The Forgetting(32)

Two minutes to seven.

Livvy sipped a glass of water. Five thousand pounds. It was a vertiginous sum of money to have lost.

The Zoom screen opened and there was Dominic, smiling. ‘Hey sweetheart.’

Apprehension churned in Livvy’s stomach. ‘Did you hear my message?’

Dominic looked down at his phone, then back at the computer screen. ‘Sorry, I only just saw a missed call from you as I was jumping on here. Is everything okay?’

Livvy took a deep breath. ‘Not really. I went to the cashpoint today, and I don’t know how it happened, but I think someone must have hacked into our account. There’s only a couple of hundred pounds left.’ She paused, swallowed. ‘I know you’ve been on at me for ages to change my passwords, but do you think we’ll get the money back if we can prove we’ve been hacked?’ The words tripped from her tongue as though they couldn’t get out fast enough.

Dominic eyed her quizzically for a moment. ‘We haven’t been hacked. I withdrew the money.’

The explanation stumbled inside Livvy’s head. ‘You took it? Why?’

‘I’ve been doing a bit of an audit of our finances.’ He leant back in his chair, placed his hands behind his head as though lazing on a sun lounger. ‘Do you know how much money we haemorrhage every month on coffees and cake?’

Livvy shrugged. ‘Ten, fifteen pounds?’

Dominic paused like a quiz master on a television show. ‘Forty-two pounds, on average. Forty-two pounds on coffees and cake. Do you know that’s over five hundred pounds a year? And I hate to say it but most of that’s when you’re out with your sister or your friends.’

Livvy did some quick mental calculations. ‘I know it sounds a lot when you put it like that, but it’s only a couple of trips a week to a café. I can’t stay cooped up at home every day.’

Dominic pressed at something on his keyboard, seemed distracted for a moment, then turned his attention back to Livvy. ‘Sweetheart, you can’t keep moaning about the fact that most of your friends have already lost all their baby weight if you’re eating forty-two pounds of cake every month.’

‘It’s not forty-two pounds of cake. And anyway, most of my friends don’t have husbands working away all week, and they can actually leave the house by themselves to do some exercise.’

‘But that’s not really the issue, is it? The issue is our regular outgoings. Do you know what our monthly food bill is? Or how much you spend on petrol?’

‘Not off the top of my head. But I only fill up the car once a fortnight, if that.’

‘But that’s my point. How can we keep track of our finances if we don’t know how much we spend? I’ve been going through the last six months’ accounts and we can make huge savings just by being a bit more mindful.’

Livvy considered pointing out that she would happily give up responsibility for the weekly food shop, for planning and cooking all their meals, for being the only person who made sure Leo had enough nappies in stock, but she didn’t want to have a row on Zoom. ‘That still doesn’t explain why you’ve taken five thousand pounds out of the joint account.’

‘It was madness having all that money sitting in a current account, earning no interest, just waiting to be frittered away. I’ve put it in an ISA. And from now on I think we should have a monthly budget for household costs and put the rest into savings.’

The implication of what Dominic was saying spun in Livvy’s head. ‘You want us to have a household allowance? Like it’s the nineteen-fifties and I’m a housewife who can’t be trusted with money?’

Dominic laughed. ‘Don’t be so pejorative about housewives.’

‘I’m not—’

‘It’s not about trust. It’s about us working together to manage our income better.’ He wiped a finger along the edge of his keyboard, flicked whatever dust he’d collected onto the floor.

‘And you’ve just decided all this independently, without any discussion?’

‘We’re discussing it now.’

‘No, we’re not. You’re informing me of a decision you’ve already taken.’

‘If you feel that strongly about it, we can put the five thousand pounds back in the joint account and spend it on cake. I don’t understand why you’re so angry. I’m just trying to do something good – something practical – for our family.’

‘I’m not angry. I’m frustrated. You can’t just go making unilateral decisions like that without me.’

Dominic sat forward, elbows on the desk, hands clasped under his chin. When he spoke his voice was softer, gentler. ‘I honestly didn’t think you’d mind. You hate anything to do with money.’

‘No, I don’t.’

‘Oh, come on, Squidge. The bills would barely get paid if it was left to you.’

‘That’s rubbish. I managed perfectly well before we got together. Just because I don’t have everything organised in anally retentive spreadsheets, doesn’t mean I’m incapable.’

Neither of them spoke for a few moments, irritation hot in Livvy’s cheeks.

‘I honestly didn’t imagine for a second you’d be this angry. I really was just trying to do something positive. After all, we’ll need a bigger house one day if we have another baby.’