~~~
The boys worked flat out to get everything set up officially. Martha felt very proud of them: the professional attitude they were taking to their venture, how smart, how adult, Jack looked in a suit, and how well he maintained his cool when things didn’t go quite as smoothly as they’d like. His most regular gripe was the continental drift pace of the officials they dealt with - except when they wanted paying. He was, however, developing an impressive ability to deal with them, polite but assertive. They were coming to know that, young as he was, he wouldn’t accept excuses that weren’t backed with good reasons, wouldn’t readily accept no for an answer.
She was also extremely worried; she hadn’t told them the first repayment demand had arrived in the post a few hours before she transferred the money to the embee games bank account. She’d shredded that one; she hadn’t signed for it so could legitimately claim it had been lost in the post. A fortnight later an email arrived; she deleted the account and set up a new one, telling Jack that she’d had ‘a problem’ with the old one.
“Mum, you’re in business with three IT experts.” Jack shook his head, baffled. “It would be a poor shout if we couldn’t sort it out for you,” he said.
“Oh, I didn’t want to bother you; you’ve more important things to think about right now. Besides, it was easy enough to start a new account.” Which was true, setting it up was quick and easy; the difficult, time consuming part was sorting out all the sites she had linked to the old email and letting all her contacts know about the change.
Two months into their venture, having nervously watched hundreds, then thousands, paid out of the account, Martha got home from work to find Jack waiting for her, an official looking envelope in his hand. She did her best to act normally but felt the blood drain from her face.
“What a day,” she said. “You would not believe how stupid some people can be when they’re shopping. And the staff aren’t much better.” She sat down before her legs gave out on her.
Jack tapped the envelope against his opposite thumb, looking serious. “Mum, are we in trouble over that money?”
“What do you mean?”
“This looks very official - I had to sign for it, and it’s from a big firm of accountants in London.” Jack held up his hand as Martha started to speak. “And don’t lie to me, Mum. I know you’re dealing with embee finances, but I also know we’re not at the stage of needing accountants of this stature. The only valid option I can think of is that it’s about that redundancy money.”
“I can’t know what’s in a sealed envelope, can I?” She accepted the envelope with feigned indifference.
“You haven’t answered my question. Are BioMed accountants demanding repayment?”
She stood slowly, drawing herself up to her full five foot four inches, and raised her chin defiantly. “I trust you to deal with the game and the business. Trust me to deal with the finances,” she said. “I’m going up to get changed. Tea’s in half an hour.”
“Mum, we’ve got to talk about this!” he called after her.
“Don’t worry,” she said from half way up the stairs. “If it comes to it I’ll see about remortgaging the house.” There was no way she was going to admit she’d already asked, and been turned down.
With each communication over the next few months Martha knew the accountants’ patience was wearing thinner. Each time she delayed responding until the last possible day to eke out the time she had before they acted. She wasn’t at all clear what her legal position would be if embee didn’t manage projected sales by the end of the year, as by her reckoning that would be the longest she could stall them.
~~~
It was Christmas Eve and sales had been ramping up exponentially during the previous two weeks. They’d had to install a second server to cope with the demand. Jack was carefully watching activity on them, praying there wouldn’t be a last-minute crash, while Harry and Dave tried to keep up with the Facebook and Twitter activity. Martha had kept her finger on the company’s financial pulse. She was sure she’d lost about a stone with the stress of it all.
“We might just do it,” she said, with one eye on the clock.
The numbers crept upwards as the second hand swept its circles on the wall.
“Here we go,” she said nervously, “just one more needed.”
The boys all looked at the clock and started the countdown. “Ten, nine, eight…”
“Come on,” Martha wailed to her computer screen.
“… seven, six, five -”
“Here,” she said excitedly, “I think it will... Yes! Our first million!”
The four of them danced around the room and hugged and kissed and cried.
“Happy Christmas, Mum,” Jack said, holding her above the floor in a hug. He put her back on the ground, took a step back and held her hands. “Thank you.” He ruffled her hair, then sat at the computer and logged into embee games’ bank account. He grinned over his shoulder. “Now then, Little Woman, shall we authorise that repayment?”
About Jay Howard
Jay currently lives in Somerset, which she considers to be a gem among English counties. She has lived and worked in many places in England, Wales, Alberta and British Columbia. Holding dual citizenship through her father, who was born in Toronto, a visit to her ‘other country’ included a stay in her father’s city followed by the four day train journey to the West coast. She describes the trip as ‘the only way for an English visitor to start to comprehend the vastness and diversity of this land’.
Whilst admitting that trying so many different areas of work may not be ideal for most people, Jay believes that her experiences have given her insights that enrich her writing. She describes writing as ‘enormously enjoyable and satisfying, but second only to golf in the level of frustration that must be endured to achieve the desired goal’.
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