The 'Cousins'

Part Sixty-Two: Walt Kempster Burns His Bridges.

Timeline: 10:42, Friday 20th April:: Fawley Grain and Feed, G.M’s House.

Walt Kempster stood in the kitchen of the Fawley Grain and Feed General Manager’s house. It had been his father’s before him and was now his, as it came with the job. He had grown up in this house; coming here with his parents when he was eight years old and it had been home ever since. 

Walt sighed as he stirred two heaped spoonfuls of sugar into a mug of strong black coffee and thought through his current situation.

He supposed he ought to feel angry or revengeful towards Mitt Fawley for the increasingly abysmal way he was being treated. But Walt did not feel any negative emotions. He was confused because he felt relieved, as if a great burden had lifted from him. 

All of the uncertainties regarding his position over the past months appeared to have come to a resolution. Mitt had not sacked him today, but Walt knew he could not work for the man any longer. Mitt’s erratic behaviour and foul temper, coupled with the outlandish designs he had for the business; using it only as an instrument for self-aggrandisement increased the gap between them on a daily basis. 

Mitt left the running of the business entirely to himself and Trish. He took little personal interest in the daily operations other than for demanding updates at irregular times throughout the day or night; as the mood took him.  Mitt reacted to each report in what Walt and Trish accepted as a standard response. Mitt would verbally abuse them personally when things were less than good and, when business fared well would applaud them with scornful comments that the results should have been better. 

Owner and general manager perpetually at loggerheads with each other was no way to run a business. There was little they agreed on and most of the short periods of each day they spent together passed in argument, rather than in constructive planning. 

Walt sighed in pity for the way things had worked out, sipping his coffee while he thought through his next actions. Walt could never get a sensible hearing with Mitt. Whenever he put up an argument that Mitt could not parry with a practical or sagacious counter argument, the man shut Walt down by playing the ‘owner’ card. There was no future for Walt here now and had not been for some months past; ever since they landed the prospect of the Lido broiler contract.

 The business was moving inexorably away from what it knew and did best, into the uncharted and shallow waters of supermarket supply. It was the vehicle Mitt thought he best needed to satisfy his childish wish to be the local ‘bigshot.’ Walt blamed himself for linking the firm up with Lido supermarkets. He and his father had established the connection on a fishing holiday. Mitt had seized on it and taken it over as his very own ‘baby’. The resulting contract coming to sign-off was now the only thing that mattered to him.

A month ago, and for the first time in his life, Walt admitted to himself that he did not like Mitt, not only as a boss, but neither as a person. Each succeeding day strengthened the sentiment and Walt had recognised the time would come when he would have to do something about it. He could no longer continue in the hope that things would get better and eventually come good. It was now  clear to him that the time for their parting had arrived, but Walt felt no rancour; on the contrary he felt the thrill of freedom pass through him. He could find himself again, become his own man, and in an esoteric way, that was an exciting prospect. He would think and worry of the practicalities of his decision to part company with Mitt later.

Walt walked around the old rambling house. It was much too big for him living here on his own now his parents had gone. But it was home and had been a happy home with fond memories of life in a secure and loving family. These old boards that rattled in the wind were more to him than a place to live, it was where Walt had found love, security and encouragement.