by Peter Butler
Heathrow was hell, but at least it was our hell and great to be back on familiar soil, or more correctly, concrete. We had landed in London at 10 p.m. and we all felt completely second-hand and jet-lagged so we headed to our respective homes and slept as best we could.
I awoke the next morning in my own bed, in my own bedroom. Bliss. The day started with a big tick and a smile. I rubbed my eyes and admired the familiarity of it all. The sun was well and truly up as the room was bathed in a warm glow. Not quite as warm as the glow I'd become used to recently, but warmer in a cooler kind of way. There's nothing quite like home.
As I climbed out of bed I looked at my oak dresser and wished it had a big red bag sitting on top of it. Sunny had been in my thoughts most of the time I had been away, but the planning and action that had been required to make Gran's request happen had pushed her memory further from the surface than I wished. She had not helped things by being so ambivalent about our communications. Bloody voice-mail. I planned to talk to her about that, face to face, but after we had done other things face to face... a lot of times.
I have a jet lag cure, actually it's more like an exorcism, that I like to use. I go for a jog; it's a brutal way to force my body and brain to get their acts together. It's the same cure I use for a hangover, but I add aspirin and swallow half an hour before pulling on my shorts and trainers, for that ailment.
As I had arrived home in darkness and pretty much exhausted I had not given any attention to the place. It was still standing and my bed was inside - that was the beginning and end of my interest last night. The girls had mostly worked from their own homes so it had been left alone for the time I had been away.
Or so I thought.
I entered the kitchen to find a large tarpaulin stretched over one corner of the room with paint tins, buckets, thinners and brushes littering the top of it. Then I remembered Harry, my landlord, was going to paint a black horse. I smiled to myself at his scribble. Seems my first reading was correct; he was actually painting the back of the house. Thankfully it was the outside he was working on, which would be the reason I didn't smell the paint last night.
I went out the back door, which actually opens straight from the kitchen. I knew something was wrong as soon as I opened it. A ladder lay on its side, partially blocking the door. I eased my way around it, stepping and climbing where I could find a foothold, my apprehension rising with every step. Harry was lying half draped over the plank that he must have been standing on, between the two ladders, when things apparently went bad for him. A paint tin and a large splash of white paint lay beside him. What had remained after the tin's initial impact with the ground had pooled around him, partially painting one of his arms and the side of his body.
He was a mess. I rushed to him and felt his neck for a pulse. His skin felt firm and barely gave when I pressed my fingers below the bend of his jaw. He was cold. And when I looked closely I could see his skin had turned a blue color. His mouth was open as if he was trying to say something but Harry was never going to say anything ever again. I felt a strange pressure behind my eyes and before I could stop it tears poured from me. I blinked hard to stop them... but it didn't work.
I never cry. I didn't when my grandfather, Ed, died. I didn't when my first dog Chester died, when I was eight. But I cried when Harry Buxton died.
I warned the old bugger not to get kicked painting that black horse.
I went back inside and located my phone, which was still on charge in my office, and called the police. I must have sounded useless to the woman I spoke to because when I asked her who else I should call she told me not to worry, she would make all the emergency calls.
So much for my jog. I had found another way to get over jet lag, but I liked the jog method better.
The rest of the morning was spent with the police. I had watched as the coroner had examined Harry and decided that foul play was unlikely to be a factor. I had watched as Harry had been "bagged up" in what looked like a heavy black plastic sleeping bag and I watched as they wheeled him out to a nondescript brown, windowless Transit van and secured him in the back. Dignity and death do not seem to reside together at this stage of the journey.
After the police eventually left me I began to make some phone calls. Sophie and Sky both loved the old bugger and were heartbroken by the news. Both blamed themselves for not coming in to work. I explained that the coroner suggested he had been dead for at least one whole day, which didn't ease either girls feeling of guilt. We had scheduled a meeting here for midday, but decided to postpone it until tomorrow. None of us could concentrate on anything other than Harry.
Maybe it was a premonition or maybe just an act of good faith, but about a year ago Harry had given me a key to his home. At the time he had suggested it was in case he lost his own key, but I wonder now if he was quietly assigning the task of one day discovering his dead body after his absence had become obvious. Harry lived alone and looked after himself. He cooked and washed and cleaned and shopped and, up until a day or two ago, did running repairs on two houses.
I parked in his drive and cautiously walked to his door. I knocked. Stupid? I really wasn't sure if Harry didn't have a friend staying with him. Anyway, he didn't, so I let myself in. The place had a musty, stale air about it. The blinds were drawn in most of the rooms. I suspect Harry only used a small number of the available areas. It was a large house on a good size piece of ground and the gardens and lawns were neat. I was looking for his telephone, which would be one of the old types that actually plugged into a socket in the wall. Harry had long ago given up trying to keep up with the changes in technology and locked himself into a time-warp - probably one that ended in the 1980's. His phone was in the kitchen and what I was looking for was sitting on the bench beside it. His teledex.
I just knew he would have one of these ancient devices. I remember from my own childhood how the little plastic lid had fascinated me with its alphabet running down beside the little sliding button that ran through the middle. You could slide it to the letter J, or whatever, and instantly open to a list of all the people you knew whose name started with that letter. Very high-tech for the time.
I made my way through the list. I knew who I was looking for, Harry had mentioned her many times. I made the call using his phone thinking she would know the number and be more likely to pick up.
'Yeah! What do you want this time?' Came the blunt answer from a female voice I estimated to be middle-aged.
'Hello,' I said, a little surprised by her tone. 'Is this Angela Spencer?'
'Yes! Who the hell are you?'
'My name is Garrett Nixon, Angela and I'm calling regarding your father, Harry Buxton.'
'Yeah... What's the old bastard done now?'
Her tone was very annoying. A combination of aggression and disinterest which was anything but what I had expected. Harry had always talked in glowing terms about his daughter. Lamenting the fact that he never saw her because she lived in Manchester. I knew she was divorced and had two adult kids who did not live with her.
'I have some very bad news, Angela,' I said, ignoring her unflattering reference to Harry. 'I'm afraid Harry has passed away. We found him this morning.'
There was silence over the phone for a few seconds, then, 'Dead... you say?'
'I'm very sorry. Yes, Harry is dead.'
'Hot diggity-do. About fucking time,' she said, sounding cheerful for the first time since we had been speaking.
I was speechless. I couldn't believe this bitch was talking like this about her own father; a man who was as nice and generous as any person I had ever met. What could possibly be her problem? Eventually I managed to ask, 'Why are you pleased by this news?'
'Because at long last I'll get hold of the old pricks money. The bastard stopped giving me any a few years ago. It's been bloody difficult...'
I didn't hear any more because I had replaced the phone in its cradle.
I began a search of Harry's house. I was looking for his personal pap
ers. I needed to find his will or at least the name of his solicitor. His paperwork eventually turned up, stored in an old shoe box in his wardrobe and after about an hour of reading I had, not only a picture of Harry's financial situation, but also the name of his legal representative. Ivan Stutzman of Stutzman and Jones, a local firm of solicitors.
I placed a call.
Stutzman was the opposite to Angela, he was actually saddened to hear of Harry's passing.
'Excuse me a moment, Mr. Nixon,' he said after I had explained my reason for calling. 'I'll get Harry's will out of our files and see what it says.' He disappeared for a minute then came back on the line. 'We need to make an appointment for you to come in to the office, Mr. Nixon. How about 10 a.m. tomorrow?'
'I don't understand Mr. Stutzman. Why do I need to come to your office?'
'Well, I suppose I can come to yours if it is a problem for you,' he answered, in a slightly bewildered manner.
'No. You don't understand,' I said, 'I'm not related to Harry, I'm just his tenant. And also a friend.'
'According to this document, you are much more, Mr. Nixon,' he said. 'You are his executor and the major beneficiary of his estate.'
What the...
I drove the entire journey home from Harry's house with a look of shock chiseled on my face. My life had become like some kind of roller-coaster; first there was Ed's death and then I get compensated with part of his shareholding in Plutarch Resources. And now Harry dies, and I get compensated with a large part of his estate. It might seem wonderful that good follows bad, but I don't equate relationships in money terms and I would gladly give all my "good fortune" back for some more time with my two mentors.
The only thing I can do is accept my monetary gain gracefully and try and use it in ways my two elderly role-models would be proud of. I'm pretty sure Ed would be happy with the way things were going back in Australia.
That leaves Harry: What would he want me to do?
I was deep into pondering that question when my phone began to ring.
***
Sunny's apartment finally looked much like it always did. She had worked late into the night tidying up and cleaning. She had washed and replaced all the bedding in a vain attempt to remove any lingering presence of Simon from her home.
She had retrieved the pictures from her neighbors rubbish bin and used her paper guillotine to completely destroy them. When she had shredded them to her satisfaction she throughly mixed them up and put them into a paper bag which she drove to the local shops and buried in the bottom of a rather full hopper behind a supermarket.
As she walked to her freshly repaired front door, she silently cursed Simon for dumping that considerable bill on her last night. She quickly diverted from her path to the pot plant where she had hidden her camera's memory card and retrieved it. Once inside she erased the pictures.
She had slept badly, tossing and turning, and waking frequently, even though she was totally exhausted from the nights activities. As a result she felt drained this morning. She decided to give work a miss, even though she knew it would be turmoil with both Simon and her missing. Instead, she ran herself a lovely hot bath and soaked for an hour. She brought her phone with her expecting the office to call, and sure enough, just as the bubbles had begun to work their magic, it rang.
'Hi. This is Sunny.'
'You fucking, drug addicted whore-bitch,' the female voice shouted down the phone into her ear. 'I hope you die with a needle sticking out of your eye!'
'What the...' Sunny spluttered. 'Who... who is this?'
'You piece of shit! It's the wife of the asshole you've been banging for who knows how long.'
Sunny got it immediately. It was Suzie Sexton, Simon's wife and she had drawn some wrong conclusions. Sunny had met her a few times but they had never bonded in any way. Suzie had always seemed wary of her, despite Sunny's attempts to convey her disinterest in the woman's husband.
'Suzie. You've got it all wrong,' Sunny said in an even voice. She would normally have responded to abuse like that with more strength, but she realized Suzie was in a state of turmoil and anxiety with the facts she'd been given, presumably by the police. 'Simon and I are not involved in any way. Never have been, and never will be.'
'That's bullshit, bitch...'
Sunny cut off Suzie's coming rant. 'I understand that you've drawn some conclusions because Simon was found naked, in my bed. But Suzie, he got there by smashing open the front door, and he was also found naked in his office that same morning. Simon is very sick. He clearly has a drug problem and mental issues that none of us in the office were aware of. I swear to you I have never had Simon in my bed, Suzie.'
She could hear the woman on the other end of the phone gently sobbing. 'What am I going to do?' she whispered softly, and followed it with a loud sniff. 'I'm not sure I can go on. Simon is only hanging on by a thread at the hospital. It's all too hard.'
'All I can say is that he needs you right now, Suzie. He's in a bad place and you need to be his rock: The strong one to guide him through this,' Sunny paused to give Suzie time to come to the same realization. 'You have to be strong Suzie. You're all he's got.'
'You swear there is nothing going on between the two of you?'
'No chance at all, Suzie. I have a boyfriend who I'm kind of crazy for. Simon is all yours.'
'Oh God! I'm so sorry I called you all those names, Sunny,' Suzie said, and she began to sob again.
'I understand what you're going through, Suzie. Now be strong and help Simon get better.'
That phone-call undid most of the therapeutic benefit the bath had provided, so Sunny topped up the heat with a healthy burst of hot water. The steam wafted gently from the surface and she slid down until only the parts of her face above her nose were still showing. She lay as still as possible and allowed the warmth to consume her body. Stillness was necessary because even a small wave threatened her ability to breath. The mention of the word boyfriend to Suzie caused her to think about Garrett. He wasn't her boyfriend, she had only just met him and she had only used that word to make it easier for Suzie to believe her. But there was a connection with him that was way out of the ordinary. She loved his sense of humor; she loved his face and his body. She loved his subtle, manly way of taking control, but still remaining totally aware of her feelings and needs. As she delved deeper into her feelings she realized she loved pretty much most of the things about him. And she especially loved "Little Gary" although she hadn't formally met him.
Her mind drifted back to the night she had undressed Garrett in his bed. That was wrong on so many levels but she was glad she had done it. He was totally out of it and he will never know that she couldn't help herself and gave Little Gary a goodnight kiss. That was the first and only time he had been unresponsive to her flirtations.
She laughed out loud which created a sudden, large air bubble to explode under the surface in front of her face, which caused a large splash of the water to end up inside her nose. The coughing fit that it caused forced her mind off Gary's body parts.
After she had settled into a normal breathing rhythm she allowed herself to relax and enjoy the warmth again.
Time passed slowly and she found her mind kept drifting back to Gary. She thought of all the calls he had made to her from Australia and she had always been busy, or preoccupied with her problems. She thought of all his sarcastic cracks about getting on better with her voice-mail than her and she realized he had a point. She had behaved badly. He had tried to keep the small amount of relationship momentum they had created, going, while she had been self-obsessed.
Well, there was no excuse for that now, the Simon problem had pretty much resolved itself and with it had gone her work problem. With Simon no longer in the picture the company would have to bring in a new Executive Producer and she would assess the impact on her, of that change, when it happened.
In the interim, she had little doubt they would ask her to fill Simon's role, it wasn't a career move she was aiming fo
r but she knew she would give it a go. If they asked.
With that issue resolved in her mind she decided now was a good time to make up some lost ground. She grabbed her phone and dialed. It was answered on the third ring.
'Heidi!' He answered with a laugh. 'I'm almost speechless. Am I really talking to you or has your voice-mail taught itself to call out?'
'Stop it, Gary,' she chided him in a serious voice. 'I'm sorry I was so difficult to get hold of while you were away. I've had a few problems to deal with, but they're behind me now and I can give you the attention that I owe you.'
'From memory your last commitment was to offer me a banquet.' He laughed in her ear and she smiled at the familiar, lovely sound.
'I do recall offering that,' she said. 'The problem is that I'm in the bath at the moment and I really don't want to get out.' She gave a suggestive chuckle. 'Can we renegotiate?'
'So, you're saying you are too busy washing yourself to prepare my banquet?'
'Seriously, Gary, has standing upside down on the bottom of the earth caused the blood to bloat inside your head?' She paused, before adding, 'Maybe by washing myself... I am preparing your banquet.'
'Ha Ha!' He chuckled, as her meaning sunk in. 'Nicely put, Sunny. I can't tell you how much I've missed your cryptic take on the world.' His laughter tuned suggestive, slightly dirty even, then he said, 'A banquet in a bath, eh? That sounds more than a little tempting, I hope you have a big enough bath for the three of us.'
'No, it's normal size,' It was Sunny's turn for a sexy chuckle. 'We'll probably have to work out the best way to squeeze in. It might take a while... and some trial and error.'
'Sunny, you need to stop talking immediately,' Gary said, urgently, 'Or, I'm going to have the banquet in my pants, right now...'
Sunny drifted peacefully into a mode that was just approaching sleep. She stayed like that for an indeterminate time. Her rest was suddenly broken by her phone ringing, yet again.
