by PH Morris
In many ways it was good that I had to wait another week to see him again, as I was finding myself drifting off with my thoughts, and so I made a list of things I needed to get done by next Friday.
It included food shopping; updating my parents; making a cake for David; buying flowers for David; cleaning; and contacting the solicitors.
I popped out to the shops and grabbed ingredients for stroganoff and a packet mix for a red velvet cake, which I knew was cheating. I ended up having to buy more plastic bags from the supermarket, which I was loath to do but I had forgotten my other more robust ones. I hated the idea that I was ultimately contributing to landfill, and also the plastic ones cut into my fingers. I balanced the weight as best I could and had got a firm grasp on the handles. I was about to leave the shop when my phone buzzed in my pocket. Bollocks to it, whoever it was could wait. Buzzzzzzz… Damn it. I lowered the bags onto the floor near the exit and reached into my pocket to retrieve the phone. ‘Number unknown’.
“Hello?”
“Hello, good evening, is that Miss Cartwright?”
“Yes, it is. Who is this?”
“This is Thomas ringing from GoCar Insurance about your renewal. I wonder if you could spare a few minutes.”
“It isn’t a good time, I’m afraid. “Why did I answer the bloody thing?
“Oh, no problem. When would be a good time to call you back?”
After a few more minutes and agreement to call me back next week, I finally got back to wrestling with my bags. As I leant down to lift the bags, I stood upright and was looking right into the familiar face of Mark.
“Shit, Mark,” I muttered.
“Hi, Mel,” he smiled, “lovely to see you.”
“Sorry, Mark, you shocked me.”
“Yeah, sorry about that. We need to stop meeting like this,” he quipped.
What was he talking about? “Sorry?” Then I cottoned on, “Oh, you mean the supermarket. Yeah,” I answered weakly.
“You look…nice,” he offered.
“Thanks,” I replied quietly. I didn’t want small talk.
“So, how have you been?” he enquired.
“I’m good, thanks, great in fact,” I said, honestly.
He looked a little surprised. “Great, that’s great.” He looked disappointed in a way; was he expecting me to be wallowing in self-pity, wailing and waiting?
I could feel myself getting emotional; I didn’t feel sad or tearful, I felt angry, not even because he broke my heart, but because he was somehow thinking I would be pining for him after six months. What a lucky escape I had. Now that I had met Alistair my eyes were wide open.
Before I could say the wrong thing, which I was prone to, I just said, “Look, I got to go,” gesturing to my hands, “I’m cooking dinner for a friend.” Why did I say that?
“Male friend?” he questioned.
“Yes, not that it’s any of your business, Mark.” He didn’t need to know that we were talking about David.
“Bye, Mark,” I shouted over my shoulder in a breezy voice. I walked about 200 yards before I turned a corner and was able to put the bags down for a moment. Fucking Thomas from GoCar; I wanted to ring that asshole back and metaphorically kick him in the ballbag. If he hadn’t called me, I wouldn’t have bumped into Mark.
I huffed and puffed like the big bad wolf all the way home, muttering like a crazy person under my breath.
By the time I got to the flat, I was pissed off.
David was there, and I gave him the low down.He congratulated me on my comeback and thought I had done well.
He mused over why Mark was in town and asked me what he was wearing. The truth was I couldn’t remember, and after a glass of wine and some interrogation from David he confirmed that I was well and truly over Mark, and he wanted to know all about my weekend, whereupon I reminded him that he had to wait for Kat, and he then, in a sulk, grabbed his mobile and started texting.
His sulk turned to a grin, and he shot me a sideways glance just as the door buzzed.
“She’s here,” he said in a sinister voice.
“Oh great,” I complained. “I haven’t even started the tea.”
“Tea, smee.” David shooed me away and supermodel-walked to the door to let Kat in.
As it turned out, the evening was a total hoot. We decided to eat out and went to the bistro up the canal footpath and had food and a lot of vino. Here we were again, the three amigos, a trio of pisspots. I told them all about the weekend, apart from the most intimate of details. I knew that they both knew me well, but I didn’t want to tell them something so personal and special to me, so I just hinted, and they happily filled in the blanks. I had taken a few snaps of the lodge, loch, Alistair and me as selfies, and Archie photobombing on a number of occasions.
“I’m so happy for you, Mel, “Kat offered.
“You deserve it, lovely,” David added.
“Thanks, guys, I feel happy, better than I have in ages, settled, and I know it sounds corny, but I feel complete and safe, like coming home and putting on your slippers. It feels familiar but exciting.”
“So, Alistair is the pair of slippers in this analogy?” Kat giggled.
“You know what I mean,” I laughed.
Chapter 17
The next day, I decided I was going to go back to the solicitors and sort out my ‘old’ life.
I discussed with Alistair over the phone about what I was going to do, which was find out as much as I could about my grandfather, and that meant going on a trip down not-so-memorable, memory lane and working through the contents of the box. I fired an email off to the solicitor, asking her to arrange for the box to be delivered to work. I hadn’t had any nasty deliveries, recently to the flat, but I would hate the information to go astray.
Although it was Sunday, I got a reply quickly from Miss Jardine asking how I was and advising me that she would get someone to hand-deliver the box, on Monday, to my offices.
I fired off a response thanking her and saying I was doing okay. Which I genuinely was. I hoped the box contents were not going to ruin things.
Alistair and I talked at length, and he reassured me that I was doing the right thing and that I would be fine.
I missed him and felt we had grown so close in a relatively short time. I hadn’t got to know much about his family or arranged to meet them. I had met his father briefly, but I hadn’t met any of the other family members. I wondered why that was. He didn’t even have pictures on his mobile, which he said was because it was a work mobile, but that seemed a bit lame and he did have pictures of the loch and Archie on it, so that seemed a bit strange. Maybe I should ask him about it? I pushed the idea out of my mind.
The next day was Monday, and I was back to work. Alistair had a pre-arranged trip to Canada and would be back in Manchester for some charity dinner but, unfortunately for me, on Wednesday, I was due to go to London for a conference that was all day Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, so there was no way our paths were going to cross as we had planned or hoped. We would meet up on the Saturday instead, that would have to do.
Monday afternoon, as promised, the box arrived, hand-delivered from across town from the solicitors, and the receptionist brought it to my office and left it on the floor. It wasn’t particularly big or heavy, but she hung around expectantly, waiting for a juicy titbit of gossip regarding its contents. I dismissed her with a remark about pre-reading for the course. She didn’t buy it and huffed away. She could kiss my arse if I were going to tell her anything.
The box sat in the corner of the room, mocking me in my peripheral vision. There was no way I was going to open it in work, so on my way for a coffee break I kicked it slightly to the side, so that I couldn’t see it. As I sat back at my desk, I looked up to see that it was out of sight, and I was about to go off into a daydream when my mobile rang, startling me slightly.
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br /> The number was withheld, but I answered it anyway.
“Miss Cartwright?” said a familiar voice. “This is Annabel. I was just checking to see if you had received the box?”
“Oh, hi, Annabel. Yes, I did, thank you. It’s here now, but I haven’t opened it yet.”
“Yes, I see. I can imagine it’s difficult for you,” she offered warmly. “There was another reason for my call,” she commented. I waited expectantly. “I did some research on those equities your grandfather left you…Oh, sorry, is it okay to refer to him that way?” she checked.
“Yes, yes, of course. I am still getting my head around it, but yes, of course, I do want to think of him that way. Please go on,” I confirmed.
“Well, it seems your grandfather had a small engineering business which he established in the late 1950’s and it became successful. He sold the business and retained rights in the product he had engineered. The shares are in the name of a company that we had not heard of; the reason being that it was bought out. Anyway, the shares were penny shares back in the day, which was common. I have been in touch with the company that bought the IP in the product, and the shares are worth quite a bit now.” There was a pause. “Miss Cartwright?”
“Yes,” I answered nonchalantly, wondering where this was going.
“Are you sitting down?”
“Yeah?” I was intrigued.
“Good, because the shares are now worth in the region of five hundred thousand pounds.”
“What?!” I stammered. “For a moment I thought you said five hundred thousand pounds,” I laughed.
“I did,” was all she said. I couldn’t speak. “Miss Cartwright? Melissa? Are you there?”
After a moment, “Yes, I am here, physically, I guess,” was all I could offer.
“The shares were held in trust for you,” she went on. “We need to speak to one of our tax experts but, with the value of the property and the shares, you are a very wealthy person.” Again, I was speechless. “Miss Cartwright? Are you okay?
I finally found my voice, “Yes, I’m okay, just a bit shocked.”
“Yes, I am sure this is somewhat of a surprise.”
“You can say that again,” I laughed in a very unladylike manner.
“I will email you over the confirmation, and perhaps you can make an appointment to come over to the offices, and we can get you some advice about how to proceed?”
“Thank you, Annabel, you’ve been great.”
“You are welcome, Melissa. Please call me if I can help with any questions you might have.”
“Yes, I will, thanks.”
My head was swimming. I looked down at my phone and scrolled up and down the contacts to figure out if I needed to call someone, but who? Alistair would be good, but I now couldn’t remember what time he was leaving the UK or if he was away. I couldn’t even remember what day it was. Louise was with me on the first solicitors visit, but she was away with her fella. Maybe Kat or David. Mum or Dad?
I would ring Alistair. First, he was the voice of reason. It didn’t ring; it just went straight to answerphone. I left a breezy message as best I could.
I rang Kat, and the phone rang but didn’t pick up. Goddamn it.
Should I call Mum and Dad? How would they feel about this absent grandfather who had left me a bucketload of cash? Well, they would know sooner or later. I dialled their number, and my mum answered. I went through the whole story, and she was very quiet on the phone, just adding a little mmm and yeah at appropriate times. At the end of it, I just did a big sigh.
“Melissa, darling, you must be in a right pickle with your emotions on this one,” she offered in her warm voice. It made me want to hug her and breathe in her perfume smell.
I then choked up and started to cry; it was so overwhelming.
“Oh, Mum,” I sobbed, “I feel so confused. He was never in my life, and now he never will be. Why didn’t they let him bring me up…? Oh shit, Mum, I’m sorry, that came out all wrong.”
“I know what you meant, my lovely,” she soothed.
“I just meant that he sounded like a lovely man and I never met him or saw him, and all that time he was out there, thinking of me and wondering, and that must have been so hard for him. I had a lovely life, Mum, I really did, and I know that I wasn’t easy to live with and I will always be grateful for that, but why couldn’t he have been a part of it?
“I feel like my family just keeps on screwing me over. First Anne Marie and the fact that they kept her and not me, then I find out we aren’t even sisters. Well, full sisters. I find out I had a grandfather all these years and now he’s left me something, but I don’t care about the money, I don’t. Why does this feeling of inadequacy keep coming back to bite me on the arse?”
“Listen, my beautiful gorgeous girl,” my mum pacified, “you have always been wanted by anybody who mattered; that includes me and your dad and this gentleman. He never knew you when you were growing up, but he was out there thinking of you, and now you can take this money, his gift to you, and do something you want with it. Honour his memory with it; do what you want. Remember one thing, Melissa, you were just a child, an innocent in all this. No one could predict the future. You are an incredible young woman, your Dad and I are always amazed at how brave, independent and confident you are.” I tried to interject, but she ploughed on, “And before you tell me you are not any of those things on the inside, I know you better than you know yourself. I know the feelings you harbour, and I know that no matter how many times we tell you how remarkable you are, you don’t believe us, but you still achieve so much, not because of those people but in spite of them. You are truly a little miracle to us, Mel, and we will always love you no matter what. Don’t rush into anything. You have all of your life ahead of you, and you can do your grandfather proud by taking the time and thinking about it, just as he thought about you all those years. Nothing is going to change, so don’t make any decisions right now; there is no rush.”
“Oh, Mum,” I sobbed. “I know you are right; you always are. I’m totally overwhelmed by all of it, and I don’t even know how to label my emotions anymore.”
“Stop trying to label anything,” my mum added. “Why does there always need to be a box for everything? Just let it be, Melissa. It will work out, it always does. Your dad has popped out, but do you want us to come up to you? We can be there in a couple of hours.”
“No, Mum,” I sniffed, “I’m okay. Thanks for understanding as always, but I’m going to have a look through the box and see if I can get a feel for things.”
“Mel, are you sure that’s a good idea?” she questioned, her voice full of concern.
“I feel like I need to rip that plaster off and find out as much as I can about it all. I feel that I owe it to him, you know?”
“I know, love, but I am not sure you should do that alone. Can Alistair not be there for you, supporting you? Speaking of that, when are we going to meet this Alistair guy?”
“Soon, Mum, we are just in different places all the time. I’m away with work in London until Saturday, and he’s in Canada until Friday, and then he’s in Manchester,” I sighed.
“Well, how about this?” I knew that planning voice when I heard it. “Why don’t you wait until Saturday to deal with opening the box, wait till you see Alistair again, and then come up to us on Saturday, bring the box and your man, and we can be around. If you want some privacy to open the box, you can do that, but at least I and your father will be there if you need us. How does that sound?”
I sighed again in resignation. “You know what, Mum, I think that would be a good idea, but can you do me a favour? When you update Dad later, can you ask him not to call me and get all fussy? I know he means well, but I am exhausted with this rollercoaster of emotions.”
“Of course, love, I will.”
“Okay, Mum, I will see you on Saturday.”
“See you Saturday,” Mum responded, “and Mel?” she paused. “I love you, darling, more than you will ever know.”
“Love you too, Mum. Bye.”
The rest of the afternoon went by in a blur, and I lugged the box home with me, which wasn’t heavy but an awkward shape. By the time I got back to the apartment, the cardboard was digging into my fingers. Thankfully, the lift was working, but as soon as I stepped inside the lingering smell of what could only be described as burnt popcorn permeated the air; it was way too sweet and sickly and reminded me of Anne Marie, but I had no time or energy to go there in my brain for her, so I tolerated the smell which must have been some air freshener or some other drifting smell. Finally, the lift opened on our floor, and I dragged myself along the corridor, placing the box on the floor to unlock the door. Sadly, David was working and had left me a note. I would give him the update when I saw him. I opened the hall cupboard and pushed the box in, to hide it from view. I caught my reflection in the mirror in the hall; Jeysus, I looked awful. My mascara was non-existent, and my eyes looked like tiny pinholes. My hair was frizzy and pulled back off my face, having dragged my hand through it several times. I decided on a shower to wash away the day.
Within a few hours, I had a number of return calls from Louise and Alistair, both of whom I updated with my new heiress news. Louise swore a lot, and we agreed to go out for a meal, the four of us, when she got back. After I put the phone down, I realised I hadn’t even asked if she was having a good holiday. I felt bad, but I knew she would be okay with my lack of interest given the drama I was experiencing.
I spoke at length to Alistair and had a bit of a cry. He was his usual supportive self but couldn’t talk for long as he was about to go into a meeting. He had arrived in Canada and, due to the time difference, it was still afternoon, and he needed to go. I told him about the trip to the Lakes on Saturday and he said he thought it was a good idea.
He said he would call me or text me and we would catch up over the next few days. I reminded him I was in London Wednesday until Saturday but said I would text him the times of the trains and would see him on Saturday morning.