Malcolm talked through the finances succinctly and so kindly, Bess found herself thinking how similar he was to her dad in many ways. Her dad had always listened, he’d rarely got irate, he was always looking for solutions rather than throwing his hands up in the air when things got too hard. Malcolm explained the concept of a debt consolidation loan but recommended other routes instead, given those loans came with highinterest rates and might also be difficult to obtain. ‘Your credit history so far, from what you tell me, isn’t awful.’
Her eyebrows raised. ‘It’s terrible!’
‘Not from what I’ve seen and what we’ve talked about. Yes, there are missed payments, late payments and a lot of only paying the minimum on your credit card each month. Believe me, it could be a whole lot worse.’
‘It might have been if you weren’t helping.’
‘Then I’m glad I could.’ He cleared his throat again, perhaps emotional rather than nervous this time. ‘Now, going by your credit card statements, you haven’t made a habit of frequently withdrawing cash on your cards, which doesn’t build a very good credit history. I think we’ve caught this in time and if we get on top of it, you shouldn’t have too much trouble building up your credit score again.’
Between them, they came up with a plan. They took it one step at a time, the phone red hot all afternoon as Bess sorted her finances out. She cancelled cards, secured a better deal for car insurance, reducing her monthly direct debit, she got better deals for internet and on her mobile phone, she dropped unnecessary subscriptions including extra channels on the television. She got another person on the end of the phone when she called the gym again and this time, they listened and eventually agreed to end the contract early. She and Malcolm talked about simple measures like fewer takeaways, more planning before supermarket shopping, not splashing out on holidays unless she could really afford to. He also advised using credit cards only in emergencies or when she knew she could pay off the entire balance before it incurred interest. All of these things were basic common sense, it was just that Bess had been blinkered, living in her own world for so long, she hadn’t known how to do any different.
When Malcolm first sat down with her he’d asked her to find all of her physical credit cards along with their statements. She had a few. She’d been drawn in with zero interest on balance transfers and ended up with more cards than any one person should have and of course she’d soon been restricted to paying off the bare minimum and had got herself further into debt as time went on. With the money Malcolm had put into her account, Bess paid the final payment for her car, which meant she owned it now. And then one by one, she paid off the balances of her credit cards.
The whole time they were taking steps to get on top of her finances, Malcolm kept saying ‘we’.We’vecaught this early,we’vegot on top of this,we’llget your credit score back up.
He might be a relative stranger but as she watched him diligently go through the mountain of paperwork, one thing at a time, dealing with each, it struck her that he really was a very good man. And she needed her mother to know that. She deserved to be happy. She’d lost the love of her life and nobody would ever replace him but that didn’t mean she couldn’t find a second love. It would just be different, that was all.
They looked at Bess’s payslips next and came up with a structure for her to repay Malcolm’s loan as well as the money Fiona had given her. It was very doable, if she made the changes they’d discussed and if she kept her head and changed some of her behaviours. She really wanted to, she had to, she wanted to be Bess, sensible and fun Bess, the homeowner who had a bit of an idea how the real world worked. Not the Bess who had been burying her head in the sand and living life like each day was her last.
Malcolm picked up the pile of credit cards, the stack of six pieces of plastic that had played their part in getting her into trouble. He held one apart from the rest. ‘This is the only one Ididn’t get you to cancel. It’s got the best record of payments looking through your statements, you’ve had it a long time and you’ve made more than the minimum payment several times over the last eight months. It also gets you points with your bank, which gets you vouchers. So, use it wisely and any points earned will help you too.’
‘What happens with the rest?’
He went over to the knife block and pulled out the big kitchen scissors.
‘I should cut them up?’
‘Yes.’
‘But I cancelled them all.’
‘Call it symbolic.’ He handed her the scissors.
And he was right. As he held up each in turn and she sliced through every one, each chop was a slice of victory at getting on top of things once and for all.
‘And this one?’ He held up the one remaining card they hadn’t cancelled. ‘This one needs to be used correctly and it’ll help build up that credit history of yours again.’
She took the card. ‘I can do it. I can keep that in my purse and I know after all of this, after all this panic and shame at how I’ve let this get out of control, that I won’t be silly with it.’
Malcolm smiled. ‘I believe you, girl.’
She put the credit card safely in her purse before turning back to Malcolm, who was putting all the bank statements back into the manilla folder. ‘My dad would’ve liked you, you know.’
He closed the folder. ‘I think I would’ve liked him too. He sounds like a wonderful man.’
He was and Bess hoped that if he was looking down on her today, he might be proud of what they’d accomplished and proud that she was letting someone new into their lives.
27
Gio came to the end of another physio session and rather than be pissed off and gung-ho in completing every exercise and every repetition more than he needed to – either to make a point or speed up his recovery – he felt as though his approach had settled.
Aysha had even commented on it as she packed her equipment away, ready to leave.
‘You’re in a good headspace, Gio. It’s good to see. And you must have been careful enough getting to the young boy; your knee doesn’t seem any worse.’
Hearing that felt good. He’d told her about the sledging: the way he’d bolted out of the house, angry with himself and the world; the way he’d come home in an entirely different mood. He knew his mood would likely dip again but for the first time, he saw that that might well be normal, that a dip was okay and he could bring himself up again. Helping Lionel seemed to have opened up a part of his soul he’d been protecting since his injury. He loved being a firefighter for a lot of reasons – the adrenaline, the physical exertion, but he also did it to help people. And he’dhelped Lionel yesterday. It might not have been rescuing him from a fire, but it was a rescue nonetheless, a rescue he’d played a part in. And boy, did it feel good.
But it wasn’t only Lionel; it was seeing Bess at the scene too. He’d watched her attend to the patient, he’d seen her concentration, her skilled approach, all the while thinking about the look on her face when she realised he wasn’t the victim. Her reaction showed she cared and that had done more for him than he’d ever thought possible.
