Introduction
Diary of a Debt Collector is published on Amazon Kindle and has some very good reviews. It's really a collection of stories based upon my wife's experiences as a Debt Collector in the North-East of England. It's written by me, based on her stories, hence the pen-name Kim Darby.
Diary of a Debt Collector
Copyright (c) 2011 Kim Darby
Chapter Two - Hot Property
Some people take life at 100mph. Me? I like to take things nice and slowly. Built for comfort not speed that's me. Alice Spring on the other hand is the former type of person and is well suited to her surname; she is a coiled spring, ready to go off at any moment. She and her partner Ivan are what I would call so-so customers. They blow hot and cold in terms of paying their debt, but you cannot fault them for entertainment value.
On a bleak winters day I pulled my car onto the pavement (highly illegal but everyone does it) outside Alice's rented house. Ivan has owed the company 100 pounds for what seems like a lifetime. If I'm lucky, today he may pay me 10p. It's not a lot but it keeps him out of our bad-debt list and that's something of an achievement for Ivan.
It's 10am and as the car engine idles and I check my books I notice Alice is outside the front door with a pile of rags and a large red can. It's an unusual sight, as Alice and Ivan do not usually surface until well past midday. I always call at 10am though, as I'm passing their house, just in case they're up and about. So to see her not only up but also a hive of activity is something of a novelty.
The area I'm in is bleak even on a sunny day. The entire estate is being knocked down and new houses are being built. A totally pointless exercise in many people's view as the people they move back in have no regard for council property. Within a year or so the rot will have set in and the vandals will be having a field day with the new bus shelters. The pubs will look like something out the Wild West and feral dogs, cats and children will patrol the street. However, as it is now, there is a vast wasteland where houses used to stand and in the middle of this, there is the odd street or two left. Alice and Ivan live in the middle house of one such street and theirs is the only house that is not boarded up. Across the street, all the houses are vacant and such is the apathy here, the council have not even bothered to board them up.
I opened the car door to be greeted by the raw wind and stepped out, slamming the door shut. Alice turned and watched me walking towards her. She doesn't acknowledge me, but carries on with what she is doing, which is ripping up the bundle of large rags she has piled beside her. Even odder is the fact that Alice is wearing brand new yellow marigold rubber gloves. Now I know Alice never does any cleaning in the house so this intrigues me.
"Hi Alice. It's bit late for spring cleaning don't you think?" I ask, a little too sarcastically.
Alice is bent almost double, ripping away at the rags and muttering to herself furiously. She manages to turn her head upward, quickly, to glare at me. Alice, I guess, is pissed off!
"Is Ivan in? Is he paying today?"
It's a simple couple of questions requiring a very simple couple of answers, probably "Yes" and "No" in that order. Instead Alice straightens up and glares at me again.
"In? In? Yes he's in. And yes he's going to pay!"
Alice then unscrews the stopper to the can and pours something on the rags. The smell is familiar. Alice then grabs the rags and stuffs them in the letterbox.
Now at the mention of the word pay, I'm standing with my book open in one hand and my other hand hovering over my bum-bag ready to pounce on any money offered.
Alice meanwhile has a lighter in her right hand and is busily setting fire to the rags in the letterbox.
"Petrol", I say to myself. That's what I could smell.
Suddenly the front door blazes into life and Alice and I, as one, take two steps backwards.
"Shouldn't you call the Fire Brigade Alice?" I ask. Not one of my brightest suggestions, as it's obvious that Alice would not want to call the Fire Brigade as she had started the fire.
"Hah," she shouts to the front bedroom window, "that will teach you, you bastard!" Alice is a small woman of mousy appearance. She is now hopping from one foot to the other with both arms half raised in front and her hands drooping down, giving her an almost uncanny likeness to a real mouse. At this point she turns to me with triumph in her eyes.
"This will teach him!"
"Teach him what?" I ask in all innocence.
"Teach him not to forget to record Star Trek, of course!" She says, looking at me as if I'm mad.
I decide at that point that I need to take a back seat in this situation. The door is well ablaze and Alice has obviously lost the plot. So, I wander to my car, call the Fire Brigade on my mobile and watch as people turn up to see the fun.
A voice to my right says. "Hello luv, what's Alice doing?"
I jump and turn at the same time. Ivan is standing there, hangdog expression, wispy grey hair with sad grey eyes, full of sleep. He has his pyjamas on and his tatty dressing gown over that and is clutching a newspaper and a bottle of milk. Ivan sees my eyes looking at the milk.
"Can't pay you, luv, used my last pennies on these." Ivan turns to view the inferno that is rapidly turning his home into a pile of soot. "I must say," he says with admiration in his voice, "it's unusual for Alice to be up so early."
And at that point somebody shouts run and everyone, en masse, runs to the other side of the road. I can see the reason too. Alice has left the petrol can next to the front door and it's not looking too happy. She remembered to put the lid back on and in so doing has created a bomb waiting to go off. And go off it did. We, the spectators, were already on the floor, which was a good job as windows broke behind us.
Alice is the first to stand up, signalling a sort of unofficial 'all clear' and most follow suit. As I hear the Fire Brigade sirens in the distance I watch as Ivan sidles up to Alice and put his left arm around her shoulder. I then wander over in the hope I may get a payment, but I'm not holding my breath.
Ivan squeezes Alice's shoulder. "Never mind luv, it could have been worse."
Alice stares up at him dumbly. "How could it have been worse?"
"Well," he shrugs, "at least I got my brother to record last nights Star Trek. That's something, isn't it?"
It's not every day you see a man in his night cloths running over waste ground clutching a milk bottle and newspaper, chased by a woman in her night cloths brandishing a burning length of wood.
