by Nikki Smith
My mobile buzzes again and I take it out of my pocket and glance at the screen. Two messages.
Why didn’t you tell me?
Why the fuck aren’t you answering my texts?
‘That’ll be lovely,’ I say, my face flushed. ‘Thank you. When was it again?’ My phone starts to ring and Katherine stares at me. ‘Sorry,’ I say, ‘I . . . I need to get this.’ I take the call, pressing the phone into my ear so she can’t hear what he says.
‘Why aren’t you answering me?’
‘I’ve just bumped into Katherine. She was telling me about the get-together Simon’s organised.’
‘You should be at work,’ he says, hanging up.
‘Yes, see you later,’ I say into the silence on the other end of the phone. I put my mobile into my bag and turn towards Katherine. ‘He’s really looking forward to it,’ I say.
She smiles. ‘Great. Next Wednesday. Anytime from seven?’
I half walk, half jog the short distance into work, the present heavy in the bottom of the gift bag the sales assistant has given me, checking my messages before I walk inside, but my phone screen is blank. He’ll be able to see where I am, but that doesn’t ease the dread that swills around in the pit of my stomach, rising in waves whenever I think about it. Jo looks up briefly as I walk past her office and I hesitate, wondering whether to go in.
‘I’m finishing the month-end accounts,’ she says, staring back at her PC screen, making the decision for me. I hover in the doorway.
‘I thought we could talk about what Mum said yesterday.’
The crease between her eyebrows deepens. ‘I don’t think there’s anything to discuss. You made it clear you want to sell Dad’s business. Where you work.’
‘Jo, I –’
She cuts me off. ‘It’s fine, Caroline.’ She wrinkles her nose in the way she used to do when she was younger, a way of denying she was upset when I’d irritated her. She thinks I’m siding with our mother but she doesn’t understand I don’t have a choice. ‘I really need to finish these,’ she continues, her tone of voice making it clear that there’s no point in trying to have a conversation with her at the moment.
When I get home, he steps out from behind the kitchen door and I almost drop Livvi’s present in shock.
‘Got you.’ He smiles.
I hesitate, my heart thumping from the rush of adrenaline before I smile back, putting the bag down on the counter. ‘Did you win your match?’
He nods. ‘Thrashed him. I wanted to surprise you.’ He’s speaking louder than usual, buoyed up by excitement. There was a time he’d have lifted me off my feet to hug me, but he hasn’t done that for years. I stay a few feet away, just out of his reach, as he glances at the bag. ‘What have you bought?’ he asks.
‘A Sylvanian family set. For Livvi’s birthday,’ I say.
‘Have you got the receipt?’ he asks. I fish around in my purse, relieved I remembered to keep it, and he examines it as he gulps down a large glass of water.
‘Thirty quid? For some bits of plastic?’
I nod.
He screws up the piece of paper and throws it in the bin. ‘Lucky she’s my favourite niece, isn’t it?’
I don’t reply. He’s stating the truth. He gets on so much better with Livvi than with Grace. Perhaps it’s because he’s had the opportunity to spend more time with her than with Grace whilst she was younger. He says it’s because Grace takes after her mother and Jo has never liked him.
‘Make sure you answer your phone straight away next time,’ he adds. ‘I need to be able to get hold of you.’
He walks up to me and I freeze as he puts his hands on my shoulders, sliding them up slowly so they’re pressing uncomfortably round my neck. I remind myself I used to crave this physical contact and try not to think about how much things have changed. He stares directly into my eyes before he leans forward and kisses me, his tongue insistent between my lips. I stand quite still, forcing myself not to pull away, his beard abrasive against my skin. He smiles as he peels himself off and lowers his hands. ‘I worry if I don’t know where you are,’ he says, ‘in case something bad happens to you.’
I talked to you a lot this week. You don’t realise it yet but we’re really getting to know one another. Almost all our conversations are inside my head, but that doesn’t matter for now. Do you ever do that? I doubt it. I think you’re the kind of person who lives firmly in the real world. We talk about lots of things, you and I. I make you laugh, which I think is important. You told me about that time when you fell off your bike when you were little and scraped your finger which is how you ended up with that scar. You said your brother had pushed you, a lie to get your mother’s attention, a secret you hadn’t shared with anyone else. I don’t hold it against you. I don’t think you noticed that I pick the skin at the side of my nails when I’m nervous. I watched your face carefully when we were chatting and you didn’t make any of those sideways glances that people do when they try to pretend they haven’t seen it when, really, they have. Sometimes I smile at you, and when you smile back it’s like we’re sharing a private joke, but then I remember what I’m thinking about never actually happened, so that can’t be the case at all. In my head you’re like a piece of Plasticine that I can mould into the person I want you to be, but it’s not as easy to do that in real life. I’ll just have to find a way to make it happen.
TUESDAY
Jo
‘Come on, Grace. Get your shoes on. We need to leave.’ She’s sitting on the bottom of the stairs, fiddling with her laces. She stares at me and, for a moment, I think she’s going to say something, but then she turns away and picks up her school rucksack. She’s been so quiet since Dad died. Even before that, now I think back. I’m going to have to ask Paul to try to talk to her, as all my attempts to find the right words have failed. She refuses to discuss how she’s feeling and I don’t want to force her, in case it drives her further away.
Livvi’s already waiting. I check I’ve turned off all the lights and that Buddy’s shut in the utility room before ushering the girls out of the front door. Livvi walks over to the car and I point my keys towards it, unlocking the boot so she can put her bag inside. I look behind me to see that Grace has stopped. She’s standing motionless halfway down the drive, staring back at the house.
‘Grace?’ I shout. ‘Come on. We’re going to be late.’ I can hear the buzz of the traffic at the end of the road telling me the school-run rush hour has started and twist my wedding ring round on my finger, impatient for her to move. She turns towards me in slow motion, her face drained of colour. ‘What is it?’ I ask. ‘Are you OK?’ She hesitates, then suddenly runs towards the car, her shoes barely touching the gravel. ‘Slow down!’ I shout. ‘You’ll trip over.’ She holds onto my wrist when she reaches me, her grip so hard it’s uncomfortable.
‘There was someone at the window,’ she whispers and I can hear the fear in her voice.
‘Maybe it was Daddy,’ Livvi says.
‘He’s already left,’ I say. ‘He had a meeting early this morning. Stay there.’ I unpeel Grace’s hand and walk back up the drive, the noise of the dry gravel crunching under my feet. Pressing my face against the pane of glass I look inside. The hall is empty and the kitchen door is pulled shut, just as we left it.
‘There’s no one here, Grace. You can come and see if you want.’ She shakes her head. I’m beginning to wonder if Dad’s death has affected her more deeply than either Paul or I have realised. I turn away from the window, the blurred circle of condensation from my breath in the centre of the pane of glass already starting to fade as I walk back to the car. Grace climbs into the back seat and I shut the door, looking back at the house, holding my hand up to my forehead as I squint against the sun. I pause, unsure for a moment if I imagine the shadow that flickers across the hall before telling myself I’m being paranoid. I reverse down the drive, forcing myself to concentrate on where I’m going.
Grace stares out of the window and doesn’t say a word for the ent
ire journey. As I pull up at the school gates, she hesitates, not opening her door.
‘You’re seeing Auntie Caroline today, aren’t you?’ she asks.
‘Yes. And Grandma.’ I glance at the clock. Still enough time to get to the solicitor’s.
‘Are they coming back to our house after your meeting?’
‘I doubt it. And if they do, you’ll be at school.’ I twist round in my seat to look at her, but her expression is unreadable. ‘Grace, is this about the argument I had with Auntie Caroline? Neither of us meant to upset you. Sisters argue sometimes. You know you and Livvi can –’
‘I’ll see you later.’ She cuts me off and turns away, pulling on the door handle, the noise of traffic and schoolchildren drowning out the end of my sentence. I want to tell her to wait, to come back inside so we can talk about whatever it is that’s bothering her but she slides out of the car closely followed by Livvi and I’m left swallowing a sense of failure that tastes like ashes in my mouth.
The solicitor’s office isn’t what I’d imagined. I’d pictured an antique desk, cracked leather sofas and floor-to-ceiling bookcases but, instead, I walk into a modern building, am handed a security pass at a sleek reception desk before being ushered into a glass-walled office with a large table surrounded by Aeron chairs which my mother and sister are already sitting in.
I text Paul to let him know I’ve arrived, but he doesn’t answer. I hope his meeting goes well; he could do with taking on more clients if I end up having to look for a new job. I’d hoped he’d expand his web design consultancy after we relocated back here – use some of Dad’s contacts to generate more business, but he’d refused my suggestions of help, insisting on finding his own leads, finding it all more difficult than he’d expected.
Caroline stares at her phone, avoiding my gaze and I shuffle uncomfortably on my seat, torn between my previous commitment to be here and my desire to walk out. The look on my sister’s face as she’d shrieked at me across Dad’s bed replays on a continuous loop in my head. She’d accused me of wanting him all to myself. She hadn’t understood. And I hadn’t been able to explain. Dad had squeezed my hand and I’d looked up to see Grace standing in the doorway, frozen, watching us tear into one another, our words more corrosive than acid. My mother had appeared behind her, demanding that we stop or get out. She’d stared at me whilst she’d said it, never once looking in Caroline’s direction.
The solicitor in charge of executing my Dad’s will walks into the room and introduces herself. I freeze, feeling a thrumming in my chest. She glances at me before inviting us to help ourselves to the refreshments on the table and I pour myself a large cup of black coffee, my hands shaking, leaving the white linen napkin with the pastries on it untouched. Caroline takes a cinnamon roll, licking the sticky icing sugar off the tips of her fingers. She picks up the plate and holds it out to me; a test of my willpower which I pass, shaking my head. My trousers dig into my stomach and I sit up a bit straighter as the solicitor shuffles a set of papers. My mother takes a blue folder out of her bag and puts it on the table in front of her.
‘I’ve brought my own copy.’ My mother speaks first, an attempt to exert her authority, tapping the folder with her immaculately manicured nails.
I stare at it, flinching at the sound of her voice, the blue card looking familiar. I realise where I’ve seen it before; in Caroline’s bag at Dad’s house. The coffee I’m drinking suddenly tastes bitter in my mouth. That’s what she was doing when I found her in his study. Looking through Dad’s desk. I blink back tears. I’d let myself believe over the last couple of years that we’d forged a tentative connection; restarting a relationship that was perhaps still salvageable after so much time apart. I should have known that we are condemned to play the roles handed out to us in childhood, two puppets dancing around each other whilst my mother pulls the strings.
I let the solicitor’s words wash over me, focusing on breathing slowly until I’m confident the tears welling up in my eyes won’t spill down my cheeks. Through the window in the building opposite, I can see a woman sitting with her back to me, staring at the computer screen on her desk. She’s completely unaware of my existence. Has Caroline been doing the same thing to me since I came back and I’ve just never noticed? Ignoring me while I thought we were making repairs?
My mother tenses beside me.
‘But that’s just not possible.’ Her tone makes me shiver. It’s the one I used to hear a lot when I was younger, the one that warns me her anger is about to spill over into something more unpleasant. I look at my sister, who stares at me, blankly. What have I missed?
‘It is, Mrs Wright. As you can see, the document in your folder is dated the tenth of November 2010, but this one was signed and lodged with us on the ninth of May 2018.’
The ninth of May. Less than two weeks before he died. I cross my legs under the table as the solicitor hands out three stapled documents, one for each of us, hesitating before she offers me mine. Caroline examines what she’s been given, picking up the one from my mother’s folder and comparing them. She frowns as she reads down the page.
‘You got what you wanted, then,’ my sister says. ‘How long did it take you to get him to agree to it?’
‘Agree to what?’ I don’t understand what she’s talking about.
‘That’s why you insisted on spending so much time with him, isn’t it? I knew there must have been a reason. All those days you just wanted to sit with him by yourself.’ Her voice is bitter, I know she thinks I’ve planned this and I can feel the goodwill that I’ve tried so hard to build up over the last couple of years draining away, like water through my fingers, spilling onto the document, the words floating in front of me, impossible to read. My mother stares at me, picking up her diary and flicking through it. I turn to the solicitor who is sitting at the other end of the table.
‘I’m sorry, I don’t understand?’ I say.
‘Did you not hear what I said, Mrs Lawrence?’ she replies.
I shake my head, confused. My mother lets out a small snort beside me, her way of letting me know that I’m the last one to catch on, as usual.
‘Both documents are copies of your father’s will,’ the solicitor says. ‘However, the most recently dated one clearly states that it revokes the one made several years earlier, so that is the official document we all need to look at. It declares that your father left Joanna his shares in T. C. J. Wrights.’ She looks at me. ‘That means that, combined with your existing shareholding, you now own seventy per cent of the company, which gives you effective control of the business.’
I swallow in the silence that follows. ‘Did he say why?’ My words come out as barely more than a whisper. The solicitor shakes her head, but I don’t need her to tell me. I already know.
‘You were with him on the ninth of May,’ my mother says to me, ‘I’ve got it written here.’ She points at an entry in her diary. ‘I was at the dentist. Caroline took me as I had to get root canal treatment and I wasn’t sure how I’d feel driving home after the anaesthetic.’ She stares at me, not vocalising the question I know she wants to ask. I can’t bring myself to meet her gaze.
‘Mrs Wright,’ the solicitor interjects, ‘your husband’s most recent will is legal.’
‘How do you know?’ my mother snaps.
‘Because I drafted it and it was witnessed by one of my colleagues. Your husband specifically asked us to come round for that purpose.’
‘You were in my house?’ My mother narrows her eyes.
The solicitor nods. ‘Only because your husband asked me to be there.’
‘But . . .’ my mother trails off as she sees my face, putting her diary down on the table. ‘You knew?’ she says, looking at me.
My voice trembles. ‘Dad just asked me to let her in. I thought it was something about the business. I had no idea he was going to make another will.’
Caroline and my mother exchange glances.
‘I can assure you, Mrs Wright, that your daughter is te
lling the truth,’ the solicitor says. ‘My colleague and I spoke to your husband alone and he asked for this matter to remain confidential until after his death.’
‘We’ll contest it, of course.’ My mother looks at Caroline who picks up her copy of the will as my mother’s voice cuts across the room. ‘He clearly had no idea what he was signing.’ She turns away from the solicitor and addresses me directly. ‘You always were able to twist him round your little finger.’ Shooting me a look of pure hatred, she picks up her handbag and walks out of the office, closely followed by my sister. I’m left with the solicitor, an uncomfortable silence expanding to fill the gap left by their presence.
I leave the office early so I can go home and talk to Paul before I have to collect the girls. I haven’t seen Caroline since she left the solicitor’s; no doubt she’s spent the afternoon with my mother discussing things without me. The feeling of being left out bothers me more than it used to. I should have expected her to let me down again; it’s what she’s always done, her behaviour hard-wired since we were young; a tried and tested way of maintaining her position as my mother’s golden child. I’d become accustomed to it years ago, but for some reason I’d thought it would be different this time. I thought the business meant something to her, too.
I let myself in through the front door and shout Paul’s name but there’s no answer and Buddy doesn’t come racing out of the kitchen as he normally does. I walk to the end of the kitchen, opening the patio doors to let in some air, closing my eyes briefly as the afternoon sun hits my face. I hear voices as I go to step back inside, and peer down towards the bottom of the garden. Paul’s office door is open and I hear a woman’s voice. For a moment I think Caroline has come over and something in my chest lifts at the possibility of reconciliation despite myself. Then Anna steps out onto the lawn, the sun behind her, laughing. Paul follows, their silhouettes against the sun so close they appear as one. For a second, I think I see his hand on her waist but then their outline separates in half and I force myself to take a couple of deep breaths. Anna is one of my best friends. I’ve known her since we moved back here. I trust her. She is not my sister.
