If you would sign here Sir John, that will complete the formalities.” It had come to this. Fifty years of hard work and struggle, decades of devotion to one end and yet he was signing it all away. The left hand shook with a palsy of disappointment, a pent-up fury that he had been brought to this moment. The pen touched the paper and he dashed off the signature. Get it done and be gone. Leave the scene of his final defeat. He would not weep for their benefit nor curse them to their faces. He could not, they were not there. He would go with dignity, with his head high.
“Thank you, Sir John. Here are your copies of the agreement and I think you'll find this cheque is for the sum agreed. May I wish you good health in your retirement? Good day to you, Sir.”
“And good day to you, Sir.” Sir John managed the words of formal dismissal and left the room, and his life, behind him.
For the last thirty years, Sir John Goddard had been the head of Goddard & Co, makers of precision machine tools for the aviation industry. His products had made the world a smaller place. Aeroplanes built with his tools fulfilled the dreams of holidaymakers, brought families together, carried luxury goods to the four corners and earned the wealth that made the world turn. Retirement! They had forced him out of his own company. They might as well have handed him his P45 and said, ‘the cheque's in the post’.
Suddenly he felt old, far older than his seventy-five years. He was tired, not of the work; work never seemed to tire him, work invigorated him, made him feel truly alive. He was tired of trying to make his sons see sense. They wanted him out so that they could have their way. They could not wait until the few years of life left to him were spent. They had no patience. They did not understand that patience was one of the vital qualities a man needed to build a strong and lasting business. He had learned that lesson the hard way and they would learn it too.
Sir John entered his office on the top floor with no memory of the journey from the boardroom. He walked to the window and gazed across the factory site. This he had built. Sometimes it felt as if he had done it with his own hands, brick by brick, and now none of it was his anymore. He sat at his desk and took a large envelope from the top drawer. He spent ten minutes reading the papers it held and then, nodding to himself, he slid the papers back, sealed the envelope and wrote the address with care. He pressed the intercom.
“Lois, I have some letters for the post. Don't stop what you are doing, but I'd be grateful if you could pop in later and drop them off on your way home.”
“Certainly, Sir John.”
With a sigh he returned to the window, opened it and stepped onto the roof. A warm breeze ruffled the remaining hair on his otherwise glistening pate. I need a haircut. The thought slid through his mind and wafted away with the breeze. A man's life should see the fulfilment of his hopes and dreams.
He should find work to satisfy him. He should have a woman to love and children to continue his line. How many successful men failed in these important matters? He had had a loving wife, God rest her dear soul, who had given him two fine sons. Where had he gone wrong? Those fine sons! ‘How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child’. And now it was time. One final lesson to teach, he smiled in spite of himself] when you face defeat find a way to turn defeat into victory.
He had learned weeks ago that his sons had laid their plans to thrust him from the business. So, he had laid plans of his own. He stepped up onto the parapet of the roof and looked down the seventy-five feet to the car park, one foot for each year.’ His last act as head of the company and chief shareholder had been to sell it to his German competitors. His penultimate act as man had been to arrange for his will to be put into the post. Let his sons wait. Let their fate be left to the vagaries of the postal service until at last they discovered that he had left everything to the cancer charities that worked tirelessly to defeat that terror that had taken his lover from him. And now his last act as a man.
He jumped.
