The staff of a certain Queen Street Star Shop had come to expect them in the mid afternoon. An elderly couple, well dressed, but somehow wary of approach. The customary ‘And how are you today?’ at the checkout has never once elicited a response beyond the actual business on hand which, happening time and again, has marked them out from the myriad other customers and brought speculation. Then again, there is the feeling of ‘haven’t I seen them before somewhere?’ Though maybe not. They are not the nine-to-five slaves, made remote from suburban supermarkets, who usually shopped at the Star Shop. So it is assumed that this couple must live close by in one of the high-rise apartment buildings that are edging up almost to Queen Street itself. And expensive apartments they are too. So they must have bags of money: be stinking rich!
But one would not gain that impression from the things that they buy. Things that suggest an uninspired cuisine. One that stresses ease over culinary art with a heavy reliance on freezer to microwave. In fact, their cuisine seems to be locked into a rotating cycle where one can relate the day’s purchases to the day of the week.
Another line of speculation in the shop has been what one of them would do if the other one died. Die immediately afterward it is assumed. They seem to be so complete in each other and yet spiritually shrivelled.
They must be introduced as William and Maureen Collier. And they do live in one of the expensive high-rises: the penthouse in fact….But rich?…It depends what you call rich.
William left school during the Second World War fortuitously too young for the hungry draft. He went on to study bookkeeping at a private business school now long defunct. Later, with some years of experience behind him and several job changes to muddy the past a little,He began claiming to be an accountant proffering bogus qualifications. Nobody questioned them then, hardly bothered to look at them, and in the years since they had never once been questioned. It had long ceased to matter. He has always been one of those believable people who have a perfect memory for what they have said and a skill at explaining away any problems. He had learned enough on the job to get by and had come to realize that juggling people was as important as juggling figures….No!…. More important!
It was as an acountant that he went to Wallace and Simmonds Limited a small food manufacturing company that marketed under the ‘Reliable’ brand. You may remember them. There were few national brands in those days and these mostly Dunedin based. It was all to do with the poorer transport of the day. Many small towns had their own soft-drink factory. If a little larger they might have a local ice-cream brand or a biscuit factory. All of them are long gone I’m afraid. And Auckland was still small-town in its thinking and had its own local food manufacturers whose travellers serviced the Auckland province at most. Each tended to make a range of products since there could be no hope for the economy of scale with a single product.
William was to have a part in the changes that now began to take place. After a few years he had bought out Wallace and Simmonds, two elderly gentlemen, both childless, who were looking for an out. True, the bank owned far more of the firm than William for quite a few years but it had made him realize that he had a gift. He could attract money.
He had approached several of the other manufacturers. They were making basically the same range of products differentiated only by the packaging and an established brand name. Why could they not produce product for each other? Allot certain products to certain firms. There could, for instance,still be five brands of Gravy Mix but did they have to be made in five different factories? Recipes could be shared and were hardly a secret anyway. Fewer products per factory meant an increase of scale and more profit for each of them. It was a novel idea then but the norm these days when different manufacturers not only produce the same House Brands but produce a rival’s branded perishables in areas where that rival has no manufacturing facilities. Nobody took him up on the idea.
William had established Reliable Holdings Limited to buy up the better of these small firms. He could see that the days of the small players in the industry were numbered. Price-gouging supermarket chains were yet future but the grocery chains were beginning to make their pressure felt. It was not the actual plants that William wanted, they were for the most part rudimentary, but it was their established brand names and their history. The story of the man and his wife who had made the original product in their kitchen, naturally from a handed-down family recipe, and had hawked it around Auckland on a hand barrow now belonged to him. The story was his to use in advertising along with the stories of other early entrepreneurs and this when the modern product owed little to the original. It remained the genuine, original, George Washington hatchet with only a couple of new heads and the odd new handle. The stories were, supposedly, the guarantee of a product’s quality. It must be admitted that William had no high opinion of the public’s good sense.
Once started, there had been no stopping him. He had become a black hole sucking in companies local and national. It was an exciting time, a time of opportunity, with new convenience foods, snack foods, frozen foods, and an increasing number of leisure-time items. Although being able to demonstrate excellent returns from the ventures already under his control, the banks had become increasingly wary of his seemingly insatiable acquisitiveness. Banks like absolute certainty and not even the least hint of adventure. His previously irresistable inveigling came to meet with immovable objections. But, not to worry, he had gone to the public.
It was about this time that he had taken up with Maureen who was between marriages. She had been taken in previously by two ‘creeps’ who had promised her everything and given her nothing. Her new match did not have the appearance of being made in heaven. There was scarcely any real courtship. She was looking for a meal ticket and he had come to realize that he needed a hostess.A businesman building an empire needed to entertain lavishly if he was to get people on his side. Maureen had had the looks in those days, style and education, and her tendency to flirt with any male present was, if anything, a distinct advantage. And yet, they preferred to pretend to themselves that their relationship was the purest form of love. Not that it was platonic. There had been sex but it was basically use and be used. Almost, but not quite, a business deal. They were two whose primary love was for themselves. Strangely, it had lasted.
Going public was to relinquish a considerable amount of the control that he had had as a private company. Some big names had had to be put before the share-buying public. Names that had to be given seats on the board and in the one case initially made figurehead chairman. William had known that he would have to keep them firmly under control and in this he had proved completely able. The growing conglomerate had quickly become one man’s fief with the others on the board content to take his lead even when moves were made at times without their consultation. William had seemed unable to make a wrong decision. The group expanded beyond these shores and had interests in a number of overseas groups, it thrived, and they were happy to collect their fees. And so it continued for decades.
The group went through several name changes but the name Collier never featured in any of them and usually someone else was nominally at the head. William would not be remembered as another Henri Nestle, a John Henry Heinz, or even a Ron Brierly. But the success of the group could not go unnoticed.
The share market is predatory. Raiders buy assets-rich groups to dismantle them and sell off their individual parts at a profit. William had himself taken part in a number of such hostile takeovers. But there were bigger players than William in the international market place, players who had pounced on his group. At least that’s how he would always see it. Actually, the price offered per share was extremely good, well above the current market price. But that wasn’t the point! This was his child that they wanted to dismember. The board’s official release to the press, issued at his urging, had claimed that share-holders would be foolish to accept the raider’s offer: that it was well below the true asset’s-value of the group. But then he had found out that a majority of board members, unbeknown to each other, had been in contact with the enemy letting them know that they were prepared to push their fellow board members toward agreement if the offer was just that little bit higher. He had contacts of his own and from them had learned that there were even rumblings that he was past it anyway. After all that he had done for everyone. It was the ultimate betrayal.
William could never be satisfied with being just a minority shareholder. He and Maureen have come out of it with unlimited money but the whole meaning of their life has been wrested from them. As a couple they have had no children and Maureen had none from her previous marriages. They have never wanted children. The companies have been their children, their family. They have given their entire time and substance to nurture them. Now these chilren have been forcibly taken from them.
They have more ready money than ever before but it has never been about money and they have no idea what they should do with it. Other people have plenty of ideas though and are loud with them. The unlisted phone number and the restricted entry to the building keep these people only partially at bay. Supporting charities or sports teams had made good sense when William was in business. It was great for advertising….‘Reliable Holdings. Proud supporters of Cancer Research’…. ‘Junior Rugby’….’the Heart Foundation.’ It hardly mattered what. But charity returns no similar advantage to the private citizen and these people, so persistant in their pestering, will be looking to cream something off for themselves. William and Maureen have been awakened to the world’s extensive underbelly.
The apartment has become their world. The have a good view of the harbour and the shipping. They have the largest plasma T.V. available and it stays on from the moment they wake in the morning until they close their eyes again. They have sold the Chrysler. It had just sat in the underground garage gathering dust. Driving around Auckland these days is a problem hardly to be thought of. So many idiots on the road. And the central downtown is overrun with drug addicts—perverts—muggers—millions of BLOODY Asians. And the police do absolutely nothing about it. They just saunter down the main street in pairs and turn a blind eye to everything that is going on in plain sight around them. You have to keep your hand on your wallet and it certainly isn’t safe to go out at night. Thank heavens that the apartments have cameras and twenty-four-hour security though even that’s hardly enough. But it’s something.
Still, everyone has to eat and there is just no way of knowing what goes in restaurant kitchens. Plenty of show out front but what goes on behind those doors? So—in the late afternoon, when the children’s programs and that sort of rubbish is on, they steel themselves and venture down into Hades to do their shopping.