An unwanted inheritance, p.27
An Unwanted Inheritance, page 27
They had always danced together, Ellie and Caroline. They had started as little girls, when they’d made up routines to show Valerie and Tony, strutting their stuff in front of mirrors side by side. School discos had followed, at first awkward and not quite sure of themselves, and then later with their shaky confidence boosted by elicit alcohol. Nothing had changed with the passing decades. There were certain tracks that would always pull them to the dance floor like some Pavlovian response. This time it was S Club 7.
Caroline, apparently recovered from her tumble, joined Ellie, standing between Lucy and Olivia and taking their hands so they could dance together in a long line. The girls joined in enthusiastically, aware, no doubt, that their time at the party was coming to an end and wanting to eke out every last moment of pleasure.
‘This is a great night,’ Caroline shouted across to her, even though the music wasn’t so loud as to prevent conversation. ‘I haven’t had such a good time in ages.’
Ellie felt gratified, even though she wasn’t sure exactly why Caroline thought this when all she had done so far was talk to Max and consume free champagne. But maybe that was all it took to have a good time; an opportunity to let her hair down and an excuse to drink more than was wise.
‘Thanks,’ Ellie mouthed back as she bounced up and down to the music.
Something in the corner of the room caught her attention. Max and James appeared to be involved in a heated conversation. Ellie could guess the subject matter. Irritation rose in her like a fast-moving tide. How dare they do this? She had specifically told James not to bring the subject of the money up, not tonight, but it looked as if he just hadn’t been able to help himself.
The two men were squaring up to one another now, standing less than a foot apart. Ellie cast her eyes around the room to see if anyone else had noticed, but the situation appeared to be contained to just the two of them. Still, that was two people too many. She needed to get them to knock it off.
‘I’ll be back in a mo,’ she mouthed at Caroline and her daughters, then headed off to get the men under better control. When she got closer, it was clear they must have been building up to this point for some time.
‘It’s not up to you,’ James was saying as she approached. ‘It’s a majority vote and we don’t need Caroline to agree with us. I’m not sure what it’s got to do with her anyway. She’s the one causing all this bother. She should just keep her do-gooding nose out.’
‘She’s my wife!’ Max replied. ‘Of course it’s got something to do with her. It’s as much to do with her as it is with you, in fact.’
‘Yes, but I’m acting in Ellie’s best interests,’ James began.
‘I fail to see how this is in my best interests,’ hissed Ellie when she was close enough to speak without being overheard. ‘Will you two knock it off? This is not the time.’ She threw a particularly vicious look at James, who she assumed had been the perpetrator.
‘I’m sorry, but it has to be said, Ellie,’ replied James. ‘This has been going on long enough. It’s ridiculous that we are all being held over a barrel by Caroline’s over-inflated sense of right and wrong when, quite frankly, she doesn’t get a say in it anyway.’
‘For one,’ said Max, crossing his arms and straightening his spine as he spoke, ‘Caroline appears to be the only one with any integrity at all. The rest of you are happy to just take what might not be ours, finders keepers. In fact, if it weren’t for Caroline’s conscience, we could have just kept it all for ourselves and you lot wouldn’t have been any the wiser. Maybe that’s what we should have done. It would have saved us a hell of a lot of hassle, that’s for sure. But that never even occurred to us. We did the right thing. We told you about it. But I’m starting to wonder whether you’d have done the same if the boot had been on the other foot.’
Ellie, horrified though she was, didn’t want them to examine that idea too closely. She wasn’t sure what she would uncover. She definitely wouldn’t have just kept the money for themselves. But James?
Nathan appeared, and latched on to what was being discussed straight away.
‘What I’ve never quite understood about the story was what your whiter-than-white wife was doing nosing around in Dad’s stuff in the first place,’ he said viciously.
Caroline stepped forward then. Ellie hadn’t realised she had left the dance floor and automatically looked back to see where her girls were, but they had taken the opportunity to sneak to the bar to order one last juice before they had to leave. Ellie wasn’t sure how much Caroline had heard, but she hoped that it hadn’t included James’s little diatribe as well as Nathan’s. There were tears trickling down Caroline’s face, her mascara making them run black. She had heard some of it then, Ellie thought.
‘I was just looking for Monty,’ she said, her voice almost more sob than words.
‘And you thought he might have unfastened the suitcase himself and just snuggled in, did you?’ asked Nathan. The sneer in his voice was unmistakable.
‘No!’ wailed Caroline. ‘I opened the case because I was curious, okay? I really wish I hadn’t, but I did. I can’t take it back. And now look at all this bad feeling it’s caused.’
‘Well, it’s not going to cause any more. Not today at any rate,’ said Ellie, putting her palms up to silence her brothers on one hand and her husband on the other. ‘This is my party and I’m not going to have you spoiling it with your stupid, petty fighting. You’ll have to agree to disagree for now, and then you can leave it alone for tonight. Okay?’
Max nodded. ‘Fine by me. I didn’t bring it up in the first place.’
‘James?’ she said, focusing on her husband with as much menace as she could muster.
James nodded, slouching and hanging his head without meeting Ellie’s eye. Nathan nodded too, although he looked like he had done when they were little and always had to have the last word in any argument.
‘Good,’ she snapped. ‘You two are behaving like children. It’s pathetic. Speaking of which, it’s time the kids went home. I’ll go and find Mum, see if she’s ready to take them.’ She looked up once more, eyeing James and Nathan, and raised a pointing finger. ‘And I mean it. No more, okay?’
Caroline was still looking bewildered by the argument. Ellie wrapped an arm around her shoulders. She could feel her body trembling.
‘Come and help me get the kids rounded up,’ she said gently. She lifted her hand to Caroline’s face and wiped away some of the tears with the pad of her thumb. Caroline looked broken but she allowed herself to be led away by Ellie without any objections.
‘I’m sorry, Els,’ she mumbled. ‘I didn’t mean for this to happen.’ She was definitely slurring her words a little now. ‘I don’t want to cause all these arguments. But I just know it’s the wrong thing to do, just taking the money. It’s like stealing. In fact, it is stealing.’
Ellie could feel her anger building again. ‘Let’s just drop it, Caro,’ she snapped. ‘Not tonight.’
Caroline looked wounded by her words and more tears ran down her cheeks, but she nodded her agreement meekly. ‘Okay,’ she mouthed. ‘Sorry.’
Ellie didn’t have the bandwidth for this now. This was her long-awaited fortieth birthday party. Nothing and no one was going to spoil it, least of all members of her own family.
She scanned the room for the children and found them sitting round a table at the far end of the room. Alex seemed to be trying to flick peanuts into an empty glass and the others were egging him on. The behaviour of her own children declined substantially when they were with their cousins. Did Caroline and Max not parent them at all? There always seemed to be very little by way of discipline. Those boys did pretty much whatever they wanted, it seemed to Ellie. They were as good as feral, or they would be in a few years if they weren’t reined in now.
‘Right, you lot,’ she said as she approached them. ‘Time to go. Get your stuff together and I’ll find Grandma.’ She silenced a potential objection from Olivia with a look.
Valerie was by the bar talking to a former schoolfriend of Ellie’s who had often been at the Frost house for tea when they were children, and was now a consultant radiographer.
‘Can you keep the kids here,’ she said to Caroline, who still looked as if she might break down at any moment, ‘and I’ll go and get Mum.’
Without waiting for an answer Ellie headed towards the bar. Her equilibrium was returning to normal. She would get the children off to her mum’s and then she could concentrate on enjoying the rest of the evening. Caroline would have to fend for herself. If she couldn’t snap herself out of whatever she had going on, then Ellie would just have to leave her behind, because she definitely wasn’t going to let Caroline’s issues spoil her night, not when everything else was so perfect.
55
The evening wasn’t panning out at all the way Caroline had intended. She and Ellie had been looking forward to it for so long, chatting over what they would wear, who Ellie would invite, the food. They had spent hours making lists of the songs they loved, without which any playlist would be incomplete. Every angle had been covered in their quest for the perfect party.
And now it was precariously close to ruin, or it was for Caroline at least. Nathan’s vicious attack had cut straight through her. He hadn’t accused her of stealing but he might as well have. After everything she had done to try to steer them all to the right decision.
But they had no integrity, none of them. They were all cut from the same cloth as Tony. Except Max, of course. He understood. He could see how strongly she felt about the money.
The more she thought about how wrong they all were, the more her upset was beginning to build into something closer to anger. How dare Nathan talk to her like that? Who did he think he was? Just because it was becoming crystal clear that he would have stolen the money for himself if he had found it, that didn’t mean it was right or fair of him to tar her with the same dishonest brush. Had he been suggesting that she was nosing around Tony’s house looking for something to pinch? The idea was preposterous. She had never stolen anything in her life and, unlike him, she was not about to take what wasn’t hers right from under the noses of the people she loved the most.
Caroline’s lips pulled into a tight knot as she thought about it. And James was no better. Hadn’t he basically said that what happened to the money was none of her business? Like it was any of his! He was only part of the family by marriage. She had been like one of the family for as long as she could remember so had just as much say as he did in the matter, and probably more.
She really wanted another drink, but that would mean going to the bar and she wasn’t entirely sure where her bag was. That said, it was probably a free bar. That would be James all over. Making a fuss about the money she had found whilst at the same time doling out free drinks all night to over a hundred people. James was all about how things looked. He always had been. He was basically flash. Just like Tony.
Feeling really angry now, she was about to go and get herself another glass of wine when Ellie reappeared. Caroline thought she had gone to get Valerie to take the children home, but there was no sign of her mother-in-law. The children appeared to have scarpered too.
Ellie was frowning at her. ‘Mum is just saying her goodbyes,’ she said. ‘Where are the kids? I thought I told you to keep them here.’ It sounded like she was talking to a servant, not her best friend. Caroline’s already spiked hackles rose further still.
Ellie cast her gaze around the room and located her daughters on the dance floor.
‘The girls are there,’ she said with a fond smile. ‘Where are your two?’
Caroline looked around for them, although if she moved her head too quickly her sense of balance was sent dangerously off-kilter. There was no sign of the boys.
‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ hissed Ellie. ‘Can you not keep control of your own children, Caroline?’ Then she added under her breath, ‘Those boys are basically feral.’
It took Caroline a moment to process what Ellie had said, and the clear implications behind it. When she had, she got to her feet, pulling her shoulders back and pushing her chin up defiantly.
‘I beg your pardon,’ she said.
‘I’m sorry, Caroline, but they are,’ replied Ellie, not looking in the slightest bit sorry. ‘They were supposed to stay put, but where are they? No sign.’
‘Well, my boys might be a little wayward at times, but at least they’re not spoilt, ungrateful brats like your two,’ spat Caroline. Instantly she regretted it. She didn’t mean it. Olivia did have a tendency to be a little bit entitled, but she wasn’t a brat. Not really. But before she had a chance to take the words back Ellie was on the defensive.
‘My girls are not spoilt,’ she said, carefully enunciating every syllable so there could be no mistake. ‘We’re just very fortunate that James earns enough to let us give them the best in life.’
‘Oh, I see,’ said Caroline, her eyebrows high. ‘And we can’t do that for our kids? Is that what you’re saying? That your girls are somehow better than my boys because you have money to throw at them? But where’s that money coming from? That’s what I’d be interested in finding out.’
Ellie shook her head in disgust and turned away from Caroline to bring the conversation to an end. But Caroline couldn’t let it go. The gap between them was opening up rapidly as Ellie went to join her girls on the dance floor. Caroline would have to raise her voice to be heard over the noise of the music and the party. And raise her voice she did.
‘Is that where all your money comes from?’ she shouted. ‘Is your husband as bent as your dad was?’
Ellie’s back was towards her, but she could tell from the way she stopped moving that she had heard her. Another flush of regret washed through Caroline. She whipped her head from side to side to see who else might have heard her. The people standing nearby had gone perfectly still. They shot glances at one another and then back at Caroline to see what she was going to say next. Ellie still didn’t turn around. Anger seemed to be radiating out of her.
In the spotlight of unwanted attention, Caroline thought she might cry. She hadn’t meant it. She was drunk and she was upset after what James and Nathan had said, but this was Ellie, her best friend. She didn’t want to fall out with her as well. She could feel eyes burning into her as the number of people who were aware that something was afoot grew. She wanted to run to Ellie, to throw her arms around her and tell her that she didn’t mean it.
But Ellie still didn’t turn to face her, and the longer she showed Caroline her back, the more Caroline’s anger was refuelled. What she’d said was true, after all. If Tony wasn’t bent then why did he have all that money in the house? Hiding huge amounts of money in a suitcase under a bed wasn’t the action of an honest man. And James and Nathan were as bad. They just wanted to hush it all up, avoid death duties, steal the money. It was all dishonest – tantamount to theft, in fact. They were all as bad as each other. Only Max had shown any doubts about claiming the money for themselves. If the rest of them weren’t actually bent, they had morals that wouldn’t stand scrutiny.
And she wanted no part of it.
Caroline stalked across the room towards the toilets, trying hard to hold on to what dignity she had left. She could feel heads turning as she went.
Opening the door into the Ladies, she ran straight into Valerie.
‘Ah, Caroline. I’m just going to take the kids home with me now. Is that okay?’
Caroline, not trusting herself to not make matters worse, just nodded. Valerie’s eyes narrowed.
‘Are you okay?’ she asked.
Caroline nodded again. ‘Thanks for taking them,’ she managed and then disappeared into the shelter of the toilets.
56
Caroline sat on the loo in a locked stall, not wanting to come out. She could hear the beat of the music from the party, but wasn’t able to make out the tune. She had had enough, she decided. The party was totally spoilt for her. The things Nathan had said about her were still ringing in her ears but now, with a little distance, she questioned them. Did he really think that she had done something wrong by even looking in the case in the first place? And there it was again – the shame of having her integrity questioned. It felt just as it had when she had been a girl: that leaden feeling in her stomach, the fear that they were all whispering about her behind her back, that no one could trust her. That was exactly what she had been trying to avoid by being honest about the money, and yet she appeared to have found herself in exactly the same place.
But worse, far worse than all of that, was what she had just said to Ellie. Yes, she had been provoked, but still. That was no excuse.
She felt sick. She wasn’t sure if it was what had been said or the champagne. She had definitely drunk too much of it too quickly, but she had been trying to shake off the low-level disquietude that had been hanging over her ever since Tony died. She had wanted a break from it, just for one night, just for Ellie. But it had backfired. She was too drunk to have a good time now. She had accidentally crossed the line.
Carefully, she stood up and went to wash her hands. When she looked at her face in the mirror she could see that her eyes were glazed and her colour high. She looked terrible. She should go and apologise to Ellie, make it up. That was the right thing to do. It wasn’t too late. She could fix this.
But when she got back to the party, it was very clear that Ellie didn’t want her. She was on the dance floor now, arms raised and head thrown back, letting the music pulse through her body, seemingly without a care in the world. She was with a bunch of women Caroline didn’t recognise; Green Mount mums, no doubt, and Caroline felt a stab of jealousy. That was her place, at Ellie’s side where she had always been since they’d been girls.
