Take a Look At Me Now

by Anita Notaro

  ‘Lily, there’s no problem with regard to money.’ He rubbed his forehead as if trying to decide where to start. ‘I hope I managed to convince you of that the day I came to see you.’ He looked worried that I was worried.

  ‘I know, you said. It’s just that . . . I don’t understand. The business wasn’t making money, as far as I’m aware. I mean, I don’t have a clue about the actual figures or anything, but from what Ali said I knew it was a struggle . . .’ Oh God, I was waffling like mad. I coughed and started again. ‘What I mean is, she can’t have saved much, really, even though she was always so . . .’ I was going to say tight, but that was entirely the wrong word, ‘. . . careful,’ I ventured. ‘She never let any bills get out of hand, and always paid off her credit card each month. And any spare cash she had went on Charlie—’

  ‘Lily, your father left money, rather a lot,’ he said as soon as I paused for breath.

  ‘Yeah, to his charities. We know all about those.’ No matter how hard I tried to be professional and businesslike with Brian, I couldn’t seem to keep my lip from curling each time my father’s name was mentioned.

  ‘No, not only to those.’ He opened a file but I sensed he didn’t need to look inside. ‘He left a large amount of money for his grandchildren, for instance.’

  It took a moment for that to sink in. ‘But there weren’t any when he died,’ I said, completely at a loss. ‘And what about his children?’

  Brian spoke quietly. ‘There was no direct provision for either of you, I’m afraid. But he did want to provide for future generations. And there were conditions attached,’ he added quickly. ‘He set it all out long before he died.’

  ‘What sort of conditions?’ I sighed, but I wasn’t really surprised. But why the grandchildren he didn’t have and not the kids he did? Even as I tried to figure it out I knew it was typical of him.

  ‘Mr Daly, excuse me.’ A gangly blonde put her head round the door just as Brian opened his mouth to say something. ‘I’m really sorry to disturb you but you asked me to let you know if Mr Proctor phoned and he’s on the line now . . .’

  ‘Oh, right. Thanks, Maeve, I’ll take it.’ He stood up. ‘Will you excuse me, Lily? I’ve been waiting for this all day.’

  ‘Sure, no worries.’

  ‘Won’t be long.’ He disappeared. Talking about my father’s money made me remember how tight he’d been when we were kids.

  ‘I’m not spending any more money on clothes. It’s boarding school, you’ll be wearing a uniform most of the time,’ my father insisted. ‘And if you want to go at all there are rules to be adhered to.’

  ‘I need new clothes,’ I said sullenly, ignoring Ali’s warning look.

  ‘Your aunt Rose went through all your stuff and said you had plenty.’

  ‘Everyone gets new clothes when they start a new school.’

  ‘If you want anything else you can get a part-time job, and any more cheek from you and you’ll spend the weekend in the house studying.’ He went out and banged the door.

  ‘Lily, I warned you not to annoy him.’ Ali looked anxious again. ‘Once we get away it’ll be better, you’ll see.’

  ‘I’m not wearing those brown trousers for another day, never mind a whole term.’ I wanted to cut them up into tiny pieces. ‘Why does he always tell Aunt Rose to buy us dark grey and brown stuff anyway?’ I was thinking aloud.

  ‘I’ve no idea but don’t worry, we’ll manage.’

  ‘It’s ’cause he wishes we were boys,’ I said sullenly. ‘“Less trouble”.’ I mimicked his voice. ‘He said it again the other day to Mrs Nolan.’

  ‘Anyway, I’m going to sell my silver watch without telling him.’ Ali smiled and winked. ‘That way we’ll have a secret stash.’

  Even then she’d been protecting me, making sure I didn’t go without. Remembering made me want her back so badly I almost threw up again.

  ‘Sorry, that was unavoidable,’ Brian apologized. ‘Now, where were we?’ He sat down quickly with a rush of cold air.

  I didn’t have to think for long. ‘Conditions,’ I prompted.

  ‘Yes, that’s right. Well, in relation to Alison, if she’d been married, it was to be put in a trust fund for any child’s – or children’s – education.’

  ‘And if she wasn’t?’

  ‘Then it became more complicated. If she had a baby outside of . . . wedlock, as he put it, no money was to be paid until the child was three years of age, and then only provided she kept the child.’

  ‘He actually thought either of us would abandon a baby?’ I asked, shocked, but only a bit. ‘I suppose that’s because he didn’t really know us at all,’ I said, more to myself than to him. ‘When my mother died he sort of abandoned us.’ I saw Brian Daly’s eyebrows knit together and only then realized I was saying it aloud.

  ‘Oh, not literally, we never went hungry or anything. It’s just that he never really spent time with us. He couldn’t cope with little girls, that’s what everyone said.’ I thought of all the times I’d missed my mother when I was growing up and how badly I’d needed my father to give me a hug and tell me things would be OK. ‘That’s why my sister was so important,’ I told Brian sadly. ‘She was the only person in my life who was always there.’

  ‘Lily, I’m not trying to justify what he did or anything . . .’ he said quietly. ‘My job is simply to carry out—’

  ‘Ali and I had to endure years of scrimping and saving because he thought it would make us better adults.’ I could feel the heat rising under my shirt collar. ‘And it didn’t matter one bit that there was no shortage of money in our family.’ I suddenly thought of something. ‘Did Ali know about this, I mean is that why she got pregnant?’ I was trying to look horrified but was secretly hopeful.

  ‘No, no, she knew nothing about it.’

  ‘Then, if she didn’t know anything, why wouldn’t he have just made the money available immediately?’ Even as I asked I knew that it was typical of my father’s controlling nature. Christ, maybe that was where Ali got it from? I felt disloyal even thinking it. My sister was nothing like my father and thankfully I was even less so.

  ‘I imagine it was just an added precaution . . .’ Brian trailed off.

  ‘So, provided she kept the baby, when was she to be told?’

  ‘On the baby’s third birthday.’

  ‘But that was only a few weeks . . .’ I tried to think of the exact date but my brain was as addled as the rest of me.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But why make her wait? Suppose she’d given the baby up for adoption or something? I mean, she might have . . .’ But I knew she wouldn’t. ‘Christ, Brian, we’ve been really struggling for the past few years. If it hadn’t been for the business . . .’ I shook my head. ‘I don’t understand it.’

  ‘I can’t really speculate, I’m afraid. All I know is that those were his instructions.’

  Well, it certainly explained Ali’s lightness in recent weeks, her almost carefree attitude, her constant insistence that everything was going to be fine. I suddenly remembered the two expensive purses she’d bought us for no reason.

  ‘So, when did she get the money?’ I was amazed at the brazen way I was talking to a man I’d been apprehensive about meeting only hours earlier.

  His eyes remained steady but his voice sounded sad. ‘The first payment was transferred to her account on the day of her death.’

  12

  LILY

  I SUCKED IN my breath. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  Do solicitors ever joke? This one didn’t, it seemed.

  ‘No. Would you like a glass of water?’ I must have turned a yucky green or something because he quickly made to get up.

  I shook my head. ‘Oh God.’ It all felt too much to take in. ‘You mean she’d only just found out . . .?’ I closed my eyes and tried to imagine how she must have felt. It made what happened to her the very same day seem a million times worse.

  ‘I knew there was something,’ I said softly. ‘She sound
ed so excited when she phoned at lunchtime.’ Neither of us spoke for a second or two.

  ‘She had so much to live for . . . Charlie, the business . . . and finally an inheritance.’ I stared at the wall. ‘It would have been a dream come true for us.’ Right then, sitting in that stuffy brown office, I’d have given anything I owned for things to have been different.

  ‘How much money are we talking about?’ I didn’t really want to know and yet I desperately did.

  ‘A hundred thousand euro.’

  ‘No.’ And I’d thought that nothing else he said could surprise me. ‘She actually had it in her hands?’

  ‘Yes. Well, in her account.’

  ‘On the day she died?’ I stared at Brian but really I was talking to myself. ‘And she knew, in advance . . . that it was going to be that amount?’

  He nodded.

  ‘No wonder she seemed so happy these last few weeks.’ I swallowed, remembering her humming to herself one night as she fed Charlie, and me teasing her about having a new boyfriend. ‘Was she . . . ecstatic?’

  He looked at me for a long moment. ‘I think she was more excited for you.’

  I closed my eyes and nodded. That made sense only to me, I imagined.

  ‘She kept talking about how some of the money would go to you, how she wanted you to start your own business, open a deli or something similar.’

  ‘Ah yes, that old chestnut.’ I smiled at him. ‘I only ever talk about that particular fantasy when I’m pis— eh, had too much to drink.’

  Brian grinned. ‘She did mention that you always got very animated about starting your own business when you came home late at night, normally when she was fast asleep.’

  ‘Usually after about twenty Bacardi Breezers. I always woke her up and no matter how many times she heard it she never once told me to sod off.’ I laughed. ‘Thankfully, it didn’t happen often. I couldn’t afford it most of the time.’

  He didn’t say anything and I was lost in thoughts of her for a moment.

  ‘Could she have done that, given me some money, I mean?’ I asked him.

  ‘Yes, we’d talked about it but hadn’t quite worked out the details. The money was hers to do with as she pleased, basically, as long as it also benefited Charlie. She maintained that you working for yourself would mean that you’d have more freedom to play a bigger role in Charlie’s upbringing – she knew that you loved spending time with him. But her primary motivation was you realizing your dream, I suspect. I remember she said you’d been playing at owning a coffee shop since you were a small girl. Claimed you used to pour her cups of water and make her pretend to be having afternoon tea.’

  ‘Dirty water at that. With cucumber sandwiches made out of cardboard with green crêpe paper for the filling.’ I smiled. ‘As we got older our fantasies became more sophisticated, but only just.’

  In fact, we’d daydreamed all the way through our teens, only by then we’d discovered boys so those dreams invariably involved rock stars and stretch limos. Finally, in our twenties we had it all sussed, and on a much more realistic level too. Ali would work during the day and I’d be in my restaurant at night: that way we’d share Charlie. She used to laugh and promise to pamper my rough hands and achy feet, as long as I kept her supplied with pies and tarts. We reckoned that Charlie would be permanently covered in either body lotion or flour.

  ‘Isn’t it just such an awful tragedy then,’ I was trying hard not to get emotional, ‘that she died on the day when suddenly she had everything to live for? I mean never, even in my wildest dreams, did I think this would happen . . . and courtesy of my father. Christ, how much money did he have?’

  ‘A lot,’ Brian said quietly. ‘Or at least a lot of land.’

  ‘I knew he was well off, but surely all that land he owned wasn’t worth much. Not in Sligo?’

  ‘A huge portion of it was rezoned for development a few years before he died. And some of it bordered that castle, what was it called? I don’t know if you remember?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘Suddenly he was in a very powerful position. The castle had planning permission for around forty luxury homes in the grounds and they wanted his land badly.’ He smiled at me. ‘Your father drove a hard bargain. He made a lot of money out of that deal.’

  I bet he did. ‘So Ali got one hundred thousand in a lump sum?’ I said after a moment or two, aware that he was watching me again.

  ‘That’s right. And there’s more.’

  I assumed he meant more conditions attached. ‘More?’ I still felt my father just might take it all back. Even from where he was now.

  ‘More money. There are scheduled payments to come, every year, on Charlie’s birthday. Money for other . . . expenses, as well.’

  ‘How much?’ I hated myself for sounding so eager and I hated my father more for turning me into the kind of gloating gold-digger normally only seen in old American westerns.

  ‘It’s to be paid in various stages, as I said, but nearly a million overall until his twenty-first birthday.’

  ‘And who decides? I mean, can it be used for anything, or must it be spent on Charlie?’ I could feel my heart thumping.

  ‘Well, a good portion of it is tied up in a trust specifically for his education and some goes directly to Alison . . . or you, now. It’s administered by myself and Paul Cleary, an accountant attached to this practice, and overseen by our senior partner here, but basically your father wanted his grandson to have a certain standard in life, a good home, etc., and responsibility for that fell to his mother.’

  The questions were racing through my mind but I didn’t know where to start and I was afraid I’d forget something, then go home and not be able to sleep. ‘I still don’t quite believe it’ was the only thing I could think of saying. I stared at Brian. ‘There must be a catch.’

  Even as I said the words I thought of one. ‘What about now?’ I asked in what I hoped was a calm tone. ‘Now that Ali’s dead? You mentioned me . . .’ I tried to keep my voice even, although I felt waves of slight hysteria wash over me, but that was only because I’d just realized it would be the ultimate irony if all this money died with her. Ali had always been my father’s favourite – if he had one at all. I was sure he wouldn’t have wanted his fortune to end up with me, the child who never let him forget what he was doing to us.

  I felt Brian sensed something of what I was thinking. ‘It’s OK,’ he said quickly. ‘Alison had made a will.’

  ‘When? How? She only got the money on the day—’

  ‘We’d talked about it in advance. As soon as she heard, she instructed me to draw up a will. I had all the necessary papers prepared. She signed everything on the one day.’ He shook his head. ‘Lily, I know this is a lot for you to take in.’ He shrugged. ‘It even seems a bit unreal to me – her death on that exact day.’ He consulted his papers again.

  ‘Normally people take ages to get round to even thinking about a will, much less deciding what to do. But Alison was very definite. The minute I told her about the money she gave me instructions. Even if she hadn’t signed the papers her intentions were clear.’

  ‘And what were her intentions?’ I was half afraid asking.

  ‘She gave custody of Charlie to you.’ He paused and rooted around in the file again, more to give me time, I think. ‘She also made you the beneficiary of all her assets.’

  ‘Everything?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Even the apartment?’

  ‘Of course.’ He was trying to reassure me. ‘It was your home too.’

  ‘I know, but she put up the deposit, and because I was . . . between jobs at the time, she was the only one who could apply for a mortgage.’

  ‘Well, it now belongs to you and . . .’ He flicked through another pile of papers. ‘She had mortgage protection insurance for you both, as far as I remember . . . Yes, I see a note of that here, and the flat is in your joint names, so the loan will be paid off.’

  ‘You mean I won’t even have to p
ay the mortgage each month?’

  ‘Not a penny. It’s what these policies are for.’

  For the first time since her death I actually thought I might be able to manage financially, something that had been keeping me awake at night. Yet now I no longer had to worry about being able to afford to look after Charlie properly, or anything else I’d been fretting about. It was mad.

  ‘And my father’s will can’t change anything?’ I came back down to earth with a bang.

  ‘No.’ Brian emphasized the word. ‘Not a thing.’

  ‘Are you sure? There’s not a sneaky clause 14d in there? My father would’ve wanted the donkey sanctuary to have carrots for the next billion years, you know, sooner than leave all of his money to me – whatever he might have felt about Ali.’

  ‘I’m certain,’ Brian said.

  ‘I was the cheeky one, you see. His whole life was about how hard he’d had to work and how much my mother had cosseted us.’ I thought about it for a minute. ‘And I reminded him too much of her. He wouldn’t have given it to me,’ I told Brian quietly. ‘Because I never let him forget what he was doing to us by being so strict and never being around, pawning us off on relatives, insisting we go to boarding school.’

  ‘No, there’s nothing sinister in the will.’ He smiled at me sadly and shook his head. ‘A few more conditions, but they relate to the child mainly. Nothing that affects your situation. I don’t think any of us, least of all your father, would have envisaged this happening.’ He looked through me. ‘She was so young,’ he said quietly. Something in the way he said it made me think that he might have been a little bit in love with her.

  ‘And beautiful.’ I always said it as if we weren’t related, let alone twins.

  ‘Yes,’ he agreed, with a half-smile. ‘She was beautiful.’ He flicked through his file again. ‘Actually, you look very like her today,’ he added as an afterthought.

  ‘Not really.’ I smiled. ‘I never quite had her film star appeal. I just clean up well.’