Chapter 126: Wednesday IV

Jodie had her hair up off her neck with a pencil through it and she was in leggings and one of his old t-shirts that she had taken in October and never mentioned again, and she stood in the middle of it with her arms folded.

"She wants 12," she said.

"Twelve."

"Twelve by the 20th of December, and she wants 4 of them in the dark red and she’s asked if I do a sleeve." Jodie’s chin was up. "And I sold all 6 in 4 days at £150, Danny, and she’s already put the next lot at 165."

"Jodie."

"I know."

"That’s..." He was doing the sum. "That’s 2 grand."

"It’s £1,980 and I’ve done it on the back of an envelope 11 times since Sunday." She sat down on the floor next to the pattern. "Sit down, you’re looming."

He sat on the floor with his back against the settee.

"So what’s the problem?"

"Work out how long a dress takes me."

"I don’t know. A day?"

"Eleven hours if nothing goes wrong, and something always goes wrong, so 13." She had a bit of chalk in her hand and was turning it over. "Twelve of them is 156 hours. I’ve got 5 weeks. And I’m on that shop floor 5 days a week doing 40 flights of stairs, and I get in at 7 and I’m no good to anybody till 8."

"That’s 30 hours a week on top."

"It’s 31." She looked up. "So I either do 31 hours a week on top of a full-time job for 5 weeks and make myself ill, or I drop to 3 days at the shop and lose about £600 of wages to earn 2 grand, or I tell her I can only do 6."

"What does Nadia say?"

"Nadia says do 6 and keep your job." Jodie put the chalk down. "And my mum says the same and she’s said it twice."

"And what do you say?"

"I say if I do 6 she gives the other 6 to somebody else and then there’s somebody else." She had both hands round her knees. "And that’s the whole of it, and I’ve been going round it since Sunday and I keep landing back at the same place, and I’ve not got anybody to ask who hasn’t already got an answer they want me to have."

Danny sat on her carpet with a coat in the hall that had £1,216,412.87 behind it.

400 quid a week for 5 weeks. You wouldn’t see it go.

And then what? She’s got 2 grand off a man who shifts fridges, and she’s already sat in this room and told you it’s money or it’s trouble or it’s both.

So not the money.

What else have you got.

"Right," he said. "Can I tell you what I did today?"

"Go on."

"I hired 2 people."

Jodie’s head came up.

"You never."

"Keisha this morning on a pavement and a lad called Tobi on her phone stood next to her." He had his knees up. "And I’ve been up half the night about the money and I got one thing right and I only got it right because somebody made me."

"What?"

"I’ve put their wages away where I can’t get at them."

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning a year of what they’re owed sat in an arrangement with a second name on it, so if I fall over they still get paid." He had the mug on the carpet between his feet. "Keisha’s had 2 shops shut under her. She was owed 3 weeks the first time and 9 days the second, and the bloke cried at her. And neither of them shut because she couldn’t do the job. They shut because somebody in an office decided he’d be all right another week."

Jodie stopped turning the chalk.

"That’s the shop," she said. "That’s exactly the shop. Every January they cut the hours and every January Marie says it’ll pick up at Easter."

"So don’t do it on hope."

"How d’you mean?"

"You said if you drop to 3 days you lose 600 quid." Danny turned round so he was facing her. "Don’t ask yourself whether you can afford to lose it. Ask what happens if she pays late."

Jodie opened her mouth and shut it.

"She’s paying me on delivery."

"Says who?"

"Says her." A pause. "Says her on the phone."

"Get it in a message." He said it the way Priya had said things to him. "Not a contract, you’re not going to solicitors over 12 dresses. A message you can screenshot. Twelve at 165, half on the 20th of December and half on delivery, and if she won’t put half up front then you’ve found something out for nothing."

"And if she won’t?"

"Then you do 6 and you’ve lost nothing, because a woman who won’t put £990 up front on a thing she’s already sold 6 of in 4 days was going to be a problem in January."

Jodie sat on her floor in his old t-shirt with a paper pattern round her and looked at him for a long time.

"When did you get like this?" she said.

"Like what?"

"You used to say do it, go on, you’ll be fine." She had her head on one side. "That’s what you said in March about the stall, and I did it, and I lost £180 and a Saturday and you bought me chips."

"I remember the chips."

"So when did you turn into a man who says get it in a message?"

Danny looked at the fabric.

"I’ve had 6 weeks of people being careful at me," he said. "Some of it’s stuck."

"Which people?"

"A solicitor. And a plasterer. And my mum."

Jodie waited to see if there was any more of it, and he watched her decide not to go and get it.

"Right," she said, and got up off the floor, and stepped over the pattern with her ankle going past his shoulder. "I’m going to send that message now, before I talk myself out of it, and you’re going to sit there and not say anything while I do it, because if you look at me I’ll soften it."

So he sat on the floor and did not say anything.

She typed it stood up by the window with her thumbs going, deleted half of it twice, said no, that sounds like I’m asking, and then read it out loud to herself under her breath, and sent it.

Whoosh.

Then she put the phone face down on the windowsill and stood with both hands on the sill and her back to him.

"If she says no I’m going to be sick."

"You’ll be all right."

"I’ll be all right, I’ll just be sick first." She turned round. "Danny."

"Mm."

"Come here."

Her hands were under my jumper before I was properly up off the floor and her mouth was on my neck before the jumper cleared my head, and I filled one hand with her arse through the leggings and pulled her onto me.

She tastes of the tea and underneath that of her. I have never managed to say that out loud.

Her phone is 10 feet away on a windowsill with a message on it that could go either way.

Naomi Adeyemi is getting her coat.

Neither of them is in this hall.

"Careful," she said into my throat. "Pins."

"Where?"

"Everywhere. Bedroom."

She went first. I had her leggings down to her knees in her own doorway because 4 more steps was 3 too many, and she made a noise and put a hand flat on the frame.

"Danny. Sarah’s in."

"Sarah’s always in and she was on that landing 10 minutes on Sunday, I know."

"Then you’ll have to be clever." Her forehead went against the wood.

"I’m not being clever."

"No," she said. "No, you’re not, are you."