The Desperate Wife’s Survival Plan

by Alison Sherlock

  ‘So?’ Charley was shocked by how little he appeared to care. ‘What are they supposed to live on until you can pay them back?’

  ‘I can’t pay them back, can I? We’re bankrupt, remember?’

  ‘How could I bloody forget?’ she shouted into his face.

  ‘Calm down, would you?’ said Steve. ‘I’ll think of something.’

  As Charley stood there, incensed, she heard the front doorbell ring and turned around, slamming the bathroom door behind her.

  She stomped down the stairs and away from her husband before she could strangle him with his soap on a rope. Perhaps that was why they were so popular. Perhaps they were the last resort of desperate wives looking to kill their husbands. ‘The rope got caught around the shower rail, your honour, and he slipped.’

  She flung open the door. ‘What?’ she snapped.

  A pair of men held up some ID cards in front of her. ‘Mrs Mills?’ one of them asked.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘We’re from Blake Collections.’

  Suddenly fearful, Charley took a small step backwards.

  ‘We’re acting on behalf of Rose Motors,’ said the other man. ‘Here’s our warrant.’

  A piece of paper was put in front of her face. It appeared authentic, with official court stamps and signatures.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ she said.

  ‘You owe too much money on your car,’ said the larger man, giving her a pitying smile. ‘We’re here to take it away.’

  Charley glanced across at her BMW convertible. It had been a present from Steve the previous summer. She couldn’t park the damn thing, but it sure looked good driving around the village. She had never thought about how he had paid for it until that moment.

  ‘It’s got to go?’ she asked. ‘Tonight?’

  The man nodded. ‘Unless you’ve got thirty grand on you.’

  She tried to laugh but it stuck in her throat. ‘No, I’m pretty certain I haven’t.’

  In a daze, she went in search of her handbag and found the car keys.

  ‘Do I have to sign anything?’ she asked, handing them over.

  ‘Here,’ said the man, holding out an official form. ‘And here.’

  She scribbled her signature on the paper.

  The man ripped off the top carbon sheet. ‘Here’s your copy.’

  The piece of yellow paper rustled as a cold wind swept up the driveway.

  ‘Do you want anything out of the car?’ asked one of the bailiffs.

  She found she could barely take it all in. ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Why don’t you come with us and check?’

  Charley followed them over to her car. She removed the iPod from the dashboard and scooped up a couple of coins that were lurking in the centre console, but that was it.

  She stared down the driveway, watching her car being driven away. When she could no longer hear the engine, she turned and headed towards the front door, still clutching the form and her iPod.

  How were she and Steve going to cope with only one car between them? And what if his car was repossessed as well? How would she get to the supermarket to buy food? Even more pressing a thought was what would she use to pay for it? Their current accounts had been frozen by the bank. She only had the cash in her purse and that was dwindling fast.

  Steve was standing at the bottom of the stairs when she went back into the hallway.

  ‘Who was that?’ he asked, fastening the belt on his jeans.

  ‘They were bailiffs,’ she told him. ‘They’ve taken the BMW.’

  ‘Bloody hell,’ he swore, picking up his car keys from the table. ‘I’m going to the pub. If anyone comes here looking for my Mercedes, tell them you’ve never heard of me.’

  ‘The pub? Again?’ she said.

  He shrugged his shoulders. ‘No point sitting around here, feeling miserable.’

  Charley watched him leave, wishing, despite their earlier row, that he had asked her to go with him. Not that she really wanted to go out. She wasn’t in the mood for chatting and laughing with his mates at the moment. She was surprised that Steve was. But it would have been nice to spend a bit of time with him, not to be alone again.

  Chapter Eight

  SAMANTHA SUPPRESSED A smirk as she stared at Miranda’s pear-shaped hips. What on earth made her think she could pull off a tight pencil skirt? And nobody over the age of twenty-five could really get away with a pussy-bow blouse. She looked like she was channelling Margaret Thatcher.

  Samantha got up from her desk to fetch herself a coffee, grabbing her mobile as she went. She glanced at her own reflection as she headed down the corridor but already knew that her chocolate-coloured shift dress looked good. With black high heels adding a good couple of inches to her legs, she could feel the admiring glance of one of the marketing managers on her as she walked by.

  She went into the kitchen and pressed the button on the vending machine for a cappuccino. Her phone rang while she waited for her drink.

  It was Charley.

  ‘How’s it going?’ asked Samantha.

  Charley sighed. ‘Not so good. The bailiffs took my car last night.’

  ‘My God!’ Samantha was shocked. She had always been envious of Charley’s BMW and couldn’t believe it was gone. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I suppose.’ But Charley’s tone wasn’t convincing.

  ‘Can I do anything to help?’

  ‘Actually,’ said Charley, ‘I was wondering if you could take me to the supermarket after work? I need to get a few things and I daren’t tell my mum yet. If she hears about the car, she’s gonna really freak out.’

  ‘I’d love to,’ began Samantha, ‘but I’ve got to stay on tonight for a meeting. They’re saying it’s going to run late.’

  ‘Oh. Well, not to worry. I’ll see if Caroline’s about.’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Samantha. ‘I’ll give you a ring over the weekend, yeah?’

  She did feel a pang of guilt. The truth was that there was no meeting. Samantha had a whole evening of pampering planned. She knew if she had seen Charley, they would have ended up having a bottle of wine and chatting all night. Then she would have lost her ‘me’ time.

  She would help her friend out later on. Charley had a husband to support her through the bad times. Samantha was still single at the age of twenty-nine.

  Mind you, she was hoping the office party in a few weeks would change all that.

  Caroline held the phone under her ear as she opened the post.

  ‘Yes, of course I can take you,’ she told Charley. ‘How about eleven o’clock? See you later.’

  As she focussed on the letter she had just opened, her mobile slipped on to the floor. But Caroline didn’t pick it up. She was too busy staring at the piece of paper in horror.

  For nearly five years she had held on to one dream: sending her daughter to private school. Not that there was anything wrong with the local primary school, but Grove School for Girls was perfect for Flora. It was a vibrant prep school on the outskirts of the village that encouraged each girl to ‘find their special gift’. Money meant quality, and Flora was going to have the best education money could buy.

  She was going to look so cute in her royal blue pinafore dress, blazer and boater. Even the duffel coat with its school crest made her look adorable. Caroline had been so excited, thinking of that first day at school.

  But beautiful royal blue blazers with cream piping came at a price. A hefty one. She and Jeff had discussed the £3,000 per term fees and had decided that they could manage to afford them on his salary. Jeff earned a very good wage in the banking sector of the City and hadn’t yet reached his full earning potential. Of course, that had meant a few sacrifices along the way. Camping holidays in France, rather than villas in Tuscany. An updated car, but not with all the top of the range gadgets. Designer shoes that were now a couple of years old. But they were all sacrifices that Caroline had been willing to make.

  She took a deep breath and glanced back at th
e piece of paper in her hand. It was a bright and friendly letter from the school, listing the add-on requirements for the year beginning in September. Requirements that she hadn’t even considered.

  Caroline had had no idea all the extras would amount to so much. The uniform had already totalled £500. In addition, it appeared they now needed to find the money for music lessons, after school clubs, lunches, book bag, trips and the school bus . . . totalling over £800 per term. And the school was very politely asking for the money by the end of June.

  As she bent down to pick up her mobile, Caroline decided that she couldn’t talk to Jeff about it. He was already stressed as it was thanks to the financial crisis engulfing the banking sector, spending extra long hours at the office.

  She would just have to find the money herself, that was all. She would continue to scrimp and save. A little here, a little shaved off the housekeeping there. Jeff wouldn’t even know.

  After all, it wasn’t as if they were in the same situation as poor Charley. Caroline shook her head, sad for her friend. The least she could do was give her a lift to the supermarket.

  She tucked the letter deep into her handbag. It would be her little secret. Everyone else had bigger problems to deal with. Hers were a drop in the ocean.

  Julie finished work at six o’clock and drove home, weary after a long hard day. She hadn’t slept properly since the funeral and the overcast days didn’t help her feel any brighter. She hated February and was glad there were only a couple more days of it to go until March. That meant spring was on the way and she might finally get out into the garden.

  In an unusual display of self-indulgence, Julie had placed an order for a rare peony, via a specialist website, the previous evening. The flower had won many awards for its rich ruby-red double petals. Fifty pounds was a hugely extravagant price, but Julie knew it would be worth every penny.

  Once home, she let herself in the front door and switched on the hall light. She picked up the post from the doormat, giving the envelopes a cursory glance as she went into the kitchen. It was mostly junk, but one envelope stood out. She opened it to find a letter from the bank. The interest rate on her mortgage was being increased. She would have to find an extra £75 per month.

  Julie dropped the letter on the kitchen table and went to find something to eat in the freezer. But she had lost her appetite.

  One mortgage she could cope with, but the second mortgage was hitting her purse hard. She had remortgaged the house a year ago to help Nick out of a financial hole. He was desperate to gain his independence and, once he had found a job at the local DIY superstore, Julie had indulged him with the money for a deposit on a flat and some furniture. He had also needed a more reliable car, which she had paid for. A few weeks later he had walked out of the job, telling his mother that the manager was an idiot.

  Julie kept extending the loan further and further, until she was struggling to cover the cost of both mortgages each month. She had worked on an IT hotline for Mason & Mason, a large local firm, for almost ten years, resolving technical abnormalities on a large database. She wasn’t sure how she had managed to become a database administrator but it was a decent enough wage. Until she had overstretched herself for her son’s sake.

  But it wasn’t as if she hadn’t known financial difficulties before. She could still remember how, as a small child, she’d watched her mother cowering in a corner while a couple of burly men took away the rental television because of unpaid bills.

  The thought of her mother brought a lump to Julie’s throat. Keeping busy was her default way of coping with grief. She had already cleared her mother’s small council flat; hadn’t kept much apart from jewellery and the odd ornament. Work helped as well, she found. But whilst winter dragged its heels, she was unable to lose herself in her beloved garden.

  The thought of it brought a feeling of fresh guilt upon her. She glanced again at the letter from the bank. Paying £50 for a peony was beginning to look very extravagant. She wondered if it was too late to cancel the order.

  Chapter Nine

  ‘WHY THE HELL isn’t there any hot water?’ yelled Steve, as he came into the bedroom wearing nothing but a towel. ‘The shower is freezing!’

  Charley rolled her eyes. ‘I’ve switched off the hot water and heating,’ she explained to him in a tight voice, ‘because there isn’t any money to pay the bills.’

  You would know this if you were ever here, she almost added.

  ‘This is ridiculous,’ he snapped, quickly getting dressed. ‘It’s five degrees out there.’

  ‘So? Wear a jumper,’ retorted Charley, before walking out of the room and down the stairs.

  She refused to start the day with yet another row but his whingeing was beginning to grate on her. March had already arrived yet still he didn’t seem to understand what bankruptcy was going to mean to them. He seemed only to have accepted that the house was going to be sold when the For Sale sign went up a few days earlier. Most of their furniture and household items would have to be handed over to official bailiffs. Their bank account was frozen indefinitely. They might be able to open a new one in the future, but most banks would be giving them a wide berth for years to come.

  A lack of hot water was the least of their problems. In fact, Charley was nipping over to Julie’s house each day for a lovely hot shower but she wasn’t going to let on to Steve. In her eyes, he didn’t deserve it. He needed to be punished.

  Deep in her heart, Charley knew it wasn’t all his fault. She should have taken more interest in the business, then perhaps things wouldn’t have got so out of control. She could have intervened, made a difference somehow. But it was too late for that. Nothing was salvageable from this mess. It was about survival now.

  She felt sure they would make it through this rocky patch and carry on as before with their marriage. But it didn’t stop her being cross with him, especially when he was still ducking out of the house each day to mess about with his mates. The atmosphere between the two of them was extremely tense, and she was secretly grateful that he went out most days. She had even stopped asking exactly where it was he went.

  So she was home alone when the satellite man arrived to disconnect their cable system and broadband. He had only just left in his van when two more men arrived to take the large leather sofas back to the furniture store. The dishwasher disappeared the next day, swiftly followed by the tumble dryer.

  With every knock on the door she was faced with more people and their forms. These were official, certified bailiffs, acting on behalf of the people from whom Charley and Steve had bought or leased things for their house. The men were polite, just doing their job. She always tried to offer them a cup of tea before they took another part of her home away in their vans.

  She didn’t cry though. Not until they had left.

  The enforcement agents arrived next, looking for anything else of monetary value. There being no cash or bank accounts left to plunder, they began to take goods that could be sold at public auction.

  Room by room, day by day, Charley’s home was gradually being dismantled. As she watched it all being carried out of the house, she felt ashamed at the amount of money they had squandered over the years. Did they really need four flat-screen televisions when only two people lived in the house? An iPod docking station in most of the rooms? Every conceivable games console? Two computers, a scanner, laptop and a couple of iPads?

  Thankfully, Caroline had reminded her to copy their most important files on to memory sticks before all the computer equipment was taken away. Charley had begun to move irreplaceable items to her parents’ house for safe-keeping. Unfortunately, this meant running into her family, all of whom she was trying to avoid as the nagging had become incessant.

  ‘You’ve left Mum and Dad up to their necks in it,’ said Victoria, her younger sister. ‘They’re so upset,’ added Elizabeth, the other twin.

  ‘I know!’ Charley told them, slumping on to the sofa. ‘I’ve apologised, haven’t I?’

/>   ‘They can’t live on apologies, can they?’ said Victoria, scowling across at her from her position in the armchair.

  ‘I don’t understand where all the money went,’ said Elizabeth. ‘You were loaded.’

  Charley thought about her empty house but said nothing.

  ‘And where’s Steve this afternoon?’ snapped Victoria.

  ‘He’s busy.’

  Charley glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece and wondered how quickly she could excuse herself from this interrogation.

  Maureen brought in some tea plates and placed them on the coffee table. The imminent arrival of a home-made cake made everyone pause for thought. But not for long.

  ‘What’s more important than his wife’s family?’ said Victoria.

  Her husband Adam shot her a look. ‘Leave it,’ he said, in a quiet tone.

  Victoria ignored him. ‘I just don’t understand why Steve wants to be by himself at the moment. He’s still married to you, isn’t he? You should be getting through this together.’

  Luckily Maureen had to dash back into the kitchen to sort out the cake so Charley made her excuses and followed suit.

  ‘Want a hand, Mum?’

  ‘No, thank you, darling.’ Maureen ripped off some pieces of kitchen roll to use as napkins. ‘So? Where is Steve?’

  Charley gave a theatrical sigh. ‘He’s trying to get our lives back in order.’

  ‘And then you’ll sort out things between you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Maureen raised her eyebrows. ‘So you might have time to see about giving me some more grandchildren soon.’

  ‘Aren’t two enough?’

  ‘There’s no need to feel jealous of your sister. You’ve still got a few childbearing years left in you.’

  Charley glanced at her watch. ‘I’ve got to go soon.’

  ‘Have you had your tubes checked?’

  ‘Mum! Can we focus on one thing a time?’

  ‘I just thought it might be a bit of good news. Lord knows we could do with some.’