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. WHAT GOES AROUND, COMES AROUND
October 2006, it was 6.30pm on a cold, wet and miserable evening as Jenny wearily climbed the stairs to her two bedroom flat on the third floor of an old tenement block in Glasgow’s east end. She was laden down with four bags of groceries. Jenny was 33 but she looked ten years older, she was downtrodden and dressed in a very plain plaid skirt, black cardigan that stretched over her neat little pregnancy bump, grey duffle coat and black lace up shoes. She wore no make up and her self-cut, dull and lifeless brown hair hung in an uneven bob.
She put her key in the door, ‘Is that you Jenny? What kept you I’m starving!’ shouted her demanding husband Harry from the wee second bedroom which he had converted into his ‘den’. He spent every spare minute at his computer and if he wasn’t doing that he was out all evening and didn’t come home until dawn. ‘I’ll put the kettle on and make you a cup of tea before I start dinner’ answered Jenny from the kitchen. She breathed out a huge sigh of exhaustion as she dropped the heavy bags of groceries on the floor.
Before she married Harry, Jenny lived with her widowed mother in the same rented flat. She nursed her sick mother for fourteen years after she was left paralysed and speechless from a stroke. Her mother died last year when Jenny was thirty-two leaving Jenny
alone in the world, she had no brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles or cousins. Jenny had led a very sheltered life, she was nervous and lacked a lot of confidence, she was anxious to get out into the world to earn some money and live her life but she was apprehensive about starting a career, apart from a newspaper round when she was a teenager, she had never really had a job before. She would have liked an office job but she had no experience, she liked sewing so she ended up working as a machinist in a factory.
Harry was a twenty-eight year old delivery man at the same factory. He was very forward, sarcastic and cocky. He wasn’t very well liked but Jenny was flattered by his attention and cheeky compliments so agreed to go out with him. This was a new experience for her; she had never had a boyfriend before. When Harry went to kiss her at the end of their first date she was extremely shy, at thirty two, this was her first proper kiss. Harry realised how naive she was and for the benefit of his own self-satisfaction he put her at ease but Jenny was having none of it, she was scared and told him to stop immediately. ‘C’mon don’t be silly, you’re a woman in your thirties for goodness sake, everybody’s doing it!’ Harry tried to persuade her. ‘Well I’m not! That sort of thing is for married women!’ answered Jenny as she quickly buttoned up her blouse in embarrassment.
Within four weeks Harry proposed to Jenny and she was delighted to accept much to the dismay of her workmates who had tried to warn her that he was up to no good but their advice was falling on deaf ears. Harry and Jenny married at the local registry office six weeks later on Jenny’s thirty-third birthday. No-one was invited to their wedding, so they called two witnesses in from the street.
Harry moved into Jenny’s wee rented two bedroomed flat which she had transferred to her name after her mother had passed away. Jenny began to worry that she didn’t know Harry at all, he became solemn, and he always had excuses about losing his wage packet or having to pay extra tax. It wasn’t long until Jenny realised that she had made a big mistake in marrying this man without knowing his background, he never spoke about his family, she didn’t know them nor had she even met them. He was no company to her whatsoever, if he wasn’t at his computer he was out on the town. He demanded his conjugal rights at least five times a week. Jenny hated it; it was over and done with in three minutes and did nothing for her. She had suspicions that he had another woman and was leading a double life but she was scared and never dared to question him. Jenny was alone and frightened when within fourth months of her marriage to Harry, she discovered that she was pregnant. He didn’t offer her any understanding or help. He continued to ignore her and left her to get on with it. Jenny carried on working at the factory because Harry wasn’t giving her any money and she needed her wages to survive. She worried about what was going to happen when she had to give up work to have the baby. One day Rita, who was a buxom brunette of Spanish origin and one of Jenny’s workmates at the factory, mentioned casually to her, ‘Here, your Harry must have had some winner? You’ll be able to buy a nice pram eh!’ ‘What do you mean?’ asked Jenny. ‘I was in the bookies to put on a bet for my old dad and I saw the bookie handing him a wad of notes last night, don’t tell me he never said anything, he must be going to surprise you!’ answered Rita.
That night Jenny lay in bed in silence as she turned over in her head what Rita had told her. At 4am she was awakened by Harry’s key in the door. She didn’t know where her courage came from but she blurted out to him, ‘Have you got another woman?’ Harry looked at her in anger and answered in disgust, ‘what the hell are you talking about, you stupid woman? Don’t you think I have enough trouble with you, never mind another daft bitch? Now move over, I’ve had a hard day and need my kip!’ ‘Rita saw the bookie hand you a load of money.’ Jenny couldn’t believe that she had faced up to Harry and questioned him. Harry sat bolt upright, ‘Well Rita had no damn right telling you this. I’ll speak to her in the morning; it’s none of her business and definitely none of yours!’
The next day at work Harry made a bee-line for Rita and told her to keep her nose out of his affairs, one word led to another and they were both pulled in before the management. Rita had witnesses to say that Harry had verbally attacked her and she was only defending herself. This wasn’t the first time that Harry had caused trouble at the factory, he had two previous warnings and now the management had enough, he was given his cards and escorted off the premises. Rita felt bad because she knew that Jenny would get the brunt of it when she got home. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to do’ cried Jenny, then through her tears she confessed to Rita how desperately unhappy and worried she was, she told her how Harry doesn’t give her any money and he stays out all night. ‘C’mon it’s tea-break time, let’s go through to the kitchen and make a cuppa’ said Rita as she tried to console Jenny. Rita stirred her tea and said, ‘Jenny didn’t you know when you married Harry that he was a gambler? His mother chucked him out of the house because he gambled his wages every week and gave her nothing. At twenty-eight he was a burden to her and she was glad to see the back of him!’ ‘But why does he stay out all night, the bookies aren’t open at that time, he must have someone else!’ cried Jenny. ‘Jenny I don’t think he’s seeing another woman, he’s most likely playing cards all night for big money, that’s why he never has anything left to give you! I just thought that maybe with the baby on the way he had come to his senses and would be giving you a fair share of the big win he had at the bookies towards buying equipment for the nursery!’ ‘Hmmph, what nursery? The small room is his den, when he’s not out, he’s in there at his computer!’ replied Jenny. ‘Oh god he could be gambling on-line too!’ answered Rita. ‘How can he do that, where’s the money coming from?’ asked Jenny in disbelief. ‘Credit cards?’ Rita questioned, screwing her face up as if to break it to Jenny gently. ‘Oh No,’ you don’t think……? What the hell have I got myself into?’ asked Jenny as she plucked a tissue out of the box to wipe away her tears. ‘I’m sorry Jenny, this is my entire fault for opening my big mouth in the first place,’ replied Rita apologetically as she put her arm round Jenny to comfort her. ‘No it’s not, I’m glad you did, everything is more clear and making sense to me now.
‘Do you want mince or fish for dinner?’ Jenny shouted through to Harry, there wasn’t any reply, she quietly tutted and breathed out an angry, frustrated sigh as she muttered under her breath ‘Well if you’re too busy gambling all our money away to answer me, you can just take what I decide to give you!’
She made two mugs of tea, one black with no sugar for herself and the other with milk and two sugars for her husband. She dreaded going through to the room because nothing had been discussed between them since he was sacked from the factory earlier that day. Her stomach was churning as she made her way to the wee room with the mug of tea in her hand. She pushed the door open, keeping her eye on the tea so as not to spill it, ‘Dinner won’t be long,’ she blurted out as if trying to cover up for the day’s events. She looked up and saw Harry slumped over his computer with his face pressed against the keyboard. ‘Harry, wake up, I’ve got a mug of tea for you. You should go to bed if you’re tired!’ Jenny put the mug down on the desk then shook Harry; she reeled back in horror as his arm fell heavily down by his side. Jenny screamed then ran through to the kitchen; she was talking to herself saying over and over again, ‘What am I going to do? What am I going to do?’ She tried to compose herself and said out loud, ‘dial 999, that’s what I have to do, dial 999.’ She picked up the phone but every time she tried to dial 999 her shaking hands pressed the wrong number. Eventually after six attempts she got through. ‘Emergency, which service please?’ asked the operator. ‘I don’t know, ambulance, I suppose but then maybe police because I think it might be too late for an ambulance,’ stammered Jenny in a shocked trance.
Jenny sat in the ambulance watching the paramedic work tirelessly on her husband for the short journey to the hospital. When they arrived, he was whisked out of the ambulance and straight into a side room at the A&E department where a team were waiting. Jenny ran along behind them, when she got to the door an arm went across to stop her entering the room and a nurse said, ‘Best if you wait here in the waiting room, the doctor will come out and talk to you soon!’ Jenny sat there for what seemed like an eternity but was actually no more than fifteen minutes. Eventually a man in a green gown, hat and mask appeared, he looked at Jenny as he pulled his face mask down and pursed his lips. Jenny screwed her face up and bit her bottom lip, she knew what was coming next but she said nothing. ‘I’m sorry, there was nothing we could do, he’s gone, he was dead on arrival’ said the doctor as he put his arm round Jenny to comfort her. ‘Dead? But why? What? How could he die, he’s not even twenty-nine? Stuttered Jenny in shock. ‘It looks like heart attack but as it’s a sudden death there will have to be a post mortem to confirm this’. Jenny was shocked by the circumstances but she didn’t feel any sadness, infact she felt burden-free. This deep-down relief caused her to feel quite guilty.
The post mortem confirmed that Harry had died of natural causes due to a heart attack. Fortunately Jenny was practical minded and after realising how much it cost for her mother’s funeral she had the presence of mind to take out a joint life insurance policy for herself and Harry just after they got married, luckily there was just enough to cover the funeral expenses.
Jenny was in a turmoil, not only was she almost six months pregnant but now there were lots of bills, threats from loan companies, credit card and final demands for thousands of pounds coming in. When Jenny cared for her mum she always budgeted well and made sure everything was paid on time but when Harry and she got married, he took control of the purse strings. Jenny assumed that he was paying all the bills but unfortunately this was not so, the extent of his gambling was coming to the fore. Jenny took compassionate leave from work and sat at home crying her eyes out, she never had much to begin with but this man had come into her life and bled her dry. One morning she woke up and realised that she was getting nowhere sitting feeling sorry for herself; she had a baby in her belly to consider. So with a positive attitude she went into work, she confided to her pal Rita, she told her about the mess that Harry had left her in and the state of her finances. ‘Right you’ll have to go to the Citizens Advice Bureau and get help, what about the house, is it in his name?’ asked Rita. ‘No, it’s still in my name, I never changed it even although Harry kept on at me so do so!’ replied Jenny. ‘Well that’s a godsend, I’m sure they can’t touch anything in the house if it’s rented in your name, but check out the facts, just incase. Have you tried to get into his computer? That might tell you the extent of the money he owes’ quizzed Rita. ‘No, I wouldn’t even know how to turn it on!’ answered Jenny. ‘My son is a bit of a computer whizz kid, if you like I’ll ask him to look at it for you but it won’t be until the weekend when he’s home from university.’ Rita offered. ‘Oh Rita, that would be great if he could, do you think he would mind?’ replied Jenny. ‘No, I’m positive that he would be happy to help’ answered Rita. ‘Thank you so much Rita, I really appreciate your support,’ said Jenny with a grateful smile.
Jenny called the Citizen’s Advice Bureau and was told to come in on the following Monday, they told her to bring all the bills and information that she had. She got home from work that Wednesday evening to find yet another load of brown envelopes addressed to Harry, she stuffed them out of sight and out of mind in a kitchen drawer because she knew, without doubt, that they were from people asking for money that she didn’t have and this would only add to her depression. There were more four envelopes addressed to herself, she left them on the kitchen table then she filled the kettle and switched it on before emptying her shopping bag of a carton of milk which she put in the fridge, a French stick, a small tin of tuna and an iceberg lettuce, all of which she placed on the kitchen worktop. She took a large potato from her vegetable rack, scrubbed it, pierced it and popped it into the microwave to bake. She opened the tin of tuna, emptied it onto a plate, reached into her fridge for the mayonnaise, dipped a large spoon into the jar and mixed it up with the tuna then she chopped up the iceberg lettuce, washed it and left it sitting to dry in the colander. She popped a tea-bag into a mug and poured herself a cuppa then flopped down on a seat at the kitchen table and casually picked up the four envelopes examining the outside of them. ‘Well at least they are addressed to me, so they can’t be bad news,’ she thought as she ripped the first one open. It was from a credit card company, thinking it was an advert to encourage her to take out a card she went to discard it but it landed the other way up on the table and she saw an amount for £8,797.36p.She picked it up again and stared in confusion as she opened it up fully. It was indeed a credit card bill addressed to her; Jenny was distraught, what was going on? She didn’t have any credit cards! Then the truth dawned on her, Harry had not only been gambling money they didn’t have in his name but in her name also. She cautiously opened the other three envelopes only to find to her utter dismay that they were the same. Altogether the four bills amounted to over £30,000, how was she going to prove to the credit card company that she knew nothing about these credit cards? This £30,000 was over and above the thousands of pounds in debt that Harry had run up in his own name. Jenny lost her appetite and couldn’t eat her jacket potato and tuna. She took all the envelopes addressed to Harry from out of the kitchen drawer then she removed the letters, bills and demands from them and placed them on top of each other on the kitchen table, she carefully went through them and wrote down all the amounts that were owed. Jenny felt her heart sink to the pit of her stomach. She was in despair when she added it all up and found that it totalled £180,000. What was she going to do? She had nothing, she didn’t even own her own house, what sort of life could she offer her new baby? She felt like ending her life. She cried herself to sleep that night with worry and cursed herself for ever getting involved with Harry, she was wiser now and realised that he never cared about her and was only after a place to live along with an address to obtain more loans for gambling purposes.
By the time Saturday morning came more demands for money had arrived, Jenny was becoming immune to them, she knew that it didn’t matter how many there were, there was no way she could pay them. Harry’s debts now amounted to over £225,000! Rita arrived with her son at 10am, ‘Hi Jenny, I’ve brought Adam with me,’ she said as Jenny opened the door. ‘I’m not sure I want to know about any more debt Harry has run up on the computer!’ said Jenny as she distressingly told Rita about the amount she knew about so far. ‘Jenny, I think it’s important that you get all the facts and information you can before you visit the Citizen’s Advice Bureau on Monday,’ replied Rita. Jenny grudgingly agreed and led Adam into the small room where Harry’s computer was. After ten minutes Adam came through to the lounge where the ladies were and said to Jenny, ‘You wouldn’t happen to know your husband’s ‘user-names’ or passwords, would you?’ Jenny replied, ‘No I’m sorry, I haven’t a clue and don’t know anything about his computer.’ ‘Well the whole thing is pointless, because I can’t do anything unless I can get into the websites he was using and for that I need to know his ‘user-names’ and passwords!’ Jenny looked at him in dismay, ‘don’t worry Adam, I’ll know eventually when they come looking for their money!’ she said. ‘Rita and Adam left apologising for not being able to help.
It was Sunday morning; Jenny was at her wits end. She decided it was time to get rid of any traces of Harry from her life and started to removed his clothes from the wardrobe, as she did so she got more and more angry, before she knew it she was screaming as the tears streamed down her face and she ripped Harry’s jackets, trousers, shirts etc from the wardrobe in temper and flung them on the floor. She threw herself onto the bed and sobbed her heart out. As she sat up and wiped away her tears she noticed a piece of blue paper amongst all the clothes that were strewn on the floor. She opened it up and couldn’t believe what she was reading; it was all Harry’s user-names and passwords along with a list of all the websites he visited. Jenny ran through to the lounge and picked up the phone, she was still distressed and crying as she called Rita. ‘Is Adam still there?’ she shouted down the phone. ‘Jenny is that you? Are you Ok?’ Rita asked. ‘I’ve found the passwords, I’ve found the passwords,’ Jenny repeated in emotional exhaustion.
Rita and Adam were round at Jenny’s house just before noon. ‘Right, we’ll leave Adam to it! I’ve plated up and prepared a roast dinner for him; he can shove it into your microwave when he’s hungry. I’m taking you out for a nice glass of wine to relax you then we’re going back to my place for a Sunday roast dinner. I’m not taking ‘no’ for an answer, get your coat on!’ Rita told Jenny, who was so drained by this time that she just did as she was told.
The hours ticked by, it was just after 7pm. Rita had made Jenny very welcome and that afternoon, along with Rita’s husband and old dad, Jenny enjoyed a scrumptious roast beef dinner. ‘I think I better be getting back home now, it’s not fair to Adam, he has to get up early to go back to university tomorrow morning.’ Jenny said. Just at that point Rita’s home phone rang. ‘Ok Adam, we’re on our way’ said Rita as she went to get their coats.
‘Adam’s found something very interesting,’ Rita told Jenny. ‘What is it?’ asked Jenny, although she really didn’t want to know because she dreaded any more bad news. ‘He wouldn’t say, he just asked me to bring you home!’ replied Rita. Jenny closed her eyes and sighed as if to say ‘here we go again, more debt!’
Jenny put her key in the lock and took a deep breath as she opened the door, ‘Ok Adam, give me the bad news, I’m hardened to it!’ she said as she entered the wee room where Adam was sitting. ‘Well I’m afraid there is lots of bad news,’ said Adam pointing to an A4 notepad where he had written down a list of company names and the amounts that Harry owed them. Jenny glanced at the notepad then turned on her heels in disgust to make for the door. ‘Hold on you haven’t seen everything yet, I have more information,’ Adam called after her. ‘I’ve seen enough!’ answered Jenny defiantly. ‘I really think you should see this, you will find it extremely interesting’ coaxed Adam. ‘What’s interesting about more debt that I have no means of paying off?’ answered Jenny. ‘I think you should have a look Jenny, Adam seems to think it’s important!’ said Rita. Jenny made her way through to the wee room again. ‘Right you might need to sit down for this!’ said Adam as he pulled a chair over for her. Jenny’s stomach churned like it had done so many times before in the past few weeks. Adam typed a few letters into the keyboard, ‘Right look at this website Jenny’. Jenny looked at the monitor, ‘the national lottery, so how much does Harry owe them?’ she asked Adam. ‘You can’t owe the national lottery, you pay up front to gamble’ answered Adam. ‘Ok he’s probably gambled thousands on a credit card and won a tenner, so what?’ answered the unconvincing Jenny. ‘Look at this figure at the top Jenny, what does it say?’ Adam smirked. Jenny peered at the monitor, ‘£3,800,000’ she answered, still not twigging. ‘Yes, that’s how much he’s won,’ laughed Adam. ‘What? Can’t be! Are you sure? You mean that Harry’s hit the jackpot? Oh my god, my wee mother must be up there looking after me, she always said behind every cloud there’s a silver lining!’ exclaimed Jenny, shaking and laughing out loud in disbelief.
By summer 2007 Jenny was living with her beautiful three month old daughter Nina in a wonderful detached house with a large landscaped garden in a small sleepy village near Loch Lomond. It had been concluded that Harry most likely had a heart attack in excitement when he discovered he had won the lottery. Jenny shuddered as she thought about the mess she made of her life in such a small space of time but in a weird sort of way she was grateful to Harry because without him she wouldn’t have her gorgeous daughter, or the luxurious house she now owned. Life had been a bumpy road for Jenny, she had learned the hard way in the past year and realised that she had a lucky escape but she was now witnessing sheer happiness. Jenny picked up her baby daughter and gave her a kiss and satisfying cuddle, she had everything she needed and her life was complete at last
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