Acts & Monuments

by Alan Kane Fraser

  When he got back to his desk, there was an email from Langley waiting for him. “Good news! My finance company have just confirmed receipt of your money. You can pick up the Subaru tomorrow, if you’d like. L.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned,” said Barry to himself. And, in that moment, he felt for the first time that he just might be.

  PART 4

  “We live by encouragement and die without it – slowly, sadly, and angrily.”

  Celeste Holm

  Night with Her Train of Stars and Her Great Gift of Sleep

  9th December 2015 –

  19th January 2016

  Forty

  The next day Barry came to work in his company car for the last time. He dropped the keys off with Angela, and then Langley took Barry to his house, where the gleaming Subaru was waiting for him. He’d even gone to the trouble of having it valeted.

  Upon being invited to try out his new car, Barry noticed, for the first time, exactly how low slung it was. For a man of Langley’s youthful years and trim frame this wasn’t necessarily a problem. For the fuller figure of Barry Todd, however, getting into and out of his new car was clearly going to be something of a challenge. Once he’d managed to squeeze himself in, he realised that the steering wheel rubbed against his stomach.

  “You can move the seat back a couple more inches, if you need to,” suggested Langley.

  The car was so small, and Barry was so large, he felt like a hippo trying to fit into one of those toy cars that his father had paid 10p for him to sit in for three minutes when he was on holiday as a child. Moving the seat back wasn’t the issue. Nevertheless, he tried to stay positive – it was just the incentive he needed to shed some of his excess pounds, he decided.

  He could feel the comforting softness of the leather steering wheel in his hands. And he could savour that new-car smell rising in his nostrils – the unmistakable scent of polished leather and Scandinavian-pine air freshener – which had always so excited him as a child when he’d first got into his dad’s new cars.

  But even as Langley waxed lyrical about the “throaty roar” of the engine and its “bottom-end grunt”, Barry felt strangely empty. He’d often thought he’d like a bright-red sports car without being able to specify exactly why. But now, as he actually sat in the driving seat of one for the first time, it struck him. When he saw the picture in his head of what it would be like owning a sports car, it wasn’t the curve of the roofline or the smell of the leather that most struck him, rather it was how it made him feel. Yet he now realised, with a sense of disappointment, that what he wanted to experience was an emotion that a piece of Japanese engineering – however fastidiously assembled – just couldn’t deliver. The exhilaration Langley promised him wasn’t just about the car’s acceleration, it was about knowing that other people were looking at the driver and feeling that they wanted to emulate him.

  The problem was that the driver was still Barry Todd. He may have changed his car, but he hadn’t changed who he was.

  Both Langley and Barry needed to get to mid-morning meetings, but Barry was cautious driving his new car for the first time. He felt oddly similar to how he’d felt when he’d walked away from the mini-market with the first £250 withdrawal in his pocket – as though he expected to suddenly lose his good fortune at any moment. And as though he was being watched.

  In Barry’s case, his next appointment was one of his now-regular visits to Iulia. With Christmas fast approaching, Barry felt it was important that there was no need for Iulia to worry about losing her home. Whatever his personal misgivings about the unsatisfactory nature of their sessions, therefore, he was prepared to persevere in order to ensure that Monument’s roof remained over her head – it was, after all, the season of goodwill.

  As he drove cautiously toward Coleshill, the sound of Slade and Roy Wood blasting out their festive cheer on the car’s eight-speaker sound system, his musings were interrupted by a phone call. Fortunately, before driving off, Langley had shown Barry how to connect his mobile phone to the car’s Bluetooth system so he could answer the call hands-free.

  “Meester Todd. It is Meess Nicolescu.”

  “Oh, hullo. I’m just on my way to you now. Sorry I’m a bit late – I’ve just been picking up my new car. I think you’ll be impressed—”

  “That is why I phone. You not need to come. I have job now,” she said, before adding pointedly, “Real job.”

  Barry’s heart sank. In all his considerations of things that could go wrong, Iulia getting a job was the one possibility that simply hadn’t occurred to him. Her career history seemed too debased for any legitimate employer to take a chance on her – she’d even suggested as much herself. And his wife had had no luck in securing paid employment several months after having been made redundant by Langley, despite facing none of the apparently insuperable obstacles that confronted Iulia. He had, however, reckoned without the indomitable spirit and indefatigable work ethic of the Romanian people. A people that had survived, and indeed defeated, the might of the Soviet Bloc and its dictatorship would not regard any obstacle as insuperable. The prospect of having to find a job in the fastest-growing economy in Europe would not phase them.

  “Well congratulations. But I can still come down. It’s no problem. I’m happy to pay,” Barry said. “I’m sure the money would come in useful. It is Christmas.”

  He had hoped for a momentary pause whilst she considered his offer. He felt that it was an attractive one; one that might tempt her to ‘keep her hand in’ as it were, to supplement her no-doubt meagre wages. He was to be sadly disappointed.

  “No,” she said instantly. “I not want to see you again. I start work Monday. At hotel. It is good job – permanent job, not just Christmas.”

  “Yes, but surely you won’t get paid for four weeks. I can help you out in the short term.”

  “I pay rent from my wages,” she said, before adding ominously, “maybe. You try to evict me, I tell Meess Hampton what you do. Where my rent money come from. It will be very bad for you.”

  Barry felt his heart suddenly cease pounding in his chest, as though suspended in time. And then he felt a large, and potentially very disruptive, penny drop. Whereas previously, Iulia had had every reason to keep quiet about their arrangement and could only rely on Barry’s goodwill to keep her in her flat, the boot was now firmly on the other foot. Now that she had her own income, she had no need of Barry’s largesse – and therefore every reason to exploit his vulnerability.

  “But we agreed – not a word to anyone. You promised.” The betrayal felt total. “You can’t just not pay your rent. We’ll have to do something. It’s not my decision. It’s Miss Hampton. She’ll have to execute the court order. She’ll just go to my boss if I won’t do it.”

  “You better make sure my rent is paid then.” And with that the phone went dead.

  Barry pulled over and clasped his steering wheel hard whilst hyperventilating. His cheeks flushed red and he felt a thin film of sweat bleed through his skin, as the twin urges to vomit and to defecate fought for supremacy within him. He could see the remains of the money he had stolen from Monument being spent, not on art materials, Lauren’s living costs and clearing his mortgage, but on buying Iulia’s silence. And perhaps even that amount would not be enough.

  He scoured the situation desperately for a straw that he could clutch at. And when he found one he clung on to it determinedly. She had no proof. He had given her no evidence to back up his claim about using Monument’s money, and what he’d said had been sufficiently vague for there to be no reason for anyone to believe her. And, even if they did, well, when they looked at Barry’s bank accounts they would find no evidence to support her accusation. Because, he reminded himself, there was no evidence. He exhaled slowly.

  However, almost immediately, a photo message from Iulia arrived on his phone that brutally snatched away even that forlorn hope. It was sl
ightly blurred and was taken from behind so you couldn’t see the face of the naked figure in front of you. But the large frame and the windswept hair failing to quite cover a growing bald-spot would have looked disconcertingly familiar to anyone who knew Barry Todd. Given that the wallpaper and the print of Ghirlandaio’s Madonna and Child that adorned it clearly identified the photo as having been taken in Iulia’s flat, it would certainly be enough to warrant Barry’s dismissal – regardless of the outcome of any investigation into where the money to pay Iulia’s rent had come from.

  The whole creaking edifice he had painstakingly built was in danger of crashing down on top of him. His job, his future employment prospects, the money, maybe even his marriage – they would all be gone if Iulia carried through with her threat. Barry knew that he couldn’t let that happen, he just couldn’t. Not after everything he’d been through. Not after the job, and Chris Malford, and the VR application, and the car. Not after Christopher. After Christopher, he deserved this, surely. He deserved this one puny consolation for the endless, incomprehensible, overwhelming pain that had been visited upon him. He began, therefore, to try to think of a way to neutralise the threat that Iulia now posed. But, as he did so, his mind was filled with thoughts that he didn’t want to think, and his heart with feelings he was desperate not to feel.

  In the end, he concluded, she had brought it on herself. He had been generous and – at great personal risk to himself – had done what was necessary to protect her. Yet now she was threatening to throw it all back in his face. In light of this, he felt perfectly justified fighting fire with fire. He picked up his phone and called Iulia back.

  “I not want to speak to you, Meester Todd. There is nothing to say. I hang up now and I not expect to hear from you again.”

  But, before she could end the call, Barry blurted out, “I’ll tell them where you are!”

  There was a pause.

  “What?”

  “I’ll tell them where you are. The Romanian Migrants Welfare Association – or whoever they are. They’ve been asking after you. They’ve even left a number for me to call them on. If I get fired by Monument, there’s nothing to stop me going straight to them.”

  It was, he told himself, the only solution that made sense. She had to believe he was prepared to do it. That was the only way to protect himself – to make her believe that she still had something to lose too.

  “You can’t, Meester Todd. They will kill me. They will kill me!”

  “Don’t worry. I’ll carry on paying your rent. I’m happy to help you. You’ll be better off. Maybe even be able to save up for a deposit for a place of your own. But we carry on. With our… arrangement.”

  Barry thought he heard a sob at the other end of the line.

  “I’ll see you in twenty minutes,” he said. “Sorry.”

  And he was, in a way. But not in the same way as he had been before. He wasn’t despoiling her, as he’d supposed. Her heart is as cold and black as everybody else’s, Barry reflected. Maybe even mine.

  Forty-One

  An hour or so later, Barry drove back to Monument’s offices with a heavy heart. It wasn’t just the prospect of another one of Andrew’s staff update presentations that sent his spirits lower; something had changed. In fact, everything had changed, even though he’d never made a decision to change everything. He’d just made a hundred little decisions that had piled up on top of one another like dirty plates. But now, he saw that he couldn’t remove any one of those plates without the whole pile toppling over.

  Upon arriving back at the office, he joined the rest of Monument’s staff dutifully gathered in the top-floor conference room for the staff update. It would be wrong to say that everyone in the room was on tenterhooks, nor was there quite what you could describe as an air of expectation. It was more a sense of weary resignation. Anyone who’d been at Monument for any length of time had heard one of Andrew’s staff briefings before, and they never involved announcing more resources and bumper pay increases for front-line staff.

  The various members of the exec team were already at the front on a raised platform when Barry sidled into the room. They were the only ones who got seats. Because of the number of people to be accommodated, everybody else had to stand. Andrew made his way to the front of the stage. He had the trim-but-leathery look of an ageing matinée idol who still regarded himself as something of a ‘catch’. He swirled his glass of water like it was a dry Martini, before tapping his lapel microphone to check that it was on. The rest of the exec broke out into polite applause, which failed to catch with the rest of the room.

  “Thank you all for making the time to come here this afternoon,” Andrew said, as though people had actually been given a choice over whether to attend or not. And then he smiled broadly, which Barry hated because it highlighted his perfect, whitened teeth. Fortunately, because he always started off these presentations with a recap of The Bad News, Barry knew that Andrew would adopt his sombre face soon. He was not to be disappointed.

  “As you know, we’ve been facing many challenges as a business over the past few years and that is only going to accelerate in future. Cuts to social housing rents, the freezing of local housing allowance levels and more restrictions to housing benefit entitlement all affect our revenue streams going forward. On top of which, we also face increasing difficulties in accessing capital grants at rates that will make our future social housing developments viable. It’s almost a perfect storm.

  “Fortunately, because we’ve never shied away from taking difficult decisions, Monument is prepared for these challenges. But we cannot be complacent.”

  It was classic Andrew: paint a picture of impending calamity; reassure people that Monument would be OK because of its brilliant business strategy; then, just so that people don’t feel too reassured, point out that it could all still go wrong if they’re not careful.

  “Financial projections show that the cuts to social rents alone will take £17.5 million out of the business plan over the next four years. This means that, by year four of the cuts programme, we’ll be generating £7 million less income each year than we budgeted for – unless we take action now. Action to further improve efficiency and drive down costs.”

  Well, we could start by cutting your salary, Barry wanted to shout out. He realised, however, that it was probably not this that Andrew was about to announce.

  “One way we could do this is by cutting back on staff and by freezing staff salaries. Maybe cutting the level of service that we give to our customers,” said Andrew to a few audible groans from the floor.

  “But don’t worry, because that isn’t the Monument way!” he went on, his broad smile suddenly returning. “The Monument way is to look to grow our way out of problems, to expand the business to give ourselves a larger income stream; to achieve efficiencies by leveraging additional business synergies from potential partners.”

  Barry wasn’t quite sure what this meant, but at least it seemed to be steering away from the ‘more bricks from less straw’ business model that he’d feared.

  “That’s why I’m delighted to announce that we have reached an outline agreement for a new and exciting expansion of the business to take place next year. It will dramatically increase our stock and our sphere of operations. It will open up new markets and the possibility of new local-authority partnerships. And, crucially, it will secure both jobs and the service level to customers.

  “Colleagues, I am delighted to announce our intention to merge with London-based Three Acts Housing Association.”

  Barry was stunned. Three Acts was a larger association – why would Andrew agree to what would effectively be a takeover?

  As Andrew went on, the answer became apparent. Whilst Monument had taken the “tough decisions necessary” to prepare for the future, Three Acts had expanded rapidly over recent years and had perhaps over-extended themselves, so when government funding cuts had h
it they had a far less comfortable cushion to fall back on.

  Oh, and a surreptitious internet search on Barry’s smartphone also revealed that their chief executive was sixty-two, so he was probably looking for a nice early retirement package.

  Sure enough, a couple of minutes later Andrew announced that he would be taking up the role of chief executive designate of the newly merged association whilst Three Acts’ current CEO would be, “pursuing new opportunities outside the association”. This would probably involve lots of golf, if Barry’s previous experience was anything to go by.

  Of course, there was one genuine synergy between the two associations that Barry was aware of, but it didn’t seem to be one that Andrew was particularly interested in leveraging. Back in the late 1960s, in the wake of Cathy Come Home, an earnest young curate from North London had taken it upon himself to set up what was then called Acts 3 Community Housing Association using a couple of surplus parsonages from the neighbouring parish. It had been called Acts 3 after the story of the curing of the crippled beggar in the third chapter of the Acts of the Apostles:

  “When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple he asked them for alms… And he fixed his attention on them expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, ‘I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give to you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.’”

  The point about Acts 3 CHA was that the housing was just the starting point of the journey that they wanted to take with people, one that would seek to meet their deeper needs – the ones that they thought would never be met. Later Acts 3’s reputation was so strong that it had provided the inspiration to a small group of churches not far from Kingsbury that had gone on to set up the association that eventually became Monument. So, in a sense, Barry could see that the merger was a coming together of two associations with very similar roots.