It was still only seven o’clock; the heating was due to kick in at eight – always later at weekends, even if they had to get up early for one reason or another. Every little saving helped, or it was supposed to anyway. She wasn’t sure that the smart meter she’d had installed was really onside, for it wasn’t making anything less expensive, it just kept going round and round like a horror ride at the fairground, showing her how much it was all costing.
She wouldn’t have minded a cup of tea, something warm to help soothe her gently into the day, but it took electricity to heat the kettle and they were going to need what was left on her key card for showers in a while. She just hoped the remaining credit would be enough to cover all bases, since the post office was closed on Sundays and so were the nearest PayPoints.
She should have sorted it out yesterday while everything was open, and she would have had she not needed to put petrol in Steve’s van, now hers – five pounds’ worth instead of ten, so there was enough left over to give Grace some spending money for bus fare and a coffee in town with her friends. The other twenty in her purse had gone to Lidl, so at least there was food in the cupboard – for now.
It was the roll-out of universal credit fourteen months ago that had tipped her from the precarious edge of just about managing into the terrifying downward spiral she was now caught in. Nine entire weeks had passed without any benefits at all, so she’d simply been unable to pay her bills. True, she’d still had her widow’s pension – something they hadn’t taken into the universal system for some reason – but thirty-four pounds a week was an impossible sum for a single person to live on, never mind a family. The only way she’d managed to survive was by running up her credit cards, going overdrawn at the bank and selling her car. Her rent, council tax and utility bills had gone into arrears and that was how they remained, with the outstanding amounts getting bigger all the time. She could no longer bear to open the envelopes when they dropped ominously through the letterbox like voices with only doom to deliver.
She was receiving her benefits again now, but she was two hundred crucial pounds a month worse off than before, over three hundred if she counted the loss of her widow’s pension. That was only paid for the first year following a death so it had run out eleven months ago, and she supposed she had to feel thankful that Steve had been forty-five by the time he died, any younger and she’d have got nothing.
Her head began hurting as she ran through everything she had to pay out this coming week. By the time she’d topped up her electricity key, retrieved Grace’s boots from the repairer’s, put a fiver aside for Zac’s upcoming birthday party, paid a token amount towards the water bill and covered their school lunches, there might be enough left over to pay a little bit more than the interest on her credit card.
There would be nothing at all for the rent, or the council tax.
The breath was so tight in her chest that it felt like a solid mass of fear. She didn’t want to admit it, even to herself, but things were moving out of her reach so fast that she was terrified of where they were heading.
A cuddle with Grace might help to relieve some tension and even somehow set her up for the day.
Feeling her teenager’s slender body folding into hers, those smooth, gangly limbs and the sleepy morning smell of her opened Angie’s heart to how blessed she was to have her. She was a beautiful girl, full of life and fun, but thoughtful and patient with an understanding of situations and people that sometimes made her seem twice her age. She worked hard at school, was a favourite amongst the teachers and other students, and possessed not a mean bone in her body. She was, in fact, just like her father, always seeing the positive side of a situation; the first to help in a time of need, and able to summon a sense of humour when the rest of the world was losing theirs.
Angie guessed Grace didn’t find it so funny losing her beloved Lush cruelty-free cosmetics, Boux Avenue undies and weekly pop magazines – or the subs she had to pay to belong to the Fairweather Players. Her great passion was acting, and she was good at it. She’d been cast in many parts for the local am dram society since the age of eight and always received great reviews. She sang too, and danced, but for the time being she’d had to give up those lessons along with her Players membership – although her best friend Lois had bought her three months’ worth of dance classes for Christmas. What a blessing that had been, and how guilty it had made Angie feel knowing she was unable to do it herself.
‘It’s all right, Mum,’ Grace had whispered when she’d realized this. ‘I know things are difficult now, but it’ll all come good in the end. Promise.’
How like her father she’d sounded, and for one heady moment Angie had felt as though Steve was trying to communicate through their daughter. Whether he was or wasn’t hardly mattered now, for the debts were still piling up and only two weeks after Christmas she’d been forced to sell Steve’s beloved piano. She’d cried as hard that day as she had on the day they’d cremated him, for it had felt as though a special and intrinsic part of their marriage had been carried out of the door by strangers, who’d given her fifty quid less than she’d asked for it.
‘You and the children matter way more than a dumb old piano,’ she’d heard Steve telling her, and of course he was right, but it hadn’t made her feel any better. If only he were here now to tell her how to handle Roland Shalik, who’d taken over his father’s businesses when Hari died, and had, if the rumours were true, incorporated them into various far shadier dealings of his own. He liked to portray himself as a tough guy, someone of influence, not to be messed with, and on the whole he succeeded, though Steve had never really been taken in by his bluster. In fact Steve had mostly kept out of his way and for the most part they’d seen or heard little of him, probably because they’d never been short of money to pay the rent then, nor had they complained when Roland had increased it. He’d only done it once, and not by a huge amount, but since Steve had gone and Angie had fallen into arrears things had changed. Roland had none of his father’s softly spoken, courteous manner, nor, it turned out, did he feel any sense of loyalty or duty of care to the many tenants around Kesterly who’d been fortunate enough to have Hari for a landlord.
‘Mum, you’re squeezing too tight,’ Grace murmured in protest.
Realizing she was, Angie slackened her hold and stroked her daughter’s tangled red hair, careful not to catch any knots. She felt a glow of love, remembering how proud Steve had been of his precious girl.
Hearing a thud in the next room, followed by the hurried patter of feet and needless cry of ‘I’m awake,’ she felt rather than heard Grace laugh, and broke into a smile of her own. She wasn’t going to think any more this morning about what had gone before, or how desperately she still missed Steve, or how much she hated herself for throwing Liam out. She was going to give all her time and attention to the two children who’d never caused her a moment’s concern, apart from how to keep a roof over their heads, food in their mouths, clothes on their backs, vital gadgets in their pockets and ears … She could go on, and on, but her boisterous, fearless, head-first-into-the-bed six-year-old had just landed, and simply had to be tucked in tightly with them, or tickled.
It turned into a tickle, which she ran away from when they decided she was next. She loved them so much she could eat them, but they always won at tickling so she needed a refuge. Too bad the bolt inside the bathroom door was hanging off, she’d have got away if she’d remembered to fix it, but she wasn’t sure how to – and no sooner had she shut herself in than they were there with her, putting their arms around her, telling her not to be scared.
‘Scared!’ she cried. ‘Who’s scared?’ and putting on her most ferocious monster growl she ran after them.
Who needed heating when there were two children to play with?
OK, they did when the excitement was over and they finally settled down to breakfast, but a few minutes later the radiators clicked and rumbled into action and by the time the Lidl cornflakes had been devoured and Grace had finished her porridge the water was hot enough for showers. It might be Sunday, but they had