by Fiona Field
‘Oh God, and Susie won’t be happy either, will she, with me usurping her as the OC’s wife.’
Seb shook his head. ‘No, I shouldn’t think so.’
*
Susie had spent the afternoon in Warminster trawling round estate agents. She knew what she wanted: four bedrooms, gas central heating, south-facing garden, off-street parking, good local schools and within a ten mile radius of where she lived now. She was hardly asking for a ridiculous amount, was she? And it seemed not because with the redundancy package they would have a decent deposit, and with Mike’s projected earnings there were a fair few properties to choose from. She came home laden with particulars of possible houses to show Mike. She parked the car outside the house and let herself in. She could hear movement coming from the kitchen.
‘Mike?’
‘Where have you been?’
He sounded in a right grump, she thought. She wondered what had happened now. She walked down the hall, into the kitchen and dumped the sheaf of papers on the table.
‘Just popped into town see what the estate agents have got to offer.’ The look on Mike’s face told her he didn’t want to talk about houses. ‘What’s the matter, hon?’
‘The last fucking straw.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve just been told who is replacing me.’
‘Not Craig, surely.’
‘No, although I almost think that would be better than who is getting the job.’
‘And that is?’
‘Seb.’
‘Seb? But he’s a babe in arms. How can he possibly command a company? He hasn’t even gone to Staff College yet. And Maddy is hardly OC’s wife material. I mean she’s a nice kid but...’ Words failed her.
‘I know.’ Mike looked at her bleakly. ‘It seems to me that the army thinks so little of me that I can be replaced by someone who has got almost no experience and zero seniority. Well, thank you very much. And it’s pissed off Craig so much he’s talking about resigning. Honestly, if he goes, it’ll be like the Night of the Long Knives in B Company.’
Susie gave her husband a hug. ‘With Seb emerging out of the chaos and carnage smelling of roses.’
‘I know it’s not his fault, said Mike, morosely, ‘but with this sort of HR bloodbath going on it makes me think I’m better off out of it.’
‘Maybe.’ Susie didn’t look convinced.
She was about to put the kettle on to make them both a cup of tea when the phone rang. She picked up the kitchen extension and an unknown voice asked to speak to Major Collins. ‘For you,’ she said, handing the receiver to Mike.
She listened to Mike’s side of the conversation with half an ear as she made the tea. Whatever it was, it sounded quite serious and Mike didn’t look happy. Wordlessly she put his tea in front of him and waited patiently for the call to end.
‘What was that all about?’ she asked.
Mike stared at her. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. Susie felt worried.
‘It can’t be that bad, surely?’ said Susie, hiding her fears with a light tone.
‘I... I don’t know how to put this.’
‘Put what?’
‘That was the mortgage broker.’
‘And?’
Mike swallowed and looked down at the table. ‘And... and they won’t give me a mortgage.’
‘What? Why?’
‘It’s my credit rating.’
‘What about it?’
‘That’s the thing, Susie.’ He still wasn’t looking at her. ‘I’ve found it a bit tough to meet the kids’ school fees on a couple of occasions so I bunged them on a credit card. And then... and then I couldn’t make the repayments so I transferred the debt to another card to give myself some breathing space.’ He glanced up at her. ‘I never meant to let it get out of hand.’ He stared at Susie beseechingly. ‘But I honestly thought it wasn’t that bad. That it wouldn’t have an impact.’
‘How bad? How out of hand?’ Susie tried to keep calm.
‘Twenty thousand, give or take.’
‘Pounds?’
‘It’s not fucking Smarties, is it?’ he snapped. ‘Sorry. Sorry, Susie.’ He rubbed his face with his hand. ‘Sorry,’ he said a third time. ‘I’m a bit stressed.’
‘You’re a bit stressed?’ Susie breathed in and out twice before she said, ‘Shit.’
Twenty thousand pounds of debt and no mortgage. How could he? How fucking could he? She looked at the pile of properties she’d been planning on showing Mike. Not much point in that now. Wordlessly she gathered them up and chucked them in the recycling bin. She wanted to cry. ‘Mike, why didn’t you tell me? I could have got a job ages ago. I could have earned some money to help out. Once the kids went off to boarding school I could have managed.’
‘I thought I could manage. I thought I could sort it and I didn’t want you to worry.’
‘No.’ She sighed as she bit her tongue. There was no point in getting angry. Neither of them could turn the clock back, so that was that. And he might not have wanted her to worry back then but there was no denying she was bloody worried now.
Silence fell and lengthened. Susie considered their options and decided there were precious few. She sighed as she came to terms with the stark grimness of their position. Finally, she spoke again. ‘That’s it then. I’ve got to get that job in the mess.’
‘Susie—’
‘Don’t you dare say it isn’t appropriate,’ Susie snapped, worry, anger and emotion finally getting the better of her. ‘We’re running out of choices. It’s a job I can do and probably do well... if I get it. And if I don’t, I’ll go and find something else. It may be that the best I can get is as a checkout girl in the Spar but, as things stand, I have to have some sort of income if we’re going to have a house of our own in the near future.’
Mike looked shamefaced. ‘Kick a man while he’s down, why don’t you?’ he muttered.
‘Darling, I didn’t mean it like that but renting sucks – it’s dead money. We have to face reality.’
‘And the reality is that I’m a dead weight; no job, no prospects and no credit rating, my wife is being forced to go out to work and I’m being replaced by a man who has no experience and less seniority.’
Susie’s heart went out to her husband and she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.
Chapter 3
Mike sat in his office with the door shut and stared sightlessly out of his window. He’d told his office staff that he didn’t want to be disturbed under any circumstances and when they saw the look on his face they all knew he meant it.
No job, no credit rating, no boarding school allowance for his daughters and soon, no roof over his family’s head. How had it come to this? he wondered. The feelings of desperation and despair welled up inside him. He’d been so full of hope and ambition when he’d left Sandhurst, then he’d married Susie and they’d produced the twins and still everything seemed perfect. When had it all started to go so drastically wrong?
There was a knock at the door. Angrily he turned towards it.
‘Come,’ he barked.
Seb put his head around the door.
‘Mike?’
‘What? I said I didn’t want to be disturbed.’
‘I know. Sorry.’
‘Well?’
‘Mike... look, I just want to say that if there’s anything, anything I can do to help... you only have to ask.’
Mike felt like asking Seb if he had a spare twenty grand to get him out of the hole.
‘Really.’ It came out in a more sarcastic tone than he meant. Mike shut his eyes and took a breath. ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean it to sound like that, it’s just everything is a bit tricky right now.’
‘I can imagine.’
‘Really?’ This time it came out exactly as Mike intended. ‘Seb, you’ve got an Oxford degree, you’ve just been given your acting majority at a ridiculously young age, your future is secure, you haven’t got twins at a school with fees you can pro
bably no longer afford... No, Seb, I don’t think you have can possibly imagine what life is like for Susie and me right now.’
Seb looked like he’d been kicked. Well, tough. Mike had too much to worry about without pussyfooting around the feelings of others. And Seb had come into his office when he’d asked not to be disturbed. If you stick your head into a lion’s mouth you are asking for it to be bitten off.
‘The offer stands, Mike. And any time you want me to cover for you in the office, you know, for job interviews and suchlike...’
Ha, job interviews? That was a joke. If Seb only knew how his job hunt was going so far. But best he didn’t. Mike liked Seb but he had a suspicion that his subordinate’s caring exterior was there to disguise a rather more smug interior. Maybe he was being unfair but it was a feeling he just couldn’t shake.
*
Maddy wheeled Rose into the coffee shop on the High Street and looked about her for her friend. She spotted Jenna sitting in the corner, texting with the thumb of one hand while with the other she rocked the pushchair and lulled her baby.
‘Hiya,’ said Maddy when she got close enough to call out without fear of waking her own sleeping child.
Jenna looked up and smiled. She glanced down at one-year-old Rose and then across to her own baby – a boy, called Eliot, who was also sleeping.
‘Hey, ain’t this handy; both of them asleep at the same time. Maybe we can have a good old chinwag without getting interrupted.’
‘It would make a great change,’ said Maddy. ‘So, what can I get you? Skinny latte as usual?’
‘It’s my turn,’ said Jenna.
But Maddy dismissed Jenna’s offer with a wave of her hand as she extracted her purse from her handbag hanging on the back of the stroller. She went to place her order with the barista. A few minutes later she was back with their drinks.
‘So what’s the hot goss?’ said Jenna as Maddy seated herself on the sofa next to her.
‘Well...’ said Maddy. ‘You’ll never guess...’
‘So tell me,’ said Jenna sipping her coffee. ‘From your expression it’s got to be good news so it’s not Seb playing fast and loose again.’ Jenna was nothing if not blunt.
‘Don’t,’ said Maddy with a grimace. ‘Not that he’d dare, not a second time.’
‘So?’
‘Well, it is Seb, but this time it’s a good thing.’
‘Oh, come on, Maddy, quit with the riddles. Spit it out.’
‘He’s going to command B Company.’
Jenna’s eyes widened. ‘Get away.’
‘Seriously.’
‘I mean, but why? No, strike that, it sounds so rude but isn’t he a bit... well, young?’
‘I know. It’s come as a complete surprise but I can’t say I’m unhappy because it’s quite a pay hike. Of course,’ added Maddy, ‘we can’t be certain that he’ll keep the rank or get the job on a permanent basis, but what the hell? It’s still an unexpected bonus.’
‘Lucky old you. What does Susie think about it?’
Maddy picked up her cappu and stared at the foam. ‘I dunno. I haven’t seen her for a few days.’
‘You’re avoiding her, then?’
Maddy nodded, guiltily. ‘Wouldn’t you?’ she said quietly. ‘I mean, it isn’t like Seb and I angled for this. It was a complete bolt from the blue, but Susie has enough to cope with without trying to look happy on our account. Especially when it’s come at her and Mike’s expense.’
‘Tricky. But you’ve got to face her at some point. You can’t keep avoiding her – not when she was so good to you when Seb was...’
Maddy groaned. ‘I know, I know. But what can I say? “Hey, Susie, I know life is shitting all over you, but do you want to come and help Seb and me pop the champagne corks?”’
‘No, but you could explain that you’d rather it hadn’t had to happen this way.’
‘Maybe.’ Maddy wasn’t convinced. ‘But you’re right. I can’t keep ignoring her. Better I go and see her and face the music – or whatever – sooner rather than later. If I leave it, it’ll only get worse and harder.’
‘Attagirl,’ said Jenna. ‘Hey, though, fancy you being the OC’s wife. Think of all those committees you’ll get to sit on.’
Maddy groaned again. ‘Don’t. Camilla Rayner’s already been round to welcome me to the...’ She did aerial quotation marks with her fingers. ‘...Senior officers’ wives’ club. I mean, I ask you?’
‘You lucky, lucky cow,’ said Jenna, barely controlling her laughter.
‘And she’s already told me I’m going to be her deputy on the new community centre project.’
Jenna hooted. ‘Oh, this gets better and better.’
‘I don’t mind doing my bit for the battalion, truly I don’t, but Camilla is such a patronising bitch. Every time she speaks to me I feel as if I’m in primary school and I’m about to have to go and stand in the naughty corner. It’s not her fault that she once was a primary school teacher but it gets on my tits that she treats everyone she meets like they’re about five. And that sing-song voice of hers...’
‘I know what you mean. So effing twee and babyish.’ Jenna took a slurp of her latte. ‘There’s a lot to be said for living off the patch – I can avoid most of that sort of shit. Not that Mrs Rayner would have anything to do with the likes of me.’
‘Wish it was the same for me,’ said Maddy, gloomily.
‘Still, if you want me to look after Rose while you have to cope with all of Camilla’s crap, you just sing out. Anything I can do to help...’
‘Thanks, Jen, you’re a brick. But, as I’m going to have to do stuff to please Camilla, one of the first things I’m going to do is to try and get something sorted to please me too! I want to try and organise a proper crèche for the littlies, so the wives don’t always have to rely on favours from neighbours if they want an hour to get their hair done or go shopping without dragging their kids along too.’
‘I’m all in favour of that,’ said Jenna with feeling. ‘Especially the bit about having “an hour to go and get their hair done”.’ She was, apart from being a friend of Maddy’s, also her hairdresser and the thought of anything that made it easier for her customers to make appointments was very appealing.
*
Susie pulled up on the wide gravel sweep outside the imposing grey-stone, Jacobean front of Browndown School and yanked on the handbrake. She was feeling nervous. Since Mike had broken the news to the girls that they might have to leave Browndown there had been a smidgen of hope that it might not come to pass – but since the bombshell about his debts, all hope had been totally and utterly snuffed out. And now Susie had the task of formally giving Miss Marcham, the head, official notice that the girls would not be returning in the autumn, before she collected her daughters and took them home for the summer half-term. Unless, of course, the school fancied offering the girls a stonking great bursary each.
She got out of the car and gazed at the beautiful building. She and Mike had chosen this school with such care; a place they both felt would nurture and educate the twins in equal measure before they went off to university in some six years’ time. She’d taken a look at the local comp during the previous week and the austere brick, glass and concrete of that place was nothing like this.
She sighed. The girls would have to get used to it, that was all. There was nothing wrong with their new school – but on the other hand there wasn’t much right with it either; not when compared to this place. Never had the old adage ‘you get what you pay for’ been more true. Twenty-five grand a year each at Browndown, or free at the comp. And didn’t the price difference show.
Susie shoved thoughts of how the girls would cope in the far less rarefied environment of their new school to the back of her mind and made her way towards the head’s office. The school bursar showed her in.
After an exchange of greeting she took the chair offered to her, opted for coffee, which the head ordered from her secretary via an intercom, and then the pair
made polite but meaningless chit-chat about the weather and the impending holidays before the secretary appeared carrying a tray laden with delicate porcelain cups and saucers, a brimming cafetière and a plate of shortbread.
‘So,’ said Miss Marcham, as she handed Susie her cup, ‘I gathered from your phone call that this isn’t an entirely social visit. Not,’ she added, ‘that I don’t always appreciate the chance to chat to the parents of my girls.’
‘No. I mean yes,’ said Susie. She put her cup down on the edge of the desk. ‘The thing is that Mike... Major Collins... is being made redundant from the army. Without the army’s contribution to the fees, the sums don’t stack up. There’s no easy way of saying this but we just can’t afford to keep the girls here.’
Miss Marcham was impassive. ‘I see.’
There was a silence. Susie wondered how she might broach the subject of the school handing out some sort of cash to keep the girls on. Maybe if she started by telling Miss Marcham how much the twins loved being at Browndown.
‘I suppose,’ said Miss Marcham, ‘you are hoping I might be in a position to offer the girls a bursary or a scholarship.’
‘I... well...’ Susie smiled ingratiatingly. This was exactly what she was hoping for. She felt a little bubble of relief expand in her chest because she hadn’t had to bring the idea of getting a charitable handout up herself. ‘Well... it might make the difference,’ she said. She gave Miss Marcham a beaming smile. A scholarship might make all the difference.
‘Frankly...’ said Miss Marcham, in a tone that made Susie’s smile turn into a rictus grin. She lowered her glasses and fixed Susie with a look that made her wonder if she was about to be given detention for being insolent. ‘Frankly, given the twins’ behaviour this last term, I’m quite relieved they’re going.’
Susie had thought that Mike telling her he had twenty grand’s worth of debt had been the worst moment in her life. She’d been wrong – this was.
‘I’m sorry.’ Susie shook her head. ‘I’m not with you.’ She swallowed as she regained her composure. ‘I’m sorry, Miss Marcham, I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I think you do, Mrs Collins. The girls arrived here from their prep school with a fairly dubious report.’ Miss Marcham gave Susie a significant look. ‘Their behaviour there left a lot to be desired and matters haven’t improved here. They seem to think that because there are two of them they deserve to be treated differently from everyone else, that the rules don’t apply to them, but let me tell you, they do.’