Later, after I had got over the sobs, Louise joined us and told Brian about the temporary arrangements her department had made, making sure she and Brian swapped contact details. She didn’t stay too long but, shortly after she left, Brian asked for my house keys. He kissed me goodbye and promised to come back that afternoon when the kids were visiting.
Tom and Mel were delighted to see Uncle Brian and hugged him. Brian arranged with Pat to visit the children that evening so she invited him to have his evening meal with them.
When Pat took the kids back home Brian asked why I hadn’t come to him for help. He told me he had seen the pile of bills and final demands covering the coffee table at home. He had talked on the phone to Trish about my problems. She had agreed that he should settle all my outstanding bills so he had spent the morning writing cheques, and they both wanted us all to come and live with them. The basic idea was that they would employ me as their housekeeper – at a very generous salary – and it would be a permanent ‘live-in’ position for me and my family.
Let me tell you about my brother. Brian was five years my senior. He and his wife met at university and had built up a very successful IT systems design company. At first they did everything themselves, designing, installing and testing every system. It wasn’t long before pressure of work made it necessary for them to hire a couple of recent graduates whom they trained to their own exacting standards then assigned them together as a team.
‘Total customer satisfaction’ was the guarantee Trish and Brian took seriously and their business expanded by leaps and bounds as their reputation spread by word-of-mouth. Over the years they took on more staff as their business became national then international. Trish or Brian trained every member of the team personally and were ruthless with any signs of short-cutting or lack of total commitment to company standards.
At one stage they had bought a large rambling old house in the ribbon development between a city and small market town, turned part of the ground floor of the building into their business offices and lived in the rest. Eventually they had to open an office suite in the city so, apart from their studies, the ground floor once more became part of the home.
They had no children; I learned later they were both fertile but mutually incompatible, but in any case they hadn’t had time for a family with their commitment to business. The early years had them spending weeks away from home either as a team or separately, barely touching base before setting off for the next contract. At home they lived fairly frugally and had not developed much social life so they were now wealthy.
Brian took my hands in his and pleaded with me to bring the family and live with them. The relief from the great weight of my debts still had me feeling bemused and here was my brother inviting me to leave the slum, get away from Clive’s drug suppliers who still pestered me about his debts, get Tom away from the gang culture. To leave it all far behind and get paid for it! It seemed like a fairy godmother had waved her wand.