To say that Susie did her nut when I told her about Natalie Morgan's ambitions would be akin to describing the Eiffel Tower as a big television aerial. I've seen her angry before, but her reaction was one of sheer unbridled fury.
"The bitch," she yelled. "That arrogant, conceited, jumped-up twat!" I was glad that I'd delayed telling her until Ethel had taken Janet off to bed. "She thinks she's going to take over my company? In her fucking dreams she is! She's a bloody glorified photocopier sales girl and she thinks she can turn me over? Let her try, that's all. Let her bloody try."
"What are you going to do about it then?"
That silenced her for a while. "Nothing," she said finally. "Nothing that I'm not doing already. I'm going to build up the Gantry Group until it's absolutely invulnerable, and until no conceivable offer could ever match the company's potential."
"How about buying out the minorities?"
"And hamstring myself financially? If I did that I'd wind up working for venture capitalists, and that is something I'll never do. It's an option I rejected when we went public. No, my love," she said, tight-lipped. "I'd go in the other direction first. I'd make a hostile bid for her."
"Torrent's big, Susie. You'd have to do the deal with shares; you'd lose personal control of an expanded business."
"I know," she conceded. "And there's another consideration. I don't want to be a photocopier sales girl." I was pleased to see that her brain was starting to work again. "Just because Natalie Morgan thinks that diversification is the way to go, doesn't mean that it is. So let the bitch come, and let her try to swallow me. She'll choke."
It was a while before the subject was raised again over our dinner table. Her anger abated, and her judgement restored, Susie did a couple of typically well thought out things. She hired a firm of investor relations consultants to raise the profile of the business in the City, and she filled the vacancy on the board created by Joe's death by appointing Sir Graeme Fisher as non-executive chairman of the company.
Fisher is said to be Scotland's only genuine billionaire, having built his fortune, along with a formidable reputation for plain speaking, in the direct insurance business. He once said, famously, that he did not know a single Scottish company, other than his own, of which he would consider becoming a director, and so, when Susie sweet-talked him into joining the board of the Gantry Group, the announcement made the front page of the Financial Times, and was reported in every other business newspaper in the UK.
Graeme Fisher's appointment was as big a surprise to me as it was to the rest of the country. Susie didn't discuss it with me at all. I could tell that she was up to something, and for a while I worried that she had changed her mind about having a go at taking over Torrent. She told me eventually, though, five minutes before she told Gillian Harvey and Gerry Meek at a board meeting, held on a Saturday morning to fit in with my filming schedule.
Mathew s Tale was in its early weeks of shooting and was going well; I loved my part, finding that I could associate with him better than with any character I'd ever played, better even than Andy Martin in the Skinner movies. Make-up was a bit of a bugger, since "Mathew' had a war wound, a sword-cut across his face sustained when fighting against Napoleon, and that had to be put on every morning. It was worth putting up with that, though, for the sheer pleasure of working on the project, and the great luxury for a film actor on location of being able to commute from home.
When Susie broke the news of her coup, my first reaction was to take a small huff that I hadn't been consulted. That cut no ice; my wife told me firmly that this was a decision for her alone, without being coloured by anyone's personal prejudices. Gerry Meek's first reaction was nervousness; our new chairman had been backed in his own business by a very high-powered finance director and he was worried that he might try to introduce him. Gillian Harvey wasn't worried at all; on the contrary, she was both astonished that Susie had pulled it off, and dead chuffed by the personal cachet that serving on a board chaired by Fisher would bring her within the bank.
The appointment was formalised there and then. On the following Saturday morning, at another board meeting, I had my first experience of Sir Graeme Fisher's famous plain speaking.
Our new chairman was a slightly built man in his late sixties, totally bald and with piercing blue eyes. At first sight, it occurred to me that he would have made a perfect James Bond villain. This was confirmed when he spoke. "Ladies and gentlemen," he began, in an unreconstructed Lanarkshire accent, "I want to make one thing clear from the outset. I'm not here as a figurehead. I've agreed to chair this business because I believe that it has potential and can go on to achieve a mass not far short of the company with which I've been associated until now. I hope I don't need to tell you that it's my job as chairman to represent the interests of all the shareholders and to ensure that they achieve maximum value for their investment in this business." He looked at Susie through those unblinking blue eyes.
"That means, Miss Gantry, that I don't give a damn about the size of your shareholding, and that I will not allow you to pursue policies which I believe may be holding the company back. This is a publicly quoted company, and I will not let it play by private company rules."
This was too much for me. "Excuse me, Sir Graeme," I interrupted, 'but I was under the impression that last week we appointed you as chairman, not managing director."
He didn't even look in my direction. "I'll come to you in a minute, Mr. Blackstone." I wanted very much to reach across and twist his head round to face me… and then maybe twist it a bit further than that… but for Susie's sake I sat there like a scolded schoolboy.
"You may not like what I'm saying to you, Miss Gantry. You may even think you've made a terrible mistake and be tempted to correct it at once. If that is the case, of course I'll go at once. However, I don't need to tell you how that would be viewed by the business community, especially after the publicity which greeted my appointment.
Now, do we understand each other?"
Susie drew in a deep breath; I feared that when she exhaled it would burn off his eyebrows, leaving him totally hairless. But it didn't.
Instead, she nodded. "I understand you, as long as you understand that I am indeed managing director, as my husband pointed out, and that the day-to-day running of the business will remain mine." She paused, and gave him a sweet smile. "And as long as you understand that if you ever threaten me again, implicitly as you did just now, or explicitly, I will blow you out one second later."
For the first time, Graeme Fisher blinked, then he too smiled.
"Agreed."
Then he turned to me and the smile was gone. "Mr. Blackstone, you're a shareholder as well as a director, I understand."
"True," I said, coldly. I had decided that I did not like the man, and I wasn't about to disguise the fact. "An unpaid director," I added.
"There's no virtue in that," he retorted. "If you're contributing, you should be rewarded. Now let me ask you something: if a situation arose where your wife and I had a disagreement, and let's say, her position threatened your interests as a shareholder, who would you support?"
"Her."
"So you're saying that your first duty as a director is loyalty to your wife?"
"I'm saying that I know my wife, and her abilities, better than anyone on this planet. I don't know you; I only know what you've achieved in another business. If it was a matter of choosing between your judgement and Susie's, then based on experience, I'd back hers."
"Mmm," the old knight muttered, 'commendable, maybe, but still not exactly objective. Mr. Blackstone, I'll be as direct as I can be.
Other than support for your wife, I can't see a single quality that you bring to this table. I've looked at your CV and I can't find a thing on it that qualifies you to be a director of a listed company. Son, this might have been a family business once, but it's gone beyond that; it did as soon as it offered shares for public subscription. I have an instinctive dislike of husband and wife teams in this situation; I don't like pillow talk, or any other discussions between directors to which the rest of the board aren't privy. So, what I'm saying is that I'd feel a lot more comfortable chairing this board if you weren't a member."
"You're asking me to resign?"
"I am indeed."
"And if he doesn't?" said Susie, heavily.
Fisher looked at her and gave her another flicker of a smile. "Don't worry, Miss Gantry, there was no implied threat there. If he doesn't I'll chair it uncomfortably, although I will ask you both not to discuss agenda matters outside the properly constituted forum for such discussions. That is, round this table. Fair, I think."
"Fair," my wife conceded.
I reached an instant decision. "It's okay, Chairman," I told him. "You won't need to bring your haemorrhoid cushion to meetings. I'll resign, on one condition; that you don't seek to replace me with a nominee of yours, or with anyone else who is not acceptable to Susie."
"I wouldn't dream of doing such a thing."
"Fine," I said, although I didn't quite believe him, and stood up. "See you in the car," I said to Susie, who was frowning up at me, seriously.
"What the hell did you do that for?" she demanded, when she joined me forty-five minutes later.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe I can't support you as a director, but I sure as hell can as a husband. Besides, no way am I going to let that guy tell us what we can and can't discuss in our own bedroom."
She grinned at me. "You're not as dumb as my chairman thinks, are you?"