by Adele Parks
“Don’t say arseholes, Logan.”
“Why not? Dad does.”
He walks out of the kitchen. I feel for him. I understand from Emily that Logan’s friends were apparently thrilled for him. He is in a gang of five boys. I use the term “gang” as loosely and innocently as possible. They are still at the stage where the most rebellious thing they do is fart loudly in maths classes and then deny it. I bet they forgot all about the lottery win by lunchtime. When Emily was being beaten in the loo, Logan was waiting at the bus stop, exchanging Fortnite strategies with his mates as usual.
I also understand why Logan might crave normality—I certainly do. I leave Jake in charge of the kids and catch the bus to work. It’s a bright spring day, birds are chirping, some spindly branches of trees, defiant and lush, reach, bend and bang against the side of the bus as it trundles along the narrowest part of the country roads. I enjoy the relentlessness of nature that somehow seems eternally hopeful and exuberant. Although, of course, soon the council will be out to chop back the branches before it becomes dangerous for vehicles taking a bend. I’m running a little late, but I’m sure Ellie will understand. I told her about the win after the press conference. I also told her about the Heathcotes’ and Pearsons’ hijack, so she understands how emotionally complex everything is. The CAB team were excited for me. Judy kept exclaiming, “You dark horse! You dark horse!” To celebrate, they bought me a Victoria sponge from M&S and we shared a bottle of cava. We ate and drank at our desks, chuckling and chatting much as we do when one of the team has a birthday. They asked me how I was planning on spending the money. “Jake seems to be handling that,” I replied wryly, which got a laugh. Then, after about ten minutes or so, it seemed we’d said all that we could say about the lottery and soon we were asking one another about the status of various clients. “Did Aliya Habeb have any luck with child support?”
“Has anyone circulated the details of the firefighters’ education program to the schools?”
By the time I was washing up the plates in the tiny sink in the staff room, I’d almost forgotten why we were eating cake to celebrate.
It’s a five-minute walk from the bus stop to my office. I can do it in three if I try. I walk at the sort of pace that makes me feel waxy on my lower back. As I turn the corner, I instantly know something is up. Usually this is a fairly quiet part of the high street. The neighboring retailers include two vaping shops, a betting shop, a tattoo parlor, a curry house, a kebab shop and a fish-and-chip shop—it’s the place to come if you’re hungry. Some other retailers are boarded up, there’s a lot of graffiti. Not the cool sort, just people’s names and expletives. I don’t judge. People have a primitive need to be noticed. At this time of day, only the CAB is open and so it’s never a busy street, but today there is a queue of people outside the office. As I approach, I hear people murmur, “There she is.”
“That’s her.”
And then, with more insistence, “Mrs. Greenwood, can I have a word?”
There are too many of them to be the usual clients looking for a drop-in appointment. Initially, I fear they are journalists, but I quickly understand that they are people petitioning not for advice or a story, but for money.
“He said he’ll change the locks if I can’t get the money to him today.”
“My son needs a new electric wheelchair, we’re fundraising.”
“Excuse me, can I talk to you about the Byson Centre for MS?”
I realize instantly that I can’t, and shouldn’t, try to manage any of these people; client interaction outside the office is frowned upon. Although I’ve broken the rules on that before, I feel this queue and the number of requests might overwhelm me and decide I had better stick to protocol. I smile briskly and stride toward the office, nodding at everyone who pulls at my arm or tries to talk to me, but effectively brushing them off. “Do make an appointment. Can you just bear with me? I just need to get inside. I have meetings.”
Inside the office is not much calmer. Every one of my colleagues has a drop-in client. There are other people filling the chairs in the waiting area and many more are standing about. As I step inside, everyone seems to pause and turn to me. I don’t know what to say. One woman breaks the silence. She is sitting at Judy’s desk, but quickly and dismissively turns away from Judy. “Thanks for your help, love, but it’s her I want to see.” In an instant, the woman is up on her feet and pushing through the tightly packed desks toward me. Her initiative seems to give everyone else permission to move, and suddenly six or seven people surge toward me. I recognize a couple of the faces: Laura Atkins, who has a brutal partner that she is too scared to leave; and Vicky Lavin, who has fallen foul of an exploitative payday lender who regularly threatens to break her arms. I see hope in their eyes as they clamor toward me. Someone knocks over a chair in their haste. It clatters to the floor, but no one bends to pick it up. The air feels volatile. It’s chaos. I instinctually retreat from them and then feel trapped when the back of my thighs hit my desk.
I’m so grateful when Ellie’s strong, calm voice cuts through the demands and disorder.
“If everyone can just take a seat, please. We’re going to form an orderly queue. Rob, if you can give everyone a number, you know, like at the supermarket meat counter. Lexi, can we have a minute in my office, please?”
I hurriedly and gratefully follow her into the office, embarrassed that I didn’t handle that well. I’ve never backed away from someone in need in my life before. I normally run toward them. I close the door behind me, but the pleas of the crowd can still be heard, although muffled. They pull at my conscience.
“Well, this is unprecedented,” says Ellie. I think we both wish we were in some sort of nineties cop show where she could open the drawer of her desk and pull out a bottle of whiskey and a couple of glasses. She sits down, but doesn’t offer me a seat. I hesitate, unsure why there is suddenly a formality between us that there never has been in the past. I continue to hover.
“The people at the lottery company said there would be petitions for charity,” I point out.
“Did they tell you how to handle it?”
“Well, usually the winners hire an assistant to open the post, answer emails etc. Then the winners can buy some time before they make considered choices about who they want to donate to.” I shrug apologetically. “But I guess I’m much more accessible.”
“Yes, you are. Almost everyone you see and work with on a daily basis is in some sort of position of vulnerability.”
“We are going to donate to charities,” I rush to reassure my boss.
“I don’t doubt it.” Ellie smiles, but it doesn’t seem entirely natural or relaxed, and it seems to require more effort to muster than usual. “Sit down, Lexi.” She suddenly seems impatient with me. I hastily pull out a chair, which scrapes along the floor, lets out a howl. We both wince. “So, what are we going to do? You know you can’t give any of these people money, right? I mean, that’s not our job. Doing so would be short-termist. It would cause a lot of trouble for the bureau.”
“Of course,” I sigh. It’s impossible not to think how easy it would be to go back out there and start to dish out cash. It would ease countless concerns.
“Because you know once you started doing that, it would be impossible to know where to draw the line. Our job is to give advice, guidance, not cash.”
“Yes.” I nod. Ellie studies me to see if I’m really listening, then shakes her head.
“I’m not sure you’ll be able to refuse them, though. It’s not in your nature. You always struggle to draw a line.” I glance at her, guilty. I don’t think she is aware of the out-of-office help I’ve given Toma, how involved I have become, but I suppose she might be. He’s not the first client I’ve bent rules for. I have delivered clothes that my kids have grown out of directly to families I know are in need, when strictly speaking I shouldn’t visit clients in their homes. On one
occasion I paid for a client’s supermarket shop because I knew she was too proud to go to a food bank and her kids wouldn’t eat that week if I didn’t. I’m not a natural insurgent—Jake is the maverick in our family—but nor will I adhere to red tape for the sake of it if I think it’s standing in the way of the right thing being done.
I sigh again. Ellie is right. I will struggle not to dish out cash willy-nilly, even though logically I understand it’s not the proper way to go about things. Or even, I admit, the most effective.
I look around the office. I am reminded, not for the first time, how insistently Ellie is resisting the digital age. Her shelves heave with lever arch files that are overflowing. Many of the cases date back ten or even twelve years. She is always promising herself that she’ll catalogue them digitally one day. They could probably be binned, but Ellie won’t do that because she’s too conscientious and also somehow respectful; the troubles those people had shouldn’t be entirely forgotten. Until she can preserve them digitally, the heaving files will remain. I read the posters that advertise the signs to look out for in a loved one if they have depression, others that advertise websites and phone numbers that people can call if they need help with certain legal or health matters. I don’t want to meet Ellie’s gaze. I think I know what she’s going to say, and consequently tears of frustration have welled up in my eyes. I don’t want them to spill. I have never cried at work. I’ve heard and seen many difficult things here, but it doesn’t help anyone if I cry. People come here looking for clear and confident guidance, not emotions. I can’t let the first tears be ones of self-pity.
“Are you sacking me?”
“No, no, of course not.” She pauses. “But I do think it will be best if you take a period of absence. No one can get on with their work with this sort of disruption and they have to work, Lexi. What we do is vital.”
“I don’t know how people found out where I am.”
“Word gets around, I suppose. You have been in all the local press. Many of our clients no doubt simply recognized your face.” I’m not certain, but I think I hear disapproval in Ellie’s tone. She probably thinks we shouldn’t have taken the publicity. She’s most likely right. It was never my intention. I wasn’t left with a choice. “Yesterday afternoon was quite tricky. There were fewer people here than there are today, but it was still disruptive. There was this one young guy, he can’t have been more than twenty, has Tourette’s syndrome. Apparently you are helping him find work.” She looks at me, waiting for me to identify him. She trusts me enough to know I know the names of all my clients.
“Dave MacDunn.”
“Yes, that’s it. Well, he didn’t believe it was your half day. He just thought we were stopping him seeing you. He got agitated, lashed out, knocked some elderly chap clean over. The elderly chap hadn’t even come to see you. He just wanted to talk to someone about his heating bill. It was very tricky.”
“Oh, no. Was he okay?”
“Banged his elbow and thigh as he went down. It really was quite a violent shove. His daughter has already made a complaint. We’re going to need to write it up.”
I shake my head. This is the last thing Ellie needs. We’re always thinly stretched, and a complaint investigation will add significantly to the workload. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, it isn’t your fault exactly.” She sounds grudging.
“Was Dave okay? I know him. He won’t have meant any harm.”
“Maybe not, but he caused some. And of course, the Tourette’s didn’t help. Once he started swearing, old Mr. Ryan just thought he was a terrifying thug.”
“It’s a very much misunderstood condition,” I interject.
Ellie looks impatient. “I know, Lexi.” We sit for a moment in silence. I feel chastised, she feels patronized. I don’t like the gap that’s widening between us. I fear I might fall through it. Ellie eventually lets out a long sigh. “After a few months, things will calm down and we can talk about you coming back.”
“A few months?” I gasp.
Ellie shrugs. She’s not committing. “It might be less. I don’t know how long these things take to blow over. You are going on holiday soon anyway, aren’t you?”
“Yes.”
“To New York, right?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve always wanted to go to New York.” She says this with what I think is a note of envy in her voice. “Staying somewhere lovely, I expect?” I nod. She studies me as though I’m an insect behind one of those glass domes the Victorians were so fond of. A curiosity. “You should just try and enjoy your good luck, Lexi.”
I leave her office. There’s nothing more to be said.
I walk to the local greasy spoon that’s just ten minutes from my office. I expected some people from the queue at Citizens Advice Bureau to follow me, but they don’t because I lie, reassuring them I’ll be back in a minute and urging them to stay put. “You don’t want to lose your place in the queue.” They trust me so don’t follow. I feel squalid and selfish ignoring their requests, being one more person who is prepared to lie to them and let them down, but what can I do?
At the café I order a mug of tea. It’s served stronger than I usually drink it. I swallow it quickly anyway, scalding my mouth in my impatience. I check around, but no one is paying me any attention. The place is full of builders on their morning break reading tabloid newspapers, their bottoms spread over the small wooden chairs, their stomachs rolling over their belts. Not for the first time I think the real win in life is being born a man. I pull out my phone and hit the number that is now saved in my favorites. It rings two, three, four times before he picks up. “Toma Albu,” he declares. I have always liked the way he owns his name, not afraid to state it. Even when he was on the streets Toma claimed his name, held on to himself, despite the odds. “What would you do with three million pounds?”
“Lexi?”
“Yes.” I repeat the question.
“I read about the win. Congratulations!” I hear amusement in his voice, which warms me. “You are ringing me to ask how to spend it?”
“No, I won nearly eighteen million, not three. I’m ringing you to ask how you would spend three. If I gave three to you.”
“Why would you do that?” I can hear talking in the background.
I guess he’s on his tea break, too. Like the builders, he also starts early. I imagine the bustle in the factory staff room as people jostle for mugs, tea bags, milk. I feel his stillness. His seriousness and calm as he waits for me to explain myself. Which I can’t. Not really.
“I want to. Is it enough to allow you to return home?”
“Well, I suppose I could exhume my wife and son and have their bodies flown home if I had that sort of money. Is that what you meant?”
“No, not exactly.” I feel mortified because I’ve been clumsy. He told me he couldn’t leave the UK because he couldn’t bear to be so far away from them. To leave them behind. He has never said the problem was money. I suppose I hadn’t really believed it. I suppose I still thought money could help him start again. Have I started to think like Jake? Do I believe money can fix everything? I’d be an idiot to believe that when the evidence is stacking up to say the exact opposite.
“Yesterday, my daughter was beaten at school,” I explain.
“I’m so sorry to hear that. Is she going to be okay?”
“Yes, in the grand scheme of things I know she’s not—” I break off. Change tack. “I know things could have been worse.” He makes a sound, not a word exactly. I find it soothing. “Before it happened, I thought I understood how you felt. That I understood your loss. Your sense of anger and impotence. Or at least almost—” I stumble again. I take a deep breath and admit, “But I see my empathy was limited.”
“It still is. Your child was hurt. Mine is dead.”
“Yes.”
I feel fury and shame. Fury that sh
e was hurt. Shame that I didn’t protect her. Toma must feel something a hundred thousand times more daunting, more dreadful.
“My problem isn’t your problem, Lexi,” says Toma quietly. “I can’t take your money. You have done a lot already. Thank you. You are a very good woman.” His thanks are heartfelt and steady, not gushing. “Thank you. You’ve helped me get back on my feet, the lodgings, the job.”
It still doesn’t seem enough. “I don’t want you to lose any more time.”
“You can’t control that. Even with millions you can’t control time.”
“Right.” I sigh and it sits between us. The boundary of my abilities.
Toma seems to understand my sigh, my frustration. I can hear the smile in his voice. “But Lexi, I’m nearly there. Things are changing for me. You did that.”
“I want to give you this money,” I insist.
“Three million pounds is a lot of money, Lexi.” He whistles. “A lot.”
“It’s a fraction of what we won. Really, Toma, I want you to have it. Go and do some good with it. Or go and blow the lot, I don’t care. I know it doesn’t bring them back,” I mutter apologetically.
“Nothing can.”
“No. But it might help with other things.” For a moment he is silent, and I am afraid he’s not going to let me do this. “Please.”
He sighs and then says, “Okay,” and he gives me his bank details. I feel breathless. Light-headed. I make a call to my bank, trying not to think about how Jake will react when he finds out what I have done. I am taken through security by someone at the bank who is terribly well-spoken and efficient. In just a few moments the transaction is complete. As easy as that. I’d expected that moving such a monumental amount of money might be difficult, but things are made very easy for the rich.
None of it seems very real to me. It’s like playing with Monopoly money.
CHAPTER 22
Emily
Dad and I spend the morning trawling through various sites like Oliver Bonas, Anthropologie, Zara. Click, click, click. I buy lip balms, jewelry trees, bracelets, photo frames, handbags, hair clips and clothes. I didn’t want to do real-life shopping because I don’t want to stare at my bashed-up face in the mirror in changing rooms and I certainly don’t want people staring at me. Dad sits next to me while I shop. Before the win, if I was browsing online, he’d be all like, “Wait ’til you see it in the shop. They make stuff look better online.” Basically, massively discouraging. But now he is worse than me.
