust."
"I… well, that's wonderful news, darling, but I didn't know you were moving out."
"I'm not, if that's OK with you. I need the money to rescue Queen Bees."
x
Mr Woodhouse is astonished, once Gemma finishes explaining, to discover that he's already drained his glass. Gemma hasn't touched hers. He's not seen her in such a state since she came bawling back from her first day at school, holding wet panties inside a plastic bag in one hand, and a piece of card with her name and a rabbit stamp on it in the other.
Things were so much easier when she still howled and cried - and threw herself into his arms to do it. Mr Woodhouse never could bring himself to throw away the blue check Hermes tie she ruined that day.
Gemma is a young lady now, before she knows it she will be a lady full stop. She no longer cries in front of people, but hides away and starves herself instead. The only thing that's not changed is that she is still far too quick to blame herself while others shirk their share of responsibilities. That Miss Taylor back then was only a newly qualified teacher after all, far too young to be in charge of a whole reception class. Gemma had never had any accidents at home.
As Mr Woodhouse didn't mind telling Ms Taylor and the Headmaster the next day.
This fresh misfortune with Queen Bees plainly is not of his daughter's doing either: Agnes rushed her into a bad decision. It's great news about the old girl getting up the duff, but she was never the most level-headed. And that this young Frenchman isn't to be trusted is hardly surprising in hindsight. The French are notoriously untrustworthy. Elegant, but too fond of intrigue, and no good at business. If Gemma went wrong anywhere, it was only in not going with the Germans instead, as he'd suggested.
"Now now, Gemma," he says.
x
Gemma looks up hopefully.
"Daddy?"
He doesn't look as cross as she expected him to, or indeed as she deserves for him to be. No Woodhouse has ever borrowed against the trust other than to purchase real estate. Strictly speaking the French warehouse is real estate, of course, but it's not real estate that is going to pass down future Woodhouse generations as part of said trust. Besides she's not buying the warehouse, she's buying the warrants, that might just enable Queen Bees to wheedle the cash, to maybe pay for the warehouse.
"Gemma, darling. I do wish you didn't get yourself in such a state over it. This isn't your fault!"
"Oh but it is, Daddy. Of course it is."
Mr Woodhouse shakes his head at her, but she's not scared. Well, not of him anyway.
"What about Agnes' part in all this? What about Frank?"
"Neither of them is in charge of finances at Queen Bees, I am. Or I was supposed to be."
"You shouldn't have to do this. Why you? There's got to be a better solution."
"We've tried, Daddy. We have to buy this warehouse now. And it's going to be great, once it's up and running. It's really very cheap for what it's going to do for us, remember, a real bargain."
x
Mr Woodhouse stares at his daughter. Anyone who knew her less well than he does would think that she was happy. Still:
"I don't see why we should be paying for it, darling," Mr Woodhouse says, and sees Gemma flinch.
"You." Mr Woodhouse corrects himself, "I don't see why you should be paying for it. Of course your share of the trust is for you to do with as you wish."
She nods, as regally as she did thirty years ago in her bare tummy and bloomers. If she still ate rusks - if only she would! - she would be wagging one at him right now.
"But really, why isn't anyone else stumping up any cash?"
"Dad, you know Agnes won't have anything left to inherit by the time her Dad leaves his next wife. And she's starting her own family now. And Ade hardly earns anything."
"Well, what about…?"
"Who else, Daddy? Who else can we ask? Besides it's my bad, so it's on me to fix it."
"What ever makes you think this will? I'm sorry to say this, darling, but yours is rather a mad cap plan. It doesn't make any sense! You buy back those warrants, then what? If you fail to fool Montage you're going to be left carrying the can, darling, just you. With your inheritance gone, with extra shares in a company you don't control, or that goes bankrupt: what's the point of that? Is that what Colonel Woodhouse died in Trivandrum for?"
x
"He made a choice, he could have died of good old TB right here if he'd been less greedy," Gemma says, then bites her lips.
She's thought this many a time, but she's never even dared dream of saying it out loud. After all her lovely furniture was the Colonel's wife's, and she doesn't need reminding of its cost. Colonel Woodhouse himself never made it back from India. Malaria got him just as they finished packing said furniture.
Gemma sees that she's upset her father now, but he upset her first. Of course she's aware that the plan is reckless, painfully so. Of course she knows she might come out of this with nothing, but:
"Daddy, I've already lost Dylan because I was too proud and too stupid to fight for him. So as far as I'm concerned, the worst has already happened. If I have to lose Queen Bees as well, then I might have to go and work for some bank again, and I might have to save for my own mortgage one day, like everyone else does by the way, but at least I'll never have to kick myself thinking that I didn't try hard enough."
x
Mr Woodhouse picks up the glass he's forgotten is empty, then shakes his head at it as he slams it back down. He should have known: it's all that blasted Irish boy's doing again! Filling his daughter's head with his grand, idiotic notions, disparaging the family heritage she should be proud of - and no doubt the inheritance that comes with it too. Making her throw it away on some hare-brained scheme…
Look at the state he's left her in: some friend indeed! It's clear enough to Mr Woodhouse that his daughter would never spew out such nonsense, would never dream of throwing away the money earned by her forefathers at such cost to themselves, without that blasted boy putting ideas into her head first.
Mr Woodhouse stares at his daughter, unaware that the look he is giving her is precisely that she has been giving him since she finished speaking.
Neither is going to back down.
Ah, but that boy! If he ever gets his hands on that blasted Irish boy!