Cat O'Nine Tales and Other Stories - Jeffrey Archer [5]
The manager of the bank could not hide his surprise when Mr. Haskins requested an interview to discuss a business venture. He quickly checked Mr. and Mrs. Haskins’ joint bank account, to find that they were seventeen pounds and twelve shillings in credit. He was pleased to note that they had never run up an overdraft, despite Mr. Haskins being out of work for over a year.
The manager listened sympathetically to his client’s proposal, but sadly shook his head even before Chris had come to the end of his well-rehearsed presentation.
“The bank couldn’t consider such a risk,” the manager explained, “at least not while you have so little security to offer as collateral. You don’t even own your own home,” the banker pointed out. Chris thanked him, shook him by the hand and left undaunted.
He crossed the High Street, tied Corp to another railing and entered Martins Bank. Chris had to wait for quite some time before the manager was able to see him. He was greeted with the same response, but at least on this occasion the manager recommended that Chris should approach Britannia Finance, who, he explained, were a new company specializing in start-up loans for small businesses. Chris thanked him, left the bank, untied Corp and jogged back to Jubilee Road, arriving only moments before Sue returned home with his lunch: cod and chips.
After lunch, Chris left the house and headed for the nearest phone box. He put four pennies in the box and pressed button A. The conversation lasted for less than a minute. He then returned home, but didn’t tell Sue who he had an appointment with the following day.
The next day Chris waited for Sue to take Tracey off to school before he slipped back upstairs to their bedroom. He took off his jeans and sweater, and replaced them with the suit he’d worn at his wedding, a cream shirt he only put on for church on Sundays, and a tie his mother-in-law had given him for Christmas, which he thought he’d never wear. He then shone his shoes until even his old drill sergeant would have agreed that they passed muster. He checked himself in the mirror, hoping he looked like the potential manager of a new business venture. He left the dog in the back garden, and headed into town.
Chris was fifteen minutes early for his meeting with a Mr. Tremaine, the loans manager with Britannia Finance Company. He was asked to take a seat in the waiting room. Chris picked up a copy of the Financial Times for the first time in his life. He couldn’t find the sports pages. Fifteen minutes later a secretary ushered him through to Mr. Tremaine’s office.
The loans executive listened with sympathy to Chris’s ambitious proposal, and then inquired, just as the two bank managers had, “What security do you have to offer?”
“Nothing,” replied Chris without guile, “other than the fact that my wife and I will work all the hours we’re awake, and she already knows the business backward.” Chris waited to hear the many reasons why Britannia couldn’t consider his request.
Instead Mr. Tremaine asked, “As your wife would constitute half of our investment, what does she think about this whole enterprise?”
“I haven’t even discussed it with her vet,” Chris blurted out.
‘Then I suggest you do so,” said Mr. Tremaine, “and fairly quickly, because before we would consider investing in Mr. and Mrs. Haskins, we will need to meet Mrs. Haskins in order to find out if she’s half as good as you claim.”
Chris broke the news to his wife over supper that evening. Sue was speechless. A problem Chris had not come up against all that often in the past.
Once Mr. Tremaine had met Mrs. Haskins, it was only a matter of filling in countless forms before Britannia Finance advanced them a loan of £5,000. A month later Mr. and Mrs. Haskins moved from their three rooms