Spilt Wine

56. Developments and Plans

As we walked toward the kitchen with our dinner dishes in the late evening, Catherine pointed to a short curl of fax paper from the machine. She tore it off, and noting it was from Lynn, she handed it to me. I paused to read it through while she carried on into the kitchen. Then I sat silently, spinning things through my mind, before reading it again.

"What is it, David, something wrong?" she asked as she came back.

"No, it's just something that has set my mind spinning. So many things all over the place, confusing, conflicting thoughts."

"What's it about?"

"Lynn says Corgram have proposed buying my importing company and merging it with theirs. They also want to engage me as their purchasing consultant."

"That's wonderful. I think more ear checking is needed, they're probably full of four-leaf clovers."

"The company was not just dumb luck like the barge. This one's the result of long, hard work. It took me a long time to build it, to invent ways to do things, to push government regulations, to max out on multiple credit cards while waiting for the next chunk of money to come in. No luck involved there."

"No, I mean for me. This is good luck for me."

"For you? I don't follow."

"Accept the offer, sell, stay here with me ..." She paused and tilted her head. "Maxing-out on credit cards? That doesn't sound like your normally wise financial management. Why didn't you get bank financing for the company?"

"I had no credit rating. I had never borrowed, I never had any need to. When I applied, I was denied as an unknown risk. We have a strange banking system. Now, with the company prosperous and financially healthy, with no need of their money, the banks keep badgering me to borrow from them – to set up lines of credit."

I read the fax again and stared blankly as my mind whirled. We sat at the mahogany table, and Catherine's eyes seemed to bore into my head, trying to see what was going on.

"They want to buy me, and I see why. For a long while, I've known my growth is diminishing their sales – and those of others."

"Does it say how much they're offering?"

"No, they want to meet with me and discuss the details, negotiate. But, that's not what's winding around in my head the most noisily at this moment."

"Something else in the letter?"

"No, not that – it's what you said a short while ago about staying here with you. That has put a lot more things spinning."

"Don't you want to stay?"

"I began a few minutes ago realising that I've never thought about staying. I've stayed simply through circumstance. Stayed to offer you my support. Now, trying to think of anything but staying is ... is ..."

"Well, that's easy then." She picked up my arm and pulled me toward her. "Stop your mind spinning. Stay."

"I need to set this aside. I need to let my head clear. The dinner dishes can wait. Let's go to bed and do something to distract me."

Tuesday 13 May 1986

I had spent until mid-morning on Monday lying in bed with Catherine, exercising, cuddling and dream-storming. Then I got up and started drafting a reply to Lynn, with punchy sentences to outline what I needed done: Tell Corgram I'm looking favourably at the offer and will be back in Vancouver next week with an open schedule. Phone Edith at CP and book the first available seats from the 17th onward out of Amsterdam; the other passenger is Catherine Ducroix. Call Estella to have her take the dust covers off and give the loft a good cleaning. Tell her to put double the standard things in the fridge the day of our arrival. Buy a two-week pass to Expo or a couple of one-week passes or whatever, I already hold a season pass.