Meltdown (45 page)

‘Stupid arrogant answer!’ Henry shouted back.

‘So what about you, Jim?’ David asked. ‘What’s going to happen to you?’

‘I shall be broke, of course! Stony broke as I always am and no doubt in deep shit as I also always am. And that is why I’m insisting that we all promise to stick together, so I can come round and borrow money off all of you.’

‘Good answer!’ Rupert said.

‘The
right
answer!’ the others chorused.

Then Robbo returned from the toilet (having neglected to fasten his trousers).

‘Well, if we’re going to have a pact,’ he said, swaying badly, ‘we need a gesture! A symbol! A solemn ceremony of commitment!’

‘That’s right! We do!’ Jimmy shouted, knocking over his beer. ‘But what gesture? What symbol? What ceremony could possibly be solemn enough for such a monumental occasion as this?’

‘I know just the thing!’ Robbo replied triumphantly.

Lucky punt

Inspector Beaumont never pressed charges against Jimmy. His evidence was inconclusive, besides which his department were eventually able to build a case against Rupert without Jimmy’s testimony. The case, however, was tried in Lord Bennett’s absence because he had by that time absconded overseas.

Beatrice and his youngest child he left behind, penniless, but in a gesture of great generosity Amanda took responsibility for them, settling a small income on them both to be used until the child turned eighteen.

‘Don’t want my kids coming to me in ten years and saying that I let their sweet little half-brother starve. Life’s too fucking short,’ Amanda said.

Despite his protestations that teaching was a vocation, David got out of it the moment the property market began to move again and returned to architecture. But he would never again find himself in a position to pitch projects of the dizzying scale of his beloved Rainbow.

Lizzie found the strength to fight Tanner and eventually beat him, gaining her life insurance. More importantly, she established for herself and her children that Robbo had not deserted them.

Henry made a small media career out of his agonizing notoriety, writing jokey columns in the Sunday papers and appearing as a guest on satirical panel shows, where he was mercilessly bullied by smart Alec comedians who forced him to suffer endless jokes about receipts and hairdryers. He remains convinced to this day that he did absolutely nothing wrong.

Jimmy and Monica’s position remained very dodgy indeed. He wasn’t in prison, but apart from that everything was still very bleak. Bankruptcy and eviction continued to threaten.

Then their luck began once more to change.

First of all, their horse came in. Literally.

Jimmy was watching the news when the penny dropped. The Alabama Derby had just been run and in the process had produced two rare sporting curiosities. The first was that there was more money riding on the race than ever before. This was because the previous year’s race had been cancelled after a twister ravaged the state and various bets had been rolled over. The second curiosity was that for the first time in its history the least favoured horse had triumphed.

As Jimmy watched the footage of the unlikely horse passing the finishing line, every hair on his body seemed to stand up and pay attention.

He had a bet of fifty thousand pounds in gilts riding on that horse.

The bet had been scheduled to be placed on the longest shot at the next Alabama Derby. That derby had only just been run. A year late.

In the horrors of the previous year Jimmy had not noticed that the race had been cancelled. Later, when he did think about it, he had assumed that it
had
been run and that his horse, the longest shot, had not surprisingly failed to win.

Now he knew different.

As these thoughts were passing through his head, the phone rang. It was his bookmaker. They had not spoken for nearly two years but the man had good news.

When Jimmy had finished talking to him he called Monica into the kitchen and told her that a twenty-to-one outsider had won the Alabama Derby and that they were richer to the tune of approximately one million pounds.

‘My God! That’s brilliant news!’ Monica said.

‘It certainly is! We’re saved, Monica!’ Jimmy was almost stammering with excitement. ‘We can pay the interest on this house for ever now and property’s already recovering! In a year or two we can sell up and buy somewhere smaller and have a huge lump sum left over that we can—’

Monica stopped him.

‘What are you talking about, Jim?’ she asked.

‘What do you mean what am I talking about?’

‘I mean what are you talking about?’

‘I’m talking about the derby win, of course. Like you said, it’s brilliant news.’

‘Yes. It is. But not for us.’

‘Excuse me?’

‘That money isn’t ours.’

‘Pardon?’

‘You placed that bet for charity. We discussed it in this very kitchen. I remember. The money wasn’t ours then either, you’d got it from Rupert’s dodgy tip. That’s why we decided to donate it to charity. Don’t you remember?’

‘Well, yes . . . I
remember
but . . .’

‘Jimmy, there aren’t any buts. It isn’t ours. We decided. I thought that’s what we’d learned. About accepting the consequences of what we do? Good or bad. That’s what you said when you refused to turn in Rupert. That the whole recession happened because nobody acted according to their conscience any more but only to try to make a profit.’

Jimmy began to stammer a reply, but for the moment could find none.

‘So are you?’ Monica asked.

‘Am I what?’ Jimmy croaked.

‘Are you going to act on your conscience? The money isn’t ours, Jim. It really isn’t. Legally or morally.’

‘Yes, but
practically
 . . .’

‘Legally or morally, Jim. And just think of the good it could do. A million could change so many lives. Lives that are far worse than ours are, even now.’

Jimmy could scarcely believe it, to have the cup of happiness so cruelly dashed from his lips.

‘You really mean it, don’t you?’ Jimmy said.

‘Yes I do.’

‘You’re really not joking?’

‘No.’

Jimmy eyed her narrowly. A thought had occurred to him.

‘This is about Lillie, isn’t it?’ he said finally.

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Monica replied, but there was a second’s hesitation before she did so.

‘Yes you do,’ Jimmy said. ‘It’s your bloody superstitious nature! Of course it is! I remember you sitting where I’m sitting now, rubbing gunk into your tum and making the bloody connection in your mind between me doing a good deed and your bloody bump!’

‘Well,’ Monica said defiantly, ‘karma doesn’t go away, Jim. Luck doesn’t only last a day! For all the shit we’re going through, all our kids are healthy, thank God. That puts us so many trillion miles ahead of anyone whose kids aren’t and I’m not bloody messing with it, OK! We made a deal and Lillie turned out fine. We’re sticking to it. Besides which, as I keep saying, that money
isn’t ours
and it’s you that’s been banging on about conscience and consequences every time the financial news comes on. Well, face it, Jim, for once you acted on your conscience and here’s the consequence. We are giving a million quid to Asylum Action. All right?’

Jimmy’s mind was racing. Desperately looking for a way out. A compromise.

‘How about I can keep our initial investment? The price of the shares when I bought them in the first place, fifty thousand at ninety-eight pence? That would give us nearly fifty grand, which would be pretty—’

‘You did that, Jim! Don’t you remember? When we had this conversation the first time around. You took off your fifty K and only invested the profit. You can’t do it twice.’

Jimmy bit his lip. He ground his teeth.

She had him.

‘Fuck,’ he said.

Monica held Lillie to her and simply would not budge. So Jimmy Corby, jobless and debt-ridden, donated one million pounds to charity.

As Jimmy said at the time, fuck.

However, as it turned out, the lucky streak that began with the derby long shot had not finished.

The survival plan that Derek Corby had put into action worked. The willingness they had shown to the bank with the lump sum raised on the sale of the Discovery, plus the small standing order that Jimmy’s parents set up, held off the RLB repossession team until six months had elapsed and Jimmy was able to claim a small amount of mortgage relief. Shortly thereafter property prices finally began to revive as the newspapers started to run headlines about the recession being over. Jimmy knew that it wasn’t over, of course, but he was very happy that each day of false optimism reduced the level of his negative equity. Until eventually the value of the Notting Hill house rose once more to exceed the level of the debt Jimmy owed on it. The Corbys were solvent again, able to refund the mortgage relief and put the house on the market. The threat of bankruptcy finally lifted.

And it was just as they were preparing to move house that Monica sold the rights to
Troll Magic
. Henry’s Jane had helped her find a literary agent and despite the somewhat derivative storyline there had been a minor bidding war.

‘The point is we
want
Harry Potter imitators,’ the winning publisher had explained to Jimmy at the launch. ‘Quite frankly, the closer the better. Just one original hook is all we look for and trolls is fantastic!’

The advance was small but the sales were good and Monica started immediately on the sequel.

‘It’s year two of their apprenticeship,’ she explained excitedly, ‘and the three firm friends are in more trouble!’

Despite the family’s rapidly improving fortunes, Toby stayed on at Caterham Road. It was his choice. He did not want to leave his friends.

With the tentative lifting of the financial gloom, Jimmy was invited back to Mason Jervis but he declined the offer. His heart was no longer in it.

‘It’s a mindset,’ he explained to Monica. ‘To do that job you have to have the right attitude. You have to not care about the consequences. Imagine if you
did
! You’re trading years into the future, buying and selling crops that haven’t been and may never be grown, using money that doesn’t actually exist. If you started trying to work out the possible parameters, variables and consequences of that, where would you start? And not just for you and your firm. For the people involved down the line. The people who grow and make the stuff you’re playing with. The people who will one day eat it and wear it and try to heat their homes with it. Who will have to pay for it. Their kids. Their communities. Once you started thinking about it you’d go mad. Well, I’ve
been
there. I’ve
done
mad. I’m not going there again.’

Instead Jimmy recalled that the most satisfying job he’d ever had was trying to do up Number 23 Webb Street. He’d actually
enjoyed
doing that. Doing something real and tangible for the good of his family. So he began a joinery course, learning by coincidence under the same brilliant Romanian guy who in a different world had fitted the four locks in the big red door.

They began to see Jodie again from time to time as a family friend. She had married a cricketer, as it happened, although she reluctantly confessed he was an English one. Whenever AC/DC released another album she sent it to Toby.

Who had converted Korfa.

‘Oh YES,’ he said. ‘I LOVE my CLAssic AUSSie ROCK. It is so powerFUL.’

Monica was able to pay back Derek and Nora from her book earnings and to help them eventually exchange their small flat for the cottage they had always dreamed of. She was also able, with the help of the people at the
Big Issue
, to find out Bob’s second name. She traced his mother and organized a small memorial service.

In memory of a life that had not been lucky.

And in gratitude for her life and the lives of her family, which had.