part0011

T rina is looking at me in surprise. We’re sitting in her lounge tucking into bacon sandwiches and we haven’t left her house for our walk into town yet. When I arrived at the front door Trina answered it looking very unlike her usual glamorous self with a bag of frozen peas on her head and a make-up free face.

I followed her into the lounge and she flumped onto the sofa and said she was dying so I told her I had my own special guaranteed hangover antidote – food, and lots of it.

She heaved when I mentioned the F word but I assured her it would definitely work and to have faith. I found a pack of bacon in her fridge and put it on to fry while I hacked at a crusty loaf with a blunt bread knife. The resulting thickly buttered doorsteps with the bacon slapped between and a good dollop of brown sauce might not have looked very elegant but I knew they would do the trick. I also made a five-teabag pot of builder’s tea to wash them down with while she lay on the sofa groaning.

She pushed it away when I took it in but after I persuaded her to take a bite she said it wasn’t too bad and she’s now on her second one and the colour is definitely returning to her face. I had to have one too to keep her company.

Pig! shouts the Beccabird.

Whatever. So. I decided to confide in Trina because frankly, Jonathan is doing my head in already and I need someone to tell me not to be so stupid as to even consider going out to dinner with him. Someone who isn’t the Beccabird, because obviously she doesn’t count as she’s even more annoying than I am.

‘You used to go out with Jonathan Sayers?’ The surprised look is still on Trina’s face.

‘Jon Sayers, well I never.’ Trina pops the last of her bacon sandwich into her mouth and licks the brown sauce off her fingers thoughtfully.

‘Do you know him well?’ I ask.

‘No, not well, he’s only been at Atkinsons for about a year but he’s got a bit of a rep.’

‘What sort of reputation?’

‘The word is he’s a bit of a playboy, likes the highlife. He’s a bit flash and drives a Porsche and wants everyone to know he does. Oh, and apparently he lives in one of those posh apartments on the quayside at Frogley-by-Sea.’

‘Yeah, well, that’s the story that’s gone around, it’s probably embellished a bit because you know how people like to gossip. The rumour is that he comes from money, silver spoon and all that.’

I ponder Trina’s description of Jonathan; she’s pretty much described the Jonathan I thought I knew...before I found out the truth about him.

‘How long did you go out together?’

‘It was a bit more than going out together, I lived with him until seven years ago. We were engaged to be married. Although we actually lived together for less than a year.’

Yeah, until they repossessed your engagement ring, whispers the Beccabird.

‘What? No! And you never realised that he worked at Atkinsons. Must have been a hell of a shock when you saw him.’

‘It was. And not a nice one either. He’s the reason I left Frogham, I had to get away and make a new start.’

‘Do you want to talk about it? I don’t want to pry but you seem troubled.’

I take a deep breath and look at Trina’s sympathetic face; I’ve only known her a short while but I instinctively know that she won’t go blabbing to all and sundry. Not that any of it is a secret anyway, although I’m sure Jonathan’s version of it will differ vastly from mine.

‘I do want to get it all off my chest, but first...’ I stand up and pick up our empty mugs. ‘I need more tea.’

Seven years ago I thought my life was all mapped out in front of me; I aimed to start my own business and marry the man of my dreams which I hoped would be followed by babies followed by living happily ever after. I had a job with good prospects then – an actual career as a Financial Advisor – and the future looked bright and promising.

Jonathan and I had only been together for six months when we got engaged. Handsome, charming, and generous, he seemed perfect in every way and I couldn’t believe my luck that he’d chosen me when he could have had anyone he wanted. I think the warning signs were there early on but I didn’t want to see his faults because I was hopelessly in love with him and I didn’t want to see anything wrong with my perfect man .

I had my own house back then; I’d bought it the year before I met him and Jonathan moved in when we got engaged. I’d been saving for years and had put down a hefty deposit – some of it given to me by Mum and Dad. I loved that house; it may have only been a bog-standard three bed semi-detached but it was mine. The company I worked for as a financial advisor were great but my aim was to work for myself and have my own clients, because I knew that’s where the real money was.

I’d always been the cautious type and if you’d told me before I met Jonathan that we’d be engaged and living together within six months I would never have believed that I’d have made such a commitment so soon. It wasn’t most people’s idea of a whirlwind romance but for me it was and I surprised even myself; I asked him to move in with me.

It seemed like the logical thing to do, Jonathan’s parents owned several properties around Frogham and he’d been living in one of their houses – a fabulous four bedroom detached house in a neighbouring hamlet which was far too big for one person - but Jonathan had to move out because he had a major falling out with his parents and he refused to continue living in one of their houses. He wouldn’t tell me what the argument was about, refused to talk about it and I never pressed him because if I mentioned it, he got really upset. He told me he had high principles but didn’t want to sully things further by talking about it.

So even though I asked him to move in, I think he engineered it that way because he knew I was head over heels in love with him. I’m sure that the whirlwind proposal was all part of the same plan.

When he had spoken about his parents before the argument he was quite dismissive of them and I assumed they were rich because Jonathan was very well spoken and had a cavalier attitude to spending, he never asked the price of anything and seemed to have an endless supply of money.

At first living together were blissful, most evenings I’d come home from work and Jonathan would surprise me with an expensive gift or a huge bouquet of flowers that I could tell were definitely not bought from a supermarket. I told him not to, that he was spending too much of his money on me but he just laughed and said that he loved me and wanted to spoil me.

I would cook for us but at least twice a week he’d insist we go out for dinner as cooking was so boring and domestic, to quote Jonathan. He didn’t cook or know how to do any household chores at all which I assumed was because he’d been brought up with staff to do that sort of thing.

After we’d been living together for a few months he got another promotion at work and had to spend quite a lot of the week working away. Our time together at weekends became even more precious and the gifts and romantic meals out became even more regular and extravagant.

Mum and Dad never took to him although they never said anything to me at the time because they could see how happy I was. Dad in particular couldn’t quite hide his distrust of Jonathan; he would question him about his job and family and although Jonathan turned on the charm, Dad seemed immune to it. Eventually Jonathan would make excuses not to come with me when I visited them and I remember feeling a bit annoyed with Dad for being so suspicious.

The first few months after he moved in were the happiest of my life but looking back now I can’t believe I was so stupid and gullible and my only defence is that I loved him.

It all began to unravel when I found a bag containing a very expensive gold and diamond necklace hidden in the back of Jonathan’s wardrobe. He was away on business and I felt at a loose end; the evenings stretched long and lonely without him because I’d pretty much ditched all of my girlfriends so that Jonathan and I could spend all of our free time together. Feeling bored, I decided that I’d have a bit of a sort out because he wasn’t the tidiest of men; he’d sling his clothes around the room over chairs and across the bed and his wardrobe was an absolute mess. Expensive suits would be clinging onto the hangers by a thread and if he put a shirt on and changed his mind he’d just sling it back into the wardrobe where it would land on the floor. He told me that when he’d lived alone he’d buy a new shirt rather than iron one.

So I thought I’d surprise him by organising his wardrobe but the surprise was on me, although I didn’t realise that at first. I remember I smiled when I found the necklace underneath the jumble of clothes on the wardrobe floor because I assumed it was another gift for me. It was beautiful, and very expensive; I gasped when I looked at the receipt from an up-market jewellers that I found in the bottom of the bag – it had cost nearly two thousand pounds.

He was just too generous.

I abandoned my plan to organise his wardrobe and put everything back exactly where I’d found it and never mentioned to him what I’d found. When he came home at the weekend I wondered when he’d give me the necklace and sure enough the next day he produced a tissue wrapped box for me but when I excitedly opened it there were a pair of sparkling diamond earrings, not the necklace that I was expecting.

The weeks went by and as was his habit he gave me numerous gifts but the necklace wasn’t one of them. Was it for my birthday, I wondered? But my birthday was six months away and Jonathan was never that organised, he was strictly an impulse buyer.

I think the first doubts began to set in then although I tried to ignore them. He must have forgotten he’d bought it, I told myself, I needed to stop being so suspicious. Wasn’t he spontaneous and disorganised? Wasn’t that one of the many things I loved about him?

I tried my best to put the necklace out of my mind but it was there in the back of it, lurking, and I wasn’t sure how much longer I could stop myself from asking about it. Every day I’d wake up, determined that today was the day I was going to ask him because I wanted to be wrong; I wanted him to have forgotten he’d bought it. But each day would end with me not having said a word because I was afraid to ruin our own little paradise.

A few weeks after I’d found the necklace, and I still hadn’t confronted him, I was driving to see a client on the outskirts of Frogham. It was unusual for me to visit a client at home as they usually came into the office but the client had broken their wrist and couldn’t drive, so, because they were a valued customer with a huge portfolio, I drove out to their house. The house was in a tiny little hamlet with only a handful of other grand houses and as I drove through the gates of the client’s driveway a familiar car parked at a neighbouring house caught my eye. It was Jonathan’s car.

I was shocked to see his car because he was supposed to be working away in London and I couldn’t think why he was here. I remember continuing down the long driveway to the house wondering what the hell his car was doing parked in this hamlet.

When I’d finished the meeting, I came out and when I passed the neighbour’s house Jonathan’s car was gone. I drove home expecting him to be there when I arrived. He wasn’t. He rang not long after I got in and it was a brief call because he was just going into an important meeting. He never mentioned visiting a house near Frogham and nor did I and I even began to wonder if I’d got it wrong and it wasn’t his car at all.

I spent a fitful night tossing and turning and trying to stop the doubts. Eventually at two o’clock in the morning I got up and searched Jonathan’s wardrobe to find that the necklace had gone. I couldn’t fool myself any longer; Jonathan was seeing someone else when he was away working and he must have bought the necklace for another woman.

And as it turned out; he had.

And if that had been all then I would have got over it, in time, and most likely forgiven him, but things were to get much, much worse.

I decided that I’d wait until Jonathan came home at the end of the week before I confronted him with my suspicions, I wanted to speak to him face to face. I also had a fear that if I confronted him over the phone he’d never come back; he’d simply walk away and go to his new woman.

Because even though I suspected he had someone one else I was already preparing to forgive him.

On the Friday he was due home I decided not to go into work and work from home instead. I never normally did this because I found too many distractions to stop me from being productive. I’d not worked from home since Jonathan had been living with me but I felt unsettled and on edge and unable to concentrate and I knew that going into the office would be pointless .

I didn’t do very much work and trailed from sofa to window and back again waiting for Jonathan to come home. When the post came at eleven o’clock, I meandered aimlessly out into the hall and picked up a bunch of envelopes from the mat. I was about to fling them on the hall table to look at later when it struck me that this was more post in a day than we normally received in a week. I shuffled through them and was surprised to see that they were all addressed to me. I hardly ever got any post, occasionally when I came home from work there might be a letter waiting for me on the kitchen counter because Jonathan always got home before me and would bring the post in but I’d never received this many letters before.

I turned the envelopes over in my hand and studied them, I didn’t recognise any of the return addresses and wondered what they were. Junk mail, I decided as I opened the fattest one and unfolded a thick wad of papers. I stared at it in confusion, checking that the name on the top was my name and not someone else’s. The letter was from a credit card company but I didn’t have any credit cards, one of my own personal rules was no credit cards – I didn’t need one and I didn’t want one. In my job as a financial advisor I’d seen too many people run up needless debt and I had no intention of doing the same.

But here was a credit card statement in my name with a list of items that I’d apparently bought and a balance of over ten thousand pounds. My first thought was that someone had stolen my identity and run up debt in my name and I was right, someone had; but it wasn’t a random stranger, it was Jonathan.

As I read through the statement it became very clear how he’d done it – the credit card was in my name but there was a second card on the account in the name of Jonathan Sayers. I could see that the card had been running from almost the day that Jonathan moved in with me and he’d only ever repaid the minimum required amount each month.

In shock I opened the other four envelopes; two were final reminders for outstanding payments on two other credit cards, one was another credit card statement with a balance of nearly fifteen thousand pounds and the third envelope held two new credit cards, one in my name and one in Jonathan’s.

The remainder of that day is a blur; I must have done something to fill the hours but I really can’t remember. When Jonathan eventually arrived home that evening I was sitting on the sofa surrounded by the envelopes and credit card statements. I’d placed the two new credit cards on the table and cut them in half – talk about shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. I didn’t even have to tell him; he knew straight away and I watched as the smile slipped off his face as he took in the evidence in front of him.

He didn’t even attempt to lie his way out of it and looking back I think he’d already moved on because he knew that it was only a matter of time before I found out.

So what, he’d said with a shrug, it didn’t mean he didn’t love me he just wanted to give me everything I deserved and why shouldn’t we have all the things that we wanted. Other people did. We could just get another card and transfer the debt.

He made it sound so reasonable, it was only money, he’d said, it’s not like it’s important. He didn’t understand when I said he was stealing, because all of the debt was in my name, not his. Only because he couldn’t get credit himself, he told me, and he knew how uptight I was about debt so he was sparing me the worry.

And then he’d gathered me in his arms and told me how much he loved me and I started to think that maybe I was too uptight because he’d almost managed to convince me that I was being petty and unreasonable.

I desperately wanted to forgive him.

But there were so many other lies; his brilliant job as Head of Sales for a huge London advertising agency – in reality he was a sales rep for a run-down local company, Frogham Print, and his wages amounted to commission on whatever he managed to sell. The fabulous sports car was leased – and a couple of weeks later when I’d cancelled all of the credit cards it was embarrassingly repossessed in front of the entire street.

That’s what made it even worse – the lies. Day by day another of his elaborate lies came crashing down; the rich parents didn’t exist and Jonathan finally admitted that he was brought up on the Walsingham Estate – Frogham’s roughest housing estate - and his parents had spent most of their lives on benefits. The luxurious four-bedroom house that he’d lived in before he moved in with me was rented and he’d been evicted for non-payment of rent.

Everything about him was a lie.

And the thing that Jonathan wouldn’t and couldn’t understand was that I’d have loved him anyway, it was him I loved, not his money or apparent success or the expensive gifts.

I would have forgiven him if he’d stuck with me and we’d got through it together but he jumped ship –– and even as I was putting the house up for sale to pay off all of the debt that he’d run up in my name – he was already arranging to move in with the woman who was probably already wearing that beautiful diamond necklace that I had paid for.

He actually did me a favour because if he hadn’t left me I’d have spent my life making excuses for him to myself and everyone else, because as soon as he took me in his arms the deceit and lies were forgotten. In Jonathan’s arms I felt the most loved and luckiest woman in the world.

My untouched mug of tea has long turned cold and the light outside is fading as I finish telling Trina. It feels good to unburden myself but also exhausting; in the telling of it I feel as if I’m reliving it.

‘So you lost your house?’

‘Sold it to pay off all the debt, although it wasn’t enough, I had to arrange a payment plan with the credit card company. It took me three years to pay it all off completely but less than a year for Jonathan to ruin my life.’

‘Christ, couldn’t you have gone to the police? Got Jonathan arrested for fraud?’

‘I thought about it – and Mum and Dad thought I was mad, I had to get really angry with my dad to stop him going to the police. I would have had to prove it and I knew that Jonathan would never admit what he’d done. I couldn’t risk having my house repossessed while it was all being sorted out because then I’d have been made bankrupt and wouldn’t be able to practice as a financial advisor.’

Which is all true; but I also couldn’t bear the thought of Jonathan going to prison; I had no desire for revenge.

‘But it’s so unfair that he just got away with it, why should you have had to pay it all back?’ Trina is angry for me, just as Mum and Dad were.

‘It’s proving it that’s the problem – proving that he forged my signature and I knew nothing about it. Hard to prove that you live with someone and they can basically rip you off and you’re oblivious to it.’

‘What a bastard.’

I shrug. ‘It was my fault as well; I shouldn’t have been so gullible. I moved back home with Mum and Dad for a while and then got myself a job in Westchester. I never did go back to being a financial advisor, I didn’t have the stomach for it. How could I advise people on their finances when I’d been so monumentally stupid?’

‘I can’t believe that he had the nerve to even talk to you let alone ask you out.’ Trina is looking at me in disbelief.

Yeah , says the Beccabird who has managed to hold its beak while I’ve been telling Trina my story, that’d be because you haven’t told Trina everything.

And I can’t; I can’t bear to tell her and see the look on her face that tells me I’m a complete fool. I wince as I remember how I tearfully begged Jonathan not to leave me for his new woman; how I promised we could work it out. I even started to blame myself – if I hadn’t been so uptight about money it never would have happened.

All completely ridiculous; I know what Jonathan is but I choose to forget it when he turned on the charm. The reason I left Frogham – because I knew if he clicked his fingers I’d come running. And when I saw him last night there was a little part of me that was impressed; that thought he’s done well and maybe he’s changed . But I can’t take that chance, I can’t risk my whole life being ruined again. I can’t put Mum and Dad through it.

I shrug. ‘That’s what he’s like, no shame.’

‘Right.’ Trina gets up and puts the light on and pulls the curtains to shut out the darkness. ‘What we need…’ She picks up her notepad and pen from the coffee table. ‘…is a plan.’