Chapter 14

14

Bess had eaten a fish finger sandwich when she got home from the pub last night and when she came downstairs this morning, she cursed herself for having not rinsed her plate straight away because the smears of HP sauce were stuck fast and her dishwasher had gone on the blink, as if it wanted to have the last laugh at her finances. She was limiting the amount of time her hot water was on these days too, anything to save a bit more money, and it had already gone off. She put the plate to soak in cold water – who knew, maybe it would work – and made some toast to have quickly before Maya picked her up and took her to the pub car park to collect her car on the way to the airbase. As far as anyone at work knew, she was just rubbish at planning, hence the one beer last night turning into three as she relaxed and made the decision to leave her car. She shouldn't have been there at all with her lack of money but she'd wanted to block out her troubles, turn her back on them, just for the evening. And it was nearly Christmas, after all.

‘Last night was good.' Maya beamed when Bess climbed into the passenger seat. ‘I'm glad you came.'

‘Me too.'

Maya pulled away from the kerb after Bess fixed her seatbelt. ‘All right, out with it. Something is going on with you.' She was doing her best to both read Bess's expression and keep a good eye on the road, impossible multitasking even she couldn't manage.

‘No, everything is fine, honest.' She'd thought she'd done a good job of hiding her problems. Obviously not.

‘You know how I know it's not fine? When you say the word honest after the claim.'

Bess watched the wintry world go by out of the window. The pavements were slippery today; she'd come down the path very carefully when she heard Maya pull up. ‘Thanks again for taking me to get my car this morning. I only intended to have one beer last night.'

‘You're very welcome, but don't think I'll drop this, Bess. You wouldn't if you thought something was on my mind. So, we'll talk about it. It doesn't have to be now.'

The low-hanging winter sun had them both flipping their visors down as they turned the corner and pulled into the pub car park, where Bess thanked Maya again and rescued her car.

It was action stations soon after they arrived at the airbase and a call came in.

Maya had already brought the helicopter out of the hangar and onto the helipad, Bess had just taken delivery of bloods from one of the Whistlestop River Freewheelers and went to retrieve the cool box, and Noah got the details of the job.

Within minutes, The Skylarks were up in the air.

One of the parts of her job that Bess really loved was its unpredictability. They could be called out to roadside, by a river, near offices or residential homes or, as today, the beach .

‘My favourite place to land,' Maya declared on the approach to the south coast sands. ‘Even in the winter, the sea looks glorious.'

‘Not if you're in it,' Noah said from the back. ‘Do you know, Bess, this one wants me to try cold-water swimming?'

Bess spoke into her microphone attached to her headset. ‘She tried to get me to do that last year but she's all yours now, I think you're going to have to take one for the team. And what happened to stand-up paddleboarding?'

‘That's in the summer; I've been spared for now,' he laughed.

It was good to see Maya happy and trying new things. She'd lived so long under pressure from her ex-husband, she really was all in with her new relationship and Bess couldn't be happier for her friend.

Police had already cleared the beach, so The Skylarks updated HEMS on their arrival and within the next minute, clouds of sand billowed up as Maya set the helicopter down metres from the sea itself. With the stunning backdrop of the cliffs, this perfect stretch of golden sandy beach was a beauty spot for all seasons, except when there was an emergency like this one.

A young boy had been found on the beach not breathing. A quick-thinking, off-duty nurse had found the defibrillator nearby and used it. The patient was already in the recovery position, the nurse and the boy's sister both beside him. Thanks to the defibrillator, the boy's heart had been shocked back to life and, upon checking, he had a normal heart rhythm, but there was the worry he'd re-arrest because nobody knew why he'd collapsed in the first place. He was confused, which wasn't uncommon when a person had undergone hypoxia – a state of low oxygen – so Noah and Bess stabilised him and had him in the air ambulance as quickly as possible to take him to hospital for further treatment and investigations.

The wind didn't help their journey. It hadn't been too bad on the way here but it had increased by the time they left. It made for a shaky flight, something none of them wanted, and touching down on the hospital's helipad took longer than usual as Maya tried to hold the aircraft steady.

‘Good job out there, team,' Noah declared when they were on the way back to base.

‘Right back at you,' Bess smiled. The good thing about this job was that there was so much action, it blocked out any other noise in her head, although she did allow the odd thought of Gio. It was a type of therapy and instilled a sense of calm, which was new.

As soon as they were back at base and she'd put her helmet on the shelf ready to grab for the next job, Nadia leaned around the door jamb. ‘Your mum is in reception to see you.'

And she would've seen the helicopter land so Bess couldn't even ask Nadia to say she was out on a job.

On the phone last night, Bess had said she'd see her mum soon. Her mum had probably got tired of waiting and knew that Bess's idea of soon was often different to hers.

She took a deep breath and headed for reception.

They hugged and when Fiona pulled back, she beamed. ‘I saw your crew land just now; it never ceases to amaze me the work you all do.'

Bess led her over to the sofas at the far end of reception next to the Christmas tree. ‘Thank you, Mum. My biggest fan.' When it came to work, yes; probably not so much when it came to her daughter's lack of ability to organise her own life.

Fiona came right out with it. ‘Last night, you told me we'd meet up soon but I decided I didn't want to wait any longer. You've been avoiding me.'

‘I'm pretty busy. Talking of which?—'

‘I've been worried about you.'

Bess got the impression that today, there'd be no talking her way out of this. ‘I didn't mean to cause you worry, Mum.'

‘But you did.' She clasped her handbag on her lap. ‘And that's how I know whatever is going on with you, it's very real. And I'm thinking the ￡500 I lent you doesn't even come close to sorting out your problems. Am I right?'

Bess said nothing. How could she? She was so ashamed.

‘You don't come to me for help unless you really need it. You never did. You've always been determined to do things your way and on your own. But please, Bess, let me help you now.'

She looked down at her hands in her lap. ‘I don't know where to start…' She broke off, glad there wasn't anyone else around them at this end of reception. ‘If Dad were here, he'd be so disappointed.' She wasn't sure why the waters of the gene pool had muddied so much, she hadn't kept on top of her own finances the way her dad would have and the way her mum did despite losing him. Both of them had been capable; why wasn't she?

‘Bess, how much trouble are you in? How much debt?'

She reiterated some of the details and, to be fair, her mum didn't let any shock show in her expression; she simply waited for Bess to finish.

‘I can try to find you more money,' Fiona insisted. ‘There has to be a way.'

‘You shouldn't have to.'

‘But that's why you came to me. For help.'

‘And you did help.'

‘Not enough. '

Bess hung her head. ‘I hate that I took the money in the first place.'

‘You didn't take it; I gave it. And I have more, some tied up in bonds, but I can get to the money eventually.'

‘And pay a penalty? No way, Mum.'

‘Love, your dad provided for us all; you know what he was like.'

‘I do and he wouldn't want you to lose out. No, Mum. This is my mess. I have to be the one to sort it.'

And then came the worst question she could ask. ‘Bess, how did you let it get this bad?'

Bess liked to think of herself as strong and capable; that was the way she was at work, certainly. She kept cool in a crisis, she could calm patients down, keep the stress out of a situation even when it seemed at its absolute worst. Last week, when they'd been called out to a near-drowning at a leisure centre after a patient dived in and hit their head, the parents had been in pieces, freaking out. It was Bess who took them aside, broke through their wails and barrage of questions to get them to a place where they could take in the information she was giving them. Noah and other first responders had all told her they weren't sure anyone could've handled it better. What was so wrong with her that she wasn't the same with her own life? Her mum was right; she'd let it get this bad, she hadn't talked herself out of all her stupid decisions along the way when she should have.

‘I want to understand, Bess. I really do.'

‘Dad always went on about how important it was to save, to put money aside, and from the day I got my very first part-time job, I did it. But when he died, all I saw was the unfairness of it all, the way he'd tried to futureproof himself, and for what?' She wasn't going to cry; she wasn't going to feel sorry for herself. Her hands balled into fists so tightly, she almost didn't feel her mum reach out her own hands to cover them.

Her fingers unfurled a little.

‘Your dad was a great provider. For me. For you. That was just as important to him as making money for himself – more important, even.'

She thought about the first year after losing him, the first Christmas, the first birthdays, the myriad of occasions where his presence felt like a giant hole dug out of their lives.

‘Is that why you started spending more money than you should?' Fiona asked. ‘Because you didn't see the point in saving it in case something terrible happened?'

Bess nodded. ‘It wasn't only losing Dad that did it.' Bess waited for Maya to put a file on the desk in reception before she went out back again. ‘It was my health scare too. All the emotions it brought up: the worry, the relief when I got the all-clear. I hadn't got over my anger that Dad had been so careful and his life was cut short and then all of a sudden, I'd been given a reprieve. I felt I had to make the most of it. I booked holidays, I upgraded my car when I didn't need to, went on spa weekends, changed my sofa, splurged on whatever I wanted. I couldn't stop; it brought me comfort.

‘Every time another bill landed on my doormat, I got more and more overwhelmed, and yet I didn't stop spending. I went into denial. I added those bills to the pile. The cost-of-living crisis didn't even deter me. I've been living my life to the full; that was how I saw it. I kept doing balance transfers to new credit cards as I realised I was short of money each month. And then I let interest get charged on those cards so the amounts on each card continued to climb even when I stopped spending. I could barely make the minimum payments. '

‘I didn't see it happening, and I should have,' her mum said, as though any of this was her fault.

‘Don't you dare blame yourself. This was me, all me.' She leaned in to her mum, who had got closer to her without Bess realising.

Fiona put an arm around her daughter's shoulders.

‘I'll get it together,' Bess insisted. She had to. ‘There are people out there with real problems, not things they brought on themselves.' She'd done this. She'd spent money to feel better and it had worked for a while; it worked even better when she buried the reality of it. Somewhere along the way, she'd stopped questioning whether she could really afford things.

Her mum asked again exactly how much Bess needed to get totally straight and reluctantly, Bess told the whole truth.

‘That's quite some debt.'

‘I know. And I'm out of options to fix this. I've drawn out cash on my credit cards too many times to pay bills; I've taken out a loan to pay off debts. What happens next – another loan to pay that loan and so on and so on? I haven't missed too many mortgage payments but I have missed one. And that terrifies me the most, because if I default regularly then I'm at risk of losing my home.'

‘You won't, my darling. I'll go to the bank, see what I can do.'

‘Absolutely not. And I will pay you back every single penny of the ￡500 as soon as I can. I mean it,' she added before her mum could try again to insist she took a financial hit for her daughter's benefit.

‘No rush, no rush at all.' Tentatively, she asked, ‘Have you thought about seeing someone for some proper advice?'

‘That would cost money.'

‘The Citizens Advice Bureau could be a good place to start; that'll be something at least. '

‘I could try,' she said. ‘You know if Dad were here and I could've brought myself to tell him the mess I was in, he would've been the perfect person to ask.'

‘He really would.' She hesitated. ‘I know someone else who might be able to help.'

‘Who?'

‘Malcolm. He's a retired financial advisor.'

Bess's body went rigid. ‘No. I don't know him well enough; I really don't want him involved.'

Noah came into reception looking for her and she waved to indicate she'd be there in a minute.

‘I have to go, Mum.'

‘Mince pies,' Nadia announced as she was next to appear. She set a big platter onto the counter. ‘Help yourselves.'

Fiona lowered her voice. ‘I don't know why you won't talk to Malcolm; he could help. I know he's not your dad, but?—'

‘I heard you that day I came over.'

It dawned on Fiona what she meant. ‘Is that why you've been avoiding me?' She stood up when Bess did, fastened the top button of her coat.

‘He must think I'm a terrible person,' said Bess.

‘Love, he doesn't. He saw you come to your mother for help. He has his own children; he'd do anything for them. He understands.'

‘Mince pies!' Nadia urged again when nobody made a move to take one.

‘I don't think you're going to get out of here without indulging.' Bess kissed her mum on the cheek and wrapped her in a hug. ‘I really appreciate the loan; I'll call the Citizens Advice Bureau.' But she didn't mention Malcolm and neither did her mum this time. ‘Now take a mince pie before Nadia loses it. '

And she did the same on her way out to join the others in the office.

They had four more jobs before end of shift and by the time Bess grabbed her things from her locker, she was exhausted. But not so tired she didn't notice Maya ushering Noah out of the locker room to leave the two of them alone.

‘Subtle,' said Bess.

‘Yeah, sorry about that. But I'm here, I have time to talk so hit me with it. Leave nothing out.'

‘Maya, I'm fine, honestly.'

‘No, no way. You are not leaving this room until you tell me.' She put her finger in the air as if she'd thought of something. ‘It's Gio, isn't it? I heard from Noah who heard from a buddy of Gio's that you have been seeing him.'

Bess began to laugh. ‘I haven't been seeing him. We're friends, remember.'

‘So you say. But tell me this… has he asked you out?'

‘He might have mentioned dinner.'

Maya was excited at the prospect. ‘Well, good for him.'

Bess pulled her coat out of her locker but Maya hadn't finished. ‘I want to ask you more about Gio but I know full well that isn't what is on your mind, at least not all of it.'

Bess thought about resisting it but instead, she sat down, coat on her lap, and spilled it all, every last bit of it: the spending, the bills, the credit cards, the loans.

‘Shit, no wonder your mind has been all over the place. You need solutions, my girl. If I had enough money myself, I'd give you a loan.'

‘No, I don't want to borrow off any friends.'

‘Come on, back to my place with me. I'm cooking and we're going to talk this through.'

Bess picked up her bag. ‘I don't want Noah?— '

‘He's at his tonight with Eva; I was having an early night. But I'd rather spend the evening with you.'

‘I'm not a charity case.'

Maya gave her a look.

‘All right, I need all the help I can get.'

Maya pulled her into a hug as they walked out of the locker room. ‘We'll get you sorted.'

And for once Bess, having shared her problems with her mum and her very good friend, felt a glimmer of hope that perhaps everything was going to be okay.