Lucy poured herself a glass of chilled orange juice and put a slice of brown bread in the toaster.
‘I was thinking I might cook dinner for us all again tonight,’ she offered. ‘Alice showed us a great chicken dish with Parma ham a few weeks ago, and I could try that.’
‘Sounds good,’ nodded David Brennan, putting down the Irish Times.
‘That would be lovely, darling,’ said Nina, relieved that sending Lucy to Alice’s cookery school was actually paying off. ‘Do you want me to get some things in the supermarket?’
‘No, Mum. This time I’ll get the food.’
Lucy found the fact that her mum and dad were still keeping her embarrassing. She hated that she still needed her parents to bale her out at her age, but at least she had some funds now that she’d made some money from the T-shirts they were selling.
‘And if it’s OK with the two of you I’ve invited Finn along,’ she said. She added, ‘Dad, Finn and I need to talk to you about something.’
Lucy could see the dart of anxiety that flashed between her parents, and laughed.
‘Nah, it’s nothing bad … just good. The T-shirts we’ve been selling in Temple Bar are doing great, and we just need a bit of business advice, Dad.’
‘Sure,’ said David, unable to hide his relief that Lucy was not involved in some catastrophe or other.
Lucy shopped carefully, choosing free-range chicken breasts, mozzarella cheese, asparagus and all the ingredients for the chocolate pudding pots which she knew her mum would love. A bottle of really good wine which was luckily on special offer in the off-licence and she was set. She had warned Finn to be on time at her parents’ home no matter what happened. Everything went smoothly in the kitchen, and she had the table set. The only way to keep her mum from interfering was to offer her parents a pre-dinner gin and tonic in the sitting room.
‘Hey, you look great,’ she said when Finn arrived in perfect clean jeans with his black boots and a ‘Busy Stargazing’ T-shirt under a grey and white striped shirt. Even his long hair was freshly washed and shampooed, and he had shaved.
‘You look pretty hot yourself,’ he said, hugging her and lifting her off her feet.
She was glad that she’d worn the cute red ladybird-print skirt with her black leggings and a little black cardigan.
She brought Finn in and introduced him to her parents, and Finn was so relaxed and nice they were all talking together in only a few minutes.
Finn helped her serve dinner, and the food was just delicious, and she could tell her mum was dead impressed by what she was learning. She even begged Lucy to give her a copy of the recipe so she could make the chicken dish for her friends, too. Her dad cleaned his plate and actually wanted a bit more …
The chocolate dessert was yummy, and turned out even better than the first time she had made it, and her mum and dad loved the wine.
Finn was winning them over, and they were intrigued when he told them all about the different design things he’d worked on over the years and some of the awards he’d won.
‘Disgraceful, that a talented young man like you is forced on to the dole queue,’ muttered David Brennan angrily. ‘It’s no wonder the country is the way it is when they won’t give young people like you and Lucy a chance!’
‘Well, that’s why we’re making our own chances,’ Finn replied.
‘And setting up a business of our own.’ Lucy smiled.
‘But you’ve no experience of business!’ worried her mother.
‘Mum, I’ve been working in businesses and shops selling stuff since I was about sixteen!’ Lucy reminded her. ‘I’m used to getting people to buy things, and finding out what works and what doesn’t, especially for people our age.’
‘What kind of business are you starting?’ David asked, interested.
‘T-shirts,’ explained Finn. ‘We’ve been selling hundreds of them over the past few weeks and have lots of new orders.’
‘Finn is so talented and creative, and doesn’t really realize how good he is at designing things,’ Lucy explained. ‘Simple things like T-shirts that are a kind of statement.’
‘In our day we had the Che Guevara ones and the peace ones.’ Nina laughed. ‘Everyone had them, and the posters up on their wall, too … they were everywhere.’
‘Well, I’m not sure we’re as big as that.’ Finn grinned. ‘But there is a bit of a buzz about them.’
‘The thing is, we can only handle one market stall,’ explained Lucy, ‘and be in the one place, but there are markets everywhere, and Finn and I are hoping to take a stall at Oxegen and at Electric Picnic, and some of the other big music festivals in the summer, to see how they go.’
‘Sounds exciting for the two of you.’ Nina Brennan smiled.
‘Duggy, one of the guys who helps us, says he thinks we should set up a website to sell them so that people can check them out online and see and buy the new T-shirt designs,’ Finn continued.
‘Sounds exactly what you need,’ said David Brennan. ‘Is that what you want a bit of advice about?’
‘Yes,’ said Finn. ‘This is all new to us. I can design the website but setting up the whole ordering and business end of it is different.’
‘You know most of the business loan applications that pass my desk in the bank nowadays have to have some kind of web-based plan to work. Just depending on shop trade is almost a thing of the past, as even if a person doesn’t actually pay and buy online they will often make the decision about the item they want to purchase there, and then go into a shop to pay for it. Business is changing, and they reckon in another ten years most purchases will be online.’
‘Incredible,’ Nina said. She had no intention of ever giving up her lovely shopping trips.
‘You may do a lot of the design work yourself, Finn, but you will need to pay something for a good website, especially one with a secure payment facility. And then you will need some working capital to cover manufacturing and storage and distribution of your T-shirts,’ David Brennan said.
‘I know,’ said Finn. ‘Lucy and I have been talking about it. At the moment we have the boxes in my bedroom in the apartment, which is OK, but I might run out of space.’
‘No, that’s all got to be sorted,’ advised David. ‘You can try a small bank loan, though I know credit committees aren’t great when they see that applicants are unemployed. Otherwise, you could maybe talk to the local enterprise board and see if they would give you a bit of backing. They have some office spaces and low-cost small business units available, and offer a pretty good advisory service for young entrepreneurs like you two. I know Colm Higgins, and if you want I could give him a call and see if we could set up a meeting with him.’
‘Thanks, Dad, that would be great!’ Lucy enthused, delighted by his support.
‘I’ve some designs for a website on my laptop, if you want to have look, Mr Brennan?’
‘David, please,’ insisted Lucy’s dad, clearing the table so they could all take a look at some of Finn’s web ideas.