*
DeLorean had not spoken to Randall directly in close on a month. He had not set foot in Belfast since the Christmas party. Roy Nesseth was now working out of 280 Park Avenue, in the office right next door to DeLorean’s own. It suggested to Randall a circling of the wagons. (Bill Haddad — if they did not feel embattled enough in there — had filed a suit for slander.) They were concentrating on preparing a portfolio to present to potential investors at the Greater New York Auto Show in mid February, was the word coming out from behind both doors: the right-hand drive, a sedan — the DMC-24 (twice the car that the sports car was?) — and even a model to compete for part of the four-billion-dollar off-road-vehicle market were all talked up; but the Auto Show came and went and no more investment was forthcoming.
He could have made life a hell of a lot easier for himself, DeLorean was caught on camera saying, if he had chosen to site his car plant anywhere in the world but Belfast. For every pound the British Exchequer had put in he reckoned he must have put in a pint of blood. The British Exchequer queried both the Math and the Tact, or want of it.
Cristina went on TV and broke down in tears. It wasn’t fair what people were saying about him. It wasn’t fair at all.
A couple of days later he was back in London again, with Tom Kimmerly this time, for a meeting with Prior, who brought with him Sir Kenneth Cork, a former Lord Mayor of London, and more pertinently one half of Cork Gully whose meat and drink was companies that had shed half their workforce and left the rest more out of work than in.
Prior came out afterwards and told the press what they had already guessed, DeLorean Motor Cars Limited was from this moment on officially in receivership. ‘Constructive receivership,’ DeLorean, coming out behind him, was keen to stress, ‘which means the receivers will work with us to find the finance we need to get through our present liquidity difficulty.’ His take, communicated to Belfast by telex, was that this was preferable to the other option put before him, which was to form a whole new company, entirely under Cork Gully’s directorship and taking control of distribution of the cars in the US. ‘We bend a little way to keep this guy from breaking us altogether.’
Oh, and, the telex went on to say, he will be in Dunmurry by the end of the day, to take the measure of the factory and its assets.
*
Sir Kenneth Cork’s nickname — the Great Liquidator — went ahead of him, as did his pedigree: father before him a liquidator, son beginning to make his way in the profession. So Randall was pleasantly surprised to see getting out of the chauffeur-driven car a grandfatherly-looking man a little dishevelled in dress, slack of neck, short of sight and almost entirely bereft of hair on top of his high-domed head.
He told Randall that when he got the call from Prior the day before he had been out on his boat: an Anderson 22, if that meant anything to Randall. Randall had to confess it didn’t. Sir Kenneth smiled a little vaguely. ‘I understood you were with the company when it had offices at Chris-Craft.’ The vague smile was a blind: he had done his homework. ‘Well, not to worry,’ he said, which was good of him.
He counted in that initial inspection five hundred cars, in various states of completion, in the factory and its surrounding lots. ‘That’s ten million dollars right there,’ he said then added wistfully, ‘or would be if I only had charge of the American distribution.’
Bend a little to avoid being broken altogether. ‘We missed the Salvage and Repair Crib,’ said Randall. ‘They might have another one or two cars in there.’
And indeed they had, and gold-plated skins besides from the American Express promotion: enough for one more car, the guys there said. ‘Another eighty-five thousand,’ Sir Kenneth said, without hesitation.
For the remainder of that week and much of the week that followed not a single tool in the factory was lifted — not a teacup in the canteen — unless it was to have a price tag attached to it. They became literally counters of beans (Crosse & Blackwell, baked, a quarter of a pallet, or four hundred and twenty-five cans, in the kitchen stockroom.) Any or all of this could be sold at a moment’s notice if Sir Kenneth so decreed.
About the only thing that could be said was that, for the time being at any rate, there were to be no more lay-offs, although with every one-day-week that passed a few more people quit, like the guy from the door sub-assembly section who told Randall in parting he preferred the certainty of knowing he would be tipping dustbins into the back of a lorry for the rest of his life, on half of what he had been getting here, to sitting waiting on the next piece of bad news. They were actually light a few workers in one or two sections. Eventually Stylianides had to call the supervisors together and ask them to make a pitch for replacements.
*
It had been six weeks. Liz sat at the dinette table surrounded by the debris of everyone else’s breakfast — Shredded Wheat box, lying open, toast crumbs, a handle sticking out of the pineapple jam jar. She was eating a dry Ryvita (no butter in the house, only margarine, which she couldn’t take), hating every sawdusty bite when Robert came in dressed for work. He looked, as he had had the sense or self-restraint not to look on the previous twenty-nine weekdays, ever so slightly pleased with himself. He set a newspaper clipping down to the left of the jam jar.
‘What’s that?’
‘Read it and see.’
‘Brides Head to Toe… That’s a terrible name.’
‘Keep reading.’
‘“Brides Head to Toe seeks dedicated and discerning part-time sales consultant…” A job ad?’
‘Tim at work gave it to me. His wife knows the woman that runs it.’
He had been talking to Tim at work about her? Who even was Tim at work?
‘Here he is to me: “People might not always want stainless steel sports cars, but they will always want to get married… Am I right?”’ I could swing for you, Tim at work. ‘He’s told me his wife will put a word in. It would get you out a couple of days, and it would be handy having a wee bit of money coming in again.’
He kissed the top of her head. ‘Think about it anyway.’
She listened to the car door shut, the engine catch at the second attempt. She listened to the whine of the reverse gear, the lower register of first as the car reached the end of its arc out on to the street.
She listened to it — first to second, second to third — all the way down to the end and — second again — round the corner and away.
She could not have said how long she sat in the silence it left behind, an hour, hour and a half, longer, before she heard a car coming in the opposite direction, round the corner and up the street, slowing, picking up a little speed and volume, slowing again: looking at the numbers, she decided. It stopped, the engine still turning over; a door opened, but didn’t shut. In the next instant the bell on the wall above the dinette door sounded.
She was nearly not going to bother her head. Who could possibly be surprised to get no answer at this time of the day? The bell sounded again, and again.
Ach, to heck with it.
She walked through the living room to the hall. From the outline in the frosted glass she thought it was a pal of one of the boys and was bracing herself for the usual excruciating exchange (oh for them to reach the age of gorm). Even when she had opened the door she was unable for a moment to free herself of the misconception. What did he want with the boys?
‘TC!’
‘You busy?’
‘Run off my feet. You?’
‘Funny you should ask.’
She tilted her head to the side, narrowing one eye. ‘What are you at here, TC?’