The Ladies' Midnight Swimming Club(3)

There was no hiding anything in death, of course. The empty bottles, the gambling debts – she never even knew he’d liked horses. All these years, there was a whole other world that he’d been a part of, placing bets on races from the drunken comfort of the bar counter in Flannelly’s pub. The tab had come to two thousand pounds. Old Ned Flannelly had the good grace to look embarrassed when he called to collect the debt. He hadn’t wanted to bother her with it. The truth was, Eric would not be dropping into the bar again and so, before he finally shuffled out of life, Ned Flannelly took his chance to collect what he was owed.

It had frightened Elizabeth, to think that they could have that kind of financial debt hanging over them without her even knowing. That same ominous feeling returned to her now. It was easily remedied with Ned Flannelly – all she had to do was walk down to the bank and withdraw from her savings to pay him off. She stopped for a moment before she opened the file before her. What if this file contained more secrets like the one Ned Flannelly had hidden with him for God knows how many years?

Elizabeth was a lot of things, but she braced herself, because she’d never been a coward. She pulled open the file sharply on this thought.

The papers were held in place by a wire grip. She recognised immediately the deeds to the house with a familiar map peeping out from beneath them. The boundary fence in faded blue was a straight line marked out in tired ink. Beneath that were a number of letters, mostly to and from their solicitor. One of them, Elizabeth was surprised to see, was Eric’s will. She hadn’t realised he’d ever made one. The date was recent, only months before he died.

The will, once she’d waded through the legal jargon, didn’t throw up anything too surprising. After all debts were cleared on his estate, the house and surgery were hers to do with as she pleased. He’d actually said that – as she pleased! As if taking full possession of them was something she’d been waiting for all these years. Oh, Eric. She shook her head sadly. She put the will aside. There was very little else, apart from a thick brown envelope, which he’d gone to some bother to tape together for added security. Annoyed with the wording of the will, Elizabeth tore open the envelope now, disregarding the time put into securing it all together.

A bundle of papers fell from its innards, a sheaf of pages with various logos all of which seemed to Elizabeth to be very familiar. She rifled through them quickly, catching only words at the top of each. Overdraft. Term Loan. Credit Card. Overdue. Default. All of them sent to Eric from different banks; five in all. Elizabeth gasped. She thought for a moment she’d never catch her breath again. Eric had gambled them into hock up to their eyeballs. They owed an absolute fortune, probably more than the house was worth and, if the red underlined numbers were anything to go by, more than the surgery was worth too.

She was penniless.

They were on the brink of bankruptcy. She was on the edge of ruin.

Good God – she could be homeless by the time she had sorted through this mess.

*

After that, there had been no chance of sleep. She sat for she wasn’t sure how long, staring at the pages before her. The will was worthless – there was no house or surgery, not once all the debts had been repaid. There was nothing. She couldn’t even sell them, because it was unlikely the bank would allow it. No, they’d be more than likely knocking on her door as soon as it was deemed reasonable to ask her to move out while they put the place up for auction.

In the darkness, Elizabeth sobbed her heart out, once the panic had been driven away by anger. She had cried for the lives she might have lived, for the fact that she might have married someone else. Someone who could have made her laugh, someone who could have given her children; she’d have traded anything for that. So, she mightn’t have been the doctor’s wife and all lah-di-dah, but she might have had a roof over her head to see her into old age.

As the storm pushed back out across the sea, Elizabeth felt her own temper dying down. This was no time to lose her head. For the first time in years, her fate had been placed back into her own hands. It was up to her how she handled the narrow choices that were presented to her from here on in.

She walked through her house later that morning with fresh eyes; seeing everything from an immensely stirred perspective. Now, she picked up vases, assessed drapes and kicked sideboards calculating their value. She cursed woodworm and thanked her lucky stars for the storm that had pushed her from her bed. It was better to find out for herself than to be faced with bailiffs at the door.

*

An hour later she was driving her little runabout out to Shanganagh Cemetery. Of course, Eric wouldn’t care either way at this point, but she needed to let him know that she would sort out this mess. She, Elizabeth O’Shea, was about to stand on her own two feet and if the prospect scared her just a little, in a strange way it exhilarated her too.

Eric’s plot, the freshest in the graveyard, showed the signs of a stormy night. Thankfully, the undertakers knew enough to secure the many floral tributes beneath tightly secured netting mesh. The little wooden cross with his name spelled out across a brass plaque sat askew this morning. Elizabeth was alone in the graveyard and it was probably just as well, because she knew that anyone listening would think she’d lost her marbles.

‘Eric, I know that you thought what you did was for the best, but…’ she began, her eyes drifting across the various wreaths that had been battered by the wind. ‘But I found the letters in your desk and now…’ She felt her resolve cast off for a moment, her voice cracking with emotion. ‘The thing is, if you’d only said…’ It occurred to her; she’d done the same thing many times over the years as she’d washed dishes and prepared meals for them. She’d shaken her head, knowing that even if she tried to explain that she understood he wouldn’t have listened. ‘We could have sorted it all out and maybe…’ she stopped, took a deep breath. ‘Maybe, there was a way to make things right, maybe you wouldn’t have died so suddenly – if you didn’t have to do so much worrying. Maybe… we could have been happier.’ But of course, she knew that whatever else their union might have been – it was never going to be happy.