The Nurse(14)

There were other photographs. All women, named and dated, going back years. The earliest was a mere two years after he’d married Mum. Girlfriends, lovers, mistresses? It appeared my charming father had cheated on his wife for almost all their married life.

I swept everything to the floor and reached for the contents of the second drawer. Neat files. Keeping his two homes emotionally separate, and fiscally together. They contained the details of our home, and the home he shared part-time with Olivia. He owned both… or rather the bank did. It took me only thirty minutes to go through everything and for the reality to hit me. He’d remortgaged our home four years before to fund the purchase of the second house. There were a couple of letters from the bank requesting he contact them regarding non-payment of the previous two months’ mortgage repayments. Credit card statements, several of them, were all in the red. Maths was my strong point, and it was easy to do a quick calculation in my head. My father was in serious financial difficulty… scratch that, we were in serious financial difficulty.

I sat back in the chair, sending it rocking. Money had to come from somewhere. We were in arrears on the mortgage, all the credit cards were maxed out. The private clinic would want payment for my mother’s care. I had to eat. All I could hope for was that my father had been sensible and had some form of life insurance. Plus, wouldn’t there be a payout from his job? He’d been with the same company for as long as I could remember.

It seemed sensible to give them a call and find out where we stood. The police had probably contacted them about the car. They’d know my father had died. I wouldn’t need to break that news.

I rummaged through the pile of papers I’d pushed aside and found the number of the company he’d worked for.

‘Hello,’ I said when the phone was answered by a cheery bright voice. ‘It’s Lissa McColl, Mark McColl’s daughter. I wanted to check that the police had told you about his death.’

The long hesitation wasn’t unexpected. The words that followed were. ‘Miss McColl, I’m so sorry for your loss but, no, I’m afraid the police haven’t been in touch.’

I was taken aback. ‘He was an employee of the company, driving one of your cars. I suppose I just assumed they’d have informed you.’

This time a deep sigh filled the hesitation. ‘I’m sorry, there isn’t an easy way to tell you this so I’m just going to get it out. Your father hasn’t worked here for several months.’





11





I put the phone down several minutes later, having learned more of the secrets my darling father had been hiding. The company had gone through a bad slump the previous year. Trying to claw their way back to profit, certain departments had been merged, and several employees were offered statutory redundancy. Perhaps they’d been given little choice but to accept. We’d never know because my father never told us. He accepted the redundancy and was given the car he was driving as a final thank you for his years of service.

The assistant had said the redundancy had been paid out the previous January. I hung up in the middle of her commiserations on the loss of my father and reached for the folder containing his bank statements. It took a few minutes to work back and find the deposit, running my finger down the column of figures and stopping at a larger sum. Larger but not large enough. This couldn’t be right… it was only a little over thirteen thousand pounds.

A quick internet search taught me the difference between the statutory redundancy he’d been offered and an employer’s redundancy scheme. Statutory redundancy was a miserable amount of money. It had been quickly swallowed by outstanding bills.

It was obvious from looking through the statement that my father hadn’t managed to get another job. There was no money being paid into his account, just regular money leaving for the dinners, days out, the indulgences he kept providing, refusing to admit to himself… and certainly to us… that he couldn’t afford them.

I’d have liked to have given up, to have shoved all the papers back into the broken drawers, willy-nilly. I wanted my carefree life back. The father I adored, not this pathetic lying, cheating failure. I wanted my mother – the neglectful or the indulgent one – either, both, any version of her as long as she came back and didn’t leave me here all alone.

Foolish thoughts. That life was over. I sat and went through every statement, item by item. Years of them. Hoping to find the one thing that might make things… not better, but maybe bearable… evidence my father had paid into some form of insurance policy. Because he had to have done, hadn’t he? He was a responsible adult, the father of a child, he’d have known he’d need to provide security in case the worst happened… the worst that did happen.

I relaxed when I found what I was looking for. A lying bigamous cheat he may have been, but he wasn’t stupid. I changed my mind when I read through the final several months’ statements. The premium hadn’t been paid. A frantic search through the final drawer brought the policy to light and it was as I’d feared, if consecutive premiums are missed, the policy ends.

No insurance policy.

No money to pay my mother’s medical bills. Perhaps she would be coming home soon. Doctor Brennan had promised someone from the clinic would ring to let me know how she was doing. That they hadn’t didn’t worry me unduly. It would take time to assess her and decide about treatment. Rather than ringing the clinic to speak to strangers, I rang the surgery and asked to speak to Dr Brennan. He was with a patient, and I was put on hold that lasted so long I was drifting off to sleep to the sound of ‘Evergreen’, jerking upright when the music stopped suddenly, and his deep voice rang down the line.