"Here he comes now."
The sudden urgency in my husband's voice startled me for a second. I stopped scrolling through the social media site on my mobile phone and looked up to see Kevin staring out through the front windscreen of our car.
"Where?" I asked, peering over the top of my glasses and squinting my eyes as I leaned forward in my seat to take a look.
"Over there," he pointed with his finger, "just coming out of the solicitor's office now; down the steps. Surely you can see him?"
"Oh yeah, I see him now. He doesn't seem to have changed much." Even from this distance he looked slightly unkempt. "He does seem quite sprightly though," I added as I saw him almost skip down the steps and out onto the pavement.
"You'd probably be sprightly too if you'd just inherited the amount of money he has!" I could sense the envy in Kevin's voice. "Bastard!" he spat out.
"Kevin," I scolded him, "there's no need for that!"
He didn't answer but continued to stare out through the windscreen, seemingly lost in thought, his eyes following his Uncle George until he finally disappeared from view.
"Still; don't let that fool you," he finally said, turning to face me, "he may look okay but don't forget he's already had that heart attack and triple bypass surgery in the last year, and then he fell and broke his arm, so his health can't be that rosy. It can't be good for your body, you know, all those operations. Surely it's got to take it's toll!"
I sensed Kev was desperately seeking assurances that his master plan was going to work. Fine for him; seeing as it was me that had to implement it!
"Yeah, I suppose ... but I'm still not sure this is a good idea."
Kevin's eyes narrowed and I knew this conversation was far from over. It had been our only topic of conversation for days; weeks even.
"Oh not again; not now," Kevin snapped at me angrily. "Come on Heidi, we've gone through this time and time again and you've agreed with me that it's a good idea. So why the negativity?"
"No, YOU think it's a good idea, not me!" I scowled back, hesitating for a second, slightly irked by the condescending way he'd said my name. "And I'm not being negative. It's just a lot to ask, that's all."
He let out a big sigh of exasperated disappointment. "Oh for fuck's sake!"
He started up the car and we drove home in silence. But I knew we were going to talk about it again when we got home.
And we did. Kevin opened a bottle of wine and got me pissed, which made it easy for him to eventually get his way and talk me into it all over again.
* * *
I guess at this point I should go back to the beginning and explain how we arrived at our present situation. I'll start with the basics.
My name is Heidi Stokes. Okay, actually it's not. That was my maiden name. My married name is Postlethwaite. The same as the British actor, the late, great Pete Postlethwaite OBE. But sadly although I loved Pete as an actor, I hate the name. It's too long, too Northern and people seem to struggle to spell it correctly. I probably should have kept my own name, you know like the celebrities do after they get married.
Anyway, I'm thirty six years of age, nearly thirty seven and I've been married to Kevin Postlethwaite for twelve years. Kev's a bit older than me, he's nearly forty four. There's just the two of use, we've no children. It's not that we can't have kids or that we made a conscious decision not to have any. We just never seemed to get around to it and all of a sudden my biological clock had ticked past it's best before date and was well on the way to it's use by date as well.
I know, I know; some of you will be saying that nowadays women have children well into their forties, but I was pretty sure my change of life was coming early. My mood swings had been much more pronounced recently, especially where Kevin was concerned. He was certainly managing to piss me off a lot lately!
It had all started a few months ago. Times were hard and we were desperately short of money. The bills had piled up and if we weren't careful we could be out on the streets soon with nowhere to go. Kevin was at his wits end trying to make our money stretch but as we continued to sink deeper and deeper into the mire he became more and more morose. His depression about our state of affairs was made worse as he complained bitterly at the amount of money I continued to spend; mainly on me. To say the least it had made our relationship somewhat strained.
But his mood lifted briefly one day when he heard through the grapevine that his Uncle George was about to inherit a substantial amount of money. How the news got out we never did discover. We certainly hadn't seen much of Uncle George over the last few years, in fact the last time had been at Kevin's mother's funeral. Sadly all of Kevin's family from both sides had now passed leaving George as the sole surviving relative to Kev.
Now ever since I've known Uncle George he's been a randy old bugger. Whenever there had been a family get together in the past he always made a beeline for me. From the very first time we met he seemed to take a fancy to my body and took every opportunity to squeeze up against me, either to rub his crotch up against my ass or try and cop a feel of my boobs. Of course I complained to Kevin about his Uncle's unwanted attention and his apparent lust for my body but he just made light of it. He didn't seem bothered at all about my concerns so in the end I took matters into my own hands and just became very adept at avoiding him.
I don't know why he fancies me so much. It's not that I'm that pretty, in fact I'm not even attractive although according to Kevin, when I get the right amount of makeup on I can look sexy and desirable. I think he only says that because he thinks he's going to get some! My face is a bit angular, with high cheekbones and a long Greek nose. My lips are full and are probably my best feature after my brown eyes. My hair is naturally a light brown colour but I have blonde and copper coloured streaks and highlights in it at the moment. Lengthwise it comes down to rest just below my shoulders. I like it. My hairdresser did a good job.
But it's my body I guess that Uncle George likes the most. And why not, there's a lot to like. I'm 5'7" tall and weigh in at 175lbs and with measurements of 36F-28-38 I'm a fairly big unit. According to the charts that means I should fit into UK size 12 clothes. Ha ... no chance!
I think there's a saying that goes, 'I'm actually a size 12 but a 14's so comfortable I wear a 16!' Well that certainly applies to me as I struggle to get clothes that fit correctly. I sometimes think I'm a perfect size 13 or 15. If only the clothing manufacturers would make odd sizes! But that's why I bought expensive clothes. They seem to fit better than cheaper makes. Well that was my reasoning and how I justified my excessive spending to Kevin!
For his part, he's always appeared to be happy with my shape although I admit my weight has fluctuated a bit over the years. But I always curve in all the right places so it isn't all bad. Plus my ass is still fairly tight and my boobs don't sag much. No wonder Uncle George was always trying to feel me up.
Anyway, news of the inheritance came as a shock to say the least and it took a bit of digging before Kevin was able to piece all the bits of information together. It had come out of the blue but it seemed that some long forgotten relative whom we had never heard of had died without making a will. A professional firm of will hunters had picked up on the case and had eventually tracked Uncle George down having made the familial link.
Apparently it was a seriously large amount of money and according to Kevin it hardly seemed fair for one old man to have so much when we needed some so badly. Of course Kevin had reached out to his Uncle and asked if he could help us out of our predicament and when that failed even asked if we could borrow some money and we would pay him back with interest. That too was refused out of hand.
That didn't go down too well with Kev especially when Uncle George finished off his refusal by trotting out that trite quotation from Hamlet; "neither a lender nor a borrower be!" Understandably he was furious with his Uncle, calling him a pretentious wanker and even stating that if he'd had a gun he would have shot him because if he was dead it would put an end to all our worries!
But out of that stupid, flippant remark a seed of an idea was planted in Kevin's mind. A couple of days later he sat me down with a bottle of wine to lay out his master plan. The conversation as I recall went something along these lines
...
"Heidi; you know that I'm Uncle George's last remaining relative, don't you?"