by Claire Allan
Dylan had offered to come with her. He had been upset when he heard about Betty’s deathwhich had only made Hope want to hug him and allow him to comfort her, and then her to comfort him and then maybe there could be some joint (naked) comforting – but she had imposed a no-hug zone on her best friend for the moment for all the reasons just listed.
“She was a lovely woman,” he had said as they toasted her with a clink of two bottles of beer.
“She was,” Hope agreed.
“I’ll never forget that month in France. It was something else,” Dylan added.
Hope nodded, and gulped back her beer. Yes, it had been something else indeed.
Hope and Dylan had been intimate on just two occasions in the fifteen years of their friendship – from the day they had met as freshers at university to the right here and right now where they lived in each other’s pockets. Both of the ‘intimate occasions’ were things that happened and were never spoken of again.The first time had been on the last day of their first semester at university together and drink had been taken in the Students’ Union. They had walked home, arm in arm, to the halls where they had carried on drinking cheap wine while singing Christmas songs and hanging tatty decorations around the room.
At around ten thirty they had curled up side by side to watch TV and sleepily she had nuzzled her head into his chest. He had kissed the top of her head – the tenderest of kisses – and she had been struck by just how good he smelled (if you ignored the stench of cheap booze and stale cigarettes). She looked up at him to find his piercing eyes looking back at her and something in her shifted. Tilting her head towards his, she felt her breath catch as he leaned towards her for a kiss.
When their lips had touched she braced herself for an explosion of passion but nada. Nothing. It was, she realised with a slightly nauseous feeling, like kissing her brother or her uncle or something else entirely inappropriate. Breaking free, she looked up at him and he was looking at her with a strange look on his face.
“Not good,” he said. “Not that I mean you are not good. You’re a lovely kisser but that was not good.”
“Not in the least,” she said.
“Friends?” he said.
The second time, well, it had been more than a kiss and it had been certainly not like kissing (or doing other things) with her brother – and it had been on a certain moonlit beach near a certain French villa owned by a certain eccentric auntie.
As Hope and Dylan clinked their beer bottles again and toasted their month in France, she couldn’t help but think of that night, twelve years before, and she wondered if he was thinking of it too.
“Oh,” he said, smiling at her, “did I tell you? The big date has been set. Friday night at the Merchant. I’m going to buy a new suit. Hope, could you come shopping with me and help me because I have a feeling that an off-the-peg number from Burton’s isn’tgoing to cut it.”
Hope, feeling the beer turn in her stomach, plastered on a smile and said of course she would but only if he took her to Victoria Square for eats and drinks after.
“Of course, mate,” he had said with a smile. “Only the best for my girl.”
If only, Hope thought, that were true.
In the increasingly stuffy office of Brady and Semple, Hope wondered if Ava was ever going to arrive. It had gone four thirty-seven and there wasn’t a whisper of her cousin.
The grumpy-arsed receptionist was making a point of sighing very loudly and looking in an exaggerated, almost comedic fashion at the clock on the wall. At one point she lifted the phone, which hadn’t even rung and said loudly in a broad Belfast accent: “No, Mr Semple, she’s not here yet. I know . . . I know.”She then looked Hope square in the face as if it were her fault Ava was running late.
Hope felt herself blush. She shrugged in an ‘I’m very sorry’ way before rummaging in her bag just in case there was a missed call from her cousin to say she was on her way, or was just around the corner or maybe not coming at all. There was nothing, except a text message from Dylan who was just getting ready for work, asking her if she could pick him up a new bottle of his favourite aftershave for his big date while she was in town. She texted back that of course she would – but if things carried on the way they were going she wouldn’t get near the shops before they closed.
She glanced at the time again. It was four forty-four. She steadfastly refused to look at the receptionist again for fear of what glare she might be met with. She was just digging through her bag for something, anything, to read to pass the time when the door swung open and her cousin, flustered and not at all like the perfectly controlled and calm person everyone portrayed her to be, stumbled in.
“I’m sorry,” she blustered, pushing her blonde bobbed hair behind her ears. “I had to come straight from work. And the bus was late. And then there was a fecking tractor on the road and we just couldn’t get past it. And then I couldn’t get a taxi and then the taxi man couldn’t find the offices and, Jesus, he probably shouldn’t be a taxi man at all because my two-and-a-half-year-old can drive better. So anyway, he left me off down the road and I’ve been wandering up and down trying to find this place and anyway, I’m here now and sorry.”
Hope watched as her cousin blew her hair from her face and held onto her sides to try and catch her breath.
The receptionist, not a bit interested in why she was late, just lifted the phone to call the mysterious Mr Semple and tell him that both parties in the Boutin matter were now there and ready to proceed.
“G’wan in,” she said, with a smile so fake it almost cracked her face.
Hope looked at Ava and Ava looked back at her. Hope wasn’t sure what to say – what was the etiquette in these matters when seeing a cousin you barely had any contact with?
“This is very strange, isn’t it?” Ava said, straightening down her skirt.
“Very,” Hope conceded. “Did you know Betty well then?”
“Not really. We got tipsy together at Granny’s funeral – you weren’t there, you were travelling at the time – and I admired her shoes . . . she said she would leave them to me in her will.”
Hope laughed. That would be just like Betty – leaving a coveted pair of shoes to someone.“Oh, she will be missed,” she said, walking towards the door of Mr Semple’s office.
“She sure will,” Ava said, with a genuine warmth which put Hope at her ease.
“I suppose we should get this over and done with then,” said Hope. “To be honest, I didn’t think they actually did this kind of thing. I thought it was all for the movies – reading of wills in stuffy offices.”
The grumpy-arsed receptionist bristled at the word stuffy and as she opened the door to let the two cousins in, she sniffed. “They don’t normally do this, you know. Most people just get a letter in the post – but Mrs Boutin left very specific instructions. She said she wanted a bit of drama to see her out.” She softened a little as she spoke, clearly impressed at the notion of a little drama.
Mr Semple was every inch what Hope had expected him to be. An older gentleman, more than likely in his late fifties, he wore a full suit complete with waistcoat. Hope would have put money on him having a fob watch in one of his pockets and she kind of hoped he would take one out, glance at it and say something posh. He wore round glasses on the end of his very long and very pointy nose and he stood up solemnly as the two ladies entered the room, extending his hand first to Hope and then to Ava.
“I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said to each of them individually before gesturing to two leather seats in front of his austere dark-mahogany desk.
Momentarily Hope didn’t know how to respond. Her brain froze and the words ‘thank you’ just wouldn’t come. She wondered what Mr Semple with his years in the business made of this whole thing – an aunt who wanted some drama, two cousins together not really sure what to expect. I bet he thinks I’m a money-grabbing bitch, she thought irrationally as she felt her palms begin to perspire. As she sat down she felt the urge to tell him
she didn’t really care about an inheritance – even though a part of her did. Maybe that did make her a money-grabbing bitch, she thought, feeling like a complete cow as she sat down. To her surprise she realised she was shaking and she felt a tear pool in the corner of her eye and fall. She took a deep breath to steady herself and felt the warmth of her cousin’s hand on hers, assuring her it was okay.
“Well, ladies,” Mr Semple began, “your aunt left instructions that upon her death you were both to be summoned here and I was to inform you of her last wishes. As you know Mrs Boutin had no surviving family in France to execute her last will and testament so that task has fallen to me.”
He opened the drawer on his desk and glanced down while Hope felt Ava squeeze her hand again. She glanced over at her cousin who was staring squarely at Mr Semple’s bald patch as he continued to look for whatever document he needed.
“Ah,” he said, extracting two envelopes, “here we are, ladies. I am to give these to you with the instructions that you are to, and I quote, ‘Go somewhere, open a bottle of something, chat a little, open the letters and read their contents together’.”
He handed them over and Hope looked down to see Betty’s cursive scrawl spell out her name before looking to Ava who was doing the same.
“Now,” Mr Semple said, lifting a pen and pushing a document first at Ava, “if you could just sign here to confirm receipt of the letters we can all get away for the day.”
“That’s it?” Ava asked, her words echoing Hope’s thoughts.
Hope hadn’t really known what she was expecting except that she was expecting a little more than this.
“That’s it,” Mr Semple said, pushing the document to Hope for her signature.
She signed without thinking and clutched her envelope to her chest and stood.
“Thank you for your time, ladies. Once again I am sorry for your loss and I wish you both well.”
Ava found herself standing on a street in Belfast staring at her cousin who was staring back at her as if neither could quite believe what had just happened. Ava had been expecting something different – a long reading of legal jargon perhaps and the handing over of a pair of purple shoes – not the handing over of an envelope with the instructions she was to go for a drink with Hope, get half-scuttered and read their letters together. She had to get back to Derry. She was supposed to be meeting Connor at six and getting a lift back with him. Cora was minding Maisie and had been tetchy all day about the will-reading and said she could feel a headache coming on and would appreciate it if Ava could get home as quickly as possible once the formalities were done and dusted. Ava sighed and looked at her watch. It had just gone five and she was already feeling under pressure. She couldn’t just clear off home and ignore Betty’s last wishes no matter how much she needed to be somewhere else. No. That would bring a lifetime of bad karma. Sighing again she looked at Hope who was also looking at her watch. No doubt she had somewhere to be too, Ava thought. From what she knew of her cousin, she was always dashing off to some press launch, or opening night or socialite’s party or other. She wasn’t tied to a bedtime routine and the fecking CBeebies bedtime hour.
“This was unexpected,” Ava offered.
“You’re telling me. I thought it would be longer, and more detailed and not involving letters.”
“Or instructions to go and share a bottle together?”
“Exactly.”
“We should do it though, shouldn’t we?” Ava said.
“Oh Christ yes, or she’ll haunt us or the like. I’ve no doubt if anyone could come back from the grave to make you pay for your misdemeanours it would be Betty.”
“Sounds like you knew her better than I did,” Ava said.
“I spent a month with her, in France. I did a gap year after uni –me and my friend Dylan. She let us stay with her towards the end of our around-the-world trip.”
Ava smiled but part of her felt envious. The furthest she had ever travelled was a fortnight all-inclusive in Cancun on honeymoon – and, while it had been lovely, they had barely left the resort and she wouldn’t have dared to ever refer to herself as a traveller. That much wasn’t likely to change now that she had a toddler. The furthest she had been since in the last five years was a weekend in London and even that had been before Maisie was born.
“She was mad as a hatter – a real livewire. I should have kept in touch with her more when we got back – but you know – life has a way of getting away from you.”
Ava knew, she knew exactly. It was only down to her mildly obsessive-compulsive system of organising their day-to-day schedule that she ever got anything done or kept in touch with anyone at all.There wasn’t a birthday, anniversary or other special occasion that she didn’t know about. She had a box of cards fit for every occasion in a leather-bound box on top of her wardrobe and a host of diaries and calendars marked with different-coloured stickers to remind her, a week in advance, of when she needed to send the cards out. Blue stickers were for children’s birthdays. Pink were for friends. Yellow stickers were for anniversaries and purple stickers were for the cards you had to send to people you had to send cards to out of a sense of duty. She realised with a sudden extra heaping dose of guilt that Aunt Betty, who had left her the letter she was now holding in her hand, hadn’t featured on any of those lists, pink or purple.
“Life can be tough sometimes,” she said, glancing again at her watch. “Speaking of which, and I hate to sound like I’m rushing this, but can we go and get a drink and do what Betty wants because my lift home is leaving in just under an hour?”
Hope smiled. “Of course, I’ll just get us a taxi.”
Ava watched as Hope stepped forward, raised her arm and a taxi stopped beside her within seconds.
“We’ll go to the Merchant,” she called over her shoulder. “I want to check it out for a friend anyway.”
“Okay,” Ava said, not having a blue baldy notion what the Merchant was, and followed her cousin into the taxi where they sat side by side, clutching their envelopes as the taxi weaved its way through the streets of Belfast until it arrived at the grand hotel that Ava could see was the Merchant.
It didn’t look like the kind of place she would venture these days. It didn’t look as if it sold anything with chicken nuggets or a free colouring-in book to amuse the younger guests. And while she felt a little out of her depth, a part of her – for the first time that day – felt a little frisson of excitement. Just imagine: this was her, Ava ‘reliable’ Campbell, about to open a bottle of wine with her cousin while reading a mysterious letter from an eccentric relative. This was not her normal life. This was like someone else’s life – someone who was clearly much more glamorous. She’d have to watch herself. She didn’t want to drink too much and end up giddy and making an eejit of herself. She followed Hope through the bar and sat down on a cool cream-leather sofaand reached for the wine list.
“What do you think, a glass each?” she said.
“Betty did say a bottle,” Hope said. “So I say a bottle. Surely your lift won’t mind if you are a little eeny bit late?”
Ava thought of Connor who had been seconded to the Belfast office thanks to a spectacular downturn in his firm’s business and who had left their home at six that morning and would be exhausted, and shook her head.
“He – Connor – my husband – he won’t mind because he is lovely but he’ll also be exhausted. Still, you are right. If the woman said a bottle then we should drink a bottle. White or red?Are you okay with white? And I think we should definitely go for something French?”
“I think,” Hope said with a wicked grin, “that maybe we should toast Betty properly. Champagne, my dear, champagne!”
Ava gulped, tried not to think of the cost and tried to fight back the feeling that these purple shoes were proving to be far more expensive than they were worth, and said, weakly, “Of course, champagne.”
She had to admit the bubbles felt nice. The only bubbles she was used to these days were the
kind she put in Maisie’s bath which she poured out of a bottle with a smiling sailor cartoon on the front.
As she looked up she saw Hope sip from her glass, closing her eyes as the bubbles hit. She watched her sigh and sag with relief and wondered if this seemingly exceptionally confident woman in front of her wasn’t feeling as uptight as she was.
“This is a nice place,” Ava said. “Very fancy. I don’t get out much any more.”
“Here, neither do I!” Hope exclaimed. “Most nights I’m home living out my social life on Facebook!”
Hope laughed and Ava felt herself relax further – helped by a second and third sip from her glass. She could definitely get used to this.
Their second glasses were filled and Ava had noticed her words were starting to slur just slightly when it was decided they would open the letters.
“You go first,” she said to Hope.
“Maybe we should go together?”
Ava looked at the letter and again at her cousin and shrugged her shoulders. “Why not?”
So, as anal about envelope-opening as she was about everything else in her life, Ava slowly started to tear at the corners of the envelope, while she watched Hope rip hers open with the enthusiasm a four-year-old reserved for a birthday present.
Each envelope contained several sheets of paper, all held together with coloured paper clips in the shape of flowers.
“Well, then, I suppose we should start reading,” Hope said, lifting her glass to her mouth and taking a long drink before stopping, gesturing with her glass towards Ava’s and saying, “Cheers, then. Let’s do it!”
Ava clinked her glass against her cousin’s, took a similarly large gulp which tickled the back of her throat, set her glass down on the table and glanced at the letter in front of her.