Civvy Street Read Online Free Page B

kitchen extension and an unknown voice asked to speak to Major Collins. ‘For you,’ she said, handing the receiver to Mike.
    She listened to Mike’s side of the conversation with half an ear as she made the tea. Whatever it was, it sounded quite serious and Mike didn’t look happy. Wordlessly she put his tea in front of him and waited patiently for the call to end.
    ‘What was that all about?’ she asked.
    Mike stared at her. He opened his mouth and then closed it again. Susie felt worried.
    ‘It can’t be that bad, surely?’ said Susie, hiding her fears with a light tone.
    ‘I... I don’t know how to put this.’
    ‘Put what?’
    ‘That was the mortgage broker.’
    ‘And?’
    Mike swallowed and looked down at the table. ‘And... and they won’t give me a mortgage.’
    ‘What? Why?’
    ‘It’s my credit rating.’
    ‘What about it?’
    ‘That’s the thing, Susie.’ He still wasn’t looking at her. ‘I’ve found it a bit tough to meet the kids’ school fees on a couple of occasions so I bunged them on a credit card. And then... and then I couldn’t make the repayments so I transferred the debt to another card to give myself some breathing space.’ He glanced up at her. ‘I never meant to let it get out of hand.’ He stared at Susie beseechingly. ‘But I honestly thought it wasn’t that bad. That it wouldn’t have an impact.’
    ‘How bad? How out of hand?’ Susie tried to keep calm.
    ‘Twenty thousand, give or take.’
    ‘Pounds?’
    ‘It’s not fucking Smarties, is it?’ he snapped. ‘Sorry. Sorry, Susie.’ He rubbed his face with his hand. ‘Sorry,’ he said a third time. ‘I’m a bit stressed.’
    ‘You’re a bit stressed?’ Susie breathed in and out twice before she said, ‘Shit.’
    Twenty thousand pounds of debt and no mortgage. How could he? How fucking could he? She looked at the pile of properties she’d been planning on showing Mike. Not much point in that now. Wordlessly she gathered them up and chucked them in the recycling bin. She wanted to cry. ‘Mike, why didn’t you tell me? I could have got a job ages ago. I could have earned some money to help out. Once the kids went off to boarding school I could have managed.’
    ‘I thought I could manage. I thought I could sort it and I didn’t want you to worry.’
    ‘No.’ She sighed as she bit her tongue. There was no point in getting angry. Neither of them could turn the clock back, so that was that. And he might not have wanted her to worry back then but there was no denying she was bloody worried now.
    Silence fell and lengthened. Susie considered their options and decided there were precious few. She sighed as she came to terms with the stark grimness of their position. Finally, she spoke again. ‘That’s it then. I’ve got to get that job in the mess.’
    ‘Susie—’
    ‘Don’t you dare say it isn’t appropriate,’ Susie snapped, worry, anger and emotion finally getting the better of her. ‘We’re running out of choices. It’s a job I can do and probably do well... if I get it. And if I don’t, I’ll go and find something else. It may be that the best I can get is as a checkout girl in the Spar but, as things stand, I have to have some sort of income if we’re going to have a house of our own in the near future.’
    Mike looked shamefaced. ‘Kick a man while he’s down, why don’t you?’ he muttered.
    ‘Darling, I didn’t mean it like that but renting sucks – it’s dead money. We have to face reality.’
    ‘And the reality is that I’m a dead weight; no job, no prospects and no credit rating, my wife is being forced to go out to work and I’m being replaced by a man who has no experience and less seniority.’
    Susie’s heart went out to her husband and she wrapped her arms around him and held him tight.

Chapter 3
    Mike sat in his office with the door shut and stared sightlessly out of his window. He’d told his office staff that he didn’t want to be disturbed under any