‘I’m not sure I follow, Dad. It’s Christmas Day. I thought you were lying down.’
‘I was lying down, but I was also triple checking contracts. The deal with Baron to bemore specific.’
Jamie’s heart plummeted like an elevator in freefall. His dad loathed practical jokes so this was deadly serious. A large stake of the family’s generations old company would be sold to a notoriously soulless conglomerate. Even though he had a million questions swirling in his head, Jamie’s priority was ensuring his father’s comfort, so as he led him to the head of the table and helped him settle in, he judiciously chose one question to ask.
‘You’re accepting the investment by Baron?’
‘Aye. It’s the best offer we have. The only offer we have. Your artwork idea could have been a wee boost but it was never going to match proper investment.’
‘But we’re not in total dire straits, Dad. Surely we can wait a bit longer to see if anyone else might buy a stake. What about Loch Ardive? They were keen.’
‘Aye, they were, but they’re a small operation compared to Baron. We need solid backing.’
‘From a company that doesn’t care one bit about the environment,’ cut in Nate who was not normally outspoken except when it came to the issue of animals and wildlife. ‘Are we ignoring the fact that they dumped a bunch of effluent into the river and hundreds of fish and some wildlife died?’
‘It’s far from ideal,’ conceded Jimmy. ‘And, Nathan, I understand your concerns, but they’ve cleaned up their act since then. I can show you the records, if you like.’
Nate sucked in air and Jamie could see him retreat into himself as if to create distance from this situation. Nate rarely took ‘public records’ from companies like Baron at face value, but he was letting Jamie fight the rest of the fight, which Jamie did not want to do on Christmas Day. In fact, he would put money on his father having brought this up now so that they couldn’t talk about it without spoiling theday, which nobody would do for the sake of Amanda. But for Jamie, that was exactly what it had done. The future of the company he would one day be at the helm of would be turned over to a huge, anonymous company whose only motive was profit. Sure, his dad wanted to ensure BDL had a future when he was gone, but this felt cruel and selfish, not to mention galling that he didn’t trust Jamie to take care of things. All Jimmy cared about was that he could relax knowing he’d left a legacy, but what was that legacy? Jamie having half the decisions taken out of his hands? The company losing its personal touch? This was not his vision of the future. He desperately wanted to change his father’s mind, but how? And when, if not today?
‘I’ll sign those papers after lunch,’ Jimmy said as he tucked into his soup. Jamie calculated that this gave him about two hours to change his dad’s mind, possibly a bit more if they could get him involved in telling anecdotes or playing parlour games. Neither of which he expected Jimmy would be interested if there was a business deal in the wings. Jamie couldn’t care less about those things either. His own day was devastated by this news.
‘Dinnae fash yersel’ over this, son.’ Jimmy pincered a piece of bread roll that Amanda had cut up for him.
Jamie held his nerve. Of course he was fashing himself. His father had spoken as if he were an old biddy telling a child not to worry about missing out on second helpings of pudding. Jamie stared into his soup. How could he be hungry at a time like this? But he gave the impression of enjoying his starter whilst listening to his siblings chattering away. As soon as the plates were empty, however, he got up and cleared them from the table.
In the kitchen, to calm himself, Jamie loaded the dishwasher. Unsurprisingly, it didn’t settle him at all. He laid his palms flat on the kitchen counter, lowered his head and concentrated on steadying his breath.
‘Hey, J, you okay?’ It was Cal. Steady, grounded Cal who knew when his brother was not alright.
Jamie released himself from his stretch. ‘Honestly, no. I have to fix this, but he’s done this today precisely so I can’t. And I know it’s because he doesn’t want me to have to worry about my future, but I could actually… No, I couldn’t because he’s dying. But fuck!’
‘I know.’ Cal rested his hands on Jamie’s shoulders and faced him. ‘I know. We all love him and we have to remember how much Butler’s means to him. And it’s coming from a well-intentioned place. But it’s stressful.’
‘Aye, it is,’ Jamie rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Do you think Mum would mind if I went for a long walk? Don’t answer that, of course she would.’
Cal smiled wryly at his brother’s humour. ‘The best you can do is stall him by getting him to have such a good time he forgets the papers for today. Let’s face it, he’ll want to peruse them at least twice more before he signs, so maybe if he enjoys Christmas, he’ll be too tired and leave it for another day. After all, it’s not like Mr Baron, or whoever, will be sitting at his computer waiting for the papers to come through today.’
Jamie managed a laugh at this. ‘Mr Baron probably is doing exactly that. Rubbing his knees with glee and putting the eggnog on ice waiting for BDL to fall into his lap.’
‘I would suggest coming back through and not giving Dad any clue to how you’re feeling,’ Cal said. ‘That will only remind him of the deal. If we can all be as jolly aspossible, he’ll have fun instead of thinking business. Hard as that is to believe, it does happen sometimes.’
Cal was right. Having someone objective to point the way helped, and his wise older brother was often the one to do so, even if it was on the other end of the phone from Edinburgh.
The conversation topics flitted around the Christmas lunch table like hyperactive fireflies. Jamie was glad of the company of his siblings to fill a little of the emptiness inside him. Besides the business trouble, he was exhausted from the travel to and from LA in such a short space of time, from failing to even get a chance to talk to Alicia. How presumptuous he had been to assume that he would find her and she would agree to fly back to Scotland with him, to do the artwork for the bottles and join in Christmas celebrations with his family. Jamie accepted his arrogance. Even if he had found her and she’d been willing to talk, to assume that Alicia would drop everything to fulfil his fantasies was putting the cart a million miles before the horse.
‘Earth to Jamie!’
‘What?’
‘Do you want to pull this cracker with me? I’ve been shoving it in your face for about ten minutes.’
‘Ten minutes might be a bit of an exaggeration, but sure.’ Jamie took the end of the cracker Cara was holding and tugged. The bang made him jump a little.
‘Here, get this on your nut.’ Cara fitted a red paper crown to Jamie’s head. ‘Make you look a bit more perky.’
‘I’m perky, Car.’
‘You might be fooling all of them, but you’re not fooling me.’
