It wasn’t
that Costas was abusive, he was just an unreliable liar. He’d taken all the money Helena earned and
ploughed it into failed businesses or gambled it on the stock exchange. There had been nothing but the bare minimum
for Helena and their children, so when they woke one morning and he was gone,
everyone was rather relieved. The
children ran round the house looking for traces of him.
“His clothes
have gone, Mummy!” Irina shouted.“His car’s not in the garage!” called Dion.
“I think he’s left us,” Helena said. The baby cried in the cot and Matthias sat down in his play pen with a bump.
“Good riddance,” Helena’s mother said when she arrived to look after the younger children.
Helena took
her older children to school and went to work at the department store. If she was careful, she’d have just enough
money to pay rent and feed her family.
At least she wouldn’t have to worry about Costas anymore.
That evening
a powerfully built man knocked at Helena’s door and handed her a bit of paper.
Helena read
it; “This isn’t right!”“Ring the helpline,” the man said.
Helena shut the door and stared at the letter again. It was from the well-known loan shark ‘Immediate Money ForU’. Costas had borrowed £330,000 from them. No reputable bank would have given him such a loan; he didn’t even own a home to secure it against. No wonder he’d ran away. She tried his mobile for the twentieth time. Five minutes later and her phone rang, it was a woman called Angela ringing from Immediate Money ForU; “You owe us £330,000,” she said aggressively.
“No Costas …”
“Costas has gone abroad, he’s signed the debt over to your family’s name.”
“He can’t do that!”
“You were his partner at the time, you’re liable for the debt.”
“But I don’t have any money!”
“Your family will help you …”
“It doesn’t matter if they do! We can’t pay it back, it’s impossible with the amount of interest you’re charging …”
“Helena!” Angela’s voice was patronising, “you can’t borrow money and not pay it back.”
The next day
at the school gate Helena could hear the whispers from the other mothers:
“She
borrowed £330,000 from the IMFu and can’t pay it back. Poor Angela is at her wit’s end.”“Her whole family has been brought into it.”
“They’re refusing to pay.”
“Well, if she refuses her children should be expelled and the department store should sack her, she doesn’t deserve any support!”
At work it was the same, Helena was irresponsible, untrustworthy and reckless, no-one sat next to her at lunch time.
That evening Helena’s family visited, her mother held her as she wept; “It was Costas!”
“I know. We’re trying to find him,” her father told her.
“We’re all in this,” said her sister, “and we’ll stick together.”
“The IMFu are acting like bullies, we’ll refuse to pay!” her youngest brother stated.
“Hold your head up high, ignore what they’re saying about you,” the eldest one said.
“I’m sorry,”
the manager at the bank said; “I’m going to have to take the bank cards of you
and your family, the IMFu have told us not to give you anything unless you
start paying them back.”
“But how
will we feed ourselves and our children?” Helena asked.“Not my problem,” the bank manager said.
Helena had
to do it, she left her children with her sister and went to see Angela. Angela was very nice, she made Helena tea,
she said that the loan could be paid off over an indefinite period of time;
“Your children can leave school aged 16 and work for me. I will take the pensions of your parents and
they can go back to their jobs, your brothers and sisters can make cut backs to
their lives and their children’s lives.
You will all work together and pay the debt …”
“But my
parents are retired and my children want to go to university.”Angela shook her head; “You should have thought of that before borrowing the money.”
“Even if we all work, my mother, my father, my brothers and my sister, even if our children start to work now, we can’t cover even the interest you’re asking for!”
Angela sighed; “Don’t worry, Helena, I have a solution, why don’t you speak to one of our advisors about another loan.”
