The legacy, p.13
The Legacy, page 13
Megan slowly wrung out the cloth and draped it over the tap before turning round. ‘I’ve been… okay.’
Eloise nodded. ‘It was sudden, though, wasn’t it?’
Megan reached out a hand and gripped the countertop. ‘It was.’
So that’s the way she was going to go. Rationing. ‘And the funeral. Has there been any further news on a possible date?’
‘No.’
‘Really? I would have thought you’d have got something booked in by now.’
‘It’s complicated.’
‘How so?’
Megan swallowed as if her throat was full of gravel. ‘Because of the conditions in Jonathan’s will.’
Eloise knew exactly what she was talking about. Liv had emailed her copies of the will and the Statement of Wishes. ‘Oh, that.’ Something sparked in Megan’s eyes. Game on. Eloise pushed. ‘Surely you’re not paying any credence to that nonsense?’
Megan looked down at the floor, took a breath. ‘It was what he wanted.’
It was too good an opportunity to pass up. ‘And Jonathan always gets what he wants, does he?’
‘Excuse me.’ Megan dashed out.
‘Mum!’ Chloe sounded shocked, but the look on her face was one of sneaking admiration.
‘What? I was only making conversation. Has she been like this the whole time?’ Eloise walked over to the sink.
‘Yes. More or less. She never said much before – well, not to me – but since Dad died she’s been virtually silent.’
‘In shock?’ Eloise took hold of the dishcloth between her finger and thumb and pulled it off the tap into the sink.
‘Yeah. Probably. I mean, it was a shock. It was awful. But…’ Chloe fiddled with one of her ear studs.
‘But what?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Chloe. You’re the one who’s been here through it all. You can talk to me. I know how hard it’s been.’
‘Really, Mum, it’s nothing.’
Eloise defaulted to the tactic that had always worked when Chloe was young – silence.
As predicted, a few moments later Chloe blurted out, ‘We think there might be something she’s not telling us.’
Eloise made herself hold back. ‘What do you mean?’
Chloe’s fidgeting migrated from her earring to the chain around her neck. ‘Last week, when I was trying to get things sorted, she was… well, she seemed reluctant to help. We needed some information digging out. Stuff Liv wanted. Megan said she would get it for us, then she didn’t.’
‘Financial information?’
‘Mainly. There were some medical notes Liv wanted to see as well.’
Eloise left another gap for Chloe to fill.
She obliged. ‘Megan gave Liv the files, in the end. I’m sure it’s nothing. More a case of her being forgetful than wilfully obstructive.’ Eloise nodded, not necessarily in agreement, but rather to encourage Chloe to say more. It worked. ‘Let’s just say it’s been really awkward, and she’s not made it any easier.’
They both left it at that – for the time being.
Eloise’s return to the bosom of her family was getting more interesting by the minute.
Chapter 28
CHLOE WAS upset when she discovered their mother had chosen to book a room at The Crown. She’d assumed, wrongly, that they would have a shuffle round and make space for her at The View. She’d offered Eloise her own bed without hesitation, imagining how reassuring it would be to share a room with someone after all this time – perhaps the rhythm of another person’s breathing might chase away the dreams. The look of horror on Eloise’s face at the suggestion had hurt, deeply. The awareness that she was the only one trying to hang on to their home, and with it their sense of themselves as a family, was depressing. In Chloe’s fragile state, her mother’s indifference felt like yet another abandonment, and she’d endured enough of those.
Perhaps she was too sentimental, but at least she cared about something other than the money.
The Crown prided itself on being the nicest hotel in Scarborough. It sat in the bend of The Esplanade, a long vanilla-ice-cream-coloured building, with an edging of black wrought-iron railings. It was elegant – much like their mother. Chloe watched Eloise check in and was struck by how at home she looked, with her smart clothes and soft leather overnight bag. Expensive luggage, just one of the many new tastes that her mother had acquired since leaving Scarborough, and her family. Chloe heard the male receptionist say he’d upgraded Eloise. Of course he had.
They travelled up to her room in silence. It was large, with three long drop-windows – a sea-view triptych. Her mother moved fluidly around the room, perfectly at home. She unpacked her cosmetics and toiletries in the bathroom, and hung a dress of muted blues and greens, a pair of smart black trousers and a silk shirt up in the wardrobe. Then she opened one of the windows a crack to let the cold air freshen the somewhat stuffy atmosphere. Chloe watched. ‘You could’ve stayed. At the house,’ she clarified.
Her mother sat down and unzipped her boots. Took them off – unhurried. ‘I don’t think that would’ve been such a good idea.’
‘But it feels wrong that you can’t stay with us.’
Eloise flexed her toes. ‘It’s not my home any more, Chloe.’
‘But…’
‘No. There are no “buts”. I used to live there. Now I don’t. And I’m fine with that.’
‘But it must hurt seeing Megan… in your place.’
Eloise planted her feet firmly on the carpet. ‘Chloe. Look at me. It’s ancient history. I’ve moved on. My life no longer revolves around that house.’
‘But it’s still our family home.’
‘Not for much longer,’ Eloise retorted.
Sometimes, just occasionally, Chloe could see why her father might have felt the need to seek out kinder company. She flopped backwards onto the bed.
A minute passed.
She heard her mother sigh and stand up. Eloise went into the en suite, shut and then locked the door, leaving Chloe on her own.
The seagulls wheeled and racketed around outside the window. Chloe wished she could scream along with them, but she knew that would not be tolerated. Instead she lay, stranded on the bed, staring up at the ceiling.
Sadly, the ceiling – despite its ornate central cornice and crystal-teardrop chandelier – failed to provide any answers.
Chapter 29
ELOISE TOOK longer than strictly necessary freshening up, conscious all the time of the dark cloud on the other side of the door. As she brushed her hair and reapplied her lipstick she wondered, not for the first time, where she and Jonathan had gone wrong with their youngest daughter. Chloe was so aimless and dependent, compared to Liv. So diffident and downbeat, compared to Noah.
Was it the divorce?
It had been a mess, and Chloe had been around to witness more of it than the other two, but she’d been twenty-two at the time – an adult – so surely it couldn’t have been that much of a formative experience? Eloise didn’t like to think about that period of their lives too much. There was still some residual shame. More shame for Jonathan of course, but she hadn’t been without fault. Seeing your parents lose all respect for each other – it must have been hard.
But in truth Chloe’s tendency to be easily knocked off-course, indeed never to find her true course, had been evident, way before Eloise and Jonathan’s marriage had imploded. She had always been unsure of herself.
Could it be that, as the baby of the family, they had spoiled Chloe, stunted her emotional development by expecting too little of her? Eloise tried to think back to Chloe’s childhood, but it was difficult. To be brutally honest – and Eloise found that since her divorce she favoured the unvarnished truth over polite dishonesty – she had only vague memories of Chloe as a child. By the time she came along, the novelty of being a parent had well and truly worn off. Chloe had been loved as much as her brother and sister – Eloise was sure of that – but her childhood milestones were less celebrated, less noticeable… fewer? She just seemed to ride along in Liv and Noah’s slipstream. By rights, Chloe should have been the most robust of the children, helped along by having older, confident siblings to learn from and mimic, but it hadn’t worked out that way.
The raw truth was that Chloe was insipid.
The unkindness of the thought gave Eloise pause. Her youngest daughter was grieving. Still lying prone on the bed in the adjoining room, waiting for someone to comfort and reassure her.
Eloise gave herself one last check in the mirror. An attractive but rather forbidding face looked back at her. She softened her expression and vowed to do better as a mother.
‘Darling.’ The endearment at least pulled Chloe upright. ‘I know these past few weeks have been hard on you. Being around your dad and seeing him so ill must have been awful. Truly awful. And I’m sure you were a great help and comfort to him. But we must look for small mercies in all this. He’s free of the pain now. You said yourself how much he hated being so… different, so limited in what he could do. And he wasn’t going to get any better, was he? Perhaps it’s a kindness it didn’t go on any longer.’
Eloise crossed the carpet and sat next to Chloe on the bed. Tentatively she reached out and stroked Chloe’s hair. It was short, cropped close to her head. Soft to the touch, more like fur than hair.
‘He would’ve hated to see you so down and depressed, sweetheart. He only ever wanted you to be happy.’ It was good to feel her daughter press her head against Eloise’s hand, accepting affection. It emboldened her. ‘He would’ve wanted you to spread your wings. Embrace the next stage of your life. Maybe now is the time for a fresh start, somewhere new. Why don’t you think about getting away from Scarborough and all these unhappy memories?’
She’d gone too far. She could tell immediately.
Chloe rolled away from her on the bed, swung her legs over the side and sat rigid on the edge of the mattress, looking away. Her voice, when she finally spoke, was cloggy with unshed tears. ‘Yes, well, that might be easier if everything wasn’t so up in the air.’
But Eloise persevered. ‘Yes, I can see that.’ Chloe was so quick to see a barred gate rather than the path beyond. ‘But I’m sure you’ll work something sensible out. Your dad obviously trusted the three of you to do the right thing or he wouldn’t have left it up to you, and Liv, and Noah.’
Chloe still looked truculent. Eloise patted her hand. Time for a change of venue and tempo – and a much-needed glass of something cold and crisp.
‘How about we go down to the bar for a quick drink before we head back up to the house? A chance for us to catch up properly without everyone else around?’ The bribe of time alone with Mummy: some things never changed!
Chloe smoothed the bedspread with her fingers, before eventually, grudgingly, saying, ‘Okay.’
Eloise slipped on some shoes and grabbed her bag, ready for an evening that was unlikely to be plain sailing.
Chapter 30
THEY HAD scattered like Arthur’s thrown chess pieces.
Chloe had insisted on going to the hotel with Eloise… to see her safely settled in. Their mother’s expression had clearly indicated that she had no need of such help. Of course their departure had given Noah the excuse he was looking for to slope off as well. He’d gone to buy more beer and wine – not that they needed any. He certainly didn’t. He had been slurry on Friday night, his anecdotes rambling to the point of incoherence. Watching him stumble his way upstairs at the end of the evening had made Liv feel an additional layer of itching frustration with him.
‘How about a kick-about in the garden?’ For an awful moment Liv thought Angus was asking her. But, of course, he meant the boys. They didn’t need asking twice, and in a flash they raced off in search of their trainers. As Angus hauled himself up from the sofa, he affectionately scuffed the top of Liv’s head – a heavy-handed benediction. ‘Why don’t you go and have a lie-down for an hour or so? There’s nothing doing here.’
‘Thank you.’ She smiled, too late for him to see it. Liv felt sad – they seemed to spend their lives heading off in opposite directions. For a second she contemplated getting up and going out into the garden with them, but a fat splatter of rain against the window dissuaded her.
A lie-down seemed too much like giving in, but a bath… A bath sounded like bliss.
For a change, there seemed to be lots of hot water. Liv scanned the bathroom shelves and selected a bottle of Radox with a centimetre of dark-green bubble bath in the bottom. That had to have been her father’s. She poured it all in, sluicing out the bottle to get at the last few drops. A strong scent of pine rose from the foaming water – another jolt from the past: the reassuring fragrance creeping under the door into her darkened bedroom, as she drifted off to sleep as a child.
Liv tried to lock herself in the bathroom, only to find that the bolt, which used to provide a sanctuary from the invasions of her siblings, had been painted over. She undressed regardless. They were all out; no one was going to bother her. She eased herself into the running water, relishing the heat. A bath at this time of day – in fact at any time of day – was an indulgence. Liv was, by nature and necessity, a shower person.
But the problem with a bath was that it encouraged reflection.
And there was a lot for Liv to reflect on.
Their mother, for a start. Having her in the house was a fresh complication, but one that, the more she thought about it, Liv welcomed. Eloise had always had an edge of impatience about her, an edge that had been sharpened, not dulled, by age. It was a characteristic they shared, indeed prided themselves on. Strong women – like mother, like daughter. Or at least like one daughter. In the current circumstances, Eloise’s ‘cut the crap’ attitude might come in useful. Something was needed to drag them all out of the morass they seemed to have sunk into. Perhaps her presence would shake Chloe out of her slump, and rein in Noah’s randomness. Perhaps? That Chloe was already monopolising their mother was no great surprise. Old habits died hard. Liv would need to break them up at some point, in order to engineer an audience alone with Eloise. She needed to establish whether Noah’s take on their mother’s intentions, and expectations, was accurate.
That was the problem: if the division of their father’s estate had, as she’d expected, been simply a matter of arithmetic, Liv would have been fine. She was a good administrator – thorough, accurate, scrupulously honest – but it was obviously far more complicated than that. What they each wanted, and thought was fair, was so complex and nuanced that she worried they might never arrive at a solution.
Take Chloe wanting to keep The View, for utterly sentimental reasons. It made no sense. Surely Chloe must know that. As always, she was hanging on to the certainty of the past, because she was frightened of the future. The problem was that Chloe had no idea what sort of future she wanted. She’d never been able to make up her own mind, about anything.
Liv turned off the hot tap and lay back in the water.
At least Chloe wasn’t motivated by greed, unlike their brother. Noah plainly wanted to get as much as he could from the estate – which shouldn’t come as a surprise, given his fluid relationship with money. Noah could be generous, but he was also profligate, always preferring the indulgence over the necessity. Josie had been a stabilising influence on him, but her common sense was a counterbalance, not a cure. She had not, it would seem, managed to fundamentally change Noah’s easy-come, easy-go attitude. He would never be sensible or steady. Perhaps it was his job that gave him a taste for the high life. A job that was, in itself, frivolous and self-indulgent – especially for a man with a family.
Liv’s own thoughts on what to do with their inheritance were a congealed mess. She couldn’t deny that the money would come in useful. It would, for example, cover the boys’ education for years to come. And she had high hopes for Freddie and Arthur; not medicine necessarily, but certainly – with luck and hard work – professional lives filled with value and purpose. Such careers tended not to come cheap. But in truth it was less the actual legacy and more the principles at play that were troubling her. Their father had obviously been trying to teach them something with his will; and Liv, ever the diligent student, wanted to correctly decipher and fulfil his last-ever lesson. If his objective had been to get them to behave at their best, then that’s what she needed to steer her siblings to do.
The problem was Liv wasn’t sure what was for the best. She felt horribly conflicted about Megan and uncertain as to what their mother expected, or deserved. The whole thing was riddled with emotion and irrationality.
But somehow they were going to have to come up with an acceptable solution, and she needed them to do so by the close of play tomorrow at the latest. Because whatever happened, Liv couldn’t tolerate this going on beyond the weekend. She simply couldn’t. She hadn’t the time or the mental energy for it.
Enough! She needed to concentrate on herself – if only for a few minutes.
She stretched out in the hot, pine-scented water and took an inventory. A sight-check first, looking for signs of oedema. There was some around her lower abdomen, in her finger joints and her ankles, but it was minor. It was certainly not something anyone else would notice, unless they were looking for it. Crucially, Angus hadn’t registered anything – not yet. The thought saddened her. He obviously took her body so much for granted that he didn’t actually see it any more. They still made love, every now and again, in the slivers of time that existed between life and kids and work, in the dark; but they no longer pawed over each other, no longer knew each other’s flesh intimately, tenderly, precisely. It was unsurprising. It was what happened to most couples, she imagined. She gathered up a handful of bubbles and draped them across her midriff like a cloth. Besides, Angus not noticing the changes in her was what she needed. It bought her time.
