‘Princess!’ he called. ‘How’s it goin’?’ He was quite casually dressed in head to toe Ralph Lauren. Well, casual for him anyway.
‘Great.’ I went out onto the drive and watched as he unlocked the back of the vehicle. Inside I could see a load of decorating stuff. Paintbrushes, huge tubs of paint, and folded-up dustsheets. Beyond that there were some familiar-looking boxes and bags containing the rest of my clothes and other things I had managed to salvage before the house was sold.
I felt an unexpected pang of irritation. Whatever was in those bags I had managed without perfectly well. Perhaps I was having a change of heart? Maybe it was the shock? I was beginning to enjoy having less clutter. That would make a change after decades of hoarding and wanting stuff. Perhaps now I would learn to embrace clear worktops, sweeping expanses of bare white walls with just one artistic twig in a glass frame. In years to come I would ask people to take off their shoes before they walked on my white carpets and I would talk knowledgeably about the liberation of minimalism.
On the other hand I could see my television and numerous wooden cases saved from Ian’s extensive wine collection and my spirits rose several notches. Now that was the best thing I had seen for ages. Well, apart from Bryn with his shirt off but I suppose that shouldn’t really count.
Greg came to envelop me in a friendly hug. He smelled of expensive aftershave and cigarettes and I tried to think how long it had been since a man had actually touched me with affection. It must have been months. I also tried to remember when I had smoked my last cigarette. At nearly ten quid a packet I definitely couldn’t afford them. Perhaps giving up would be the one good thing to come out of this mess.
‘All OK?’ he said.
‘Yes, fine, really.’
Greg jerked his chin at Ivy Cottage. ‘He’s not in then?’
‘Bryn? No, he’s been away for a few—’
‘Good, good. Well I’ll get this lot unloaded and then we’ll have a cuppa, eh? Stick the kettle on, there’s a good girl.’
‘Can’t I help you?’ I hovered around him, hands flapping. For one thing I feared for his crisp blue and white striped shirt.
‘Nah, piece of cake, won’t take me a sec. Jess says you’ve got some junk for me to take.’
‘Stuff I’ve pulled out from the garden; an old bike, some rotten wood and of course there’s a wet carpet. It stinks.’
‘Nice one.’ Greg turned back to the van and clambered inside.
‘Why don’t you want to see Bryn?’ I blurted out.
I don’t think Greg heard me because he didn’t answer. He jumped down and walked towards me holding a bundle of canvas dustsheets.
‘I’ll put all this in the garage, shall I? Talking about pieces of cake, I don’t suppose you’ve got any? Cake? Or I wouldn’t mind a biscuit if there was one going. Her Majesty’s got me on low carbs. I told you she would. I’d kill for a chocolate digestive.’
‘Jess said I wasn’t to give you any cake.’
‘Miserable cow. But she didn’t actually say biscuits?’
‘No, but—’
‘Well, there you are then. Just leave them out and I’ll nick a couple when you’re not looking.’
I laughed and went to put the kettle on.
I didn’t have room for everything in the house so Greg put all my stuff away in the garage, even the expensive clothes zipped into their dry-cleaning bags. I couldn’t face looking at them. A silk, beaded evening dress, an Armani suit, a Vivienne Westwood jacket, linen trousers and cashmere cardigans. None of it seemed to have a place in my newly small and unimportant life. I couldn’t imagine myself wearing white trousers or silk negligées ever again. Greg gave me a few funny looks and then hung the clothes from a metal tool rack.
‘Up to you, you could always flog ’em on eBay,’ he said.
‘Perhaps I will,’ I said.
Or I could take them to a charity shop.
I imagined myself sneaking into Stokeley or Okehampton very early one morning, dropping the bags off in a doorway under a sign saying ‘No donations to be left here’. Would the helpers be pleased to get such garments or exasperated? I had no idea. What if someone saw me and made me take them back? I shuddered at the thought.
I pulled out a tray, made a pot of tea and found two packets of biscuits. Bourbons and Custard Creams. Greg fell on them with an expression I could only describe as ecstasy.
He crammed in a Bourbon biscuit and munched. ‘So, how are you managing for money? If you don’t mind me asking.’
‘Ian and I were planning to go to France this summer, I had money for that in my account and I have some savings; I’ve been living on them up to now. But…’ I tailed off. Perhaps it wasn’t the most tactful thing to do, to complain about having no money when they were letting me stay here for nothing.
Greg looked thoughtful. ‘Oh well. Perhaps you could…no forget it.’
‘What?’
‘Nah.’
‘Go on.’
‘Get a job?’
‘I’ve already been into the local supermarket to ask about a job. There’s a doctor’s surgery in the next village too. I’ve left a message with them.’
‘That’s the way. Nil cardamom and all that.’
Perhaps I needed to try a bit harder.
Greg finished his tea and helped me take down the curtain hanging across the front door. Then he applied himself to moving the paint and the rollers in from the van.
I took up the thread of the conversation while we had coffee an hour or so later. Greg offered me a cigarette and I pounced on it with a cry of joy. He lit it for me and I took a deep drag, spluttering slightly. My head reeled with the nicotine rush. It didn’t seem quite as great as I remembered.
‘Anyway, I still have my jewellery. I can always sell some of that if the going gets tough.’
Greg blew across the surface of his drink and narrowed his eyes.
‘You’d only get scrap value. It’s never as much as you think. Unless of course Ian was in the habit of buying you Fabergé eggs? Or vintage Rolex watches?’
I pulled a face. ‘Hardly.’
I looked down at my emerald ring; I’d called it a commitment ring, not wanting to go as far as engagement ring despite the fact that Ian had proposed. It was a pretty thing and I clenched my fingers protectively over it. Surely I hadn’t come to that just yet? I had some pearls and a diamond pendant, bought to celebrate our first and fifth Christmases together respectively. I had various expensive things; even a bracelet in a turquoise Tiffany box, souvenir of our Christmas trip to New York. Was it only a few months ago? It felt like a lifetime.
God it had been marvellous. He’d really gone over the top. A hotel suite with fruit and flowers and an incredible view over Central Park. Ian had proposed yet again – it was like a running joke between us, he would ask me to marry him and I would come up with some damn fool excuse to make us both laugh. Let’s wait and see what happens with the Trump administration, I said. This time Ian tried to persuade me with the bracelet from Tiffany. I could remember his face so clearly as he gave it to me. Happy, proud, pleased with my delight. What the hell had he been doing? Stringing me along like that while all the time…
I remember having cocktails in the Waldorf Astoria. Margarita for me; Long Island iced tea for Ian. I closed my eyes. I could remember it all so well, the scent of money and perfume on a damp November day. I wonder now where the cash to pay for that had come from. A gambling win or just money siphoned off from the business?
I have been trying to get hold of Mr Ian Lovell for weeks. I wonder if you can help? I know he has been abroad on business recently; New York, wasn’t it?
Now I was on my own, living in rural Devon with my life in bits.
I felt giddy for a moment; perhaps it was the nicotine. I shook myself; Tiffany bracelets didn’t keep the cold out or the rain off.
I opened my eyes to see Greg watching me.
‘I’d better be off soon. Are you OK?’ he said. He took
another Bourbon biscuit.
‘I’m OK.’
‘Cheer up, no one’s going to prison, remember?’ And he winked at me.
No one’s going to prison. Greg and Jess had come to see me a couple of days after Ian had died, bringing me a cake and a casserole I couldn’t eat. They found me crying over a bundle of letters and final demands I had found in Ian’s study filed erroneously under ‘Expenses’.
‘I know you shouldn’t speak ill of the dead but Ian was a right sod to leave you with this to deal with. It’s a right dog’s breakfast. What the hell was he doing? This is serious, you need professional help,’ Greg had said, ‘this isn’t just a couple of quick phone calls. Is the house in both your names? This building society letter is only addressed to Ian.’
I sat slumped over the table and thought for a moment, trying to remember. Never had I felt more stupid.
‘No, it isn’t. He already lived here when we met. He said it was better to keep it in his name, I don’t know why. Something to do with tax?’
‘That’s baloney, and if anything it makes it worse.’
‘Greg! Stop it!’ Jess said.
‘Well it’s true. I can’t dress it up. If these debts are real, and the house isn’t in your joint names, then the creditors will come after it.’
‘Come after me?’ I had a vision of more large men on the doorstep.
‘Come after the house. What’s it worth? Seven fifty? Eight?’
‘I suppose so.’
‘They’ll expect to sell it to recover their money then. There must be some equity in it.’
‘I had a phone call from the bank yesterday, talking about a mortgage. I didn’t think Ian had a mortgage. It was paid off. I thought it was paid off. Ian told me it was. He’d had some money when his grandfather died and then the business took off. He said everything was great.’
‘Not according to this.’ Greg waved a letter at me. ‘Ian must have re-mortgaged to release some equity. It’s not illegal.’
‘But he should have told Lottie!’ Jess said, indignant on my behalf. ‘I mean if I found out you were keeping stuff like this from me, I’d have your bloody nuts in a mangle.’
Greg winced. ‘Yes, I bet you would. By the looks of things he’s in…sorry I mean he was in one hell of a mess. I would guess he did the worst thing possible, and that’s ignored the problem. I mean, we all hate HMRC but there are a lot of small local traders after their money here. I know this one.’ Greg waved a second letter at me. ‘He’s a good bloke, a plumber. He did our en suites, works like old stink. This sort of bad debt could take him under.’
I pressed my hands to my mouth.
‘I want to do what’s right, even if it’s too late.’
Greg paused and looked at me for a few moments before he cleared his throat and continued. ‘Are there any more letters like this?’
‘I don’t know. Probably.’
‘You need to find out. You’ve got to know exactly who you are dealing with and how much.’
‘What then?’
He shuffled the letters into some sort of order.
‘Like I always say; when you’re going through Hell, keep going.’
Greg had then taken me to see a friend of his who was a financial advisor. The reassuringly named John Strong who had looked at me from under his beetle brows and tapped a pencil against his chin.
‘The best tactics with financial issues are absolute clarity and prompt communication, particularly with the Inland Revenue, two things Mr Lovell didn’t employ.’
Well that was true. I’d already spent an hour with Simon Bentham at the Nationality Bank and been told much the same thing.
‘Do you believe he had other reserves?’
‘You mean hidden bank accounts? I don’t know,’ I said, slumping back in my chair.
I found the courage to voice my greatest fear.
‘Am I going to go to prison?’
He smiled at me. ‘No, Miss Calder, put that from your mind. It’s obvious to me from the paperwork I have seen you were not a party to any sort of deception. If you were, then you were a pretty incompetent fraudster. Your signatures on the paperwork for the payday loans are poor forgeries. Possibly deliberately.’
‘Would Ian…’
Again, the thoughtful tapping of his pencil on his chin before he answered me.
‘Quite possibly. Elements of this look fraudulent not just desperate bungling. Money siphoned off from the business and not declared. There is the unmistakable whiff of cash payments in several projects. I’m afraid he didn’t cover his tracks very well. And of course HMRC are the very last people you want to tangle with.’
‘No, he wasn’t very clever, was he?’ I whispered.
The mystery of where hundreds of thousands of pounds had gone was only solved when a local bookmaker and the owner of a casino had added their bills to the growing heap on John Strong’s desk.
Apart from some large holes in the company accounts that he had tried to cover up, Ian had been a compulsive and untalented gambler. He had fallen into the classic trap of trying to cover his losses with the ever-elusive big win. Sometimes he had won. The new carpet in his study was probably linked to a bet on the Brazilian Grand Prix. The last holiday we had in New York came after an unexpectedly successful night out in a casino. But ultimately, he had lost.
At this point I moved from the classic early stage of ‘confused grief’ and moved on to ‘anger’. How could Ian have done this? How could I not have realised? Why didn’t he tell me? Could I have helped him? All those times when he had been quiet and distracted, I had assumed he was fretting over some kitchen plinths or concealed lighting. I hadn’t known Big Kev O’Callaghan from the Galaxy Casino was after him.
CHAPTER 5
Primrose – modest worth and silent admiration
I’d always enjoyed painting and decorating, even the tedious bits like sanding down and glossing the woodwork. Ian hadn’t and so it was something I had mostly done alone. I began work on Holly Cottage that afternoon. I cleared the hallway, switched on Radio Devon so I could learn about the traffic jams I wasn’t caught in, and found some old clothes and trainers to wear. It was a lovely day so I opened all the windows too. The air was fresh and clear bringing with it the faint scent of newly mown grass. I began to feel quite peaceful and in control of things for once. Decorating was just as therapeutic as I remembered; the steady rhythm of the roller covering the old paint with new. I’d opened one of Greg’s huge tubs of trade white to use as an undercoat. If I was going to do this, I would do it properly, as though it was my own home.
I think the previous paintwork had once been one of those ‘hints-of’ shades that only look interesting on the colour charts but always look the same once they are applied to a wall. Smoothing out the little bumps and blemishes, leaving a white, blank surface that no grubby fingers had touched, I began to have quite philosophical thoughts about this being a metaphor for life.
I would obliterate my rather dull past and begin anew. This was going to be a turning point. I would learn from my mistakes and move forward. I would never trust any man again. If I had been a character in EastEnders I would have bumped fists with one of the Mitchell brothers, climbed into the back of a black cab and left for a fresh start in Manchester.
I had always prided myself on being a precise and careful decorator. Ian once told dinner guests that I was able to paint a room without the need for dustsheets and I had blushed modestly and agreed with him. People had been so disbelieving that with a little encouragement I think Ian would have got out some paint pots there and then to prove the point.
This time, as the hallway was small, it didn’t take me long to finish the first coat on the walls and with a sigh of contentment I stepped down from the stepladder to admire my handiwork – straight into the open tub of trade white. It was a move worthy of the Chuckle Brothers. Not that it was funny.
I stood on one leg, wailing my distress, trying hard to keep my balance and looking f
or some way to get out of the tub without making one hell of a mess. Perhaps I should have put the paint roller down first? Anyway I wobbled and fell, twisting as I did so like a circus clown looking for laughs from the audience. How I managed to then fall over backwards, tipping the roller tray I was holding all over my chest I’ll never know. I couldn’t have managed such a perfect prat fall so neatly if I had tried. The shock kept me silent for a few seconds, and then as the cold emulsion seeped through my T-shirt, I let out a howl of distress. I panicked. How was I going to get up without getting gallons of paint all over the flagstone floor?
For a moment hysteria got the better of me and I imagined myself expiring there in the hallway, my foot wedged into a paint tub, paint all over my tits, unable to free myself. Would this be reported in the national press as a calamity of epic proportions (tragic girlfriend, 34, found dead in decorating tragedy) or the most hysterically funny way to die? I had no wish to find out and feeling like a beetle on its back I started to squirm. The mess was going to be stupendous.
‘What’s the matter? Are you all right?’
I froze. Knees and hands in the air. No. Please not that.
‘Are you OK? I heard you shouting.’
It was Bryn, of course. He had come up the garden path and was looking over the stable door into the kitchen. He could see me.
‘I’m fine,’ I said, as casually as I could. ‘I always do this when I’m decorating. It breaks the tedium.’
Bryn leaned his arms on the top of the stable door and began to laugh. My humiliation was complete.
‘Oh God, I wish I had a camera,’ he said, wiping the tears from his eyes.
‘Trust me the only thing saving you from a savage and painful death is the fact that you haven’t got a camera,’ I said through gritted teeth.
The Summer of Second Chances Page 6