A Woman’s Fortune. Josephine Cox

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      Evie shared the attic bedroom with her grandma. It was hot as hell that night, as if all the heat from the street and the scullery and the kitchen had wafted up into the room and lingered there still. It was dark outside, although the moon was bright in the clear sky. Sue was lying on her back on top of her bed, her head propped up high on a pillow and with the bedclothes folded neatly on the floor at its foot. She was snoring loudly. Evie thought she looked like an island – like a vast landmass such as she’d seen in the school atlas – and Sue’s swollen feet, which Evie could just see in the dark, looked enormous, being both long and very wide. Poor Gran, thought Evie, it must be a trial carrying all that weight on your bones in this weather.

      It was Sue’s snoring that had woken Evie and now she was wide awake and too hot to get back to sleep. The bed seemed to be gaining heat as she lay there and the rucked-up sheet was creased and scratchy. Lying awake and uncomfortable, Evie thought of the weaselly stranger she had seen earlier, how Dad had swerved her questions and obviously didn’t want her to know anything about the man. He’d more or less admitted it was a secret from Mum, too, and therefore from Grandma.

      I bet it’s about money, Evie thought.

      Her dad had a job at the brewery loading drays and doing general maintenance. She had long ago realised that it wasn’t very well paid. Despite Jeanie’s scrimping and all the doing without, though, Dad didn’t seem to care. He just carried on going for a drink or three, and enjoying what he called ‘a little flutter’ on the dogs or the horses. ‘You have to place the bet to have the dream of winning,’ he had explained to Evie. ‘A few pounds is the price of the dream.’ Sometimes he did win. Mostly he didn’t.

      The laundry helped to support them. For someone so old – she was sixty-three and didn’t care who knew it – Grandma Sue was full of go, always trying to think of ways to improve the little business. She offered mending and alterations, and had found new customers away from the immediate neighbourhood – people with a bit more to spend on the extra service.

      Enterprise, Mary Sullivan had called it. ‘Everyone admires your gran,’ Mary had said. ‘She doesn’t sit around being old, she gets on with it.’ Evie had to agree that Grandma Sue was amazing.

      Evie looked at her now, lying on her back, snoring like billy-o, and grinned.

      Getting up silently, Evie went to stand in front of the open sash window, desperate for a breath of cool fresh air. The rooftops of the houses opposite were visible but, from where she stood, there was no one in sight in the street. She lingered, breathing deeply of the hot, sooty air, leaning out and turning her head to try to catch any breeze.

      Then she heard the echoing sound of approaching uneven footsteps and recognised her father coming down the street, weaving slightly, not hurrying at all, although it must be very late as he was the only person in sight. But – no, there was another man. Evie hadn’t heard him, but suddenly the man was right there, outside the house. She leaned out further to see who had waylaid her father; it was the man she’d seen earlier. In the quiet of the night their voices drifted up to her, and her heart sank. Something was not right.

      ‘I told Mr Hopkins what you said and he isn’t prepared to wait that long,’ growled the stranger. ‘He wants his money now.’

      ‘And I told you I don’t have it,’ Michael said. ‘I’ll pay him what I owe, I promise, but I need more time.’

      ‘Mr Hopkins says you’ve had long enough. He’ll be charging the usual rates from now.’

      ‘Please, I can get it all by next month. I just need a bit longer to get sorted, that’s all.’

      ‘I’ll be sorting you out if Mr Hopkins doesn’t see his money soon,’ snarled the man, leaning in close. Evie felt hot all over, the beginnings of panic flipping her stomach.

      ‘Next week, then,’ she heard her father pleading. ‘I’ll get it by the end of next week. C’mon now, I can’t say fairer than that.’ He tried for a friendly tone, a man-to-man kind of banter, but Mr Hopkins’ man was not to be charmed from his purpose.

      ‘Next week it is, then,’ he said, ‘but there’ll be interest, too, don’t forget. You should have paid up straight away, Carter. It’s going to cost you more now. I’ll be back to collect what you owe. All of it, and the interest. And if you don’t pay – and I mean every pound of the debt – I wouldn’t want to be in your shoes. You won’t be able to talk your way out of it with Mr Hopkins. Let this be fair warning to you.’ It was a dark warning.

      The stranger seemed to melt away in the darkness, and Evie slowly sank down to the floor beside the window. She had a sense of trouble. Oh dear God, every pound. Dad owed Mr Hopkins pounds! And he had only until the end of next week to pay. And tomorrow was Friday already. How on earth had Dad got himself into that kind of mess? It couldn’t be a bad bet on the horses. That might have wiped out his wages but wouldn’t have led to such a debt, surely. Maybe this Mr Hopkins was a moneylender. Oh good grief, this was serious …

      She sat numbly thinking about pounds of debt for a while, then got up stiffly and crept back to bed. Sue’s snoring had subsided, thank heaven, and she was blissfully asleep. Evie lay down and tried to work through the situation in her head. Who else knew? No one, she guessed.

      Evie wished that she didn’t know, and her father’s secret was so terrible that she couldn’t unburden herself by sharing it with anyone, especially when her mum and grandma were so tired after working all hours doing laundry. She didn’t want to worry them until she knew what was going on and how bad things were. First she’d have to confront Dad and see what he had to say, though she didn’t hold out much hope of getting a straight answer. She’d already tried asking about the stranger and he’d pretended there wasn’t anything wrong. No doubt he’d try to fob her off with some tale when she questioned him about what she’d overheard …