The New Leaf

by Hugh Canham

  ‘Well, what do you think?’ Jane asked at breakfast.

  ‘You mean about the loan?’

  ‘Of course,’ she said, smiling at me.

  ‘It’s terribly kind of you but I don’t think I can possibly accept it, Jane. Since my father died I’ve always worked on my own and tried to be self-reliant. Even though things are very bad at the moment I feel I must try to stand on my own two feet.’

  I could tell immediately that my decision had upset her. Her smile faded.

  ‘Can I not persuade you? It will probably mean you’ll have to sell your office and flat.’

  ‘Yes, it probably will, but if that’s what it takes… ’ I said.

  ‘I see. Well, in an hour or two I shall have to leave you to your own devices until teatime. I have to go and see Dad in hospital.’

  That was on Saturday. It turned out she had to go and visit her father for several hours on Sunday as well!

  As she drove me to the station late on Sunday afternoon, she said, ‘Well, if you’re determined to sell the office, why don’t you ask your friend Jasper if he knows anyone who wants it? It’s sort of in his line, I think, and I presume you will want a quick sale.’

  ‘Really bad luck, my boy! Look, if you are really serious about selling your place I’ll put you in touch with my young nephew, Joshua. It’s just the sort of pad he’s looking for.’

  And so, after a lot of haggling (Joshua was very like his uncle), I did a quick sale to Joshua for £1.4 million to include most of the furniture. I know I could have got more on the open market.

  I went to George for financial advice, as I could no longer use my accountants. He told me he thought that as I would have the money in hand I should pay the Revenue the whole of what they demanded for the time being and send the rest to the bank, keeping back enough to pay off my personal overdraft (which I still hadn’t sorted out) and keep a further bit back for my expenses.

  ‘If you don’t pay the Revenue soon I bet they’ll sting you with penalties and interest. They’re like that!’ he concluded.

  Whether George’s advice was good or not I wasn’t sure, but by that stage I was almost beyond caring. I did what he suggested.

  It was a very, very sad day when I moved from Brook Street, my home and workplace for ten years, into the flat over the shop in Wood Green. It was rather grim and needed redecorating. It had one largish sitting room, a bedroom, kitchen and bathroom. The previous tenant had left behind most of his furniture, and I’m not surprised. It was old and battered. But as I hoped I wouldn’t be there too long, I decided to make do.

  The redundancies for the Toy Boy staff were dealt with very quickly. The auction of the stock took place as arranged. The proceeds were very disappointing – less than book value. Then I had a rare piece of luck. I managed to sell Toy Boy’s office, which I’d never used. This did mean that I had to set up my office in the flat, but it removed another liability and this pleased the bank manager. He’d also been pleased with the balance of the money from the sale of Brook Street, but nevertheless he still wrote me a letter insisting that the shops and the warehouse were sold by the end of the year – otherwise he would have to take further steps. This really worried me.

  I dispensed with Ann and settled down to a life of austerity. I instructed five different estate agents to try and sell the three shops and the warehouse and worked from the flat with my mobile phone, a laptop computer (which Ann had more or less taught me to use before she left) and one or two other items of office equipment I’d taken from Toy Boy’s offices before sending the rest of the contents to the sale room. I told Dr Greenbaum that I couldn’t afford to go on seeing him.

  He wished me ‘good luck’.

  In all, it didn’t seem quite the end of the world, but almost.

  But now, re-enter Cristabel.

  It was a horrible wet Saturday, early November, late afternoon, and I was watching some rugby match on the tv that I didn’t really care about when Cristabel called me.

  ‘Gregory, please may I come and see you?’

  ‘Well, yes of course, if you really want to. Do we have something to talk about still?’

  ‘Yes, I want to see you and talk to you.’

  ‘Well, okay. By the way I’ve moved. I had to sell the place in Brook Street. I’m in Wood Green… ’

  ‘I’d like to come now.’

  ‘Of course.’ I gave her the address.

  When I went down the narrow staircase to the street door after she rang the bell, I had a premonition that something awful had happened to Cristabel. It somehow penetrated the door and pushed its way up the staircase to meet me. And when I opened the door and saw her, I knew I was right. Her face was grey, her hair obviously unwashed and she staggered as she walked up the stairs in front of me.

  To try and jolly her up I said, ‘As you can see, I’ve come down in the world. Sit over there. It’s the least uncomfortable of the chairs. I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you don’t look very well – shall I make you some tea?’

  ‘Later, and then I’ll ask you how you come to be here. But first I want to tell you what’s happened to me.’

  ‘Are you not married yet?’

  ‘No, and never shall be now. I’ve come to you because I thought you were the one person I knew who might understand what I have done.’

  I sat down opposite her. She hadn’t taken her coat off and she sat with her hands between her knees and her head hanging down. Then she suddenly flicked her head up and looked straight at me.

  ‘I’ve just had an abortion,’ she said.

  ‘Ah, I see!’ was all I could think of saying.

  ‘You remember I told you I was engaged to an Italian I met in the Cathedral at Aix?’

  ‘I could hardly forget it!’

  ‘Well, I was a naïve fool. He gave me an expensive engagement ring and on the basis that we would be married in Italy within three weeks, persuaded me to go and stay with him at a villa he has in Monte Carlo. But all he wanted to do was to get me into bed. After he’d done everything he wanted to me for a fortnight he suddenly announced that we couldn’t get married after all. His father had come home to Italy from South America and said if he married an English girl and not someone from his very large, extended family, he would be disinherited. Of course, I didn’t believe him and we had a terrible row. Then, when I came back to England, I discovered I was pregnant. So I had an abortion.’

  She sat looking at me with tears trickling down her cheeks. ‘Why didn’t you keep the baby?’

  ‘Because I didn’t want to give birth to that bastard’s child!’ she shouted. ‘It would have probably been just like him – a liar and a cheat!’

  ‘Why didn’t you use contraception…? Oh, that’s a silly question.’

  ‘And abortion is killing!’ she shouted at me again.

  ‘Not everybody thinks so.’

  ‘Oh God, I feel awful. I feel so bad I can’t even smoke!’

  ‘Did he know you were pregnant?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Have you told your mother or Auntie?’

  ‘Of course not. I came to you. I had to tell someone. I knew you wouldn’t be shocked.’

  I did feel shocked but didn’t say so. The whole thing seemed so unlike the Cristabel I knew.

  ‘Let me make you some tea now.’

  When I came back, she still hadn’t taken her coat off, but was curled up and seemed almost asleep on a terrible imitation leather sofa that the previous tenant had left behind. But she opened her eyes and held out her hand for the cup.

  ‘Do you mind if I stay for a little while?’ she said.

  After a time I realised that the ‘little while’ would mean ‘quite a while’. She was in some state of awful shock for want of a better description. She lay on the sofa, hardly moving.

  I eventually persuaded her to stand up and put my arms round her to try to console her. But she didn’t respond. She seemed completely immersed in her own misery. Not knowing really what to
do for the best I managed to get her to my bed, tried to make her comfortable and then pulled up a chair. She slept most of the time. At about ten o’clock I lay down myself on the awful sofa, with a cushion under my head and my coat over my body as I hadn’t got a spare blanket. I think it was one of the worst nights I ever spent. I was very worried about Cristabel. I suggested I should call a doctor but she just grasped my hand and said, ‘No, no, Gregory, please no. I’ll be all right. This is just emotional. The clinic said I was physically okay but might feel depressed and upset. I came to you because I couldn’t stand being on my own.’

  I went into the bedroom every hour. Twice, Cristabel wanted to go to the bathroom. She was so shaky that I had to help her undress and support her. I felt so sorry for her that I didn’t feel the squeamish revulsion I normally have for bodily functions.

  At about eight o’clock the next morning I tried to get her to eat some Cornflakes and drink some of the coffee I had made for myself.

  She managed a few spoonfuls of cereal and then announced that she was going to be sick.

  I helped her to the bathroom just in time. I thought to myself, as I practically carried her back to bed, that I had so often longed to have physical contact with her body, but this physical contact was something entirely different. She had the most beautiful body but I felt nothing sexual, only great pity that she was so upset and ill.

  Once I had got her settled down I said, ‘Look, you’re obviously feeling very bad and I don’t know that I can look after you properly. You ought to be in a nursing home or something. Can’t I arrange it with Auntie?’

  She grasped my hand again and said, ‘No, please, please, Gregory! Just let me stay here a little while longer. You don’t mind, do you?’

  ‘Of course not,’ I said. ‘You looked after me. But if you’re going to stay here I must go out and buy you some things once the shops open. I’ll have to leave you for a short while. Will you be all right?’

  ‘Yes, just leave a bucket beside me in case of accidents.’

  It was Sunday and so the shops didn’t open until about eleven. I wondered, as I walked through the drizzly rain, why on earth Cristabel had come to me. Had she really no female friend she could rely on? Maybe she was so distant with everyone that she didn’t have many friends at all. I had never noticed during the weekends I had spent with her that anyone phoned her. Having to look after her was about the last thing I wanted at that time. I felt utterly low and depressed, but I suppose she took my mind off my own troubles.

  I bought her two pairs of pyjamas, a dressing gown and a packet of knickers. And I bought a small folding bed for myself with a sleeping bag and pillow, all of which I collected later in the afternoon and manhandled back to the flat with some difficulty.

  I had to help her change and then sat by her bed holding her hand, which she seemed to like. She hardly ever spoke.

  And so I looked after her as well as I could. This involved helping her shower, washing her hair, and all the other intimate things that nurses do so well but I’m sure I did very badly. And she gradually got better and started to look like Cristabel again. Five days after she’d first arrived, she said she thought she ought to go home and could I please order her a taxi to take her to her studio in Fulham? In some ways I was relieved; I was feeling very tired. Quite exhausted.

  Before she left, she solemnly shook me by the hand and said, ‘Gregory, I am so grateful. You’ve looked after me wonderfully and for so long. I only intended to stay for an hour or two when I first came.’

  ‘But you looked after me,’ I said.

  ‘I never had to change your pants for you or wash you. I’m sure God will reward you for your kindness to a sinner. Will you please promise never to tell anyone what I had to do?’

  I promised.

  The flat seemed very empty after she’d gone. Although she said she’d phone me, she didn’t. I rang her many times but always just got her answering service. I think those five days were the most bizarre in my life.

  8

  I had been trying to sell the three shops and the warehouse since the beginning of September and the end of November was now fast approaching. McGinger was conducting a sort of terrorist campaign against me. Every week he sent me a bank statement setting out my total indebtedness. So, reluctantly, I had gradually disposed of all the racehorses and the Aston martin – all at dismal prices. I had finally made myself go through my personal bank account statements and my credit cards bills for the previous two years. But everything was in such a muddle that I eventually gave up. My spending had been profligate and careless. I had relied on Gloria to keep a check on things but she obviously hadn’t bothered much. Maybe she’d been helping herself. But I wouldn’t be able to prove it, so I decided to forget it all and concentrate on the future; I made a firm resolution that I would never let my finances get in such a mess again. I would make a note of everything I spent and check my bank and credit card statements every month. I also resolved that if ever I had a girlfriend again, I would ‘ration’ my spending on her.

  I think it was during this period that it really hit me how dependent I’d been in the past on having a young woman ‘in tow’, as my father used to say. And I suppose Gloria was a kind of ‘woman in tow’ as well, in her own way.

  Because I was still taking both antidepressants and anti-anxiety pills, each of which said ‘avoid alcohol’ on the box, I tried to limit my intake to two glasses of wine a day. I had given up the cigars completely.

  For the first time in my life since leaving school, I had spare time. Too much of it! I watched rubbish on the television, read a few detective novels, played with my computer and wandered about Wood Green and other parts of North London I’d never been to before, like Muswell Hill and Alexandra Park. I seemed to have no desire to go to the theatre or the cinema. My main meal was generally a kebab from one of the numerous takeaways in the area. They were cheap and tasty.

  I had lots of time to think about my past life. In particular, I thought a great deal about Cristabel. A strange person; so distant with me, and probably everyone else, and then suddenly being seduced by an Italian she’d just met in a cathedral who offered her marriage. What had suddenly come over her? And then coming to me to be looked after! And now she was avoiding me. I suppose I still hoped that she would suddenly phone up and be nice to me – whatever being ‘nice’ might mean.

  And I thought of Jane’s generosity. I’d probably been very churlish in refusing her offer of a loan and I hadn’t heard from her since that day. I had obviously seriously upset her. I hadn’t liked to phone her, but I was disappointed that she hadn’t been in touch with me. I’d hoped she might have wanted to find out what had happened about the sale of Brook Street and how I was getting on.

  One Saturday there was a day of freak weather. After two weeks of November gloom, the sun shone and it was warm, almost hot. Along with several thousand other people I decided to go to Alexandra Park. In particular, I liked the views over London on a clear day. I managed to find a spare space on a park bench and looked around. The place was heaving: it was multi-racial and multi-cultural, scores of children playing with balls and the smaller ones in buggies or toddling. I realised that my previous high lifestyle had insulated me from all this – the real world for lots of Londoners. People who had very little money, who couldn’t afford taxis and struggled to afford their weekly shopping. Life on benefits. My own financial security was in doubt and might be forever, if I couldn’t sell the shops and warehouse.

  But there was only one day of sunshine before the gloom returned.

  Then, out of the monotony, two things happened on the same day. The first was a phone call from a solicitor called Mrs Bostock. She explained she was acting for my accountants’ insurers and wondered if she could please come and look at my files. I said I had no objection but I had to go and get the files out of storage, where I had put all the stuff from Brook Street that wouldn’t fit into the flat.

  The second was a call from
one of the five firms of estate agents I had instructed to sell the three shops and the warehouse. I could hardly believe it when they said they thought they had found a purchaser – a company selling computers and mobile phones – for the whole lot. The price being offered was of course considerably less than my asking price. But it would solve my problems with the bank and I was feeling quite cheerful when a few days later, Mrs Bostock arrived very promptly at the time appointed to look at the files. She wasn’t what I expected – I don’t really know what I expected but certainly it wasn’t someone like Mrs Bostock. Underneath her thick, green overcoat she was an extremely elegant and well-endowed little blonde (natural I think) lady in a neat, grey business suit and high heels. The chap who accompanied her was apparently an accountant; and looked just like one.

  I put the files on the dining table in the sitting room and asked them if they minded if I worked at the computer while they looked through them. Not that I had any work to do, but I found looking at things on Google kept me occupied.

  ‘By the way,’ I said, ‘as I told you I’ve no objection, but why do you want to look at these files?’

  ‘Because your accountants’ files are in a terrible mess. We have a suspicion that the Revenue have somehow made a mistake and you did roll over in time!’

  ‘Well, I sincerely hope you’re right… Would you like a cup of coffee?’

  ‘I think I can see what’s happened here,’ Mrs Bostock said after she and the accountant had spent half an hour shuffling through my files with furious concentration and muttering to one another. ‘Undoubtedly you rolled over the proceeds within the three year period, according to everything we can see here, but your accountants put the wrong date on your tax return, which is also in the file. Presumably you never checked the copy they sent you?’

  ‘I don’t suppose I did!’

  ‘I’ll go back to the office now and try and set up a meeting with the Revenue,’ she said.