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CHILD SUPPORT
After working for Combined Mercantile Agency for three years, and having my full mercantile licence for two, I struck out at twenty-six and set up my own collection agency. Although I’ve never been a big one for structure or rules, after a mix up with the husband of my first client that ended in me being chased naked through the streets of Newport by two of his brothers and an Alsatian, I’d drawn up my ‘do not get involved with a client’ rule.
And it was only six months later that I was tempted to break my rule for the first time and I admit that if I hadn’t needed the money, I probably would have knocked Judy Nixon back as a client, and asked her out instead.
Two weeks off being twenty-one, Judy was the quintessential all-Aussie woman. Tall, slim, suntanned with long blond hair that hung down to her waist and curves in all the right places, she oozed the type of sexuality that made every man between eighteen and eighty take a second glance, and sometimes a third.
The sort of woman who it was hard to say no to.
And I hadn’t.
But, as I sat opposite her across her desk, and waited for her to finish her long winded phone call, I wish I had.
‘So, Jack,’ she said with a broad smile, when she had put down the receiver. ‘Did you find my deadbeat father?’
Once upon a time, confident, direct women were the exception to the rule, but something about the way she was sitting and tapping her pen on the desk told me she was trying too hard to be in control, over compensating for something.
‘I’m sorry, Miss Nixon,’ I replied. ‘But I’m a debt collector, not the missing person’s department. You only employed me to get what you were owed.’ I pulled an envelope from my inside jacket pocket, held it up for her to see and put it on the desk. ‘And that’s what I did.’
She glanced down at the envelope and then back up at me. ‘I don’t understand, Jack,’ she told me, leaning forward to display her breasts more provocatively. ‘We were getting along so well. You would have had to find my father to get him to pay you, so why won’t you just tell me?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘Why do you want to know?’ I asked her. ‘I thought you were only interested in making sure that you got what’s yours. Isn’t that what you said? That you wanted me to get what you deserved?’
Judy put the pen down and looked at me over her steepled fingers. ‘That’s right,’ she answered coolly. ‘My father is a bastard. He used to beat my mother. He left her when I was six months old and he took everything they had saved. We were left with nothing and she never got paid a single cent of child support. Mom never wanted to talk about him, and I didn’t want to upset her with it while she was still alive. But all the drinking she did to try to forget the beatings he gave her destroyed her liver, and now that she’s gone, I decided to do something about it. For her and for me.’
I’d touched a raw nerve, something I seemed to be doing with people more and more regularly, but as my grandmother used to tell me, you may as well be hung for a sheep as a lamb. ‘Still,’ I said. ‘Seventy-five thousand dollars seems like a lot.’
‘It isn’t,’ she corrected me as one perfectly manicured hand moved to the mouse in front of her and she clicked on it. ‘As a matter of fact, he’s getting off cheap.’ She turned the computer screen around with the other hand so that I could see it the elaborate Excel chart she had brought up. ‘See? It’s half of the money he left with and child support for eighteen years plus interest, no more. I haven’t included things like money for school excursions, or clothes, or birthday and Christmas presents, or any of the other things a father normally buys for his daughter.’
‘Right,’ I nodded. ‘But didn’t you tell me that your mother got remarried to a cop? Didn’t he give you all those sorts of things? Or couldn’t he get over the fact that you weren’t really his child?’
Judy’s nostrils flared at the suggestion. ‘Geoffrey treated me wonderfully,’ she snapped. ‘He even keeps a photo of him holding me on my first birthday in his wallet. He always made me feel like I was his own daughter. We’re still very close.’
I nodded and wondered how close they really were if she called him ‘Geoff’ and not ‘Dad’. ‘You and your mother were very lucky then,’ I noted.
Judy’s eyebrows furrowed. ‘What do you mean?’
‘Just that,’ I told her. ‘If Geoff was there for your first birthday, he and your mother must have met not long after your father left. It must have made it a lot easier for her than being a single mother.’
‘Yes, sort of,’ Judy replied quietly.
‘Sort of?’ I repeated.
She looked down at her hands and I thought she was going to pick at one of the long, shiny, red nails, but she stopped herself. ‘Well, he spent a lot of time with us and would stay over occasionally,’ she explained. ‘But he didn’t marry mum and move in until I was about two.’
I gave her a half smile. ‘Didn’t want to live in sin, eh?’
Judy avoided my eyes. ‘No,’ she told me. ‘He had to wait for his divorce to be finalised. He was still married when he met my mother.’
‘Right,’ I said slowly. ‘And you’re sure that he met your mother after your father left, not before?’
Judy rolled her eyes. ‘Yes,’ she nodded. ‘I’m sure. My mother must have told me the story a thousand times when I was a little girl. She met Geoffrey when she went to report my father missing after he’d been gone for a week, and she was so upset that he took her out for coffee to cheer her up.’
I smiled at her again as I stood up, but my heart wasn’t in it. ‘Nice story,’ I said. ‘Something to tell your grandkids.’
‘You don’t believe me!’ Judy exclaimed. She rose to her feet and slammed both hands on her desk, leaning toward me angrily, but somehow appearing more fragile and defensive than before. ‘Why?’ she demanded.
‘Because there are always two sides to every story,’ I replied. ‘It’s not always black and white.’
She swayed back as if I’d slapped her face, then glared at me. ‘You’re defending him?’ she gasped. ‘You’re defending my father? How dare you! What did he say about my mother? What lies did he tell you?’
I shrugged my shoulders. ‘I don’t know whether he told me the truth or not,’ I admitted. ‘But he told me a whole different story to the one you’ve been told, and if you want me to tell you, I will. But I’ve done my job, and I don’t need to cop attitude from you. I’m just the messenger, remember?’
She took a deep breath, and then another, and slowly calmed down. ‘Okay,’ she agreed as she sat back down and forced a smile. ‘Please. Sit back down. I promise I’ll be civil.’
‘You might be civil, but you won’t be happy,’ I warned her as I took my seat.
Now it was her turn to shrug her shoulders. ‘Probably,’ she agreed. ‘But I’m used to it. My father’s been a disappointment to me my entire life. So tell me, what sort of story did he make up to make himself look better?’
‘The way he tells it, he never laid a hand on your mother,’ I explained. ‘He says that when she found out she was pregnant with you, she didn’t want to face it. She started drinking and going out late when he was on the night shift and she’d leave you at home by yourself. That’s how she really met Geoffrey. He let her off when she was DUI and they started seeing each other. Your father found out one night when he came home early, and he walked in on your mother and Geoffrey hard at it.’
I could see that she wanted to interrupt, to deny everything that I’d said, but I could also see that the logical part of her mind was struggling to find a flaw in her father’s story. ‘Like you said, Jack,’ she said calmly. ‘Nice story, but there’s no proof it’s the way he says. Even if it was true, even if he didn’t love my mother anymore, it still doesn’t explain how he could just walk away and forget about his daughter.’
‘According to your father, he didn’t have any choice,’ I continued. ‘He tried to throw Geoffrey out, but while they were fighting, your mother got knocked down and broke her arm. Geoffrey couldn’t let anyone know that he was having an affair, so he threatened to charge your father with assaulting your mother and with assaulting a police officer unless he disappeared.’ I sighed and shook my head. ‘It was very convenient actually. It meant that your father was out of the way permanently, and Geoffrey and your mother could get married.’
Judy rolled her eyes again. ‘Still no proof, Jack,’ she said. ‘Just the ranting of a sad old man. Lies, lies and more lies.’
I rose from the chair again and nodded once. ‘If you say so, Miss Nixon,’ I conceded. ‘But he had no reason to lie to me. He was lying in a bed in Calvary Hospital at the time.’
Judy’s face dropped. ‘Calvary Hospital?’ she asked. ‘But that’s the palliative care hospital, isn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ I nodded. ‘Your father was riddled with cancer. He knew he was going to die. That’s why he had no reason to lie to me.’
‘Was?’ she said with a trembling lip.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Was. Your father passed away yesterday, a few hours after I spoke with him.’ I pointed at the envelope on her desk. ‘That’s a copy of his will. By the date on it, he must have written it not long after he left your mother. You’re the sole beneficiary. You’re going to end up with a lot more than your seventy-five grand.’ I turned and walked to the door, then paused with my hand on the handle. ‘Do you still think he was a lying bastard now?’
Tears started to stream down her face. ‘Oh God,’ she moaned. ‘My whole life has been a lie. He really loved me, didn’t he?’
‘The last thing he told me was to tell you he did,’ I told her. ‘So, I suppose he did.’
‘Oh God,’ she moaned again. ‘What am I going to do?’
I shrugged. ‘I don’t know what you’re going to do about Geoffrey, or how you feel about your mother,’ I said. ‘But on Tuesday, you’re coming to your father’s funeral with me to pay your respects. It’s the least you can do.’
‘Thank you, Jack,’ she said softly. ‘Thank you.’
And on Tuesday we went to the funeral. We stood, and sat, and knelt in all the appropriate places, and shook hands with people we had never met, and listened to stories of a man neither of us had really known. By the time we left the wake, Judy seemed more at ease and we went back to her apartment where we made love until the sun came up and then never saw each other again.
So, maybe I did break my rule about getting involved with clients after all. But then again, as my grandmother always used to tell me, rules are meant to be broken.
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MONEY CAN’T BUY YOU LOVE
Although I saw the punch coming, with my arms tied to the chair, there wasn’t much that I could do about it. I turned and ducked my head at the last moment. It saved my nose from being broken yet again, but his fist hit me just above the left eye, splitting my eyebrow.
‘Is that the best you can do?’ I asked as blood started to run down my face. ‘You hit like a girl.’
Brian hit me again then, but I tucked my chin into my chest and there was a loud snapping sound as one of his fingers broke against my forehead. Although my head was pounding, I grinned up at him. ‘Can’t even do that right, can you, Brian?’ I asked.
‘Mr Grange!’ Simone Bailey screamed, her eyes wide with fear as she looked from me to her ex-husband and back again. ‘Don’t make him angrier. Please!’
But it was too late. He shouted with rage and came at me, but luckily he was an overweight, small-businessman, and not a boxer. He flailed wildly, the blows glancing off my head and shoulders without really doing any damage. I laughed up at him, trying to enrage him even more, and it worked. He swung at me so wildly that he overbalanced, and as he fell on me, I thrust my weight backward, tipping the chair over.
Brian Bailey wasn’t a little man. He had to have ten centimetres in height, and somewhere between twenty and thirty kilos on me at least. He landed hard, knocking the wind out of me and stunning me, taking the opportunity to punch at my head and chest with both fists. But our combined weight had proven too much for the old wooden chair, and it had broken apart as when we had hit the floor. Although I was still tied to the chair arms, they were no longer attached to the rest of the chair, and I swung up instinctively, hitting him against the side of the head with one of them.
The blow didn’t have any real power, but his ear was squashed between his head and the wooden chair arm and he howled in pain, grabbing at it with both hands. The whole right side of his face was left exposed, and I hit him in the jaw with the other chair arm, twisting my body as I did to throw him off me.
He fell sideways, still holding his ear, and lashed out at me with one of his cement covered work boots as he hit the floor. He struck me in the side of the stomach and as I gasped for breath the boot struck again, this time connecting with my hip, sending pain shooting down my leg to my foot.
He stumbled to his feet using the table for support as I struggled to get my arms free of the rope and he sneered down at me. ‘You Bastard!’ he screamed, swinging another kick at me. ‘You’ve spoilt everything!’
I rolled away from him, slipping my right arm from the now loose ropes, letting the arm of the chair drop into my hand. He followed me, and when he pulled his foot back to kick again, I used the chair arm as a club, smashing it into his other knee. He collapsed to the ground, almost landing on me again and clutching at his knee.
I crawled on top of him, knelt across his chest, pinning him on his back, and put the chair arm across his throat, using both hands to push down hard. His face slowly turned red as he thrashed about under me, trying to push me off, but eventually he began to gasp for air and his blows started to lose their strength.
‘Jesus, Brian!’ I shouted at him. ‘You’re beaten, give it a rest.’
‘Stop it! You’re killing him!’ Simone screeched. She charged across the room, swinging her handbag in front of her, and when she got to us, she started to beat me in the back of the head with it. ‘Let! Him! Go!’ she demanded, striking me after each word.
‘Stop hitting me!’ I yelled back at her, putting up one arm to stop the assault. ‘I’m on your side, remember?’
But the distraction gave Brian time to take a deep breath, and then he punched upward, hitting me under the chin, knocking me off him. We both got to our feet, and I waved the chair arm at him to keep him at bay, but he charged at me anyway. He bent low, coming at me like a rugby tackle and his shoulder hit me square in the ribs. His momentum pushed me backward, slamming me into the wall with such force that I bounced off it straight back at him.
We collided head on, but with his extra height, my own head stuck the bridge of his nose, breaking it with a mushy, cracking sound. He reeled back, his hands flying to his face as blood spurted and I followed him, pushing his chest as he reached the debris from the chair, and he tripped, going down heavily.
Simone stepped between us and waved the handbag threateningly. ‘Leave him alone, you thug!’ She yelled.
‘Okay, Mrs Bailey,’ I agreed. I held up one hand in a pacifying gesture and made a show of dropping the chair arm to the floor. ‘But you don’t hit me with your handbag anymore, okay?’
She looked down at it and started to turn red with embarrassment. ‘I’m sorry, Mr Grange,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what got into me.’
‘Jack,’ I told her as I wiped the blood over my eye. ‘Call me Jack, Mrs Bailey. Everyone does.’
‘I’m sorry, Jack,’ she corrected herself as she knelt down beside Brian and ran her fingers through his hair. ‘But when Brian called me over and I found you knocked out and tied up, I realised that he thought you were my boyfriend. He only did it because he was jealous and that means he still loves me.’
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and started to count. I’d dated a psychology major recently, and although the relationship didn’t last, some of her advice was proving useful. I opened my eyes and forced a smile. ‘That’s nice,’ I said between gritted teeth. ‘And let me guess. Next you’re going to tell me that you still love him, aren’t you?’
She bit her lip and nodded her head. ‘Yes,’ she agreed. ‘When you started beating him up, I just knew.’
I raised one finger. ‘In my defence, I was tied up, and he had been beating the crap out of me,’ I reminded her.
‘But you’re used to it,’ she countered. ‘You’re a debt collector.’
I shook my head. Sometimes I wondered if clients had any idea at all about what we actually did to collect their money. I certainly hadn’t expected Brian to hit me when I knocked at his door to serve Simone’s legal notices on him.
‘I suppose this means that you don’t want to go through with getting your money off him then?’ I asked, not knowing why I bothered. She was looking at him the same way all women look at their prince charming, and he was looking up at her like she was the only woman in the world and I doubt whether either of them heard me. ‘I’ll just let myself out,’ I told them.
My hip gave me trouble for a few days, the bruises eventually faded and two weeks later, I got a hand written apology note from Simone along with a cheque to cover my fee and more besides. Not enough to make the whole experience worth doing again, mind you, but it was money for nothing, so I couldn’t really complain.
So maybe the Beatles were right. Maybe money can’t buy you love after all.
