Draca

by Geoffrey Gudgion

  Jack looked surprised that Tilly was there, but then it was for her benefit that Harry was doing this. It wouldn’t have been fair on her, just to let things run. At least Tilly had spruced up for the occasion, though Harry wished she’d behave a bit more responsibly and less like a kid scoffing the free biscuits. He hadn’t asked Mary to come though. She was so keen not to take sides that she’d have said something daft and undermined him. So it was just Harry, Tilly and the best lawyer he could hire.

  Harry wished it could have been a discussion, all amiable within the family, but it would have disintegrated into an argument the way it usually did with Jack, so he let his legal eagle do the talking, at first. The trouble was, lawyers don’t do discussions, they rehearse arguments, but at least they do it in that calm, superior tone that makes people listen. Harry’s guy had put Old Eddie’s diary and a copy of the will on the table in front of him, and was going through their case.

  ‘…the will made by Edvard Ahlquist on March 10th this year, in which he left the bulk of his estate to his grandson Jack Ahlquist, effectively disinheriting the rest of his family.’

  ‘There were bequests to Tilly and money left in trust to her children,’ Jack interrupted, but Harry’s lawyer kept going.

  ‘…disinheriting the rest of the family from an estate which comprised a valuable seaside cottage, a vintage sailing boat and substantial cash assets. We understand that probate has not yet been granted?’

  Eddie’s lawyer shuffled in his seat. ‘These things take time, as you know.’

  ‘Although Mr Jack Ahlquist is enjoying full use of the cottage and boat?’ Harry’s man sounded smooth. Expensive. Slick.

  ‘That hardly seems unreasonable, given the terms of the will.’ Whereas Eddie’s lawyer sounded defensive. Good. Jack just glared at Harry, trying to stare him out.

  ‘My client has come into the possession of Edvard Ahlquist’s diary for the period from the beginning of this year until he was admitted to a hospice shortly before his death.’

  Jack spluttered. ‘Come into the possession! For God’s sake, my wife gave it to him. Why can’t we talk straight? Why can’t my father speak for himself?’

  The executor put a restraining hand on the boy’s arm. ‘Let’s hear what they have to say.’

  Harry’s lawyer pushed the diary across the table to the executor. He’d tabbed some pages with yellow sticky notes.

  ‘You may want to read the passages I’ve marked. Since the handwriting is challenging, we’ve made a transcript of the key entries.’ He slid a small number of printed pages over the table. ‘We’ll give you a few moments to read them, but the first page alone should be sufficient.’

  For about two minutes the only sounds were of pages turning, and of Tilly scraping her coffee cup against the saucer. Harry wished she wouldn’t smirk at Jack like that. It was a sad thing they had to do, but there was no point in crowing about it.

  Old Eddie’s lawyer looked up. ‘So?’

  ‘My client,’ Harry’s lawyer inclined his head towards Harry, ‘contends that Edvard Ahlquist was non compos mentis at the time he made the will. If he did not have the mental capacity to make reasonable judgements, it follows that the will must be considered invalid.’

  The look on Jack’s face was painful to see. There was such fury there. Harry thought in that moment that Jack actually hated him. Maybe when he’d calmed down, Jack would realise that he was only doing what was fair and reasonable.

  Old Eddie’s lawyer’s eyes darted from side to side. The man was out of his depth. ‘That is something a court must decide.’

  They’d expected that response. Harry’s man pulled two copies of a letter out of his briefcase, slid one across the table and held the original ready to read.

  ‘We have shared Edvard Ahlquist’s diary and medical records with a highly respected consultant psychiatrist. That copy of his report is yours to keep. Let me read you his conclusions.

  ‘“Mr Ahlquist had been diagnosed with cancer of the lung, which by March this year had metastasised, producing secondary cancers in the brain and liver. His condition was inoperable and terminal. While it is not possible to make a definitive psychiatric diagnosis on the basis of a diary alone, some entries show clear signs of mental confusion, including delusions of persecution. Such symptoms are compatible with a condition on the paranoid and/or schizophrenic spectrum…” Need I go on?’

  ‘I will of course study this report and draw my own conclusions.’ Eddie’s lawyer was stalling. He needed time to think.

  ‘Whether or not Edvard Ahlquist was unduly influenced while he was in this vulnerable state…’

  Jack hit the table with the edge of his fist and stood up, sending a wheeled office chair careering over the carpet behind him. He stood by the window, staring out, flexing and un-flexing his fingers.

  ‘…in this vulnerable state, the courts are likely to decide that this will is invalid and that the laws of intestacy should apply. In that case, the entire estate will pass to Edvard Ahlquist’s only son, Harald.’

  Harry thought Jack was going to try and put his fist through the wall, but at the last moment he opened his hand to turn the punch into a palm-splayed slap against the plaster. Beside him, a picture bounced and slumped sideways, angling off its hook. He turned towards Harry.

  ‘You promised. That day you fixed the engine. You swore that you wouldn’t challenge the will.’

  ‘That was before we knew he was mad.’ Before Harry had evidence, anyway. And before Jack pissed him off with his attitude.

  ‘I hope this is worth it, Dad. You’ll rip apart the family to grab money you don’t even need. Well, enjoy it. I hope you still think it was worth it in your lonely old age.’ He strode towards the door.

  ‘That’s not what my client is seeking.’ Those words from his dad’s lawyer stopped Jack with his hand on the door. ‘I suggest you sit down and listen.’

  Jack stayed where he was.

  ‘Please, Jack.’ Harry had never begged him before. ‘Let’s compromise.’ He waved his hand at Jack’s chair. ‘Sit down, lad. I’m just trying to be fair, to everyone.’

  Jack was still the same kid inside, the one who had to be cajoled a bit and who could look sullen when he was made to do something he didn’t want. He slumped into his chair and Harry nodded to his brief to continue.

  ‘My client proposes that the cottage and boat are sold, and that the estate is divided into three equal portions to Mr Jack Ahlquist, Mrs Tilly Smith and Mr Harald Ahlquist. He believes this to be an equitable solution to a situation that would not have arisen if Edvard Ahlquist had remained compos mentis.’

  ‘And if I don’t agree?’

  ‘Then we go through the courts and incur significant costs, although the outcome cannot be in doubt. If we have to contest the will, when the court decides in my client’s favour he will divide the remaining estate, after costs, equally between himself and his daughter.’

  ‘So I give in or get nothing.’

  ‘I’m sad you put it like that, Jack. I’m giving you an incentive to see sense.’ And, privately, Harry was making damn sure he didn’t have to see The Slut in his father’s house ever again.

  Eddie’s lawyer cleared his throat. ‘I do not act for Jack Ahlquist, I am simply the executor of Edvard Ahlquist’s estate. However, I suggest that he and I have a quiet discussion. Will you excuse us for ten minutes?’

  They took twenty, during which time Jack’s voice could occasionally be heard shouting from down the corridor. When they filed back, he looked and spoke like a killer: crisp and hard.

  ‘I have spent a lot of money restoring Draca.’ Excellent. He was going to negotiate. The old duffer must have talked some sense into him.

  ‘That’s your problem.’ Tilly spoke for the first time, before Harry could stop her.

  ‘The bank lent me the money on the basis of the will and the probate valuation of the estate. All of that money has been spent restoring Draca.’

  That didn’t take
long to think about. ‘I’ll repay the loan out of the estate.’

  ‘Dad!’ Tilly sounded outraged.

  ‘Now the boat’s restored, it’s more valuable, pet. Besides, we’re all trying to be reasonable, aren’t we?’

  ‘Draca’s now worth about half the cottage.’

  Harry could see where this was going.

  ‘If you wanted to take the boat as your share, I’d accept that.’

  ‘But he’s already spent all that money on it.’

  Both Jack and Harry ignored Tilly.

  ‘And she still needs a new engine.’

  ‘No. No more money. Do we have a deal?’ Harry held out his hand across the table, but Jack left it hanging there until Harry let it drop.

  ‘I think I’ll go away for a while. Sail south. Get out of your lives.’

  That hurt, but Harry kept his tone light. Jack would come round, once he’d thought it through.

  ‘Don’t be like that, Jack. In time, you’ll see how fair this is. Besides, we said we’d scatter Old Eddie’s ashes at sea, didn’t we? You and me, together?’

  Jack looked at Harry as if he was as mad as Eddie.

  ‘You promised, Dad, and you broke your word.’

  Chapter Nine: Djöfulóðr

  (Old Norse: possessed by spirits)

  From the Saga of King Guthrum

  When King Guthrum knew that Jarl Harald was dead, he raged such that none dare come near to him. He landed nearby with many men, at a place beneath a headland where deep water comes close to the shore, and came so swiftly against the Saxons who had slain Harald that few escaped. There also they found the woman Witta, whose blood yet flowed.

  There was with the Saxons a priest attending to Witta, and this priest Guthrum crucified. He brought Jarl Harald’s dragonhead ship to the beach, then gathered to him all the Saxons who were not immediately slain, and tied them to the ground with stakes, in such a way that they were prostrate before the dragonhead. Now there was among the Saxons one who followed secretly the old gods and who was troll-wise and well practiced in seidr. This man cursed them, saying that if the oath of peace was broken, none would reach the halls of the gods, and that the gates even to Niflheim would be shut.

  As Guthrum raised his sword, the man pronounced fǣgþ[1] against them, which in the Saxon tongue is blood-vengeance through all generations.

  Then was Guthrum exceeding wroth and slew the one who was all-fjölkunnigr[2] by carving rista örn[3] on his back, in this wise; he stuck his sword into the body by the backbone, cut all the ribs away down to the loins and there drew out the lungs. Then Guthrum commanded his beserks to kill the Saxons, every one. The blood which flowed was held in bowls, and with this they made blood sacrifice. Some they used to stain Harald’s dragonhead ship, and some they gave to the dragonhead to drink, that it might taste their vengeance.

  Guthrum made the woman Witta watch the killing of the folk, though she died before receiving her own judgement.

  As the waters rose over the bodies of the Saxons, King Guthrum prepared to give honour to his son.

  I: GEORGE

  George knew it was bad, even before Jack came back. She’d been thinking about him, trying to hold on to that memory of him up on the downs: clear and pure like sunlight through a stained-glass window, all blues and reds that softened to rose when he looked at her and smiled. But that afternoon his colours could have been those of late evening, with a storm outside, so that the same window was dull and dark, showing the black bones around the glass rather than the light through it. She’d never been so much in tune with someone as she was with Jack. It was frightening.

  She tried to hold him when he came back, but he was too tight inside to accept comfort. He just wanted to pace up and down and let off steam, and George pieced together the news out of angry scraps. She left him to rage until he threw himself down on a low wall by the slipway, and swore one more time, crudely. Jack sat there, hunched over his fists, staring across the harbour, and when he hadn’t moved for a while she stood behind him, stroking his shoulders.

  ‘He promised,’ Jack kept saying. ‘He promised he wouldn’t challenge it. He broke his word.’

  ‘Look on the bright side,’ George worked her thumbs deep into the muscles at the base of his neck, ‘if Eddie had just left you the boat and the money to restore it, you’d be well happy.’

  Jack grunted. Maybe he wasn’t ready for logic, but at least he rolled his head over her thumbs. She slid her hands out to his shoulders and pulled them gently backwards, forcing him to straighten.

  ‘I think I’ll move back on board Draca. Live afloat for a while.’

  George didn’t react immediately. Jack wasn’t ready for discussion, especially if he didn’t believe what she felt about Draca. He’d hardly gone near the boat for the last two weeks, and he’d been bright and laughing and happy, with hardly a trace of shadow. George pulled his shoulders back a little more, until his head was between her breasts, just to remind him that there was more to life than his boat.

  ‘It’ll be cold in winter.’

  ‘There’s a stove in the saloon.’ Jack turned his head to bring his cheek into contact with her chest. ‘Come away with me, George.’

  ‘Come away where?’ she stalled. The last two weeks had been magic, and she knew she loved him, but she wasn’t ready to cut loose from her job.

  ‘Seriously. Let’s just sail away, you and me. Go south around Brittany before the weather breaks. Take the canals through France. Spend the winter in the Mediterranean.’

  George stepped back to work on his spine while she thought about that.

  ‘There are one or two problems in the way.’

  ‘Such as?’

  ‘I don’t even have a passport.’

  ‘Easily fixed.’

  ‘But I do have a job. I’ve worked frigging hard and I’ve earned the right to run this yard. I’m not in a rush to throw that away.’

  ‘Then take a holiday. Two weeks around the Channel Islands. Let’s find an isolated cove and swim naked. Let me love you senseless on the beach.’

  George liked that idea enough to let her hands soften so that they caressed rather than massaged. ‘There’s one big problem that won’t go away.’

  ‘Draca.’

  ‘Right on. Like I said, something in your boat freaks me out.’

  ‘Will you try? Come away for a weekend. If it doesn’t work,’ Jack paused, as if he was reluctant to say the next words, ‘if it doesn’t work, I’ll sell her. Maybe buy another boat.’ He twisted to look at her, so George knew that he meant it.

  ‘That’s quite an offer.’ She swallowed. ‘Compromise. Burn that figurehead. It’s evil. But do it now.’

  ‘It’s ancient. Important. Belongs in a museum.’

  ‘Then for feck’s sake put it there, before it takes you over.’

  Jack hunched a little, and for a moment he looked like an addict who’s been told he can’t have any more. When he sighed, George knew he was going to put off the decision.

  ‘Maybe, after we’ve scattered Grandpa’s ashes. That dragon was important to him.’

  ‘I think it’ll kill you.’

  ‘George, you have some strange ideas sometimes.’

  ‘I mean it, Jack.’

  George worked on his shoulders some more, and felt the strain trickle away. She knew that if they hadn’t been out in the open, it would have developed into something else. She sensed he was building up to say something.

  ‘George…’

  Jack’s phone rang, shattering the moment. He looked at the screen and declined the call.

  ‘My bloody sister.’ Jack stood up. He’d been on the verge of some intimacy, but he shed the mood the way he might drop an overcoat on the ground. ‘I’m going back to the cottage.’

  ‘It’ll be time to close the office in an hour. Want some company?’

  ‘George, I don’t think you want to be around me tonight.’

  George thought about saying she’d risk it, but
she could see that the only companionship Jack Ahlquist wanted that night was with a bottle. That hurt a bit, but she let it go. As he walked over to his car, a shadow followed him the way smoke followed Draca’s engine. The darkness was back.

  That had her thinking. There’s darkness in all of us, some more than others, but it’s part of us, inside us. Here, on her territory, she’d seen the real Jack: the man on the hillside, laughing and shining. The man who took himself off to drink alone carried a charcoal smudge with him that was outside of him, creeping inwards, as alien as cancer, and Draca was its territory.

  She was going to have to fight it for him.

  And she had no idea how.

  II: JACK

  Jack is back in the truck’s cab, in the desert, and there’s dust all around them. It billows in through the open windows in scorching clouds, and it’s smeared in brown half-moons across the cracked windscreen. Chalky White is driving, and this is the moment when Jack knows it’s all going tits up. They’ve slowed to negotiate a chicane of debris in the road, the militia truck ahead of them has disappeared and there’s a moment of awful inevitability at the realisation that it’s a trap.

  Jack screams at White to speed up, break right, get the hell out of there before whatever nasty they’ve planned goes off. He knows, because he’s been here so many times, that the world will disintegrate like the windscreen, and in the midst of the sound they will soar and fall weightless to earth like a shot bird.

  This time Jack doesn’t get to the explosion. He watches the chicane coming closer in slow motion, and wonders why the hell White has his palm pounding against the horn. Does he really expect a makeshift barricade to get out of the way? But the noise that’s coming out isn’t a horn sound but the pretty tinkle of a bell, and the bell repeats with each push of White’s hand until he holds it there, insistent, constant, until Jack is pulled out of the nightmare into a bedroom that stinks of sweat and stale whisky, and grates with the jangle from Grandpa’s front door.