‘Of course, my apologies, Mrs Mallory. I have to ask, though, what cause do you have for hesitation?’
‘We’re missing something vital to the settlement. Our father has suffered a severe stroke, and the doctors tell us that even if he does survive, it is unlikely he will ever regain speech or movement. So we cannot simply ask him. As you can imagine, this puts us in an awkward position.’
‘Indeed. And it’s my job to get you out of it. What have you lost?’
The lady stiffens. Is she blushing? Seeing this, the man beside her laughs out a mouthful of smoke. It’s the first noise he’s made other than a grunt of greeting.
‘Not what,’ he says. ‘Who.’
Rather than elaborating, he only laughs again and finishes his cigarette.
‘What do you mean?’
The words escape my mouth. Hillbrand cuffs me over the head with his eyes. The woman, meanwhile, notices me for the first time. Did she think that the biscuits floated up to her?
‘Who is this?’ she asks. ‘Not the other half of “Hillbrand and Moffat”?’
‘No, no, Mr Moffat passed away several years ago,’ Hillbrand says smoothly. A lie. At the end of my first week, in the pub, he told me that Mr Moffat never existed. When Hillbrand took over the business from his great-uncle, he got the name ‘Moffat’ off a jar of mayonnaise and added it to his own because he thought it sounded better. ‘This is Mr Perch, my assistant. He’s capable.’
Mrs Mallory looks dubious, but addresses me properly this time.
‘What my brother meant, Mr Perch, is that we are short one family member. Unfortunately it is her name on the deeds to Hallerton House. Without her, even if we are granted power of attorney, we cannot sell.’
‘By “short”, do you mean …?’
‘Missing. Gone,’ the man mumbles as he lights another cigarette. ‘One day she’s there, the next, nothing. Mind you, people say she was mad.’
‘I’m sorry?’ Hillbrand is trying to regain his grip on the situation.
‘Our father’s older sister,’ fills in Mrs Mallory. ‘Our aunt, Emeline Vane.’
‘Ah … and how long has she been missing, exactly? Have you contacted the authorities?’
The man starts laughing again, harder this time. At least, he seems to be laughing. He might be coughing. I wonder whether I should offer him some water.
‘The authorities,’ he wheezes to himself, wiping his eyes with a handkerchief. ‘There’d be no use in that. She’s been missing for years.’
‘Fifty years, to be exact,’ the woman says, before either of us can ask. ‘Emeline Vane disappeared on February twenty-seventh, 1919.’
I don’t know who is more stunned. Hillbrand is turning red from the neck up, staring at them as though they’re crazy. I feel my mouth go clacking off on its own again.
‘Well, if that’s true, then there’s no problem.’ My cheeks burn under the scrutiny but I can’t stop gabbling. ‘I mean, that long, she has to be presumed dead. So there’s nothing to stop you from being granted probate—’
‘You think we haven’t tried?’ the woman interrupts. Her brother is watching me from behind his cigarette. Slowly, she smooths an invisible crease in her skirt. ‘It isn’t that simple. Our father would never declare the death. He has some letter or other from after her disappearance, secreted away. He’s always said that it proves she’s alive.’
Her eyes, cool as smoke, meet mine.
‘It will be your job, Mr Perch, to prove him wrong.’
19th February 1919, Hallerton
Durrant came to see me today.
Outside, the hail fell like words. Small, mean, unwelcome ones that stung. Not enough to bruise or cause pain but enough to serve as a reminder of skin and frailty. I know them well.
Infirm. Afflict. Attend. Cold words. They have to be, to withstand the use. I don’t want to say them any longer. I’ve been waiting for the time when I will be their subject, rather than their owner. Before, it seemed inevitable. It seemed only fair. But it has never come.
I could smell the freezing glass of the window, loose in its frame. Once, on a winter’s day, Timothy and I licked frost flowers from the panes. I remember the bitterness on my tongue. How many years ago was that? Freddie and Albie were home from school, so it must have been at Christmastime. The memory has the scent of cloves about it. If we were in the study, it must have been after father died.
It was a mysterious place then, an adult world of leather ledgers, with rows of numbers and abbreviations that were as impenetrable as a foreign language. But they are mine now, and I shall have to learn to decipher them.
Durrant was looking at me oddly, the way everyone in the village does these days. How long had I sat there thinking? I tried to concentrate, told him I was sorry. He smiled, the way he has since I was a child in a smock and he a man with a twist of barley sugar in his pocket. But then, the smile collapsed at the corners.
‘It is I who should apologize, Miss Emeline. I would rather have waited another few weeks before forcing business upon you, but there are bills, and death duties …’
I nodded as he spoke. In truth, I do not remember much of it now, but at the time he looked so wretched that I tried to summon up the appropriate words. I told him that I would like to settle matters. That Mother had hated debt.
Durrant, if possible, looked more wretched than before.
‘Your …’ He made a habit of clearing his throat. ‘Your mother came to me some nine years ago, to change her will after your father’s passing. It has not been altered since then. You must know already, it leaves everything to her children, surviving. The house and the grounds …’
The fire sputtered and died, drowning in smoke. Swiftly I took the poker, tried to shake a flame back into the coals, but they only tumbled, useless in their coats of ash. Durrant knelt beside me, took the poker from my hand. He smelled of cologne and some kind of liniment.
‘Thank you,’ I said, as he blew a coal into redness. ‘I never was much good at lighting them.’
‘Emeline, how have you been coping?’ He did not speak like a solicitor then. ‘I do not think you should be here alone.’
I told him that Edith came to help me almost every day, though I only paid her for two. I watched the flames spring back into being.
‘This is my home. I do not want to be anywhere else.’
I began to feel the shifting of the warmth across my face, across the clothes that had not felt dry for weeks. Durrant sighed. We knelt like a pair of children, shoulder to shoulder on the hearthrug, staring at the flames.
‘There’s no money.’ His voice was flat. ‘I should not be telling you as much, before the official reading, but it’s true.’
Outside, far off, something tumbled in the wind. ‘Nothing?’ I asked.
‘The bills, the estate duty, it amounts to more than what is left.’
He made to take my elbow, to help me rise, but I stood alone and returned to the desk, to the leather chair stiff with cold. I asked him when the will would be read.
He blinked at such a straightforward question, made an examination of my face before answering.
‘Friday, at two o’clock.’
He told me that my uncle was coming to stay for a time. To keep an eye on me, his look said. Timothy would come with him, his first visit home in over a month. The first time since Mother’s funeral.
I nodded. Behind Durrant’s shoulder, I could see Father’s crystal decanter. It had stood on its silver tray for as long as I could remember. How long did brandy keep? I wondered idly. My mother never drank it and I don’t think my brothers ever dared. Eight years? Ten?
Durrant began to speak again, but I couldn’t make out the words. Instead, I recall standing, walking to the sideboard. His voice petered out as I picked up one of the matching crystal glasses. It was thick with dust.
‘Do you think this stuff is still good?’ I cleaned the glass with my sleeve. The velvet gathered up the grime. If Durrant answered, I di
dn’t hear him. I poured out a little of the liquid and sniffed and asked if Timothy needed to attend the reading of the will.
Durrant watched my actions, and told me that I could witness on Timothy’s behalf.
‘Good. I do not want to send him off to school again with that on his mind.’
Then, I remembered what I wanted to ask, the request that had nagged at me for the past few weeks. I placed the glass down.
‘Mr Durrant,’ I told him, ‘I should like to make a will.’
His face curdled between red and white.
‘Please, Miss Emeline—’
‘It only need be a simple one. I have nothing of value, it seems, but my share in this house. What if something were to happen to me? I should like to know that Timothy will be taken care of.’
‘Emeline, we do not need to do this now. Might it not wait until you are—’
He stopped himself. Until you are better, he was going to say. Until you are in your right mind again. I looked into his eyes and almost laughed at what I saw. At the people we had been: a girl-child and a kindly, occasional visitor. At what we were now, at the pair of us, alone in this echoing house, alone because there was no one else left. There was a high colour to his face as he turned away.
‘We will talk more on Friday.’
He gathered up his hat, his coat, clipped shut his bag. He told me that he would ask his wife to send up something hot, for my supper.
I felt the first tear burn the corner of my eye, but would not look at him. Instead, I took up the glass and drank down the old, hard spirit.
June 1969
I walk back to my desk in a daze, listening to Hillbrand’s repeated pleasantries as he ushers Mrs Mallory and her brother down the stairs. Jill makes a what happened? face from her desk in the corner, but I just shake my head and shrug. Where would I even start? The clock on the wall reads quarter to twelve. I can’t believe it’s only been forty-five minutes.
Limply, I select one of the triplicate forms waiting for me. I haven’t even placed it into the typewriter when Hillbrand sags against the door, loosening his tie with one hand.
‘Put that down,’ he puffs. ‘Anyone else expected, Jill?’
‘Not that I know of, Dicky.’
He opens his mouth to correct her over-familiarity – once again – but gives up mid-breath. Instead, he points at me.
‘Cow. Now.’
The Old Cow is Hillbrand’s favourite pub. I’m not sure why. It’s narrow and dark and jammed into an alleyway between grander buildings like a filling in a tooth. It smells of fag smoke and forty-year-old beer-soaked carpet. It’s only just past opening time and Norm, the landlord, is still pottering around, clinking glasses.
‘Morning, Dick,’ he calls. ‘You’re in early. Good Monday, is it?’
‘Two of the usual, Norm,’ says Hillbrand, struggling out of his jacket. ‘You want an egg?’ he asks. I eye the huge, murky jar of bobbing shapes and shake my head. ‘Suit yourself. And an egg.’
A quarter of the pint and half of the pickled white globe have disappeared down Hillbrand’s gullet before he lets out a hefty sigh.
‘Well,’ he leans on the bar and casts an eye at me, ‘what did you make of that, eh?’
I swallow down a mouthful of bitter. It’s warm and faithful to its name. Hillbrand has never asked me if I like it. I don’t, but he’s buying, so I suppose it doesn’t matter.
‘I think … they, er, were unusual.’
‘Mad as a bag of badgers,’ snorts Hillbrand, chewing the rest of the egg. ‘That what you mean? I’d agree. But. They’re not short on funds. Paid the consultation fee upfront, didn’t even blink when I said it was probably a month’s work. Who’d have thought that damn old file would turn out to be a goldmine?’ He waves his pint heaven-ward. ‘Thank you, Uncle Durrant.’
‘But it’s impossible.’ I brace myself for another sip of bitter. ‘They said themselves, no one’s seen this aunt for decades. And they must’ve tried to find her before.’
‘Haven’t had much luck, then, have they? But you reckon it’s impossible? Shame, I was going to hand the files over to you this afternoon.’
The sly bastard, he knows I can’t refuse. This could be my chance to escape the endless triplicate forms, my first step towards handling real business, towards becoming a real solicitor.
‘Well, maybe not impossible,’ I concede. ‘How much have they told you?’
Hillbrand looks pleased. He glances over at Norm, who’s absorbed in counting out a roll of pennies, and lowers his voice.
‘Enough to get started. I looked back through the file; turns out Great-uncle D was the Vane family solicitor for donkey’s years. Old Man Vane moved most of his business to some big city law firm in the thirties, but he left the property bumf with us, for some reason. Relates to a big old house, out east. Mallory said they’ve had a juicy offer to knock it down, turn it into one of those holiday camps.’ He sucks down another mouthful of bitter. ‘They need to move quick, though, or the developer will bugger off and find another site. And they’ll never find a better buyer. It’s a dump, apparently. Never been there myself, though it’s near where Great-uncle D used to live. Think he must have mentioned it before. Damned if I can remember the details, but it seems like it hasn’t been lived in for years, never been on the market.’
‘Why?’
‘Who knows? Sentiment? You know what old folk are like.’
I try to imagine my own grandparents, clinging on to a crumbling mansion out of sentiment when there was money to be had. Wouldn’t happen.
‘All right, so the old man’s never wanted to sell,’ I say. ‘Isn’t it a bit, underhand of them, going behind his back when he’s so ill?’
Hillbrand laughs. I catch a waft of egg vinegar.
‘Use your head, lad. If Pa dies before they prove this aunt is officially out of the picture, what will happen?’
‘They won’t inherit the property?’
‘They’ll inherit half the property. Can’t sell half a house any more than you can eat half a whelk.’
‘But if they can get power of attorney while he’s out for the count, they can declare her dead—’
‘And flog the house.’
I nod. My head feels light from the beer. They don’t sound like the most compassionate family in the world, but I suppose that’s none of my business.
‘So what am I meant to do?’ My voice sounds too loud. ‘Contact Interpol and ask them the whereabouts or last known location of some mad bat from fifty years ago?’
‘Who do you think you are, Harry bloody Palmer? No, Mrs Mallory mentioned a load of family papers. You’ll start with them. See if you can’t rustle up something useful, like proof that this Miss Vane was barking. It’ll be easier to get her declared dead in absentia then.’
‘Where are they, the papers?’
Hillbrand drains the last of the bitter through his teeth, and grins.
‘How’d you feel about taking your first business trip, Perch?’
‘You mean, stay away?’ Travelling for business or pleasure, sir? the man at the ticket booth will ask me. Business, I’ll say with an important sniff. Back home, Stephanie will tell everyone that I’m working away, on urgent solicitor matters. ‘Where?’
‘Norfolk. Thereabouts.’ He eyes my pint glass, still half-full. ‘Same again?’
A thousand years pass before I find myself boarding the bus once more, among the early-evening traffic. That’s the last time I ever go to the pub with Hillbrand during the day. How the hell does he do it? A quick, ten-minute snooze at his desk and he was off again, digging out the old file on the Vane family, making calls. I nearly nodded off over the triplicate forms a dozen times before he slapped an envelope down on the desk in front of me. It contained the terrifying prospect of two five-pound notes.
‘Baby’s first business expenses,’ he said. ‘Ask for receipts and don’t muck it up.’
I can feel the money now, burning a hole in my pocket. I che
ck it again, just to make sure it’s still there. There’s a seat free at the back of the bus. I half expect to see the sticky child staring back at me, feel an odd flicker of disappointment that it’s only another businessman, who acknowledges my presence with a disgruntled shuffle.
I grip the briefcase tightly on my knee. It’s second-hand. The leather is loose-bellied and the clasp is held together by string, but it’s mine, and inside is my first ever client file. Ahead, the traffic rumbles; the bus jerks and slows, jerks and slows, and my stomach resents me for the second pint of bitter. The man next to me has wrestled his Evening Standard into a manageable square, so I slip the dog-eared cardboard file out of the briefcase, and open it on my knee.
It’s full of typewritten pages with neat, inked signatures. The dates are from forty or fifty years ago. A few sheets down, something heavier slips out on to my lap.
It’s a photograph printed on thick card. It shows a house, large and square with rambling wings to either side. Bare creepers cling to the pale stone. There’s a white wrought-iron table on the terrace, a few weeds struggling through the paving. The garden looks wild, but in a pretty sort of way. It must have been taken before it was abandoned.
Hallerton House, someone has written across the bottom, Saltedge, 1919.
21st February 1919, Hallerton
Last night I found a photograph I had never seen before, while I was searching Father’s desk for ink. It had been placed carefully between two sheets of card. I felt guilty, taking it from the drawer, as though Father or Mother might appear and chastise me for prying.
But of course they did not. There is no one here but me.
I remember the day the photograph was taken. The Blackberry Day, we called it, my brothers and me. It was before Timothy was born, so I must have been eight or nine. One of those rare, stolen weekends when my brothers were home from boarding school and all three of us were allowed to play together; when duty and decorum were flung aside at the door of the boot room and we ran wild.
It was autumn, cold enough for mist to fill the garden in the morning, before the sun burned it away. I remember my brothers standing in the dim corridor outside the kitchen, eyes shining, scarves looped around their necks. Freddie’s cheeks still round and childish, Albie tall and awkward as a heron, his voice beginning to boom and pitch. He was the oldest so, of course, he was our commander. He sent me to the kitchens to barter with Cook. She always did like me the best.
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