Tilda was in serious shock at the amount of money her mother confessed to owing. It was simply huge. Surely there was some mistake or misunderstanding? She could not imagine how Beth could possibly have got into that much debt. Who would have loaned her perennially cash-strapped parent so much money? How on earth could anyone ever have believed that Beth might repay such a vast sum? She reminded herself that interest charges could be very steep and began to ask more pertinent questions in an effort to establish how and when such a debt had originated.

‘When did you take out the loan?’

Beth wiped at her reddened eyes, but did not look directly at her daughter. ‘Five years ago…but I’m not sure you could describe it as a loan.’

Tilda was astonished that her mother could have kept it a secret for so long. But she could remember very well how much of a struggle it had been back then just to put food on the table. She was simply bewildered by Beth’s uncertainty about whether or not she had taken out a loan. ‘Can I see the paperwork?’

The older woman scrambled up and went into the very depths of a cupboard from which she withdrew a plastic container. She shot her daughter a sheepish glance. ‘I’ve had to hide the letters so that you and your brothers and sisters didn’t see them and ask me what they were about.’

As a sizeable pile of letters was tipped out onto the table Tilda swallowed back a groan of disbelief. ‘How long is it since you were last able to make a payment?’

Pushing her short fair hair off her brow in a nervous gesture, Beth sent Tilda an uneasy look. ‘I’ve never made a payment-’

‘Never?’ Tilda interrupted in dismay.

‘There wasn’t the money at first and I thought that I would start making payments when things improved,’ the small blonde woman confided, shredding a tissue between her trembling hands. ‘But things never did improve enough. There was always a bill or someone needing new shoes or bus fares…or Christmas would come along and I hated disappointing the children. They would go without so much for the rest of the year.’