by Daniel Hurst
It was the man following me.
I look at him now, and he is still staring at me. His phone is in his hand, and I know he is just itching to send that code to his partner. But for the time being, that code is locked away in my mind, and it will only come out if I let it.
‘Tick-tock,’ he says as the train continues to race towards the south coast, but I don’t need reminding of how long we have got until we reach the end of the line. I’ve taken this route so much that I almost recognise every field, tree, and fence on the other side of this window. That’s because I didn’t always use this time to write. For a long time, I simply sat in my seat and stared out of the window despondently during my commute, dreaming of an escape but unable to make it a reality. Sometimes I would distract myself with a game on my phone, or a song in my headphones like most other passengers do, but most of the time I would just look through this window. Even here, as the train moves through these wide-open green spaces, I always felt restricted and squashed in. It was almost as if the feeling of freedom you got from seeing the rolling hills outside was just an illusion, and life was really nothing more than a series of cages and traps.
This train. That desk. My flat. Everything in my life is keeping me restricted and tied down when really all I wanted was to be out there, in the open space, free to go wherever I want, do what I want, and be who I want. I guess that’s why Louise wants to go travelling. She wants exactly the same things as I do.
She just wants to be happy.
Maybe I should have been more understanding with her. Perhaps I should have given her some of my money so she could have left these shores and broadened her horizons. Sure, I’d have had fewer funds for myself if I did that, but at least my daughter wouldn’t hate me. But now I’m going to lose my money anyway, and Louise will hate me even more because that money is going to neither one of us. It might be her big mouth that got us into this mess when she told her “boyfriend” about the safe in my bedroom, but I doubt she’ll fully accept the blame. Besides, it’s my big mouth that let her know about the safe. I should never have told anybody about it. Not even my daughter. But it’s hard to keep secrets from someone you live with, especially when they are family.
‘I don’t mean to spoil your enjoyment of the view, but your daughter is presently sitting at home with a very dangerous man,’ he says calmly as my eyes gaze at the picturesque scenery whizzing by outside.
But while the view on the other side of this glass has always remained the same, my mood when looking at it has changed over the years. Whereas before I was often feeling helpless and detached, I operate on much firmer traits like grit and determination these days. I learnt a long time ago that feeling sorry for myself wasn’t going to get me anywhere.
The only way to get what I want is to fight for it.
With the knowledge that Louise was okay when I spoke to her earlier, I feel confident enough to test the men trying to steal from me. I have to try something, at least until they really force my hand.
I cannot allow that safe to be opened.
‘What is it with men these days? Why can’t they make their own money?’ I ask. ‘Why is it that the women of the world are often the only ones capable of fending for themselves anymore?’
I’m hoping to get a little more of a reaction out of him than a simple shrug.
‘I don’t see it like that,’ he replies calmly, not reacting to my attempts to push his buttons. But I won’t give in that easily.
‘I do,’ I reply. ‘Every man I have ever known has been just as weak and desperate as you. The need to beg. The need to steal. The need to take what doesn’t belong to them. And you are no different. You put on a suit and try to make yourself look successful and important. But in the end, you’re just like all of the other men I have ever known. Pathetic losers who have failed at life and now need to use somebody else’s money to keep yourself going. Well, bravo. I applaud your power.’
I put my hands together, clapping sarcastically, and he glances around at the carriage a little nervously, as he has been doing whenever I start to make too much noise. But I don’t care. If he is happy to make me feel uncomfortable, then I’m more than happy to do the same thing to him.
‘Look, it’s not my fault that you’ve been treated badly before. And it’s not my fault that you’ve got all your money in a safe at your flat instead of in the bank. Why have you done that, by the way?’
‘None of your business,’ I snap back.
‘Well, actually, it is because that money is going to be mine now, so I’m interested to know where it came from and why it’s hidden away. It’s not drug money, is it? Are you a drug dealer? Is that why you’re quitting your job?’
He seems to be amusing himself with his joke, but I’m not laughing. Of course I’m not a drug dealer.
I’m much more than that.
‘You want to know why I don’t keep my savings in a bank?’ I ask, leaning forward in my seat towards him in an attempt to telegraph that I am not as afraid of him as he might think I am. ‘It’s because I got screwed before. Just like you’re trying to screw me now.’
16
AMANDA
TWO YEARS EARLIER
It’s a typically blustery day in Brighton as I make my way along the seafront towards the bank. There is a quicker way to get to where I’m going, which involves cutting through some of the streets set back from the Promenade, but I prefer this way for the view. While the waters of the English Channel can’t compete with their illustrious counterparts in more exotic locations around the world, I still love being down here by the sea. That’s because being by water has always reminded me of the bigger world out there beyond these shores, and while everything in my daily life might seem small and humdrum right now, it isn’t like this everywhere. That is the thought that keeps me going until the day I will eventually figure out how to get to where I really want to be in my life.
I pass several people as I walk, some of them looking like locals clutching shopping bags from the local supermarket, but many of them apparently tourists holding more exciting things like ice creams and buckets and spades. It’s not a particularly nice day to visit the beach, especially one made from pebbles instead of sand, but that never seems to stop the intrepid hordes who descend on this town every weekend to take a break from their lives in landlocked communities. According to the local council that likes to report on such things, tourists visit here from all over the UK, from as far as Scotland or as close as London, and I wonder how far some of the people in front of me now have travelled today just to be here by the seaside.
I smile as I spot the young girl in the black cagoule skipping along the Prom with her parents on either side of her. She is pointing at the sea and asking her mum and dad if they can see it too, which of course they can because you can’t exactly miss the huge body of water to our left. But I’m mainly smiling because it reminds me of my daughter when she was that age. Louise always loved it down here too, and we spent many a happy afternoon playing on the pebbles and splashing at the shoreline. But those memories are now tinged with sadness because it’s been a long time since we came down here together. These days, I only venture down this way to run errands, and I know that Louise only comes here to drink alcohol with her school friends. I’m not happy about it, and neither are the local police, but there’s simply too much coastline for them to monitor, especially after dark. And my daughter must think I’m a fool if I haven’t noticed the occasional bottle of white wine going missing from my stash under the sink.
Thinking about more innocent times with my daughter makes my heart ache as I watch the young girl clutching her mother’s hand as she pulls her in the direction of the beach. That is exactly how Louise and I used to be, but those days are long gone now, swept away and confined to the past almost as easily as that sheet of newspaper that I can see fluttering around down on the pebbles.
In the end, it’s a relief to see the family ahead of me leave the Promenade and disappear down
one of the ramps that lead to the beach because it means I don’t have to look at them and their happiness anymore. But it wasn’t just the mother and daughter relationship that has me harking back to past times in my life. It was also the sight of the man accompanying them both. He looked protective. He looked dependable. He looked like a guy who had his life in order.
Basically, he looked like the complete opposite of my current boyfriend.
I’ve been seeing Johnny for two years now, but things have hardly been a picnic between us. While I had envisioned many sunset strolls along the pier with him in the summer and cosy nights in front of the TV in the winter, it hasn’t been anywhere near that perfect. That’s because, unlike that man I just watched disappear down onto the beach with his family, my partner couldn’t be described as reliable and available.
I do my best to keep my hair from blowing all over my face as another strong gust of wind sweeps along the Prom before deciding to cut my losses and cross the street where the tall buildings should offer me a little more protection from the elements. As I walk over the crossing and reach the other side of the road, I think about the argument I had with Johnny two days ago. I haven’t seen him since. But unlike all the other times when he would come crawling back and beg for my forgiveness, so far I haven’t heard anything from him. Maybe it’s for the best. I’m not sure we had the healthiest relationship anyway. It was far too one-sided. I gave, and he would gratefully take.
Affection. Trust. Money.
Mainly money.
But it wasn’t that he was greedy. He was just an addict.
Johnny has been battling a serious gambling problem ever since I met him, and despite my best efforts and his best intentions, it is a habit he has never been able to fully control or defeat. While I have done what I could to help him beat his addiction, giving him a place to stay, lending him money, and even attending meetings with him and fellow addicts, it has never been enough. Johnny has to want to help himself, but despite what he keeps promising me, there doesn’t seem to be much evidence of him really wanting to do that. Now I feel that our latest argument might have been our last. I haven’t seen or heard from him in forty-eight hours. But I know one thing; I’m not going to be the one who makes an effort this time. If he still wants to fight for what we have, then he is the one who is going to have to do the work to keep us together because I’m done with it. I’ve got enough on my plate without continuing to take on his problems. Trying to hold down my full-time job in London while bringing up a hell-raising teenager is more than enough for any woman to manage without adding a reckless gambler on top of that.
It’s not that I’m unsympathetic to Johnny’s problems. I am. It’s just that while he continues to waste his life on things that aren’t going to improve his situation, I’ve been focusing on things that will improve mine. Finally, for the first time in a long time, I have financial security. I’ve been saving hard for the past year, putting away as much of my wages as I can in order to give myself and Louise a better life. I am planning to move us out of our tiny flat by the station, where we get woken up by the sounds of the trains at all hours, and move into somewhere a little bigger in a nicer part of town. I’ve given up many luxuries over the past twelve months in order to do this, including takeaways, holidays, and shopping trips on the high street, but it has been worth it to finally give myself the cushion of having some money saved away. It’s not much. Only five grand. But it’s more than I have ever been able to save in my life after raising Louise as a single mum for the last fifteen years.
The only real drain on my finances besides my child, our flat, and my commute into London has been Johnny and the money I would give him whenever he hit rock bottom again. It was never much, sometimes as little as ten or twenty pounds, but even so, it added up, and that was money that could have stayed in my bank account instead of ending up behind the counter of a betting shop somewhere in Brighton. Johnny always promised me he would get himself straight and that we would have a healthier relationship, but he would let me down every time.
But no more. From now on, I’m taking back greater control of my finances.
Like today, for example. I’m on my way into the bank to pay in a cheque that I received from one of my colleagues. I had lent her twenty pounds a few months ago when she was struggling to last until payday, and she has finally paid me back, although in the form of a cheque, which was a little surprising and more than a little annoying. I’m not sure why she couldn’t just give me the cash, but she is a lot older than me and of that generation that did most of their transactions with a chequebook. But it was nice of her to finally pay me back, and it will be good to have that twenty pounds in my account in a short while. It’s not much, but in my circumstances, every little bit helps.
I turn off the Promenade and see the glass doors of my branch on the next street. Pushing the doors open quickly and stepping inside, it’s a relief to be out of the blustery weather for a moment. I catch a quick glance of my reflection in the doors as I pass through, and it’s evident that my hairstyle has been no match for the bracing wind on the seafront today. But never mind.
I’m here to cash a cheque, not win a beauty pageant.
I’d ideally like to use the self-service ATMs to the left of the banking hall to process my cheque, but I see there is a long queue of people already waiting to use them, so I take my place in the shorter line for the cashier desks instead. In a way, this is better because it’s nice to actually talk to somebody instead of just dealing with an automated machine. This is how it was in the old days before technology crept into our lives.
But I still wish my colleague had transferred me the money instead of handing me a bloody cheque.
As I wait in the queue, I check my phone for messages, not that I’m expecting to have any. Sure enough, there are none. Nothing from Louise. Nothing from Johnny. Nothing from anybody. Forget beauty pageants. I guess I won’t be winning any popularity contests either.
It takes several minutes of edging along the carpet in this banking hall, but eventually the customers in front of me get seen to, and now it is my turn to step up to the glass screen and speak to the little old lady behind it.
‘Good morning. Just paying in a cheque, please,’ I say as I slide the piece of paper through the slot onto the cashier’s desk.
‘You don’t see many of these anymore,’ she says to me, waving the cheque at me on the other side of the screen, and I laugh because she is right.
I wish she would tell that to the woman who gave it to me.
I wait patiently as the friendly cashier punches several numbers into her keyboard and glances at her computer screen a couple of times before finally telling me that it is done.
‘Would you like a receipt and statement of balance?’ she asks, and I tell her that I would.
As she prints one off, I think about how pleasant this woman is. I’m not sure I would be this chirpy if I did her job, but not everybody is like me, I suppose.
Not everybody is forever dreaming of something better just beyond their reach.
‘There you go. That’s all done for you,’ the cashier says as she slides a couple of slips of paper back through the slot, and I take them.
‘Thank you,’ I say as I turn to walk away, glancing down at the paper as I do.
The first one is the receipt confirming the amount of £20 has been paid into my account today, while the second one is the current balance of that particular account.
It’s that second one that causes me to panic.
‘Wait,’ I say, turning back to the desk and cutting in front of the old man who was just about to take my place. ‘This isn’t right.’
‘What isn’t right, dear?’ the cashier asks me, my distressed state still not enough to put a chink in her friendly customer service.
‘My account. It says that there’s only sixty-seven pounds in it. But there should be more than that. A lot more!’
The cashier frowns a little but returns to her k
eyboard, where she hits several more numbers before reaching out for the edge of her computer monitor and turning it around so that I can see what is displayed on the screen.
‘This is your account, correct?’ she asks me, referring to the long line of numbers across the top and the sort code beside it.
My eyes scan the numbers, and I can see that they are the ones that belong to me. But before I can answer her, I again notice the numbers at the bottom of the screen, and they are the ones that cause me to grip the marble counter between us tightly.
It’s the balance of the account.
Where has my £5,000 gone?
17
AMANDA
I’ve just finished telling the man who is trying to take all my money in the present about the man who took all my money in the past.
After that frantic moment in the banking hall of my local branch two years ago, I started to find out why I hadn’t heard from my boyfriend in two days. Johnny had cleaned out my account after getting my bank details from the numerous statements I had lying around at my flat, transferring the funds from my account to his. He had got all my money through a combination of my carelessness with my documents and his desperate determination to keep funding his addiction.
He cleaned me out, and now the guy sitting opposite me wants to do the same.
Why does this keep happening to me?
‘Even though I told them it was stolen, they said it was my fault for not taking care of my personal details,’ I say, hoping that my tale of woe might be enough to give the man opposite me second thoughts about his own plan. ‘If a stranger had stolen my credit card from my purse, then they could have helped me, but because it was a boyfriend and he obtained the information easily in my own home, they said I was to blame.’
