Lovely House, Ugly Bills

January 2030 - Fyfe Family (part 2)

By the time Violet got home from work that evening she was more than ready for a therapeutic bubble bath and maybe a back rub from Uziah.  Wesley was cooking as part of his science fair project as Uziah had persuaded him that you couldn't research a project on nutrition without at least being able to make a basic salad and his attempts had so far been reasonably edible.   Her discovery had meant staying late at the lab to finish off some tests so she was expecting the family to be scattered around the house, finishing homework, playing games or maybe out for a run.  She wandered into the kitchen to see what Wesley had managed to cook up and found Uziah sitting at the counter, looking glumly into a glass of juice.   

“Zi, are you ok?”, Violet asked, laying a hand upon his shoulder.

Uziah jumped, clearly he had been so lost in thought that he hadn't noticed the front door or her footsteps towards the kitchen.

“Hi... yes... how... how are you, good day at work?”, he stuttered,

“Yes it was good but I'll tell you all about it after you tell me what's wrong. Unless you're studying the surface tension of that juice?”  

Violet grew worried as he continued to stare into the glass, Uziah was usually confident and cheery, even if he hadn't had a good day at work he would be chatty when she got in. Something was clearly wrong.

“Are the kids ok? Mum? Zi...? Zi, you're starting to worry me.”

“Yes, sorry, the kids are fine and I... I haven't heard from your mother. It's nothing like that, no-one's sick or anything.”

“OK, good, so what is it?”

Finally Uziah looked up at her, “you might want to grab a coffee first, I'm afraid we need to talk about money.”

Violet grabbed a coffee and perched on a stool next to Uziah.  She couldn't think what the problem was likely to be, sure money was tight but they were much better off than many of the other families in the area and only last year they had been able to afford to move into this lovely big house with views across the bay and room enough even for an observatory.  They had been careful to budget for the move and Uziah hadn't said anything about his job being under threat.  

“OK, I have coffee and I'm sitting down. Whatever this is I'm sure we can sort it out, what's happened?”

“I had a call from Tommy, you remember, my old friend who advised us when we were sorting out the finances for the house.   He wanted to warn me that interest rates had just been announced as going up more than we expected.   On it's own we could deal with that, but the money we invested into the savings scheme, it's... I'm sorry but it's gone.”

“How can it be gone?” Violet exclaimed, quickly lowering her voice and glancing upstairs to where she assumed the children were in their rooms.  “It wasn't supposed to be a risk, just a slightly better rate than we could get if we left the money in the bank. Zi, we were just doing what Tommy and the man at the bank agreed was a good idea. How on earth can this be happening to us when we've always been so careful?”  She could feel tears in her eyes but when Uziah reached out to take her hand she pulled away.  She had to understand what was happening before she could think about how she felt. Understand the facts first, that was what her mother had always taught her growing up and she clung to that thought now.

“Please, just explain what's happening and then surely...surely we can work it out.” she whispered.

“I don't know all the details yet, there should be someone contacting us tomorrow but Tommy said a big company has gone bust, completely unexpected.  We may get a small amount back but it's likely to take months at least.  I had a look through our bills, tried to work out if we'd have enough for everything without it but I just can't see a way out.  We stretched ourselves thin buying this place, with the way the bills have gone up recently and the increase in the mortgage from the interest rate rise we simply don't have enough money coming in to cover our bills.  Wes gave me the form for the summer football camp today and we simply won't be able to afford it.   How can we be good parents when we can't even afford a week of camp and might not be able to keep a roof over his head?. 

Tears were rolling down Uziah's cheeks and Violet could feel her own tears, hot against her suddenly cold skin.  She thought about the excitement of earlier, all that fuss over a piece of rock, and she started shivering at the thought that suddenly everything was collapsing, as though someone had chiselled away at their life only to shatter it into pieces.

They both sat for a while, sipping their drinks just for something to do, something to stop them sobbing or shouting.  At any moment Willow or Wes could appear in the kitchen and there wasn't going to be any easy way to explain what was happening.

Violet took a deep breath and turned to Uziah, “I know you've already been though everything but I think I need to see the figures myself, get my head around it.  Then we need to talk to the bank as soon as possible, see if we can at least extend the overdraft or maybe get a loan just to cover this month's bills while we sort something out.  Are you ok to ring them in the morning to arrange an appointment Zi?  If I go in early I can probably arrange to take the afternoon off so we can go in together.”

She was trying to be logical, think about things step by step, but her mind just kept darting around, picturing red bills and the disappointed faces of her children.  Slowly she stood up and finally allowed Uziah to wrap his arms around her.  It wasn't his fault after all and they would only be able to get through this together. She just wished that she could wake up and find it was all just a bad dream.