Tod recoils. ‘Stop it,’ he says. ‘You must be able to stop it. Get onto the bank right away.’
I slip my hand from Tod’s and with trembling fingers and the dead weight of fear dragging down my hope, I punch in the bank’s number again.
Chapter 67
I feel the blood drain from my face and I hang up. ‘Gone,’ I say. ‘Once the button has been pushed at this end, there’s nothing I can do.’
‘Nothing?’ Tod questions.
‘The business manager at the bank said that although it will take three or four days to clear into Lola Cody’s account, there’s nothing I can do to block the transfer. Once it’s gone, it’s gone.’
‘That can’t be right.’
‘Apparently it is.’
‘But that’s ridiculous.’
Ridiculous. Unfair. Downright cruel. All of those things. I could rant all day, but nothing I could say would change bank policy. Simon North at least had the good grace to be embarrassed. Somewhere my money is whirling around in the banking system heading to a crook and there’s not a single thing I can do to stop it. If they can push a button to send it, why isn’t there another one to stop it? Particularly when we’re all aware now that the transaction is fraudulent? In this day and age of high technology, you wouldn’t think it was that difficult, would you?
‘He said that all that I can do is start legal action,’ I offer.
‘Assuming that we can find Lola Cody, that this isn’t all false and there’s no one of that name at all.’ But I have to say that Simon North didn’t sound very hopeful. Frankly, he didn’t sound like he cared that much at all. Whatever happens, he’ll get his money back. I’ll be paying off the loan for the rest of my natural life, but you can bet your bottom dollar that the bank won’t be the losers in this.
Taking legal action seems very unlikely. Besides, how much will it cost to pursue? We don’t have any more money to engage in an expensive legal battle. That could cost us thousands. Thousands that we now don’t have thanks to Lola Cody and her husband. I shake my head. ‘I don’t think I’ll be seeing that money again, Tod.’
My brain reels at the statement. I sound so matter-of-fact. Shouldn’t I be lying on the floor and screaming, renting my hair asunder?
‘Surely there’s something we can do?’
‘My only hope now is to stop the handbags. If the factory won’t cancel the order, then I hope I can stop them being shipped to the USA and can divert the handbags to come here.’ It will leave me with an enormous amount of stock and I’ll have to pay to warehouse them but at least I’ll have them in my hot, sweaty hands and they won’t be in Lola Cody’s.
‘I should call her.’ Give her a piece of my mind. And not a nice piece.
Tod nods. ‘Want that tea before you do?’
‘Yes. Please. You know where everything is?’
‘I’ll find it.’ He squeezes my shoulder as he passes. ‘I feel I’ve let you down, Nell. I’m your business mentor. I should have advised you against this.’
‘It sounded perfect. We both thought so.’
‘I should have been more cautious or realised that there was something not right about it.’
‘How? They’ve gone to a lot of trouble to make this look professional and above board.’ But then they stood to make a lot of money. ‘It’s not your fault, Tod.’ If it’s anyone’s fault it’s mine for rushing headlong into this deal without taking a step back. ‘It’s just bloody awful timing.’
‘We’ll sort this out,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry.’
But I don’t think we’ll sort it out and I am worried.
While I pick up the phone, Tod goes up to the flat to make some tea. The number that I have for Lola Cody and the Home Mall goes straight to a voicemail message.
‘This number has not been recognised,’ it says. ‘Please dial again.’ I hold the phone to my ear while it repeats it over and over again. ‘This number has not been recognised. Please dial again.’
I thought it was only good news that travelled fast? Seems as if bad news does too. Lola must already have got wind that her scam had been exposed. I wonder whether she knew when I spoke to her earlier and if she thought she’d just give it one last go at taking in another gullible sucker? If only I hadn’t been so quick to set the ball rolling. If only I’d sat back and taken time to do this. If only I hadn’t been so trusting. If only I hadn’t been so blindly ambitious. If only. If only. If only.
Chapter 68
When Tod finally leaves – even though he was reluctant to go – I turn my face to the sky and howl. The floodgates open and I let a torrent of tears flow.
I have lost everything. Everything. How can I possibly carry on?
By the time Olly returns with Petal, I have managed to get myself under control again. Where there was rage and anger, a dull numbness has settled in.
‘What?’ Olly says when he sees my puffy face and redrimmed eyes. ‘Who’s died?’
‘My business,’ I tell him flatly. ‘Everything I’ve worked for, gone.’
He recoils slightly at that, but says, ‘Gone? You can’t mean that.’
‘I’m afraid that I do.’ My voice doesn’t even falter.
Petal comes to sit on my lap. ‘Don’t cry, Mummy,’ she says.
‘Daddy will fix it.’
I pass Olly the newspaper that Tod brought for me to read and, face darkening, he sits and studies it in silence.
‘Shit,’ he says when he puts it down again.
‘Daddy!’ Petal admonishes. ‘That’s a very bad word.’
‘Sometimes bad words are the only words that will do, Petalmeister,’ he tells her. ‘But you can only use them when you’re eighteen.’
‘Oh,’ she says, clearly not taken in. She’ll be saying ‘shit’ to everyone in the playground tomorrow and we’ll get a complaint from the nursery. Another one.
Like I could care less at the moment if my daughter is a potty-mouth; very soon she could be homeless.
Olly looks up at me, eyes questioning.
‘The money’s gone. I’ve already checked with the bank. There’s nothing we can do to get it back.’
‘Shit,’ Petal says.
That, at least, raises a glimmer of a smile between us.
‘Want to go and see Auntie Constance?’ Olly asks our daughter.
‘Yay!’ She’s down off my lap in the blink of an eye.
‘It will give us some time to talk,’ Olly says. He drops his voice to a whisper. ‘And we can use bad words at will. Lots of them.’
We lock up the shop and walk the few hundred yards down to the town centre in the sunshine to Live and Let Fry. Of course we’re welcomed like the Prodigal Son. Constance throws her arms round us, as does Phil. Jenny is cooler and there’s a look that goes between her and Olly that’s distinctly shifty, but I don’t have time to concern myself with that now.
There are bigger problems on my plate than my friend having a crush on my husband, if that’s what this is.
‘It’s so lovely to see you,’ Constance says. ‘We do miss you.’ Phil is still pumping Olly’s hand.
These are good people. Their straightforward friendship almost has me undone again. ‘Everything OK?’
‘Not really,’ I admit. ‘Olly and I need an hour to ourselves. Could you keep an eye on Petal if we leave her here?’
‘Of course,’ Constance says. She doesn’t even need to check with Phil. His chip shop has been used as an emergency crèche on more than one occasion. They’re just opening up for lunchtime service and, outside, a queue is already forming. Business here isn’t suffering then. Perhaps I should have just opened a chip shop. It seems so uncomplicated in comparison to the hard-nosed world of fashion.
‘Be a good girl,’ I say to Petal. ‘Mummy and Daddy won’t be long.’
Take all day, her face says as she knows she’ll be fed a constant stream of hot chips and there’ll be as much Coke as she can drink. For a bit of peace now, she’ll be bouncing off the walls late
r.
Olly and I link arms and walk out through the town and, eventually, along Hermitage Road where the steep and striking slope of Windmill Hill faces us. Without talking, we climb the hill side by side. Then, when we’re both out of breath, we find a bench and sit at the top, taking in the breathtaking view over the rest of Hitchin town and far out to the verdant fields and rolling hills beyond. The rumble of traffic from the streets below and the faint hum of jets taking off from nearby Luton Airport compete with the birdsong. But by all accounts, this is still an idyllic summer’s day. Yet even the cloudless sky can’t shake my blues.
We sit together in silence, until I ask, ‘Don’t you want to shout?’
Olly tucks my hand into his. ‘No,’ he says. ‘What’s done is done.’
‘But I’ve lost all the money,’ I reiterate. ‘You’d be quite entitled to shout.’
‘What good would it do?’
‘We’ve got nothing,’ I point out as if Olly doesn’t realise this.
He shrugs. ‘We had nothing before.’
In truth, we haven’t got nothing; we’ve got less than that. Nothing would be a bonus. In reality what we have is an enormous debt hanging over us now.
‘I’d like to go out to Miami and kill Lola Cody and her husband with my bare hands,’ he says.
‘It sounds like there’ll be a queue of people wanting to do that.’
‘She’ll get her comeuppance. People like that always do.’ But do they? I think. People like that normally seem to get away scot-free if you ask me. It’s people like us, straight-forward people who always try to do the right thing, pay their way, don’t cheat on their taxes, we’re the ones that pay.
Olly puts his head against mine. ‘We’ll get through this,’ he assures me. ‘You and me. Your handbags are still fab.’
He nudges me, but I can’t summon the required smile as a response. At this moment, I don’t care whether I design another handbag for the rest of my days.
‘No one can take that away from you, Nell McNamara. You just need to carry on.’
But can I? Can I simply pick myself up, one more time, and carry on?
Chapter 69
We go back to the chip shop to collect Petal. Olly and I stayed in the park for a while, not talking much, but just sitting and watching the world go by. It sounds like it was restful, but it wasn’t as my brain was still going ninety to the dozen.
Now it’s late evening and the lunchtime rush has died down and the early teatime people haven’t quite arrived yet. At one of the tables, our daughter is holding court. Somewhat tunelessly, she’s singing a song, ‘Rainbow Connection’ from the The Muppet Movie, her current favourite. For some reason her tolerant audience, Constance and Phil, are wearing napkins on their heads.
We slide into the seats opposite them and wait for the song to finish. It seems to go on for a long time. I’m sure Petal makes up a few verses.
Eventually, she stops.
Phil, removing his napkin, asks, ‘Everything all right?’
I shake my head. ‘Not really, Phil,’ I say and then proceed to explain to him all that has happened.
With shuddering breaths, I tell Phil all about my designs being stolen by team Simoneaux-Monique. Then I move on to the scam that Lola Cody of the fictitious Home Mall was running. I tell him how I fell for it hook, line and sinker. I tell him how I have lost all of our money. He sits there, face like stone, as he listens patiently. Constance’s eyes well up with tears.
‘Don’t cry,’ I warn her. ‘You’ll start me off again.’ I’ve already cried a river and crying isn’t going to do anything to stop Lola Cody or the likes of her.
‘Is there anything we can do?’ Phil asks. ‘Anything? Just ask.’
‘Give me my old job back?’
‘No,’ he says. ‘Anything but that. You don’t need a job here, you’ve already got one.’
I don’t remind Phil that I’ve got a job that is not only bringing in no money, but is actually sinking us deeper into debt.
‘You’ll make it as a designer,’ he continues. ‘You’ll get over this and make it big.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘Of course I will.’ But, in my heart, I know it’s not the case.
To a chorus of sympathetic noises and good wishes, Olly, Petal and I leave. We walk the short distance home, Olly and me quiet, Petal chattering away to herself.
‘I’ll find something,’ Olly says. ‘I heard that Tesco are looking for delivery drivers. I might give that a go.’
‘Fine,’ I say. It comes out more like ‘whatever’ than I’d intended.
He sighs. ‘We’re in this together, Nell. I’m not expecting you to pick up the pieces by yourself.’
‘Thanks.’
But at the end of the day, it’s my bad. Mine alone.
‘I’ll make dinner tonight,’ he says. ‘Had you got anything planned?’
‘No,’ I admit. Food is the last thing on my mind.
‘I’ll throw some pasta in a tin of tomatoes, sprinkle some cheddar on it and call it Italian.’
‘Sounds good.’ To be honest I’d eat anything as long as it doesn’t involve me going near the kitchen.
‘Why don’t you go into the office and do some sketches? That always takes your mind off things.’
So does lying on the sofa watching crap telly. But I suppose I ought to show willing. Olly has been really good about this. Would I have been so magnanimous if the boot had been on the other foot? I’d like to think so, but I’m not so sure.
‘The Petalmeister will help me, won’t you?’
My child’s face says that she’d like to be watching crap telly too.
‘Yes, Daddy.’ She must be able to tell by the sombre atmosphere that it’s probably best not to rock the boat.
So Petal and Olly climb up the stairs to the flat while I stay downstairs in the shop. I stand and stare blankly at my handbags all beautifully displayed and, for the first time, can take no joy in them.
I go through to the office and sit and stare blankly at the computer screen. What’s the point of me designing anything when we now have no money to even commission a sample of it to be made? Plus, if I can manage to get all my handbags back from China, then we’ll have more than enough to sell. In fact, I can’t really imagine how we’ll get rid of them without some massive television campaign.
Not knowing what else to do, I log onto the Home Mall website and watch the bright and bubbly clips that Lola Cody has posted on there, looking, searching, for some clues that I might have missed, something to tell me that all was not well. But even watching them with eyes that have had the scales peeled from them, I can see nothing amiss. The pastel-coloured studio looks perfectly respectable, the presenters are professional. I wonder if they even knew what they were involved in or whether the glossy, smiling women were a part of it too.
I’ve done nothing remotely useful, other than brood, when Olly calls down to say that supper is ready.
Petal is already sitting at the table. Quite wisely, she has a tiny bowl in front of her as I’m sure she’s been snaffling chips all afternoon. Olly gives us both bigger bowls, but I toy with mine, not really hungry. I’ll save what’s left and ping it tomorrow. We’ll have to be eating a lot more tinned tomatoes and pasta until Olly finds a job. I’ll need to find one too, despite Phil’s confidence in me.
When we’ve eaten, Olly insists on washing up and I watch In the Night Garden with Petal and my eyes, rather than hers, grow heavy.
‘Come on, miss,’ Olly says. ‘Time for bed.’
‘Aw, Daddy. Not yet!’
‘It’s late.’
‘You know,’ I say. ‘I might go too.’
‘It’s half-past seven,’ Olly points out.
Late for one age group is not necessarily the same for another.
‘Jet lag,’ I say. ‘I’m absolutely bushed.’
‘I’ll stay up and watch a film or something. I can’t go to bed now.’ He kisses my forehead. ‘You have a good night’s sleep, the
n you’ll feel better.’
Petal and I crawl under the duvet together in our double bed. I bet Olly ends up sleeping in her single.
Within seconds, my daughter has claimed two thirds of the bed. I have an elbow in my back, a knee where I don’t want a knee and I’m struggling to keep hold of my share of the cover. I can hear Olly watching something loud involving copious car chases through the thin walls.
I’m still awake when the film has finished and I hear my husband pad through to Petal’s room and settle down for the night. I should go and tell him that I’m not asleep, that he could come to bed with me and not disturb me. We could lift Petal into her own bed and snuggle down together. But I don’t.
Instead, I stare at the ceiling until dawn and, in the morning, feel worse than ever.
Chapter 70
Two weeks go by and instead of getting better and coming to terms with what’s happened, I’m struggling to function at all. I can’t eat. I can’t sleep. I see no point in carrying on. I must have lost a tonne of weight as all my clothes are hanging off me.
‘You need to go to the doctor,’ Olly says as I push away the toast that’s in front of me. I feel constantly sick and just can’t face it. His tone is slightly exasperated. ‘You can’t go on like this.’
‘There’s nothing wrong.’
‘There is, Nell. He could perhaps give you some tablets,’ Olly suggests. ‘Just to get you back on your feet.’
‘Pills?’ I look up. ‘You think a pill will get our money back?’
‘It’s you that I’m worried about.’
‘I’m fine,’ I insist. But even I know that I’m not.
I’m sitting on the sofa watching Daybreak, something I’ve taken to doing. In fact, I’m watching a lot of daytime television these days. I can’t face going into the shop, the office.