Daisy's Chain

She was heartbroken, but only she knew it.

“I just want to help, Dad. I want to play my part in the organisation you have set up and that has paid for our lifestyles… mine and Mum’s”.

“That is very sweet of you, Daisy, but I don’t see how you can… I’ll tell you what I’ll do. Give me a couple of days to think about it and I will get back to you with a position in our family business. Is that OK?”

“Promise?”

“I promise, chicken, by the end of the week”.

She loved it when he called her ‘chicken’, and kissed him on the cheek.

“You run along now and let me think about it”, he said

∞

John was proud of his daughter and the way that she hero-worshipped him, but he was worried that the hero-worshipping would not stand up to much scrutiny, if he allowed Daisy to know too much about his business interests. So, he tried to keep her at arm’s length by giving her a job, which only had connections with the legal face of his financial affairs.

“Daisy, I have found the perfect job for you”, he said to her one day. “We are going to convert your study into a proper, prestigious office and you can keep tabs on the finances. You will be the firm’s bookkeeper… or accountant, when you are completely up to speed with the financial laws in this country. I know that you’ve studied all that with regard to the UK, but Spain is slightly different, so you are going to have to get your head around that now”. He was hoping that by piling this extra load onto her, she would not have the time to study his affairs.

“You want me to be a clerk? After spending all that time studying - sixteen years or more - I will become an apprentice bookkeeper?”

It was clear that he had offended and disappointed her, and that sidelining her was not going to be as easy as he had hoped. It was a problem that he had not foreseen.

“You have to start somewhere, chicken, and that cannot be at the top. Everyone has to earn his or her place in an organisation by starting near the bottom… And you won’t be right at the bottom. Every firm needs good accountants, or the government and some employees will skin you alive.

“Your job will be to stop our firm from leaking money”. He was thinking on his feet now, which he was good at. “You will have to analyse each aspect of our business and match it to its financial results. Then you will be able to suggest improvements to how we do things. You know, I am getting old, and I can no longer have my fingers on the pulses of all our operations like I used to.

“That is why I need you. A trusted, intelligent and well educated member of the family… a younger person who has stamina and a zest for getting the job done properly. There is no-one else who fits that bill, is there?”

She stared into his eyes to judge whether he was scamming her, but had to agree that there was no-one else to fulfil that function. “I know you’re flannelling me, Dad, but it’s hard to argue with you, so I’ll do what you want me to, but I am determined to have a real job, not some silly excuse that you’ve made up for me. I am serious about wanting to make a real contribution to our business. I want to put something back. Do we understand one another?”

“Yes, darling, but you must understand this too: it will take a little time to bed you into this new rôle. It is not so much a new job, I used to check up on all my businesses as a matter of course every day or week as the circumstances dictated, but I have let it slide, so I want you to pick up from where I left off. However, it is a new rôle for you and it will take some time to teach it to you.

“Do you understand that?”

“Yes, Dad, when do I start? I can’t wait to be working with you”.

“Me too, love, but let’s get you a new computer just for office work and a bigger desk. You can sort all that out and enrol yourself on some kind of accountancy course. Ask Manuel, our accountant, what he recommends and get the same software as he uses too”. As John was saying all this, he realised that the ball was back in his court to give his daughter a meaningful function that she could be proud of doing well.

He still didn’t want her to go anywhere near the dodgy things he did though.

∞

When Daisy sat behind her desk at nine o’clock the following Monday morning, she switched on her Apple Mac and stared at an empty accounting program. No-one came to see her, no-one sent her any data and no-one asked her for any advice. However, she was determined to make this job her own. She knew that her father was hoodwinking her somehow, but she was equally certain that he had been telling the truth when he had admitted that he had let things slide over the last few years. One way or another, she was going to reel in that slack.

However, faced with nothing tangible to do, she started her working life by filling in all the settings for the dozen or so programs on her new computer and then she went for lunch.

“How was your first day working for your father?” asked her mother.

“Oh, I set up all my programs and waited for someone to tell me what to do… or at least give me some information about the businesses I’m supposed to be scrutinizing - like their names and addresses, but no-one came. So, I just did what I could and came for lunch”.

“That’s the way, dear. You’ll get there in the end. Slow and steady wins the race”. She looked at her mother, who was often prone to inappropriately-timed, meaningless platitudes, but she was eating and not looking her way. Then she turned her gaze to her father, but he was avoiding her too.

“So, Dad, who is going to help me get started?” She was determined not to let the matter drop.

“Sorry, chicken, what was that? I was thinking. Before I forget, did Manuel send you the info I asked him to?”

“I don’t know what info you’re referring to, do I? However, since neither he, nor nobody else for that matter, has sent me anything all morning, no, he did not”.

“Perhaps I forgot to ask him to. Just a sec”. He pushed a few buttons on his phone and spoke to someone. “No, I don’t know her new contact details. I’ll let her tell you herself”. He passed Daisy his phone, saying, “You need to get some business cards printed so people know that you exist and how to get in touch with you. I don’t even know and I live in the same house as you!”

The point was taken. Whether people didn’t know what to do with her or not, she was equally to blame for being inaccessible. That afternoon, she designed a business card using an on-line printer, cut the design out using Jing and emailed it to a local printer for immediate processing. A thousand colour cards would be delivered the following day. The only field that she had a problem with was her job title. She was determined not to be described as a bookkeeper or even an accountant. She liked the description she finally came up with though: ‘Trouble Shooter’.

It matched the family’s temperament, she thought, and sounded aggressive for a woman. Especially a pretty, young, blue-eyed, blond lady. It was perfect. Then she entered the names and details of her father’s businesses and familiarised herself with where they were and what they did.

At dinner that evening, she presented her father with the list of fifteen businesses that she had been given.

“All right, Dad”, she began, “I want to make myself known to the managers of each of these companies and state my intention of studying them. Do you think it is better if you take me around and introduce me or do you want to phone them first and take a letter of introduction from you?”

“Which one do you want to start with?”

“I thought that it would be better to start with the two smallest ones. Then I can perfect my technique before tackling the larger ones. What do you think?”

“That sounds fine to me. Is this list in any particular order?”

“Highest profit to lowest. Don’t you even know that? The second column shows percentage profit of turnover”.

“I get these figures every quarter from Manuel, but as long as they seem reasonable, I don’t worry about them much”. And it was true. He was a multi-millionaire and his legitimate businesses more than covered his lifestyle, but his other interests brought in far, far more.

“I will take you to meet the first couple on your list, no problem, but I can’t guarantee to take you to all fifteen of them. What are you talking about, one a day?”

“That is the ground plan, but it really depends on what I find. Some could take much longer”.

John nodded in agreement. “I will take my car and you can go in your own. Once I have introduced you, I will go about my business and you about yours. Is that all right with you?”

“Sure, that’ll be perfect. There’s no need for you to hang about twiddling your thumbs”.

∞

The first on her list to be visited at eleven o’clock was a ‘Cambio’ - a place where people could exchange currency and cash travellers’ cheques on the seafront in Los Boliches thirty minutes north of Marbella. As they drove there in their separate cars, Daisy explained her concerns to her father over their hands-free mobile phones.

“It is struggling, Dad. The rent is high for a kiosk, but the returns are negligible. It might be worth closing this business down and reinvesting the funds elsewhere”.

“Whoa, girl! Slow down. Your assignment is investigative. You must bring your findings to me and then we will decide what to do. Don’t start closing my businesses down before you discuss it with me. Is that clear?”

She hadn’t quite meant it like that, but it was a lesson to her to choose her words more carefully when discussing sensitive issues. She apologized. “Sorry, Dad. That came out wrong. I was thinking aloud”.

“Then that is another thing you have to learn to do. Be wary of telling people what you are thinking. It is acceptable with your mother and me, but on no account with anyone else. It’s like telling people what cards you have. It’s silly”.

“OK, Dad, I’m reading you loud and clear”. In fact, she had known that for a very long time, but she had thought that it didn’t apply to her parents, as he had just said. However, apparently it did and so another lesson was learned.

John introduced his daughter to Paco, who was running the small shop, accepted a cup of coffee and then left them to it. Paco and John had behaved towards each other like old friends, but when the latter had left, he was wary of Daisy.

She questioned him about the number of transactions per day and the average value of them, the busiest times and the busiest days. She already had this information up to and including the end of the previous quarter, but she wanted to know how much on the ball Paco was.

At two o’clock, she feigned hunger and drove off. However, she only drove her ostentatious Porche out of sight and then walked back to a restaurant on the beach diagonally across from the kiosk wearing a headscarf and sunglasses in a mock-starlet disguise. She picked at her sea bass salad followed by ice cream for hours and photographed everyone who went to the kiosk with the zoom lens of her Nikon SLR camera.

She was excited about her findings and wanted to report them to her father over dinner that night, but she resisted the temptation because of what he had told her that morning. She simply told him that a full analysis would take several more days and that she would not be needing him to introduce her to the next business until the following Saturday, if he wanted, or the Monday.

She returned to the restaurant for a long lunch every day that week and wrote up her report on Friday evening. Her first analysis was complete and she was immensity proud of it.

She presented it to her parents after dinner on Friday night.

After a report lasting twenty minutes, she gave voice to her conclusions.

“My first impression was that the manager, Paco, was either often not open or massaging the figures. However, I am pleased to report that, although Paco seems to be losing his grip on the firm, he is honest, and does work all the hours he claims. However, it is a barely profitable concern because a) people are happy to withdraw local currency direct from their bank accounts using an ATM card, and b) sales of travellers’ cheques have been in decline for years and that is affecting profits.

“On a purely profit-based motive, it would be reasonable to close this concern. The returns could be put into one of the other businesses, but I cannot yet say which”. She sat down to applause from her mother.

“Didn’t Daisy read that well, Johnny? Just like a real professional… and don’t forget, ‘A stitch in time saves nine! That’s what I always say”.

They both looked at her, nodded, smiled and then looked at each other. Daisy hoped for praise, but knew better than to expect it.

“Thank you, Daisy”, replied John after a few minutes’ reflection. “I think that you are correct in your analysis. Fundamentally, correct, anyway. Did you notice anything about Paco?”

“He was infirm, if that’s what you mean?”

“Yes… his legs are mangled. He is, as you say, infirm. Theresa, do you remember Paco? The guy who runs the Cambio in Los Boliches?” She nodded and tears came into her eyes.

“How is the lovely man, Johnny? Is he well?”

“Yes, dear, he’s fine. Daisy has been spending time with him all week…”

“Oh, there’s a good girl, Daisy! Never forget your Uncle Paco”.

Daisy was confused. She had never heard of an ‘Uncle Paco’ before. “Who is he, Dad?”

“I’ll tell you who he is, chicken, he used to work with Tony. One day, a man tried to spray me with machine gun fire as I got out of the car in Fuengirola. Your mother was still in the car and Paco was holding the door open for me. He pushed me back inside and took five bullets in the legs.

“Five bullets meant for me, and possibly your mother too. I, we, owe Paco our lives. After that, he became infirm, as you rightly say, so we set him up in a little business to give him an income and some respect.

“I say this not to criticise your work, which is factually accurate, but Paco has a job for life… and he returns a small profit too, which your mother and I put into a fund that he is unaware of for him when he retires”.

Daisy felt as if she had been set up to fail, but took comfort from the fact that she had made an honest effort to analyse the business within the framework of the knowledge that she had been given.

It took months to analyse the other fourteen businesses, but there were no more hidden pitfalls, although one of the bars was run by another ex-employee. John’s legitimate empire in Andalucía consisted of three middle-of-the-range hotels, an 8-Till-Late convenience store, four restaurants, four bars, a travel agency, a tour operator and Paco’s Cambio. However, she did find discrepancies with two of the bars and two of the hotels.

One afternoon, while passing the time of day with Tony in the garden, she asked his advice as she had done all her life; he was much more of an uncle and a confidant to her than any of her real ones.

“Uncle Tony, you have been with my Dad a long time, do you think I am helping the firm or just being fobbed off?”

“Little One, I have never lied to you willingly, but you have to be aware that my first loyalty has to be to your father. If he is telling you that you are helping, then who am I to argue? He has the global picture… I take care of security and a few other things. My advice is that you must trust your father’s judgement. After all, he has done pretty well so far, hasn’t he? But, if you can’t see your way to doing that, then you have to follow your own heart. I’m sorry that I can’t be of more help, but I will always be your friend, if you need me. I can promise you that”.

“I know, Uncle Tony… I know that. You are a rock and always have been”. She reached up despite her height, to kiss him on his craggy cheek. He put an arm around her shoulder and squeezed her.

“I’d better be getting on with my rounds, young lady”, he said letting her go and walking away. She was the only female he hadn’t had sex with who meant anything to him except for his cat, which he now regretted having named ‘Pussy’ every time he had to call her in.

1 4 DAISY FEELS HER FEET

Daisy enjoyed getting to know the managers of her father’s legitimate businesses over the following months and collected a great deal of data, which she proceeded to analyse and convert into suggestions for streamlining and improving them. All of these outfits were between Marbella and Los Boliches, which is a reasonably short coastal drive. She was therefore quite surprised to find out how little most of them knew of each other’s existence.

She had suggestions for each of the businesses individually and she had ideas for them globally as well. She wanted to be professional about her approach, so she scheduled a meeting with her parents, so that she could explain her plans.

“Should I invite Tony too, Dad?”

“No, he must know what we decide, but we do this as a family first and iron out any wrinkles. Then, when we are absolutely sure of our position, we can discuss it with others.

Never let outsiders see the insiders squabbling over details. The front that we present to the outside world, even to Tony, must be a united one. Even if we don’t all agree on everything in private”.

Daisy had heard it all before, but nodded solemnly. “I’ll remember that, Dad”

“How’s your course in Spanish accountancy law going? Are you still doing it?”

“Sure, I am. Why ever wouldn’t I be? I told you that I was serious about helping and I’ll prove it to you too in my presentation. In fact, I am enjoying the course, ‘though many wouldn’t. It’s a bit dry, if you know what I mean”.

“I can imagine, but someone has to do it, and that someone is you for the moment. Sorry, chicken”.

“No apologies necessary. I asked for a job with responsibility, and now I’ve got one. I’m happy, really”.

“Good…”

“I’m going out with a few of the girls tonight, Dad, so don’t wait up for me. I’ll see you in the morning at ten for the presentation. Bye, Dad. I love you”. She put her arms around his shoulders, pecked him on the cheek and left looking very happy.

He smiled inwardly; he was so darned proud of her that he thought he might explode sometimes.

∞

In the morning, she had the chef prepare coffee and rich, chocolate cake for eleven o’clock in her office, because it was one of her parents’ favourite combinations.

It took her to just after eleven to outline the individual modifications to the fifteen businesses, but she continued while her mother sliced the cake and poured the coffee.

“… and that brings me to the theme of ‘Integration’. I feel that we don’t encourage our businesses to make use of each other’s specialities. For example, none of the hotels, bars and restaurants recommend one another.

“I find that very odd and shamefully wasteful. For example, one of the hotels and three of the bars do not provide any food other than toasties… and one does chips.

“I propose that we encourage the bars and that hotel to order take-away food from our restaurants, if they are within a reasonable distance of each other. My suggestions for link-ups is in paragraph seventeen. The five groups that you see, one hotel and four bars, are all within five kilometres of the restaurants in their group. Where two or three restaurants can be linked to one establishment, we could have special combined menus drawn up. There is no need to explain that the food is not cooked on the premises, unless the manager is asked, is there?”

It was a rhetorical question, but her father shook his head in agreement.

“The bar that is a little isolated could form ties with third-party restaurants for a percentage of the take”. She looked up to see her father nodding at the page in front of him. It encouraged her, so she continued with a flourish.

“The next stage, we could call ‘Globalisation’. Not the same globalisation as MacDonald’s practices, but our own version. Only one of our bars has a decent website, and three of the other establishments have crappy ones. I propose that we create a first-class web presence for all of our businesses and include links to others where they could be beneficial. We can hire someone to do this for us, and I will monitor it.

“And finally, we come to ‘Familiarisation’. What is this? It is my term for creating a mutually-cooperative, family atmosphere within your group. We could all meet for a chat, drinks and a meal once a quarter or twice a year… even once a year. Whatever you both think is best. You might even declare a group bonus of one or two percent of net profits across the board, but again, that would be up to you.

“Thank you for your attention, that is the end of my report”. She sat down and both her parents applauded her.

“Well done, Daisy!” said her mother. “Wasn’t our little girl wonderful, John?”

“She sure was, Teri. I knew you were special, chicken, but there is a lot more in there”, he said waving the report in his hand, “than I was expecting and ninety-odd percent of it I agree with right off the bat. As your mother says, well done. You’ll have to give us a couple of days to mull this lot over, but then we’ll come back to you with any questions we may have. Is that all right with you?”

“Sure, Dad, anything you say”. She was in Seventh Heaven.

“Let’s go down to lunch”, he suggested, looking at his gold Patek Philippe wrist watch.

∞

Her father was delighted with all of Daisy’s proposals and told her so.

“The only one I’m not sure about, is installing wired money into Paco’s place. I did look at it - Oh, ten or twelve years ago, but the figures didn’t stack up. You can make fresh enquiries, if you like. The rest is great”.

“So, what’s the next step, Dad?”

He looked into space for a moment before speaking. “When we are ready, we will run it past Tony. Then, if he can’t see any problems, we’ll call all the managers in one by one and explain the new regime to them, and, in the interests of your ‘Familiarisation’, if you like, we’ll hold an informal pool party, where we can discuss it with everyone and introduce them all to each other. Does that sound all right?”

“Yes, Dad, it sounds perfect. Shall I organize that or will you?”

“Let’s talk to Tony first and then leave that to him. You are a new liaison officer, but it was always his rôle. You two have always got on well, so try not to upset him. Remember, no-one likes to feel downgraded… that they have lost a bit of power… especially to a new-comer, even if she is the boss’s daughter”.

“OK, Dad, I’ll leave that one to you then”.

∞

After she had explained the new structure of the family firms to Tony, and her parents again, she found herself with the Big Man in the garden, as often happened.

“Did you really approve of our ideas, Uncle Tony, or were you just accepting a new style of management?”

He was normally as guarded with his words as Daisy’s father, but not as far as she was concerned. He had always told her as much of the truth as he felt she needed to know or could handle.

“I honestly approve of what you said in there. It’s a sign of the times, I suppose… We wouldn’t have thought of what you proposed… our style was to tell them, the managers, what to do and hassle them if the money wasn’t right… But those ways are dying out… The police are nowhere near as corrupt as they were twenty years ago, and it has become unfashionable to batter uncooperative managers… So, all in all, I think that your way is a good update to the company’s style… and to be honest with you, I’m pretty sure that your father agrees…”

“So, you think I’m doing OK, Uncle Tony?”

“More than ‘OK’, Little One, much more than that. You’re a chip off the old block if ever there was one”. Daisy took his huge bicep and hugged it to her cheek as they walked along. “There is something else though, I would rather you call me just Tony from now on. It doesn’t change anything, but…. I don’t know, it just sounds better to me…”

“No problem. ‘Just Tony’ it is!”

“There’s just one other thing, if you’re taking the gypsy’s, I still might clout you… boss’ grown up daughter or not”.

“Message read and understood. Thanks for the pep talk. I’ll see you later.

“Oh, Tony, there’s one other thing, do you still have a few minutes?”

“For you? Always. What is it?”

“You know the Stranger’s Arms in Los Boliches?”

“Yes, one of your Dad’s”.

“Yes. Well, I’ve been in there later at night, after most people’s regular working hours, I mean, and I got the impression that some of the girls were ‘working’ in there”.

“Isn’t that the idea”, he said but knew what she was getting at.

“No, I mean ‘working’ working… on the game. Does Dad allow that sort of thing on his premises?”

It was a difficult question to answer given the code that he had adopted when talking with Daisy.

“Let’s just put it this way… My interpretation of your father’s rules is that managers have a large amount of leeway, so long as their activities do not bring us into conflict with the police or the general public.

“Does that answer your question?”

“Sort of, but not really. Does he allow working girls to ply their trade from his bars?”

“If he doesn’t know about it… and if neither the police nor the general public complains”.

“Is that ‘Yes’ or ‘No?”

“It means what I said”.

“So, that’s a ‘Yes’ then?”

“That could be an interpretation, I suppose”.

“Are the girls freelancing or do they work for us?”

Tony hesitated for a few seconds before saying, “They do not work for any of the fifteen firms on your list, if that is what you are asking”.

“It was, but now I am asking whether they work for any of our firms that are not on my list?”

“Ah, now you have painted us into a corner. I cannot answer that question. Only your father can do that”.

“I understand that I am putting you in an impossible position, Unc… Tony, but I cannot possibly do my job properly unless I know exactly what is going on. Don’t worry about it. I’ll ask Dad.

“See you later”.

∞

When she spoke to her father several days later, he was expecting the question, because Tony had forewarned him. He had deliberated over what his response would be for many hours during the nights since.

“It is like this, chicken”, he said as they sat in his large, airy, bright office, which had a whole wall of sliding glass that opened onto the pool, “… it really isn’t easy to put it in a way that you will understand… When my father and I first came here to live, Oh, about fifty years ago, Spain was nothing like it is as you know it now and neither was I. Yes, we had money, but we, or especially I, still had dreams. Dad was rich and was satisfied, but I was still a young man and wanted to make my own mark… to prove myself too.

“I, or we, got into time-share, which was a new concept back then. Land was cheap and so was labour, but the locals still couldn’t afford the prices we wanted to charge for the houses - villas and condo’s, we called them - so we had the idea of bringing over loads of middle-class Brits to buy them by the week instead.

“That went smoothly, but then we realised that they needed something to do… especially in the evenings. They could lie on the beach with their wives or girlfriends all day, but after that, they wanted to do what their body clocks told them it was time for… an after-work drink. So we surrounded the villas, hotels and time-share apartment blocks with bars, restaurants and discos, which were the new thing.

“In those days, Brits were earning ten times more than the local Spanish boys and it didn’t take long for the girls to cotton on. We had no choice but to cooperate with them. If we didn’t allow them in our bars, they would hang around outside upsetting the female holidaymakers, and bribe the police not to move them on.

“Or, even worse, they would go to a competitor’s bar where they were welcome and take our punters with them. The only sensible solution was to let them in, so that the customers could chat them up and buy them drinks. We did eventually get rid of the pimps, which the girls were grateful for.

“But it’s about bums on seats at the end of the day. Customers sitting at the bar tend to spend more than those at a table, and sometimes, the bar stools were full of girls spending hours over a glass of water, so we had to charge them for using our bars as their offices. We eventually came to a working arrangement that was acceptable to all parties, and that worked well, but times and situations change, and businesses have to change with them.

“Nowadays, a lot of the girls are working the summer months to pay their university fees. Others might want a new car or a trip to the States… and some of the migrant girls just want to be able to send their families some money to help out… or to get them over here to be reunited as a family. Many are saving to bring their parents or even husbands over”.

“But it’s wrong, isn’t it, Dad?”

“What is?”

“Prostitution… making money from girls selling their bodies…”

“The law says it is in some countries… but not in others. Prostitution, prostitutes… they are such horrible words, aren’t they? I know about sticks and stones, and words and all that, but it is not true. Words can and do hurt. I’ll tell you about my childhood one day, and believe me, they did hurt. Those words are overloaded with preconceived ideas put there in the past by middle-class people with safe jobs. Women who had never had to work in their lives and men who made use of the girls in the evenings after condemning them during the day. A wise, middle-class woman once said to me on the subject of working girls, “There but for the Grace of God go many women’. I urge you never to forget that you were born privileged, Daisy. Your position in life is not normal… you could have been born a pretty, penniless refugee as well. What would you exchange for food and lodgings then? Think about it long and hard… Your conclusions might surprise you.