Comp 09 2nd prize story

The Money by Peter Birkett

The kitchen door opened and Billy came in, his boots muddy from the back field. Christine looked up from the washing machine.
He closed the door behind him, and stood, awkwardly. “Hi, Mam,” he said, “our Jim’ll be home in a minute.”
“So?” she said. There was something in his manner – something unknown and bad – something alarming. He looked out of the window. She turned back to the old twin-tub; drew a lump of socks; underclothes and shirts, all twisted together, from the grey sudless water of the tub to the spin drier, and looked at him again.
“Yeah, he’ll be home in a minute, an’ he’s got some money.” To avoid his mother’s eyes he opened the larder and gazed inside.
She felt her heart quicken; she swallowed. She dried her hands. Her boys were adult: Billy was eighteen; Frank twenty, and Jim twenty-two. They had grown as big and clumsy as their father. She laboured for them all endlessly. They lived in a farmhouse that was becoming derelict from their neglect, and she struggled against their overbearing lack of ambition to keep it looking decent. Were they now, after all her hopeless, helpless toil, bringing her trouble as well? It looked like it. She felt tears stinging her eyes often. Was she about to get something to cry for?
None of them had ever had the slightest inclination to get a job. They did what they liked to think was wheeling and dealing. That brought no money in beyond a few pounds, which were then spent on a car “to do up”; or a freezer that “just needed a new motor”, or, more simply, beer and cigarettes. Sometimes the only money coming into this hovel was what she earned from early-morning cleaning work.
“Where’d he get the money from? Got a job, has he? Or’d he find it in the street?”
Billy had stuffed his mouth with biscuits, “Found it, I think,” he said, spluttering.
“Well he’d better take it to the police, then, if he’s found it, hadn’t he? Lost property, isn’t it, in that case?”
“He can’t, Mam,” he dodged through to the lounge.
Christine followed, “Why can’t he, Billy? Why? What’s all this about?”
“Don’t know nothin’, Mam, you better ask him.” He sat in his father’s armchair, and picked up an old paper to read, becoming instantly absorbed by some news item.
She heard the back door open and close again; and Jim came through the kitchen into the lounge. He was carrying a large black plastic holdall with distinctive orange flashes on it. It was full of something heavy. Jim sat on the sofa and put the thing down by his feet. He looked briefly into his mother’s eyes, then down at the holdall, watching it as if he thought it might suddenly leave the room on its own.
“What’s that, Jim?” she said. Her breath was shallow; a nausea was rising within her.
“It’s er… some money I got. Didn’t Billy tell you about it, he was s’posed to.” Jim looked at his brother…
“Whose is it?” she gave him only seconds to reply, “WHOSE IS IT, JIM?
He winced, and swallowed. He stuttered and looked as uncomfortable – guilty as could be, “T’ain’t nobody’s – some villains – I got nothin’ to do with it,” he held up the palms of his hands to show her they were empty and clean. His eyes blinked and couldn’t hold her gaze, “Look, it can’t be traced, honest…”
“HONEST!” she shouted, “You sneak over the back fence with a bagful of money and… what’s honest, Jim?” She was going to take the bag and throw it out, but she couldn’t bring herself to touch it.
The front door slammed and Frank came into the room. Behind him, her big, insensitive husband, and even he could tell there was an atmosphere, “What’s goin’ on here?”
Frank came and stood by his mother.
She waited to hear the story.
“It’s the money what’s in here, Dad,” said Jim, “let me explain, you know Arthur Benn?”
“I ‘ope you been stayin’ away from ‘im!” said Stan, “He’s no good; keeps company with a bad lot.” But even as he spoke his eyes were large on the bag and all that might be in it.
“Yeah, I know,” said Jim, “and he’s been throwin’ a lot of money around just lately, ain’t he?”
“Yes.” said Stan, “Yes he has, but he’s just taken a beating this morning, they said in the pub, he’s in hospital – what you got to do with that?”
“Nothin’, that’s just it. I ain’t been hanging round with him lately, honest. He must of been looking after someone else’s loot; he must of, because how else could he of got so much? All I done was follow ‘im to the hidin’ place. He didn’t see me, and I took it last night when no-one was around; brought it back to the old barn. Hid it. Whoever wanted their cash back off him must of give him a beating, but he couldn’t tell ‘em who had it away, ‘cos he didn’t know. NO-one knows I’ve got this. No-one.”
“How much is it?” asked Stan.
Jim leaned over to open the holdall, “I had a look with a torch last night…”
Christine took a step forward, “Don’t tell me how much it is! I don’t want to know. Get it out; God knows we need money. God knows I need something good to happen. I’ve skivvied twenty-five years for you; four grown lazy oafs, and all you can do is bring stolen money and trouble into the house. Take it away…” Her voice was choking; she felt weak. She wanted to be strong and fight their sloth and their greed.
But Jim was ignoring her and his eyes were alight as he unzipped the holdall, “…Couldn’t believe it, Dad. Musta been from a big robbery, or some big drugs deal, ‘cos I counted over two hundred and odd thousand pounds, look, honest, look!”
Christine let out a sob and ran from the room as the covetous menfolk of her family converged on the holdall.
She went to her bedroom and sat in the window to look out over the derelict yard outside.
For a long time her mind was blank; her thoughts seemed in limbo: reaching out for almost twenty-five years behind her, and to fearful, unhappy times ahead.
When there came a knock on the door, she ignored it, but it brought her back to the present. Frank came in without waiting for an answer. He closed the door.
“What they doin’ with it?” she asked.
“Just talking about it. They want to know what you want to do. It’s an awful lot o’ money, ain it?”
“I know it’s an awful lot… d’you think I don’t think we deserve a bit of luck in the life we’ve got?
Frank took her hand, that surprised her, but he was the most sensitive one of all of them. “They can’t keep it unless everyone agrees, Mam, just sleep on it. Leave thinkin’ about it till morning.”
“I’m staying up here,” she said, “bring me a cuppa. I don’t want to see that money, nor listen to any of them talking about it.”
Frank stood, “Sure, Mam. I don’ care about it, but I’ll go ‘long with whatever you say. I’ll get y’a cup tea.” He left the room
Christine sighed. She felt weak at the thought of that bit of happiness being held out to her. After all the years of… she would be forty soon. Given this chance of something better, she wondered whether it was courage or foolishness to refuse it. She got into bed.
At midnight, Stan came in. She watched him put the holdall down by the window. She breathed heavily and regularly.
His alcoholic breath filled this undecorated, almost unfurnished bedroom of her despair. Within ten minutes he was asleep and her mind drifted back to the beginning when they had shared laughter and ambition. When they had planned to work the fields around them and her young family had been a joy.
The fields were sold now, there was nothing left.
Stan snored and she didn’t sleep. Some time just as the summer dawn illuminated the thin curtains she made her decision. Quietly she arose.
She knew she had to do it before Stan could stop her, so she was quiet as a mouse as she slipped a dressing gown and slippers on and went downstairs.
There was a pile of broken wood in the middle of the yard; she’d gazed at it last night when she went up to the bedroom to escape the sight of the money. She put the holdall on it and found some kindling. She got a can of petrol from the shed and poured it in where the zip was pulled back a little, then more all around the woodpile.
One match did it. She had an inferno in three minutes. The wood crackled and spat; fumes and smoke rose in the morning air and drifted towards the open bedroom windows of the house.
By the time Stan and the boys awoke to what was happening it was too late; the orange flashes on the bag were turning black, and the heat inside it was intense. When she saw it slowly flare, Christine felt nothing but peace, a kind of shivering, warming, crackling, smelly peace.
Frank came screaming out in his boxer shorts and string vest; Jim and Billy followed. They burnt their hands and feet trying to break up the fire. They cursed at her, and, when they realised the holdall was beyond rescue, they turned on her.
Stan held her by the lapels and hit her across the face. He did it time and time again, until he was manhandled away by Frank.
She sat on a splintery box; she cried with pain and fury. But she had no doubt; she had done the right thing.
The men went back in the house.
When she had recovered herself she went in and spoke to them: “That money wasn’t ours and it could only have brought us trouble. The best thing to do was get rid of it. We’re the same now as we were yesterday morning; no worse off; no better. I don’t want to hear any more about it.” She paused. “Some things will be different, of course. Some things will change quite a lot. I won’t forgive being hit like that, for a start, and I won’t forgive my eldest son for bringing home the cause of it.
They sat in morose acceptance of what she’d done. She left them and went into the kitchen. She closed the door on their hatred, and felt, strangely, a new life beginning. She felt empowered to be herself for the first time in nearly twenty-five years. The argument about the money, and the smacking, had freed her.

One week later, Christine was looking forward to her fortieth birthday. She had imagined that day would be a black day on the calendar, but, now it was only three days away on Saturday, she was anticipating it with silent, secret joy. She manoeuvred the old washing machine round to the sink, and she could think of nothing except what she would be doing then, where she would be…
She looked at the water running in, and the heap of crumpled, smelling socks and shirts on the floor, “Three days; less than half a week… this is the very last washing day.” Her heart lifted as she wondered how she could last till then – of course she could! She could keep her escape a secret now.
On that day, while they were at the first football match of the season, probably unaware that it was her birthday, she would pack and she would go.
When they got back she would be many miles away. She had laid her plans carefully: use the old van to get to Tescos; taxi from there to the bus station, change in the toilets – put the wig on; cross to the train station, and… so on to… where they would never find her.
Until then she would keep up the effort to maintain normality. She would keep skivvying, keep doing their laundry….
It was a nuisance, of course, to have to unload the wads of money, in their thick plastic bags, out of the washing machine each time she used it – but this was the very last time.

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