by Jenny Colgan
Blinking, I climbed out of the taxi. I glanced upwards. Standing by the large French windows, silhouetted in the gathering gloom, was my stepmother. She wasn’t moving and she had her back to the window.
And the front door was open. It was never left unlocked. But none of this really registered as, deep in misery, I set off up the stairs.
The first thing I heard was crying. A soft sound that came from downstairs, which meant it was probably Esperanza. My brain couldn’t compute: what did this mean?
From up above me came much more urgent noises - shouting, rough voices, things banging and moving around. Feeling like I was in a dream, I put my shaking hand on the banister.
At first I couldn’t take in the scene in the drawing room. It looked like a film, or an episode of Casualty. Men and women wearing green and yellow neon jackets were everywhere, yelling and throwing things at each other. My stepmother was standing at the back of the room, by the windows. And there, lying on the floor, a ghastly shade of grey and not moving at all, was my father.
‘Daddy!’ I screamed. One or two of the paramedics looked up - those closest to my dad, the ones actually bent over him, doing stuff to him - didn’t. A woman with a ponytail came over to me.
‘Are you Sophia?’ she said.
‘It’s Sophie, actually,’ I said. Sophia was the name my parents called me. The woman looked at me strangely.
‘Well, Sophie,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid your dad’s had a very serious heart attack.’
Oh God, oh God. Was he going to die?
I knelt down on the floor, but the ponytailed woman gently pulled me back. ‘It’s best if you let our team work,’ she said. ‘We’re doing all we can.’
I looked at my father’s face. It was the most peculiar colour.
‘Well do MORE,’ I screamed. ‘Fix him!’
‘We’re trying our best.’
‘Well, try your best FASTER!’
There was a sudden silence in the room. I couldn’t work out what it was; but there’d been lots of machines beeping and humming and making breathy noises. Suddenly I realised that they weren’t making those noises any more.
A burly man with a shaved head who’d been bent over Daddy knelt back on his haunches. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, looking at Gail and me. ‘I’m really sorry. He’s gone.’
From somewhere deep within me, I didn’t even know where, I heard a great howl . . . ‘Daddy! Daddy!’
The paramedics looked embarrassed. I reached him - Daddy - the body, I didn’t know, and collapsed on top of him, hugging him with all my might. He still felt warm. But that was all. He didn’t feel of anything else. He didn’t smell of his normal smell - cigars, whisky if it was in the evening, cologne in the morning. He smelt of antiseptic wipes and, oddly, burning.
‘Daddy,’ I whimpered again, feeling the tears start to gather and run down my face. And I think the paramedics were as polite as they could be, and waited as long as they could before they had to pack up their things, wait for the undertaker, and leave.
Later, the house silent, Gail and I finally looked at each other. Years of animosity stood between us, like a huge rock. Suddenly I wanted to push it out the way, run to her, forget all the tantrums and the jealousies. I just wanted someone to hold me.
‘Gail—’
She cut me off curtly. ‘He called you. He wanted you. But you seemed to be too busy to pick up the phone.’
And she abruptly left the room.
Chapter Five
It’s hard to describe the weeks after my father’s death. I’ve never known pain like it. Nowadays I have taken that grief and locked it in a box, and buried it deep inside. Those weeks of swirling, half-awake nightmares, where I would wake up with a start and relive the whole thing again; the hazy, Percodan-fuelled days when I didn’t even open the blackout curtains. It was a dark place, and I never want to go back there again.
Gail made all the arrangements, because I couldn’t do anything at all. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t leave the house. I needed so badly for someone to put their arms around me and tell me everything was going to be all right. I needed my boyfriend. I needed my friends. I had neither.
I called, once. Carena didn’t pick up, although she must have recognised the number. Then I tried Philly, who after a few piss-weak expressions of sadness about my dad, put on a little girl’s voice, and said, ‘Are you really cross with Carena?’
‘Am I what?’ I said. Cross didn’t really cut it. ‘She’s been . . . she’s been a complete fucking . . .’
‘You know she feels really terrible about it,’ said Philly. ‘And those Gina shoes really hurt.’
‘Good,’ I said grimly. ‘I was hoping the diamante might take out someone’s eye.’
‘She says that it was a passion bigger than both of them . . . that she was just swept away . . .’
‘You know what, I think I have more important things on my mind,’ I said, bitterly.
‘OK,’ said Philly. ‘Uh, what about the funeral . . .’
‘Don’t come,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to see either of you.’
I really regretted that. It wasn’t my funeral, though I’m sure Carena and Rufus would have found everything much more convenient if it had been. They should have been there though. Philly, who used to secretly eat all the muffins in our kitchen, and when my dad caught her at it one day he’d laughed hysterically and had a huge muffin basket sent to her house. Carena, who used to explain to him patiently why we needed to have our music so loud. They were part of my dad’s life, too. At least he never met Rufus. And it meant, too, at the funeral, there was no one I knew, just hundreds of businessmen.
‘He was such a good man.’
‘A terrific businessman.’
‘Great to work with.’
All of that I’d expected, and I tried to swallow the ping pong ball in my throat and thank them gracefully. But what I wasn’t expecting from so many strangers were the things they said about me.
‘He was so proud of you.’
‘Says you’ve got a big job in photography.’
‘He always said you worked really hard, that you were doing really well at college.’
Over and over again, people I scarcely recognised came up to tell me things my dad had told them about me. About how great I was, and how well I was doing and how happy I was.
Things that, when I thought about the uselessness of my life - parties, and lunches and messing about - just obviously weren’t true.
Summer turned into autumn and I scarcely noticed. Then one morning Gail rapped sharply at my door.
‘Sophie? Could you come downstairs please? We’re in the study.’
Her voice sounded timid. I’d avoided her - avoided everyone - but I heard her come and go occasionally. I hadn’t asked how she was; I was too selfish and caught up in my own grief.
Gail looked stiff and awkward in the study. Standing next to her was a tall, grey-haired man with small round spectacles and a pursed mouth. Next to him was my father’s old lawyer, Leonard. He looked quiet and sad. He’d given me a big hug at Dad’s funeral. I’d always liked him. He had four daughters and had known me since I was tiny. But it was clear from the way Gail was standing next to the tall chap that he was in charge now.
Sure enough, Gail immediately said, ‘This is Mr Fortescue, my lawyer.’
I gave him a second glance. ‘What about Leonard?’
‘Leonard only worked for your dad. Mr Fortescue has been helping me out with a few things.’
I didn’t like the sound of that very much. Leonard half-smiled at me, a little sadly.
‘We just wanted to have a little talk with you. About arrangements and so on.’
Gail’s eyes were fixed on a point about twenty centimetres above my head. She looked really uncomfortable. I didn’t realise why I hadn’t figured this out before - it hadn’t really crossed my mind. But it was about Daddy’s will. Of course. I briefly felt a cold hand clutch at my insides. Then ignored it; it wasn�
��t as if I had to worry. ‘I’ll always look after you,’ Daddy had said.
‘Sophie,’ she began, ‘look. Now, your dad obviously wanted you to be well looked after . . .’
I nodded.
‘Look, Sophie . . . I’m so sorry . . . this is going to come as a bit of a shock.’
‘What?’ The room suddenly swayed a little out of focus.
‘There is an inheritance for you, of course there is. But here’s the thing. Your dad . . . he put it in trust.’
‘What does that mean?’
‘Sophie, you know your dad was worried about you. He worried that you didn’t really have a job.’
‘I have a job!’
‘Sorry, I know that. Well, maybe more of a proper career. He worried about your party lifestyle.’
I heaved a sigh. ‘Was this him thinking this? Or you?’
Gail looked pained. ‘I promise, Sophie, it has nothing to do with me. He was just doing what he thought was best. Nobody thought he would . . .’ She suddenly bit her lip and turned her face away. ‘We honestly didn’t think that this . . . that we’d use this will. We thought we had years . . . for you to find a career path, for us to be together . . . for me to have a . . . anyway. Never mind about that.’
I could hardly take in what she was saying. Mr Fortescue patted her on the arm.
‘And I know with everything . . . but did you even see the papers?’
I had. There had been a story, ‘Cat Fight Spat with Party Brats’ in one of the papers, with a very glamorous picture of Carena getting a shoe thrown at her. It made me out to be an unstable idiot.
‘Well, let’s not talk about that now. But it has convinced me that your father’s will should stand.’
Then she stared very hard at the desk, like she didn’t want to look at me any more.
‘Sophie,’ she said. ‘It’s in the will. You have to go and make your own living. For six months. Then we can review the situation. He loved you to bits, Sophie. But it didn’t always do you much good, and he knew that.’
I staggered backwards, as if someone had thrown a punch. ‘What?’ I said. This didn’t make any sense.
‘Your dad . . . he was trying to make things better. You have to move out. Find your own way. It’s only for six months!’ she added, pleadingly.
‘But you can’t make me go,’ I said. ‘You can’t throw me out of my own home. Daddy can’t have meant that!’
The lawyers were shuffling their feet and looking embarrassed. Gail handed me the will and I read it there in black and white. ‘For a period of not less than six months, the beneficiary will earn every aspect of her own living . . .’
Gail still looked embarrassed. ‘You know what he was like with his ideas and schemes,’ she said. ‘He just felt you were wasting your life.’
‘But I was just having a good time,’ I said, truly shocked. OK, we went to parties and lunches and shopped a lot, but I thought he liked me doing those things. I thought every time he suggested I work harder on my career it was Gail being nasty to me.
‘Can’t I stay here?’ I asked, feeling the tears spring up.
Gail shook her head. ‘Apparently I could make you pay rent,’ she said. ‘Rent on your room in this area is eighteen hundred pounds a month. Before bills and food.’
I looked at her. ‘But you don’t have to do it, though, Gail? You’re not going to throw me out of my own home after I’ve just been orphaned?’
There was a long pause, and I tried not to think of all the times I’d been horrid to her. She glanced at her lawyer again. ‘Sophie, I’m sorry. I am. Really. But . . . I agree with your dad.
You’re twenty-five years old and still reliant on other people for everything. You won’t grow up. You can’t even use the washing machine or make yourself a cup of coffee. I think . . . I think it’s what you need.’
I looked to Leonard for help, but he just smiled sadly at me and shook his head.
‘Of course, you can take time to find yourself a place to stay, and go back to your old job . . .’
I didn’t have much confidence that my old job was still there - I hadn’t been to the studio for weeks. And seeing as it didn’t pay any money how was that going to help me now?
I stumbled back upstairs in disbelief, then called down to Esperanza.
‘Esperanza, could you please get me a non-fat soya latte?’
There was a long pause on the phone.
‘Please?’ I added again.
There was another pause. Then, ‘I’m sorry, Miss Sophie. I was told not to do anything for you now.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Your mother . . . she says no more coffee, no food, no cleaning in your rooms.’
‘You are joking.’
Suddenly, I realised I couldn’t talk my way out of this. It had started. It was really happening. And I had no one to blame but myself.
Chapter Six
Hunger drove me downstairs eventually. There was nothing in the huge pristine kitchen except for a newspaper folded up on top of the central island.
I took a look. It was a copy of Loot. Very deliberately folded open to the flat-hunting page. God. I picked it up gingerly. I thought ruefully about Carena’s parents’ house. They had a guest floor. Of course she didn’t live there any more - she had a lovely apartment in South Ken - and the whole place was empty half the time. They wouldn’t have minded . . . of course I couldn’t. My friend had stabbed me right through. I couldn’t forgive for real estate. I didn’t even know if she would want me to. I tried not to think of her tearing around town. In my head I had horrible images of them, shrieking with laughter and kissing in exotic locations. Whilst I had . . . Loot.
Rooms to rent. All looking for ‘friendly non-smokers’. I didn’t see any ads desiring someone ‘quite grumpy in the mornings, very occasional social smoker’.
All the ads asked for six hundred quid a month, and for me to be ‘tidy’. But I didn’t know if I had six hundred quid. Oh God. My blood ran cold. My allowance. I’d never known life without an allowance. There was an envelope next to the paper. I picked it up. Inside was a cheque for a thousand pounds, signed by Gail. ‘To get you started,’ it said.
What would Daddy want me to do?
I knew, of course. Find a flat, do a good job, make a good show, then in six months’ time I could come back and claim my inheritance. He’d have been delighted. I could do it. Of course I could do it, I wasn’t stupid, and Gail and Leonard and everyone would be really impressed with me, and I’d be on my way to becoming the new Annie Leibovitz, and it’d be great. Wouldn’t it, Dad? Maybe I could show them all, stop living my life as some expensive victim.
With hope jumping in my heart for the first time in weeks, I picked up the phone.
Oh God, but flat hunting is hell on a stick. Who thought it was a good idea to go and audition for a group of weird horrible strangers who keep a collection of their bogies on the bathroom mirror but somehow want you to prove to them that you’re good enough to sleep in their airing cupboard, and by the way, would you mind doing all the cleaning in the nuddie?
That September Tuesday, filled with optimistic zeal, I’d started to call the numbers in the paper. I started with nice places I already knew - Notting Hill, Chelsea, Primrose Hill. Everything had gone.
The next day I tried again, but no luck. And the day after.
‘How are you doing?’ Gail asked when she saw me. She looked nervous, in case, I suppose, I bawled her out for ruining my life. She didn’t realise that I was trying to be the new Sophie; stoic and upbeat and calm. Even though I had just been asked by a chap on the phone if I minded cats. I’d said no, until he explained he had fourteen cats.
‘Fine! ’ I said, stoically.
‘Good,’ she said. ‘I know it’s difficult. When I first left home I lived with a fishmonger . . .’
I knew she was trying to be kind, but I couldn’t listen to her story. At least she’d found a place to stay - she hadn’t been thrown out by th
e person who was meant to be looking after her. She realised I wasn’t really listening, because she changed track.
‘Um,’ she said, ‘don’t be alarmed, but there’ll be men around the place over the next few days . . . just doing valuations. ’
‘You’re selling up?’ I said in a panic.
‘No, of course not,’ she said. ‘I just need to get everything organised for the insurance. There’s a lot of paperwork, Sophie. I’ve tried to spare you most of it. Look, there’s no good way of saying this, but . . . you can’t take anything off the premises.’