by Jack Lewis
Scarlett felt bad, sometimes. Ever since they were sixteen, he’d been with her. She knew it wasn’t all her fault, since making a baby took two people. But still, she felt guilty that when her father had told her to leave Gawthorpe House and never come back, Trev had gone with her.
It was tough back then. They were just kids, and everywhere they went they got looks of suspicion. Not many employers wanted to give a job to a teenager who didn’t have an education, so Trev had done some dodgy things to make sure they got by. She knew that he hated it, though.
A few weeks back, he’d gotten home and told her they needed to talk. They sat around their two-seater table with cups of coffee in front of them. Trev cleared his throat and looked at her with a seriousness that usually preceded bad news.
“I’m sick of this,” he said. “I need to do something, Scar. Something legitimate. I’m tired of the way people look at me.”
She understood. Trev was smart, and he was loyal. He was capable of so much more, yet he’d risked everything on making sure Scarlett was okay. She wanted more for him, but she wasn’t sure what that meant.
“Like what?” said Scarlett.
“I don’t know. I’m just tired of people looking at me in the street and assuming I’m a thug.”
She smiled at him. “You might want to grow your hair out.”
He stroked his shaved scalp, and she heard the rustle of his fingers on the stubble that poked through. “I look stupid with hair.”
It seemed like months since they’d had that conversation, but she knew it hadn’t been that long. So much had changed in the meantime, and now their little family had resorted to sleeping in Trev’s car in the parking lot of a solicitor’s office.
‘So, what do we think of the game last night?’ said the voice on the radio. ‘England looked out of sorts, didn’t they? Yates needs to be dropped.’
“Not this rubbish,” said Trev.
‘Coming up next, Bob Holmes airs his new show ‘Live for a life,’ where he interviews football legend…’
Trev twisted the dial of the radio to turn off the sports discussion. He skipped through the frequencies until he found a talk radio station, where two older-sounding men debated the benefits of the government’s latest healthcare policy.
Trev’s mind soaked this kind of stuff in. Politics, science, factoids. Whether it was on TV, in the newspaper, or on the radio, Trev could dredge every scrap of information from the source and store it away. If he’d stayed in school and then gone to college, he could have done great things.
That was why, to her shame, Scarlett felt guilt stab her every time Trev told her some interesting bit of information. He was always so clever. If only he hadn't sided with her back then.
“Turn it down a little,” said Scarlett. “You’ll wake up sleeping beauty.”
Trev looked at her with sleepy eyes. “I can’t stand the silence. I didn’t realise how weird it was without the sounds of the flat. The fridge humming, the boiler banging. It used to piss me off, but now I miss it.”
He turned his head and looked at the back seat of the car, where their daughter stirred.
“How’s my little Rubik’s Cube?” he said.
Ruby stretched her legs out on the seat. Scarlett watched her daughter and couldn’t help feeling guilty. The day before, their landlord had knocked on the door of their flat and told them that they would need to leave. It was horrible news, but it wasn’t as if they didn’t see it coming. The man wasn’t a charity, and three months of missed rent payments would be enough to get anyone kicked out of their accommodation.
Every time she looked at her daughter, Scarlett felt an ache in her stomach. It was a love so strong that it was suffocating. She’d do anything for that kid. She’d die for her if she had to.
Trev leaned in toward her and spoke in a whisper. “We need to sort something out,” he said. “If someone sees us living like this, they’ll call social services.”
“Let’s go see the solicitor, and then we’ll figure out what to do,” said Scarlett.
Trev rubbed his head. His skin looked grey and cold. “Not sure we have much figuring out to do. It’s not like we have many options. Let’s hope your father left you something.”
The previous morning, just hours before the landlord gave them the bad news, a letter had fallen through the letterbox in their flat. Scarlett had picked it up with dread, expecting the stern black font of a bill or letter telling them a payment was overdue.
Instead, it was a letter from Craig Renly, a solicitor in the city. Scarlett had never heard of him, but it seemed her father had used his services for years. In the letter, Renly regretted to inform her that her father had died. He would have telephoned, but she wasn’t listed in the directory. He asked that she come to his office to see him at the first opportunity.
She didn’t know how to feel about her father passing. She supposed that grief would have been the correct response. She’d read the letter and then passed it to Trev.
“Is it wrong that I don’t feel anything?” she said.
Trev leaned against the wall across from her. He reached out and put his hand on her shoulder. “It’s been years. They never reached out to you. You don’t owe them anything.”
She sighed. “I know. It just feels inhuman. He was my father, after all.”
Trev banged the wall. “He sat there in that big house with all that money, and all the while he knew how hard you had it. You were only a kid, Scar, and he kicked you out. All because of what we did.”
She nodded, but she knew that what Trev said was only partly true. Her father had been angry when she told him she was pregnant with Trev’s child, but that wasn’t why he’d made her leave her family home.
The truth was that her father blamed her for what happened to Jane. It was an accident. Everyone said so, even the coroner. Her sister had gone into the lake and drowned. All the same, her father held Scarlett responsible.
She thought back to that day, and she felt a shiver run through her.
She remembered reaching to the scarf and trying to find where it was tied, but her fingers were clumsy. Her pulse fired and it thumped in her ears. Again she heard the sound of something disturbing the lake.
“Jane?” she shouted, unable to hide the panic in her voice.
This has gone too far.
She tugged at the scarf. Why wouldn't it come off? She gripped the cotton and pulled it, feeling its fibres scratch her skin.
She walked forward and then stumbled over something. She put her hands out and felt pain shoot up her wrists as she hit the ground. She held the scarf and pulled harder this time, and she felt it start to loosen.
Finally, she wrenched it free, and the colour rushed back into her vision. She looked to her right, to the lake, and her heart stopped.
Jane was in the middle of the lake.
The rowboat floated next to her, lonely and rocking on the tiny waves made by her sister thrashing on the surface.
She felt sick. She knew that her sister couldn’t swim. She wasn’t allowed in the lake, and father had tied a knot in the rope that moored the boat, and he’d said her sister would never be strong enough to untie it.
She ran toward the lake. She took a deep breath and braced herself against the cold. Jane seemed far away as if the worry in Scarlett’s mind stretched the distance into miles.
As she dove arms-first into the freezing waters, she watched her sister’s head disappear below the surface. Pain shot through her wrists as she swam, but she couldn’t stop. As the dirty water lapped over her face and into her mouth, she pushed on.
Her arms ached. She thought she was going to sink.
Looking ahead, she knew all was lost. Jane was gone now. Scarlett knew she would be too late.
“Scar?” said Trev, shaking her shoulder.
And there she was, back in the present with the husband who loved her and the daughter she adored so much it hurt.
“Sorry. I was miles away.”
&n
bsp; “Should we get this over with?”
She shook away the memory of that day, but she knew it wouldn’t be gone for long.
She forced herself to focus on something else, and she looked through the car windshield and saw the solicitor’s building in front of her.
All these years, and her dad had finally come back into her life.
Now, it was time to see what he’d left her.
Chapter Two
As the three of them went into the office, Scarlett wanted to slink away. After they introduced themselves, a receptionist got up from behind her desk and led them across the floor to an office at the end.
As they passed banks of desks and saw men and women dressed in smart suits, Scarlett couldn’t help but think what a sight she must have been. She hadn’t showered or put on make-up, and her hair must have been a mess from a night spent leant back against a car seat. She wanted to leave, but she knew she had to get it over with.
The receptionist knocked on the office door and then opened it. “Mr Renly, this is Scarlett Thorne.”
Renly nodded but didn’t move to stand up. He sat behind a heavy oak desk. The surface of it was spotless, with files lined up in perfect order. A keyboard was in front of him, and a wire trailed off and joined with a computer monitor on the edge of the desk. On the corner, furthest away from the monitor, was a mug with ‘Best Dad Ever’ written on it. Dust lined the rim, and it looked like it hadn’t been used in years.
The room felt cold, but it wasn’t the thermostat. There seemed to be a gulf of worlds between Scarlett, Trev and Renly. It was strange since Scarlett had been born into a family much higher than the solicitor’s. She needed to say something to warm the chill.
She looked up at a frame on the wall and read the text. It was an award. “Lancashire Solicitor of the year 2014,” she read. “Impressive.”
Renly gave a small smile, as though lip movements were on ration. “I was at the top of my game then.”
Renly looked at the three of them. Somehow, Scarlett knew what he was thinking. He was appraising them and noting how unclean they looked. She could sense his condescension. It was so heavy in the air that it seemed to fill the office. There was no point trying to find common ground here; just get in, and get out.
He gestured to the chairs in front of his desk. There were only two, so Scarlett gently pushed Ruby into the first one. She looked at Trev.
“You take it,” said Trev, nodding at the remaining empty chair.
Scarlett sat down. The chair was stiffer than the car seat. The room felt stuffy. A bookcase rested against one wall, and it was filled with thick tomes with boring-sounding titles like ‘Inheritance Tax Law.’ A window was behind Renly but he’d twisted the blinds so that not an inch of light could seep through.
She wanted to leave. The condescension felt worse now. Heavier, and hanging in the air like a mist. She wanted Renly to open the window and let it drain out, but somehow she knew the solicitor, in his waistcoat and double-breasted suit, was comfortable with it.
Hopefully, this would be quick. She didn’t expect that her father would have left her anything, even though she didn’t have any other siblings or other relatives that she knew of. She would just sign a few forms and then get out of there, and then she and Trev could figure out what to do next.
Renly interlinked his fingers and rested his hands on the desk in front of him.
“Your father gave his instructions to me some time ago regarding his will,” he said.
She was struck with how business-like his tone was. She didn’t know what she’d expected when she went into his office, but she thought he might have shown a little empathy toward the situation. Not that she wanted it; it just felt appropriate. There was something about the solicitor’s cold manner that she disliked.
“And then,” he continued, “he came to the office two weeks ago and changed those instructions.”
She was struck with the idea that she knew nothing of her father’s death, and she hadn’t even thought to ask. She was no better than Renly, she decided. Her father had abandoned her, but she still felt she should show some kind of emotion at his passing. She just wasn’t sure what that emotion should be. Anger came to mind, but sadness was probably more appropriate.
“How did he die?” asked Scarlett.
“Pneumonia,” said Renly, his face showing not a single twitch of emotion. “He died at home under the watch of the estate staff.” He stared at her. “Do you need a moment?”
Scarlett shook her head. Her father had ceased being a parent when she was sixteen years old, so why should she care about him now? In the years gone by, throughout all her and Trev’s struggles, he hadn’t reached out to her. Not even her mother had.
She was sixteen, pregnant, and scared. She’d just lost her sister. Her father hadn’t taken a moment to think about her during that time, so why should she take one to reflect on him dying?
“Just give me the forms or whatever it is you need me to sign, and we’ll go,” she said.
She felt Trev’s hand settle on her shoulder. Next to her, Ruby looked up.
“I’m hungry,” she said.
Renly picked up a file from a pile on the edge of his desk. He laid it in front of him. The cover was laminated and it was a few pages thick. On the front, the title read ‘The Last Will and Testament of Frederick Gawthorpe.’
The laminate was tied together by a red piece of string. Renly pinched it between his fingers and, looking at Scarlett, began to unwind it. His movements seemed almost hypnotically slow, and Scarlett felt her eyes become drowsy. Ruby shuffled in her seat.
Finally, Renly opened the cover and traced his finger over the first page. Scarlett leaned forward. She felt the pangs of hunger in her stomach now.
“Where do you need me to sign?”
“First,” said Renly. “your father instructed me that on his death, I must give you this.”
He lifted an envelope from his desk and passed it to her. Ruby reached out to grab it, but Scarlett was quicker.
“Hands off, you little magpie,” she said.
She held the envelope in her hand. The paper was crumpled. Her name was written on the back, but it didn’t seem to be her father’s handwriting. It was sloppy and written in a hurry, as though the writer was scared. That wasn’t like Dad.
He had always been a cold man. Practical almost to the point of being unemotional. He once told Scarlett that he was what some called a ‘stoic,’ though she hadn't known what he meant at the time. He was a man who thought things through before taking action. Then, once he’d made a decision, he never wavered from it. He’d proved that by not contacting Scarlett until after his death.
She opened the letter. She felt Trev lean in behind her so that he could look. Inside the envelope was a folded piece of paper. She took it out and opened it up. The handwriting was sloppy and hurried, and the note consisted of just a single sentence.
She read it, becoming even more confused as her tired mind stumbled over the words.
Chapter Three
The truth is in the marks, it read.
“The hell is that?” said Trev.
Ruby laughed at the word. Though not exactly on their list of words she was forbidden to say, hell scratched at the border. Trev ruffled her hair.
Scarlett stared at the paper. What did it mean? What were the marks, and what truth was he referring to? This didn’t sound like her father at all. He wasn’t a man given to cryptic phrases or games.
“Did my father have dementia?” she said, looking at the solicitor.
“Not to my knowledge.”
“I just don’t understand,” said Scarlett.
Renly turned over another page in the binder. “Originally,” he said, “your father intended to donate the Gawthorpe estate to the Folkton Shooting Club. Those were his instructions for years.”
“A shooting club? Was he for real?” said Trev, behind her.
Renly cleared his throat. “As I said, Frederick vi
sited the office recently and changed his instructions.” He leaned in now as if he was telling them a secret. “He looked awful, I have to say.”
“Mum, I’m really hungry,” said Ruby.
“Can we finish this, please?” asked Scarlett.
The solicitor nodded. “When your father came in to change his will, he instructed me to leave the estate to you. You now own Gawthorpe House, Mrs Thorne.”
She felt her cheeks start to burn. The solicitor’s words had entered her mind, but she felt like she couldn’t process them.