HOODY AND HIS GYAL Number 1
Hard Times
By Nicholas Vaughan
The alarm went off at 7.30am Friday morning
Samantha went down to make herself a cup of tea and
popped her head in the front room. James was fast asleep
on the settee with the television still on. The word
“BLUE” was bouncing across the screen.
Samantha made herself a drink, got two biscuits from the
cupboard and crept back up the stairs to bed. She put the
television on to watch the news in her bedroom and dozed
off again.
Samantha woke in a panic and got dressed quickly. As she
walked to the bathroom, she noticed James on his computer
in the office. It was in the small bedroom in the front
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of their house. While James was looking through the
photos he had recently taken of a wedding; the alarm went
off on his mobile phone. He knew it was 10am, and he had
to get work.
James switched the computer off and pulled the door shut
to his office and went downstairs.
“What time will you be home tonight?” Samantha shouted
from the landing. “Why, are you checking up on me again?”
“NO! I just wondered what time to get your dinner ready
you miserable bastard!”
“I don’t know! I will let you know later!”
“Are you working?”
James looked up the stairs. “What the fuck do you think
I’m doing?”
He heard a mumble and then it went quiet for a few
seconds.
“Have you paid the Mortgage yet because they were on the
phone again yesterday?”
“I’ll sort it later!” James said as he turned to go.
“You do know it’s due again!” he heard.
“Yes of course I know it’s due. How the fuck can I forget
a £950 monthly payment?” James yelled back.
“Oh, and leave me some money on the side I have to go
shopping again!”
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“How much?” James shouted looking up the stairs again.
“Leave me £100. I am sick to death of shopping with a
bloody calculator!”
“£100!!?”
“Yes, I’m not standing in a queue at the check out
worrying if I will have to take stuff back to the shelf
because I haven’t got enough money to pay for it again!”
James threw £100 on the stairs begrudgingly.
“Oh, and by the way, are we having a drink tonight to
celebrate?”
“Celebrate what?”
“It’s 12 months today when we had the gas and electric
cut off!
“Not that one again. James said quietly and frowning.
“I still can’t believe you let them break into our house
with a locksmith while we were at work and fit two
payment meters!”
“I AM GOING!” James shouted.
“And another thing before you head off to where ever it
is you go! When are you going to do some work around this
house? It’s becoming a shit hole? It’s no good losing
interest just because you don’t know if the bailiffs will
remove the furniture and the mortgage company will
repossess it!”
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James grabbed his keys off the hook as the house phone
rang.
I’LL GET THAT!” Samantha screamed and ran down the
stairs.
“Hello…!” “I’m Samantha Sullivan, I’m not married…!” “Who
is this…?” “Yes, that right...!” “Oh, ye…!” “Who is our
mutual friend…?” Samantha thought for a while. “I’m Sorry
I don’t know anyone called Elizabeth Scott…!” “No, she
must be one of my customer’s friends...!” “When’s your
big day…?” “Ok, no problem and you say you want James to
do the photos…!” “How do you want your hair done?”
Samantha had a feeling this call wasn’t real and
started to get a bit fractious. Samantha turned and
glared at James. She was not happy! She realised
something was wrong. “Hold on, James is here; you can
talk to him about your photos!” Samantha threw the phone
at James. “She wants some pictures done, she has heard
about your long zoom apparently!” she said sarcastically.
James picked the phone up off the floor. “Hello…!”
“Yes… Yes… where…?” he asked.
Samantha walked into the kitchen and listened by the
door.
“I told you not to call me here!” James whispered.
Samantha’s eyes filled with tears as she grabbed her coat
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from the cupboard. Then she walked passed him in the hall
and out the house slamming the front door. James put the
phone down quickly, opened the front door and called out.
“Samantha… Sam… Sam come back we need to talk!” But she
kept walking with her head down. James closed the door
and walked back into the hall and sat on the bottom step
with his hands over his face. With a long sigh, he
thought about things and how hard they were. Money was
tight. James owed a considerable amount to different
people and companies. He looked up at a picture on the
wall of them both when they were in love some years back.
It was a picture of them together in high school. They
had been together for years, but things were not going
well at all between them.
He went back upstairs to his office again and sat at his
desk with his hands on his head. He looked at a pile of
opened bills to his left and some unopened ones on his
right. James clicked on to the computer. He looked at his
bank account with £139 credit and looked back at the
bills as his phone beeped. When he looked at his
messages, it was a new loan company offering him another
loan. But he knew he couldn’t get one from anywhere. He
had been down the route of internet loans and scams on
the computer several times.
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While he sat there in deep thought, James heard the front
door open and slammed shut. He quickly ran down the
stairs. Samantha stood at the front door still crying
with a hanky to her nose.
“You told me it was all over!” she said pointing at the
phone. Then she walked into the front room and sat on the
sofa.
“What you on about?” James said as he followed.
“I heard you when I was in the kitchen.”
James looked away. “Why does everything have to come down
to me having an affair?”
“DERR! It’s not like you haven’t been found shagging
other women in the past.
“It is all over! I have told her not to call me anymore.
I’ve changed my phone number three times. That’s why she
called here. No one will talk to her at work, and if her
number comes up on my work phone, I don’t answer it. You
said we could forget all that and move on!” James
shouted.
“But we’re not moving on, are we? We have no money. They
are about to have the house away from underneath us.
Bills are coming in faster than ever. We have no life no
friends. You have more Bailiff Friends than normal
friends. We haven’t been on holiday for years together.
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You sleep on the sofa all the time looking at naked women
on the television. You say you’re always at work and to
be honest I don’t see a lot of money coming in!” Sam
yelled back.
James glanced at her as he walked around the room. “Oh,
so it’s my fault! You piss about doing a couple of cuts a
week and think that’s enough. I can’t keep bringing in
the money we need; you will have to do a few more
haircuts!”
“I wondered when it would be my fault. You had a great
business until you slept with that fucking tramp. Her dad
gave you so much work!”
“I wondered when it would get back to her!”
“The car will be repossessed as well soon; I bet you
haven’t been paying for that either!” James shook his
head as it dropped.
“You have… haven’t you? You have been paying for your
black BMW cabriolet fucking dick extension yeah. I bet
you have paid for your car and Fuck the mortgage!”
“The car is a business expense!” James explained.
“Well get rid of it. The business isn’t earning enough
now you have shagged your best customer’s daughter.”
James didn’t stop to argue he grabbed his keys again and
stormed out the house. Samantha sat there sobbing into
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her hanky again. She cried for ages thinking about the
good times they’d had together, but if she was honest
with herself, she knew their school romance was rapidly
coming to an end.
After a while, Sam pulled herself together, finished
getting herself ready and walked to the shops. She bought
a few necessities and looked through the window of a
dress shop, but she knew she couldn’t have anything new.
When she was walking back, her phone rang. She put the
shopping bags on the floor by her side and searched her
pockets. “Hello…?” “Hi, Jean Philippe…” “No…!” “I can’t
I’ve told you …!” Samantha looked around giving the
proposal some consideration. “Fuck it.” She said under
her breath. “Yes…!” “Yes, I can come for a drink…!” “Pick
me up from the train station…!” “The one where we first
meet…!” “Say one hour…!” “See you then!”
With a slight smile on her face and a twinkle in her eye
she put her phone back in her pocket and glanced at her
watch. She picked up the shopping and hurried home. After
she put all the shopping away, she got changed into
something sexy. She soaked herself in the last bit of
channel number 5 she had and walked back up to the shops
and ordered a taxi.
As Samantha stood waiting she thought about James. It
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wasn’t long before the taxi pulled up.
“To the train station please!” she shouted to the driver
as she climbed in the back. Eventually, the taxi arrived
at the destination and pulled over. Samantha paid the
driver and looked around the car-park. She moved over and
stood by the entrance to the station. A black Range Rover
pulled into the car-park and sat waiting. Then the lights
flashed, and Samantha walked over and got in.
“Where would you like to go Sammy?” Jean Philippe said
with his French accent.
“Anywhere, just hurry up and drive!” Samantha shouted.
The Range Rover pulled away swiftly.
“What made you have a change of mind so suddenly when you
were on the phone, Sammy?”
“Things change, don’t they?”
“C’est tellement vrai, Sammy,” he said with a smile.
Samantha looked at him inquisitively as they drove out
into the country. They laughed and chatted about this and
that. Something Samantha hadn’t done for a long time.
They found a little pub by a canal. Jean Philippe got
some drinks, and they sat in the gardens with the sun
shining on them while they chatted some more and sipped
their wine. Samantha sat opposite Jean Philippe playing
with her glass on the table at first. Then she started
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wrapping her hair around her index finger and pulling it
over the side of her face while she talked incessantly
about nothing. Samantha was nervous and uneasy with the
situation. She kept looking around in case she recognised
someone. Her body language was scared and not at all
relaxed. She kept moving, crossing her legs then
uncrossing them. Samantha glanced around again expecting
to see someone she knew. She was very uncomfortable. She
jumped when a small cat walked by her feet under the
table. Samantha pulled her hair over get face again as a
barge went past slowly. She was quite happy to sit with
her elbows on the table and her hands on the side of her
face.
“Are you OK Sammy?” Jean Philippe asked as he placed his
wine glass down carefully.
“No not really!” She replied.
“Would you like to walk with me for a while?”
Samantha finished her drink quickly and stood up. Jean
Philippe held out his hand, and Samantha grabbed it. They
strolled along the towpath. Jean Philippe picked a red
rose from a garden and gave it to Samantha. She held it
to her nose smiling as they walked to a lock just passed
a small bridge. They kissed passionately leaning against
the wall, and Jean Philippe held her tight in his arms.
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They kissed more and more until he lifted her dress and
felt the top of her leg.
Samantha wasn’t pleased, and she pulled back. “No Jean
Philippe, it’s too soon!” she said pushing him away.
“I must apologise!” He said. “I have waited so long for
this moment. I have loved you for a very long time, as
you know?”
Samantha frowned at him and walked away. He grabbed her
arm.
“What is it, Sammy? Talk with me!”
She stopped and turned. “I’m sorry but things aren’t good
at home at the moment, and I don’t want to make them
worse!”
“OK, I’m sorry if I was misreading the signs. You are a
married woman, this I know! You ask me to pick you up at
a secret location. You get dressed in a lovely dress for
me. You let me take you out for a drink in the middle of
nowhere, and we walk hand in hand for a while. You even
let me kiss you passionately. Then you say no to a… how
do you English say? A little hanky-panky!”
“I’m sorry, maybe some other time!” Samantha said.
They slowly walked back to the car saying nothing.
They drove back, and Jean Philippe dropped Samantha off
close to her home. He said he would call again as she got
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out the car with tears rolling down her cheeks. Samantha
walked home clutching the rose that he’d given her. Her
world was upside down and didn’t know which way to turn.
Samantha sat in the kitchen for a while in a daze staring
at the rose. Then she decided to send Jean Philippe a
text;
"I’m sorry it’s not a good time at the moment. Another
day maybe, when things are better!"
She added two big kisses at the end sent it.
Samantha deleted the message and then she placed her
phone on the side and half-heartedly tried to cook a
dinner, but she knew James wouldn’t be home on time and
would probably be drunk and it would end up in the bin as
usual.
While she was standing by the sink peeling potatoes in a
trance her phone beeped. She read the message from Jean
Philippe.
"It’s OK Sammy, I will wait for you! I adore you as you
know. If I can help with anything, all you have to do is
ask. JP XX"
Just as she started to delete the message with a tear in
her eye, there was a loud knock on the front door.
Samantha put the phone on the side again and opened the
door. Two men stood in front of her. They held their ID
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up. “Hello I’m DSI Clews, and this is P.C Ashton. We are
looking for Mr Becket?”
“What’s happened?”
“Nothing we just need to talk to him! Is he in?”
“No he’s at work, can I help?”
“No Mrs Becket…!” they said looking at her.
“Sorry, I’m Samantha Sullivan were not married!”
Samantha was in a daydream worrying about her life that
was falling apart. She wasn’t listening to them talking
until they held a card up and said: “We will call back
tomorrow?”
PC Ashton looked at her “Are you, OK Miss?” Samantha
nodded, closed the door and went back into the kitchen
and sat down again. After a while, she realised moping
wasn’t going to help. Samantha picked herself up, had a
shower to wash off her perfume and got the dinner ready.
She laid the table and waited. Samantha picked at her
dinner, and James finally came home just after 7. He was
extremely quiet and seemed to be lost in thought with a
mobile phone in his hand that Sam didn’t recognise.
“The police have been here looking for you today.” She
said scraping the food off her plate into the bin. James
sat at the table pushing the rose to one side. There was
no reply.
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“Did you hear me?”
“Yes I heard you, some kids tried to break into the shop
again!”
“Are you OK?” she asked.
Still there was no answer.
“What’s that?” she asked as she placed his dinner on the
table in front of him and picked up the rose.
“This? It’s nothing.”
“Where did you get it?” Sam asked trying to make
conversation.
“It was on the floor, by my car!”
James played with his dinner still in a trance. Samantha
gave up trying to talk to him and went to bed to watch
the Television. She left him with a bottle of vodka and a
small glass on the table.
Hoody and His Gyal Story 2
“Hoody’s Delivery Gyal.”
Hoody sends His Gyal out on a delivery job and she meets
up with James from the first Story.