Latin and the General Principles of English Law, turns out now I just need money.”
“You’re not Robinson Crusoe, Roger. Most people are short of money.”
“Who’d have thought I’d end up killing vermin for a living. It’s not that I don’t like it. I’m physically repulsed, Sue. Frankly, some pests frighten the shit out of me. I have the odd nightmare of being trapped in a cellar, I can hear them but unable to find them. Then again as a consultant I don’t have a great deal of contact with them.”
Ironically, the cement is now reaching his throat.
Sue juggles James and her cup of tea. “I can honestly say I enjoyed hairdressing — every moment — I truly loved it.”
James grizzles.
“Not surprising as you were rubbing shoulders with stars of the silver screen,” Roger patronises, “but I’ve never done anything I truly liked since college, and I wasn’t rapt in that. To me a job is just that, a job. At the hotels I cooked, cleaned, served at table, bar, and now I’m chasing money, which is about as easy as levitating right now.”
“To most people going to Australia would be their adventure of a lifetime.” Sue fingers her nightie nervously. “Who knows? You might even stumble over a job you like?”
Roger shrugs. “Adventure? I don’t think so. For thrills I’m thinking milk a death adder, castrate a raging bull, or…” he pauses caught for another suitable example. “Or, go sing the Scarlet Flag outside Buckingham Palace.”
“Why?” she studies him closely.
He feels himself shrink from the scrutiny. “There’s a time to be boring, Sue, or being a man. Think of the adrenalin rush before being arrested.”
Sue takes a deep breath. “Imagine a life with sunshine, then.”
“I’m so fair-skinned, I get burned by the fridge light.”
“Then wear protection. It could be the best £50 you’d ever spend.”
“Fifty quid!” Roger shrieks. “How come?”
“Well,” Sue replies testily, “unless you’ve not noticed lately there are five of us in this family.”
Roger grunts, “Can Fred go for £10?”
“I don’t know,” for an instant Sue’s smile falters, it no longer reaches her eyes, “he is part of our family, isn’t he? We can hardly leave him behind.”
“That reminds me he’s due to be neutered at the vet.”
Roger lights another cigarette.
“Ignoring the vet taking a higher percentage of our earnings than the mortgage this month, I see my future prospects as reasonably bright. My region’s supposed to be expanding.” He chances a bright smile. “I have you, our two children, and the dog. I’m not complaining.”
Sue strokes his arm, “But we’re still without curtains.”
He now feels like a fully kilned concrete statue, ready for primer and paint.
“You could always pretend it’s deliberate because we’ve nothing to hide,” he tries weakly.
Sue frowns. “Heavy curtains would help keep the house warm.”
Not long and they’re back to another advertisement.
“Their beaches do look good,” Roger acknowledges, “I’ll give them that, but our local beach at Great Yarmouth is sandy enough, don’t you think?”
“Maybe our sand isn’t quite as white as theirs,” Sue smiles, “nor our sea or sky as blue. Although you have to admit beach life here does lose most of its appeal.”
“Why?”
“Well, being adjacent to the North Sea, for starters, it’s too damned cold.”
“Being unable to stand upright in a force eight gale, you mean.”
Sue looks at Roger triumphantly. She barks back. “Unless you’re congenial to being rugged-up to the eyebrows, it doesn’t make for a great day at the beach, does it?”
Roger pries himself reluctantly from the warm cushion of his armchair and reaches for the coal scuttle to replenish the fire. Tense as his wife is, he realises that she would likely go off as easily as nitroglycerine dancing on hot coals. He decides to tread carefully.
Certainly, their small two-bedroom brick veneer house, Casa Del Coxwell, is not remarkable by any means, looking out as it does over a street of identical small homes with small front gardens, ranging from immaculately tidy to jungles of death.
Tiny kitchen, living room and dining area combined. Their bathroom would suit Tom Thumb. The only people for whom the house is in any way special are Sue and Roger, as it happens to be the one they live in.
Coxwell is an uninspiring village by any name. Frankly, quaint though it may be, if it were on a main road it’s the sort of place you would drive through on your way to somewhere else. Rural with a shop, a pub, and an out-of-work windmill.
“When the children get older they’ll need their own bedrooms.”
Roger sighs his deepest sigh.
After the failure of his hotel businesses, his Dad had the perfect excuse not to pay Roger for all those years of hard work and to make matters worse, Zelda blamed Roger in part for the failures.
Roger was left in charge of a business that had already failed and, pending his Dad’s bankruptcy, the company chequebook had been surrendered.
“I should never have trusted Dad, Sue.”
Sue is gentle. “You both ended up directors of a failed business.”
“Yes. Dad went bankrupt, which sort of ruled out his culpability, but I’m still liable.”
“Liable for what? Surely as a director you’re in the clear?”
“Yes, except for personal guarantees. Banks insist on them in addition.”
Sue stares fixedly at Roger like a rabbit trying not to be run over by a car.
“Oh, Roger what will happen?”
“Well, they can’t get blood out of a stone, that’s for sure and so far we’ve heard nothing.”
“How long?” Sue is clearly worried.
“About twelve months now.”
“At least the bank wouldn’t want our furniture, and they can’t take curtains we don’t have.”
“Banks take everything, why not the furniture?”
Sue raises a shapely eyebrow. “Everything we own are hand-me-downs spread across the 1940s and 1950s.”
“You mean the furniture is worth fuck-all.”
“Yes.” Sue wraps James in a shawl and checks Jayne’s fingers to see how cold she is. “She can’t eat her breakfast wearing gloves, Roger,” her voice becomes tense when talking about the well being of her babies. “I hate the cold, hate it, hate it, hate it!”
“As if I didn’t know that by now, for Christ’s sake Sue, give it a rest. I know we’re on our uppers.”
When she leaves the house, Sue’s bones ache from the piercing easterly wind that is so lazy it seems to pass right through. She doesn’t like the English weather, not even in summer, and definitely not in winter. She never has, not even as a child born there.
“The Bible refers to forty days and forty nights as a disaster, but here that’s just an apt description of winter,” Sue reinforces adamantly.
“On the bright side maybe salt spray from the North Sea will blow further inland and melt the black ice on our roads