And so it turned out to be. The baby’s arrival revolutionised her existence, but Rigg’s life style didn’t change in any way. He came and went as he pleased, ate the meals she cooked for him, complained if his clothes weren’t ironed to perfection, gave her grudging housekeeping money for his keep and still expected her to pay half the mortgage. She’d had to take all sorts of odd jobs in order to earn the money to feed and clothe herself and the baby and manage that mortgage. It had been a nightmare. Two years later, when Emma was on the way, she worked until the day before the child was born. But even with two children and less money, all the housework, the childcare and half the mortgage were still considered by Rigg to be her responsibility. And she’d never complained. Not even then.
Not even when he took out a second mortgage on the house and doubled the monthly repayments when she was heavily pregnant with Jon. She’d accepted it all like a good wife. But when Emma was on the way and he decided to apply for a third, and even larger mortgage, she was forced to say something. If it had been another loan to improve his business, or to buy a bigger house, she would have kept quiet and accepted it – the same as always. But he’d raised that mortgage to buy that awful holiday flat in Spain.
Rigg couldn’t understand why she was complaining. ‘Think of it,’ he urged. ‘Our own holiday home. A place in the sun. It’s just what we want.’
‘Not me,’ she said, made bold by desperation and pregnancy. ‘I don’t want it. Think of the fares. And the repayments. It’ll mean paying more than £500 a month. Where am I supposed to get that sort of money with two children? £280 is bad enough.’
‘Every other month,’ he said. ‘Don’t forget that. I pay my whack.’
‘Please don’t do it, Rigg,’ she begged.
But she couldn’t persuade him. He’d made up his mind. ‘After all,’ he said, ‘this is as much for you as it is for me. I’m buying this flat for you and the kids. That’s all I’m doing it for.’
He was so eager and hopeful and put so much pressure on her that she said ‘yes.’ And was ashamed of herself for being browbeaten. Because it was a mistake and she knew it.
And so here they were, with a terrifying mortgage – which she still paid every other month – and a flat in Spain that she and the children had visited only once and hadn’t enjoyed at all. They’d ended up with food poisoning. There were more expenses and difficulties attached to the wretched place than she could bear to think about – maids who didn’t turn up, tenants who stole the spoons, sinks to unblock, furniture to mend and condominium charges to pay. And now this, on top of everything else.
There had to be more to it than mere money. Perhaps he’d found somebody else. People always said the wife was the last to know when that happened. But surely she’d have noticed something. She’d always paid such attention to him. Such attention. But not enough obviously.
It couldn’t just be the poll tax. But if it wasn’t, that meant he was lying to her and that was unthinkable. Rigby wouldn’t do that. Not without a very good cause.
Her mind spun the facts round and round, making no sense of any of them. No matter what arguments she used to console herself, she still felt deserted, bewildered and terrified. She was desperately in need of sleep, but she couldn’t sleep at all.
Chapter Six
Mark Wareham breezed into the house at ten o’clock that morning.
‘Come on kids!’ he said. ‘Aren’t you dressed yet? We’ve been up hours and here you are still gobbling toast and Marmite. Shame on you!’
‘Toas’ a’ marmi’!’ Emma agreed, waving her slice at him.
‘Buck up and finish,’ Mark ordered. Then he noticed the dark circles under Alison’s eyes. ‘You look a mess,’ he told her cheerfully. ‘What’ve you been doing to yourself?’
Alison ducked her head. ‘I had a bad night, that’s all.’
‘So I see. Have you heard the weather forecast?’
‘No.’ It had been all she could do to get the breakfast.
‘Showers and bright intervals,’ Mark explained. ‘You’ll need wellies and anoraks, kids.’
‘Perhaps we should put it off,’ Alison hoped. In her present state, she didn’t want to go anywhere. Left to her own devices she would have stayed at home and brooded all day. But a woman with two small children rarely has the luxury of choice.
‘Put it off?’ Mark said. ‘The idea! We’re not going to let a little bit of rain stop us, are we kids?’
So she had to follow the family.
As Mark had predicted, it was a day of strong sunshine and racing clouds, of warmth so pleasant that they were all tempted to discard their coats, and rain so precipitate and penetrating that they were soaked to the skin before they could get them on again. Nevertheless, with one exception, they were determined to enjoy themselves no matter what the weather.
They strolled along the avenue of limes beside the castle, fed the trout until the water boiled with flailing bodies, took three boats out on the lake and sang their way round the central island, explored the bird sanctuary, identified ducks and avoided the geese and swans which were in a particularly aggressive mood that afternoon. All six children were soon happily dishevelled, the picnic was a success despite the rain, and Mark and Greg and Andy talked and joked and played games all day long.
But to Alison, still tussling with a fact she couldn’t accept, understand or talk about, it seemed faintly unreal. If she’d been able to confide in one of her brothers it might not have been so bad – but that would have been disloyal and, in any case, what could she tell them? That Rigg had left her? If he had left her. Or that he was trying to save money by living somewhere else. That sounded heartless without an explanation. No, there was nothing she could say. Not yet. She would just have to keep her worries to herself, get through the day and wait until she was home again on her own and had the chance to think.
That night, in a supreme effort to be sensible, she sat down and made a list of all the outstanding bills, estimated how much they were likely to be and set the total against her wages. At first the sum didn’t tally, and because there were no luxuries to trim, she couldn’t see any way to cut costs. She didn’t smoke or drink – except on the occasional excursion to the pub – and she rarely went out for the evening – except for a family get-together. After a lot of thought, she decided that if she cut out any new clothes for herself and, apart from new shoes, clothed the kids mainly from car-boot sales, she could probably balance the books. She sat back and rubbed her eyes. At least planning made her feel that she was beginning to get on top of things. I’ll take it one day at a time, she told herself, and we shall manage. That night she went to bed tired out but this time she slept well.
Gradually, her life alone with the children acquired an acceptable pattern. Living from day to day left all the important questions unanswered but at least it kept the children calm. She was surprised by how well they took Rigg’s absence. It could have been because they were used to long spells without their father anyway, or because she had managed to keep their lives as normal as possible. They even went round to visit Granny Toan and to take her a belated birthday card and a little pot plant. Although the old lady was rather drunk, she seemed pleased to see them and gave them some after-dinner mints from Harrods and let the children feed the love birds.
Nobody mentioned Rigg at all during that visit and Alison didn’t tell her own family what was going on either. They were so used to seeing her without Rigg that it would have been surprising if one of them remarked on his absence now. There was no point in upsetting them unnecessarily, especially as everything would be back to normal sooner or later.
Soon Alison had persuaded her daytime self that on one level there was nothing too difficult to face after all. Rigg’s departure had certainly cut back the housework. Now there was only one meal to cook every evening and no heavy jeans and sweaters to wash and dry. But at night she lay awake and wondered how many weeks her twilight existence would have to continue, missin
g his warmth in the bed, the sound of his breathing, the pleasure of his lovemaking. It was then she realised how difficult this parting really was. But she got on with her life just the same. There was nothing else she could do.
After ten days, Rigg phoned briefly to say that everything was going well and that if any letters came for him she was to keep them until he could come round and collect them. After five weeks, he suddenly arrived late one evening after she’d gone to bed and, to her surprise and delight, stayed the night.
As she was bundling the buggy out of the door the next morning she plucked up the courage to ask him – as casually as she could – ‘How long will you be staying?’
He had a mouth full of cornflakes, so he couldn’t answer for a few seconds. He waved her question away while he chewed, which made her heart sink. She knew what he was going to say and was out of the door before he could reply, hearing his voice from a distance as she lifted Emma into the pushchair. ‘Can’t say. Can’t say, for Chrissake.’
He’ll be gone by ten o’clock, she thought. And, of course, he was. But not before he’d made half a dozen necessary phone calls.
Not long afterwards the bills arrived at Shore Street: gas, electricity and telephone.
The gas and electricity bills were more or less what Alison expected, but the phone bill was for £137.
There’s some mistake, she thought, staring at the awful figures. It couldn’t really be that much. With trembling hands, she crammed it into her shoulder bag and took it to work. It was too alarming to cope with on her own. She’d show it to Brad at lunch time and see what she thought.
Brad’s response was trenchant. ‘You’ve got someone else’s bill,’ she said. ‘Ring ’em up an’ tell ’em. What was it last time?’
‘Half that.’
‘Well then.’
Alison wasn’t sure. ‘They’ll think I’m complaining.’
Brad laughed and brushed her coxcomb of red hair with the palm of her hand. ‘You are complaining, sunshine. An’ quite right too. You can’t pay a bill that size. Unless the Great-I-Am’s going to cough up for it. Or ain’t you told him?’
‘It only came this morning,’ Alison said lamely.
‘Phone ’em,’ Brad said.
So that afternoon, instead of taking the kids down to the beach, Alison settled them with wax crayons and colouring books and dialled the exchange. There was no mistake. It was her bill.
‘You’ve had several intercontinental calls,’ the supervisor told her. ‘That accounts for a large part of the increase.’
The shock dried Alison’s mouth. ‘Intercontinental calls?’
‘To Spain. Fuengirola. It’s all itemized. Would you like us to send you an itemized bill?’
‘No,’ Alison said weakly. ‘No thank you.’
‘There are three long calls to Birmingham at peak time,’ the supervisor added. ‘That’s another large item.’
Rigg! Alison thought. He must have used the phone for his business calls. No wonder it’s such an awful bill. Why hadn’t he told her? He couldn’t have meant to do this to her, could he? He knew how little money she had and what a struggle it was to pay the bills at the best of times. He must have made the calls and forgotten to tell her. Once he knew what had happened he’d pay for his calls and everything would be all right. Without thinking she picked up the receiver, feeling its weight in her palm as she dialled the number of the shop. £137! It was terrifying.
Norrie was on the other end of the line. ‘Rings and Thi-ings. How may I help you?’
‘I want to speak to Rigg, please,’ Alison said.
‘Just a minute,’ Norrie said. ‘I don’t know whether he’s here.’
The subterfuge made Alison cross. ‘I know he’s there,’ she said. ‘I can hear him talking. Put him on.’
There was a muffled pause. Then Norrie’s voice spoke at a distance. ‘It’s your wife, Mr Toan.’ And after some indistinct mumbling. ‘She’s heard you.’
More mumbling. Footsteps. A shuffle of paper. Then Rigg’s voice, ‘What is it, Kitten? Be quick. I’ve got a customer waiting.’
‘I’ve just had the phone bill.’
‘So?’
‘It’s for £137.’
It sounded as if he was laughing. ‘I’ve had mine too. That was even bigger. Think yourself lucky.’
‘They said you’d been phoning Spain. Had you forgotten to tell me?’
There was a short pause before he spoke again, and when he did the laughter vanished. ‘No, I didn’t forget to tell you. There wasn’t any need.’
‘But you’ve been phoning Spain.’
‘Well of course I have. What do you expect?’
‘But from this phone, Rigg. From our home phone. Spain is business. So is Birmingham. You ought to have phoned from the shop.’
‘Well I couldn’t, could I? Be fair, Ali. It was important business. I could hardly miss out on something like that just because I wasn’t in the shop. I’d soon go bust if that was the way I had to go on. Or perhaps you want me to go bust, is that it?’
The accusation hurt her. She felt ashamed and humbled. ‘No. Of course I don’t. You know that.’
‘That’s all right then. Look I’ve got work to do. OK? Bye for now.’
‘No!’ she called. ‘Just a minute. Don’t hang up.’
‘Well what is it? Be quick. Oh damn it all, Ali. Now my customer’s gone.’
She apologised quickly, aware that she was being a nuisance. ‘I’m sorry, Rigg. I didn’t mean to…’
In a voice weary with resignation, he said, ‘Oh well, that’s it. He’s gone now. What do you want? Tell me quickly. This is costing me money.’
‘What about the bill?’ she asked him doggedly. ‘You will pay for the long-distance calls, won’t you?’
‘I’ve got a cash-flow problem just at the moment. Don’t worry. I’ll sort it out.’
‘Yes, but when? If we don’t pay, they’ll cut us off.’
‘I tell you what,’ he said. ‘You settle it now and I’ll pay you back later. How about that?’
‘Well…’
‘Right,’ he said, as though it was all decided. ‘Is there anything else? I’m in a bit of a rush.’
She was so stunned to think that she was going to have to pay this entire bill after all that she couldn’t think of anything else. And while she was dithering, he rang off. £137. Where could she possibly find a sum like that?
In the end it had to come out of the housekeeping, which turned her weekly trip to Tesco’s into a nightmare.
She always did her shopping on Thursday evening because Jenny gave her and the kids a lift to the store and drove them home again afterwards. It was a very large store, superbly stocked and convenient – but it was situated on the northern edge of the town opposite Frost’s where Mark worked; without a car, shopping there was impossible.
Mark never approved of it. He called it a temple to Mammon and said it was designed to part people from their money.
Now Alison could see what he meant. The place was built to pressurise. She could feel the weight of it as soon as she walked through the revolving doors, and it increased as she pushed her trolley towards temptation, with Emma sitting at eye-level with the biscuits and Jon free to run from one enticement to the next. She grew tired of the sound of her own voice saying ‘No. We can’t afford it,’ exhausted by the perpetual disappointment on his face and frantic at the impossibility of adding up the bill item by item as she pushed from one heaped stand to the next.
Jenny shopped in her useful cheerful rush, following her shopping list and not worrying about anything. These days she always reached the checkout long before Alison. And that made Alison feel both inadequate and jealous. And being jealous made her feel ashamed because jealously was so ugly. And that made her bad-tempered with her children. She shouted at Jon for running, at Emma for grizzling with boredom, at both of them for wanting treats she couldn’t afford.
‘It’s not fair!’ Jon said on the third dre
adful Thursday when they were standing in the queue at the check-out. ‘We always have sweets. You said…’
‘Not today,’ she said, strained with the effort to stay patient.
‘Why not? You said…’
‘I told you. Mummy hasn’t got the money.’
‘Yes you have,’ the little boy argued, with a four-year-old’s implacable logic. ‘You’ve got lots of money. It’s in your purse. I saw you put it there.’
‘Not enough for chocolate,’ Alison tried to explain.
‘Wanta cock-let,’ Emma said, bottom lip drooping, ready to wail when she was refused.
‘Don’t you start,’ Alison warned. ‘I can’t afford chocolate. Just sit still and keep quiet, there’s a good girl. It’s our turn next. Here we go! Through that old gap. That’s better, isn’t it. Hold on to the handle Jon.’
The check-out girl was tired too. She worked like a robot, passing groceries across the check-out, bleep by bleep, her face vacant and her mind elsewhere. When she tore the final bill from her machine and read the total, her voice was as empty as her expression. ‘Twenty three pounds eighteen p.’
The figure spun Alison into a panic. It couldn’t be as much as that, she thought, searching through the loose change in her purse. It had to be below twenty pounds. That was what she’d budgeted for. She was sure she’d added it up correctly. Four fivers and here they were. The change in her purse came to fifty six pence and the check-out girl was waiting with her hand out. Oh God! Now what was she going to do?
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I haven’t got enough. Something’ll have to go back.’ The shame of it was making her blush. ‘I’m ever so sorry.’
The check-out girl sighed with annoyance. ‘What’ll it be?’ she said.
Panic made Alison slow. She couldn’t think. What could she leave out? Washing-up liquid? But how would she clean the dishes? The mince? But then what would they eat? The apples? Oh God!
The next woman in the queue was getting restive. ‘What’s the hold-up?’ she said, glaring at Alison.
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