If I thought I’d get away with things, I’d be a lot more devious than I am. But I never do, so there’s no point thinking about it. Even at school, when we’d all try to stay indoors at lunchtime when it was cold, some nun would find me, standing on a toilet (no feet under the door, see?) and turf me out into the freezing air. There’d be 20 other girls on 20 other cisterns, but I seemed to give off some kind of vapour or gas. Either that, or they’d implanted me early with some kind of tracking device. Resistance – and hiding - was futile.
So I was doomed to be the one who always did my homework and never mitched off school; not because I was a goody-goody, but because that was my way of taking one for the team…in advance. If I tried anything, even as minor as passing a note, I got caught and took anyone else involved down with me. Not by telling on them; never. I didn’t need to. The person in authority would somehow sense it off me. The worst bit was that this all went against my rebellious nature. I was still a rebel, but a shit rebel – doing what I was told so I’d stay under their radar and they’d leave me alone. It was horrible, I tells ya. Horrible.
As a consequence, I’m a very bad liar. I could never be a spy because I wouldn’t crumble under torture. Nope, they wouldn’t even have to torture me, they’d somewhow glean all the info they needed from that certain je ne sais quoi I have about me. And if they had a roomful of 20 people to choose from, that’s right, I’d be the one they’d pick. I am the random victim of choice. The one-in-a-thousand people who gets audited? Me. Within a year of becoming self-employed. The very rare small business (thanks for the compliment, I must dust off the loom) that gets picked for submitting every movement and detail to the National Statistics Office? Me. The “we don’t believe you’re flatmates; we think you’re cohabiting” suspects, even though the dole officer never even called round? Me. (And my very annoyed flatmate, Dublin, 1991.)
When my fiancé moved in this year, the first thing we did was alert the council to the fact, so that we could pay them more lovely tax than my single-person’s rate. We’re getting married. He knows about me and my necessarily unshady past. There would have been no point in even trying to get a sneaky month in.
Last night, I noticed a brightly-coloured notice sticking out of the post-box. “Brightly-coloured!” I thought, “That must be something lovely!” I unfolded it with great abandon. Imagine my fucking heart-stopping terror when I saw the words “Bailiff” “Non-payment of council-tax” “24 hours” and “seizure of goods and chattels”, all on the same red page. I’ve never even had a red bill. I thought I was dying of fright. Scary enough that it seemed someone was suggesting that this property was not on the correct tax band, or that that tax had gone unpaid; worse, that I haven’t had any chattels since the Middle Ages and I wouldn’t even have them in the house now.
One semi-hysterical call to fiancé later…sorry, fully hysterical.. and he was on the phone to his ex-roommate. Turns out that someone prior to their tenancy at his old address had left council tax unpaid for years. The same chattelsy letter had been sent to the current tenants. Why? Because my fiancé and his ex-roomate had given the right names/ addresses/ changes of circumstances and so been ripe for the following. Bloody hell. One more brief phonecall to the Bailiff (of Nottingham – gotta be) and it was all sorted. In fact, the previous tenant’s name came up and someone at the Seizures Office* actually went “Ohhhhh…him.” And it was all fine. But I was still getting all hot & cold and scaredy, until fell asleep on the floor. (*Seizures Office is what I’ll always call it now. I know I had at least one in the kitchen.)
It was a good lesson for my fiancé. If he’d been planning that small moonshine business (to complement my fictitious loom) or to set up the counterfeit ring he’d always dreamed of, there would be no point. I would be caught for it, even if it were nothing to do with me. Or him. There are footprints on a toilet in a convent somewhere that say so.
