‘I need more than her charity!’ cried Lisette. ‘I need … I need …’ She started to cry, and Zoey put her arm around her shoulders.
‘Hey, don’t get upset,’ she said.
‘It’s hard not to.’ Lisette sniffed. ‘I thought when Fred died it was the answer to all our prayers. But it’s been nothing but a nightmare ever since.’
‘Are you really up shit creek on those properties?’ asked Zoey.
‘We’re so far up it they don’t make paddles big enough for us,’ replied Lisette. ‘The only property we’d possibly break even on if we sold it is Papillon, which means Gareth is eyeing it up as a lifeline. But I love Papillon. It would break my heart to lose it.’
‘I didn’t realise things were that bad,’ said Zoey. ‘I thought it might be a bit rocky for you but that you were riding it out.’
‘I wish.’ Lisette sniffed again. ‘We’ve made a complete mess of everything.’
‘We could do with the money too,’ said Zoey. ‘Don keeps giving cash to Disgruntled Deirdre because he’s afraid she’ll turn the girls against him, even though she’s a lying, scheming bitch who cheated on him.’
‘I liked Deirdre,’ admitted Lisette. ‘We got on well.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Zoey made a face. ‘She can be charming when she wants to be. Apparently. I wouldn’t know, of course, she’s never been charming to me. Anyhow, Don was a bit too generous when they divorced. He wanted to appear magnanimous even though the whole thing was her fault.’
‘Is it true she had an affair?’ asked Lisette. ‘She never told me she was unhappy.’
‘A fling with her gym instructor,’ Zoey replied. ‘She claimed that they never slept with each other, but come on, nobody would believe that.’
‘She always seemed devoted to Donald and the girls,’ said Lisette.
‘That woman is devoted to herself,’ Zoey said scornfully. ‘Anyhow, given that Alex was his solicitor then too, he’s not exactly Donald’s favourite person. Plus we’re in negative equity on our own home. I thought if we got Furze Hill, we could sell it and be set up for life.’
‘But why should you get Furze Hill and not us?’ demanded Lisette.
‘I didn’t say we would. Only that I hoped we would. That your dad would treat the elder son with more respect.’
‘He hasn’t exactly treated any of us with respect,’ said Lisette. ‘What about you and me? We did a lot for him and ended up with a measly five grand each and some silverware and jewellery that we can’t even take.’
‘The idea of owning a dead woman’s jewellery creeps me out,’ said Zoey. ‘Unless it belonged to Liz Taylor I’m not interested.’
Lisette gave her a watery smile.
‘Anyway,’ said Zoey. ‘Bottom line is that our father-in-law was incredibly daft and we need to do all we can to fix the mess he’s left us in. I still think we should make some kind of offer to Abbey Andersen and sort of throw ourselves on her mercy. But maybe there’s a temporary solution to our problems.’ She looked pensively at Lisette. ‘Are you absolutely sure there aren’t any heirlooms in the attic?’
‘There isn’t an attic,’ replied Lisette. ‘Everything was in the spare bedrooms.’
‘Did he have a safe? When we were looking for the will, Don said he hadn’t, but perhaps Fred kept it secret.’
Lisette looked at her doubtfully. ‘I didn’t think so either.’
‘Why don’t we look?’ Zoey finished her coffee and slid off the chair. ‘Old man like him, maybe he kept other bits and pieces hidden away. Or money. Or shares to a diamond mine or something.’
‘You’re getting carried away,’ Lisette told her.
‘I can dream.’
‘The best place to look is the study,’ said Lisette.
‘I helped Don look for the will in the study,’ said Zoey. ‘That creeped me out too, to be honest. After all, he actually died there!’ She shuddered.
‘Best place,’ repeated Lisette as they left the kitchen. She had to admit that she also felt slightly uneasy in the room where the old man had died. It was as though he were still here, watching them. Zoey, though, had apparently got over her squeamishness very quickly. She surveyed the room and then lifted the seascape painting that Abbey had admired off the wall.
‘Damn,’ she said. ‘In spy movies the safe is always behind a painting.’ She worked her way through the dozen or so other paintings in Fred’s office, without any luck. ‘Maybe it’s under the floorboards,’ she said.
‘A bit difficult to access beneath a fitted carpet,’ Lisette pointed out. She opened the doors of a cupboard in an alcove. A blue file, filled with cuttings, fell out.
‘Zut!’
She picked it up. The cuttings were about the Magdalene laundries and the fight that the survivors were having to get justice and compensation. She held it out to Zoey.
‘This is what it’s all about,’ she said angrily. ‘His damn obsession!’
‘I saw those cuttings when I was here with Don.’ Zoey said. ‘I can’t imagine what it was like for those girls. But Fred was stupid to get so fixated on it.’
‘How will they prove this obsession in court if it comes to it?’ Lisette asked.
‘We don’t want it to get that far, which is why you and I are going to think of a way to sort things out by taking action ourselves, instead of putting our faith in our emotional and probably equally irrational husbands. But in the meantime …’ Zoey’s eyes narrowed and she stalked across the room to another cupboard. ‘I don’t remember looking in here.’ She yanked the door open and a mountain of books, videos and DVDs toppled out. ‘Oh for God’s sake!’ she cried as she dodged them. She looked down at the pile on the floor. ‘John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, Tommy Lee Jones. He was into the whole macho man thing in a big way, wasn’t he?’
‘He liked to think of himself as a tough man,’ agreed Lisette.
‘Where else could he have hidden stuff?’ asked Zoey.
‘Perhaps upstairs,’ suggested Lisette. ‘Perhaps in his room.’
She’d only been in Fred’s bedroom a couple of times before, both times when he’d had bad chest infections and wasn’t able to get up. The decor hadn’t changed since Ros had been alive – the room was still floral and pink, colours that were at odds with Fred’s personality. The dressing table was reproduction Louis XV and the framed print over the bed showed a French pastoral scene from the same era.
‘Bloody hell,’ said Zoey as she stepped inside.
‘Don’t you like it?’ Lisette looked at her with a sudden hint of mischief in her eyes.
‘I like pink,’ said Zoey defensively. ‘But this is something even my granny would’ve rejected as being over the top.’
‘It’s pretty awful, isn’t it?’ Lisette agreed. ‘I suppose it reminded Fred of his wife.’
‘A woman with no taste whatsoever,’ said Zoey.
‘Perhaps it was tasteful when they did it.’
‘I doubt that. Right. A safe.’
Zoey opened the first of the fitted wardrobe’s three doors. Seven shirts were neatly hung on the rail, along with seven pairs of trousers. Seven pairs of shoes were arranged on a rack on the floor.
‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘His clothes. That’s definitely creepy, and a bit sad too.’
‘He didn’t spend his cash on clothes,’ observed Lisette as she opened the second door. ‘This is all his casual stuff. Sweat shirts and jogging pants. Not that he jogged much.’
‘Hey, if I get to eighty-odd, I’ll be happy to sit around and let people bring things to me,’ said Zoey. ‘I hate the gym.’
‘Are you a member of one?’
‘How d’you think I keep this body?’ demanded Zoey. ‘It’s not from sitting on my arse all day. I have to work at it, you know. I’m not naturally thin like you.’
‘I’m not naturally thin either,’ said Lisette. ‘But I eat well.’
‘I try,’ Zoey told her. ‘It’s hard.’
‘Not if you cook the food yourself,’ said
Lisette. ‘That’s the problem with people today. They own lots of cookbooks but they still buy ready-made meals.’
‘Because there are better things to do than slave over an oven,’ Zoey said.
‘No, there are not,’ Lisette disagreed. ‘Cooking is the most important thing you can do. Proper food keeps your body in balance. It is ridiculous that people spend more money on clothes and computers and other things than food. What is the point in paying for an expensive dress if the body it covers is like shit?’
Zoey stared at her. ‘I’ve never heard you sounding so French before. But you guys eat frogs’ legs, you know.’
‘They are delicious,’ said Lisette. ‘Like chicken wings.’
‘Gross,’ said Zoey.
‘All I’m saying is that more care with your food means less hard work in the gym.’ Lisette opened the final door. ‘Oh my God!’
‘What? What?’
‘He kept her clothes,’ said Lisette.
‘Yeuch!’
‘They’re OK.’ Lisette ran her fingers over a selection of dresses and trousers. ‘Not so bad, actually. Good quality.’
‘They’re over ten years old!’ cried Zoey.
‘I keep clothes for more than ten years,’ said Lisette. ‘It’s not a crime.’
‘But she’s dead!’ cried Zoey.
‘Perhaps he got comfort from them.’
Zoey shuddered. Then she dropped to her knees to inspect the interior of the wardrobe more closely.
‘Look,’ she said. ‘Half hidden by those trousers.’
Lisette knelt down too. They both looked at the safe. It was similar to the type found in hotel bedrooms, small and oblong, with a keypad to enter a code.
‘Well, well,’ said Zoey.
‘We found it.’
They exchanged glances.
‘So what’s the code?’ asked Zoey.
‘I have no idea,’ said Lisette.
‘Think,’ said Zoey. ‘What interested him? What could he remember? He was an old man, after all, so it couldn’t be too difficult.’
Lisette keyed in 1234, but the safe remained closed.
‘Bugger,’ said Zoey. She sat back on her heels and considered it. ‘Birthdays?’ she suggested. ‘His, Don’s, Gareth’s?’
Lisette keyed in 0205, which was Gareth’s birthday, but nothing happened. Then Zoey keyed in Don’s with the same effect.
‘This is hopeless,’ said Lisette. ‘We’ll never guess. And we’re wasting our time anyway, because there probably isn’t anything in it.’
She keyed in Fred’s own birthday, but still had no luck.
‘Maybe it’s her birthday,’ said Zoey suddenly. ‘His wife’s.’
‘Ros?’ Lisette rolled her eyes. ‘I have no idea what her birthday is.’
‘Or maybe their anniversary,’ said Zoey.
‘I do know that.’ Lisette punched in 2111, and much to their surprise, the door of the safe swung open.
They stared inside. The contents comprised a red leather box and a large brown envelope.
‘Family secrets?’ whispered Lisette as she looked at the envelope.
‘Something better?’ said Zoey, lifting out the red leather box. She opened it slowly. Inside were two dozen gold coins. She picked one of them out. ‘What the hell is this?’
‘Bullion,’ said Lisette. ‘He must have kept some of his money in bullion.’
‘Real gold?’ Zoey looked at her hopefully.
‘It looks like it.’
‘What’s it worth?’ asked Zoey.
‘I don’t know,’ said Lisette. ‘But gold has soared in value over the last few years, so … a few thousand?’
‘That’s all?’ Zoey looked disappointed.
‘We could check online,’ said Lisette.
‘What’s in the envelope?’ asked Zoey.
Lisette removed it from the safe and opened it.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘Money.’
‘Cash? How much?’
‘I don’t know. I …’ Lisette withdrew six bundles of notes and started counting. Zoey watched her intently.
‘My God, it’s thirty thousand,’ breathed Lisette. ‘He must have been mad, keeping this in the house.’
‘And there’s the proof you need.’ Zoey flicked through the notes. ‘Oh Lisette, you know what some old people are like. They need to have hard cash tucked away somewhere. He didn’t make any mention of this in the will, did he?’
Lisette shook her head. ‘Though I suppose it’s included in the contents of the house, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Which means it’s Abbey bloody Andersen’s money.’
‘Only if she knows about it,’ said Zoey.
‘She’ll have to know about it.’
‘Why?’ asked Zoey.
Lisette stared at her.
‘Who’s going to tell her?’ demanded Zoey. ‘You? Me?’
‘But …’
‘What was the point in looking for a safe if we weren’t going to take whatever was inside?’ asked Zoey.
‘I don’t know,’ said Lisette.
‘Look – this money isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference, is it?’ asked Zoey. ‘To you or to me. Even with it, you and Gareth will still owe whatever you owe on the mortgages. Don and I will still be living in our poky house. But what the hell, Lisette, we deserve something for ourselves, and we deserve it now. Even if the Americans see sense sooner rather than later, it’ll still take ages to get the whole thing sorted out.’
Lisette looked longingly at the envelope and the leather box. She thought of her kitchen shelf, crammed with envelopes full of gas bills, electricity bills, insurance bills and a whole heap of other things that she couldn’t afford to pay.
‘We can’t take it all,’ she said.
‘Five grand each,’ decided Zoey. ‘That doubles what he left us, which seems perfectly fair to me. We’re entitled to more than Disgruntled Deirdre. And not a word to the boys, because they’d let something slip.’
‘What about Suzanne?’ asked Lisette.
‘What about her?’ Zoey was dismissive. ‘If we get a deal done, we’ll make sure she doesn’t lose out.’
Lisette nodded slowly.
‘So come on,’ said Zoey. ‘We’re entitled. Don’t you think so?’
Lisette nodded again, more vigorously this time.
‘All the time you spent looking after him,’ said Zoey. ‘Suzanne didn’t. And I visited him too. Never even said a word when he spent most of the time looking down my blouse.’
‘He used to pinch my bum,’ said Lisette.
‘There you go,’ Zoey told her. ‘Payment for services to old men.’
Lisette made a face.
‘You in or not?’ asked Zoey.
‘Yes. Yes, I am.’
Lisette took the money from the envelope again. Meanwhile, Zoey divided some of the coins between them.
‘We won’t take them all,’ said Zoey. ‘That way, it makes sense that he’d have the safe for both the money and the gold.’
‘Good idea,’ said Lisette.
Then the two of them closed the doors of the wardrobe and walked out of the room.
Chapter 29
Moving into the apartment changed everything. The moment she stepped over the threshold, Abbey felt it was her place, her home, and she wanted to stay there for ever. It had been altered significantly in the ten years since she and Ellen had lived there; both the building and the apartments inside had been remodelled and upgraded so that the living area with its open-plan kitchen seemed bigger and brighter than before. The space in the bedrooms was better utilised too, and the bathroom … well, that sealed the deal as far as Abbey was concerned, because the old acrylic bath with its constantly dripping shower had been replaced by a sleek tiled wet-room which she fell in love with at first sight. Additionally, the overgrown garden behind the building had been made over and now consisted of paved and grassy areas containing fruit trees and flowering shrubs.
In a million years she wo
uldn’t have been able to afford a place like this on what she made at the Mariposa salon, either renting or with a mortgage. But Pete had insisted that he wasn’t going to charge her rental until after everything to do with the will was settled. At which point, he said, you’ll hopefully be in a position to buy it off me. Abbey had never seriously considered buying San Francisco real estate before. But standing in the apartment, she knew that it was an option she definitely wanted to consider now. And, like Pete said, she deserved it, didn’t she?
Pete was right about so many things. Why should she feel bad for the Fitzpatricks, who’d had a proper family life and had already been looked after by their father? As for Suzanne – well, she might have been hard done by in the past, but she was a smart businesswoman who’d been left a lot of money now, so she didn’t have anything to complain about either.
So it’s not my fault, thought Abbey. Nothing to do with them is my fault. It was Fred’s right to leave his house to whomever he wanted, and if he hadn’t liked me he would have shredded that will.
She wondered if her mother would take the same point of view. She would be meeting her at the weekend, having received an email back from Sister Inez to say that Sister Benita – as Ellen was now known – would be available on Saturday. Abbey was both pleased and nervous. She was glad to finally have the opportunity of talking with her mother about everything, but anxious as to how Ellen would react, especially if she was unaware of her adoption. She was also unsure how she herself would react if Ellen told her that she had known but had kept the information from her.
Abbey felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulders grow as the weekend approached. She tried not to think about it too much by immersing herself in her work, which included studying a website for a nail art competition which would shortly be taking place in LA. Although she’d always refused to participate in competitions in the past, Pete’s recent words about her being passive, about setting impossible targets and not using her talents, had hit home. Part of the reason she’d said that she didn’t want to take part was that she didn’t like leaving San Francisco. But how could she use that as an excuse when she’d recently travelled to Ireland and Spain? And if she wanted to prove to herself (and maybe to Ellen too) that she’d made the right decision in choosing to do nail art, perhaps entering a competition was the way to go. If she won … well, she wasn’t thinking that far ahead, but maybe the experience would be worthwhile. And so she studied the entry requirements, filled in the online form and hit send before she could change her mind.
Things We Never Say Page 28