The Brothers Grimshaw

By Joy Mutter

The Brothers Grimshaw is a third-person memoir set in London in the 1970s. The story is based on the author’s trials and tribulations during her first job after leaving art college. Working for a pittance as the sole graphic designer for the owners of a rundown print firm in Kilburn certainly had its challenges, comic moments, and dangers.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Joy Mutter
• Release date: Sep 5, 2023
• ISBN: 9798201169428

Joy Mutter

I was born in Jersey and lived there for eighteen years. I worked in Kent as a professional graphic designer for over twenty years after gaining a Graphic Design Degree at Coventry University. I moved to Oldham in 2012 and have been writing books full-time up north ever since.I’ve written, designed, and published more than twenty books since 2007. The first three, A Slice of the Seventies, The Lying Scotsman, and Straws are third-person memoirs that form The Mug Trilogy.My fourth book, Potholes and Magic Carpets is contemporary, character-led fiction. I’ve also published one illustrated nonfiction book called Living with Postcards.Random Bullets was published in 2015. It is a contemporary crime thriller with a paranormal twist.Her Demonic Angel contains fourteen of my best short stories in different genres. Between 2016 and 2017, I published The Hostile Series of four contemporary paranormal thrillers. They consist of The Hostile, Holiday for The Hostile, The Hostile Game, and Confronting The Hostile. The Hostile Series Box Set contains all four books in The Hostile series.In 2018, I published a psychological thriller called The Trouble with Liam. The Trouble with Trouble, Trouble in Cornwall, and Troubled, all explicit standalone erotic thrillers in The Trouble series, were published in 2020 and 2021.Novellas The Brothers Grimshaw and A Sunny Day in Oldham were published in 2022.Between 2021 and 2023, I published the Nuru and his Crows Series consisting of Nuru and his Crows, The Storms of Padstow, and Punishing the Innocent.Nine of my books are also available as audiobooks.

Book preview

The Brothers Grimshaw

A novella set in London in the 1970s

Joy Mutter

The Brothers Grimshaw

Copyright: Joy Mutter

Published: 2022

Publisher: Joy Mutter at Smashwords

The right of Joy Mutter to be identified as the author of this Work has been asserted by her in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in retrieval systems, copied in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise transmitted without prior written permission from the publisher. You must not circulate this book in any format.

Contents

Contents

Chapter 1. The Interview

Chapter 2. Settling In

Chapter 3. Bells And Whistles

Chapter 4. It All Hangs Out

Chapter 5. Please, Sir. I Want Some More

Chapter 6. Freelance Work

Chapter 7. Yay! The Cavalry

Chapter 8. A Long Goodbye

Chapter 9. Complications

Chapter 10. Onwards

Chapter 11. Upwards

Books By Joy Mutter

About The Author

Chapter 1. The Interview

Nicky Kendall followed Harry Grimshaw up the poorly lit grubby wooden stairs towards his office. Harry was about to interview her for the role of sole graphic artist at the print business owned by him and his two brothers. Treading on the hem of her bellbottom jeans, Nicky almost fell. Swearing under her breath, she grabbed the sticky handrail to steady herself. Hope he didn’t hear that, she thought. Swearing’s not the best first impression to make on someone who could become my boss. It was the late summer of 1977, so tripping on the bottom of flared trousers was a common hazard for most people as they clomped about on the high platform heels sold in every shoe shop worth its salt.

It would have been a miracle if Harry managed to hear her swear due to the clatter of the four offset litho printing machines below them. To make matters worse, a different radio station blared out on each of the two storeys making clear thought a challenge. The three brothers who owned the small printing firm in Kilburn favoured listening to Capital Radio in their office. The four printers who worked downstairs were fans of Radio One. To combat the constant racket of their machinery, the printers’ music was almost loud enough to make ears bleed. Downstairs, Bay City Rollers’ Bye Bye, Baby battled for attention with the upstair’s offering of David Bowie’s Space Oddity.

When Harry switched off the ink-stained transistor radio on his desk, the Bay City Rollers track playing downstairs won the battle of the radio stations. ‘Right, Nicky. Park your bum on there,’ he said, pointing at a cracked plastic chair in front of his cluttered desk. ‘Bloody hot, isn’t it? Feel free to take your top off.’

He chuckled, but the wicked twinkle in the middle-aged northerner’s eyes suggested he wasn’t entirely joking. He’s not completely hideous but he’s no David Essex, either, thought Nicky. The way he silently looked her up and down made her feel even more self-conscious than usual. Her shyness had always been a challenge for her.

‘Mason and Eric should be here soon. My brothers are always late. Shit for brains, the pair of them. They’re probably having a Tommy Tank somewhere, knowing them.’

At first, Nicky didn’t know what he meant by Tommy Tank, but eventually, the penny dropped when she worked out it was rhyming slang. She tried not to show her shock. So far, the job interview was nothing like she’d imagined. Wishing she didn’t blush so easily, she tried to hide behind her curtain of straight, chestnut-coloured hair. If this joker is trying to shock me, he’s succeeded, she thought.

Her lack of confidence was palpable. At twenty-three, it was her first job interview after leaving art college in Coventry with a second-class degree in Graphic Design. The fact it was only a second-class degree irked her, but a cervical cancer scare during her final year had made it impossible to concentrate. She’d felt paralysed with fear after the diagnosis, which wasn’t a good state to be in while trying to put together her final year degree show. After a minor operation, she’d been fine, but it had been an experience she’d never want to repeat.

Nicky heard a clatter of feet on the stairs followed by a whir of activity as Harry’s two younger brothers dashed into the office. ‘Sorry we’re late,’ said Eric, the older and less attractive of the two new arrivals. ‘We were down the bookies. You must be Nicky.’

Grabbing her hand, Eric kissed the back of it with his fat, wet lips, making her shudder. Her instinct was to pull her hand away but she didn’t want to appear rude. Eric was even more rotund than Harry and sported a black suit and chunky-framed glasses. Greasy black hair and a black beard did nothing to enhance his look. Within minutes of knowing him, Nicky sensed Eric had an irritating superior attitude.

Sprawling in his chair, Harry made it clear he didn’t care what he looked like. His tie was askew, his creased shirt’s sleeves were rolled up, it was missing a button, and his baggy beige trousers were grubby. What little hair he had was untamed, and his shiny bald pate gave him a clown-like appearance that complimented his humour. Without good looks to rely on, Nicky guessed the main boss used his outrageously bawdy humour to get by but his vulgarity and inappropriate comments made her feel uncomfortable.

Each brother had family photos on their desks. In her naivety, Nicky believed their married status made them harmless. As her chair was in the middle of the room surrounded by their desks, she felt acutely vulnerable with six eyes burning into her.

As Mason took his seat behind his desk, Nicky made a quick appraisal. He looked ten years younger than his siblings and several stones lighter. His dark curly hair, Burt Reynold-style moustache, and large brown eyes were attractive, but he looked sullen. Mason was still no oil painting.

Nicky wasn’t there to find a new boyfriend. She was desperate to land the job as the only graphic designer at the printers. If they didn’t employ her, she’d be unable to pay the rent on her barely inhabitable one-room bedsit in Primrose Hill. The carpet in her lodgings was wafer-thin and she could see the dusty floorboards through it. The landlord expected her to get by without a table or fridge.

The constant smell of gas was also a worry. She was probably being poisoned by the gas but the elderly landlord, who lived downstairs, refused to have it checked. The unfriendly miser wouldn’t let anyone use the small back garden. As a life-long sunworshipper who’d spent most of her childhood running free and unsupervised on the beach opposite her family home in Jersey, Nicky yearned to sunbathe in the back garden, but it wasn’t to be.

All she’d bought for her bedsit was a massive orange bean bag in a half-price sale in a department store half an hour’s walk from her bedsit. Nicky had felt horribly conspicuous carrying it home and also guilty because she couldn’t afford the purchase despite its reduced-price tag.

It had soon become apparent that the bean bag’s lower price