Inheritance

by Ellen Kefferty

  Edith gave her father half an hour to eat before invading his room with her latest plan. She knelt on the carpet and placed a box down between her knees. She ran a hand through the boxes contents. They rustled and crinkled beneath her fingertips.

  “Food,” she began tersely, “packaged, and therefore not about to expire this side of Doomsday. Biscuits, sweets, cereal bars. I’ve cleaned out a whole shelf and brought them here for you, in this box.”

  “I...”

  “You’ll find them under your bed, here,” with a swish over the carpet she pushed the box to its assigned place, “and you can eat all you want if I happen to be gone longer than expected. I should have done this months ago.”

  Edith scowled for a few moments, “It will make you less dependent on me. Now you’ll never have to trouble me, if you don’t want to.”

  Ben leant back in his chair. He had thought about his daughter while eating his eggs, and whatever else happened to be on his plate.

  “Thank you for the meal. I do enjoy your cooking, you know. I meant what I said earlier,” he let his praise travel to his daughter’s ear as a starter for her pride. Then the main course, inexpertly served, “and you’re a much better cook than Sunny ever was.”

  Edith leant against the wall and raised her eyebrows in the dark. It was a cheap ploy. She also weighed up whether it might be true. He would never have said it without wanting to manipulate her. It didn’t mean it was untrue. There was likely to be a thousand things where Edith excelled Sunny, but Ben took little interest in how his daughters felt beyond how they made him feel. Her meddling with his diet was unwanted. His only goal was to stop her.

  At last a dejected voice answered him, many links down the argument chain, all of which had been passed in her head. “I’m not a better investigator though, am I?”

  “Is that what’s bothering you?” Of course it was, he knew that.

  “Lots of things are bothering me, Dad.”

  “Such as?”

  Edith flung her head back into the wall, hard enough so that it would hurt. “That somebody’s seeking to kill me! We’ve had this conversation, remember?”

  “Right.”

  “And the only thing I have to distract me is worrying about your fucking eggs.”

  “It will pass.” Ben sniffed. “I mean, sweetheart, you’re managing it well. Considering that you’ve not had any training, I don’t think you’re doing too badly.”

  “Why did you choose Sunny?” Edith slid down the wall to a squat. Her tone defiant.

  “She’s the oldest, of course. It wasn’t a choice.” He looked away from her, not that it mattered in the darkness.

  “But you could have trained me too.”

  “Why? There was no need.”

  “Just in case.”

  “Just in case of what?”

  “Just in case of this, Dad!” Her hand swiped through the air. “Just in case one of your daughters runs away and your other one is thrown into something completely fucked up!” Edith sat down completely. She let her head fall between her knees.

  “It couldn’t have been foreseen.”

  Ben was sure he had made the right decision. Before she was even born, and before he knew she was going to be a girl, he had formed his plan. It was a long decade until he could enact it, by which time he was beyond excited by the idea that she would one day be ready to join him properly. A real–life protégé, one he could completely control.

  Sunny was eleven when her training began, not that she knew at the time. He made sure that she was active, that she played sports, that she knew doing so made her father happy. Then he pushed her into karate classes, which she did willingly, and then boxing, which she did unwillingly. But it made her father happy.

  At fourteen she could run ten kilometres and swim three. Not impressive numbers but enough to know she was fit. Fitter than the average teen girl. More than she would need. More than Ben have ever needed. He wasn’t sure he even could swim any longer and there was no desire to test it.

  Sunny’s rewards were more training, though pitched to her enjoyment rather than his happiness. Ben took her to an off-road centre and taught her to drive. Then he taught her how to repair a car. Then how to disable one. Some nights they went out for hours, through the backstreets, Sunny at the wheel, her father beside her giving directions. It was important she knew her way round Manchester. There was never any thought how to answer police if they caught a teen driving through Longsight at two in the morning. They would probably be relieved she was with her father.

  Reading never came easily to Sunny. Ben had to buy that with real money. It hardly mattered what she read, only that she could concentrate and absorb information. She quickly spent any money earnt on clothes and make–up. He disapproved, naturally, but most fourteen–year–old girls would only be motivated on their own terms. Investment or saving for a mortgage was hardly likely at that age. He approved of the speed at which she spent it: the pleasures of fashion were transitory and she would soon need more.

  The time came when Sunny was sixteen. She no longer had to be in school. She no longer had to be anywhere except at her father’s side. He began taking her out on real jobs. She began to earn her keep. The speed at which she took to any task impressed Ben immensely. First she was his messenger. Soon she graduated to the tedious hours of watching a property. Then she became his chauffeur and she drove him everywhere, though legally this time. Eventually she was fed the bigger picture, the details of the jobs. The difficult details. Bit by bit, one small revelation after the other, nothing so large as to shake the belief that her father was simply a freelance investigator.

  At least, not until the end. But that was years later.

  At first Edith was left with her aunt Shelley as before. Sometime she barely saw her father or sister for days. After a year Shelley left too to start her own family. Ben reckoned that a twelve year old girl could at least feed and dress herself, so left Edith to it.

  He never considered taking her along with them. She was five years younger and would only slow Sunny down. Had the sisters been nearer in age he might have trained them together. Had she been a boy things would have been different again. There was a time, when he saw her grow several inches taller than Sunny, that he weighed the possibility. It wasn’t worth it to start all over again.

  He reckoned that Edith at least had her freedom, a house to herself, to do as she pleased, and with no parents to spoil their fun. It never occurred to him how abandoned she felt, twelve years old and alone. Mother long gone. Father gone. And now even her sister was gone.

  Edith could hardly decide whether Dad had stolen Sunny, or Sunny had stolen Dad. Now that she owned Dad outright she wasn’t sure she wanted to.

  “Well...,” Ben stumbled to reassure Edith, “I’m much more thankful for you now, of course. I don’t know how I could manage without you now that Sunny is gone.”

  Edith sobbed into her lap.

  “What’s wrong?” Her tears offended him. He had caused them. He didn’t know how to stop them. “I just told you how much I love you, didn’t I? Needing somebody and loving somebody are the same thing!”

  She stopped crying.

  “That’s better.”

  She stood and wiped her face.

  “It’s not better, Dad. It’s never going to be better. You can’t change the past.”

  Outside on the landing she looked at her eyes, red from the tears. Shame burnt in her cheeks.

  Edith went to her room and stood before the dressing table. The pouch which held all her lipsticks fell open as it was unzipped. So many to choose from. The ones she had bought when she was confident and never wore. The ones she had bought when feeling good about herself. The ones to make her look respectable for an interview. Each one had a memory, a feeling. She chose the one for confidence. Red.

  Once she was finished she admired herself in the mirror and thought about clothes. Not jeans, something better, for herself. When she opened her wardrobe she im
mediately saw her blue dress and remembered Andrius’s growing distaste for it. She weighed up his objections with what she wanted. The correct answer was that she won every time. The real answer was that she wouldn’t be able bear his unspoken complaint if he saw her in that dress again.

  She let out a long breath and fell backward onto the bed.

  What was she doing? Somebody was trying to kill her and she was considering her outfit for the parade on Sunday. Was she even going to last that long? She definitely had to avoid country roads. And railway lines. And other deserted places. Yachts in the Mediterranean. Oh, and bullets. Just the usual.

  ‘I can’t live like that.’ Edith wasn’t sure if she had thought or said those words. The first thing to surviving the next five days, or weeks, or months, was to stop thinking in those terms. Distractions were the right thing. There would be a time for action. Until then, just stay sane. She twisted over to her bedside table and picked up her phone. She rang Sunny.

  “Hello?”

  “Hi Sunny, it’s me. Are you busy?”

  “A little, yes. But what do you want? Actually how did the wedding go? Learn anything interesting?” Sunny knew nothing about the shooting.

  Edith sunk into her bed. She hadn’t expected the questions. “Oh, the wedding. It went nowhere...I don’t think there’s anything more I can do.”

  “Really?” Sunny’s speech slowed. “Okay. Are you finished with the car, then?”

  “Of course, you can get it back whenever.” Edith remembered that it now sported extra scratches from her attempted murder. Those would be pretty hard to hide. “Actually, can I borrow it for another week?”

  “Yeah, whatever.” There was a change in her voice. “You know, I’m glad you lost interest in the case.”

  “I thought you wanted me to show Dad up?”

  “That’s not important really. So long as you’re safe.”

  “Thanks.” Now Edith felt bad about lying. “That means a lot.”

  There was a pause of sisterly love too awkward for either of them. It lingered unbroken for a moment.

  “Anyway, why did you ring me?”

  “I wanted to know if we can go shopping?”

  “You want to go shopping?” Sunny reached back in her mind to her promise the week before.

  “I need to buy a dress.”

  “Oh, yeah. I remember.”

  “I’m going to a parade party on Sunday.” Edith perked up. It was pleasant just to talk about something else. Something trivial. “At the skybar in Beetham Tower.”

  “You said.”

  “Andrius is taking me.”

  “Well, I didn’t expect you could afford to go by yourself.”

  Edith frowned. “I got paid, remember? I have my own money. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. Are you free?”

  “Not today. Not tomorrow either. We can go Saturday if you don’t mind the crowds.”

  “I don’t but,” Edith only needed a day’s distraction, maybe two, until the number plate registration came back, “I was kinda hoping.”

  “Tough, I have to work. Saturday or nothing.”

  Edith groaned I agreement and hung up. She lay on her bed and listened to the silence in the house. She drifted into sleep.

  Edith looked at her clock through sleepy eyes. An hour had passed. An hour nearer to, well, whatever was waiting for her. The ex–cop’s promise to track the car re-entered her mind. Soon, but not yet. Maybe tomorrow, maybe not. There was time to kill to ease the wait. She rose and wondered what to do. She had books to read or the internet to waste a few hours. Yet as things proposed themselves to her they appeared drained of attraction.

  She rubbed her face awake and sat up to gaze through the window of her bedroom. It looked out onto a street of houses all exactly the same as her own. The estate was a dead–end with no passing traffic. Only the occasional neighbour coming or going.

  Her childhood bedroom had looked rearward, over the backyard, to the disused railway track. The front room was Sunny’s. Like everything hers, Edith coveted it. The bright side of the house, the interesting side of the house. The few times Sunny let her sit by the window Edith obligingly stared at tedious suburbia for hours. Once Sunny had run away from home she lost any prerogative to her empty room. Edith shifted all her belongings in as soon as was practicable. Ben complained with a shrug, which was no complaint at all.

  She discovered the view was a quotidian let down as it had been ever since. Even on a day when the merest distraction was welcome she could find none. The woman from the house opposite was doing her gardening. The young mother from two doors away was pushing her children to the park, as she did most days. The retired man from down the street was walking back and forth to his car, seemingly neither fetching nor bringing anything, but each time fiddling with something below the glove box. The man with the clipboard was looking at Edith’s house.

  Edith peered down. Was he definitely looking at her house? Not the neighbour’s? She retreated out of sight. Time to think. He hadn’t spotted her yet. The clipboard man wore no uniform, and he wasn’t anybody she recognized.

  She crept forward once again. She scanned for a vehicle which might be his. One to identify which company he worked for. Or just any car she didn’t know. Nothing.

  Another glance to check he was still there. He was. And she drew away from the window once more.

  Reason revolted against her paranoia. The man was innocent. He wasn’t doing anything unusual. She just happened not to know what he was doing. It seemed more suspicious than it should simply because of her ignorance. She took a deep breath and inched down the stairs. He would be gone next time she looked, moved on to the next house. He wasn’t interested in her house. Just give him a minute and he’ll be gone.

  Down the stairs. A count of ten. She strolled into the lounge. The mirror over the fireplace reminded her what she had forgotten. She smiled. Her lips were still red. A gentle shift to the left swung the reflection of the mirror to reveal the window and the outside. The man with the clipboard still there.

  Now he peered down the driveway toward the rear of her house. He took note of something interesting before resuming his observations. She saw through his ruse. It was obvious, no subtlety whatsoever. The best way to gather information on an enemy was to do it openly. Easier to deny as something innocent. How could a you accuse somebody of spying in broad daylight in a public street?

  And he was there, still looking.

  She snatched her mobile phone out of her pocket and rang Andrius. The phone rang a few times but he answered quicker than usual.

  “Edith?”

  “Andrius, there’s a man outside my house.”

  “Sorry, what?”

  “He’s a spy. They know where I live. They’re gathering information.”

  “Edith, what’s going on?”

  “There’s a man with a clipboard looking at our house!” She whisper–shouted, though there was no reason to believe that the man could hear from outside.

  Andrius was silent for uncomfortably long.

  “Calm down. Just calm down. You’re overreacting. You know this. It’s nothing.”

  “But what if it’s not?”

  “It is.”

  “Can you come here? Can I come to yours?” She forgot her father upstairs and that she would be abandoning him for a third time, if she even cared at that moment.

  “I’m in Abu Dhabi right now. I told you this. So no, I can’t come to your house. Though you know you can go to my apartment at any time if you feel unsafe. You have the key.”

  “You’re in Abu Dhabi?” Lost breaths before she remembered. “Okay. You told me. I know. Sorry.”

  “Edith,” Andrius measured out his words, pronouncing them as clear instructions, “go to the window again.”

  “Okay.” She clutch the curtain in one hand.

  “Now look: is the man still there?”

  “He’s gone to another house.”

  “So there’s nothing to be worried
about, is there? Perfectly innocent.”

  “He could have already gotten the information he needs?”

  “Edith...”

  “Or this could be part of his ruse?”

  “Edith!”

  Silence tore between them. Neither could speak. She waited obediently for his command after shouting her name. He wanted to give her chance to collect herself.

  In that moment she paced from wall to wall. At each midway point glancing through the window. The man with the clipboard had still gone.

  Eventually she whimpered, “Andrius?”

  “Edith,” his voice admonishing, “I want you to put the phone down and do something completely normal. Watch television, do the ironing, clean a room, anything. Do not think about this any longer.”

  “Andrius, I can’t do nothing. Can I? They’re after me!”

  “You can until the licence plate comes back, then you can act. But until then, stay calm.”

  Her reply was swallowed by desperation. He heard only her breathing.

  “I love you, babe. I love you, but you have to stay calm.”

  “Okay.” Edith moved the phone away from her face, ready to hang up. She switched hands. “Okay.” She whispered again. Then she hung up. She hadn’t wanted to.

  Looking around the living room Edith could find nothing for Andrius’s suggestions. The television sat mute in the corner. She had never liked watching it at the best of times. The room was as clean as it needed to be already. In the kitchen there was a pile of ironing, hip–high, mostly hers. Ben went nowhere to dirty his clothes, nor did he care all that much about his clothing being wrinkle–free.

  She set up the ironing board, filled the iron and plugged it in. Her phone set to play music which reminded her of university days. She delved into the ironing pile. At first she carefully spread out each wrinkled item, ironing every nook and seam, tending to every detail. The next item she took less care. The third she ironed freely and wilfully, barely running the iron over it. The fourth item never left the pile. The distraction had lasted ten minutes.

  The garden rose before her as a cornucopia of timewasting. Through the patio doors she surveyed the object of many hours’ occupation. It had already sunk days without the end in sight. The shaggy grass peeped through the carpet of leaves. She could mow it. Ben usually nagged her to do it after failing to hear the lawnmower for a while. Was there one last cut now before winter? She shook her head. She didn’t care either way. It wasn’t happening.