pounds in there. She’d been slowly saving up for Ed as a surprise for when he got to university, to cover some of his costs, maybe put a deposit down on a car. She’d been putting away some money from her wages every single week since she’d started working at the school. Tim didn’t know about it. It was her gift to Ed, her way of trying to make up for – no, don’t think like that. Well, it was all she could afford.
Her heart went cold. Not only was there no money, she was two thousand pounds overdrawn. What on earth was going on? How the hell had that gone missing? And what was she going to do now? She’d promised the lady at the hostel she’d pay in advance for her room for a week. She had absolutely no money now. She felt all the blood drain from her face as she put a hand out to steady herself at the bar.
*
‘You what?’
‘Needed to take the money out for an unexpected mortgage payment.’
‘What “unexpected” mortgage payment, Tim?’ she hissed. ‘We paid the mortgage before I left. I had nine hundred pounds in my account for this week. AND FIVE THOUSAND IN MY SAVINGS. What’s going on? Now I have a two-grand overdraft! I’ve never had an overdraft in my life!’ Her voice was getting louder and louder. She was in her room, the back door open; a trickle of sweat ran down behind her knee.
There was silence at the other end. ‘Tim?’
‘Never had an overdraft! Ha! Well, maybe you should live a little.’
‘What?’ Was he drunk?
Nothing.
‘Tim!’ But the line went dead. Had he hung up? Jesus Christ. Live a little? She was livid. She marched back and forth round the room, then sat down with a thump on the bed and looked out at the courtyard gardens, at the candles flickering in the lanterns, punctuating the darkness of the gravelly path. The fan above whirred round and round. How could Tim do this to her? How could he clear out all her money, including her savings? And why? He didn’t even know she had a savings account linked to her current account – she’d been keeping it a secret. Scratch that. It turned out he knew fine well she had a savings account.
Suddenly a feeling about Tim, a wariness on some level, of all the trips, all the years she’d put up with, his wine tasting client ‘meetings’, started to percolate through her brain and a thought started to gnaw at her.
Her cheeks were on fire. Yes, they had one almighty secret between them, but they’d helped each other out. How could he turn on her? He was her husband. They’d brought up Ed together; they’d built a home.
*
Ed was hauling a mattress across the floor.
‘I’ll sleep there, Ed,’ she muttered, as she lifted her feet to allow him to place it in the only space that would fit: right by the bed.
‘Mum, don’t worry,’ he said, leaning over her to shove it a bit further up by the wall with his foot. He then went to the small carved wooden wardrobe and got out his sleeping bag.
‘I’ll kip here tonight, you have the bed.’
The woman at the desk hadn’t been terribly friendly. Maddie had paid for her first few nights in her room, but now she was meant to pay for the rest of the days and she didn’t have any money. And the hostel owner seemed quite unconvinced that she would pay. She’d probably seen it all before with backpackers offering to pay later. Maddie couldn’t really blame her. She lifted her feet up to allow Ed to squish the mattress further under the bed to fit. A small black cockroach scuttled out from the other side of the bed.
But what was she even going home to? A husband who lied to her? A husband who had used her money? And Olive. She couldn’t bear to think about her alone. Had Tim even visited? She felt anger bubble up.
Ed sat down next to her on the bed. The fan was making a whooshing noise above their heads. The doors to the garden were shut, because, as she’d learnt from her room, if you kept them open, the so-called mosquito screen across them didn’t work. There seemed to be more holes than screen, and on her second night she’d been bitten alive. She leant down and scratched her ankle.