Chapter Text
“Hello, am I speaking to Serena Campbell? Good afternoon Ms Campbell, it’s Isabelle Firman, from Homes From Home. I’m afraid it’s bad news: Mr Jordan has given his notice to quit at the end of next month.”
Serena, frantically looking through a pile of folders for a file required urgently by the hospital’s legal team, had barely caught a word. “Jordan? Jordan who? I don’t know anyone called Jordan. Why on earth would I care if they’ve quit their job? Really, I haven’t got time for gossip and tittle tattle.”
There was a brief puzzled silence on the other end of the phone, and then an exclamation of understanding. “Oh - no, not his job - it’s Isabelle from the letting agency - Mr Jordan is your tenant? In your granny annexe? He’s advised us that he’ll be moving out at the end of April?”
Biting back an urge to snap, Are you asking me or telling me? Serena sighed. “Oh, that’s too bad. I mean that’s actually really very bad timing for me. Does he say why he’s leaving? Is there anything wrong with the flat? And I do wish you wouldn’t call it a granny annexe - it’s a small apartment for independent living. I have told you this before. I hope you don’t call it a granny annexe when you advertise it. What does he want, anyway - lower rent? A lick of paint? A new cooker?”
Unfazed by Serena’s bad temper, Isabelle soothed her. “Oh, no there’s nothing wrong with the apartment - he’s leaving Holby, moving up to Yorkshire, I believe. He’s given his two months’ notice and paid up until the end of April as per the tenancy agreement, but he’s actually leaving next week, so if we’re quick, we might be able to get a month of double rent for you. Though - the inspection report does indicate that it would benefit from redecoration throughout before you next let it out, if that’s what you choose to do.”
“Yorkshire? What on earth does he want to go there for? Oh, well, I suppose it can’t be helped. Look, hold fire before you advertise it again - I’ll see if I really need to let it out any more - it would so useful to have the extra space again now, and it’s such a bother having to deal with all the rental side of things.”
Isabelle, for whom this particular tenancy had been far more bother than Serena knew, held her peace, knowing better than to further antagonise the redoubtable Ms Campbell (for everyone at Homes From Home knew what it meant when a client file was marked with a red dot in the top right hand corner - Volatile, handle with care). She left Serena with a brief reminder of the end of tenancy process, including the requirement for her to release funds from the Tenancy Deposit Protection scheme once any deductions had been made for repairs and so on.
Hanging up, Serena gazed with mild despair at the pile of folders she still had to go through, and shook off the irritations of the phone call to resume her search. One little phrase stuck in her head, though. Tenancy Deposit Protection scheme. What on earth was that when it was at home?
***
It wasn’t until she got home that evening that she had time to process the phone call and its implications. She had eventually unearthed the required folder, but that had only been the start of a long rigmarole involving the legal team, several clinical colleagues and something of a dressing down from Henrik on the topic of record keeping and the storage of confidential data. She poured herself a large glass of something expensive, lowered herself wearily into her favourite armchair and put on Relaxing Classics at Seven, humming tunelessly along to the familiar, unchallenging music.
Picking up her phone, she flicked through several apps, checking her email, reading and instantly dismissing the news headlines, tutting at some indiscreet post of Elinor’s on Facebook, and sniggering at something equally indiscreet a favourite actor had tweeted. She ended up with her thumb hovering over her search app, remembering vaguely that there was something she had been meaning to look up. What was it? Something about the flat at the end of her garden, she thought. A deposit scheme. She opened the app and searched, then opened the result that looked most reputable, a gov.uk page. With a mounting sense of unease, she read:
“You must place your tenants’ deposit in a tenancy deposit protection (TDP) scheme… you or your letting agent must put your tenants’ deposit in the scheme within 30 days of getting it…”
Well, she remembered receiving the deposit all right: it had come in very handy for making sure Elinor had all the text books and equipment she needed for her college course at the time, whatever that had been - there had been so many that Serena could barely tell week to week what her wayward daughter was studying. She had dipped into the deposit as a sort of payday loan to herself - but with one thing and another, she had a horrible feeling that she had never paid it back to herself. A quick check on her banking app confirmed that the account she had labelled Granny Annexe (for in spite of her protestations to Isabelle, that was exactly what it was) was standing nearly empty.
She looked back at the government page. The schemes were there to avoid exactly this eventuality, she realised. How could she have known two years ago how financially demanding Elinor’s long succession of potential careers and consequent flip-flops between university courses would be? Or that she would be taking in the nephew that she didn’t even know she had? And of course, she couldn’t have known that Liam Jordan would be quitting her little apartment and leaving her high and dry. She knew it was unreasonable to be cross with him when it was she who had spent the deposit, but it was easier to direct her irritation at him rather than inwards, where it rightfully belonged.
Oh well, she thought. I’d better give Jonathan a call in the morning, dip into the old investment ISA again.
But when she phoned her financial advisor early the next day, he sounded positively stern with her.
“Serena, this account was always meant to be a long term savings plan, to supplement your pension, yet you’ve been draining it consistently over the last few years, despite all my advice to the contrary. The odd few thousand here and there soon adds up, you know.”
“Well, yes, of course it does, but I’m only withdrawing a thousand or so - oh, here we are, one thousand two hundred pounds, less whatever deductions for damages and so on.”
There was a moment’s hesitation, then Jonathan’s voice came wearily down the line. “Serena, do you ever read the statements I’ve been sending you? Do you even open them? You say ‘only’ twelve hundred pounds, but that’s more than is in your ISA now. The well has run dry.”
Serena was shocked. “What? It can’t have done! I put something like eighty thousand in there after the divorce!”
“Yes, and you’ve taken more than that out again - any interest you might have accrued is long gone, and your current balance is a little under eight hundred pounds. I have been warning you about this for several years, you know.”
A silence stretched out for long seconds, before Serena said in a small voice, “What do I do now? I have to find twelve hundred pounds by the time the tenant quits, and if the flat’s standing empty for any time after that - well, I'm screwed, aren’t I?”
Jonathan sighed again. “Look, Serena - I think it’s time you came in to the office and we had a proper look at your finances, and make a plan to get you back on track. I’m going to advance you the sum you need for the deposit, on the condition that you set aside a day to spend drawing up a budget and savings plan to replenish the ISA. I’ll help you, but you’ll need to be prepared to make some sacrifices, as will your daughter - I know she’s helped you run the account down, and it’s time to draw some firmer lines. Deal?”
“Deal! Oh, Jonathan, I can't thank you enough. I’ll be better, I promise. Let me have a look at my shifts and I’ll send you my availability - you’re right, I think I need to start Personal Finance for Dummies as soon as possible.”
***
“Engine been growling or whining?”
Bernie was glad of the distraction. She had been scowling at her phone which had pinged a moment or two earlier with a message from Marcus asking her how it was going. Shitting hell, I’ve only been here five minutes - just get off my case, will you? she muttered to herself. She had already started furiously tapping the same message back to him, when she noticed an attractive woman in a long cardigan (that Bernie thought did her no favours) berating her car, or her mechanic - she couldn’t quite make out the finer points, but she got the gist.
Her own mechanical prowess was enough to diagnose the problem but not treat it, but she was glad to have made the acquaintance of one Serena Campbell. She had been so friendly and open that it seemed like a positive omen for her stint as a locum here at Holby City, and glancing back down to her phone, she saw the message that she had started typing in resentment, and pondering it for just a moment, she repurposed it. Shift going great, she replied. Well, so far, it was.
By the time she left at the end of that first, oddly tense day, the little green car was gone - fixed or towed, she couldn’t tell. Her hand reached automatically for her pocket before she remembered that she had given away her last cigarette, and she blew out a frustrated huff of a laugh. Serena Campbell had called it “a bit pants” as a symbol of independence anyway, and she was right. Bernie hoped their paths would cross again - that little exchange had been the brightest moment of her day.
***
“I’d so hoped that this would be the last time I’d have to let the flat out - it would be so useful to be able to have Jason over from time to time without Robbie feeling as though we can’t... relax together, if you know what I mean.”
No-one would ever dare to suggest that Serena could whine, as such, but there was a truculence in her voice that made Donna smile behind the patient file she was carrying.
“You really need to rent it out? Mr Hanssen doesn’t pay his senior staff well enough, is that it?”
Shooting her a look that clearly said don’t push your luck, Serena shook her head and waved a hand dismissively. “I have no complaints about my salary, and I wouldn’t dream of voicing it in front of my staff if I had. No, I’m well aware I’m at the top of my pay grade after all this time, but it’s not quite as simple as that, unfortunately. When I divorced my disappointment of an ex-husband, I was determined to stay in the house - I’d worked bloody hard to get that place, and it’s the house Elinor grew up in - but the only way I could keep it was to re-mortgage - I couldn’t keep up the payments on just my own salary. I could kick myself now, but at the time, an interest only mortgage seemed like quite an enticing proposition.”
Donna’s expression said it all. “You didn’t?”
“I’m very much afraid that I did. But I wasn’t stupid - I’d been saving like billy-o ever since, and I had a nice little pot put away to pay off the capital when the time came - but then my mother became ill, and I couldn’t bear to put her into a home - we visited a few, and there was nowhere I felt happy leaving her, so I built the flat, and that pretty much wiped out what I’d saved to repay the mortgage. So - lodgers it is for the foreseeable future, alas. Well, tenants.”
“Must be strange,” Donna mused, “having people living in your back garden. Do they have to come through the house to get to the flat?”
“Oh, heavens, no! What an awful thought. No, there’s a separate entrance - it’s not even on the same street - the door to the flat is round the corner from my own front door. I wanted Mum to have a certain amount of independence, then after she - well, later on when I let it out for the first time, I put a fence across the bottom of the garden to provide a bit of privacy. It's always worked well as an arrangement - I never see hide nor hair of them.”
Donna, who had been diligently sorting through the filing cabinet as they chatted, stopped in confusion. “You never see them? Don’t you go round with the rent book?”
“The rent book?” Serena laughed. “It’s not Rising Damp, Donna, things have moved on a bit from that. The agency deals with all that side of things. I doubt they even know their landlady lives at the end of their garden, to be honest - I told the agency I wanted to be completely hands-off, and they’ve never needed to get me involved.”
Slotting the last of the files into its place, Donna turned and leaned against the cabinet. “So you’re advertising for a new tenant, then? I can ask around the nurses if you like, there’s usually someone or other looking for accommodation?”
Serena smiled warmly at her. “That’s very kind of you, Donna, but my financial advisor has suggested I smarten the place up and raise the rent - he thinks I ought to be able to pretty much double it if I make a few changes. I suspect it will be out of the price range for most of the nurses. And I don’t know that I want to come home at night knowing that one of my colleagues is just the other side of the fence. I suppose it would suit a young professional, or perhaps someone who just needs to be in Holby Monday to Friday.”
“Fair enough.” Donna smiled at her. “You’ll be getting an interior designer in then, I suppose, tart it up a bit?”
With a sigh more dramatic than the situation really merited, Serena shook her head. “I wish! No, Jonathan’s been very clear about my budget, and it doesn’t stretch to getting a specialist in. I’m going to have a busy old time once the current incumbent moves out - I’ll be doing it all myself, unless you know of anyone who’d do it for a box of chocolates and a bottle of Shiraz,” she said glumly.
Serena looked so dejected that Donna only hesitated for the briefest of moments. “Someone with champagne tastes but cider wages?” She smiled at her boss, a twinkle in her eye. “Someone who got used to the high life and has learned to fake it on a nurse’s wages, say?”
The puzzled look on Serena’s face gave way to hopefulness. “Oh, Donna - do you mean it? Would you really help me upgrade it? I’d be so grateful.”
“Help you pimp your crib? Serena, if there’s one thing I enjoy more than spending money, it’s spending someone else’s - and I know where all the best bargains are to be had. We’ll have it looking like a penthouse suite in no time.”