But there wasn’t time for that now. She and the children had eaten their breakfast such a long time ago they’d forgotten it, the washing was done and hanging in the yard, they’d been down the road to get some shopping and there was only half an hour left before she had to set out on their long walk, via Jon’s playschool, to the holiday camp and the afternoon’s work. It was the worst possible moment to tackle Rigg about anything, let alone a visit from the VAT man.
I’ll leave it till I’ve given him some breakfast, Alison decided.
But the letter was in his hand and he was already shouting, ‘Whass this? Ali! Whass this?’
‘A man brought it for you yesterday,’ she said. ‘Don’t bother with it now. Have a cup of tea first.’
‘Don’t bother with it now,’ he said, his voice rising. ‘It’s from the VAT office. It’s a final demand.’
‘I told him it was a mistake.’ Alison said, glancing anxiously at the kids. But they were playing with their toys on the hearthrug and didn’t seem to have noticed that anything was wrong.
‘Mistake!’ Rigg said crossly. ‘That’s putting it mildly. It’s a disaster. Now I shall have to pay the bloody thing. Why didn’t you refuse it? It wasn’t addressed to you. You should have told him to take it away again. You’d have been within your rights.’
‘Oh come on Rigg, be reasonable. How could I? He was on the doorstep. He knew I was your wife.’
‘A bit of loyalty,’ Rigg growled, ‘that’s all I ask.’ He aimed a kick at Jon’s painstaken tower of bricks so that they scattered in all directions. ‘What are all these damn bricks doing all over the place?’ Jon’s lip trembled and Rigg glared at his son. ‘Now he’s going to yell. That’s all I need! Well stop him, can’t you.’
Alison picked Emma up and put out a guiding hand to lead Jon away from the line of fire. ‘Don’t take it out on the kids,’ she said. ‘It’s not their fault you’re behind with your payments.’
‘I’m not behind with my payments.’
That was a relief to hear. ‘Oh well, that’s all right then.’
‘No it’s not “all right then”. I’ve got all this money to pay.’
‘But you said…’
‘It’s an outstanding account. That’s all it is. I could have held it off if it hadn’t been for you. Now you’ve landed me right in it.’
‘So you do owe them the money.’
His voice was dark with disdain. ‘Well of course I owe them money. Everybody owes everybody money. That’s the way the business world works.’ He crammed the demand back in its envelope. ‘Nobody pays bills on time. You ought to know that. I’ve told you enough times. Especially to the tax man. Not before you actually have to. Or do you want me to hand over all my hard-earned cash to make interest for the state?’
Alison decided to stop the argument. She couldn’t win it and it would only get worse. Emma was wriggling off her lap and poor Jon was frightened. He was all eyes and his little heart was beating like a hammer under her fingers. ‘What do you want for breakfast?’ she said because she couldn’t think of anything else to say.
‘I haven’t got time for breakfast,’ he said. ‘I’ve got to find three grand by the end of the week. Where am I supposed to find three grand? Eh? You tell me, you’re so clever.’
She had to answer that. It sounded too much like a cry for help. ‘Perhaps you could ask your mother,’ she said, annoyed that her voice was shaky. ‘Perhaps she’d let you have something on account.’
‘No I couldn’t. You know that.’
‘The bank then?’
‘Don’t talk to me about banks.’
‘Then it’ll have to come out of the takings, won’t it. You’re doing well enough for that, aren’t you? You were telling me only the other day…’
That suggestion infuriated him. ‘Don’t tell me what I’m doing,’ he shouted at her. ‘I can’t just lay my hand on three grand whenever I feel like it. Money doesn’t grow on trees.’
‘Time we were off,’ Alison told the children, keeping her voice bright and normal. ‘Where are our coats?’ All she could think about was getting out of the house, into the open air, away from his rage before it got any worse. She tumbled the children through the front door, dragging the folded buggy after her.
And there was her friend Brad, leaning up against the wall beside the window, gazing at the sky and smoking. She was wearing her old leather jacket with a new pair of skin-tight jeans and cowboy boots, and her hair was dyed scarlet and lacquered into a stiff plume above her forehead. At the sight of her Alison relaxed a little.
‘Boo-ba-do, kids,’ Brad said. ‘D’you wanna McDonald’s?’
Jon’s eyes lit up. ‘Yeah! An’ chips.’
‘Hop in then,’ Brad said, striding off towards her battered Mini. She’d parked it right in front of Rigg’s BMW. The contrast between the two cars couldn’t have been more marked – his brand-new, bright red and gleaming with polish, hers ancient, dull brown and eaten with rust.
Alison’s emotions were so muddled that she was hardly conscious of what she was doing: fear of Rigg’s anger and annoyance at her own inadequacy; relief at seeing Brad and her car; embarrassment because the row must have been overhead. She shoved the buggy into the back of the car without speaking and she and the children climbed in and made spaces for themselves on the back seat among the usual debris – sagging cushions, empty cigarette packets, old newspapers, ancient chewing gum, broken-down shoes.
‘All set?’ Brad asked. And off they went.
‘I thought you were on early turn,’ Alison said, when she’d recovered enough to speak. Brad worked in the holiday camp too, as a waitress.
‘Changed shifts,’ Brad explained, ‘so’s I could get me barnet done. D’you like it?’
‘It’s wicked,’ Alison approved, glad of a chance to talk about something other than her present problems. ‘You look like a pop star. What does Tiny think about it?’
‘Oh him!’ Brad said disparagingly. ‘He’s yesterday’s news. I’ve given him the elbow.’
Alison wasn’t surprised. None of Brad’s lovers lasted long. ‘Hence the new hair style,’ she said, shrewdly.
‘Something like that,’ Brad agreed as they turned out of the Selsey Road and began to drive alongside the promenade. ‘What’s up with the Great-I-Am this morning?’
The question stirred Alison’s emotions all over again. ‘Oh, nothing much,’ she said, wanting to make light of the quarrel. ‘You know what he’s like first thing in the morning.’
‘No. I don’t, as it happens,’ Brad contradicted sweetly. ‘An’ just as well fer him, if you ask me. If he shouted at me like that I’d have his guts fer garters.’
‘What’s guts?’ Jon wanted to know.
‘It means she’d be cross with him,’ Alison explained quickly.
‘He kicked my bricks all up in the air,’ Jon said.
‘I’d kick him in the…’
‘Look at that boat Jon,’ Alison side-tracked. ‘See it. Right out there. See?’
There was a stiff breeze blowing and one of the fishing boats was having a hard time struggling back to the beach. White foam curved from its bows and it was rolling dramatically.
Brad looked at it too. ‘Wouldn’t hurt the Great-I-Am to do a bit a’ work now an’ then,’ she said, ‘stead a’ sitting on his bum all day in that precious BMW.’
‘He does work hard,’ Alison said, springing to his defence. ‘He was home really late last night.’
Brad made a grimace. ‘I’ll bet he was! An’ where’d he been? Did you ask him that?’
‘You know I didn’t. I don’t pry into his affairs. We trust one another.’
Brad looked at her friend through the driving mirror. ‘You’re a fool,’ she said. ‘You let him get away with murder.’
‘He’s not as bad as he sounds,’ Alison said, hating the criticism, especially as there was more than a grain of truth in it. She ought to know where he was and what he was doing. ‘I can handle hi
m.’
‘Yeah!’ Brad grinned. ‘Sounds like it.’
‘It’s just our way. That’s all,’ Alison tried to explain. ‘All couples have their own life styles. We’ve been through all this hundreds of times, Brad. You won’t change us.’
Somebody ought to, Brad thought. But she didn’t argue any more because poor old Ali was still looking pale from all that roaring, and there wasn’t any point in making her feel worse than she already did. ‘I’m having a Big Mac,’ she announced. ‘What you having, kids?’
‘It’s all hot air,’ Alison struggled to explain as they walked into McDonald’s. ‘He’s got a short fuse, that’s all. He’ll have forgotten all about it by this evening.’
But although she was putting on a bright, brave face, she wasn’t as sure as she sounded. The fact was she felt guilty about the letter and guilty about the row. Guilty – and a failure. With hindsight, she could see that she ought to have told Rigg about it the minute he got home. He would have taken it better then. Not well exactly, but better. He was always in a bad mood when he woke up and she couldn’t pretend she didn’t know that. She’d handled the whole thing very badly and now the kids had been upset and Brad had overheard the row. It was a disaster and it ought not to have been.
The afternoon brought an endless queue of problems to solve so that she was late finishing work, very late collecting Jon from his play-group and even later getting home. Lights were already on in most of the living rooms in Shore Street and the windows disclosed framed tableaux of her neighbours sitting at tea, some round the table, others squashed side by side on sofas, watching the telly as they ate. Entire families, children, mothers and fathers.
Pushing the buggy along the pitted pavement, past the first four lighted windows, Alison felt jealous and bleak. She couldn’t help it, even if it was disloyal. If only Rigg wasn’t always at work, if only he could spend more time with the kids. It would make such a difference – to all of them. He might even be better tempered in the morning if he could get a good night’s sleep once in a while.
But once she was inside her own home, her good sense returned. It was no use thinking like that. All his time and every penny of their money had to go into the business. She’d accepted that right from the start. They’d both known it wouldn’t be easy.
‘Tea,’ she said, lighting the gas fire. ‘Get your coats off.’ The warm glow lit the room and she sat back on her heels and let it play on her face for a second. Then the BMW drew up outside the door.
The sound threw her into a panic. Jon’s bricks were still all over the floor; they were still in their outdoor things; Rigg’s dinner wasn’t even prepared, let alone cooked. His shadow filled the glass of the front door. His key was in the lock.
His arms were full of parcels, presents for Jon and Emma, a bunch of red roses for her, and he was smiling at Alison, the way he did just before he kissed her.
‘Kitten!’ he said lovingly. ‘How could I have been so foul to my Kitty? Forgiven?’
She forgave him at once, almost unreservedly. And the presents were thrown on to the sofa so that she could be kissed – in his most practised and arousing way.
‘Love you,’ he murmured into her hair, running his fingers up and down the nape of her neck.
‘I want a drink,’ Jon said, tugging at her jersey. ‘I’m thirsty.’
‘Presents,’ Rigg said, releasing her. ‘Come and see what I’ve got for my Prince and Princess. The most expensive presents in the world. How about that?’
There was a Tiny Tears for Emma and a barrel full of Duplo for Jon. The first games began in front of the fire, Alison arranged her roses in the blue vase, and Rigg spread himself out on the sofa with the wrapping paper scrunched at his feet. Together they made a tableau every bit as heart warming as any of the others in the road – the happy family, gathered together after a hard day’s work.
‘What’s for dinner?’ Rigg said.
Dinner was cooked, eaten and appreciated, the kids were bathed and put to bed while Rigg had a short nap on the sofa, and the late evening settled to the softness of music and love-making.
‘I’m a pig to my poor kitten,’ Rigg said, when they’d both come and were lying side by side, relaxed with satisfaction.
‘Never mind,’ Alison said sleepily. ‘Blame it on the VAT man.’
‘That reminds me.’
‘Um?’
‘I found the money.’
Hadn’t she known he would? He was too good a business man to be beaten by a mere three thousand pounds. ‘Good,’ she murmured. She was more than half asleep now and the word was slurred.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘Got it from the bank. We’ve got to go and see the manager tomorrow morning. You won’t mind that, will you Kitten?’
‘I’ve got to go too?’
‘That’s what the man said.’
She was too drowsed by love to ask why or even to wonder. ‘All right,’ she said. And was asleep.
Chapter Two
As manager of the Chichester branch of the Camelot and Wessex Bank, Mr Arthur Drury took himself with total seriousness. He was a gentleman of the old school, more at home with ledgers and typewriters than computers and multiple loans, and as such, he had an instinctive distrust of Yuppies.
Nevertheless, he liked Rigby Toan. An enterprising young man, privately educated, of course, and doing well with his two jewellery stores. Over the last eight years Mr Drury had personally seen to it that the Camelot and Wessex had given Mr Toan all the backing he needed. Even now, when the young man was behaving like a Yuppie and offering his equity in the matrimonial home as surety for a loan, Mr Drury was predisposed to let him have what he wanted. Especially now that he’d met Mrs Toan. She was such a nice quiet young woman, the dependable sort, the kind of wife who would be supportive but not foolish.
‘Will three thousand be sufficient for this expansion you have in mind?’ he asked Mr Toan.
‘Oh yes,’ Rigg said, assuming his responsible expression. ‘I’m sure it will. We mustn’t overstretch ourselves. Not in a recession.’
‘Quite,’ Mr Drury agreed and the two men nodded at one another.
‘There are risks to a transaction like this,’ Mr Drury warned, smiling across his desk at Mrs Toan, ‘and I would – um – be doing rather less than my duty if I did not make them known to you. Um – you and Mr Toan will both have to sign these application forms in the presence of a solicitor, that being the legal requirement with second charges.’
The warning puzzled Alison. She opened her mouth to ask what the risks were, but Rigg was speaking before her.
‘That’s perfectly understood,’ he said smoothly. ‘We’ve got an appointment at Spatchcock and Hornchurch in…’ He looked at his watch (a Gucci bought to inspire confidence, like the BMW) ‘… sixteen minutes.’
‘Then I mustn’t keep you,’ Mr Drury said, impressed by the organisation. He rose out of his chair to signal that the meeting was over. ‘I wish you success. And you too, Mrs Toan.’
They were out of the bank and into the pale sunshine in the street before Alison had a chance to ask any questions.
‘What’s all this about seeing a solicitor?’ she asked as Rigg rushed her towards the centre of the town. ‘You never said anything about seeing a solicitor. Is it going to take long? I promised Sally I’d be back in an hour.’
‘Won’t take a minute,’ Rigg assured her. ‘It’s only a formality.’
‘Why did he say…’
‘Oh you don’t want to take any notice of anything Mr Drury says,’ Rigg told her firmly. He took her arm as they walked so that she had to lengthen her stride to keep up with him. ‘He’s just being an old woman. Here we are.’
The solicitor’s office overlooked the old market cross that stands where it has stood for centuries, right in the centre of Chichester where the town’s four roads converge, its eight stone arches providing a thoroughfare in rainy weather and the stone seat surrounding its central column making it an all-season meetin
g place. Originally designed as a butter market, it is a curiously romantic little building, like a Gothic crown set about with carved stone pinnacles and bejewelled by four shining clocks and as unexpected in a Georgian market town as an Arab in a crinoline.
Alison could see the eastern clock-face from where she sat waiting while the solicitor read through the papers they were going to sign. The sight of it increased her anxiety and her annoyance. She felt cross with Rigg for not telling her there were two interviews to attend. It had been very kind of Sally to agree to look after the kids, especially at a moment’s notice, and she didn’t want to impose on her by being late back.
‘Yes,’ the solicitor said, tidying the papers. ‘This is all in order. However, there is one thing that has to be made clear before you sign. To take out a second charge on your home is not something to be undertaken lightly. You are signing over the equity to the bank. I want you to be quite clear about that. In the eventuality that you were to fall on hard times and be unable to repay the loan – which nobody would want, naturally, and which we all hope will not happen although we all have to face the fact that it could – then the bank would be within its rights to repossess your house.’
‘For three thousand pounds?’ Alison said. ‘They wouldn’t do that, would they?’
‘They’d be within their rights.’
‘But that’s preposterous.’
‘That may well be the case, Mrs Toan, but these are the terms of a second charge. I have to point them out to you and to caution you as to the advisability of your actions.’
Rigg was shifting irritably in his seat, and Alison knew he didn’t like the way the conversation was going but she pressed on. ‘When you say you’ve got to caution us, it sounds as if you would be against it,’ she prompted.
The solicitor’s reply was sombre and serious. ‘My advice to you, Mr and Mrs Toan, would be to find some other way of raising the capital you need which wouldn’t put your home in jeopardy.’
‘You think we’d be risking our home?’
‘I think you should consider the whole matter very carefully before you put your signature to anything.’
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