Rumours

by Freya North

  ‘I – knew something was wrong. I knew something was wrong. But he kept saying I was paranoid and to get over myself and not to be so stupid and for fuck’s sake to stop spying on him.’ She paused. ‘Making out it was me who was in the wrong. I hated that. But what option did I have?’

  ‘Go on?’

  Her grammar was clunkingly awkward – it was redolent of how she was feeling, how deep-seated her angst – but Xander had a handle on all she was saying.

  ‘The long and the short of it was that he gambled his money away.’ She said it very quickly. And then she speeded up again. ‘And mine. And some of my mum’s. Not in that order.’

  ‘Your mum’s?’

  ‘It all sounded so plausible. Some fab new business worth buying into – and could she invest twenty grand as a short-term loan.’

  ‘Christ. Has he paid it back?’

  Stella shook her head.

  ‘Christ, Stella.’

  ‘He’d bet on anything. Mostly, he just liked backing horses – which was weird, because he didn’t like animals. But casinos too. And online. That was the worst.’

  ‘How did you find out?’

  Stella looked embarrassed. ‘I snooped. He was right about that – I did spy. I was desperate. I couldn’t understand it – if he had a good job, why was the joint account always plundered? Why was it me topping it up to pay the mortgage, the bills? Where was the hundred pounds my mum gave me for my birthday? Then the phone calls came – from credit collection agencies, who were polite and evasive and only wanted to talk to him. And then there were calls from debt collectors who were rude and threatening and told me to tell him they’d called, that they’d call back, that they’d be calling around.

  ‘I’m afraid to admit I resorted to steaming open his bank statements, his credit card statements. I can’t describe the shock, the dismay, the disbelief. So much cash going out. Really bizarre activity – you know, between ten and eleven in the morning, let’s say, four or five different withdrawals from ATMs of a hundred and fifty quid a time. Day after day. Why wasn’t he in the office? What was he doing, that time of day, plundering ATMs within streets of each other? God – this is so long ago. But when I think back, I relive it all.’

  ‘If you don’t want to, it’s—’

  ‘No,’ said Stella. ‘No. I want to.’ She nodded at Xander. ‘Then Charlie lost his job. He made it sound like he was the victim – and he was so compelling. Why wouldn’t I believe him? I was his wife. He had a child with me. Why wouldn’t my family believe him? He was so – nice – charming to them. Poor Charlie, we said. Don’t worry, we said. It’s not your fault, Charlie. It’s my bastard boss, he’d say. Or he’d say, it’s the sodding bank. At that time, we didn’t know he’d actually been sacked. Anyway, he found other work – in which my mum invested twenty grand. But it was some left-field new company. And before long, I was paying all the bills again because he told me they’d all agreed to slash their pay to keep the company afloat. Soon enough, he told me he’d offered to work without pay. It bugged me that I had this gut-curdling, creeping sense of doubt. I hated myself for it. I was a wife – I should be supporting and trusting my husband. Wasn’t my husband simply being magnanimous? I hated myself for simply not trusting him. I should be proud – not suspicious. But with my heart in my mouth and with my head pounding, I steamed open his bank statements again.’

  ‘And he was being paid.’

  ‘Yes!’ said Stella, amazed that Xander should guess which, in turn, made Xander feel so sad for her.

  ‘Lie after lie – I’d ask him things to which I knew the answer, just so I could catch him out. But I found it so difficult to confront him. Because when someone behaves like that, and you’re the closest person to them, they somehow draw you in, you start to shoulder their secret for them. You put on a brave mask over the worry lines on your face. You feel compelled to tell the outside world that all is well. You keep plugging the holes with your money. Throwing good money after bad.’

  ‘Well, you’re hardly going to tell your mum, hey, your son-in-law has squandered your twenty grand but I don’t want my marriage to end.’

  Stella reached her hand for Xander. And continued. ‘You don’t want anyone to know. You don’t want the Poor Old Stella rumours doing the rounds – however well meaning and empathetic the intention. It was mortifying. The straws I clutched at – pathetic! Perhaps it’ll change. Hopefully it’s just a blip. He’ll see the error of his ways. He’ll shape up. He’ll make good.

  ‘But no. The calls, the letters, they kept coming. And any time I wanted to talk about them, he’d give me short shrift. He’d tell me I didn’t understand “business”. That I was being unhelpful. That a certain amount of debt could be a savvy thing, sometimes. That he needed my support, my love – that to confront him and doubt him was simply telling him I didn’t love him.’ Her voice lowered, cracked, disappeared behind fresh tears. ‘Truth be told, he was always a bit remote from Will. He wasn’t particularly – connected – with my pregnancy. Fair enough – some blokes aren’t. But, if I’m honest, he was ambivalent when I found out I was pregnant; almost embarrassed to tell people.

  ‘I don’t doubt that he loved Will – I have to allow Charlie his way of showing it, I suppose. We can’t all be tactile, demonstrative people. That shouldn’t belittle the love that some people feel – even if they have a weird way of showing it. But.’ She didn’t know how to continue. She looked to Xander.

  ‘It’s OK,’ he said, ‘I know what “but” means.’

  ‘Always putting his own needs, desires, first. Quite absent, really. Always off somewhere or other – two or three nights a week. Business, apparently. Or a late-night drinking session because he was “stressed”. Made me feel I was thick, or interfering; that didn’t I know it was a “start-up company” and he was putting in all the hours God sent. And couldn’t I allow him some let-up with his mates. So many nights when, with no warning, he simply didn’t come home. Uncontactable. It was grim.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Broke. Suddenly horribly, seriously, broke. Too humiliating and scary to tell a soul. Had already remortgaged. Had to take out a secured loan against the house – at a ridiculous rate of interest. Told me to get the house into my name or the bailiffs would get it.’

  ‘So he admitted it?’

  ‘By that stage he was really scared.’

  ‘Did he stop?’ Stella didn’t answer. ‘Tell me he stopped,’ said Xander.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What a jerk.’

  ‘I took myself off to this help group for families of gamblers. It was so bloody depressing – all these people desperately trying to love the perpetrators who were single-handedly and self-centredly fucking over their lives. They were desperate, it seemed to me, to accept it as an illness – to forgive them, to forgive themselves, to understand, justify, support. I walked out of there livid. I heard all these stories – and all I wanted to do was to yell at these poor twits and tell them to leave! Leave him! What a bastard! It’s not illness – it’s weakness! Then it struck me their stories were my story – but I hadn’t left.’

  ‘So you did?’

  ‘It took another year. You just don’t want to believe there isn’t a solution. You just want to believe that you and your beautiful little boy can inspire someone to change their ways. You want to believe in good, not bad.

  ‘I went to see a therapist – to try and understand. And she said that, for gamblers, the intoxicating reverberation to which they’re addicted is the dichotomy between high self-regard and low self-esteem. I just sat and nodded and paid fifty quid a session to try and understand what the fuck that meant. The way she explained it is that the gambler always believes that they’ll win, but simultaneously they taunt themselves that they’ll lose. It’s the hedonism of it all that’s so addictive, the thrill of danger, of teetering on a precipice with a million bucks just beyond reach and the perverse exhilaration of what it might be like to fall all the way dow
n.

  ‘But when they have someone like you – and your family – supportive and close-knit, you bail them out because it’s natural to your nature to do so. But thereby your propensity for goodness simply increases their appetite for bad behaviour. They never hit rock bottom because you send them that lifeline. Because you’re essentially good and you believe in hope and in amor vincit omnia.’

  Stella nodded as if convincing herself all over again.

  ‘Whoa!’ said Xander. ‘They might not hit rock bottom, but that’s not to say they’re not detritus feeders scumming along the bloody sea floor eating shit.’ His passionate concern was beautiful to Stella. ‘But you left.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘When Will was three. But I took Charlie back because he made all the right noises. But a year after that, something happened and that was that. It was over. I had no trust, no belief left, no more forgiveness in me. That was just gone three years ago.’

  ‘What happened?’

  Stella looked into the mug.

  It’s time, she said to herself, it’s time to sip the last of the cocoa and finish it all off. The lovely, comforting, ultra-sweet last sip.

  ‘The car broke down,’ she told Xander quietly. ‘It was a flat tyre. But I had Will in the back and – ashamed to admit it, I didn’t know how to change the wheel. So I called out the AA. And the chap came. And lifted the base of the boot to access the spare wheel. And there, stuffed into it, in a plastic bag, were handfuls of condoms and tubes of lube.’

  This, Xander was not expecting and suddenly he had no words.

  ‘I spent another small fortune I couldn’t afford back with that therapist,’ Stella said flatly, ‘until she drummed into me that it was simply the other side of the same coin.’

  ‘Jesus Christ, Stella.’ Xander left the armchair and came to sit close to her.

  ‘On that day, though, the AA man was so lovely. He really was. Older chap. He said nothing. But once he’d fixed the tyre, he told me I was a good girl and to take care of myself and my little ’un.’ Stella sobbed a little, then visibly shook herself straight. ‘He gave me the rest of his pack of Werther’s Originals. I never ate them. I’d hold one in my hand, as a lucky talisman. I still have them.’

  ‘What did you do, baby?’

  ‘I checked the computer. I’m not very savvy when it comes to computers – which Charlie well knew. But I checked the thingy – you know – the Internet list bit.’

  ‘Search History?’

  ‘That’s the one. And there were – sites.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘For – escorts. Saunas.’ She shook her head violently. ‘I don’t want to talk about it. Sapphire in Leeds. Aimee in Doncaster. Check the dates, Stella – wasn’t he in Leeds on business last Wednesday? Doncaster the week before?’

  ‘It’s OK, beautiful. You don’t need to.’ Xander pulled her into his arms. ‘It’s OK. Enough. It’s gone.’

  She rested there awhile. ‘I know – but I want to. I want you to know. Anyway, that day I took Will and went to my brother’s. I saw Charlie again only twice. Once when he was all tears, once when he was a seething mass of indignation.’

  ‘You had to sell the house?’

  ‘Negative equity.’

  ‘And your business?’

  ‘It wasn’t making any money – dream career at a nightmare time. My brother – Al. I live in his house. He owns a couple of others which he rents out.’

  ‘You’ve made it a home.’

  ‘For me and Will.’

  ‘But – Will. Does he not see his father?’

  Stella shook her head. ‘He barely remembers him. He was only just four when I finally left.’

  ‘But does he keep in touch?’

  ‘Hardly at all.’

  ‘Where is he?’

  Stella shrugged. ‘France, I think. Bankrupt, I heard.’

  ‘OK.’ Xander paused. ‘But tell me you get at least some support from him?’

  Stella paused and then, reluctantly, shook her head and shrugged again. ‘Not a penny.’

  Xander was appalled, furious. ‘What self-respecting father wouldn’t support their own child?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ Stella said. ‘It’s me and Will. And Will and me. As it’s always been. We’re not dependent on Charlie. We’re a tight little unit, me and my boy.’

  ‘But he’s obliged to support you, isn’t he? Legally? Morally?’

  ‘On paper, yes,’ said Stella. ‘But it was so stressful – every month checking to see if the money had gone in. Phoning him to chase it up. Spending money with lawyers. Forms. Declarations. The divorce. In the end, I just made a decision to lessen my anxiety, to shift the stress. To go it alone – completely alone. To bring up Will by myself. Sole custody.’

  ‘And Will? He’s such a great little chap.’

  ‘I’m very close with my family – he adores my brothers. He’s at a lovely school – loves his male teachers. He doesn’t pine, because there wasn’t truly much to pine for. It kicked off over half his life ago. He asks me stuff – and I answer honestly but temper the level of detail. He thinks he’s rather special – but I suppose, I do tell him he is, the whole time.’

  Xander had to stop himself from ripping into Charlie. Then he thought of Will – always Stella’s primary thought. It clicked. ‘And that’s why you don’t want Will to wake up in your house without you?’

  Stella nodded. ‘Not after those nights I’d wake up and Charlie wasn’t back and I’d lie to Will, whatever his age, to say Daddy had to stay late at work. Daddy went in to work really really early.’

  ‘He’s a happy little lad,’ Xander said gently, ‘your Will.’

  ‘I know.’ She paused. ‘It’s just me. I don’t want to sound unhinged – but my own self-esteem took a bit of a bashing.’

  ‘I can imagine.’

  ‘You wonder if it’s something you did – that you didn’t do – that might make someone behave like that towards you. You wonder what more you can do. You try this, that – anything. You cry. Shout. Beg. Threaten. Plead. Tough love. Soft touch. You hold out olive branches. You give ultimatums. Chance after chance after chance.’

  ‘You do know that actually it has nothing to do with you? That you’re not remotely culpable? That some people are simply bad eggs?’

  ‘I know,’ Stella said quietly. ‘It’s taken a while. But I know.’

  ‘What a loser.’ Xander looked at Stella, touched her cheek. ‘Just look at what he’s lost!’ He thought about it, quietly, for a moment or two. ‘I love you,’ he told her, quietly assured. ‘Though I have to admit, it excites me and terrifies me, in equal measures. But I love you, Stella. So there.’

  Stella smiled shyly.

  ‘I also have to admit I do have a flutter every year on the Grand National,’ Xander said. ‘A tenner. Never more. Never won.’

  Stella’s smile turned into a giggle.

  ‘And on my twenty-first birthday, bloody Caroline organized a strippergram.’ He paused. ‘I had to lick cream off her tits. The stripper – not Caroline, obviously.’

  This time, Stella laughed. She sighed, gazed at Xander. ‘Love you too, boyo,’ she said.

  ‘I might like to lick cream off your tits, at some point,’ Xander said, very gravely. ‘But I wouldn’t pay for the privilege.’

  ‘You can have me for free, matey,’ Stella said. She lay against his chest, soothed once more by his heartbeat while he wove strands of her hair through his fingers.

  ‘Thank you,’ Stella said. ‘For letting me be a bit mad upstairs. For letting me tell you all this – stuff. For loving me still, in spite of it all.’

  ‘Do you feel OK, now, about staying here? If you need to go – at four thirty in the morning – that’s OK.’

  ‘I want to stay – but I’d like to be home first thing.’

  ‘That’s OK.’

  Stella fell quiet again. ‘At some point, I’d like Will to know – about you. And Us. But I don’t
know when that might be, and how I tell him.’

  Xander thought about it too. Love Stella, love her Will. Wouldn’t be hard. ‘I’d like him to know too,’ he said. ‘But it’s entirely up to you. All in good time. But for now – come back to bed.’

  ‘’Kay,’ she said and she looked absolutely exhausted.

  In his bed, Xander brought her into his arms, tight against his chest. He thought of Will, imagined the little lad tucked up in bed in Star Wars jimjams, safe as houses, unaware of the strong warrior, the lioness that his mother was, prowling the night in her constant quest to ensure the best and most secure life for him. Stella. Mother, father, good cop, bad cop, supporting Will single-handedly – emotionally, practically, financially.

  ‘Now I see why the sale of Longbridge is so important to you,’ he said. ‘That level of commission will make a world of difference to you.’

  Stella traced patterns into his chest hair. She looked up at his silhouette, nestled back into his arms. ‘But I don’t want Longbridge to sell,’ she said and that’s all she was capable of before falling asleep fast.

  Xander was in the shower the next morning and Stella was getting ready to go when there was a knock at his front door.

  ‘Xander?’ she called up.

  She could hear him singing. She went to the door and opened it. It was Caroline.

  ‘Hullo, pet.’

  ‘Hey, Caroline.’

  ‘You look crap.’

  ‘Cheers!’ Stella laughed. ‘Didn’t sleep much.’

  ‘Spare me the details, missy – it’s way too early and my stomach’s all over the place!’

  ‘Not that.’ Stella paused. She liked Caroline, she was a good friend in the making – and she also liked her closeness to Xander. ‘Late-night heart-to-heart,’ she confided.

  ‘Aha! Good for the soul,’ said Caroline. ‘Crap for the skin, though.’

  ‘Cheers!’ said Stella again. She might look ropey but inside she was aglow.

  ‘Xander left these – the idiot.’ They were his car keys. ‘I don’t even know why he brought them – you walked, didn’t you? Hand in hand, head in the clouds, feet not touching the floor – that kind of walking?’ Stella laughed and nodded. ‘That’s why his head’s not screwed on at the mo’.’