The Debt Read online

  He shrugs. ‘Just some geezer they used to know. Johnny something. Frank, that’s it. Johnny Frank. Dad’s invited him to stay. He’s been away for a few years.’

  ‘Away as in abroad or away as in inside?’

  He gives me one of his thin-skinned sensitive looks. ‘What does it matter?’

  ‘It doesn’t,’ I answer patiently. ‘I was just wondering. Only there’s major hostilities going on downstairs and he seems to be at the centre of it all.’

  It’s always hard to tell which way he’ll jump. Marc’s moods come and go. Sometimes he’ll close up tight as a clam and like some Trappist monk take a convenient vow of silence. But this evening, perhaps as sick as I am of his parents’ constant rowing, he decides to share his knowledge. Leaning his head against the back of the sofa he declares: ‘He’s been in the nick – for the past eighteen years.’

  My mouth falls open. ‘What?’

  He nods. And in case that announcement might not have shocked me sufficiently, he adds dramatically: ‘For murder.’

  My instant reaction is one of horror. I’m hardly surprised Dee is throwing saucepans. ‘What do you mean, murder? What kind of murder?’ As if killing can be neatly categorized, from bad, to very bad, to disgustingly evil – the question sounds ridiculous even as I ask it. Perhaps I’ve been reading too many tabloids.

  ‘Dunno,’ he replies, as unconcerned about this apparent piece of minutia as he is about most things. ‘Don’t worry about it. Some villain. Roy Foster. It was years ago.’

  I’m partly mollified, although I’m not sure I should be. But at least it’s not a child or a woman. ‘And he’s coming to stay here?’

  ‘Not if Mum gets her way.’

  ‘And if she doesn’t?’

  Marc shrugs again. ‘Well, he’s done his time. What’s the problem?’

  The problem is that it’s hard enough living with a man you want to leave without his volatile parents, his psychotic brother, and now a convicted killer joining the scenario. If I still had a sense of humour, I’d laugh.

  Marc, perhaps tired of the Question and Answer routine, is already putting on his jacket. ‘Skip that tea, I’ve got to get to the club.’

  And although I hate myself for doing it, despise myself for sounding like some suspicious nagging wife, I look at the clock and say: ‘But it’s only six thirty.’

  ‘Exactly,’ he replies briskly, ‘if I don’t go now, I won’t get anything done. You know what the noise is like in that place – especially on a Saturday.’ Then he softens and smiles. ‘Hey, why don’t you come along later? We could have a drink, grab something to eat.’

  But he knows I hate the club. Jim’s rather dismal lap-dancing establishment, situated on the rim of London’s East End, is named, somewhat ironically, The Palace. Now, I’m pretty easy-going – each to their own and all that – but my idea of a good night out bears no relation to sitting in a smoky dungeon and watching ten sleekly oiled half-naked girls shake their butts at a crowd of sweaty and erectile men. Apart from which, my breasts just can’t take the competition.

  ‘Tempting as that offer is, I think I’ll give it a miss.’

  He grins, leans down and bestows a perfunctory kiss. ‘Okay, love. Have a good evening. See you later.’

  Then the door has closed and he’s gone. Dressed in his suit and a new white shirt, he’s prinked and pressed and closely shaved. It inevitably crosses my mind that he could be going to meet another woman, some twenty-something Tara or Tanya who will run her fingers, without judgement, through those tousled curls and gaze adoringly into his innocent blue eyes. And what is even more unsettling than this prospect is the fact that I don’t really care; it’s only my pride rather than my heart I’m trying to protect now.

  Which isn’t to say I don’t care about Marc. I do. Between us there’s still a tiny nugget left, a hard firm cyst of benign love and loyalty. It would be so much easier if we could just cut that part away.

  I turn and step into the kitchen. Tea for one, then. And two minutes later I’m standing aimlessly by the window, sipping from the mug and gazing down into the garden. For God’s sake, what am I doing? It’s Saturday night! The weekend! And while the rest of the population is preparing for a riotous night out on the town all I need is a pair of fluffy slippers and a marginal shift in attitude to slip effortlessly into my dotage.

  How did it come to this?

  I’m not old. I’m only thirty-two. I can still walk and smile and dance. My auburn hair still shines and I’ve got a full set of teeth. On a good day I can even string a sentence together. Most of my mental processes, if not entirely intact, are in adequate condition and my body – although showing hints of betrayal – has not really yet embarked on that gravitational journey south. Even my wrinkles are slight enough to pass for laughter lines.

  I don’t have to sit around and watch TV. I don’t have to vegetate. I could go out and party. I could paint the town as brightly red as anyone else. I could ring some friends and meet them for a drink . . . except, well, to be quite honest we’re currently a bit low on the friendship front.

  If Katie was around it would be different, but my longstanding pal has sensibly decamped to Australia for the season of goodwill. I miss her.

  ‘Why don’t you come?’ she’d asked a couple of months ago, spreading out the brochure in all its Technicolor luxury. ‘The hotel’s right on the beach. Sun, sea and buckets of wine – nothing but glorious self-indulgence. What do you reckon?’

  I reckoned it would be pretty damn fine but with Marc only recently out of prison it hardly seemed feasible.

  ‘Well, you can bring him along too!’ she exclaimed, although the unspoken addendum of if you really have to hovered in the air between us. Because it’s a fact that Katie doesn’t like my husband much and it’s not just to do with his financial indiscretions. Long before his sticky fingers brought him to the attention of the justice system, she had identified an even more fatal flaw in the character of Marc Buckley – he was not the faithful sort.

  Not that she ever put it quite that bluntly. Smiling comments such as, ‘That man’s too handsome for his own good’ or ‘He’s incredibly charming, isn’t he?’ were slipped almost as asides into our premarital conversations. Her implied criticisms were shrouded so carefully in compliments that, more often than not, they flew straight over my head. Or maybe, having balanced those rose-tinted glasses firmly on my nose, I was just loath to admit to chronic myopia.

  But Katie was right. She clearly saw what I was blindly incapable of. However, she’s never been smug about it since, never gloated once or reminded me of how stupid I was. Neither has she pushed or encouraged me to leave him, although she has let me know in her own subtle fashion that should I ever choose to go down that road then she will, as always, be there for me.

  Sadly the jaunt to Australia, although alluring, was never feasible. For one, although I have some meagre savings, I’m not exactly rolling in money. And for two, having already lost their son to a couple of festive periods at Her Majesty’s pleasure (he served eighteen months of his three-year sentence), Dee and Jim wouldn’t be overjoyed at the prospect of forgoing yet another family Christmas. And who could blame them? It would have been selfish to even suggest it.

  So I didn’t.

  And so while Katie is lounging on the beach, topping up her tan – I check my watch trying to recall the time difference – I’m wondering what other acquaintance I might contact to reestablish my credentials as a social human being. Slowly I flick through our address book, studying the pages with at first an eager and then a progressively despondent eye as each name is considered, thought about and then dismissed.

  Of course it was different the first time Marc was convicted; then it was only a minor fraud, and he was so thoroughly repentant and so utterly convincing that even the judge was impressed. He wore his remorse as elegantly as his Savile Row suit. He claimed an aberration, a moment of weakness, depression, confusion, extenuating circumstances. He hung h
is head in stylish shame.

  Six months, that’s all he’d got. He was lucky.

  Then friends had rallied round, giving him the benefit of the doubt. Everyone makes mistakes, they said softly. They were supportive and forgiving, overflowing with the milk of human kindness. They wrote him letters, sent him gifts, and invited me round for warming dinners and words of reassurance. Secretly, although they tried not to show it, they were fascinated by this vicarious brush with criminality and under the cover of sympathetic understanding probed for details of prison visits and life inside.

  ‘So is the food really that bad?’ they asked, wide-eyed, tucking into their Dover sole with renewed appetite.

  ‘Does he have to share a cell?’ They shuddered. ‘Lord, just imagine, you could find yourself bunking up with—’

  ‘What are the screws like? What about the other cons?’

  They’d all watched Bad Girls and the occasional more brutal episodes of Oz. And having garnered the idiom, they’d strangely started to spill it back as if such talk might somehow make me feel more at ease.

  ‘Are you allowed to touch or do you have to sit behind one of those barrier things? Are you allowed to kiss?’

  ‘So Simone, how’s he bearing up?’

  My answer to the last question was always the same – a resigned, despondent shrug. ‘Well, you know . . .’ Although the truth was that he was bearing up just fine, as completely unfazed by this sudden change in circumstances as he was by everything else. Like a chameleon Marc had the ability to merge effortlessly into any environment.

  But that wasn’t what they wanted to hear. Not that they were nasty or cruel, it wasn’t that, but in order to justify their faith in him – decent upright citizens as they were – they had to believe he possessed a degree of remorse from which some minor suffering necessarily ensued.

  And who was I to disillusion them?

  When Marc was released they welcomed him back with open arms and through their help and references he quickly got a new job. We moved across to the other side of the city and for the next eighteen months life almost returned to normal. With his talent and charm he skipped rapidly up the corporate ladder and by the time he reoffended even I’d started to believe that his lapse might have been an unfortunate blip in what might still prove to be a reasonably honest future.

  Which only goes to show how wrong you can be.

  His next digression was not so easily dismissed. Marc’s smooth-talking spiel fell on deaf ears as the judge passed sentence with a smile of dry self-satisfaction. Three years for a £90,000 fraud. I was still in shock as they took him down. We’d both been earning good salaries so what he’d done with all the extra cash was anyone’s guess – although I suspect there may be a bookie out there who, after his extra-long vacation, could cast some light on the mystery.

  And just as Marc’s luck finally ran out so too did that milk of human kindness. If it flowed at all it was only in small sour drops of tainted disapproval. Forgiveness had its limits. What had been perceived initially as a slip had suddenly turned into a disreputable habit and now there was no sympathy, no commiseration and no comfort.

  ‘Simone. Hi.’ A long uncomfortable pause. ‘It’s good to hear from you. How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine. I was just—’

  ‘Oh, that’s great. It’s great. Er, look, can I ring you back? I’d love to talk but this isn’t a very good time. We’ve got people here for dinner and . . .’

  My calls, taken at first with a stammering embarrassment, eventually went unanswered. There was only silence. I quickly got the message. I was the woman who was married to a thief. I was guilty by association.

  His fall, our fall, from grace was absolute.

  If it hadn’t been for that terrible silence, I might have left him too. I mean, I could hardly comprehend that he’d done it again. I wanted to slap him, to scream and shout and shake him to his bones. Why? Why have you done this? It left me so bewildered, so wretched I could hardly bear to meet his gaze. What was wrong with him? What was wrong with me that I hadn’t even realized what was going on?

  I wanted to hurt him back – but he’d already got his punishment. And to kick a man when he’s down, much as I was tempted, goes against the grain.

  I couldn’t do it.

  I think he was surprised, even touched, by the fact I chose to stand firm. Loyalty, along with fidelity, has always been an alien concept to him. It shouldn’t have been, his mother was staunch enough, but he could never entirely believe in her ideals. He knew how badly he’d betrayed me but as to whether he understood that my decision to stay was based partly on a negative – a blatant refusal to join the conservative and condemnatory ranks of his thin-lipped associates – is another matter altogether. It’s something that we never have discussed and never will.

  ‘Thank you,’ he murmured, the first time I visited that dreary depressing place. He took my hand and held it. And for one crazy moment, as we gazed across the table in a facsimile of married love, it even seemed possible that we might find a way forward. Hadn’t we been through so much? Survived so much? Surrounded by the ebb and flow of tumultuous emotions, of so many expressions of hope or despair, we smiled uncertainly and clung on to what we knew.

  ‘I’ll never do it again, Sims,’ he whispered, using his pet name for me. He squeezed my hand tighter and gazed into my eyes. ‘I promise. I swear.’

  But even as he spoke I was sure he was lying.

  ‘I believe you,’ I said.

  But I didn’t. For all his remonstrations, for all his sad and sweet remorse, all he really meant was that next time – and of course there would always be a next time – he didn’t intend to get caught.

  Because Marc is a thief. There’s no denying it. He can’t resist temptation. But his thefts aren’t to do with acquisitiveness – or at least not directly. That isn’t at the heart of all this mess. He’s not driven by a desire to be rich, to drive a red Ferrari, to wallow in a million crisp new notes. I understand that now. His frauds are a means to an end and the end isn’t the money – it’s the reckless excitement of taking a risk, of going against the odds. It’s the kick of the ultimate gamble. He can’t resist the thrill of taking a chance, of doing something that he shouldn’t, of deliberately crossing that dangerous and forbidden line. It’s not money he wants to play with – it’s his life.

  Which isn’t an excuse, far from it. It’s only a reason.

  But it’s why he’ll never stop.

  And it’s why I have to leave.

  I take a hot shower, get dressed again in sweat pants and T-shirt, and create a gourmet meal of scrambled eggs on toast. I put my feet on the table and watch some banal television. It’s after eight by the time I realize we’re running out of milk. Since Marc went out I’ve switched to instant coffee and have been revving up my nerves ever since.

  When I turn off the TV there’s no sound coming from the ground floor. In fact the lack of noise is eerily disturbing. Cautiously, I open the door. Nothing. I wait a while. Maybe it’s just a lull, a temporary break in hostilities but no, even two minutes later, everything’s calm. Whether this unusual peace signifies an armistice or a slaughter is impossible to tell – but faced with the choice of a dry breakfast or a walk through the killing fields, I decide to take my chances and trek downstairs.

  The light in the kitchen is still on and Dee glances up as I peer tentatively round the corner.

  ‘It’s okay, love. It’s safe.’ She smiles wryly as she beckons me in. Dee’s in good condition for her age, a well-preserved fifty-three, but tonight the bright neon strips don’t do her any favours; her face looks grey and tired, and the slight bags under her eyes are exaggerated.

  ‘Are you all right?’

  Patting her ash blonde hair with one perfectly manicured hand, she gestures towards the cupboard with the other. ‘Grab a glass,’ she insists, ‘and help me finish this. I don’t want a hangover in the morning.’

  There’s a half-empty bottle on the
table.

  I do as she says. Not having any pressing appointments, I may as well. The wine’s cold and pleasantly crisp. As I sip it I ask: ‘Has Jim gone to The Palace?’

  ‘God knows,’ she replies shortly.

  So, sensibly, I don’t pursue the subject. Instead I shift the conversation into more neutral waters. ‘We had a good day at the shop, sold over twenty Christmas wreaths. And a guy came in from those solicitors down the road – Langley’s, is it? – asking for a quote for regular displays. I said you’d get back to him. Oh, and that wedding’s been confirmed for the fifth of January, Sally Chambers, at St James’s.’

  But even this news doesn’t seem to lift her spirits. ‘Weddings and funerals,’ she mutters a little thickly, making me wonder if this is the first bottle she’s opened, ‘weddings and bloody funerals.’ She fumbles with a cigarette, eventually lights it, and sucks in deeply. When she exhales it’s with a long exhausted sigh. ‘Sorry, love,’ she says, reaching over to pat my hand.

  She seems deep in thought so I don’t break the silence with any more unwanted information about the day’s trade. The florist shop named, unsurprisingly, Dee’s is where I work now. Although I trained as an accountant, my position with Charlton & Castle was compromised by having a convicted fraudster as a husband. People are funny about these things. In the end I went before I was pushed, and for the past twenty months have been absorbed into the fragrant world of roses, of orchids and lilies, of pink and blue hyacinths. I only meant to stay a few weeks but there is something so seductive, not to mention soothing, about the double-fronted shop on the High Street that I have never moved on. In fact it is safe to say that there is nowhere I am happier.

  ‘Well, that’s good,’ she adds, almost as if she’s been reading my mind. Then I realize she’s referring to my earlier comments although I’m not sure how much she actually heard. She takes another gulp of wine and unsteadily refills her glass.