CHAPTER NINE

Partnerships

By the first of June the new office structure, with wiring and decorating, was complete. Greg was officially on the QC payroll. In No.1 Shed the hull and deck sections of the fibreglass patrol boat had been mated up after installation of the engines, propulsion gear and fuel tanks. Half of the Curnow workforce of boatbuilders, shipwrights and fitters were employed full-time fitting out this one craft.

That weekend Mary brought with her the news for which Greg had been waiting: ‘Two weeks before the official opening of the office here I will have finished in Southampton, my love. The letting agents have found me a tenant. My personal stuff will be locked up in the second bedroom, and I will bring down my final bits and pieces over the next couple of weekends. How does that grab you?’

‘It grabs me more than you will ever know, my darling. Come and have a look.’ He guided her to the new office building. ‘It’s echoing a bit at the moment but the carpet will be fitted by the manufacture next week followed by delivery of the furniture and equipment from QC. You’ll have to tell me how to operate it all.’

‘What do you mean operate it all?’

‘Well, my beautiful fiancée, you’ve proved to me that you aren’t just a pretty face. I have lost touch with technology when it comes to office stuff. They keep talking to me about computers, word processors, printers, and mail-merging, and all sorts of stuff about which I haven’t a clue.’

‘Look, my treasure, I think you need a secretary more than you need a wife. Which is it to be?’ she teased him.

‘Both, please.’

That weekend they visited the garden centre and ordered rectangular wooden containers of miniature box-hedge plants to go outside the office and the caravan as Mary had suggested. She also studied the list of office equipment that was to be supplied and to Greg’s relief told him that it was similar to that which she had in her office in Southampton.

‘When you come down next time,’ Greg said to Mary, ‘I will have checked with the registry office in Totnes. We both have to attend in person to give notice. How about we go next Friday?’

‘You know why all this is going so well, don’t you?’ Mary said, and, without waiting for his answer, ‘It’s Daddy, I know it is.’

‘I think you are right, my love,’ he said, ‘but while you are on the subject of your father do you think that he would approve of us marrying in a registry office?’

She grimaced, ‘Of course he would, you silly old fool. He married people on board ships, all over the place, and anyway, don’t forget, we’re going to have our marriage blessed in the chapel of the College on the hill that he knew so well - he’d approve of that too. Oh, Greg, my darling, I just know we’re going to be so happy. I can’t wait until Friday. I’ll be down late on Thursday.’

‘Don’t forget your birth certificate,’ were his final words after kissing her goodbye on Sunday afternoon before she drove away.

On the Tuesday Greg made a phone call to David.

‘How does this grab you?’ he said to David, who grunted, ‘If all goes to plan I’ll have the office up and running in a couple of weeks. You wanted to open on July first. Well, the first Saturday in July is on the sixth. I didn’t earn the nickname of The Masterplanner for nothing - now tell me what you think about this.’

‘Go ahead - I’m all ears.’

‘Subject to Curnow plans not being altered, Chris has told me that Sheikh Samad of Qatar is coming over that weekend for the start of the patrol-boat sea trials. I, as publicity manager for both companies, have a cunning plan. I suggest we have a grand opening party for QC on Saturday, the sixth of July. I know who to ask so as to wring maximum publicity locally for our new office. My plan is to ask the Sheikh to be a guest. According to Chris he cuts quite a figure. He is very sociable and media-savvy. We will have his patrol boat on the pontoon for all to see. Much more interesting for the local rag than just another office opening. I reckon it would raise the profile of both companies. What do you say?’

‘Pretty good, I say’ was David’s reply.

Greg had a twinge of conscience after ringing off. He hadn’t told David that part of his cunning plan was to get married to Mary the day before, on the Friday, and hold his wedding party in the new office. This way he would get the grand-opening caterers to throw in a wedding party at minimal cost to himself.

After the carpet had been fitted the next day Greg found time to go to the registry office in Totnes and book the appointment for him and Mary to sign up on Friday morning. He rang Mary from the caravan that evening.

‘How about the fifth of July for our wedding?’ he started.

There was a squeal of delight from the other end. ‘Can I tell people?’

‘Better be a bit cautious. We’ve got the appointment with the registry office on Friday morning first. Only then will we know if the date is certain.’

Mary arrived by seven o’clock on Thursday evening with a number of suitcases piled up in the passenger seat and the back of her little car.

‘A fortnight tomorrow I will say goodbye to Southampton’ were her first words. ‘Don has said I can finish on that day and he let me off early this afternoon.’

Greg gave her all the news of the week.

The forecast for Friday was warm and sunny. Small cumulus clouds were forming. Flossie was going to look after the brokerage. They set off in Mary’s MG after breakfast. She had insisted that Greg should experience “real motoring” as she put the top down. They travelled through the wooded countryside to the registry office in Totnes at Follaton House.

This grand old country house was converted to council offices some years ago and provides an old-fashioned background to a modern ceremony. The registrar was a charming woman and despite the plain and stark furnishings of her office, she made the procedure of notification much less daunting than they had expected. Having provided all the details “in person” as required by the law, they took the opportunity for some retail therapy.

‘Come on, Greg - let’s look at the shops while we are here. Work can wait, just for one day.’ With free car parking at the council offices they took the twenty-minute downhill walk into the town with its narrow streets and variety of shops.

Over coffee in a small deli in Fore Street, Mary placed her hand on Greg’s.

‘I don’t need a ceremony to make promises to you or you to me. But the law is the law. Greg, I am so happy.’

‘You once said to me,’ Greg whispered back in her ear, ‘all this happiness is not one-sided,’ and, oblivious to others seated around them, he placed his lips on hers for a lingering kiss. Hand in hand they walked back to their car, each knowing that their new lives were beginning.

Driving back together they discussed whom they were going to invite to the wedding party. Greg told her that he had already mentioned it to the Trehairnes and would like to ask Nick Wroughton.

‘That name rings a bell,’ said Mary.

Up in the office, on their return from Totnes, Chris greeted them with the news that the patrol boat would be ready for launching next week, when they would run engine trials. This meant that they were on schedule for the arrival of his customer Sheikh Samad, for full sea trials on the first weekend of July.

‘I think I told you,’ continued Chris, ‘the Sheikh is bringing his crew, who will put her through her paces over several days and then, all being well, they will take her round to Southampton, from where she will travel as deck cargo to the Gulf. Before the boat leaves Dartmouth we will receive final payment. This will ease our cash flow somewhat. Together with the down payment and first rent from QC, we’ll be back in the black again.’

Mary looked at Greg as they linked arms and left Chris’s office. ‘I just can’t wait to be down here, darling Greg. I want to be part of all that’s going on, as well as with you.’

‘I reckon’, Mary said the next morning, ‘that if the signwriter is coming next week to do his stuff on the windows, he’ll expect them to be clean; so out with the Windowlene and the Marigolds, my lover, as they say in the West Country. Let’s get cracking.’

After they had finished that task Greg had another idea: he decided to introduce Mary to the Trehairnes.

That afternoon they motored over to Salcombe. Julia was outside the farmhouse as they drove up to the front door. He introduced Mary to Julia, who took a long searching look at her.

‘Mmm, so you’re the one who’s going to take him away from me?’ All that Greg had ever dared to say to Mary about Julia had been that he thought she had a crush on him, and that she was a bit “forward” for her age.

Mary replied to Julia with a smile, ‘How’s university going? If you learn nothing else whilst you are there, you will certainly learn about men.’

Hearing conversation, Joan and Frank came out of the house before Julia could comment further. After hugs and handshakes all round Mary and Greg were invited in.

Frank took Mary off to show her what they did there. Greg stayed behind with Joan to give her their latest news and issue invitations for them all to come to the wedding.

‘Yes, that would be lovely,’ said Joan, ‘duties on the smallholding permitting. Are you going to ask Nick Wroughton?’

‘Absolutely - just haven’t got around to it yet. It was only this morning we could firm up on the date,’ said Greg.

On their way back to the yard Mary told him how much she’d enjoyed meeting his friends. ‘Are you sure, Mr Norfield,’ she said, ‘that you never got up to some hanky-panky with that girl?’

‘A man wouldn’t be a man if he didn’t find her attractive,’ Greg replied, ‘and I won’t say I didn’t, but I’m practically old enough to be her grandfather for goodness’ sake.’

‘You’re old enough to be my father,’ replied Mary.

‘True,’ he said, ‘but ask yourself, who is it I am going to marry?

They laughed together and Greg knew it had been a successful afternoon with another ghost laid to rest.

True to their promise the QC van arrived with the furniture and office equipment on Wednesday. The men unloaded, leaving a pile of boxes on top of the desks and chairs in the middle of the new office.

When Greg phoned Mary that evening she said, ‘Get the stuff out of the boxes. Dump all the packaging and wait until I get down on Friday to give you a hand. We’ll sort it out together. I’m sure you’ve got plenty else to do in the meanwhile.’

‘Bless you,’ was all he could think to say.

The launching of the patrol boat was not a champagne occasion. That was to come for another day, and for another reason. Greg took photos when she was alongside. This boat looked very workmanlike, in her two-tone grey livery with a dark blue cove line and white boot top. Greg was going to make full use of her build as publicity for The Curnow Yard. He already had shots of the boat in various stages of construction. When Mary came down the following Friday, she saw the evidence of much activity that had taken place in her absence. She parked her car next to the telephone engineers’ van outside the new office. The door was open. She could hear voices from inside. One was Greg’s.

‘You will have to wait until the boss arrives,’ he was saying, followed by ‘Here she is now.’

Greg met her in the doorway with a huge hug and an uninhibited kiss.

‘I heard that bit about “the boss”,’ she said, smiling. ‘I didn’t know that’s what you call me behind my back.’

She looked at the other two men present.

‘Glad you turned up, miss. He hasn’t stopped talking about you and won’t let us get on with our work. We need to know where you want the sockets put for the telephone-line connections - one for the fax and one for the telephone - and it says here we need to check the extensions to a caravan and the office upstairs.’

These men had come to fix the phone lines but within two minutes she had them helping Greg and herself move everything around until satisfied. She looked at Greg for approval. They left the two telephone engineers to get on with what they came for. As Greg and Mary went outside to continue their postponed loving greetings, they heard one of them say, ‘Cor, just like my missus, poor sod, and they aren’t even married yet!’

‘Come and have a look at this,’ said Greg to Mary as he pointed to the pontoon, which was almost all taken up with the two craft tied there: L’Enterprise and the Qatar patrol boat. ‘How’s that for raising the profile of the place, eh? Furthermore I have arranged that when the press come here for our grand opening those boats will be there and also present will be Sheikh Samad and his entourage, to say nothing of Alan Lucas turning up in the Ferrari to take his boat away.’

‘Remove that smug grin, my treasure - it’s your job.’ She tried to say this with a straight face but didn’t succeed.

Neither of them had noticed Chris hanging over the balcony above.

‘Come on, Mary,’ he said, ‘he’s been buzzing around like the proverbial fly these last few days. He deserves a little praise. I tell you what, you two lovebirds: Flossie and I will deal with any enquiries and the telephone guys. Why don’t you take advantage of the weather and push off in Amity for a few hours? You won’t get the chance again, I suspect, for a long time?’

They looked at each other as the suggestion sunk in.

‘Done,’ they chimed almost in unison.

And so they had a lazy sail on the flood tide. Halfway up the river to Totnes they turned round, picked up a mooring at Dittisham, and rowed ashore to have lunch in The Ferry Boat on the quay. The last couple of miles downriver back to the yard took them an hour against the last of the flood.

‘Greg, my darling, go and play with your boats whilst I have a look at this word processor,’ said Mary upon their return to the new office. ‘When I come down next weekend it’ll be for good. I’ll have plenty of time before we open to help you sort out the equipment. And by the way, you are taking an awful chance not telling David about us having our wedding party in the office, aren’t you?’

‘Not a bit. I just didn’t want to complicate the issue. He’ll work it out himself when I fax him his invitation. He’s got to come down anyway. My guess is they’ll consider it “enterprise”. Excuse the pun. They wouldn’t expect less.’

Just five days later Mary was back from Southampton. Her car was loaded with the last of her personal goods. The little silver ship was found a place of honour on a shelf in the caravan. She had Greg fix the crucifix on the wall above their bed.

‘I’ve read all the instruction manuals,’ she said as they went into the new office. ‘Now then, before the morning is out you will be as proficient on this computer as you are at navigating your way round the oceans.’

While Mary was away Greg had loaded the display boards with the material supplied by QC. The two double-sided stands were positioned so that one side could be read through the windows and the other from within the office. Each stand contained fixings for thirty-two printed details of craft on either side. Over one hundred and twenty craft could be displayed.

The gold lettering high up on the big picture windows proclaimed the name of the owners of the brokerage and other essential details. As Mary and Greg came out of the office they met Chris and John Dalton outside.

‘A classy act that,’ said Chris, admiring the frontage. ‘It will not do this yard any harm at all. Do you mean to say, Greg, that if you sell any of the craft displayed you will be credited with the brokerage fee?’

‘Absolutely. But don’t forget most of them are based somewhere else. If a buyer is serious, I may have to get that boat back here to conduct a trial sail or inspection. There is a little more work involved than might first appear.’

‘Tell me’ continued Chris: ‘what happens if you are away collecting a boat from, say, Brighton? There’s one on the board there that says it is “Afloat Brighton”.’

Before Greg could answer Mary stepped forward. ‘Now, you are an intelligent man, Chris - why do you think I am here?’

On the day prior to the wedding Chris would be driving to Exeter Airport to collect the Sheikh and his crew from their private jet.

The wedding at the registry office was to be at twelve fifteen in Totnes on the Friday. The wedding party was to be at two o’clock that afternoon in the new sales office. The next day would be the QC Ltd grand opening.

With barely two weeks to the busiest two days the yard would ever see, L’Enterprise and the patrol boat on the visitors’ pontoon were being made “Shipshape and Bristol fashion”, as the saying goes. Greg had invited all the press he could persuade to come.

He rang David to update him. He added, ‘I hear that you are booked into the Livermead Hotel. Don’t you think it might be a good idea if you were in the same hotel as a Qatar sheikh whom you might - by chance, of course - bump into during your forty-eight hours there?’

‘Good thinking, Greg. Where’s he staying?’

‘The Imperial, David.’

‘When I called you the Masterplanner, said Mary, overhearing the conversation, ‘you didn’t like it.’

‘Just business, my love, just business.’

A few days before the wedding Mary realised she had not brought with her - actually she did not even own - anything suitable in which to get married. Greg had the one suit, which he said he had saved for funerals.

‘Charming’ had been her response to that information.

Chris Curnow’s wife, Rosemary, who was to be one of their witnesses at the registry office, said to Mary, ‘Let’s go into Torquay. I’d love to be with you to choose your wedding clothes.’

Mary had jumped at the idea.

The two of them spent a morning together in the shops.

‘What do you think about this one?’ said Mary after they had seen several outfits.

‘No,’ replied Rosemary, ‘blue is your colour. I once saw something in the shop over the road. Come on - let’s see what they have.’

The assistant in that shop eyed Mary from head to foot.

It took the three of them to carry the boxes out to the car an hour later.

‘Rosemary, I could never have done that on my own. You’re a pal,’ said Mary, as they drove back to the caravan.

‘Remember,’ said Rosemary, ‘tell Greg we want him out of the caravan on the big day before we get back from the hairdresser’s. I’ll keep all this lovely stuff for you until we get back. We’ll need an hour to have you looking a million dollars.’

Mary smiled as she looked at Rosemary. ‘Greg and I are so lucky to have such good friends.’

Just before Rosemary drove off home, she said, ‘If I don’t see you before, I’ll see you on the day. Phone me if there’s absolutely anything you’d like me to do.’

***

Came their big day.

‘I’m off,’ Mary said to Greg after an early breakfast. ‘I love you dearly, but I don’t want you in the caravan when I get back.’ She drove off with Rosemary at the wheel of the Curnows’ own car.

She was in the hairdresser’s in Torquay at eight thirty. The girls there had vied for the privilege of doing the bride’s hair.

‘Don’t attempt to suggest a different style,’ said Mary to the proprietor of the salon that Rosemary had recommended. ‘Just apply your art in the best way you know.’

The owner had opted to do the job herself, she would stake her reputation on it.

At the yard, Chris, who was to drive the four of them to Totnes in Greg’s white Rover, was putting the final shine on the car and attaching white ribbons when Rosemary drove up to the caravan with Mary. She spotted Greg nearby and, after telling Mary to stay put, she got out of the car and ushered him back to the offices, with dire threats should he dare come back to the caravan before she phoned over to say he could.

‘I’m nervous enough as it is without having him fussing around’ was Mary’s reply as Rosemary set about helping her to dress. The caravan curtains were partly drawn but they could see Greg outside the offices with a red rose in the buttonhole of his only suit.

‘He looks pretty cool for a man on his wedding day,’ said Mary.

‘Well, what do you want -’ was Rosemary’s reply, ‘a dithering wreck?’

Their laughter broke the nervous tension as they made for the door after Rosemary had phoned her husband to bring the car and the bridegroom. Mary was wearing a navy-blue two-piece with an embroidered white blouse and mid-calf matching skirt with white piping, white court shoes, and a gardenia in her hair at the top of her long blond ponytail. Her hair had been styled around a tiny scallop-shaped dark blue velvet hat. She took care as she stepped out of the caravan.

‘I knew you were lovely,’ he said as he met her at the bottom of the steps, ‘today you look like a queen.’

They hugged and her eyes became moist.

‘Now look what you’ve done to my mascara.’

They got into the Rover. Rosemary and Mary sat in the back, and Greg, in the front with Chris, was told not to listen to the girl-talk going on behind them.

When they arrived at the council offices the sight of Follaton House with its classical-style portico softened the characterless features of the very functional registry office.

Fifteen minutes later they were on their way home. This time Greg was allowed to sit with his bride in the back.

Chris had done his own bit of organising. As they drove through the shipyard gates the whole of the yard workforce formed a guard of honour, waving and clapping all the way to the caravan, where David was waiting with a bucketful of confetti and the local press photographer.

A bit of a freshen-up was in order and they went to greet their guests in the new QC office.

With a few bunches of blue and white balloons, some ribbons and vases of flowers, the office was transformed into a cheerful venue for a wedding party.

Laid out on the white-clothed tables was a comprehensive buffet. There was discreet background music. David had with him his cine camera to record the happy event for posterity, as he said.

The Trehairnes and Nick Wroughton came together in one car.

‘Something small,’ said Joan Trehairne as she handed over their present. ‘We know space is at a premium in your caravan. We hope it gives you a smile.’ Joan told them that Julia had volunteered to stay behind to look after the stock, and sent her best wishes.

Greg warmly shook Don Carruthers’ hand. ‘I want to thank you for being so kind and understanding to my Mary. You could be forgiven for thinking she had let you down.’

‘It is more than compensated for by seeing her so happy, said Don. ‘Our daughter would have been about her age had she lived. Sadly she was taken from us only months after she was born. Perhaps that has something to do with it.’

Mary was moving toward Nick Wroughton at the other end of the room. ‘Now I remember where I met you,’ she said.

Nick looked fazed.

‘You were a deck officer on a tanker we boarded at the Fawley refinery many years ago.’

‘Sorry, my dear,’ said Nick, ‘but who is “we”?’

Mary explained that at that time she had recently joined Customs & Excise. It was her first routine boarding of a ship. She was one of a party of four.

‘Well, I’m damned,’ he said. ‘That must be nearly ten years ago. Of course - the fair-haired, blue-eyed young girl with a ponytail.’

‘That was me,’ said Mary.

‘Are you still in the service?’

‘No, I quit, to marry Greg. I’m going to be his assistant in the office here - when he can afford to pay me,’ she said with a laugh. ‘Meanwhile I’ll still be here in the office!’

Greg came over to the two of them and put his arm round Mary.

‘Either you are chatting up my girl,’ he said good-heartedly, ‘or you are giving away all my secrets.’

‘Well, yes, if you call having a pint in the pub on a Saturday night a secret,’ said Nick. ‘Actually she reminded me that we met about ten years ago when I was first officer on board a tanker in the Solent.’

‘Really?’ said Greg with a grin. ‘When I was on board a boat in the Solent she nearly had me arrested and then saved me from going to prison. I’ve had to marry her out of gratitude!’

‘Tell me,’ said Nick: ‘who is that older gentleman over there with the carnation in his buttonhole? His face is familiar.’

‘That’, said Mary, ‘is Don Carruthers, my old boss. I’ll introduce you.’

‘No need - I’ll introduce myself.’

Nick moved away toward Don. David swept the room with his cine camera.

‘Lovely party,’ said Joan as she and Frank Trehairne came over, ‘but needs must when the Devil drives and all that. We have goats to milk etcetera. Uncle Robert is enjoying your champagne to the extent that we are afraid he might break into song any moment and that would spoil your do! If you two ever get to sail to Salcombe, make sure you drop your hook in Robbie’s Creek and give us a bell. There’s a welcome for you any time’

They collected Nick Wroughton, as well as Robert, on the way out. Other friends decided it was time to go, offering their thanks and best wishes to the bride and groom.

Chris, John, and Flossie from the offices upstairs had each taken the time in turn to look in and add their wishes. David was the last to go.

‘May the future for you both be happy and fruitful,’ he said, ’putting his arm round Mary and kissing her on the cheek. As for my own immediate future, I think I will explore the potential of the Imperial Hotel!’

Back in the caravan they opened their presents. The one that intrigued Mary most was the brass ornamental three monkeys: “Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil”, from the Trehairnes.

The caterers had insisted at the close of the party that the couple took with them two cold bottles of champagne and a big box of the best of the buffet. And so they spent the rest of their wedding day mulling over events as they mellowed under the influence of so many goodies.

With the practical necessity to be up early for yet another party, which occasion would be work, it wasn’t long before they were supremely happy in each other’s arms.

In the morning Greg said to Mary, ‘Today is the official start of our new lives in so many ways, Mrs Norfield. I just thank God we are in this together.’

‘Amen to that,’ she said.