About Last Night . . .

by Catherine Alliott

  ‘I was a court usher,’ she told me as we sat huddled in her little cubicle, one of hundreds in a vast, open-plan office. ‘Greeting everyone, showing in the judge and the jury, feeling really rather important. I loved it. And then I was made redundant but offered this.’ She hopped to her feet to peer over the partition and see who was listening. ‘It stinks,’ she whispered, sitting down again. ‘And I hated the very idea of it, but who am I to sniff at twenty grand a year with an unemployed husband?’

  ‘Well, quite.’

  I emptied the remains of the packet of Maltesers we’d been sharing on her desk and we ate the last ones.

  ‘I mean, obviously reclaiming people’s DVD recorders is not top of my career wish list, but most people are reasonable about it when they see it’s a woman. It works in my favour.’

  ‘A tiny one at that.’ Tia was petite and blonde.

  ‘Exactly. Some bloke carried his own stuff out to my car the other day when he could see I couldn’t manage. And his son pumped up my tyre. Turns out he went to school with Tom. Thanks for this, Molly,’ she said, popping my cheque in a drawer. ‘I’ll see it gets there.’

  ‘Yes, but, um, Tia, maybe not for a few days?’ My turn to hop up and pop my head over the adjoining, happily empty, cubicles. ‘It’ll bounce,’ I whispered, sitting down again, ‘if my rebate cheque hasn’t cleared. And I was also maybe hoping to pay Ronnie for my chicken feed, he’s been waiting ages …’

  ‘Oh, righto. Tell you what, why don’t I email the council, tell them you’ve come up with the money for the council tax, but there’s a bit of a hold-up this end, and they can expect it from me within the next fortnight?’

  ‘Splendid,’ I beamed, admittedly part of the reason for my visit paying off, and no one under any illusions, either, I thought as we said goodbye warmly. I liked Tia, and knew from Biddy, her horse-dealing sister of the envy-making hunter, that she made the best of a shit job to keep her family on track, and I knew she liked me too and didn’t want to see me disappear down the plughole of life any more than she wanted to join me, so if I popped in and used a little charm to oil the wheels, so what?

  Two weeks’ grace, I thought gratefully, mentally calculating in my head that I could also pay Anna for the concentrate she’d kindly lent me for the sheep, saying her husband Jim wouldn’t miss it for a bit, and perhaps even get Nico’s car through its MOT so there was at least some point in him having passed his test. Feeling buoyed up and happy with life, I swung into my yard, thinking I might actually put a saddle on Nutty, who I’d come to love and wished I didn’t have to sell, and head off into the hills, taking a picnic lunch with me.

  My mobile rang as I came to a halt and, recognizing the number, my heart lurched. I took the call. Sounding really rather upset because Samantha had so set her heart on him, Beatrice Hilton was ringing to tell me that sadly Nutty had failed the vet’s examination because of the flexion test, and since they really wanted an entirely sound horse, they wouldn’t be buying him. Offering him at half-price, which, frankly, was a complete bargain – this horse would jump a stable door, flexion test or not – couldn’t tempt this woman who lived, I knew, like most people did, and like I used to live when I was a normal person, via sensible rules. Not by the seat of her pants and on the smell of an oily rag. I accepted her commiserations, apologized for wasting her time, and when we’d said goodbye, I moaned low and banged my head on the steering wheel three times, like Basil Fawlty.

  When I raised it, eyes full, I’ll admit, it was to see Paddy Campbell getting into his van around the far side of my hay barn. I stared, horrified. Then I got out and dashed across, furious.

  ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ I barked, thinking I might actually bite him. Take a chunk out of his arm. ‘You are absolutely the last person I want to see!’

  He shrugged. ‘Minna called me. And quite right too. You’ve got a ewe with mastitis, Molly.’

  ‘I know,’ I snarled. ‘And I’ve been expressing her twice a day myself. I don’t need some expensive veterinary surgeon, who not only ruins my horse-dealing livelihood but charges like a wounded rhino, coming round here and—’

  ‘She needs antibiotics,’ he interrupted. ‘And she’ll need some more tomorrow.’ He tossed me a plastic bag with a syringe and a bottle inside. ‘And no, they are not on the house. I don’t like treating distressed animals any more than you like paying for them, Molly, but needs must.’

  Angrily, he turned on his heel, folded his long legs into his cab and, with a last black look, sped off.

  When I got to the kitchen, Nico was at the computer at my desk under the stairs, pressing ‘send’ on an official-looking document, his phone to his ear.

  ‘It’s on its way, Luce.’ He was also clearly talking to his sister.

  ‘What are you doing looking at my emails?’ I snarled, circling him like a wild animal, in no mood for anything other than a fight.

  ‘It’s the email the court solicitor sent you last week which you hadn’t bothered to open. Presumably because you thought it was yet another summons, and which they sent in desperation because you didn’t respond to their letter. I imagine that’s under the sofa, rather than down the side of it. I didn’t think to look there. Playing the backwater hillbilly with all these supposed strings to your bow is all very well, Mum, but try not to pass up the main chance, hm? Even Del Boy wouldn’t do that.’

  I stared at him for a few moments. At length I crept up behind him to look at the screen. ‘What d’you mean?’ I whispered, peering over his shoulder.

  ‘Sit,’ he ordered, getting up. He steered me around and propelled me to sit in the chair he’d vacated. ‘And read.’

  I did.

  Dear Mrs Faulkner,

  We act on behalf of the Treasury Solicitor and also on behalf of the late Mr Cuthbert Faulkner, whose estate we are instructed to oversee as trustees. Mr Faulkner died intestate and our preliminary research indicates that your late husband, the son of Mr Faulkner’s late brother, was his only blood relative.

  Consequently, subject to how your late husband left his own estate, you could conceivably be a legitimate beneficiary. We therefore invite you to make an appointment with us at the above address to proceed with enquiries into this matter and discuss it further.

  We look forward to hearing from you.

  Yours sincerely,

  P. D. Hamilton, Esq.

  Hamilton & Simpson, LLP

  I digested this for quite a few moments. Then I swung around.

  ‘Oh!’

  Three pairs of eyes met mine. Nico’s, bright blue and victorious, Minna’s the same colour, smaller but just as bright, plus my mother’s beady brown ones peering around the corner from the hall. I told you, listening at doors is a family trait. She took the cigarette from her mouth and leaned forward to stub it out in a dead pot plant on the dresser.

  ‘Now will you do something about it?’ she demanded softly.

  4

  Some days later, as I left Mr Hamilton’s office in South Kensington under a bright blue, cloudless sky, I almost had to steady myself on the glossy black handrail as I descended the steps from the white, stucco-fronted house. I certainly paused for a moment. The rarefied London square lined with identical houses around a leafy, railed enclosure fairly squeaked with gentrification: a Porsche purred by, an elegant woman with a Yorkshire terrier slipped past, and only a discreet gold plaque beside the black front door behind me suggested I’d been anywhere remotely commercial and not just taking tea with a friend. Not that I had friends who lived in houses like these. But neither had there been anything overtly businesslike about the conversation within; it had, to all intents and purposes, been a thoroughly convivial and pleasant affair, involving tea – Earl Grey, of course – and two tiny biscuits. Mr Hamilton, a squat, portly gentleman with grey hair swept back from a florid forehead and wearing tweed rather than flannel, had beamed most benignly at me, like a benevolent uncle, and having first expressed his sympathies had then informed me
, once he’d settled himself down on the other side of his leather-topped desk, that this sudden windfall was not as unusual as I thought. Many people died without making a will, he told me, solicitors mostly, would you believe. And even though Mr Faulkner had been seventy-six – not the ancient ninety-odd Mum had clearly invented – he might not have seen it coming and quite got his affairs in order.

  ‘Or perhaps he had,’ he’d added kindly, eyeing me over his reading glasses. ‘Perhaps he’d deliberately left things ambiguous, some people do. If only so that others have to sort it all out for them. Let them make the decisions. It avoids favouritism. You can see the attraction.’

  ‘Yes, I can.’ I could. But I wouldn’t do it myself. Let the living have the headache of sorting it out, as I’d had to do when David had died. On the other hand, if it were a lovely surprise, as it was slowly dawning on me Mr Hamilton was suggesting it was, it could be a delightful way to do things.

  ‘A certain amount was sitting, obviously, in a straightforward savings account …’ He passed across a piece of paper topped with a Barclays logo and tailed with a row of numbers at the bottom which made my eyes boggle. ‘And a small amount in shares. Not much, but blue-chip reliable ones like Sainsbury’s and ICI …’ Another piece of paper with nothing very small-looking found its way across. ‘But I’m afraid death duties will pretty much swallow all of those, because property-wise, you have quite an asset. The jewel in the crown. The property in Lastow Mews, which you’ll need to have valued, but if nearby houses are anything to go by would conservatively be worth about this amount.’

  ‘As … much as that?’ I’d whispered as he’d passed across another document with vast numbers on it and details of deeds of ownership to pass imminently. Plus my name, Molly Victoria Faulkner. It was at this point that I wished I had one of the children with me, just so they could verify this fairy story was really happening, and was not some fantastical dream. I’d turned them all down flatly as they’d swiftly lined up to accompany me, even Lucy who I knew would be taking notes now, asking pertinent questions, being useful, because I’d wanted to do this on my own; think about it clearly, not be taken over by them.

  ‘But Mum, you’ll want one of us, just to get you there. Last time you went to London you ended up in New Barnet thinking you were in New Bond Street.’

  ‘That was a totally understandable mistake, Minna, and rest assured, I shall keep my wits about me this time. I used to live in London. I worked there, for heaven’s sake.’

  The children looked at me doubtfully and I knew they were thinking a lot had changed in the capital since then, particularly for a woman who mostly descaled chicken’s feet and fixed barbed wire fences.

  Now, as I tottered along the pavement in the sunshine, chic women sailing past swinging smart handbags rather than clutching ancient ones to their chests, I couldn’t help feeling they were right. I lowered my bag. I was a bit out of my depth. But actually, so intensely excited too, that I could do without Lucy bossily steering me to the nearest estate agent’s, or the others’ excited chatter about how I should spend the money as soon as I got my hands on it. No. This gave me some valuable time to think. This amount of real estate was much more than I’d ever imagined. It was a veritable lottery win. And far more than I’d dreamed it might be. It was too early for a drink to steady my nerves, but I certainly needed a black coffee. I found a pavement café down the road, and then sat in the sunshine dressed in my very best skirt and shoes, which, being wedged espadrilles, only just passed muster, letting it slowly sink in that, for the first time in my life, I was wealthy. Really rich.

  As I sat there in the sun, I felt my old self float up to a tiny cloud, perch on it, and look down on the new me, realizing all the things I could do. Pay off the mortgage. Re-fence the fields. Fertilize and spray the fields instead of hoping for the best. Dredge the river which flooded every year. Repair the roof on the house and the barns, re-point the stables. Sort out the damp downstairs and the dry rot upstairs. The list was endless. Or maybe not even stay there, I thought with a jolt. Maybe get shot of the whole money-draining shooting match and buy a lovely house in the village, with four bedrooms, and a manageable garden, or even one an hour’s drive away, on the coast: put the rest of the money in the bank and never have to work, worry or wheeler-deal again. I almost had to pinch myself to believe it could be happening to me, but a glimpse at my phone with all of my children leaving demanding messages – ‘Well?’ ‘Any news?’ ‘What’s the story, Mum?’ – confirmed it was true. With mounting excitement I turned my phone off, paid for the coffee, and on the strength of my new-found wealth, hailed a taxi to Lastow Mews.

  The taxi driver gave me a strange look as he picked me up and then deposited me no more than two streets away. It clearly would have made more sense to walk. As I paid him I gazed across to where the road ended in an abrupt brick wall. Under an arch, though, another road began: a narrow, cobbled affair, all the little houses within painted pretty pastel shades, like the colours in an Italian ice cream parlour: yellow, pink, green and blue. As the taxi purred away I hurried across and under that arch. Across the cobbles I stole, like a thief casing the joint, passing doors flanked by bay trees standing sentry in cast-iron urns, sleek convertible motors, even a stone griffin or two, glancing at the numbers on the doors. Could it be that darling palest pink one near the end? Almost not pink at all, just a very faint blush? It was. Number 32. I almost gasped as I stopped opposite, handbag to chest again. Oh Uncle Cuthbert, I said instead, under my breath.

  Obviously it wasn’t mine yet. Mr Hamilton had told me various documents had to be drawn up and signed in probate, and then signed by him again, and that could take time, but I imagined it was empty, so why couldn’t I creep a little closer and at least stand and marvel? Marvel too that we’d never known this man with such exquisite taste who clearly wouldn’t be seen dead on a shabby little smallholding in Herefordshire. I gazed some more, almost at the window now, noting the dear little window boxes frothing over with something white and tasteful, the terracotta pots outside. Having feasted for a moment I was about to walk away back up the mews to the pub – as luck would have it there was one directly opposite the arch where I could lurk and feast some more without looking like a total snooper – when a young woman approached, smiled, and put her key in the door of the blush-pink house. My house. She looked at me enquiringly.

  ‘Can I help?’ Only three words but within them a whole world of expensive boarding schools, a daddy in the City and a mother who’d never clipped shit from a sheep’s bottom in her life.

  ‘Oh.’ I hustled a few steps towards her. Age was on my side but little else: she was very slim, with that pale, almost translucent blonde beauty one sees in fashion magazines. She was behaving proprietorially too. As if she lived here. My heart pumped a bit.

  ‘Well, it’s just – well, this house belonged to my late uncle, you see. At least – my husband’s late uncle. And, the thing is, I’ve just been to the solicitor’s and—’

  ‘Oh!’ she interrupted, eyes widening. She lowered her key. ‘You’re Cuthbert’s niece?’

  ‘Well …’

  ‘Oh, I’m so sorry,’ she said, looking genuinely upset. ‘I must have missed you at the funeral. But it was so crowded, wasn’t it? You could hardly move.’

  ‘Oh … er, well, I …’

  ‘Unsurprising, of course, he was such a heavenly man.’

  ‘Yes. Quite.’ I could feel myself reddening.

  ‘And so young for his age. It was so unexpected, I honestly thought he’d go on for ever.’

  Young for his age? So not with a rug over his knees and two sticks? The old witch.

  ‘Well, yes. Except –’ I lunged heroically for the truth, ‘we didn’t really know him, I’m afraid. We live miles away, deep in the countryside, practically in Wales.’ I plunged as deep as possible. ‘And we only heard very recently. My own husband died some time ago, you see, and I’m afraid I didn’t keep up the connection. Um, and you ar
e …?’

  ‘Oh, Camilla. I clean. Or did.’ She blinked a bit, clearly upset at this use of the past tense.

  She cleaned. Right. Although actually, on reflection, it didn’t surprise me. I knew about how these smart girls were turning their hands to cleaning and laundering now that secretarial jobs had dried up courtesy of computers. Minna had thought about it as a route to London.

  ‘And ironed his shirts, too, that sort of thing. But dear Cuthbert – he paid me a month in advance, always did, so no way was I not going to come in and dust and hoover,’ she said fiercely. ‘He’d have been horrified. He was quite particular. Would you like to come in?’ She raised her key again.

  ‘Oh, er, thank you. I don’t know if I should but—’

  ‘Oh, Cuthbert would have wanted it. After all, you’re family.’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, emboldened. ‘And the thing is, well, the solicitor tells me, the one I’ve just been to see, that because I’m the only family left, I’m inheriting his estate.’ I tried not to sound too breathless or excited.

  ‘Inheriting?’ She turned. Looked shocked. She stared at me. Then quickly whipped round and opened the door.

  ‘Does that … surprise you?’ I ventured, following her inside.

  ‘Oh, no. It’s just I thought …’ It clearly did, but she made an effort to compose her face as she shut the door behind us and led me, via a narrow hallway with a Persian runner, into a pretty sitting room with French windows at one end through which the sun poured. A terraced garden surrounded by deep beds of frothy pink tulips and forget-me-nots could be glimpsed beyond. But delightful though the garden was, it was the interior that was arresting. Original modern paintings filled every inch of wall space, almost down to the skirting boards and right up to the picture rail: nudes, portraits, or simply great swathes of colour I didn’t understand but which looked terrific. All around the room they marched, aside from beside the fireplace, where two shelved alcoves groaned with books, all hardbacks and all improving. In one quick glance around I understood that Uncle Cuthbert was cultured, educated and urbane. The air was stale, though, and Camilla went straight to the French windows, unlocking them and flinging them wide, explaining that the wake had only happened the day before yesterday and she hadn’t been in since, and as you can imagine it was fairly protracted – and alcohol-fuelled – and the place still reeked.