by Imogen Clark
‘Sentimental and valuable, you mean.’
‘Clare. You’re just making this whole thing so much worse and there’s no need. Nobody wants to rip you off. We’ll divide whatever there is four ways. If Miriam and Sebastian want to pass some of their share on to their kids then that’s up to them.’
‘Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you, Anna, seeing as you have no kids. You’ll end up the best off.’
‘Now you’re being ridiculous. I thought that was your idea, how you wanted to do it. Honestly, Clare. You’re completely impossible sometimes.’
‘Well, if that’s how you feel there’s no point me sticking around.’ Clare turned on her heel and made for the door. ‘You can do what the hell you like. You always fucking do.’
‘Clare!’ shouted Miriam after her. ‘Don’t be silly. Come back.’
But the front door opened and then slammed shut.
‘Mrs Connors will be having a field day,’ said Sebastian.
‘I so didn’t want that to happen,’ said Miriam.
‘It’s not your fault,’ said Anna. ‘It couldn’t be helped. She’s completely unreasonable. She always has been. She thinks that we’re all out to get her and nothing that we can do will convince her otherwise.’
‘She was fine upstairs,’ continued Miriam. ‘We were just chatting about all sorts of stuff. It was nice.’
‘It’s the money that set her off,’ said Sebastian.
‘Well, that’s a joke. There isn’t any money. It all went trying to dig her out of the various holes that she’s got herself into over the years. She just won’t see it. She is totally paranoid.’
‘I think that kind of goes with the territory,’ said Sebastian.
‘Well, I’m sick of it,’ said Miriam. ‘We’re just trying to do what’s right and if she can’t see that then it’s her loss.’
‘Will you ring the valuer or do you want one of us to do it?’ asked Anna, desperate to stop the conversation turning back to the lack of a will.
‘I’ll do it,’ said Miriam. ‘She already thinks I’m out to get her. No point you two catching it as well.’
‘Come on,’ said Sebastian. ‘Let’s shut up here. I think that’s enough for today.’
‘I hardly dare ask but can I take this?’ Anna held up the mended china lady.
‘God, I’d forgotten all about her,’ said Miriam, smiling fondly at the little statuette. ‘Yes. You take her. It’s not like she’s worth anything. Not after Clare threw her at the wall!’
They all trooped out and Miriam locked the door after them. Mrs Connors was in her front garden, no longer in her housecoat but with her curlers still peeping out from under her headscarf.
‘Get it all sorted out, did you?’ she asked.
‘Yes, thank you,’ said Anna curtly, and pulled the garden gate smartly shut.
V
Anna looked at the envelope in front of her. It looked innocuous enough. Manila, foolscap, of a standard quality. In fact, there was nothing to mark it out from any other envelope that she might have about the place. Nothing except the label that had been stuck, not quite straight, across its front. Anna pictured a harassed secretary trying to get the post out before the end of the day.
‘The Last Will and Testament of Mrs Dorothy Bliss – Private and Confidential.’
Miriam would do her nut if she knew Anna had it. Even though this whole situation was a nightmare, Anna couldn’t help smirking. All that hunting and speculating and cursing and the will had been here on her kitchen table the whole time. Well, it was kind of funny. Kind of.
She drained her cup of tea but kept her hands cupped around the mug, trying to eke any last vestiges of warmth from it. This was no good. She had to do something. She put down the mug and picked up the envelope, feeling its weight in her hands. The flap was stuck down but if she worried at its edges she could work it free without tearing it. Gently she pulled until the glue gave way and it opened. She tipped it upside down and out fell a document tied up in pink ribbon, and a sealed white envelope.
The will. It had lain here for the six weeks since she had retrieved it from her mother’s house but she hadn’t looked inside the envelope until now. Her mother had told her to destroy it, so opening it had felt like a betrayal, but she hadn’t been able to bring herself to burn it either. She was caught in a limbo of indecision. So she had done the thing that felt right to her and just ignored it.
Now, though, after her day at the house with her siblings, and with her mother dead and buried, her curiosity was nipping at her. What if she read the will but not the letter? At least that way she would know what her mother had intended and might be able to nudge things along in that direction.
Of course, she could just tell the others. They would be cross that she’d had the will and not mentioned it and no doubt there would be some jibes about her being asked to get it because she was the favourite, but it might not be too bad. But then, she didn’t know what was in the letter to Clare. Whatever it was, her mother had changed her mind about telling Clare. So by rights, if Anna produced the letter, she would be going against her mother’s dying wishes. Could she, in all conscience, do that?
She would read the will and then decide. That was the best way forward, wasn’t it? She pulled at the ends of the ribbon, untying it and opening the will out flat. Then she started to read. Her eyes flicked over the legal jargon, settling on the parts that she could understand. The estate was to be divided between the four of them. There were some specific bequests too. Her mother had remembered her promise to Sebastian. Anna could hear her mother’s voice, its Irish lilt never really lost despite almost a lifetime in England. Her engagement ring was to go to him just as he’d said. Other bits and pieces of jewellery and china were evenly spread between herself, Miriam and Clare. There were sums of £1,000 for each of the grandchildren.
She read on and there it was, almost at the end. The will made specific reference to an appendix, a letter to Clare Elizabeth Bliss. Shit. Anna sighed. Well, now she had a massive problem. How could she destroy the letter to Clare without getting rid of the whole will? She could hardly tear out the offending page. ‘I’m sorry, Miriam, but I think the mice got at that bit.’ Or could she?
She examined the will with a calculating eye. Could she remove the page and fake the less important parts that would also be lost? No! Of course she couldn’t! What was she thinking? That was a ridiculous plan. The only way she could do it would be to rewrite the whole thing and forge the signatures, but then the paper would be all wrong and the solicitor’s stamp would be lost. What was she, some kind of gangster? No. Forging was not an option. She either kept the will as it was with the letter or she burnt the lot as her mother had told her.
Anna sat back in the chair to consider her options. Margot meowed hopefully at her feet and was ignored.
What would happen if the will never hit light of day like her mother had wanted, if she just carried on pretending that there wasn’t one? Sebastian would lose the ring. It was obvious after yesterday that Clare would never agree to his having it. He’d be disappointed but he could always buy the ring out of his share of the proceeds of sale, as they’d discussed yesterday. He had money. The ring itself wasn’t valuable. He could live with that. The grandchildren would each lose their legacies. They were nice windfalls but not enough to make any difference to their lives. The rules of intestacy would then ensure the remainder of her mother’s wishes would be put into effect. It wouldn’t be a total disaster.
Anna picked up the second document, a white envelope with ‘Clare Elizabeth Bliss. To be opened in the event of the death of Dorothy Bliss. PRIVATE.’ written across the front. And it still was private. Anna had opened the will because her mother had died. That was the way of things even if this particular arrangement was less than conventional. And, Anna justified to herself, she couldn’t help seeing the will when she opened the envelope (even if she did have to untie the ribbon to read it!). A sealed letter was a different matt
er. She picked it up, running her fingers around the sharp edges, and then stabbed the point of the corner into the fleshy pad of her forefinger.
She knew what she should do. Her mother had told her to burn it. Her instructions had been clear and unequivocal. The problem was that without knowing what the letter said, Anna couldn’t decide whether what her mother had told her to do was for the best. It might just be a reprimand from the grave for all those years that Clare had wasted. Maybe her mother had just wanted to give her one last piece of advice and then thought better of it. If it was something as simple as that then surely it would be fine to give it to Clare. Yes, she’d be pretty cheesed off about it but it would mean that the rest of the will could be actioned.
But what if it wasn’t that? What if the letter was something that might do harm to the already fragile Clare? That, after all, was what her mother had implied. And then what? If Anna read the letter she’d know what it said. Even if she destroyed it she would always know something that the rest of them didn’t. Could she bear that? She didn’t know if she could.
What a bloody mess!
Margot leaped up on to the chair next to hers, purring noisily for attention, making Anna jump.
‘So, what would you do, cat, if it were your problem?’ Anna asked her.
Margot didn’t reply but nuzzled her nose into Anna’s open hand, requiring her to rub along her tiny skull to her ears. Anna ran her hand quite roughly over the soft fur and Margot purred contentedly.
‘Thanks,’ said Anna. ‘That’s really helpful.’
She was in danger of being overdramatic here. The chances were, it was just a letter to Clare, trying to steer her back to the straight and narrow. A fat lot of good that would do now. Clare was fifty-three. The path of her life was well and truly set. Nothing that their mother could say would make a difference to that.
‘Maybe it isn’t even from Mum?’ Anna said to Margot, who was now plucking at her jeans with her claws. ‘Maybe Dad wrote it and gave it to Mum for safe keeping?’
The typing on the envelope gave her no clues. However, a letter from her father struck her as less likely.
‘Or maybe it isn’t from either of them? Maybe it’s a bequest from someone that I don’t even know that was only to come into effect on Mum’s death? Now I sound like a detective-story writer, Margot.’ She really should stop talking to her cat.
Anna lifted the envelope up to the light but the quality vellum gave nothing away. Shaking her head, she put the white envelope back into the manila one and returned it to its place at the bottom of the pile by the bread bin.
She stood up, dislodging Margot, who mewed in objection but then settled herself back down in a ball to go to sleep.
‘It’s all right for you,’ said Anna. ‘You don’t have to grapple with these complicated moral issues. You just have to eat, sleep and catch vermin. Nice life, Furball.’
Grabbing her keys and her phone from the work surface, she left the house and stepped out into the leafy street. The heatwave was over, brought to a dramatic conclusion by a spectacular electric storm a couple of days after they’d buried her mother. Now the summer seemed to be building itself up to be not bad but not outstanding. It was warm enough for no jacket but no cardigan might be rash.
She set off, not really knowing where she would go. The object of the exercise was to clear her head, think though the possibilities, make a decision.
She found herself walking in the direction of the small municipal park that was nestled at the end of the street between the school playing fields and the new housing estate. It would be busy at this time on a Sunday with families and dog walkers and lovers. Usually it was a place that she might avoid at a weekend but today she wanted the comfort of strangers around her to help her with this decision.
Clare was in her head. Of all her siblings, Clare was the one that she’d always felt the least close to. When they were children it was always Clare and Miriam that were together. Anna had scampered along after them but they had never really let her into their gang. After Sebastian was born everything had changed at home. Mum was always tired, Miriam was cross and Clare had just floated away without anyone really noticing. By the time they realised she was missing, Clare had broken her old life. Then she dropped out of poly, had River, started drinking. It was sad but there was nothing Anna could have done to fix things. But now she maybe had something. Would whatever was in the letter make a difference?
On a grassy hill in the centre of the park, a young boy was trying to fly a kite. There was a bit of a breeze, enough to float a lightweight kite like the one he had, but the child was on his own with no one to help him launch it. Anna watched as he laid the kite carefully on the grass and then backed away from it, unravelling the string as he went. Just as it seemed he had enough string to secure a successful take-off, someone would run over it as it hid in the heavy grass, twisting it into a knotty muddle and he’d start all over again. Perhaps he has no siblings, she thought, no one to be there for him. She couldn’t imagine life with no siblings, although sometimes she wished she could. Parents should be made to sign an agreement before they have more than one child, Anna thought, just to make sure that they understood their responsibilities. Even treatment for all, no favourites, real or imagined, and definitely no secret letters left in wills.
‘Need some help?’ Anna shouted across to the boy as he began to lay the string out yet again.
He looked up at her, taking her in, rating her for potential danger signs. Either she looked safe enough or his frustrations were stronger than any warning signals she was giving off. He nodded his head.
‘Shall I try and launch it for you?’ she asked, walking towards where the red-and-orange kite was sitting on the ground.
The boy nodded again. Anna lifted the kite. It had been a very long time, decades probably, but instinctively she knew what to do. The boy continued to let out string, backing away from her.
‘I think that’s enough now,’ she shouted to him. He was quite a distance from her. ‘You need to get it in the air first and then let out more string when it finds the thermals.’
The boy looked at her like she was a simpleton. Obviously, he didn’t need kite-flying lessons, just someone to hold the thing.
‘Sorry.’ She smiled. ‘Right. Are you ready?’
The boy still didn’t speak. You mustn’t talk to strangers but it can be all right, in certain circumstances, to use them to launch your kite, it seemed. He turned away from her and started to run. Anna ran too and when she judged that they had enough speed, she launched the kite into the sky. The boy, feeling the tension on the string, turned and pulled at it to coax the kite up into the space above him. It flew beautifully now that it was up there. Anna watched as he let more and more string out and it soared upwards until it was little more than a red spot above them.
‘She’s a beauty,’ she shouted out to the boy. ‘Look at her go!’
The boy raised a thumb in salute to her and then turned his attention back to his kite.
Anna walked back down the grass towards the path. She knew what she was going to do. Clare couldn’t make things work on her own. Just like the boy with the kite, she needed help. It was up to Anna to do whatever it took to help her sister and if that meant breaking her promise to their mother then that’s what she would do.
VI
Now that she’d decided to read Clare’s letter, Anna couldn’t get back home quickly enough. She didn’t run exactly but her walk was focused and precise. Anyone watching her might have thought that she was late for an appointment. She got back to the house, let herself in and retrieved the envelopes from their hiding place. The envelope containing the letter to Clare was well gummed down. She was about to steam it open when it occurred to her that she could always just replace the envelope afterwards. She was turning into a secret agent here.
She slid a knife into the top corner and sliced through the paper. The letter slid out of the envelope obligingly. It was the old-fashi
oned ivory Basildon Bond paper that her mother had always used. That, together with her mother’s tidy handwriting, wobbled Anna for a moment. She closed her eyes to steady herself, breathing deeply through her mouth. She could do this. She opened her eyes again. The letter was dated February 2012, so her mother must have written it not long after her father had died.
Anna took a deep breath and began to read.
My darling Clare,
This is a hard letter to write and I have fretted over whether to write it for many years. You know what a worrier I’ve always been! For a long time, I thought I would just tell you. But as the years went on, there never seemed to be the right moment. I nearly told you a couple of times but then something always happened. It was so noisy in this house when you were all young. There was never two minutes’ peace.
Then I thought I’d wait until your Dad died. I don’t think he knew and of course I hated holding secrets from him but this felt like something I should keep to myself. And you were a bit of a challenge, weren’t you, Clare? There was always some drama or other going on in your life and I decided, whether for good or bad, not to add to your worries.
But in the end, I feel in my heart that you need to know and so I’m writing you this letter which I shall put with my will and then you’ll find it after I’ve died. I know you’ll think that’s a cop-out but I’m afraid it’s the best I can do.
After Miriam was born, I had a bit of a difficult time of it. Babies are hard work. Nobody ever tells you that. I struggled with all four of you, to be honest, but first and last were particularly difficult: first because I had no idea what I’d let myself in for and it frightened the life out of me, and last because having Sebastian was such a shock that it took me a while to get over it.
Anyway, your dad was away with work a lot during the week and I was left on my own with a new baby, not coping. I’m not trying to make excuses, Clare, I’m just trying to tell it like it was so you can understand. I used to go to a café for a cup of tea in the afternoons, more to get out of the house than anything, and there was a man who was sometimes there. He used to sit at a table near the window reading his paper and drinking strong black tea. One day we struck up a conversation about something. I can’t remember what. It really doesn’t matter. After that I started to bump into him and then we arranged to meet in the park quite often, just to talk. I really enjoyed our chats. He seemed to understand me, how hard I was finding life. He’d listen to me weep and wail about how awful it all was without ever judging me. He was a wonderful listener.