Chapter 5 #2
She squeezed her son’s arm, torn between the rush of love at the boy showing how grown-up he could be, and angry at the fact that he had to.
Nina pushed through the door and headed into the grand hallway.
She caught sight of dirty footprints on the marble and felt a strange sensation.
These muddy marks of invasion had served to do something that nothing else had managed, not since she and Finn had first walked through the door all those years ago: they made her want to be somewhere else.
‘The owner of the property?’ A short, fat, balding man in a padded waistcoat strolled from the kitchen and asked the question in a casual, presumptuous manner, as if on a sales call.
She stared at him and then looked through to the kitchen, her kitchen, where two very large men with big meaty arms and shaved heads and wearing thick, heavy anoraks seemed to be packing up her small appliances.
They leaned over the counter-tops, reaching up into her cupboards, their unfamiliar fingers delving into the neat, clean, organised spaces.
Their eyes darted about, searching among her possessions.
She shuddered with revulsion, knowing the room would forever be tainted by the invasion – not that she would be here to remember, and this realisation only heightened her anguish.
One of the men caught her eye and didn’t look away, his stare a challenge, with none of the awkwardness she might have expected him to feel.
If anything, he looked triumphant, as if he were teaching her a lesson.
She felt her skin shiver into goosebumps.
The other man unplugged a food processor and placed it in a cardboard box, already full of other appliances.
‘Yes,’ she finally answered, ‘I am the owner of the property.’
The man stepped forward with his clipboard and a stubby pencil held between his grubby fingers on which he wore two very large, weighty gold rings. She smelled the sweat and grime that sat on his skin in a greasy sheen.
‘My name is Mr Ludlow and I am here today representing the company Mackintosh and Vooght.’
‘Yes.’ She pictured the letters in the drawer, saw the red stamp with their words of warning.
Connor took a step closer to her and she was grateful.
She had always felt better able to cope when someone else was in close proximity: her mum, dad, Tiggy, Finn .
. . Mr Ludlow spoke in a monotonous, well-rehearsed, slightly irritated manner, as though this was business as usual, just another job, which of course, for him, it was.
‘Mr Finn McCarrick was served with notice to attend the original court hearing on February the fifteenth last year, which he failed to attend. He was then summoned to a second hearing held on March the fifteenth, which he also failed to attend and then finally having failed to turn up to his third and final hearing on April the fifth, the court made the judgement in absentia and appointed my company to act in our capacity as bailiffs to retrieve goods to the value of the full amount owing to Mackintosh and Vooght. We are exercising that duty today and can confirm we did not enter your property with force.’
‘He didn’t turn up? Not once?’ She momentarily forgot Connor was close by.
‘Not once. Hence our visit today.’ The man placed his palm on his chest and bowed his head obsequiously. She couldn’t have hated anyone more.
‘I didn’t mean to let them in. They walked past me when I put the key in the door,’ Connor reminded her. She nodded without taking her eyes off the little man.
He continued. ‘We will today be removing goods to cover the cost of the debt, plus the court fees and our services. Is that quite clear?’ He breathed through his nose and she heard a faint whistle of a dirty nose.
‘Are you allowed to do this?’
He gave a wide smile, revealing coffee-coloured teeth. ‘Oh yes, all legal and above board.’ Apparently he welcomed questions like this – a chance for him to give the many practised responses he knew by heart, as if this were a game.
‘But I live here with my kids! You can’t just come in and take things from my kitchen! I demand that you stop!’
‘I would take the matter up with Mr McCarrick.’
Connor balled his fingers into a fist. Nina reached for his arm and shook her head.
‘It’s okay, Connor.’ She tried to keep the tremor from her voice and looked again at the men who grabbed rarely used bouquets of silver cutlery from presentation drawers, dropping them like clanking confetti into cardboard boxes.
‘I do not want you and these men in my house!’ She stood her ground.
‘My advice?’ Mr Ludlow sniffed. ‘Would be to stand back and let the boys get on with their job. That makes it easier for everyone.’ He walked towards the front door and shouted back at her, without turning his head, ‘I will be cataloguing everything we remove and you will of course be given a receipt.’
‘I didn’t mean to let them in,’ Connor repeated, his breath coming in short bursts.
‘Connor, this is not your fault.’ She tried again to reassure him. ‘I’m going to call the police!’ she shouted.
‘Yep.’ The man lifted his clipboard in a jovial acknowledgement, as if this too were par for the course.
She felt Connor’s eyes on her as she spoke to the person on the line, who asked if she had been physically threatened.
‘No.’
‘Did they force entry into the property?’
‘No.’
She ended the call, despondent. It was a court matter and the bailiffs were acting legitimately.
She felt utterly powerless and wondered not for the first time why people thought it was okay to treat her this way – first Finn, now these men – as if she weren’t worthy of consultation, as if she had no voice.
Connor stared at her with his chest heaving.
‘Listen to me, Connor. They are only taking things, stuff. It doesn’t matter, not really,’ she managed.
‘What’s important is that we keep things as normal as possible for Declan.
We don’t want him frightened,’ she whispered, and just like that she made her eldest son an ally, an equal.
This realisation was quickly followed by a wave of guilt.
‘I know this is a terrible, terrible day, but soon it will be tomorrow and we will move on, go forward.’
Connor gave a brief nod, his eyes wide.
One of the burly men walked out the door with a box full of kitchen equipment and put it next to the lorry.
Mr Ludlow licked the end of the pencil and jotted a note, cataloguing the items onto a sheet designed for the purpose.
Nina walked up to him to try again. ‘I understand that you are only doing your job.’ she said.
‘That’s good,’ he acknowledged, and carried on scribbling furiously.
She concentrated on keeping the wobble from her voice. Her throat felt as if it was full of razor blades, such was the effort of breathing and not howling. ‘But is there anything I can do to stop this? My boys have just lost their dad. He died,’ she clarified, ‘and I just need a bit of time . . .’
Mr Ludlow smiled and cocked his head to one side. ‘All we need is the outstanding amount settled in full and we will return these items and be on our way.’
‘How . . . how much do we owe you?’ She swallowed.
‘Sixty-four thousand, seven hundred and eighty-two pounds and forty-three pence.’
Nina pictured the Post-it note stuck to the side of Finn’s computer.
‘Mac 64500’: not in fact a computer reference – it was ‘Mac’ short for ‘Mackintosh’, and the amount, over sixty-four thousand pounds.
She had no words. It seemed that everywhere she turned she faced an avalanche of debt that was coming at her quicker than she could take a breath.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ she muttered under her breath, twisting her wedding ring, trying to take comfort from the small band of gold given in love and binding her forever to Finn McCarrick.
‘For richer or poorer. You were not supposed to run out on me, Finn! You bastard,’ she whispered.
Mr Ludlow had resumed his scribbling. ‘Your expensive watch, and the rings on your fingers are exempt because they are on your person, but any other jewellery found in the premises will be taken.’
She pictured the boxes she had already packed up, the jewellery nestled inside along with ornaments and other electronica.
With a plan forming, she ran inside and up the stairs, and tucked one of the boxes under her arm.
She ran down and past Mr Ludlow, who coughed loudly.
Nina stood with her shoulders back, and tried to sound authoritative.
‘These things aren’t mine. They are things I’ve been looking after for a friend. So I’m going to put them to one side.’
‘I’m afraid it doesn’t quite work like that.
’ Mr Ludlow sucked his teeth. ‘You’d be surprised at the things people say to try and hide the good stuff, and trust me, we have heard them all.
Not that I am suggesting that you are being anything other than honest.’ He smiled.
‘Best thing you can do is explain the situation to your friend and if they can produce a legitimate receipt or record or ownership, we can of course return those items to them. This will all be explained in the literature I shall leave with you.’
‘But that’s ridiculous! I have told you they aren’t mine, you can’t take them!’
‘I’m afraid we can, Mrs McCarrick.’
She became aware of someone touching her arm and looked down to see Declan patting her.
‘Declan! I told you to stay in the car!’ She shouted louder than she had intended.
‘I did stay there, Mum, for a bit, but I got scared and I am worried about you and Connor.’ He looked up at her wide-eyed. ‘Why are they taking our things?’
‘We owe them some money, darling.’ She couldn’t think of a lie quick enough and as her energy diminished, the truth felt like the best thing. She placed the boxes on the driveway.
‘Why don’t you just give them the money?’