by Gill James
cold coffee
Gladys switched on the shredder. Why did the darned machine
keep overheating and keep stopping? She looked at the pile of papers still
sitting on the dining table. Would there ever be an end to it? The intention
had been, hadn't it, to do this every January and clear out anything over six
years old. She wished she'd done that.
Well, once this job was done she would be more disciplined. And perhaps it
wouldn't be so bad the next time. She received most bills and statements
electronically these days. Thank goodness. That might help to save the planet.
Who needed all this paper?
The papers were strange to touch.
They'd gone brittle. Presumably keeping them in a cold but dry garage had made
that happen. They hadn't burned to an ugly brown colour like her old paperback
books. It was almost as if they were coated in plastic. Was that what made the
machine keep overheating?
She counted out four more papers. The
manufacturers said that it would take eight at a time but it seemed to overheat
more quickly if you put in eight and as it took nearly an hour for the machine
to cool down again it was actually quicker if you only put in four papers at a
time. She fed them into the machine. It crunched and grunted and what looked
almost like smoke filtered out of a tiny hole between the cutters. Paper dust.
Better not breathe that in. Then came the familiar clunk that meant it was
shutting down. She touched the top. Yes, it was pretty hot. The bin was full
too. She busied herself emptying it and pulling the trapped slivers of paper
from between the blades. Hopefully the new shredder would come soon. Would she
get this all done before it was time to move?
An hour later, after much rummaging
through her wardrobe and deciding to throw away two thirds of its contents
Gladys sat down again at her machine. She picked up the next four papers. Store
card statements from nine years ago. Had she really had that many? And just
look at the amounts of money on them. Thousands of pounds. Just a little paid
off each month. She remembered the juggling. That awful day when all of their
bank cards stopped working. She'd tried to log on to Internet banking to
transfer some of her savings into the current account but all of her cards were
frozen. Somehow she'd managed to get petrol into the car - one card somewhere
must still have had credit on it. Later, she'd gone into a branch in another
town far away from home. It was soon sorted. There was enough in their savings
account to bring their current account back within its overdraft limit. But it
was still tight. It wouldn't be long before something similar happened again.
It was enormously satisfying so watch
the papers being shredded. That was all in the past now.
On the next batch she noticed she'd
been paying PPI. Scoundrels. At least now she'd got it all back and had used it
to help pay off her unsecured debts and in fact some of their mortgage.
"There you go," she
muttered to herself as the blades started crunching.
Just why had she needed all that?
Now, she hated shopping. She couldn't stand all that fiddling around in
changing rooms. She hated looking in the mirror and seeing how she'd aged. She
wore things now until they fell to pieces. She only fitted in a bit of clothes
shopping if she had to wait for a bus or if she got stuck at the airport. She
smiled to herself. There would be even less of that after they moved - eighteen
busses an hour would go between their home and the city centre. And Brexit
probably meant she wouldn't bother going abroad again.
She guessed the need to spend, spend,
spend had had something to do with her demanding job. She had had to compensate
for it somehow. Treat herself. Now, every day was a treat: a garden full of
birds, a walk along the river with the retired guide dog they had taken on and
interesting sessions with her local U3A group. It wasn't difficult finding the
five things to be grateful for each day. Her Buddhist friends had taught her
about that.
she was grateful for this shredder as
well, even if it was limping along. She was putting a questionable life behind
her.
It was sobering when she came to
letters about her properties. Failed mortgage repayments, but only once, thank
God, on their own home. Repossessions. Some of the properties sold off really
cheaply meaning she had to pay bills even though she was getting no income.
They should have tried harder, shouldn't they, to sell them for a reasonable
price? Does it really help anyone if they do this? How might it affect people
who needed to rent? Was there any point in making landlords bankrupt?
Thankfully this was all in the past.
She'd paid off those debts too and even got one of the properties back which
she'd now managed to sell and she'd paid the capital gains tax. All was in
order. She needn't look at that again. Into the shredder then.
Next came a County Court Judgement
for non-payment of a service charge on one of her flats. Hmm. The service
charges were scandalous. £2000 a year. That was the problem with flats and
leasehold in general. The leaseholder could do what they liked and you just had
to pay. What happened if you couldn't? Well,here was what happened. How would
those ex-council tenants manage? If she couldn't she didn't imagine they'd be
able to. A lump sum from one of her pensions had settled that bill nicely and
now it was more than five years since the judgement. Into the shredder, then.
Next came that annoying letter from a
solicitor. They were demanding £600 + for non-payment of £50 worth of ground
rent on a flat she owned - well at least paid a mortgage on. The person she'd
spoken to at the solicitor's office had been quite sympathetic.
"I've never been billed for
it," she'd said.
"Can you prove the ground rent
invoice was formerly sent to you home address rather than the property?"
the young woman had said. It seemed as if she'd had quite a few of these
queries. Solicitor and head landlord after a quick bit of cash? More
scoundrels.
She probably could have if she'd had
the time to go through the garage. In the end, she'd paid the bill. It had been
easier than taking the garage to pieces. And yes, as a result of the particular
decluttering exercise she was doing now she'd come across the evidence she'd
needed back then. Another reason to be tidier in the future.
Next in the pile were her late
father's papers. She should sort through those carefully anyway. A lot of them
are out of date now. But she should keep the death certificates and the copy of
his will.
He'd scribbled on his bills. She
noticed the handwriting getting more spidery as time went by. What happened to
the notebooks, she thought, the ones where they used to write things down that
he needed to know because they couldn't make him hear? Perhaps she'd find them
soon. They would make good reading, wouldn't they?
Ah yes. The bill for the nursing home
he stayed in whilst they took a week to move house. And then the bills that
kept on coming after he'd moved back in with them. It might have been funny if
it hadn't been so serious. Was there some other old gentleman sitting there?
Still? Had his relations forgotten him?
It had got sorted eventually, hadn't
it?
He smiled to herself as she
remembered the hankies, underpants and socks she had bought him all labelled
with the days of the week.
"So you know which ones to wear,
and so that you can figure out what day it is," she'd said.
Her husband had arrived that Friday
with her dad and the cat.
"They both snored all the way up
here," he said proudly.
"Where are his meds?" she
asked as they unpacked.
"What meds?"
Was that why they wanted to carry on
charging for her father because they still had his tablets in their drug
cabinet?
There's been a dash to the emergency
doctor to get a prescription. At least it had helped her to get to know the
area.
She heard her husband go to the door.
Yes, he was definitely taking delivery of a parcel. Seconds later the front
door closed and she could hear him dragging something across the hall.
"Here it is, then," he said
as he opened the door to the lounge.
"It looks sturdy enough."
"Shall I set it up?"
She nodded.
As he moved the old one out of the
way, plugged the new one in and switched it on she studied the next batch of
papers.
Yes it was getting lighter. Now the
monthly payments were going down. Statements were showing a surplus in the bank
at the end of the month. She remembered
conversations with the mortgage provider about "spare money".
"What's that?" he'd asked.
"Just what I have left at the
end of the month. I want to use it to pay off the mortgage."
"Must be nice," he'd
mumbled.
It was. But it was only because she'd
had help. There had been some painful conversations, then regular payments and
no interest.
Yes, it had been better for a few
years now.
And here she was shredding some of
the more respectable statements.
It didn't take long. The new machine
was much better than the other two they'd had. It gave a final clunk. The table
was now clear.
At that precise moment the phone
rang. She heard her husband go and
answer it. What might it be? She hoped it wasn't a problem with the new
house.
She held her breath as she waited for
him to finish.
She heard him put the receiver back
on its cradle. The he opened the lounge door slowly. He grinned. "We
complete on Friday," he said.
They were safe now.
They would soon be living in a house
that they owned.
She patted the new machine. Her old
life was now in shreds.
About the author
Publisher, writer, creative writing lecturer and editor of CafeLit, she likes finding the bizarre hidden beneath the veneer of everyday life.
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