Phoebe Braithwaite’s slipped disc need not have had such a terminal effect, but it was clear from her husband’s attitude at the EGM that he had long since lost interest in Polly’s Community Café and was looking for something else on which to focus his ego.
‘Thank you for that analysis, Alec – which I have to confess doesn’t surprise me. You may recall I’ve warned about financial problems ahead at many meetings of this committee.’
Nobody could recall him making such warnings. Chiefly because he had never made them. But nobody thought it polite to mention the fact.
‘I think there comes a point,’ he continued, ‘in any enterprise, when you have to recognize the enemy’s got the upper hand and cut your losses. In any naval engagement, a good captain is the one who knows not only when to attack, but also when to make a tactical withdrawal.’
The implication, of course, was that this observation was based on the Commodore’s own experience of naval engagement, though the worst danger any of the ships he’d served had been faced with was an outbreak of swine flu.
‘And I think we have probably reached that point with Polly’s Community Café.’
There was an apathetic murmur of reaction from the assembled committee members, a significantly smaller number than those who had attended the previous EGM. Flora Claire, disgruntled that during its brief existence nobody had done anything about turning Polly’s into a Naturopathic Health Centre, was not present. Nor was Lesley Tarquin. She had moved back up to London to resume her career in PR (with hopefully more success than she had achieved in Fethering).
There was also someone in the sitting room who shouldn’t have been there. Laid out on a sofa and intermittently groaning was Phoebe Braithwaite, extracting the maximum value from her slipped disc. As a non-committee member she had no right to be present and Quintus’s explanation that ‘it’s the only place the old thing can get comfortable’ was clearly nonsense in a house the size of Hiawatha. But no one – not even Arnold Bloom – made any comment on this clear breach of committee protocol.
Jude reckoned Phoebe Braithwaite was there to inhibit criticism of her running of Polly’s Community Café – and to counter any that actually did arise. Look at me, she seemed to be saying, I worked so hard on the café that I ended up with a slipped disc. She knew about the strong English aversion to hitting a man – or in this case a woman – when she was down.
‘So I think it’s time,’ Quintus Braithwaite continued, ‘to pull the plugs on Polly’s Community Café. It was a splendid enterprise, into which many people – particularly my wife Phoebe – put in hard work way beyond the call of duty. But in this increasingly commercial world – given the competition from the multinational chains like Starbucks, Costa and Caffè Nero – a locally run Community Project like Polly’s is bound to be up against it. So I think the best thing we can do is to close the place down – with enormous thanks to the efforts of everyone involved – and to make this the last meeting of the SPCS Action Committee.’
The majority in the room murmured lethargic agreement, but Alec Walters had a practical objection to raise. ‘I’m afraid it’s not quite as simple as that. The SPCS Action Committee does have a bank account – two, in fact, both current and savings accounts. And there are still funds in there, mostly what remains of Kent Warboys’ generous gift of twenty thousand pounds. If the accounts are to be closed, we must make decisions on where that money should go.’
‘Can’t we just give it to charity?’ asked Quintus dismissively.
‘I think we’d need to check with Mr Warboys himself about that. Although his gift was not officially hypothecated for the running of Polly’s Community Café, I think there is no doubt that that was the cause for which it was intended to be used.’
‘Well, we can check that out with him.’ The Commodore’s attitude now was that he wanted the whole business to be finished as soon as possible.
‘There is also the issue,’ said Arnold Bloom, ‘about what should be done with the café’s other assets.’
Quintus Braithwaite was already bored with this nitpicking detail. ‘All the assets of Polly’s Community Café belong to Kent Warboys. He – or rather his company – owns the whole building.’
‘Yes, but what’s he going to do with all those tablecloths and short tunics in French navy – not mention a collection of various hideous pastiche impressionist paintings which nobody in their right mind is going to buy – and other objects on which his generous gift has been squandered?’
If it wasn’t already clear that this was a direct attack on Phoebe Braithwaite’s management of the café, the way Arnold looked fixedly at her left no doubt about the matter.
She groaned to remind everyone of her disabled status and said, ‘I’m sure they can do some good at a charity jumble sale. In fact, there’s one coming up for a charity promoting the welfare of abandoned donkeys in the Holy Land, of which Quintus has recently become the patron. They would be the perfect home for those things.’
Jude thought she now knew the cause towards which the Braithwaites’ charitable energies would now be directed. One day it’s a Community Café in Fethering, the next it’s abandoned donkeys in the Holy Land. That seemed to fit with what she knew of Quintus and Phoebe’s characters. Soon, no doubt, it’d be reopening a silted-up canal route in Blaenau Gwent or funding a classical youth orchestra in Borneo. The Braithwaites were just the kind of people who are charitable by nature.
Arnold Bloom wasn’t finished yet. ‘I would also like to register a very strong protest at the proposal recently put forward by the Chairman.’
‘The Chair,’ Quintus insisted.
‘This committee was set up to preserve Polly’s Cake Shop as a Community Amenity for the people of Fethering. Under its current management – if that’s not too positive a description of how it’s been run – that ambition has not been achieved.’ There was a groan from the sofa – Phoebe Braithwaite’s slipped disc was really playing up. ‘May I take it, Mr Chairman—?’
‘Chair.’
‘… that your proposal to wind up the SPCS Action Committee would incorporate your intention to resign as Chairman of the said committee?’
‘Well, of course it would!’ came the testy reply. ‘There wouldn’t be any committee for me to be Chair of, would there?’
Arnold Bloom beamed. ‘In that case, I propose you submit your resignation to the SPCS Action Committee and the procedure is set in motion for the election of another Chairman.’
‘But that person wouldn’t have any committee to be Chair of either!’
‘They would if the proposal to wind up the SPCS Action Committee were rejected.’
‘What, you’re suggesting that the committee should be allowed to continue to exist?’
‘Yes.’
‘But what possible reason could there be for that?’
‘The main possible reason for that would be that … all right, everyone agrees that the previous approach to maintaining Polly’s Cake Shop as a Community Amenity has been a complete disaster …’ The slipped disc prompted another groan from the sofa. ‘But that doesn’t mean that this committee, under another Chairman and with a more businesslike approach, cannot revive the fortunes of Polly’s Cake Shop.’