The Wish List

by Ruby Hummingbird

  Maria listened, grateful to try and switch off the thoughts in her own head for a moment, focus on someone else. Before she knew it, Mandy was standing back to inspect Maria’s refreshed head of hair. The woman in the mirror looked a little lifted, her grey bob now styled and smooth, the new conditioning treatment giving it some added gloss under the salon lights.

  ‘That looks good, you like it?’ Mandy asked, unplugging the hairdryer.

  Maria patted one side. ‘I do,’ she said, knowing she could probably sound more enthusiastic. The thought of leaving the comfort of the salon, the taps running, hairdryers blowing, the chatter, the background music, to return to her empty apartment and wait for the next part of her life to happen filled her with a sudden dread. She had never normally minded being on her own, had grown used to it, but since Albie, it was like she was frightened of her own head.

  Maria got up from the chair, shrugging off the black gown and handing it to Mandy.

  ‘You’re quiet today, Maria. All fine with you, is it?’ Mandy asked, rolling the gown up into a ball.

  Maria answered quickly, her eyes sliding to the side, ‘Fine, fine, just…’

  Just what? She tailed away, not sure what she was.

  Mandy kept watching her, her mouth parting as if on the verge of asking more, then with a friendly pat on her arm, she said, ‘That’s good then. We’ll see you next week and I’ll let you know how it goes…’

  Maria gave her a blank look.

  ‘The date! The electrician… the Harry Potter enthusiast, bloody Ravenbore or something, I haven’t read them… Were you listening at all?’

  ‘I’m sorry, I was, I just…’ Maria whispered, alarmed to realise she felt like weeping. She tried to laugh, give Mandy a reaction. It seemed to work.

  ‘Hey, don’t you mind a thing! I know I bang on.’ Mandy smiled, waving to her next customer, ‘You take care of yourself alright?’

  Maria shuffled towards the reception desk, removing her purse as Nina approached. ‘I will,’ she whispered, seeing the rest of the day stretching ahead of her: empty and purposeless. ‘Thanks,’ she added and left the shop and Nina’s curious gaze behind.

  Only one person ever commented on her hair.

  He’s dead.

  He left in the day. I had taken her in to see the secretaries at the office and he was gone when we returned.

  I had set her down on the floor and called his name. She didn’t crawl away, perhaps realising something wasn’t quite right too.

  The cupboard doors in our bedroom were all open: his side empty. His other things had gone, only my toothbrush in the enamel mug. He’d taken our toothpaste.

  I returned, numb, to the kitchen. She started wailing almost immediately, red-faced and tearful, still wearing her pink crocheted winter hat with the bow under the chin. He had taken the television too – the one thing that might have given me some company, a distraction, another voice. There was an envelope on the countertop and I moved across to pick it up. We’d been rowing but was this really it? Maybe he was just gone for a few days? He wouldn’t leave me to do all this on my own, would he? We were going to marry when things were calmer. We were going to… I tore at the envelope. Why put it in one at all? The note wasn’t long.

  ‘I’m leaving you. Sorry. Tell her I will love her always.’

  So, he wouldn’t be back.

  I balled up the note, her screams now piercing the air as if they were inside my head.

  I wouldn’t want him back anyway.

  Red-faced, the screams more urgent. She was pulling herself up on my leg, her face tipped towards me.

  I scooped her up, soothing and sshhing and whispering into her hair, realising this was it now: we were on our own.

  Six

  Maria felt embarrassed as she fretted over what to wear to the solicitor’s office, but it was almost a relief to feel something other than the aching misery. Why was she seeing the solicitor? ‘The estate,’ the woman from the solicitor’s had said. Had Albie left her something in his will? She prayed for a small token, something she could treasure and keep safe in the apartment, look at, admire, polish. Then she wondered if she would one day hurl it against the wall in a fit of despair. How could he be gone? She pressed her hands against her eyes in the small square bedroom, distracted for a second from the agony of choosing the black wool skirt or the green wool skirt. Would the solicitor even notice?

  Still, she dressed herself slowly and carefully, wanting to make a good impression, wondering for a moment if there would be others there. If she had been summoned to the office, surely others would have been too? A man like Albie had people in his life, he didn’t push them away.

  The solicitor’s office was a converted Victorian terrace house in a part of town she had frequented when she’d worked as a big shot herself, a lifetime ago. She had marched into plenty of offices, shoulder pads and heels her uniform, but now she was fidgeting with nerves as she pressed a buzzer.

  ‘Ms Birch for Ms Leonard,’ she croaked into the small grey box to the side of the door.

  ‘Do come in.’

  A long buzz sounded and Maria pushed open the door, stepping into an open-plan room, immediately self-conscious as two faces glanced up. A woman at the back returned to her phone call.

  ‘Can I help you?’ A man with the smoothest black skin and a toothy smile approached her from the nearest desk.

  ‘I’m here about Mr Young,’ Maria said. ‘Ms Leonard called me, asked me to come in.’

  The man’s smile didn’t fade. ‘Well, that’s Becky, she’s on the phone right now,’ he said. ‘But can I get you anything while you wait?’ He pointed to a pair of plush armchairs set at an angle in the corner. On the small round glass table between them Maria could make out a range of leaflets, all with the company logo at the top.

  ‘Oh no, I’m fine, thank you,’ she said, not wanting to be a bother. Her throat was a little dry from the bus ride and walk, but it was too late to make a fuss.

  ‘Well, do take a seat Mrs… Young, is it?’ He widened his eyes in a gesture of encouragement.

  ‘No,’ Maria whispered after a too-long pause. ‘It’s Birch… Maria Birch.’

  He raked a hand over stubbled hair. ‘Mrs Birch, I’m sorry. Well, as I said, do take a seat.’

  Fortunately, the woman on the telephone had finished her call and was approaching them both.

  ‘Ms Birch, is it?’ she asked. ‘I’m Becky Leonard.’

  She was impossibly young. Maria supposed everyone felt impossibly young these days – as if none of them could possibly be qualified to do anything. She had poker-straight blonde hair that fell to her shoulders and her hand was fiddling with an engagement ring – the solitaire diamond had slipped around the side of her finger, she kept straightening it. Maria wondered if she was recently engaged. She found herself staring at the ring, a lump forming in her throat at the thought that this woman was in love.

  ‘Thank you for coming in. Shall we go and talk in the conference room? Jerome, have you asked Ms Birch here if she’d like a drink?’

  She spoke with such authority Maria found herself interjecting on Jerome’s behalf, ‘Oh, he did, he’s been very attentive. I’m fine, thank you.’

  Becky Leonard beamed and Jerome relaxed a little.

  Maria followed Ms Leonard through the office, past an empty desk stacked high with paper, a metal filing cabinet, beaming photographs sellotaped to the side, and into a small side room which contained a round table and four chairs that she had to suppose was the grandly titled conference room.

  ‘Please do take a seat, I’ll just fetch the relevant documents.’ Ms Leonard turned and left Maria sat there, staring at the walls of the room: a print of Degas ballerinas tilted at a slight angle on the wall opposite. She wondered if Albie had liked Degas, or the Impressionists. Just another thing she would never know, had never asked and then it was too late. She felt the all-familiar lump stick in her throat once more.

  Ms Leonard had obviously bee
n talking to her when Maria finally snapped to attention. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, shaking her head, trying to concentrate. It seemed so very hard these last few days to concentrate, time dragging interminably or speeding up so that she seemed to skip hours.

  ‘…him well?’

  Maria found herself nodding along as Ms Leonard sat in front of her, a strand of blonde hair sticking briefly to her lip gloss before she smoothed it behind her ear. She was using words Maria didn’t understand: ‘executor’, ‘portfolio’.

  ‘A substantial amount…’

  Nod.

  ‘…Properties.’

  Nod.

  ‘…not inconsiderable amount of shares.’

  Nod.

  ‘Ms Birch, he’s made you a very wealthy woman.’

  Nod.

  Silence.

  Nod.

  She felt she had been nodding for ever and now Ms Leonard was simply looking at her, arms on the table in front of her, twisting her ring once more.

  ‘You’ll need it resizing, I imagine,’ Maria found herself saying.

  ‘I’m sorry?’ Ms Leonard’s forehead creased.

  ‘The ring,’ Maria said, biting her lip, ‘It’s a little big.’

  ‘Oh,’ Ms Leonard blinked, self-consciously covering the offending hand. ‘Oh, I’m not really used to it,’ she said, her voice a little different, lighter as she continued, ‘He only asked me last weekend. In the Lake District,’ she blurted as if she couldn’t help herself, the joy bubbling over for a second before she shifted in her chair, the professional once more.

  Maria forced a weak smile. ‘How lovely,’ she replied, knowing it was an inadequate response. It was lovely. Ms Leonard seemed nice and she was young and in love and so incredibly lucky to have it all lying ahead of her.

  ‘Ms Birch, I know it’s a lot to process but I want you to know that I am here to advise you going forward, however we can help. I liked Mr Young, he was such a gentleman…’

  ‘You knew Albie?’ Maria couldn’t help it: her voice raised as she leant forward now, desperate to talk about him, to hear more.

  Ms Leonard nodded, ‘I met Albert a month or so ago when he drew all this up. A lovel—’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Maria knew she was interrupting, ‘Was there a funeral? I didn’t…’

  She thought then of a funeral, mourners in black, gathered in a cemetery – everyone there, apart from her. Her eyes filled with tears, she swallowed hard.

  ‘Albert informed me he had spoken with a funeral director already and had insisted on no service, just a simple cremation once he’d gone, which I’m told has been honoured. I have the details of where the ashes have been kept. The landlord of his apartment building registered the death too so that has been taken care of…’

  ‘Ashes,’ Maria whispered, the words washing in and around her.

  Albie was ashes.

  Ms Leonard nodded, a sympathetic voice. ‘He has specified where he would like them scattered.’

  Maria swallowed. Albie had arranged for someone to handle everything when he was gone. Her head ached with the information, the room blurring. This was all so much.

  ‘So, the logistics have been taken care of, and we…’

  ‘How did he…?’ Maria put a finger to her lip, tried to control her wobbling voice, ‘I’m sorry…’

  ‘Of course,’ Ms Leonard said, ‘are you sure you don’t want a drink? Still? Sparkling water?’

  ‘No, no,’ Maria shook her head. ‘I’m quite alright, thank you, it’s just…’

  She had so many questions, her head was crammed with them. She took a breath.

  ‘How did it happen?’ she finally managed to ask, ‘How did he die?’

  She looked up at the young woman, who couldn’t seem to hide her surprise.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, I had thought you knew.’

  Maria shook her head miserably. No, she hadn’t known. He hadn’t told her.

  It was the younger woman’s turn to look flustered. ‘Albert died of a heart attack, in his sleep,’ she spoke quickly. ‘He came to us after a diagnosis from a specialist a month or so ago. He had been warned it was most likely his heart would simply give out and he had been right, I’m afraid. I have included the coroner’s report and death certificate in our pack. I’m ever so sorry to be the one to tell you.’

  Maria stared at her hands, knuckles turning white as she clenched. Nodded once.

  His heart. Sudden. Death certificate.

  The solicitor was talking again, a softer, gentler voice, and Maria tried to pull herself back into the room. Why had he never told her about his diagnosis? Why?

  ‘…We invited you in today to discuss Albert’s estate...’

  ‘Yes,’ Maria whispered, barely able to focus. What token had Albie left her? What could she clutch to her body as she left this office with this new knowledge? She didn’t want to be sat here anymore under the colourful Degas painting, opposite this nice young woman, her future sparkling on her finger.

  ‘He was adamant that you should be the sole beneficiary. He obviously cared for you very much’ – Ms Leonard blushed then – ‘if you don’t mind me saying.’

  Maria looked up, didn’t know what to respond to that. Had Albie cared for her? Yes, yes, she thought he had. How much she had never been sure, she’d never really dared to hope. But all this. No mention of any illness. If he cared for her, wouldn’t he have told her?

  ‘He did mention that you might be quite’ – Ms Leonard cleared her throat – ‘surprised by the sum.’

  Maria was surprised by everything that day. She had assumed that Albie had left her a small item, something to remember him by. A book dear to him perhaps, or an ornament: a tea set perhaps? But suddenly the things Ms Leonard was saying started to filter in. The information becoming too much: the sole beneficiary, that Albie had been in this exact same room only a month or so before, the very fact he had known. He’d known he was going to die. And he hadn’t told her. She blinked.

  ‘So, we need to help transfer the funds across to you, and we can talk you through the various assets. We have the keys to his principal property, which now belongs to you of course...’

  Suddenly the words were taking shape.

  Property? Principal property? That suggested there was more than one. Sole beneficiary. That meant…

  The whole room seemed to come into sharp focus: the livid scratch in the centre of the table, the black ink stain on Ms Leonard’s right hand, the vivid colours of the Degas print.

  ‘I’m sorry, are you saying’ – Maria straightened in her chair – ‘Are you saying that Albie left me things. More than—’

  Ms Leonard cut Maria off before she could continue, a small half-smile on her lips. ‘Ms Birch, Albie – Mr Young – he left you… everything.’

  ‘Everything,’ Maria repeated.

  Now Ms Leonard couldn’t stop the smile as she nodded, giving a tiny laugh, ‘Everything. And it is a lot, if you don’t mind me saying. The estate is worth over two million pounds.’

  ‘Two million…’

  There was a buzzing in Maria’s head. Two million pounds. Albie. Two million…

  ‘How, what…?’ The rest of the words were muddled. ‘But he…’

  What about him? Why couldn’t Albie be worth two million pounds? Maria found her whole head suddenly crammed with questions. How had he made the money? How had he lived? Had he really left it all to her? What would that mean? She hadn’t even owned her own home before. Two million pounds was someone else’s life. Maria Birch wasn’t that person.

  Ms Leonard was talking again, ‘Obviously, the property is vacant now, and we can talk you through his share portfolio… he made some sensible investments… there is no mortgage on the property, you own that outright…’

  Share? Houses? Mortgages? How was she meant to understand what all this meant?

  But one question kept returning to Maria amongst all the buzz, all the words and her own confusion: why hadn’t Albie told her?
r />   She was sitting on the sofa, legs tucked up underneath her, wearing her pink flowered pyjamas, and sucking on one of those white sweets that looked like cigarettes.

  ‘Mummmmmmmeeeee, look,’ she said, removing the cigarette sweet and tapping the end, ‘I smoke.’

  She looked delighted at that, popping the sweet back in and pretending to suck on it. The empty open packet next door, where she had obviously eaten the other ones.

  ‘I like Mummy,’ she said happily, her tiny face lighting up at the thought.

  ‘That’s nice,’ I said, her tiny toddler voice always filling me with a fierce love despite the stress of the last few months, despite Steve’s departure.

  ‘I like Mummy, I smoke.’

  Oh, I realised, perhaps it was time to quit.

  Seven

  She couldn’t face returning home, the bus ride a blur, sat in a window seat clutching a tote bag stuffed with folders and paper from the solicitor’s office, an envelope containing the keys to Albie’s home a hard weight in her side. Outside, it had begun to rain. Droplets streaked the window as she stared, her body heavy and drooping. She was barely aware of the other passengers getting on and off. Then in a moment of clarity, she realised she didn’t want to go home, she couldn’t go home. She pressed the button urgently: once, twice and left at the next stop.