Inheritance

by Nicholas Shakespeare

  Not finding Maral Bernhard in residence, Andy was at a loss to know how to contact her. Nothing under her name was listed in the telephone directory and Vamplew remained scrupulous about not revealing her number. He was happy to pass on Andy's details and to tell her that Andy wished to speak with her, but she never got in touch.

  All week the questions remained. Who the hell was this guy? And why such a misanthrope? And how had he grown so wealthy? And was there a catch? Because I need to tell you something important . Maral Bernhard had said the same thing to Jeanine outside the chapel in Richmond.

  On Friday morning, David called him at work with a progress report.

  'Sorry, Andy, I'm drawing a blank. The name Christopher Madigan is not attached to any mining company or charity and his name doesn't appear in our cuttings. You?'

  'Nothing. Except that he might have changed his name. Originally, he was Armenian.'

  'Armenian?'

  'It doesn't matter.'

  A beat. Then: 'What are you doing tonight?'

  'I'm supposed to be going out.'

  'Who with?'

  Andy couldn't not tell him.

  'Andy, you weren't seriously thinking of seeing his daughter?'

  'Not really,' he said. Although he had gone so far as to book a table at the Camoes. The truth was he did not know what he was going to do. He needed to understand why someone would behave like Christopher Madigan, even though every step he took to find this out placed his inheritance at risk. But he could not help himself. He had felt attuned to something in Jeanine, a vibrancy.

  'That's good,' David said. 'Because the very last place in the world you're going tonight is the Camoes. Instead, you're coming to the Knopwood where I shall stand guard over you like bleeding Cerberus.'

  Andy could feel David's breath on the back of his neck as he ordered two pints. It was shortly after 7.15. The intense way David looked at him, Andy recognised from years past when engrossed in the side of an Ovaltine jar to obtain a Captain Midnight Secret Decoder Ring. David launched in immediately. 'He purchased his shoes from Ducker's in Oxford and had an account with Berry Brothers in St James's, and a quarter share in a mare that once came fourth in the Derby. On the other hand, Farlow's have no record of any C. Madigan. Recluse he may have been, but no fisherman. Nor have I had luck with Armenian leads, although absence of evidence is no evidence of absence . . .'

  Once David's interest was aroused, he was a tenacious bastard.

  But Andy could not concentrate. He kept glancing at his watch. The time was approaching 7.30 p.m., and he was conscious that he should be elsewhere. A promise was a promise, even if it led to his undoing. Jeanine was waiting for him at the Camoes, waiting to hear about her father; and waiting to tell Andy something important. He was often late, but you could rely on him to turn up in the end. This time he was not even going to turn up. On top of it all, an unwelcome sense of guilt affected him, as though he had violated an elemental protocol.

  Over in the corner, the Dry Heaves struck up ' J'attendrai '. Andy batted Jeanine out of his mind and drank the night away. He had no idea how he found his way to bed.

  Next morning when Andy heard the postman come whistling up the front steps, he tensed himself for another recorded delivery to sign. Nothing.

  All that weekend he was on edge. Hanging around in case the telephone rang - and if it did, not answering. Caught between a clutch of dread that Christopher Madigan's inheritance was on the point of being snatched away. And - in the next breath - a strange hope that it might be.

  This unclear and awkward feeling did not disappear. Each time the buzzer sounded, it chilled him with fright. Even had he wanted to apologise for not turning up, he had no address for Jeanine. He squared it with his conscience by telling himself that she, on the other hand, knew where he lived.

  Late one night he heard a hesitant noise outside, the engine of a questing taxi. He got up from his bed and parted the curtain. Not her.

  Was it so unpardonable, what he had done? Was it any worse than driving through a red light on an empty road? Or was he being mercenary, unreasonable?

  'What if I make a deal and give her an ex gratia payment?'

  David advised against. 'She'll only change her mind. She'll come in all lawyered up and take the whole estate.'

  And why should Andy give her anything? PS17 million was, after all, PS17 million. A figure to which he had become accustomed. A recompense for his misery. It was his, thank you very much.

  The following Tuesday, David invited him to a press viewing of the new Altman film. He went. He enjoyed the film. He went to another. But when David set him up with a couple of dates, he could only feign interest.

  Another week passed. No challenge materialised.

  He submerged himself in his work. There, at least, he had started to thrive. Goodman stopped giving him a past-tense look. Ideologically, he was back on track.

  In the fourth week, the telephone rang on his desk. Vamplew.

  'Just to let you know that we have warned off the caveat. Her lawyers have withdrawn. They didn't have the grounds.'

  Andy was pleased by the 'we'. 'What happens now?'

  'Let's sit back and see if they make a claim.'

  While Vamplew busied himself cashing Christopher Madigan's insurance policies, accumulating money and putting it on deposit, Andy kept his head down. As another month came to an end, he gave himself leave to doubt whether she would ever contact him.

  Meanwhile, life was improving. His credit card worked. He could open and close his front door. He was back in touch with his friends. In May, following unprecedented sales for Enid Tansley's Alfresco guide, Goodman placed him in charge of the entire Valentino list.

  The days dragged by. The trees recovered their leaves, although he never seemed to be there when the lights snapped on or the cherry blossom appeared. He was editing Tansley's new book.

  Until on a crisp, sunny morning in August, Vamplew telephoned to confirm that although the method adopted by Christopher Madigan did not commend itself to the judge, Andy's right of inheritance had been upheld. The will was proved. 'I am in a position to advise you that no claim has been made and I am therefore able to distribute the estate.'

  THE WILL

  1

  'I' M RESIGNING ,' A NDY BLURTED .

  Goodman was thrown back. He had received the figures for the latest Tansley. He was about to offer Andy his own general list.

  By ten o'clock, Andy had cleared his desk. He walked down the corridor, stuffing a manuscript into his satchel and looking for Angela to say goodbye.

  She stood by the sink at her morning ritual, spooning granules from an unmarked tin into a mug.

  'Goodman will be sad,' was all she said.

  'Come on, he won't even notice.'

  She turned to look at him. 'He's not just motivated by money, Andy. There is a good streak in him.'

  Doubtless there was - or else why would she have endured at Carpe Diem? But it hadn't spread into his books. Three years Andy had worked in Goodman's publishing house, and the only book he felt inclined to take with him was Missing Montaigne.

  Goodman appeared at the door.

  'You may not believe this, Andy, but I'll miss you,' and rested a hand on his shoulder in an embarrassed, paternal gesture.

  Andy had never felt lighter as he descended the stairs.

  'Hey, man, what's that calypso you're whistling?'

  'Before your time, Errol.'

  He hugged Errol and stepped out into Hammersmith Broadway. Nothing prepares you for the first day you become rich.

  With the assistance of Miss Obiora who had reclassified him as an 'ultra-high-net-worth individual', and asked him to please call her Ayodele, which in Yoruba meant ' la joie s'est entree dans ma maison ', Andy hired the private wealth manager to whom she had introduced him back in March.

  He bought his sister a cottage in Sixpenny Handley; his mother, her own nursery south of Shaftesbury. He was lavish with close friends,
especially David who had agreed to keep the story out of his paper and woke one morning to find a black Toyota estate outside his front door, and, in the passenger seat, a parcel containing a thirty-year-old Australian beer-can and a card: To complete your collection .

  Not that he stinted himself.

  'What are your immediate plans?' Ayodele asked in a pleasant manner in the taxi back from Canary Wharf.

  'Right now? I'm off to Bradshaw Webb on the Chelsea Embankment to take delivery of a silver CLK 63 AMG Cabriolet.'

  Yes, he was a happy man. All his publishing ambitions swept aside in a flash flood of possibilities. He wanted to experiment, to experience.

  Andy was aware that in buying his Mercedes he was enacting a cliche, but cliches contained truth and appetites are universal. There's not a male alive who doesn't aspire to a great car, he thought. And a bolt-hole. With a terrific sound system and a home theatre. A gigantic bed. And a white Fender Stratocaster guitar. After addressing the needs of his family and friends, Andy bought a flat with a minstrel's gallery in a private courtyard off Kensington Square. He equipped the main bedroom with invisible Sensurround speakers and a high-definition plasma telly. He ordered crates of the best wine and malt whisky. Smoked Cuban cigars. And threw a party.

  He hired the jazz band from the Knopwood and invited everyone: his mother and sister, right down to Angela, Goodman and Errol. He asked David to bring his crowd, and to even out the balance he telephoned Sophie's agency and contracted Cassandra to send along a troupe of unattached models.

  At nine o'clock on the night, Andy stood leaning over the minstrel's gallery. A fresh-clipped Partagas Lusitania between his lips. Below, the Dry Heaves playing 'Long Before I Knew You'. On the edge of the dance floor Ivo was talking to a strong-looking girl with short-cropped hair and - somewhat noteworthily - making her laugh. Angela was dancing in a frenetic way with her dowsing instructor, a furtive, blinking, toothy-looking man. David was in deep conversation with Andy's mother. Andy could not see his sister.

  He had invited her, of course, but never for one moment did he expect her to show up. He had swiftly introduced her to the first unaccompanied male he could find - Goodman - which in retrospect was a wasted opportunity, given his history with women. He had not seen her since.

  'Andy?'

  He turned and there - in hippy-de-luxe jeans fastened by a whip of black ostrich leather with a gold serpent's head on a buckle - she was. Pirate's Dream.

  'Hello, handsome,' as if the last six months had rustled away like maple leaves.

  'Sophie! What are you doing here?'

  'Cassandra put me in charge of the girls,' giving his shoulder a proprietorial, ball-wrenching squeeze. She stood back, gorgeous as ever. 'Here, let me take a squinny.' And the new monied Andy caught a look in her eye that was never there when he worked at Carpe Diem. 'Don't you look well!' she said.

  'You, too.'

  'I am well,' having signed up with a Paris couturier to model belts such as the one pulled tight around her waist.

  'Richard?' peering over her shoulder.

  She looked about. 'I say, Andy, this is one helluva place.'

  He stubbed out his cigar and took her on a tour.

  There were people - many of whom he did not know - crammed into corridors and bedrooms. Even the marble-floored bathroom.

  'It's busy,' bayed a voice quite like Goodman's, followed by a familiar-sounding girlish giggle. Quickly followed by a whisper definitely like Goodman's: 'And what is better than that?'

  'Let's go in here,' Andy said, unlocking a door.

  They passed into his study. Sophie kicked off her shoes and lay down on a long chair. 'This is so comfortable.'

  'It should be. It's a Le Corbusier lounger.'

  Andy, knowing little about art or design, had hired a girl who had dropped out of architecture school. India had taken him to auctions and advised him on what to bid for and even who to invite to his party. A bit of fun, really.

  Sophie had her eyes fixed on a portrait above the limestone fireplace. They flicked down to the signature and widened.

  'Not Warhol as in?'

  'The very same,' settling himself opposite in an Eames chair.

  'Who's the dude? Napoleon?'

  Andy mentioned the name of a former politician, currently in prison. India knew the man's wife who had had to sell the portrait to pay for his legal fees. 'I got it for a good price.'

  In the main room, the Dry Heaves were riffing into a jazz rendition of 'In Dreams'.

  The look on Sophie's face had deepened. Down the memory hole had gone her callous treatment of Andy Larkham, impecunious self-help editor. 'If you'd won a dime for every time I thought of you . . .'

  'Do you want to dance?' he asked. There did not seem a lot else to say. What surprised him was how calm he felt.

  She stayed on after everyone left. They had had lots of sex before, but this was exceptional.

  Except, it was not the same. Even if Sophie manifestly thought that it was.

  'You let me go and I'm back because I realised that I'm truly yours,' she said just before dawn.

  She lay naked on her side. Her long lean body stretched out.

  'Then why did you go off with that banker?'

  Sophie swirled the thought and looked very tragic, as if it would not fit into her head. 'You got rid of me.'

  'No, I took you to dinner to talk about our honeymoon in Cintra and you left with the other man.'

  She shook her head and with her finger traced a pattern on his stomach.

  'The thing is, Andy, you and I are very alike, and that's how it's always going to be.'

  He repressed a snort of laughter.

  She finished her hieroglyph with a full stop. 'Andy, couldn't we begin again?'

  Andy looked down at her body, the waist to launch a thousand ostrich leather belts, and opened his mouth to agree when he heard himself like another person who lay beside him say: 'No, Soph, I don't think so.' He could see that the roots of her hair were dark. 'I'm with someone.'

  He watched the snatched hands reaching for cover. 'How dare you . . .' she began. She arranged herself hastily into a modest position on the edge of the bed. 'Is . . . is it serious?' Not looking at him now.

  'Oh, yes, it's serious. We're engaged. I just haven't bought the ring.'

  'Do I know her?' She jumped from the bed and started pulling on her stonewashed jeans. Her buckle projected darting shapes on the wall like reflections from a knife.

  'I doubt it.'

  'Why tell me this now?' bustling into the bathroom. He recognised something hysterical on the edge of her words. It was how he had sounded at the Camoes.

  'Because I won't see you again,' said his voice.

  It was a few days before Andy adjusted to the fact that he did not have to walk to Carpe Diem through the rain every morning in order to gag on Angela's instant coffee. Or drink a stale bottle of Australian red wine when he returned home. Or clench himself each time he caught sight of a rodent-coloured envelope. He had eleven million pounds in various accounts, with dividends and interest accumulating daily.

  The fear that his new life might be seized from him at any moment began to fade. He still looked over his shoulder. But nothing happened. Jeanine had disappeared. He was in no hurry to pursue her. Nor, after anticipating this moment for six months, was he curious any longer about his benefactor. Jeanine was probably right. Her father probably was a bastard. Madigan, Maral Bernhard, Jeanine - he was pleased not to have to think about them.

  Meanwhile, his life immediately improved in hundreds of small ways. Instead of the Tube, he took taxis. If someone recommended a book, he ordered it on Amazon, although he did preserve some meannesses - such as a list of books that he refused to buy until they came out in paperback. He adopted Goodman's habit of sending letters second class. 'Only poor people use first class.'

  The unexpected gave pleasure. He wrote out cheques to his most deserving friends, with the condition 'under no circumstances tell a
nyone else how much this is for'. He could not be a big-league philanthropist, but it excited him to make anonymous gifts to strangers. Dining on his own in Launceston Place, he noticed a courting couple and from time to time glanced over at their table. The young man reminded Andy of himself in the way he ordered the cheapest items from the menu, while encouraging his companion to choose whatever she fancied. Andy had long departed the restaurant by the time the bill was called for, and had to imagine the young man's expression when the waiter said: 'That's all right, sir, there's nothing to pay.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'That gentleman over there' - pointing to Andy's empty chair - 'asked me to give you this' - and unfolded the piece of paper on which he had scribbled: Stay together .

  Andy no longer had a girlfriend, but he believed himself to be as happy as that couple. It wasn't long before he understood the truth of what Christopher Madigan had written in his preamble. No one can be rich too suddenly. Obvious stuff, but Andy could not fully appreciate its meaning until it happened to him. And it started at home.

  His sister was grateful for his help, but her jocular asides carried a new edge. 'Don't think because you've given me a house I'm going to start forgiving all the horrible things you've said and done to me over the years.' Not only had he bought her a pink brick Elizabethan cottage with a spare paddock for a horse. But he had managed to kick-start her romantic life by introducing her at his party to Rian Goodman, who the very next day had invited her for a lobster lunch at Wheeler's. Andy doubted that she had ever tasted lobster before in her life.

  At first, he put it down to simple jealousy that people did not rejoice at his good fortune, and that his money seemed to act as a measure of everyone else's lack. 'You've been lucky. Why haven't I?' He started to feel himself the source of people's resentment and rage as well. They regarded him as lucky only . Had he worked his guts out in Richard's merchant bank, at least they would have nursed a grudging envy. But all he had done was turn up, late, to the wrong event. It should not have surprised him really. He would have felt the same way. What did shock him was to suspect these emotions in people he would never previously have dreamed of harbouring them. His personal relationships had instantly grown complicated.