Writing for Fun
July 2019
Cashflow - Sue Barker
The damp wallpaper has started to slide down the wall, just like an old lady’s stocking released from its suspender belt. How the mighty have fallen, the mean insistent voice chants inside my head. I sit here in the darkness and the panic is setting in again. I have drawn all the curtains and the heat and worry threaten to suck me down into the spiral of depression yet again. I am a fool; no-one would argue with that, certainly not me.
All those years ago when this all began I thought I was so clever, my wife always said I was brighter than all our friends, I wonder what she thinks now. What has led me down this path? I ask myself for the thousandth time. I do know the answer but if I admit it, even to myself I will never climb back out from this.
Well if I think back to the beginning I was probably only about 18. Not outstandingly good looking; but still able to charm the birds from the trees, well certainly the girls from my college. I never found it difficult to chat to people, I loved women; and they really fell under my spell. I had a different girl every week. I suppose you could have called me a charmer.
I also found I had a talent (or so I thought) for making money. I started off making a reasonable income from a dating website I designed for lonely pet lovers. It took a little while but the money came in and I was in clover. The girls came and went, casual sex was plentiful. By the time I was 25 I had made a quarter of a million and then I lost half of it. But the adrenaline rush was part of my daily life. By the end of the day would I be richer or poorer? I couldn’t get enough of it. Actually if I had only stayed single it probably wouldn’t have mattered too much either way. That was probably the start of my decline.
At 27 I was married to the gorgeous Eva; a figure envied by many; heads would turn wherever we went. She was beautiful but a little too innocent. She believed everything I told her. In her eyes I was magnificent. The money was starting to come in again, I had initiated an investment scheme, put everything I had in it and Eva’s parents had invested their life savings. They had a wonderful nest egg, George had worked for 40 years and had a golden handshake at the end; I was able to advise them where to invest it (my scheme obviously).
We had a very busy social life, holidays in the sun, a second home in France and life was good. We were very popular; were never short of invitations. While I was buying the drinks at the bar the topic often came around to how rich I was and skilled at making money. In fact many of our friends wanted to invest with me and become as successful as us.
Riding the crest of the wave was intoxicating but as with most things then came the crash. The recession hit and investments went through the floor. We lost everything, which actually wasn’t much as most of our life style was subsidised by credit cards. The hardest thing was explaining to Eva’s parents that their life savings had gone and that I could do nothing to help them. George actually cried and Judy wouldn’t speak to me again. She said that I had lured them with false promises; she called me a con man, amongst other choice names.
At the end of the year it had all gone and so had Eva. She wasn’t in it for the tough times, or so she said. She ran off with a millionaire she had met in St Tropez at our holiday home. Maybe she wasn’t a naive as I believed.
So here I sit in my hostel room, some might say I’m lucky to have a roof over my head at all. I look across the room and under the unmade bed I see something glinting. I get down low, trying not to have too much contact with the sticky, sour smelling carpet. I lean forward and there I find a £2 coin; a smile lifts the corner of my mouth. I take this as a sign that my luck is about to change. It’s just enough to have a punt at the bookies. Who knows my cash flow problem may soon be over.