W. R. ARMSTRONG
THE HELP CLINIC
Copyright 2013 W R Armstrong
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
THE HELP CLINIC
“Where is this place? What am I doing here?”
“That’s what they all ask,” said the man sitting opposite Scott Markham. “Perfectly natural I suppose, given the circumstances.” Glancing at the mass of unfinished paperwork lying on his desk, he added, “Please, allow me to sign off this little lot and you’ll have my undivided attention, I promise.”
Scott sat there twiddling his thumbs, feeling confused and frustrated. He wanted to get up and walk out, but something stopped him: the uncertainty of his situation maybe. He hadn’t the foggiest idea what was going on. As a result, he felt like a lost child who’s wandered unwittingly into an alien world where nothing and no one makes any sense. It was a scary feeling. He’d just been called into the cramped office from the waiting area outside, presumably by the man in front of him, having spent the best part of God knows how long hanging around. And that was part of the problem, he really didn’t have a clue exactly how long he’d been there; it appeared he’d lost track of time since entering the place. It was all so confusing.
He cast his mind back to the moment he’d left the house that morning––sunny, he recalled it had been sunny––not surprising really, it was the middle of July, after all. As he’d reached the end of the garden path and stepped onto the pavement, he looked back over his shoulder and waved. Candice, framed in the doorway, waved back, smiling, looking lovely as usual: he was a very lucky man. What she saw in him, he really didn’t know. Short, stocky and balding with a noticeable paunch and not yet forty, he should be ashamed: get down the gym; get fit before it’s too late, he was forever urging himself. Trouble was, the conviction was lacking. Still, no one is perfect. Besides, Candice, she loved him despite his obvious faults, as did Gemma, his daughter, just turned three, a bit of a handful but beautiful all the same. Just like her mother. Yep, he was a lucky man all right. Gorgeous family, decent little job working in local government (the pay was crap, but the hours and conditions were good), nice tidy house, he had a lot to be thankful for.
So why had he gone and done it? Stupid, he’d been so stupid, getting himself mixed up with Jonas like he had, but he was desperate to get rid of the debt. It was so damn easy to get in over your head nowadays. So many people fell for the advertising bullshit they heard on the television and the radio and that came through the letterbox. Credit cards, bank loans, equity release schemes: so many varied and wonderful ways to get into deep water. Once upon a time, he’d been able to exercise control, limiting himself to the occasional flutter on the horses, a couple of quid here and there, and the odd lottery ticket or scratch card, but that was all. He’d never been what you could call a serious punter. But that all started to change when he’d got hooked on the internet. The internet was to blame for his predicament, he was certain. If it wasn’t for that, he’d still be a small-time player, but it made it so damn easy: gambling sites were everywhere, and they promised such huge rewards. The temptation was too great and he’d succumbed and got in way over his fat, balding head. Christ, it didn’t even seem like real money he was losing, it was like Monopoly money, so he’d carried on hoping to get lucky and win back what he’d lost, but the debt only got worse and he ended up getting banned from site after site. But so what, he’d thought, there were plenty more out there in cyber space.
Only it wasn’t that easy, as he’d soon discovered: the sites you owed money to didn’t simply disappear when they barred you from accessing them; they didn’t forget the debt and wipe the slate clean––hell no, they did what every other creditor did, they went after the debtor baying for blood. Pretty soon the demands started flooding in, in the form of e-mails and official warning letters, followed by unpleasant phone calls. Then came the final straw: court papers and threats of a visit from the bailiffs. What an awful, stinking mess. He’d so far managed to keep his guilty secret from Candice, but that would inevitably change and when it did, bang would go his beautiful marriage, to be replaced by certain ruination. Scott Markham, what have you gone and done?! How many times had he asked himself that question over the past few months? Countless times, that’s how many. Thousands, he owed thousands: tens of thousands, more than he could ever hope to pay back on his meagre income.
Then he’d met Jonas, through a man who knew a man; Jonas, who had promised to help him settle his debts, at least long enough to give him breathing space, and it had worked, for a while, but Jonas wasn’t lending him money out of the goodness of his heart, Christ no, Jonas expected a healthy return for his endeavours. Scott knew that much when he entered into the deal, he wasn’t entirely stupid, but he never expected Jonas to push the interest rate up to the level he had. No, he wasn’t entirely stupid, just stupidly naive. In the end it was a case of having to rob Peter to pay Paul, to pay Peter to pay Paul and so on and so forth; a vicious circle to be sure. The time was always going to come when the house of cards he’d unwittingly built would come tumbling down to bury him alive––he just never thought it would be so soon. Jonas had phoned him that morning, not long after he’d waved goodbye to his young wife and daughter, phoned him to call in the debt in its entirety.
“Give me more time,” Scott had pleaded into his mobile phone as he’d walked along the pavement to the train station.
“Two days,” Jonas had abruptly replied. “You got two days.”
“And if I can’t pay up?”
“Two days!” The line went dead.
Scott had continued his short journey to the train station on weak, shaky legs, feeling very much like a condemned man. It was over, he was finished. He was going to lose his marriage, his home, his career, even––he was an accountant by trade, and everyone knew accountants and bad debts didn’t go together. Moreover, he’d heard the rumours surrounding Jonas. The man was ruthless. He showed no mercy, and whilst he employed henchmen to dish out rough justice, he also enjoyed adding the personal touch: tooth and fingernail extraction, knee capping, but there was talk of worse, much worse. So this is to be my fate, Scott had thought fearfully as he stood on the train station platform that fateful morning: personal and financial ruin, or physical torture or both. Not much of a choice, when it came right down to it.
Now, as Scott sat in the tiny office waiting for the man opposite him to begin explaining what the hell was going on around here, he had another stab at trying to work out where he was, but it was useless. Seemed he’d developed a serious case of amnesia––from the stress, probably. His mind was trying to blank things out; a mental safety mechanism. Yeah, that was it. Scott studied the man more closely. He was distinguished, in his mid to late fifties with silver grey hair and intense blue eyes. He wore a dark blue suit, the jacket presently hanging over the back of his chair. It occurred to Scott that this man might possibly be a doctor, a psychiatrist, maybe, but why would he, Scott, find himself in the company of a shrink? Had he suffered some kind of breakdown, was that it, and been admitted to a psychiatric unit? It might go some way to explaining his confused state of mind, and the apparent amnesia. It was certainly possible: the waiting room he’d just vacated could have been a hospital waiting area, with its white windowless walls and cold sterile atmosphere.
There had been a hell of a lot of people in there at any one time: men, women, children, babies––all waiting, but for what? What exactly was this place? Scott inwardly castigated himself for lacking the presence of mind to make enquiries while he was in there, or at least ask the s
imple question: “Where the hell am I?” But he hadn’t thought to. Why was that, he wondered. The waiting area had given him the creeps. Deathly quiet, it had been. Come to think of it, he failed to recall anyone so much as speaking. Everyone sat perfectly still and waited. Didn’t even flick through magazines or read books, just sat there with what could only be described as an air of resignation. It was quite possibly how he himself had come across, now he came to think about it. A constant stream of people had entered that waiting area whilst he was present, but the numbers never varied, due to the fact that people exited into adjoining