A New Dream - Maggie Ford (interesting novels to read TXT) 📗

hoped for. Ironically, the following day arrived with all that Simon had promised, a day of beautiful sunshine.

‘It seems the gods are against us,’ Julia moaned as they woke up to glorious sunshine on Sunday. ‘Why couldn’t yesterday have been like this?’

‘Well, as I see it,’ Simon said cheerfully, getting out of bed to gaze from the window at the quiet street below, ‘after that great ending to winter we’ll no doubt enjoy a good spring and summer. We didn’t expect to recoup everything in one day anyway! Nothing else can go wrong now.’

She hoped he was right. But just as March and April began to bring a glowing recovery, there came the General Strike in May and almost the entire country ground to a standstill. With most of her workforce out, Julia was unable to complete orders.

‘When they do finally return to work, they’ll find their cards waiting for them,’ she raged, but Simon shook his head.

‘You can’t do that. Half the country’s workers are out in support of the miners.’

These had been on strike for weeks, seeking improvements to their pitiful wages and poor working conditions. They were still out and suffering, but adamant they would not give in.

‘Thousands of ordinary workers are on strike for a good cause,’ Simon went on. ‘And if you sack your workers for joining them, you will be in the wrong. So we’re over a barrel really.’

Julia hadn’t seen it that way. Her only thoughts had been for her own business after the struggle they’d both had to get where they were.

The General Strike went on for ten days, with crowds descending angrily on any bus or train driver prepared to return to duty. Women and white-collar workers set to in order to keep coal and food supplies running, heaving postal mail bags, and risking being mobbed and in many cases actually falling foul of angry workers.

‘If this goes on much longer we could be bankrupt,’ Julia said. ‘We’ve sunk almost every penny we have into this venture. If we fail now we’ll have nothing.’

She was near to panic at the thought and Simon too, usually so calm and philosophical, was showing signs of despair. She wanted to add that they should never have let their earlier success go to their heads but that odd, beaten look on his face stopped her.

But just as she began to believe that all was lost, the strike ended as suddenly as it began. The miners fought on but the rest of the country went back to work. Julia had never felt such relief as she experienced when her own girls trooped back to their sewing machines, their pressing and their packing as if nothing had happened. She decided it was best to say as little as possible about the subject. With all this going on, it was June before the business took off, after six months of sheer panic.

Concentrating all their energies on making up for the loss of trade, they no longer saw the need to be married. There seemed to be no point to it. They were known by all their business associates as Julia and Simon Layzell. No one enquired into their precise status; all were merely pleased to be wined and dined by the Layzells and to attend exciting parties with them. Simon in particular entered enthusiastically into this new crazy life they were now living. And it was crazy.

Julia too found a quality in herself she never knew she had. Free of the responsibility of her mother and family, she found kicking over the traces great fun. She learned some of the gentler new dances, content to leave the more energetic ones like the Black Bottom and the Charleston to younger people. She knew all the current 1926 songs and the names of film and theatre stars; she even met a few of them as she mingled with high society. To her great delight, she had even been on the same dance floor as the Prince of Wales, if not quite swooning over him, then at least enjoying the sight of those women who did.

Simon was enjoying being able to buy all the newest gadgets for their smart flat. He had soon acquired the most up-to-date wireless set and a cabinet gramophone to which they would listen, either alone after dinner or with guests. Their home life had also been enhanced by the addition of a maid and a cook.

It worried her sometimes that he tended to spend money like water. Still haunted by the memory of her father’s downfall, she became particularly uneasy when he caught the investment bug and began gambling on the Stock Exchange. Money was coming in steadily, the business doing marvellously well, but he seemed to be making sure it went out just as fast. He had developed a love of driving and bought himself a Rolls-Royce Phantom. Soon he began talking of holidaying abroad, taking Atlantic cruises, popping down to the South of France to the casinos. Julia felt it was time to make an effort to rein him in.

‘Don’t you think we should think a little more carefully about our finances?’ she asked. ‘We should be saving more than we do, just in case.’

‘Just in case of what?’ he asked, vaguely deflated by her lack of enthusiasm for his new toy and his exciting ideas.

‘In case something should happen to bring down all we’ve achieved.’

‘Now why should anything happen? We’re on top of the world.’

‘But we ought to be far better insured than we are against anything adverse that might happen. My father wasn’t. And you know what happened to us because of it. Everyone needs adequate savings.’

‘Then I shall buy some more stocks and shares,’ he said lightly and, seeing her catch at her lip in trepidation, added reassuringly, ‘the solid gold sort, if you’re worried. The worst that can happen to them is that they will yield very little.’

But she knew the big money came from the big risks, with the