The Heat Is On Read online

  I smile, bury my head in the guidebook and try to ignore Patty’s musing. A weekend away, for all four of us, where Patty and Jack will be all loved-up and we’ll be in double rooms no doubt. We’ll leave them after dinner and they’ll be snogging like kids in the lift while I panic that it’s all going to go horribly wrong again.

  ‘Are you listening to a word I’ve said?’

  I’m not. I’m thinking that Michael is a wonderful guy who doesn’t seem to want to give up on me, not like my ex. He gave up pretty damn quickly.

  ‘Come on girl what’s up, tell Aunty Pats.’

  I inhale and go for it: ‘I did what you suggested before we came away. You know, I tried to go for it.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘But that wasn’t the first time we’d tried. That was in the first month after we met and I just clammed up. And I don’t know why. I fancy him, sometimes I watch him across the room and I can’t wait to get my hands on him but then when it gets to the moment, my body seems to seize and put up a “Do Not Pass Go” sign. The more I try to get things flowing, the worse it gets. I know you laugh but I really think I’ve forgotten how to.’

  Patty nods, ‘Juicy Luicy has left the building.’

  ‘Did this happen to you?’

  Patty nods. ‘Oh yes, and I’d had a five-year leave of absence before Jack. Imagine that. It was like rolling a stone from a long disused cavern. It was like stoking an old boiler; mind you, it’s roaring now.’

  I don’t laugh at her attempt to humour me. She gives me a hug then rummages in her bag and hands me a card.

  ‘There are things you can do. When you’re ready, take a look at this.’

  Get the Party Started

  ‘Ooh, so you went? Come on then, spill, what was it like?’

  I’m back on Skype telling Zoe this week’s news. Charlie rang me as soon as the plane landed to tell me the shop was opening immediately after the May bank holiday. He sounded flustered and I have to confess, somehow I hadn’t really expected the opening to ever happen. I managed to say goodbye to our customers without giving a hint of my rising panic. At least it gives me something else to fret about and I feel on much safer ground fretting about business.

  We were expected to attend the launch party alongside the rest of the local business community. I think back to the event, wondering how I describe it to Zoe and where to start.

  ‘Well, I think I told you that he’s called Lorenzo,’ I begin.

  ‘Which I’ve always thought sounded a bit pretentious,’ says Zoe, ‘but go on. What does he look like?’

  ‘Not really,’ I reply, ‘his dad’s Italian apparently, and as for his looks…’ I pause. After our experience at the party, he’s now taken on the persona of Dick Dastardly complete with swirling moustache. It would be so much easier to spot the villains and cads if they’d just live up to their cartoon alter egos. Unfortunately, we’d been lulled into a false sense of security because our nemesis just looked ‘normal’.

  ‘Well, your gran would say he looked like a “polite young man”,’ I tell her, ‘well groomed and easy on the eye. He’s called his shop Launch, which we thought was a bit of a daft name for a travel agency.’

  ‘I dunno,’ she replies, ‘it does say adventure and Mercury doesn’t make any more sense to most people. What did Charlie think of him?’

  I’m about to protest that as the Roman god of travel, Mercury is a much better name, but nowadays I guess most people just think of Freddie breaking free and hoovering a three-bed semi in a frock and wig (or was that Roger Taylor?).

  ‘Charlie thought he was completely condescending,’ I tell her when I get back on track, ‘but let’s face it Lorenzo is a good-looking man working in travel. Charlie wouldn’t be happy about that, would he? Anyway, enough about me, tell me how the date nights are going?’

  Zoe grimaces a bit.

  ‘Not bad but we went to a restaurant the other week and we still ended up taking work calls. Neither of us seems able to switch off our damned phones – not just Jamie, me, too.’

  ‘You need to do something where phones aren’t allowed, like taking a dance class or scuba dive or something. Dates don’t have to be just food and drink you know.’

  I don’t know where this advice is coming from given my complete rubbishness in the love life department but it seems to have hit a chord with Zoe. She says she’ll give it a go and with that, we say our goodbyes. I switch off my tablet then snuggle down to sleep. It’s another hour or so before I stop replaying the launch evening over and over again in my mind. It was a lot worse than I’d told Zoe.

  * * *

  Charlie hadn’t been keen on going to Lorenzo’s launch party but I’d reminded him of my ‘Respect’ mantra and told him we should be happy to help out fellow entrepreneurs. He stuck his tongue out at me but agreed to be an absolute saint when we got there. I was very curious to see what Lorenzo had done with the shop and how he planned to differentiate himself. After all, he’d opened up directly opposite a competitor and that’s either very foolish or equally foolhardy. His shop windows had been covered up throughout the refit and even on the day of launch there was still a big poster around them simply advertising the night’s event. He’d gone for a rocket theme, which was a bit predictable given the name of the shop, but in my humble opinion, over-promising a little unless he genuinely had found a way of getting customers into space. If he has then he’s definitely going for a different target market. He wouldn’t get my mum up there.

  ‘Will there be food?’ asked Patty when I told her about the event.

  Strictly speaking the evening was for the local business community but I’d be guaranteed an independent viewpoint if I took her along, so I assured her there would be food and Patty agreed to come with us. I knew Caroline would be there as the owner of the book store as would many of the restaurateurs who’ve supported Mercury over this past year. Charlie and I have prided ourselves on being able to negotiate offers or free gifts for our customers and with every trip they’ve booked, we’ve rewarded them with a little something like a bottle of Prosecco with any booking to northern Italy, or a ‘cooking with spices’ book when they return from India. It’s been one of our selling points and shows how much we value our customers. I hope Lorenzo isn’t going to start asking for similar offers. It might not just be our customers who have their heads turned; the local business community might also prefer working with him.

  Charlie paced the floor all day and constantly checked through the window to see if anyone was going into Lorenzo’s shop.

  ‘Act like it’s not happening,’ Josie told him. ‘As you keep saying, there’s more than one pub on the high street and they survive. We’ll be fine.’

  I agreed with her but still, a fleeting image crossed my mind: I see a pub where the only remaining customer is the toothless old crone who’s forgotten where she lives. I hoped that wouldn’t be us tomorrow.

  ‘Even the most loyal could easily have their head turned by the new and shiny kid on the block,’ said Charlie.

  I gave him a punch and told him Josie was right, although it should have been us reassuring Josie not the other way around.

  ‘No chance,’ I said. ‘Where else could people get the special blend of fun and chaos that we bring. We already have some fab reviews for Amsterdam.’

  I took the details of some offers that had just come through to us and called several customers just to show my colleagues that my mind was still on the job and of course to follow Richard’s advice – ‘Focus’. Soon, the hour arrived for us to close Mercury and get ready for the party.

  None of us were going home first, so there was a queue for the loo and for the mirror in our cloakroom. Josie had a quick squirt of deodorant then changed her top and freshened up her make-up. I hid in the loo and changed into a bought-especially-for-the-occasion wraparound dress that exuded professionalism. I saw myself as the more experienced businesswoman confidently off to support a fellow small business, a woman ready to giv
e advice on what he’s doing wrong. I would have loved to have done something with my hair but Charlie was hogging the mirror. He’d brought what Josie calls his ‘pulling shirt’ – an expensive pale blue number that shows off his eyes perfectly.

  ‘Wow,’ she said when she saw what he was wearing, ‘what are you trying to do – seduce him into shutting down?’

  He ignored her and finished applying his hair wax.

  ‘Peter’s going too,’ he told us. ‘I can’t have his head turned by the interloper.’

  ‘That would never happen,’ I replied.

  Patty arrived as we were all ready to go. She’d brought four cans of gin and tonic with her and poured them into the mugs lying on the draining board.

  ‘Classy,’ said Josie. ‘I’m glad some Aussie has rubbed off on you all.’

  The three of them toasted ‘defeat to the enemy’ and took a big gulp for courage. I didn’t join in but instead scolded their lack of business camaraderie; after all, Richard advises respecting your competitor before crushing them. Nevertheless, I took a drink at the same time. The bubbles fizzed up my nose and I ended up choking and coughing. Not exactly the elder-stateswoman image I was going for.

  Crossing the road, David Bowie’s ‘Space Oddity’ was flowing out of the new store and the doors were open. I wondered whether he’d managed to find more than one ‘launch’-themed song, I couldn’t think of many more – ‘Fly Me to the Moon’ – but that probably wasn’t trendy enough.

  We walked into the shop and at first I was confused; it looked nothing like a travel agent. Rustic wooden tables and benches ran the length of the shop making it look like some Nordic mountain hut. Along the centre of the benches there were iPads for customers to use. There were no brochures anywhere. The fabulous aroma of freshly ground coffee was all pervading and at the far end of the room there were hessian bags of coffee beans and copper scoops. As if to demonstrate what we were supposed to do, Lorenzo scooped up some beans, ground them and put them into an individual cafetière. He handed this to one of the guests who looked as overawed as we probably did. The walls had been completely stripped back and kept up the rustic-techno theme with old storm lanterns hanging beside the huge plasma screens, which displayed high-definition images of dream locations from Instagram. A blackboard listed ‘Hot Destinations’.

  ‘Oh no,’ I whispered to myself with a sudden realisation of what I was seeing. ‘It’s Gastro-Travel.’

  I wished I hadn’t been standing open-mouthed when Lorenzo made his way to us and asked, ‘So what do you think?’

  I genuinely didn’t know what to say so went with the safe. ‘It’s very different.’

  Fortunately, Peter had his wits about him and asked the question we should have thought of, ‘So tell me how you see this all working?’

  Lorenzo was only too pleased to explain his vision: ‘Well, travel has become really commoditised with people looking for the lowest price and forgetting it’s about adventure,’ he started. ‘That’s why you guys have done well – you keep adventure alive. But what you haven’t done is keep up with technology. You’re still showing people websites they could be viewing at home and using the old brochures – definitely not cool.’

  I remember at the time thinking we’d just been told off.

  ‘We use the technology that suits our customers,’ defended Josie, ‘and our emails are definitely cool – I write them.’

  Lorenzo suddenly looked impressed and shook her hand vigorously. ‘You’re the one! I wondered who was writing all that mad stuff – they’re great.’

  Peter asked about the screens and iPads.

  ‘The screens can show any destination at any time,’ explained Lorenzo. ‘You pick a picture and we can take you there. It’s all visual – you choose with your heart. And if it’s raining I can fill this place with sunshine, or if there’s an ace programme on the Northern Lights, I can stream the catch-up channel and inspire people. The whole place can change mood with one remote control.

  ‘Then the iPads,’ he continued, ‘they’re for making the bookings and transferring payment. Plus we’ll tell people they’re welcome to search for a cheaper price but chances are they won’t bother searching. I want the whole vibe of this place to say “take-off”.’

  ‘I want it to say bugger-off,’ muttered Josie, and I elbowed her discreetly.

  ‘And who do you think you’ll attract?’ asked Charlie.

  ‘Millennials,’ said Lorenzo confidently. ‘So with you looking after boomers we should be friends. By the way, you have amazing eyes – I’m sure everyone tells you that.’

  I swear Charlie blushed, but Josie choked on her drink. There was a bit of an awkward silence, so I decided to channel my inner Richard and extend the hand of business camaraderie no matter how I was feeling.

  I made my big elder-stateswoman gesture. ‘I’m sure we can be friends,’ I told him. ‘We’re both small businesses trying to compete with the big guys and we are targeting different people. I want to give you this – for luck.’

  I handed him the boxed pen I got for winning the Entrepreneur of the Year award.

  ‘This means a great deal to me,’ I told him, ‘so keep it safe and you can return it to me when you win your own.’

  He thanked me, put the pen in his inside pocket and tapped it to show it was safe. I told myself it was only a loan and I’d get it back. Lorenzo then excused himself to go and talk to the local press and we huddled.

  ‘I can’t believe you gave him that,’ said Charlie. ‘Has it ever left your sight before?’

  In truth, even now, I can’t believe I gave it to him either. I was trying to show that I wasn’t scared of him and when I was thinking of a gift that would demonstrate this, my prized pen was the thing that kept springing to mind. I hope Lorenzo realises how much it means and takes care of it.

  ‘It was an act of respect and camaraderie. I’m sure I’ll get it back,’ I lied.

  ‘Maybe,’ said Charlie unconvinced. ‘Anyway what do we think of the place?’

  ‘I don’t like it myself and I don’t think it’ll attract any of our customers,’ I lied again and wondered how many fibs I’d be allowed to tell before my nose started growing.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Peter, ‘tablet sales are colossal amongst baby boomers and I bet most of the Mercury Clubbers have one.’

  I certainly do and I’m never off it, I thought to myself as I reflected on his words. Patty joined us from her mission to mingle and eavesdrop on people.

  ‘So,’ I asked, ‘what are people saying?’

  ‘They like it and so do I,’ she replied, ‘especially the free coffee.’

  I pictured our traditional-looking shop alongside this and knew that his was far too new and exciting to ignore.

  ‘We have to do something,’ Josie said to Charlie. ‘Not this but something to show we’re not past it.’

  ‘I agree. I wish we had Formentera sewn up,’ he replied. ‘But for now let’s see how far a little bribery will go – let’s advertise some special offers.’

  He went off to find the local journalist to see if we could get a feature. I spotted Lorenzo talking to Caroline and waited until they were finished before heading her way.

  ‘How was he?’ I asked as nonchalantly as possible.

  ‘Ambitious,’ she replied. ‘He asked me to develop him a book tour themed around self-actualisation for millennials.’

  ‘What the hell does that mean?’

  ‘Places of mindfulness and self-discovery, that kind of thing,’ replied Caroline. ‘Maybe reading the Dalai Lama’s book in Nepal while on a yoga retreat.’

  ‘And are you going to do it?’ I asked cautiously, as I had no right to ask her not to.

  ‘I don’t know if I can turn down the business,’ she told me, ‘but it’s strange he’s copying your book trips idea.’

  I imagined anyone could have thought of it. Books bring places to life, so it’s understandable people would want to visit those places. I sighed accep
ting that we really shouldn’t underestimate this guy. I knew I had to get back out there, touring local clubs and groups to sell the benefits of Mercury. I spotted the president of the local WI and headed towards her. When I addressed that group last year, we were beseeched with bookings.

  ‘Hello there,’ I said cheerfully, ‘this place is amazing isn’t it?’

  I was relieved to hear her say it was a little overwhelming.

  ‘Is there any chance of me coming along to talk about the gorgeous new destinations people are heading for?’ I asked. ‘We have some wonderful offers at the moment.’

  She told me she’d be delighted to hear me speak again and she knew the WI members enjoyed my last talk. I started to breathe a sigh of relief but was stopped mid-exhale as she got out a schedule and offered me a date in three months’ time.

  ‘Lorenzo has just offered us a series of workshops on travel photography and he’s giving everyone free access to airport lounges so we can start our travel in style,’ she told me. ‘We’ve never been in so much demand.’

  Her joy was my pain. So he was trying to link up with Caroline and copying my talk-tour idea, hardly the millennial audience he mentioned. What else was he up to? I sidled up to Charlie who looked every bit as miserable as I was starting to feel.

  ‘No joy on the local press,’ he told me. ‘Lorenzo has booked space for the whole of the summer with the condition that he’s the only travel agent in there.’

  ‘Can he do that?’ I asked.

  ‘If he pays enough,’ said Peter rejoining the circle. ‘I hate to say it but this guy means business. It wouldn’t surprise me if he sent those vouchers out before he opened on purpose. They forced you to start giving discounts didn’t they?’

  We looked over at him holding court amongst a group of women, Patty included. They were hanging on his every word as he illustrated the story he was telling by flicking up some images on the screens. Pictures of the Great Wall of China had the whole room engrossed and I could see how you’d be tempted to book up there and then. Knowing we needed a strategy but too defeated to develop it then, we decided to call it a day. We shook hands with Lorenzo, wished him luck and said goodbye. Logically, it made sense for him to copy us to begin with; after all we’d done really well but I couldn’t imagine he’d bother us as soon as he was up and going. I hoped not; the Mercury Travel Club isn’t just a business to me. I dreamed it up, invested everything I had in it and have loved every minute since. It’s more like a member of the family and right then, I felt as if my beloved child was about to be bullied by the new boy at school. I was already regretting handing over my pen and my maternal hackles were well and truly up. Josie and I picked up our coats and were heading out of the door when Lorenzo left his groupies and darted towards us.