by Susan Lewis
The site manager smirked in a way that made her hackles rise.
She stared at him hard. Surely he didn’t think she was trying to make a move on his boss, for that was what his manner seemed to suggest. The very idea made her want to slap the grin right off his smug face. Instead, she opened the door and stepped back into the hectic cacophony of the site.
It was at the bottom of the steps where she’d almost collided with the boss and now paused to let a transit van pass that she saw the words Stone Construction emblazoned on the side, and could have kicked herself.
Of course she’d known the name of the company before coming, but she’d been too distracted to make the connection. Now, as she did, it felt strangely as though sunbeams were breaking free of the dull grey sky to carry her back to when she’d first met the owner of Stone Construction.
Steve was laughing in that annoyingly teasing way of his that made her laugh too when she really didn’t want to.
‘You should have seen your face when I introduced you,’ he told her, eyes twinkling wickedly. ‘I don’t think I’ve ever seen you blush like that before.’
‘I did not blush,’ she protested.
‘Oh but you did. So come on, admit it, you fancied him.’
‘You’re delusional, and may I remind you we were at his father’s funeral, so you need to show more respect.’
Suitably chastened, he tugged off his tie and threw his suit jacket over the end of the bed as he said, ‘Everyone’s going to miss Dougie Stone. He was the best mayor this town’s ever had, and a great businessman. Now what everyone wants to know is whether or not his son, who’s apparently going to inherit everything, the construction company, the properties, all the other businesses, will keep it all going.’
‘What was his name again?’ Angie asked casually, stepping out of her formal grey dress and reaching for a hanger. Wasn’t it just typical of her husband to notice when she found another man attractive? She couldn’t get anything past him.
Steve was grinning. ‘Martin,’ he replied, and coming up behind her he drew her against him. ‘They say he’s minted in his own right,’ he murmured against her neck, ‘even before he cleans up from his father.’
‘Oh well, in that case,’ she said, turning in his arms, ‘perhaps I did fancy him.’
Laughing, he touched his mouth to hers.
‘Are you jealous?’ she teased.
‘Madly,’ he declared, not sounding it at all. ‘Now get the rest of that kit off, woman, and let me have my way with you before Coronation Street starts.’
Coronation Street, she was smiling to herself as she returned to the van. He’d never watched an episode in his life. However he had worked for Martin Stone a few times since Martin had taken over the company, but today was the only other time she’d met the man. She felt pleased that he’d remembered Steve so fondly, and touched by his willingness to help her small charity – and sorry that she hadn’t made more of an effort with her appearance this morning, as if he’d have noticed, which of course he wouldn’t have.
It would be quite something though to attract someone like him, a real boost to her spirits and her confidence, to her outlook on everything, so she might play with the fantasy for a while. Better that than make an immediate return to the grimness of her actual life.
Half an hour later, Angie was leaving Hill Lodge, and focussing on her next meeting, which was with an independent-living agency for those with mental health issues. They didn’t have any apartments free at the moment, but it did no harm to keep in touch with these people, to make sure Bridging the Gap’s residents weren’t forgotten when something did come up.
On reaching the front gate of the Lodge she looked up and had to fight the sudden impulse to run back inside. A man was slouching against her van, clearly waiting for her, and she knew exactly who he was.
Suddenly damned if she was going to let him see her fear, she raised her chin as she approached him, eyes blazing contempt, hands clenched in fists in her pockets.
‘Hello, Angie,’ he drawled, straightening up in an absurdly awkward way, as if he were pulling up his trousers, or shaking them out to dry. He was short and bald-headed with a prizefighter’s physique, multiple piercings in his ears and nose and a smile that, in spite of his attempts to appear friendly, made him look like an untrained pit bull.
This was Agi, the charmer Roland Shalik sent to carry out his dirty work.
‘Get out of my way,’ she said tightly.
‘Angie, Angie,’ he drawled, putting his hands together as though in prayer. ‘You know you have to pay your rent. It’s the law, and yet you don’t pay yours. So how can you expect to stay where you are?’
She regarded him fiercely, teeth gritted, sweat prickling the back of her neck as her heart thudded with dread.
‘Mr Shalik has asked me to inform you,’ he said smoothly, ‘of the steps he has taken to remove you from the house. Do you know of them? Are you opening your mail?’
Temper flashed in her eyes. ‘Yes, I know, and you can tell him from me …’ She broke off as he closed the short distance between them.
‘If you need help,’ he said quietly, ‘Mr Shalik is still willing to arrange a loan …’
She stepped back, shaking her head in disgust. Taking a loan from that shark would end her up in ten times more debt than she was in already, more even, and she wasn’t going to do it. Not even to save her home. There would be no point, for she’d end up losing it anyway.
Agi’s smile was one of sad understanding, even benevolence, as he murmured, ‘Of course there are other possibilities …’
She stared at him, not sure she wanted to know where this was going.
His eyes took on a mocking gleam. ‘You have a very beautiful daughter,’ he reminded her, ‘it would be …’ He broke off as her hand slammed across his face.
‘Don’t you bring my daughter into this,’ she hissed at him. ‘Do you hear me? If you try it again I’ll have the immigration people on you so fast your feet won’t hit the ground as they throw you back to the sewer you came from,’ and pushing past him she ran to get in the van.
As she drove away she heard him call after her. ‘Don’t forget you have choices, Angie. We always have choices,’ and for one blinding moment she almost turned the van around to drive straight at him.
‘How dare he threaten me like that?’ Angie raged, pacing up and down the office in a frenzy of fury that was likely to erupt at any moment into an explosion of panic. The door was tightly closed so no chance passer-by could hear if she swore, and Emma had switched the phones to voicemail as soon as she’d seen Angie coming in the door.
‘Why the hell are you only telling me about him now?’ Emma demanded angrily. ‘How many times has he threatened you before?’
‘Once, twice, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. Shalik knows very well there’s no way I can get the money, so what’s he going to do, send more heavies round to scare it out of me? Well, good luck with that.’
‘There are laws to protect people in your position,’ Emma reminded her fiercely. ‘He has to give proper notice and he knows it.’
‘He already has. It’s going through the courts as we speak.’
Emma regarded her aghast. ‘For God’s sake, Angie. How could you have kept this from me? I mean, I knew it was bad, but …’ Words failed her as she tried to grasp the enormity of Angie’s plight. ‘We have to get a lawyer,’ she stated. ‘We know plenty, thanks to what we do here …’
‘They’re not going to do it for free,’ Angie interrupted, ‘and there’s just no way I can pay them. I can’t even afford a bloody birthday cake for Zac next week. Christ, what am I saying? We’ll be lucky to have a damned kitchen next week the way things are going, never mind a cake.’ She stared at Emma, so horrified by this possibility that she felt herself starting to shake. ‘I need to speak to Roland Shalik,’ she declared, grabbing her phone. ‘I know he won’t take my call, snivelling coward that he is, hiding behind his ludicrous
army of thugs and bullies, but I have to try.’
Emma watched uneasily as Angie connected to the number. ‘What are you going to say?’ she asked.
Angie put up a hand as a female voice answered with the name of Shalik’s company. ‘Put me through to Mr Shalik,’ she said abruptly.
‘Who’s calling please?’
‘Angela Watts from Willow Close.’ Immediately the words were out she realized her mistake.
‘You need to speak to the tenancy manager,’ she was told. ‘I’ll give you the number …’
‘Thanks, I have it,’ and she cut the call dead.
Her eyes went to Emma, and she saw a reflection of her own outrage and helplessness. She knew her sister would do anything in her power to help if she could, but her finances weren’t in a healthy state either – the only reason she wasn’t being hounded out of her house was because she had an ex-husband to pay the rent.
Emma said, ‘Whatever happens, he won’t get away with throwing you out. You’re a single mother with two children …’
Angie regarded her incredulously. ‘Are you serious? You know very well that’s no insurance. Women are losing their homes all the time, and in some cases their kids end up in care.’ The chance of that nightmare scenario struck her another horrific blow; it was one she simply couldn’t let happen.
‘No one’s going to take Grace and Zac away,’ Emma said forcefully, ‘and you’ve got to stop telling yourself they will. We need to fight this rationally, make a plan …’
‘Don’t you think I’ve been trying to come up with one? I’ve got no idea how to get the money, unless I take one of their crooked doorstep loans so I’ll be in hock to them for evermore. Well, that’s not going to happen. I’d rather be on the streets than let Roland Shalik control my life any more than he does already.’ She faltered for a moment, knowing she didn’t mean that about the streets – or did she?
‘I know, why don’t I try to get a loan?’ Emma suggested. ‘I mean a legit one, from the bank. You can pay me back …’
‘No, I can’t let you do that, and besides they’d never lend you as much as I need.’
Emma’s anxiety visibly grew. ‘So how much rent do you owe?’ she asked carefully.
Angie looked away, unable to speak the figure even to her sister.
‘Five, six thousand?’ Emma ventured.
Angie shook her head. ‘Try doubling it,’ she said, thinking of the council tax and how much more that was adding to it, along with the utilities, credit cards, overdraft …
Emma said gravely, ‘Well, if the worst comes to the worst you’ll come and stay with me. It’ll be tight with all of us, but we’ll …’
‘You know that won’t work,’ Angie reminded her despairingly. ‘Remember how hard Shalik came down on you for overcrowding when you let Cherie Burrows and her kids stay after they lost their flat? He threatened to evict you and he could have done it, because your house is a single-family residence.’ They were both afraid that he might seek to get rid of Emma anyway, although for the moment he’d made no move to.
‘He’d never have known about Cherie if it weren’t for Amy effing Cutler,’ Emma snarled, referring to her next-door neighbour who’d once made a move on Steve and had been firmly rebuffed. She’d detested them all ever since, as if they were responsible for her knickerless attempt to straddle the man under her kitchen sink trying to clear the U-bend.
‘She’ll go to Shalik again,’ Angie warned, ‘and think about how bad you felt when you had to make Cherie and her kids leave; it’ll be a hundred times worse if you have to do it to me.’
Having to accept that was true, Emma slapped a hand on the desk. ‘That’s why we have to get a lawyer,’ she insisted. ‘If we can find someone who’ll give us the first hour for free, it might be all we need.’
This time Angie didn’t argue; however, an hour later, having called every solicitor on their contact list, they still weren’t able to get an appointment before the middle of next week.
Angie forced back tears and picked up the tea Emma had put in front of her. She felt sick, terrified, unable to think straight as everything seemed to close in on her. ‘Oh God, how has this become my life?’ she cried wretchedly. ‘What did I do to make it happen? Isn’t it enough that I’ve lost my husband and son, do I really have to lose my home as well?’
Without explaining anything, Emma picked up Angie’s mobile and made a call. When it was answered, she said, ‘Hello, I have Miles Granger on the line for Mr Shalik.’ Granger was their local MP.
Angie’s eyes widened in surprise, and she almost managed a smile as she caught on to Emma’s ruse.
‘What’s it about?’ Emma cried, indignantly echoing the voice at the other end of the line. ‘I’ve just told you, it’s Miles Granger calling. He’ll discuss his business with Mr Shalik, when you put us through.’ She glanced at Angie and winked. A moment later, she said, ‘Mr Shalik? Thank you, I’ll put Mr Granger on.’
As she held out the receiver Angie stared at it, so thrown she couldn’t get a single thought through the chaos in her head. A brief reminder of her children, a birthday cake, the threat of eviction brought her to her senses, and taking the phone she said, quickly, ‘Mr Shalik, it’s Angie Watts. I’m sure you know that your father …’
‘Mrs Watts,’ came the dark, drawling tones of her landlord, ‘I don’t appreciate being tricked into taking phone calls. I believe Agi offered you a loan to help with your difficulties …’
‘You know very well I can’t take it.’
‘That’s your choice. My position is clear. I wish to sell that house and you presumably know by now that you have until the end of this month to make alternative arrangements.’
Angie was so unprepared for his last words that she thought for a moment she’d imagined them. But she hadn’t, he really had said the end of this month, which must mean things had progressed through the courts even faster than she’d realized.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was a free period after lunch, and Grace and her best friend Lois were in an empty art room getting down to business. #SAVINGGRACE.
Lois, with her short brown hair and big tawny eyes, was bright, loyal and shared Grace’s passion for film and theatre. Unlike Grace, who longed to act, her ambition was to direct or produce, so it wasn’t unusual for her to select monologues or songs, sometimes dances, for Grace to perform and her to assess before they uploaded them to YouTube and shared them with their friends on social media. They’d been doing a lot more of that since Grace had been relegated to the wings of the Fairweather Players, but they kind of enjoyed being their own little production company with a slowly growing band of followers.
Today, however, their artistic endeavours weren’t receiving their usual attention. They were concerned with more pressing matters such as how Grace could earn some money.
‘OK,’ Lois said, glancing up from her phone as Grace worked on her laptop, ‘before we get on to jobs for you, here’s an app I found that you can download for your mum. It checks what she’s spending in the supermarket as she shops. Very useful, I’d say, stroke of genius on my part in finding it.’
Grace glanced at it, not sure how much use it was going to be, but maybe she could suggest it.
Lois continued, ‘Have you worked out yet what you’re going to do about your phone? I mean, you can’t not have a phone.’
Grace looked crestfallen. The contract was due to end in just over a month and Lois was right, she couldn’t not have a phone. ‘Mum’s getting me a sim so I’ll still be able to make calls and send texts,’ she said dolefully.
Lois regarded her with heartfelt sympathy. ‘Well, we’re almost always together,’ she said brightly, ‘so you can use my phone if you need to for Instagram and stuff.’
With a small but grateful smile, Grace pressed send on the latest homework assignment she’d carried out for a boy in her environmental studies class – an essay on the purpose of zoos in the twenty-first century – for which she’d
already been paid two pounds, with two more to come after it had been read and approved by him.
‘You need to charge more,’ Lois told her sagely.
‘No one our age can afford it. So, tell me what you found out about me being able to get a job.’
Clicking through to the results of a Google search, Lois read from her phone. ‘OK, by law you can’t work during school hours, obvs, or before 7 a.m. or after 7 p.m., or for more than four hours without taking a break.’
‘Which leaves like no time at all. Does it say what kind of jobs I can do?’
Lois pulled a face as she scrolled on down. ‘You could clear tables at a café or restaurant after school, provided you can fit it in around all the other stuff we’ve got going on. Or you could wash up in the same sort of places, same hours, or you could help out with old people – actually that might be voluntary. Yes, it is.’ She looked defeated, but only for a moment. ‘I nearly forgot,’ she cried excitedly, ‘you could design websites. There’s no age restriction on that.’
‘Yeah, if I knew how.’
‘All right. So invent a video game …’
‘Lois!’
‘OK, OK! Let’s check to see how many views you’ve had for the video we posted on YouTube last night.’
‘I did, just now, and it’s still only twelve – I told you, not everyone gets Shakespeare – and I don’t see how it’s going to make us any money even if we got a thousand views.’ Grace sighed and picked up the ‘Glass is Greener’ water bottle Lois had given her for Christmas along with the dance classes. She drank, put the bottle down and watched Lois changing the screen on her phone. ‘What are you doing?’ she asked.
‘It’s time,’ Lois replied confidently, ‘to ask our Instagram and Facebook followers for any bright ideas on how to earn decent money at our age.’
Grace looked worried. This was something she knew neither of her parents would approve of, for it was too random, too likely to attract the wrong sort of suggestions. However, her dad was never going to know and nor would her mum, provided no one told her and it all worked out. So maybe Lois was right, they should cast the net wider, see if someone out there could come up with something brilliant that they hadn’t thought of. And if any creepy or gross responses came back, all they had to do was delete them.