Losing You Read Online Free PDF Page A

might be months, but most of us live in this parish, for heaven’s sake. You’d think they’d try to help us through our rough patch, but no, apparently it can’t be done. The vicar assures me he feels really terrible about it, but it’s no longer in his hands, he’s simply carrying out orders from on high. I asked if he meant God and if he did then what had happened to suffering the little children to come unto me.’
    Emma choked on a laugh. ‘I bet that went down well.’
    Polly’s smile was weak. ‘He gave me one of his withery, vicarish, looks that I think was supposed to tell me thatI’m not nearly as funny as I think I am, and maybe I’d like to mend my ways by coming to church on Sunday. Instead, I took myself off to see my father-in-law, who as you know does my yearly accounts, and so he delivers the crushing no-brainer – if my clients don’t pay their bills, I can’t pay mine.’
    ‘So why aren’t they paying?’
    ‘Why do you think? This bloody recession, and they’ve got to know, all these parents who keep ringing me up, that I can’t go on running my business as if it’s a flaming charity for ever. I mean, I feel sorry for them, obviously, it’s terrible to lose your job, or to have your hours and pay cut, and if you don’t give your kids to a minder how are you going to find more work, or hang on to the bit you still have? I swear I understand their problems, but they have to try and see it from my point of view too. The last thing I want is to find myself refusing to take little Cathy or Brett until the bill is settled, but that’s what’s been happening. I’ve even had to physically push some mothers out of the door, or run after them down the street with their baby bawling in my arms saying I can’t take him until she pays. Honest to God, I’m turning into the person everyone loves most to hate, and when those that do pay find out I no longer have any premises they’ll probably whisk their little darlings out of my grasp faster than you can say what’s the name of that other nursery, the one that won this year? Give me some more wine, please, or just hand me the bottle.’
    Dutifully refilling both their glasses, Emma picked up the newspaper she’d knocked to the floor, as she said, ‘I wish I could offer to help, and honestly I would, if I weren’t ...’
    ‘Don’t even think it. I know you’re as strapped as I am, and anyway it’s not your responsibility. It’s mine. And if I had any sense in my head I’d have made it clear as soon as the first bill wasn’t paid that I don’t do credit, but hey, what do I do instead? I say, oh never mind Mrs Must-have-a-career or Mr Single-parent, or Sir Benevolent of Brokesville, I’m sure it’ll all work out, just you leave little Christie or Fabio with me and pick them up at your usual time. Well,I’m afraid that can’t happen any more. From the end of this week Polly’s Playtime will have gone the same way as Polly’s bloody business sense, straight down the pan and all the way out to drown in the sea.’
    Having been in virtually the same position when the businesses she’d catered for around Brentford and Isleworth had started going under, Emma couldn’t have felt more empathetic. ‘Pol, we have to do something,’ she decided. ‘Maybe if I lend you a few hundred ...’
    ‘Please, don’t even think it. Banks are for lending money, not friends.’
    ‘And if you can get a loan out of any one of them right now you’ll make headlines.’
    ‘True, but we have to face it, they need every penny they charge us for our accounts and everything else to pay out all those multimillion-pound bonuses and inflated salaries. So, come on, it’s wrong of us to expect them to put us, the customer, the taxpayer, the people who bailed them out of their shit, first. Whatever will we think of next? No, I just have to accept that the only way out of this mess for me is to remortgage the house, if I can, but even if it does turn out to be