Chalk, Cheese, Angels And Demons

© 2012 David Jasmin-Green

“Oh well,” Claire said as she handed the bank statement back to her husband. “Money's been tight for the last few months, but this overdraft is getting beyond a joke. I guess we'll just have to economise a bit more, we'll have to put a few things on the back burner until we get back on our feet.”

“Yeah, of course,” Andy mumbled, the colour draining from his cheeks and a devastating wave of dread rippling slowly through his body. He checked the list of transactions on the statement one last time, in a feeble attempt to see where they had gone wrong this time, he had his answer ready if his missus asked.

'You're panicking, you pathetic dick,' he told himself. 'Danger or no danger, panic is the most pointless of biological reactions. Panicking doesn't get the baby washed, it doesn't put food on the table and it never saved a single Thomson's gazelle from the jaws of a big old hungry fuck off lion. Stop your inner squealing at once, you lily-livered ninny. If you don't pack it in and get your act together your brain might explode, or maybe it'll be your heart that gives up the ghost, and then Claire will have to somehow find a few grand for your bloody funeral as well as single-handedly fighting her way out of the financial swamp you've dragged your family into. I dunno what advice to offer you, kiddo. Frankly I'm disgusted with you. My my, what a waste of good food you are.....'

Andy's brain was throbbing, he was convinced of it, he could feel the blood surging through his temples like it always did when he was distressed. Perhaps his brain really would explode, perhaps he had overdosed on mindless anxiety.

“For a start we'll have to cancel our table at that new buffet restaurant tomorrow evening,” Claire said, largely unaware of her partner's creeping terror. She knew that Andy was a worrier, but she had no idea of the extent of his problem. “I know it's Jordan's birthday this weekend, but I got his presents weeks ago so he won't miss out. We'll have to promise the boys an alternative treat at the end of the month after we both get paid.”

'Yeah, right,' Andy wanted to say, but he hadn't got the guts to speak his mind, so he kept his fears locked deep inside where they relentlessly churned and festered and his ceaseless internal bickering slowly poisoned him from the inside out. 'We'll go out another time instead, of course we will. Before long we'll be up to our necks in shit, before long we won't be able to pay the mortgage or satiate the blood-sucking bastards at British Gas and the even bigger bastards at the Council Tax office. We probably won't have enough money left to buy food and washing powder and bog paper the next time the bills roll in, or maybe the time after that if we're lucky - and then what are we gonna do?'

“I heard it on the grapevine that Nanette has a couple of extra shifts she needs covering at work next week,” Claire continued, “and I suppose she'll ask me, because I doubt if any of the other staff will want the extra work. Also it's a free listing weekend on Ebay, we've got loads of odds and ends that we've picked up at jumble sales and car boots over the last few months that I can sell online rather than save them for our own car boots in the spring. All of those little positive steps will add up, Honey-bunch, you wait and see. We'll be all right, honestly we will.”

“Yeah, I suppose we'll manage somehow as long as we keep tightening our belts.”

'If you tighten your belts any more your stomachs will haemorrhage,' his inner demon snickered. 'You're already living on crap from the various supermarket reduced sections that you drag your missus around, crap more suitable for a compost heap than the dinner table, crap that should be chucked in the nearest bin rather than sold to the impoverished masses, crap that would give a sewer rat ptomaine poisoning and leave a vulture feeling decidedly queasy.'

“In fact I'm going to start sifting through our junk mountain in search of saleable items ASAP instead of chilling out in front of the TV until I fall a-kip,” Claire said. “Care to give me a hand after we've eaten? The front room could do with a good tidying, it looks like a bomb's hit it.”

“Sure, if that's what you want, but I think we deserve to relax this evening. We've both been at work all week, we don't want to kill ourselves, do we? We can tackle that job tomorrow morning.”

“There's plenty of energy left in these old bones, my love,” Claire said, squeezing one of her husband's chubby cheeks between a finger and thumb and secretly betting that Andy would be in bed until almost noon. “Nothing ventured, nothing gained. Come on, chop-chop – we need to get our skates on, we have to efficiently sort the wheat from the chaff so the best stuff is at the top of the pile when I put my marketing hat on first thing in the morning. I reckon I can make a couple of hundred quid this weekend, which will at least start to get us out of trouble.”

*************************

“There are a lot of things we have to cut down on, Andy, but converting a portion of this junk mountain into cash is our biggest priority right now,” Claire said a couple of hours later as they began to sift through the clutter that had overtaken their front room.

'Yup, and a fat bastard not a million miles away has to cut down on secret drinking sessions with his idiotic buddies,' Andy's demon whispered. 'And secret flame-grilled whoppas and other takeaway snacks, you greedy twat. Oh, and secret fags, too.....

How long's it been since you and Claire officially gave up smoking, six, seven years? Claire kept her side of the bargain; sure, she struggled, but she eventually packed it in. You, on the other hand, have been a secret smoker ever since. The only place you smoke openly is at work. Shhh! You tell your colleagues, she who must be obeyed must never know about my disobedience on pain of death! You're always having a crafty fag at the bottom of the garden or in the convenient cover of the trees at the back of the local park or the nature reserve when you're pretending to walk the dog – if you and Poochy walked even half as far as you pretend to you'd both look like Olympic athletes instead of lard-arsed couch potatoes. I find it quite amusing that you drown yourself in deodorant wherever you go and munch on a never-ending supply of oranges in an attempt to mask the smell of covertly smoked ciggies, but somehow I don't think Claire would find your indiscretion quite so funny. Oh, it's just a tenner here and twenty quid there, you tell yourself, Claire won't miss it. Can't you see what you're doing? You're robbing your own flesh and blood, you're drinking from their veins, you vampire, you cut-purse, you complete arse-hole.

It wasn't so bad when you were both making good money, but since your old company went bust and Claire was made redundant from her own fancy job you've both been on minimum wage. What do you spend on fags each and every week, fatty? Forty, fifty quid? More? You can't afford to waste money on such crap, buddy, it's bloody selfish, and it's about time you learned to face your responsibilities. That's why you're such a cheapskate, I guess - you're too busy looking after yourself to care for your family anywhere near properly. You know your trouble, don't you? You could never quite relinquish the lines from your favourite Sex Pistols song, the one you used to love pogoing to during your younger, considerably slimmer days. I wanna be an anarchist, get pissed, DESTROY!'

“This stuff looks like it's mostly shit to me,” Andy grunted. “What we ought to do is hire a skip to get rid of most of it; or opt for the cheaper option, cart it all to the bottom of the garden and put a match to it – it's bonfire night soon, it'll save us the expense of taking the kids to a display.”

“Nonsense, I don't buy shit. You see those handbags? They're all designer labels and I've got maybe fifty of them carefully stacked in boxes. The most I've paid is a fiver or so, but the majority will sell for forty odd quid a piece, some a fair bit more. It's all money in the bank, laddie, and it's tax free! This is my goodie mountain, this is what takes us home where it's safe and snug and dry after many a rainy day out in the cold.”

“Really?” Andy said, genuinely surprised. “Women are prepared to pay that much for second-hand bags? I had no idea.”

“There's lots of things that you don't know, smart arse. And it's not all stuff I've bought, you've picked up a few gems yourself. I wasn't going to tell you, but I've been saving a bit of money from my Ebay sales in my Paypal account for Christmas.” The mention of Christmas sent a fresh wave of nausea bouncing back and forth through Andy's stomach..... “I've got just over five hundred quid, and I'll be transferring the bulk of that to our bank account later today to help haul us out of trouble. You know that fishing book you bought for a few pence from a charity shop a while back?”

“What, you mean that tatty old thing about some old timer's angling adventures on an obscure tributary of the river Wye? And you've got five hundred quid stashed away that I didn't know about?”

“That's the one. I expected that book to make a few quid because I guessed it was pretty rare, but I had no idea how much it was worth. I sold it about a fortnight ago, I had two people bidding on it and it went to an Angling supply shop in Wales for a hundred and twenty quid.”

“You're kidding!”

“I kid ye not. Do you remember that belt you bought me from the last car boot we went to last summer, the brass one with the elephants on it?”

“That was a gift from me to you, I asked you not to sell it.”

“I sold it because we need the bloody money. An American woman bid like crazy for it against a couple of other folk, she intended to win no matter how much it cost her, and she ended up paying just over seventy quid.”

“I paid three quid for that, and you didn't stop moaning for a solid week because you said it was too expensive.”

“Thar's gold in them thar hills!” Claire said, slapping her thigh.

'A few quid here and a few quid there isn't going to save you from inevitable doom,' Andy's demon hissed gleefully. 'Your missus only sells manically like this when you're desperate, when the family coffers are all but empty and copious quantities of shit have already hit the fan, and I fear this time she's come galloping to the rescue too late. Most of the time the junk you two hoarders amass just stays in here gathering dust..... Your own spending habits will have to change drastically if you're going to make a real difference, sonny Jim, and if you want me to be brutally honest I don't think you've got the bollocks to make a sacrifice anywhere near sufficient, you useless fat fuck.'

“I might be fat, but I'll show you who's useless,” Andy muttered.

“What?”

“Oh, nothing, angel,” he said, kissing his wife on the cheek.

“What was that for?”

“It's because I love you. And it's thanks in advance for helping me to set up my own Ebay account. I've been thinking..... You do way too much extra curricular earning on your own, love, and I want to help, I really do. I'm sure I can make a few quid too if I put my mind to it.”

Some four hours later Andy wandered back and forth along the path at the back of the park with the dog in tow, frantically smoking his brains out. “This has got to stop,” he told himself. “Enough is enough. It's time to see sense, it's time to realise that our finances are finite, that I have a mortgage to pay, three kids to cater for and a wife who deserves a few of the finer things in life. For once my demon is right, it's about time I bloody well grew up.” On the way home he crumpled up his remaining cigarettes and threw the pack into the bushes, along with his lighter and a half-eaten orange from his coat pocket. “No more waste, and no more squandering limited resources for my own satisfaction,” he said. “I don't need nicotine patches or gum or nasal spray; I've beaten it, I've finished, I'm through,” and for the first time in his life he meant it.