In Search of Love, Money & Revenge

by Hilary Bailey

  Vanessa, having swabbed out the display cabinet, started on the counter. Annie went to the pay phone by the counter, rang Vane Graphics, asked to speak to Julian and was told he was out. She sighed and went back to the table. Inertia hung over the café.

  Arnold, silent until now, shouted from his corner to Vanessa, ‘The place could do with a coat of paint, if you ask me.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Vanessa observed.

  Annie went on thinking. What could she do about Melanie? She’d have to go home. It could take months to locate the famous Uncle Jim, if they ever did. Melanie had sent a postcard to her mother saying she was all right, but that wouldn’t console her much. Even now the police were probably trying to find her.

  Melanie stood up. ‘We ought to go now,’ she said.

  ‘That’s right,’ agreed Vanessa. ‘Do you know the Celia Bracewell School, Tregear Road? Off Warrington Street, near the railway bridge?’

  ‘I know Warrington Road,’ Annie said and she and Melanie set off down the darkening streets of Foxwell to the school. Children screamed out. Melanie had no trouble in identifying Joanne, catching her outside the school door. ‘You Joanne? Your mum’s minding George’s café and she wants us to get you down there.’

  ‘Who’re you?’ asked the small girl, staring at them suspiciously. She wore a pink anorak. Her fair hair was untidy.

  ‘I’m Annie Vane. I’m a neighbour of yours.’

  ‘Not without asking my mum,’ Joanne said firmly.

  A teacher was found and a phone call made. ‘Would you ask Mrs Doyle to come and see me,’ said the teacher, a plump young man.

  ‘You been getting into trouble?’ enquired Melanie as they walked through the school gates.

  ‘No,’ said Joanne defiantly.

  ‘What did you do, then?’

  ‘I hit a girl – she hit me first. I always have an ice cream on the way home.’

  ‘Not in this weather.’

  ‘Crisps?’ negotiated Joanne.

  ‘All right,’ Melanie agreed.

  ‘D’you like Michael Jackson?’

  ‘No. I’m more into heavy metal,’ Melanie said firmly.

  When they reached the café it was crowded with market traders who had knocked off for tea and a warm-up on this cold, dark afternoon. Vanessa gave Melanie a pound. ‘Thanks,’ she said.

  ‘Any time,’ responded Melanie, pocketing it.

  Melanie and Annie walked home. ‘I know you’re going to tell me I’ve got to go back,’ Melanie said as they stood at the traffic lights. She glanced at the Victorian town hall, looming over Foxwell High Street. ‘Goodbye, bright lights,’ she added.

  Annie was relieved she’d mentioned it first. ‘I can’t see any other way. And your mother must be frantic.’

  ‘I miss my brothers, too,’ Melanie said. ‘Nobody else would.’

  When they got home Annie tried Julian again and was told he was in a meeting. ‘I’ve left him your message, Mrs Vane,’ said the switchboard operator, irritation creeping into her voice.

  Annie put the phone down and muttered, ‘I doubt if you’d have a job now without the efforts I put in when the firm began.’

  Melanie said, ‘I think you’d best go round there and have it out with him.’

  The winter evening wore on slowly. Melanie, her dream of running away to a new life falling to pieces, was glum and went out for a Mars bar. Annie was trying not to believe that Julian, now he had put an end to the marriage, did not want to see or speak to her. Later, she lay in bed reading, while Melanie watched television alone downstairs. She heard people coming home from pubs, a row between a man and a woman in Rutherford Street, the slam of a car door, the woman crying ‘Bastard!’ as it drove away. Melanie was right, she decided. If Julian wouldn’t see her, she’d have to make him.

  Next morning Annie left Melanie sleeping and walked down the High Street already clogged with traffic and people hurrying to work. Fifteen minutes later she reached Vane Graphics. The offices occupied an early Victorian house with big arched windows, between the bus station and a large council estate.

  She stood at the porticoed front door and pushed the bell. Inside, the receptionist pressed a buzzer and the door opened. Annie, who had calculated that at this hour, just before the staff arrived, the receptionist would assume she was just someone arriving for work, charged in. Pausing to say, ‘Hallo, Jessica’ she was met by an alarmed face under a mop of artfully tousled black hair and a voice saying warningly, ‘Annie—’

  ‘Sorry, Jessica,’ she called, dashing past the desk and beginning to race up the elegant curved staircase to the floor upstairs, where Julian’s office was. ‘I’ve got to see him,’ she called down as she went. ‘He’s left me in the lurch.’ As she rounded the corner of the stairs and walked speedily along the carpeted hall to Julian’s white-painted, brass-knobbed door, she thought the phrase she’d just used, in the heat of the moment, summed up the situation better than all her other thoughts, weeks of them, could have.

  When she pushed open the door Julian stood up behind his mahogany desk – everything at Vane Graphics was in keeping, as far as possible, with the style of the building.

  ‘Annie!’ he said, startled and not pleased.

  Annie sat down. ‘I’ve got to talk to you, Julian. I don’t think it’s fair to avoid me as you seem to have been doing—’

  ‘I think it’s better if we use solicitors—’ Julian began.

  ‘No!’ she exclaimed. ‘It’s not. We’ve been married for five years. I think we ought to be able to sort out ordinary things without solicitors. There are several simple issues, one being, why have you taken all the money from the joint account? What were you thinking of?’

  ‘Setting up a new home is not cheap,’ he told her. ‘You’ll get your half back, of course.’

  He was wearing pale trousers and a cream shirt. His fashionable tie was slightly loosened and he looked the picture of the captain of the First Eleven in an old school story. Steel true Jack Hardacre, she thought, an hour to play and the match to win – yet he was beginning to be too old for his boyish look and his blue eyes were now a little hard. There were small lines developing round them too. Suddenly Annie felt slightly afraid.

  The telephone rang and he answered it. ‘I’m in a meeting at the moment, Brian. Can I ring you back?’

  ‘I’m not a meeting, Julian,’ she said. ‘I’m your wife. When do you think you can let me have the money back? I can’t cover the mortgage. I’ll barely be able to cover the bills. I’ve been told I’m no longer a director.’

  There was a pause. Then Julian said, ‘Plainly, we couldn’t go on working together in the circumstances. I imagine your family can give you some help in the short term. Jasmine’s not exactly on her uppers. This situation’s temporary. I have to keep going or, at the end of the day, there’ll be nothing. You do see that, don’t you?’ he concluded, on the tough note he used when dealing with difficult business problems.

  ‘I was hoping I wouldn’t have to point out that we built up this firm together. We worked together—’ Annie began to feel very tired. ‘That’s it, then, is it? You’ve left me, left the bills, cleaned out the bank account, taken the furniture – Julian – what do you think you’re playing at?’

  ‘Do we have to have a scene?’ he asked.

  She shook her head. ‘This isn’t a scene but it looks to me as if, thanks to you, I’ll have to see a solicitor. In the meantime the firm owes me the ten thousand pounds Aunt Margaret left me, which I put in when we needed computers.’

  ‘I assumed that was a gift,’ he said too quickly.

  ‘You’ve thought all this out, Julian,’ she exclaimed. ‘You don’t plan to return that money, or any of it. You don’t feel anything any more, so you’ve decided you can do as you like. For God’s sake …’

  She expected him to soften, to explain why he was behaving like this. Instead he looked at her firmly, almost pityingly, as though she’d made some ridiculous claim, bound to be r
efused.

  She stood up. ‘This is dreadful, Julian. It’s dreadful,’ was all she could say. She got up and walked unsteadily to his door, opened it and went out.

  After she had gone Julian sat down behind his desk. His shoulders bowed. He stared into space for a moment, then, elbows on the desk, he put his head in his hands. ‘Oh God,’ he murmured. ‘Oh, good God.’ He heard the door slam behind Annie. The phone rang. He picked it up. Hardly able to speak he said, ‘Yes. Let me call you back on that in half an hour.’ He picked the phone up again and said, ‘Jessica. Make some black coffee and bring it up.’

  Back on the street, Annie walked rapidly, her long thin legs eating up the pavement as if she were trying to escape something. She wiped her eyes as she went into the house, not wanting Melanie to see her so upset. A note on the kitchen table informed her that Melanie had gone down to George’s Café to ask for work. ‘I need to get my fair to Gravsend,’ it read. Annie stood in the middle of the room, sighing. Melanie must be made to go home and to school. The note proved she needed more education, not to be wandering about London, asking virtual strangers for work. She hadn’t said much about the home she’d run away from but Annie had the impression of a bullying father and a mother managing on little money, too ground down to put up much resistance to him. Melanie was just the kind of girl who could be led astray, as it used to be termed in Threpp Street in the nineteenth century. With no idea of her own rights, how could she fight for them? Now, it seemed, she was going to try to get to Gravesend alone to search for her missing uncle, an unrealistic plan, if ever there was one. In fact, the whole situation was crazy for them both, Annie decided. She determined to find Melanie at the café, bring her back, tell her she must ring her mother to say she was coming home. She, Annie, would have to go with her to make sure she arrived. She set off for the café and, as she walked, opened the letter which had been on the mat when she came in. It hardly surprised her now to discover that somehow Julian had managed, without her knowledge, to bump up the existing mortgage by another £20,000. The firm wasn’t short of money, she knew, so either he was using the money for expansion or buying himself a house or flat. She pushed the letter into her bag and hurried along.

  There were a few customers in the café but no one behind the counter. Then Melanie’s indignant voice came from the kitchen. ‘All right. All right. I’ve only got one pair of hands.’

  ‘Only asking, love,’ one of the customers said, turning round as Melanie came from the kitchen with two plates of sausages, beans, bacon and chips for the man and his friend. She put them down at their table.

  Annie had had enough. Julian had pushed her away, there was a letter from the building society in her bag, she was cold, tired and her hair was falling down over the collar of her coat.

  ‘Melanie!’ she almost shouted. ‘What do you think you’re playing at?’

  ‘Don’t start a row in front of the customers,’ she said calmly. ‘I left you a note, didn’t I?’

  ‘I’ve been worried about you,’ exclaimed Annie. ‘And I can’t imagine what the owner’s thinking about. This is illegal. You’re far too young—’

  ‘I’m only trying to help,’ Melanie explained. ‘And there’s no law against helping out …’

  A woman with a bulging plastic bag came in and sat down wearily. Melanie, looking very capable in a white overall, served her with a cup of tea. Now she walked over to Annie and asked, ‘You been crying?’ Annie’s shoulders bowed. She sighed.

  Vanessa came into the café with Alec and was just in time to catch this exchange. Obviously Annie was in a bit of trouble and now the girl had done something stupid and put her in a panic.

  ‘Sit down.’ She took Annie’s arm. ‘You’d better fetch her a cup of tea,’ she said to Melanie. She guided Annie, who now felt dizzy and sick, to an empty table. ‘Are you all right?’ she enquired. Annie nodded. Vanessa released Alec from the buggy and sat him down.

  ‘Had a bit of a shock?’ she asked.

  Annie nodded again, reluctantly. She wasn’t enjoying all this solicitude and she decided she hated George’s Café, with its yellowing walls dripping with condensation, the hideous tiles with blue mermaids on them behind the counter, the permanent smell of frying. In a flash she recognised her own previous clear-headedness and confidence, and her present state of uncertainty. She was changing for the worse, she thought. The moment went and she was left on her plastic chair, looking at her cup of very brown tea, nervously brought by Melanie. It steamed in front of her. She felt sick again and an enormous pain seemed to fill her chest. The love she thought Julian had for her had been sucked from her atmosphere The vacuum had been filled with a thin gas, made up of betrayal and indifference, and trying to breathe it was making her weak.

  ‘I’m all right really,’ she told Vanessa.

  ‘I’m sorry I gave you all that worry—’ said Melanie, still hovering.

  ‘Not your fault,’ muttered Annie.

  ‘What’s the matter, love?’ asked Vanessa.

  Annie took a deep breath. ‘I’ve just found out my husband increased the mortgage on the house without telling me. He won’t pay and I can’t. They’ll expect me to sell the house now but I don’t want to. Not now, anyway.’

  Vanessa said practically, ‘All you’ve got to do is go to them and explain, and get them to put everything on hold for a time, until you’re straight. That’s what you should do.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Annie was dubious.

  ‘A friend of mine did that,’ Vanessa said. ‘And maybe you should see a solicitor.’

  ‘I haven’t been able to believe it,’ Annie said in a low voice. She didn’t explain what she hadn’t been able to believe, and didn’t need to.

  ‘I know,’ Vanessa agreed grimly. ‘It’s like being suddenly murdered.’

  ‘How are you managing?’ Annie asked Vanessa.

  Vanessa shrugged. ‘Much as I expected. First the DSS have to check my husband’s actually gone and this isn’t some kind of a dodge to get money out of them. Then they have to check I haven’t got money salted away in some secret bank account, I haven’t got the Crown jewels hidden under the bed. I’m filling in form after form – it could take weeks, if not months – and when I get it it’s not going to be enough, naturally. In the meanwhile they tide me over with a miserable thirty quid payment which’ll just about cover the food.’

  Vanessa’s voice rose. She didn’t care who was listening. ‘I ask you – I’ve got two kids, both needing shoes – I’ve sent the gas bill to my husband but I don’t know if he’s going to pay it. Then they tell me my husband should be supporting me and the children. Would I be here asking for money, I say, if he was? I’m supposed to take him to court, they say. He’ll kill me, I tell them. Oh, you think he’ll offer violence, says the woman behind the counter, getting interested now. I tell them I don’t know – I don’t want to find out. You’ll have to see the legal aid and get an injunction if he’s threatening you, she says. I tell her, look, I’m here because I haven’t got any money for my children, that’s all, the rest comes later. I say, I know you’re paid to make it as hard as possible. Is there anyone in your family who can assist you, she asks me. I say, that’s not the point. I’m entitled to this money – then she tells me to keep my voice down, she can’t help me if I get emotional, i.e., they’ll call the police.’ Vanessa sagged.

  ‘It’s humiliating and I have to go through it because of the kids,’ she said, looking at Alec, who now stood beside her, holding her skirt. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘Sometimes I dream of killing him.’

  A small round woman in her seventies came spryly into the café in black court shoes, a plum-coloured coat, with a big red and blue paisley shawl pinned over her shoulders. She wore a large royal blue felt hat. Her small lined face was heavily made up. She nodded briefly to the unemployed man and sat down. She asked for a coffee, which Melanie poured, and a Danish pastry from the plastic-fronted cabinet on the counter. Melanie served her the coffee
and bun and came over to Annie and Vanessa. ‘It’s all very well,’ she said, ‘but I don’t know how long you two are going to sit in this grotty caff crying in your tea. That can get to be a habit, you know. Look at that poor little boy you’ve got, he’s going to start crying himself in a minute. My auntie used to say my mum was addicted to crying like a junkie – couldn’t give it up now, whatever happened. That’s my auntie Muriel, my uncle Jim’s wife,’ she added in explanation. She returned to the counter, followed by a sharp look from the woman in the plum-coloured coat.

  Sighing, Vanessa said, ‘She wouldn’t understand. I feel like a bit of me’s been torn away. And how can I help thinking about him and that woman – hallo, George,’ she said on a different note as the café owner came in. George merely nodded and went into the back of the café. From there he began to shout over the phone, in Greek, silencing with his passion all other conversations. The shouting stopped. Evidently he put down the phone. Seconds later he began to speak to someone else, also in Greek, in a more moderate tone. Then he began to get angry again.

  ‘Spot of trouble there,’ observed Arnold, the unemployed man in the overcoat, to the lady in the plum coat.

  ‘So it seems,’ she responded repressively in a clear voice which had traces of a middle-European accent.

  George re-emerged from the kitchen, his arms raised in rage and despondency. ‘Families!’ he exclaimed. Talking to no one in particular he went on, ‘When everything’s OK you can’t get rid of them. When you need them, everybody’s got a train to catch.’ Nobody was prepared to quarrel with this statement. To Arnold he said, ‘Don’t tell me I’m wrong.’

  Arnold said, ‘You’re not wrong, George.’

  The phone rang and George went back to the kitchen to answer it. He spoke again in Greek explaining, cajoling, protesting.

  Vanessa threw her head back. ‘I’d better make a move. I’m so tired, I feel as if I’ve been awake for weeks.’ The two women looked at each other. Vanessa’s pale skin had a greenish tinge, her blonde hair was scraped back over her skull and secured in a pony tail with a pink plastic slide on a piece of elastic. Annie, her long dark hair falling all over her collar, her long face sallow with big brown smudges under her brown eyes, hardly looked any better. They smiled at each other.