Nothing To Lose

by Steven Suttie

  “This woman’s five grand. Is this all that it boils down to in the end?”

  “Well, yes. I guess. I just don’t know how I can tell her.”

  “So if we had the five grand, everything would be okay?”

  “Yes. Well, I mean, eventually, yes. But I’d need to tell Liv, so she can sign for the loan.”

  “I get that Lee. But if you tell Liv, you’ll have to tell her about your savings as well. She might not be too understanding about that.”

  “I know. This is what’s going through my head. It’s like a pneumatic drill in my brain. I can’t switch it off.” Lee started crying again.

  “Right, listen, stop crying now mate. If you cry again, I’m going to video it on my phone and I’ll post it on the Hebden Gossip Facebook, with a comment saying this is what Lee Riley looks like when he’s lost an arm-wrestle with his sister.”

  Lee smiled again and wiped his face with his hands.

  “I might be able to get the money.”

  Lee turned his head and stared at his big sister. “What?”

  “Might. Not definitely, but I might be able to. If I can’t get the full amount, it’ll be pretty close. So you can get the materials you need and carry on as if nothing happened. Our little secret.”

  “Jo, you can’t…”

  “Shut up. You can pay me back in bits, when you can afford it. But it stays between me and you, nobody else. Right?”

  “Jo…”

  “Shut up Lee. This is the only way. But if Tony finds out, I’ll be getting a divorce, so I need you to keep it zipped. You’ll be over this in a few months, and we’ll be joking about this by your birthday. Right?”

  Lee nodded, but he looked tearful. Joanna was the kindest person he’d ever known and he knew that he was extremely fortunate to have her as a sister. She’d never had money to splash about, so her talking about lending him five grand was not only a shock, but also a reminder of how amazingly generous she could be when somebody needed her help.

  “Right, I need to get home. The kids will have all the bloody lights on. Give us a cuddle.” Joanna leaned over and held her brother tightly. “It stays between us, yeah. Nobody else needs to know.”

  “Thank you.”

  “It’s alright. Now get your arse back home and tell Liv that you’re sorry you’ve been a knob but it’s because you’ve felt a lump in your balls and you’ve been worrying about it.”

  “Eh?”

  “It’ll explain your mood swings, and also, she’ll have a right good feel of your balls as well. Win win.”

  Lee laughed loudly. It was the first time he had laughed properly since Joanna had arrived, and it made her feel good. She got out of the cab and closed the door before getting into her own car and starting the engine. She blew Lee a kiss before driving off, heading back down the hill towards the town below.

  *****

  “What’s for tea, mum?” asked Ellie as Joanna closed the front door.

  “Oh, hello! What a wonderful greeting!” said Joanna as she took off her coat and hung it on the bannister post at the bottom of the stairs.

  “Hi mum!” shouted her eldest, Ben, from upstairs. “What’s for tea?”

  “First of all! It’s not tea, it’s dinner. Tea is a drink!” shouted Joanna up the stairs, trying once again to encourage her family to adopt the posh name for tea into this household, aware that it was a losing battle.

  “Second of all, have you done your jobs?”

  “Ellie said she was doing them!”

  “No I did not!” Shrieked Ellie up the stairs.

  “She did mum! She said she wanted to help out more and begged me not to do any jobs.”

  “That is a total lie! Liar!” Ellie ran up the stairs loudly and a huge row started. Joanna couldn’t really hear the details as she went through to the kitchen and started running the hot tap, muttering “teenagers” under her breath. She filled the sink with hot water and washing up liquid, before going back to the foot of the stairs.

  “Right! Ben! Ellie! Down here now and do these pots before I put you both in a children’s home.”

  Joanna went through to the dining room and opened the drawer in the Welsh dresser which held all the family business documents. The drawer was filled with letters, bank statements and pay-slips. She pulled out her savings book for the Post Office. It showed a balance of £828.

  “Shit.” She said under her breath, she’d been sure that there was more in there than that. Next, she pulled out her ISA folder and checked the balance. The last statement was from a few months ago, but it said that the account had £2,487 in. She did a quick sum and realised that she had about £3,200 altogether. Joanna grabbed her phone out of her bag and logged into the online banking app. She’d been paid a few days ago, so most of her wages would still be in. Her balance was £1,400.

  “Fucks sake!” she said under her breath, as she realised that she didn’t have enough money. The bills were still to go out anyway. Joanna cleared the paperwork away and pushed it back into the drawer. Even if she gave every penny to Lee, he would still be about £400 short of the money he needed.

  “The Whisky bottle!” said Joanna, excitedly, as she remembered the savings bottle which her and her husband put their spare coins into. She opened the dresser door and saw that the huge whisky bottle was about two-thirds of the way full. They only put “decent” coins in these days, the pounds and fifties and twenties. She thought about how much might be there, it had been about £200 last time they’d emptied it, but that was with all the shit coins, the 1ps, 2ps and 5ps as well. Joanna began to feel quietly confident that she might just have enough.

  “What are you doing, mum?” asked Ellie in the doorway.

  “I’m just checking something. Have you done the pots?”

  “Ben’s washing, I’m drying.”

  “Right, well, off you pop.”

  “Where’s dad?”

  “He’s working late. He’ll be back about seven. Now go and do your jobs young lady!”

  Joanna started emptying the huge bottle, it had taken all of her strength to hoist it up onto the table top. The noise from all the coins bashing against the inside of the heavy bottle, and landing on the table top brought Ben and Ellie through from the kitchen.

  “What are you doing, mum?” asked Ben.

  “I’m just sorting this out.”

  “What’s for tea? I’m starving!”

  “Have you done the pots?”

  “I’m doing them now.”

  “Well clearly, you’re not! You’re in the wrong part of the house for a starter!”

  “Just waiting for the contact time.”

  “Contact time?” Joanna laughed loudly.

  “Yeah, we learnt about it in home economics. When you’re washing up, you have to leave the pots for five minutes contact time with the water. Hygiene!”

  “Right, well, that’s a new one on me Ben.”

  “What are you doing with all that money? Is this to thank me for washing up?”

  “No. I’m just having a sort out. If you go away and leave me alone, I might give you some for the chippy though.”

  Ben disappeared back into the kitchen as Joanna began making piles of coins, stacking up the twenty pence coins into £5 piles, stacking up the one pound coins into stacks of tens. After about twenty minutes, she could see that there was well over two hundred pounds piled up on the dining table. She felt pleased, knowing that there was still about half of the bottle to be counted.

  She grabbed a stack of the £1 coins and handed five to Ben and five to Ellie. “Right, thanks for doing your jobs. Go and get yourselves a chippy tea, Dad’s not home until about half seven.”

  “Chippy dinner, don’t you mean?” said Ben as he took the coins. “Thanks mum.”

  “Yeah, thanks mum!” said Ellie as she took her cash.

  Joanna went back into the dining room and sat down, determined to count the coins and have them all bagged up and stashed away before Tony got home.
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br />   *****

  The following day, Joanna banked £312.70 from the whisky bottle. The huge bag of coins which she had taken into the Natwest was attracting tuts and sighs from the customers queuing behind her. But she didn’t care, it was hardly her fault that there was only one person serving, she thought, as the tuts and huffs got louder behind her. It took almost twenty-minutes to bank all the cash, each bag having to be weighed separately by the bank clerk, who looked just as pissed off about the whole thing as the people in the ever-lengthening queue.

  Joanna’s next job, now that she’d got rid of the heavy bag, was to go into the Post Office and withdraw her savings. Once that job had been done, Joanna headed round to the Pawn shop, having a careful look around before stepping inside, she didn’t want anybody gossiping in this closely-knitted community.

  “Good morning, madam,” said a seedy old bloke behind the counter.

  “Hi, I, er, hope you can help. I need to borrow a hundred pounds. Only for a couple of weeks.”

  “I’m sure we can help you with that. What were you planning to leave with us?” The old guy spoke like a robot, it was apparent that he’d had this conversation a million times before, just by the insincere delivery of his patter.

  Joanna’s eyes were filling with tears as she wriggled at her wedding ring, trying to pull it off her finger, her mind was whizzing as she tried to pull it off. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d taken it off. After an embarrassing few silent seconds, she finally presented her wedding ring to the pawnbroker. He held it up to the light and smiled.

  “Yes, I think we can arrange a hundred pounds for this. But it will cost you one hundred and thirty to buy back.”

  “Yes, yes, that’s fine,” said Joanna, her voice breaking with emotion. She’d not considered that this transaction would stir up so much emotion within her.

  “There’s a few forms I’ll need you to fill in, shouldn’t take long.” Said the man. Joanna didn’t like him much. She filled out the forms and showed her ID, that heavy sense of emotion was still hanging over her, and she had no idea where it had come from. She knew it was a bit iffy, pawning her wedding ring. But it was for a good cause, it was to help her brother who was in need. Her gentle internal argument made her feel a little better about things as the pawnbroker handed her the cash.

  Finally, she went back to the bank and paid in the funds from her Post Office account, and the Pawn shop. She then instructed the bank-clerk to transfer all of her available funds to Lee’s account, handing the clerk her brother’s account and sort-code details. She felt good, knowing that her efforts would get Lee out of the trouble he’d found himself in. She just hoped that Tony wouldn’t find out before Lee paid it all back.

  As she got back in her car, she took her phone out of her handbag and wrote a text to Lee. “Five grand just been transferred into your bank our kid. Your problems are over. Love you xxx.” As soon as she’d sent the text, she deleted it. It would cause World War Three if Tony ever got to hear about this. It wasn’t as though Tony didn’t like Lee. Far from it, he thought the world of his brother-in-law. But lending money wasn’t Tony’s thing, and it certainly wouldn’t go down well that Joanna was lending money to a man who had three decent holidays a year, when they struggled to pay for one. It would just be better all round if Tony never heard a word about it.

  Joanna drove the short journey home from town, trying to think of a way around having absolutely no money left until next pay-day in a fortnight. This was going to be a tricky one she realised, as it dawned on her that it was another ten days until her next pay packet hit her account. Then she had a flash of genius. If she pretended that she’d lost her bank card, she could stall contacting the bank for a few days, using phrases such as “it can’t have vanished!” and “it’s here somewhere. It’ll turn up in a minute!” Then it would take about a week for a new one to be processed and sent out. She smiled as she realised that this was the answer, she could probably blag her way out of all this with no hassle.

  *****

  Lee was sitting in his van, in a quiet little lay-by near Todmorden. He had no work on, the only job that he had lined up was the job that he’d blown the deposit for. The extension job was going to give him a month’s work, at least, so he had turned several jobs away. He felt as though he was in no man’s land and was genuinely scared about the future. The only chance he had of sorting this whole nightmare out rested with his big sister. If she could get the money together, as she’d promised the previous day, then he did stand a realistic chance of getting out of this mess.

  And then Joanna’s text arrived, letting him know that she had kept her word. She had managed to get the money together for him. Five thousand pounds had just been transferred into his bank account.

  Lee’s eyes were filling up with tears. Joanna was the kindest, loveliest, most genuine person he’d ever known. She’d never had loads of money, life had been a struggle for her and Tony. Lee had no idea how she had managed to get five grand together in such a short period of time but he was deeply touched that she had done. He kept staring at the text message, overwhelmed with emotion and gratitude as he read it over and over again. He started doing some sums in his head, trying to work out how he could get the money back to her, and make enough to live on whilst he was doing the extension job. He couldn’t make the sums add up, he wasn’t due to be paid for the work until it was completed. That was going to be at least six weeks away.

  A sudden excitement stirred within him, as he worked out a way that he could solve this problem. If he used the five grand that Joanna had lent him, and put it on a horse, a dead-cert, then he could double the money, maybe even triple it. If he did that, he could give Joanna seven and a half grand back. He’d have his five grand for materials, and two and a half grand to keep everything going until the job was finished. It was a brilliant idea, he thought as he felt the electricity buzzing through his body. He felt giddy and restless. This was perfect.

  Lee replied to Joanna’s text. “Thank you Sis. You really are the best. Love you so much xxx.”

  He then opened the internet browser on his phone and started looking at the runners and riders for the day’s horse racing. He wasn’t too big on horse racing, he’d never really seen the attraction, but he did know that the chances of winning on the horses was far greater than the odds on a computer generated roulette wheel. Experience had taught him that lesson the hard way. He was scrolling through the races, looking for the horses with the best track record, the most wins, the smallest odds. There were dozens of excellent horses running later in the day. His hands were trembling as he continued looking at the lists. He spent over an hour working on this, his quote pad in the van was being filled with horse’s names, their jockeys, their race history. After scrutinising all of the details, he finally settled on the horse he was going to back.

  “Gerald’s Girl” was running in the 13.20 at Chepstow. The odds of her winning were 2 to 1. This meant that the five grand would become fifteen grand, in just ten minutes. He’d win ten thousand pounds, plus he’d get the five thousand stake back. Lee’s heart-rate was quickening, he could feel sweat pouring down his back and he felt completely exhilarated. This was perfect, this was the answer to everything. He just needed to place this bet, then kill a couple of hours until the race. And then, he would be sorted, and he’d be walking away from gambling forever. This was his way out of this mess.

  Lee’s heart was bursting out of his chest as he used his mobile phone to place the bet. He laughed excitedly when he saw the £5000 stake on the race. He decided that he had to go and have a bit of a jog on the canal for a bit, to pass some time and to use some of his hyper energy up. It was only half eleven. The race didn’t start for over an hour and a half. He got out of his van and opened the side door and found his trainers. He sat down on the van floor and untied the laces of his heavy work boots, his adrenaline was pumping at full speed and he needed to start running, and start using this energy up, straight away.


  Within minutes, Lee was running along the Rochdale Canal, running away from Todmorden towards his hometown. He felt brilliant, totally alive. All of his problems which had brought him down so low were sorted and now he felt as high as he ever had.

  “Hello.” He’d say cheerfully to dog walkers and cyclists as he jogged past them.

  “Grand day!” He said to others. He would occasionally burst into a sprint for a few hundred yards, before slowing his pace back down to a steady jog. He felt amazing.

  *****

  Joanna was at work in the paper-shop in Hebden Bridge and was feeling a little anxious about the level of deceit that she would need to involve herself with in order to hide the fact that she’d given all of her fortnightly wage away, as well as every penny the family had stashed away for an emergency. It wasn’t Joanna’s style to be deceitful, but she had no other choice, she reasoned. She felt that she needed to plant the first seed anyway, if she was to get some cash out of Tony. She sent her husband a text. “Hi sexy gut, have you seen my bank card? xxx” She clicked send and placed her phone back in her handbag. She then took her bank card out of her purse and snapped it in half, before placing it inside an empty bag in the rubbish bin beneath the counter. She then pushed it under the rest of the rubbish to make sure nobody would accidentally find it.

  “Good morning Jo, packet of Golden Virginia please, love.” Joanna looked up from the bin. It was old Stan at the counter, his friendly smile and cheeky grin distracted Joanna from her stress and she smiled back just as warmly.

  “What’s up with you, lass?” asked Stan, as Joanna placed his tobacco on the counter and took his ten-pound note.

  “Eh, nowt, what do you mean, Stan?”

  “You, you don’t seem yourself today. You look a bit fed up. It’s not like you?”