The Woman He Loved Before

  So, this me that isn’t living it up as a student decides to draw out almost all of her savings to pay off all these people and, when her boyfriend returns from wherever he’s gone, she will tell him he has to find a job, even if it is one he thinks is beneath him – such as working behind a bar – because they have nothing left and they can’t afford to support his quest for the perfect career any longer.

  Then I have to actually go into the bank after the machine eats my card and I find that I am overdrawn by one hundred pounds. Obviously that can’t be the case because I had nigh on two thousand pounds in there the last time I checked. I had saved that from dancing in Habbie’s, and saved some from the cleaning and admin work. How could it all be gone and then some?

  ‘Could your card have been stolen?’ the nice cashier behind the counter asks, obviously seeing my distress.

  ‘No,’ I tell her, ‘there’s only one card to my account and it’s just been eaten by the machine.’

  ‘Could someone have been using your card without your knowledge?’ she asks, almost as concerned as I am.

  Why it took this nice lady’s concern to have it dawn on me, I have no idea. I thanked her for her time, took my printed out statement and walked out of the bank. I walked the streets until I arrived at a park and I sat on the bench and I stared into space and I wondered how my life, which at one point seemed so settled and lovely, was now down the toilet?

  When it was dark, and no answer arrived, I headed home and I found him reclining on the sofa, his mouth full of crisps, the TV on, the lights off and not a care in the world upon his head. The electricity people were surprisingly good at turning the service back on after I cried on top of paying them their cash. I sat down beside him and I waited and waited until an advert came on because it would be rude to interrupt, wouldn’t it? And this is what happened:

  Him: You all right?

  Me: No, not really.

  Him: Why?

  Me: The bailiffs showed up today to take away our stuff because we hadn’t paid the electricity bill.

  Him (Switching off the TV): What? The bastards! I’ll be on the phone to them tomorrow and kick seven types of hell out of them. They’ve made a mistake, I’ve paid it.

  Me: Oh, right. Well, you’re going to be very busy tomorrow because the gas people, the council, the phone and the Waterboard have all made exactly the same mistake. Strange, isn’t it?

  Him (Sitting up): Eve, I can explain.

  Me: No, don’t worry about it, I’ll sort it. I’ve got a bit of money saved for emergencies, I’ll go get it tomorrow and pay everything off.

  And he just sat there and stared at me. Then he nodded, as if that was a good idea, as if it was even possible.

  Me: Oh, wait, I can’t do that, can I? Because you’ve already emptied that account and left it a hundred quid overdrawn.

  He stared at me, his eyes growing smaller and darker with every passing second. ‘I had just as much right to that money as you did,’ he said angrily. What he had to be angry about, I didn’t know.

  ‘Really, how did you work that one out?’ I replied, calm to his anger.

  ‘Who’s been supporting us for the past year? While I was out at work and you got to sit at home on your arse all day, who was bringing in the money? And all along you had this secret stash in an account I knew nothing about.’

  ‘I haven’t stopped working since you made me give up dancing,’ I said, just as calmly. ‘And I always made enough to pay the rent, or didn’t you notice?’

  ‘Well, I paid for everything else. Do you know how hard that is? Do you have any idea the pressure I felt under?’

  ‘What, you mean the pressure I’ve felt under for the last seven months? Or the pressure I’m going to feel under because I’ve got to find a way to pay all these bills and don’t even have the fall back of using my savings to cover them?’

  ‘How do you think I managed to pay the bills all this time I’ve been out of work?’

  ‘But you haven’t paid them. They haven’t been paid for the last two quarters. And you must have been hiding all the bills, the red letters, the final demands, the court letters, my statements. Everything. So, the only thing I can ask is, where’s my money?’

  ‘It wasn’t just your money.’

  I ignored that because I had never dreamed of asking for access to his accounts, or asking him how much he had in the bank, and it would never occur to me to take it without asking. ‘Where is it?’ I asked again. I was strangely calm considering we were facing financial ruin.

  ‘I spent it.’ He was defiant. Staring at me as if I had done him wrong, not the other way around.

  ‘On what?’

  ‘On stuff.’

  ‘Elliot!’ I said, sharply. ‘I am not your mother and you are not my teenager. We’re both adults. Tell me what you spent my money on or find some other idiot to prop you up while you smoke hash all day and plot world domination from the sofa.’

  The surly look on his face fell away and suddenly he was Elliot again. ‘I … I owed some people some money. Some bad people who were going to reposition my kneecaps if I didn’t pay them back with interest.’

  ‘Money for what?’ I asked.

  ‘If I hadn’t lost my job, I wouldn’t be in this mess,’ he said, turning it back on me.

  ‘You mean, if you hadn’t resigned from your job, you wouldn’t be in this mess?’ I replied.

  Oh yes, he resigned. On one of my cleaning jobs, I’d met one of the girls who used to clean for Hanch & Gliff. She asked me how Elliot was getting on since he’d quit. I’d said was that the official story because he’d had a row with one of the partners? And she had put me straight: Elliot had been regularly fucking up clients’ accounts, as well as turning up late in the mornings, being back late from lunch (if returning at all), and had been caught with coke on more than one occasion. Because of all this he’d been given his second – and final – written warning. He’d refused to accept it and instead resigned.

  I didn’t even get that upset that he had constructed such an elaborate lie to cover his back because I was so relieved that I hadn’t been the cause of his job loss. And I didn’t bother saying anything because it wasn’t worth the argument. But I knew that’s why he couldn’t apply for jobs anywhere else – his reputation would have proceeded him.

  He blinked at me a few times, stopped in his tracks by the realisation that I knew. ‘Are you calling me a liar?’ he snarled.

  ‘No, I’m asking you what you owed money for.’

  ‘I don’t know!’ he said, exasperated that I wasn’t going to be sidetracked. ‘Stuff! I owed Zed money for the stuff he’d given me. And a few others for some bets I’d placed. I was trying to get us out of this hole of debt we’re in. I’ve been trying to win it back.’

  ‘Why didn’t you try earning it back, or did that seem too much like hard work?’

  The slap he delivered stung a little but not as much as it probably should – not since I was still numb from the shock of seeing all that I’d worked for gone.

  I immediately slapped him back, twice as hard. ‘Don’t push your luck,’ I snapped at him. ‘You don’t steal from me and then hit me, too. OK? I’m not that girl.’

  He sank back in his seat, his face drawn in, obviously not sure what to do next. He was probably wondering if he should hit me again, up the violence, or if he should leave it.

  I stood up. ‘I’ll try to sort out the bills in the morning, but you have to get a job or you have to leave. Those are the two options left for you. And, to be honest, right now, I don’t care which one you take.’

  Quite wisely, he’s decided to sleep on the sofa tonight. Thankfully, I had my post office book with my diaries so it’s well hidden, and it’s had about two hundred pounds in there for the past few years. So, I still have a running away fund, but nothing else. That makes me nervous. I’m going to call tomorrow and hopefully sort out the bills and will see if I can get some evening and afternoon shifts cleaning because that’s
more regular than office admin. I’ve not been very successful so far with the bar work because I have to be up so early to go cleaning, I’d never sleep if I got another job late at night. I really don’t know how we’re going to cope. I know I should throw him out, but it’s just not in me right now. He has no one else and we made a good team once, didn’t we? For quite a while it did seem to be Elliot and Eve against the world. I loved him once.

  God, if I’m honest, I think I love him still. If he could sort himself out, and I really think he can, then we’ll be all right – both financially and emotionally.

  Me

  15th January 1992

  Things are a bit better.

  I knew he could sort himself out and he has. He has a job now. He went out the day after the bailiffs called and found a job on a building site. First it was doing the labouring, then he had a few chats with the foreman and was allowed to look at the books. He’s been doing the books ever since. It pays next to nothing, but it’s better than nothing.

  He hands three-quarters of it over to me, and keeps the other quarter to do with as he pleases. The money he gives me goes towards the payments to every utility company we owe money to. It took me a while, but after a few calls and tears and promises, they all agreed to let me pay off the outstanding balance in instalments. We are stretched so tight it’s hard to breathe sometimes. I often have to choose between eating and buying cigarettes and often choose food because if I can eat it all, Elliot can’t share it with me. Then I feel mean because I can see he is trying.

  I hate him for what he’s done, but I still love him for the man he was. That doesn’t make sense, but is love about sense? I love Elliot for being the man who cared enough to want me to stop lap dancing; who I used to snuggle up to at night and share my dreams with; the man who made me feel like I was a whole, complete person after all those years of being leered at for my breasts, my bum, my barely covered fanny by the patrons of Habbie’s. I might be stupid, but I still believe the real Elliot, the Elliot I love, is still in there. He just needs to get through this bit and he’ll come out the other side as him again.

  Me

  5th April 1992

  My landlord has put up the rent.

  I suppose he’s been fair: he hasn’t put it up since I moved in and it’s a prime area. I’ve seen in the papers how much he could be getting for this, even if it is just a mangy one-bed flat. He came round and told me, and was really nice about it. He didn’t even ask for ‘favours’ to make up the shortfall. He explained it was just business and he’d be sorry to lose me as a tenant, especially since I’d kept the place so nice, but he wanted the going rate for it and I had first refusal.

  So, that’s it. I have been sitting here with a spread of bills in front of me, a piece of paper with all the figures noted down and how much I can get coming in and there is no way I can get them to balance. We’ve been living on the breadline as it is. Elliot keeps falling off the wagon and getting himself beaten up because he can’t pay his debts, which meant so much time off work, he’s lost his job. He is out there looking for another one, but without his money there’s been no way for me to pick up the slack. I don’t give him any money, we can’t afford to eat anything more than toast most days, and I’ve given up smoking because I can’t afford it. I walk to wherever it is I’m working, and often leave the house at four-thirty, when it’s still dark in winter and barely light in summer. I walk quickly through the streets, feeling displaced from the people who are mainly coming home from big nights out. When I could afford the bus, I would get on the first one and would be surrounded by loads of other cleaners, most of them not speaking English, off to our offices all over London. Walking, I feel alone and that’s probably not helped by the fact my situation feels so lonely and desperate. When I walk past rows of houses – some with their lights on, others with their lights off – I often wonder how many of the people inside are so poor they cannot afford to eat, how many of them feel trapped by a man who they used to love and want to love again. Even if they haven’t been where I am, there must be so many people who are one pay packet away from being here.

  Money, it’s always about money. I hate it. I actually hate money. Money isn’t the root of all evil; the love of money isn’t the root of all evil; the NEED for money is the root of all evil. You need it, and without it you are no one and you will sink without a trace.

  I keep thinking about Dawn, and how she gets by. She lives in a much better – more expensive – place than I do, she supports her drug habit, and she still survives. But what she has to do to make that money …

  I’ve got three weeks to come up with the rest of the rent or I – we – will be homeless. I will have to fend for myself out there on the cold streets when I can barely fend for myself with a roof over my head and a job. And once I’m out there, how will I get off the streets again?

  I’m not even going to bother talking to Elliot about it. We’ve barely spoken since he last got beaten up. I occasionally buy him cigarettes because without them, he picks at the furnishings until they fray. All he can do all day is sit on the sofa and watch television. I often hear him crying, although what he has to cry about when we are where we are because of him is anyone’s guess.

  I’ve called Habbie’s and a few other clubs and they haven’t got any space for another girl.

  And I’ve called estate agents, who tell me I’ll need a month’s rent in advance, plus a month’s rent as a deposit and that, nowadays, a lot of people are doing credit checks. Of course, my credit rating is shot to pieces thanks to Elliot’s behaviour with the bills, and I don’t have the money required for the deposit and month’s rent. I’ve looked for places further out, which will be cheaper, but then I’ll have to find a job closer to wherever I move to because I won’t be able to walk there. And most people won’t take anyone who isn’t working. I am stuck. I AM STUCK. I AM STUCK. I AM STUCK.

  Maybe I should just get a train back to Leeds? Maybe my mother will take me in? I’m not a teenager any more – if Alan tried anything, he’d get a knee between his legs and a smack in the mouth. But it’s not like she’s replied to any of my letters. And it’s not like I’ve actually forgiven her for choosing him over me.

  It’s not like I can get over the fact that even when she thought it was me on the phone, she didn’t bother to write or ring to find out.

  God, what am I going to do?

  As Always

  10th April 1992

  I’m just back from seeing Dawn.

  She’s looking so much better than the last few times I’ve seen her. She’s been in rehab and has kicked the habit ‘for now’ she said. She’s put on weight, her skin is better, her hair is looking less lifeless, although the same can’t be said for her eyes. Even though they’re not as glassy as they were, they still have that dead look to them, as if Dawn is not at home any more.

  ‘Is it really that bad?’ I asked her after we’d done the obligatory small talk about how each other was.

  She sighed, stared at the worn circular rug that now sits between the settee and the coffee table, and didn’t say anything for a while.

  ‘Yeah,’ she said. ‘It is. I tell myself it isn’t so I can still do it, but it is.’ I didn’t need to tell her what I was asking about. She looked me over in the same way that Connie did when I asked her about working in the VIP rooms at Habbie’s.

  ‘Think of the worst sex you’ve ever had,’ she added. Immediately, a night with Elliot a couple of weeks after he’d stolen my money and I’d been too worn down by everything to reject him came to mind. ‘Times that by about a million and you’ll come close.

  ‘Now think of the best shag you’ve ever had.’ Elliot didn’t come to mind, Peter did. Nothing will ever get over how special that was, probably because when I first slept with Elliot, I was already so jaded about men and the way they looked at women’s bodies that I held back. After Peter and I got over our nerves, we loved being together physically and emotionally. I loved him being close to
me and inside me. That was the best, without doubt. ‘Now, that’s how you have to pretend it feels like every time you do it if you want them to come back, which is the way you make money long-term.’

  ‘I wouldn’t want to do it long-term.’

  ‘No, I didn’t either. But now I don’t really know how to do anything else.’ (On my way home, I realised that was the scariest thing out of everything she said.) ‘Do you really need to do this, Eve? Really?’

  ‘I can’t see any other way out.’

  ‘And what about Elliot? What’s he doing?’

  ‘Sitting around, smoking, feeling sorry for himself. He keeps getting beaten up for getting drugs on the slate. I’m surprised anyone will give them to him.’

  Dawn’s eyes darkened and her face twisted with disgust. ‘Elliot is bad news, Eve.’

  I’ve thought that so many times and then I think about the Elliot I used to know, the Elliot I fell in love with, and I can’t even think about letting him go when I know he can be that man again.

  ‘Why don’t you move in here, until you get yourself sorted? I know the sofa is old and a bit lumpy, and it might feel like a step backwards, but it’s better than the alternative, believe me.’

  ‘I can’t, Dawn. I couldn’t sponge off you again. And I have so many debts that I need to pay off. I’ve tried a few more dancing clubs, but no one’s hiring these days because of all the new restrictions. And besides …’ I didn’t want to say it, but we both knew I couldn’t leave Elliot. I couldn’t abandon him when he was so low.

  ‘Eve, cut him loose. He’s going to bring you down with him if you’re not careful. It’s only a matter of time before the people he owes money to will turn their attentions to you.’