The Money Makers

by Harry Bingham

  To my children,

  I’m dead now, proud of some things, ashamed of others. I’m proudest of my business, of course. I loved Gradley Plant Hire. I gave it everything and it rewarded me for it. With my business, things worked just as they were meant to. You lot think profit is just another name for money, but you’re wrong. Profit means health. It means rosy cheeks and a happy smile. Gradley Plant Hire was a bouncing baby and its father loved it.

  With you lot, things were never so simple. I wanted to teach you about life. I wanted to teach you about work and pride and discipline. I wanted you all to love my business the way I did.

  And I failed, didn’t I? God knows what you lot really think, but I swear to you I only ever saw you think about the business when you wanted to cadge money from me. My eldest son George is the crown prince of idleness; Zack’s a bloody philosopher; and Matthew and Josie will probably drop out just as soon as they’ve got anything to drop from. If I tell you that I wanted to be a good dad to you, you probably won’t believe me, but for what it’s worth, I swear to you I did. I still don’t know what went wrong. I don’t know if it was your fault or mine. But don’t accuse me of not wanting things to work out better, because I did, I really did.

  Maybe it doesn’t matter now. You’re not here to worry about our family failures, you’re here to see how much I’ve left you. Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint you, so I’ve come up with a way of giving each of you what you most want.

  Josephine first. I had the most trouble with you. You never minded spending my money on clothes and parties, but you never really wanted to be rich, did you? Being nice to people was more your thing. Swotting away at school and do-gooding. I thought of getting you a truckload of designer clothes, but of course they’d all have been the wrong colour or too bloody short or too bloody long. If it came from me there was always a problem, wasn’t there? Then I had a brainwave. You remember how you used to come into my office when you were little? You used to tidy my pens and play at being my secretary. You didn’t grumble about my business then. You didn’t want to try to change me from what I am. You know what I think now? I think that was the last time we were ever happy together, like a dad and his little girl are meant to be.

  Very well then. To you, Josephine Gradley, I give an enrolment at a secretarial college of your choice plus five hundred quids’ worth of Marks & Spencer’s vouchers to get yourself properly kitted out. If I’m wrong and you’re more ambitious than I’ve realised, then you’ve got the brains and looks to get yourself whatever it is you want. I don’t need to worry. You’ll be OK.

  As for my sons, George, Zack and Matthew, well, you were easier to deal with. You only ever wanted money and your only ambition was to get your hands on mine as soon as you could. Fair enough. But there’s one condition. I worked my balls off to get my money, while you lot haven’t done a day’s work in your lives. Maybe that’s my fault. Maybe I didn’t bring you up right. If so, I’m sorry. I hope there’s time to make amends.

  The rest of my estate - Gradley Plant Hire mostly - will be put into a trust. The trustees will look after things for three years, keep the company ticking over and that sort of thing. Then in three years’ time, three years from today, we’ll see what you’ve achieved. If any of you can produce the sum of one million pounds in a bank account under your name and your exclusive control, then you get the lot. Everything. You’ll have to show, of course, that you haven’t just borrowed the money or anything like that. It needs to be yours and only yours and not owed to a bank or the taxman or the man in the moon. But don’t worry, the lawyers have gone into all that and the rules should be perfectly clear. If more than one of you kids has come up with the million, then the one with the most gets everything. I like winners, not runners-up. You can do what you like then. You can sell the company and spend the rest of your life on a tropical island for all I care. You’ll have earned it.

  If, by any chance, you don’t come up with the million, then I’ve obviously misjudged you and you don’t truly want my money. In that case it will all go to charity and you can each make your own way in the world, just like I did. At least you’ll have the knowledge that anything you do get has come your way through your own hard work and honesty.

  Good luck. I really mean it. Make me proud of you.

  Love from your father,

  Bernard.

  Helen Gradley was weeping copiously now, cocooned in Josephine’s arms. Her tears were not just tears of grief, they were tears of shock, tears of ultimate defeat. Josephine was crying too, but her grief was different. She was hurt by her father’s viciousness towards her. She was upset at finding what her privileged life was about to turn into. But most of all she was upset that her father’s last act should be one of spite and unkindness. He’d deserved a better memorial.

  Earle brought his attention back. He had been staring, and staring at pretty, vulnerable young women is not recommended behaviour for family solicitors. The three young men remained almost expressionless. Only a tightening of their lips and a hardening of their eyes betrayed any emotion. Zachary, the dark one, had his eyes almost completely narrowed, his hand over his lips, concealing his feelings, appraising the situation, planning the next step.

  Earle shivered.

  ‘Gradley Plant Hire and your father’s other assets are now held in trust, and they will be looked after for you by a group of very able trustees. Should any of you meet your father’s conditions, you will find everything in very good order in three years’ time. The will goes into all these matters in greater detail, and you may of course read it at your leisure. You may also wish to consult your own legal advisers, but I regret to say that in my opinion there should be no difficulty in enforcing the terms of the will. I’m really very sorry.’

  2

  Helen Gradley had lost the key to her own front door. Standing on the step outside, she rummaged uselessly through the rubbish in her handbag and began to cry.

  ‘Don’t worry, Mum,’ said Josephine. ‘I’ve got it.’

  On the long drive home Helen’s shock had dissolved repeatedly into tears, but the hard centre of her pain had, if anything, grown. Since the divorce, she had never quite brought herself to believe in the permanence of her poverty. Though she had been in work, she was a poor housekeeper, prone to surges of extravagance she could ill afford. A few years back, she was diagnosed as suffering from repetitive stress injury caused by poor typing posture, and she had invalided herself from the workforce with a speed and decisiveness none of her kids had been able to overcome. On hearing the news of her ex-husband’s death, she had been openly delighted.

  ‘At least his money will be of some use now,’ she’d said. The will devastated her. Her worn carpets, her threadbare curtains, her hopeless dreams of a better life were all here to stay. The cavalry wasn’t coming. Rescue was impossible.

  Josephine unlocked the door, took her mum upstairs to bed, and left her there with a hot-water bottle and a promise to look in soon. The kids needed to speak openly with each other and weren’t able to do so in their mother’s grief-stricken presence.

  By the time Josephine emerged, her three brothers were sitting at the kitchen table round a pot of tea. Zachary, named after his grandfather, but always known simply as Zack, had arrived that morning with a bottle of champagne, expecting to celebrate later, but nobody felt like it now. With their mother quiet, they could turn at last to the thing on all their minds.

  ‘Poor Mum,’ said Josie. ‘It’s awful for her. She’d so relied on the will to make everything better.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Josie. It’s awful for all of us. The old bastard’s probably laughing himself sick,’ said Matthew. He had sympathy for his mother, but his sympathy for himself was very much greater. Matthew’s broad, good­ looking face was puckered up into a boyish scowl. His cupid’s-bow mouth pouted in an eight-year-old’s sulk.

  ‘He’s not an old bastard. He’s our dead father,’ said Josephine.

  ‘Of course he�
�s our father,’ said Matthew. ‘None of us wished him dead and all of us would bring him back if we could. But we all know that he was a bastard when alive, and he certainly acted the bastard in his death. And face it. He’s succeeded. He’s screwed up my life. He’s screwed up your life. He’s screwed things up for all of us, not just Mum.’

  ‘You mean we’ll all have to earn a living like every other person in the world.’ Josephine’s voice was high and tense. She knew Matthew spoke the truth, yet she thought it wrong to speak ill of their dead father only days after laying him in his grave. And, despite every­ thing, in his own infuriating way, he had loved them.

  ‘Oh come on, Josie,’ said Matthew, unable to keep his voice from whining. ‘It’s like being imprisoned. None of us has ever really expected to earn our livings, and now we’re going to be locked up like everyone else in tedious jobs, suits, mortgages, pension plans, and all the rest of it. It’s a life sentence.’

  ‘You’ve got a job with that American investment bank, Madison, haven’t you? That’s not so bad.’

  ‘It’s not a proper job, just a summer job. I need to finish my economics degree before I look for anything permanent. And Madison won’t have me back. I only took the job because Dad made me, and I haven’t done a stroke of work since arriving.’

  ‘You’re talented enough-’

  ‘Of course I’ll find something eventually, but that’s not what I expected, or any of us. It’s a life sentence, Josie, and it’s what that bastard wanted.’

  Tears rose to Matthew’s eyes as he spoke. He had a vision of his future as it should have been - leisured, pleasured and easy - and of his future as it now was: leaden, penniless and hard. He’d toil away for forty years and his reward would be this: that he’d have enough cash to avoid cold and hunger in his old age. George saw Matthew’s tears and moved the conversation forwards, giving his brother the opportunity to wipe his eyes with the back of his hand.

  ‘You’re right,’ grunted George. ‘But I’m worse off. I’ve got seven lousy O-Levels. I was chucked out of school. I’ve never done a day’s work in my life. I’ve got a couple of thousand quid in my current account, I’ve got my car, and that’s it. My flat’s rented. If I look for a job, I’ll be lucky to get something stacking shelves.’

  He wasn’t exaggerating. George had been expelled from Sedbergh for holding a champagne party for a dozen friends, mostly female, in his housemaster’s sit­ ting room. His housemaster had arrived back early from a weekend away to find the music blaring, the lights blazing, and champagne ringmarks all over the fine antiques it had been his life’s passion to collect. George’s education had finished that very night and, without regrets, he’d plunged straight into the life of the international playboy. He mixed with the young, rich and idle from Europe and the States, rotating between the ski slopes of Gstaad, the yacht clubs of the Riviera, the grouse moors of Scotland, and the glittering parties of London, Paris and New York. The one talent that George had developed to the full was getting money out of his father. For some reason, Bernard Gradley paid up for George’s extravagances with a freedom none of the others enjoyed. The others put it down to their physical similarity: the same heavy build, the same ginger hair and piggy eyes. George himself didn’t bother to question his father’s generosity. He just took the money, endured the criticism, and took off for the next party.

  ‘Can’t we get the will overturned or something?’ he added. ‘I mean there must be a law against this kind of thing.’

  ‘Oh grow up,’ snapped Zack. ‘Of course there isn’t a law against it. It was Dad’s money and he’s allowed to give it to whoever he wants. We can get a lawyer to look at the will, but it’s bound to be watertight. Dad wouldn’t screw up something like that. He was a bastard, but he was a competent bastard.’

  Zack scowled, dark and intense, silencing the room.

  Brilliant, abrasive and arrogant, he had always been the boys’ natural leader, despite George’s three year advantage in age, and Zack’s assessment carried complete authority.

  ‘At least you’ve got a proper job,’ sulked Matthew.

  This was true up to a point. Zack had gone to Oxford to study law, but had grown quickly bored and switched to philosophy. The move had enraged his father. ‘You show me somebody who’s made any money studying the meaning of life and I’ll sell him my business for a tenner,’ he roared, and obstructed Zack at every turn. But Zack could be as stubborn as his father and, having completed his degree with flying colours, went on to pursue a doctorate in a particularly obscure area of philosophy. Unfortunately, just as he was close to finishing his thesis, some new work published in the United States seemed to overturn the conclusion he was trying to prove, and he abandoned his work in a fit of annoyance.

  At his dad’s insistence, he’d looked for a job and reluctantly signed up with a big London accountancy firm. He’d been there for four months and hated every minute. A week ago, a simmering quarrel with a senior partner exploded into a major row and Zack fully expected to be fired upon his return to work.

  Zack shrugged. ‘I may have a job, but that’s the point. I don’t want a job. I want to be rich enough not to need one. Same as you.’

  Matthew reached for the teapot and poured himself tea. He swigged it and breathed out with a sigh. ‘Let’s have a minute’s silence out of respect for the poor sods in hell who’ll have to put up with Dad for the next million billion years.’

  ‘Matthew! Honestly!’ exclaimed Josephine, shocked.

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said George, lifting his mug in a mock toast. ‘Here’s to the late and unlamented Bernard Gradley. May he enjoy as much kindness and generosity in the life hereafter as he showered upon one and all in his time on earth.’

  Matthew and George looked at Zack for his support.

  Zack was the leader and the two brothers needed him. Zack held their gaze in agonising silence. Nothing in his face moved. The dark pools of his eyes had narrowed to slots, guarding the secrets within. Matthew and George searched his expression for an answer but found nothing.

  ‘Well?’ asked Matthew at length, the whine returning to his voice. George was calmer, but equally intent, perhaps already guessing the turn Zack’s thoughts had taken.

  ‘Well what?’ replied Zack, with a slight tremor. He slowly rose, walked to the fridge and took out the champagne. He uncorked the bottle and carefully poured himself a glass. ‘I don’t know about you guys, but I’m quite happy.’

  ‘Happy? How can you be happy?’ Matthew and George spoke as one.

  ‘Well, the most I’d been expecting was a quarter of Dad’s fortune. Today I’ve discovered I can have all of it.’

  ‘What the hell do you mean?’

  ‘Just what I say,’ said Zack calmly. ‘I’ll make a million. In three years. Then I’ll have everything. I couldn’t have hoped for more.’

  ‘How are you going to make the money?’

  ‘I don’t know yet. But I will. And in three years’ time, I’ll be very rich indeed.’

  Matthew and George were stunned. If Zack said he would do something they both believed he’d do it. But Zack said nothing about sharing the money out, and neither of his brothers wanted to bet a whole lot on his generosity.

  Matthew’s boyish features gathered in a frown. Zack might be the brilliant one, but Matthew was deeply competitive. He could seldom resist a challenge, and on this occasion he wasn’t going to try.

  ‘You may make a million, Zack. But I’ll make more. I’ll beat you to Dad’s money. I’ll get it. Not you.’

  The two brothers, one dark and angular, the other broad and fair, gazed at each other like gladiators before bloodshed. George spread his hands in despair.

  ‘You’ll share out the money, guys, won’t you? I mean whoever wins. I’m sure you will.’

  Neither Zack nor Matthew spoke, but their faces gave George his answer. If he wanted his father’s cash, there was only one way to get it.

  ‘Oh Jesus,’ he said. ‘I don’t believe it
. Alright. I’ll have to make my million too, I suppose. Oh, Jesus.’

  ‘You babies,’ said Josephine. ‘You stupid babies.’

  Upstairs Helen Gradley began to cry again in deep sobs that racked the little house.

  Summer 1998

  1

  As morning broke over London four young people awoke to face the day.

  First was Matthew, who, as on so many mornings, awoke to find himself in a bed not his own. Beside him there slept an attractive girl, naked. He brushed her hair away from her face. Alison? Amanda? No, Amelia. He’d met her at a party the night before and they’d left together. She was pretty, but mediocre in bed, he remembered. No, that was unfair. It was Matthew who’d been off form. The will had got to him, as had Zack’s aggressive response. Amelia had been just fine, and her skin looked lovely in the morning light. Matthew tweaked the duvet up over her bare shoulder and crept out of bed.

  He dressed silently in front of the mirror. His light fluffy hair needed to be damped and combed, but he didn’t want to run the bathroom taps in case he woke the sleeper. He patted his hair ineffectually into place. He looked like a stubbly choirboy with untidy hair. Matthew grimaced at his reflection but it didn’t help. It just made him look like a sulky choirboy.

  He crept downstairs and found a bit of paper and a pen. He searched a bit further and found an envelope in the dustbin addressed to Miss Amelia Somebody-or­ other. Good. Amelia, then, not Amanda.

  ‘Dear Amelia,’ he wrote. ‘Thank you for a wonderful night last night. I thought you were absolutely terrific.

  Sorry I had to rush off this morning - urgent business elsewhere, and I didn’t want to wake you. All the very best, Matthew.’

  He was practised in such notes and had stopped signing off with ‘love from’ or ‘we must get together again’. His one-night stands were mostly with partners who were no more looking for true love than he was, but on occasion he had been caught out and the word ‘love’ had come back to haunt him. So now he aimed to be generous, warm-hearted but final. As far as he could remember, Amelia wouldn’t have a problem with that, but in any case she didn’t have his phone number. He closed the front door quietly and walked across the park towards his Chelsea flat.