Gold Digger (8 page)

‘Yes. Always the messenger boy. Are you acquainted with them, Mr Blythe?’

‘Yes, slightly.’ The lie tripped off his tongue. Saul was beginning to know them rather well.

Discretion returned, along with pomposity. Raymond shook his head.

‘There was mention of moral degeneracy. Beatrice in particular considered her father’s decision to marry as an obscene insult to their mother. I was able to reassure them, in accordance with my instructions, that their expectations of him were assured, and he would do his duty by them. In other words, their inheritance remains whatever it was before.’

Saul wanted to laugh and instead assumed an expression of equal gravity.

Family duty; a concept Saul could not understand. He
simply did not comprehend the duties created by blood. Duties towards things of beauty were surely greater.

‘But he’s done his
duty
,’ Saul said. ‘They got into adulthood on his money. After that, it was up to them, wasn’t it?’

‘You might assume so, but that isn’t quite how it works, in my experience,’ Raymond said. ‘Children of rich fathers will always feel entitled. Especially if they are already aggrieved. Especially if they blame him for the mess of their lives.’

‘But they did attend the wedding,’ Saul said. ‘Even if they were too late to bear witness.’

Raymond nodded with the glimmer of a smile.

‘That was my fault, I fear. And then there was that convenient fight. Otherwise, I fear that Beatrice might have attacked the bride. She feels … strongly.’

‘And Gayle?’

‘Mrs Edward Morton is a civilised woman. I do not know what she thinks.’

The old fool admires her
, Saul thought.
Try again
.

‘So they feel secure about getting the money when the time comes?’ He was asking for confirmation of what he knew.

Raymond nodded.‘They have been told there is no change. Thomas thought that was best. If they were to think otherwise, they would plague the pair of them. Edward would be sent to bully him. Beatrice would pretend to love him.’

‘Well,’ Saul said heartily. ‘That’s all in the distance. Thomas is as fit as a flea. They’ve got years and years.’

T
hey did not have years and years. They had three. And Saul was right: they were left alone. It was not that young Mrs Porteous and youthful old Thomas Porteous were shunned in the time that followed: it was simply that they were not
embraced. They fitted nowhere, belonged in no social pocket, complied to no known formula in the town where they had been born. The doors were always open Chez Porteous; anyone who came in search of a donation was never turned away, but the odd couple seemed to need for so little by way of society, and were always so busy, they were almost insulting in their self-sufficiency. They travelled, left and came back with ease. Maybe the quiet happiness, or the appearance of it, was repellent, all by itself. Maybe envy played a part. Anyway, they were left alone. They were seen staggering back from the beach with pieces of flint.

And the house breathed in and out and bloomed and blossomed and the paintings on the walls grew in number, size, variety. Wisteria grew in the back yard, birds nested. Di Porteous was better dressed and had her hair done. Thomas kept a daily journal,
so that you will know,
he said,
how happy you have made me.

He did it till the day he died. They did not have years and years. They had two of health and one of illness. Cancer of the oesophagus, and still, the children did not come; they did not see the point. The adult children, that is.Patrick came, though, as soon as he was old enough to catch the train: he came in secret, and went back in secret. He came because he wanted to.

And Thomas Porteous kept his vibrant will to live almost to the end. He died when he had done what he thought he needed to do.

T
he evening after Thomas Porteous died, the fireworks started popping all the way along the beach. November 5th, Guy Fawkes day, with a mist.

Like fireworks on the radio
, she remembered him saying last year.

Like somebody digesting food
, he said.
Listen to them
.

Noises on shingle, heard from this vast, unobtrusive house where she lived, explosions in the mist sounding like a series of farts. Di looked from the gallery window and went back to the desk, which was full of neatly stacked files, lists of indexes, lists of contingencies printed from the screen and, most explicit of all, the words typed out in his steady hand.

You make it your business to acquire beautiful things, to keep them from the rapacious who would destroy them. You acquire them so they can go on living and delight and inform others. Then you give them away, with love, so that they can become something else to somebody else. You pass them on. You’re a Collector, Diana my Huntress, and Collectors must keep things safe. Remember to record what you think before you forget, for thus is learning. I love you so much …

She looked at the words.
Love things, pass them on, let them go. Keep them first
.

Then she heard the sound of breaking glass and went downstairs. Someone had hurled a stone from the beach against the leaded window of the disused front door. A small pane broken; a portent of what was to come. Only a small window, only a small life, not hers, somebody else’s.

I am the Collector now. I carry the flame. You are only ever the custodian. The trustee.

She was waiting for him to come back, listening for the sound of him.

Wait for the friends,
he wrote
. And beware the enemies. You carry the Flame.

You are the best thing that ever happened to me.

And you to me,
she wrote
.

T
he greatest mystery in the entire world, someone said, is the true state of a marriage. She only knew that the brief years of hers, which had passed with such reckless, joyful speed, would never be enough, and now there was no one alive who knew her. But Thomas had; Thomas did.

Recognition of a true colour.
No one knew the colour of her, except him.

It was a dangerous way to be.

Nobody knew her, and the last that anyone would think was how much she loved him. She was ashamed of that last afternoon. Perhaps she should have let him speak.

Jones thought she had killed him.

She went down to the basement, to the point where she had first come in, almost ten years ago. Curled herself into a ball in the warm dark.

Come back, Thomas: please come back.

Thought of what might be happening elsewhere. Raymond Forrest giving the daughters the news. Surely there would be room for grief. Regret that they had not come, even when she begged them to. Surely there would be regret that they had not seen him, known him. Surely they would soften and see the point of their father.

She could not cry.

L
ater, Raymond Forrest wrote notes on the occasion when he had witnessed the response of Thomas’s children to the news of his death and his legacies. Like Thomas, he enjoyed writing notes.

T
here were a few small drawings on the wall of this little pied-à-terre. Childish scribbles: Thomas loved drawings by children. A selection of porcelain objects on shelves, a room
full of light and knick-knacks, darkened by the presence of three adults standing crouched around a laptop on a bare table, with the child, Patrick, sitting to one side on the floor, scribbling in his sketch book.

Don’t shoot the messenger.
Raymond was sick of being the messenger, and yet he knew it was his role. He had heard one of them, Edward, remarking that Forrest looked like a large mole, which he did and he knew it, but he did not like him for that observation. To his eyes, they looked like hungry rats, Gayle the elder, Edward her husband, Beatrice with her snake-like eyes, dressed in smelly wool, all of them ready for the reading of the will from a screen.

We met in the London abode of my late client,
Raymond noted.
Same place as before, cosy little studio place, where Thomas came on shopping trips and Di rearranged. No oil paintings, a few drawings and these ceramics, which look a little fragile, especially in this company. These are fragile people. Gayle, elegant, Edward, stocky, Beatrice, the loose cannon. They have planned for this occasion … oh dear.

There was a sharp intake of breath,
he wrote.
Then they all hissed, like wasps humming in a nest, until Gayle raised a hand in a command to be quiet.

Edward looked as if he might have shouted, but refrained in response to his wife’s gesture. As the mere messenger, Raymond would not have minded them shouting; anything would be better than this ominous silence. He noticed how the boy – how old was he now? Eleven? Twelve? – put his hands over his ears.

‘So, no mention of us,’ Gayle murmured. ‘Absolutely no mention at all. Some mistake, surely? Our father, the children’s grandfather, and he doesn’t mention any of us at all.’

‘I’m terribly sorry,’ Raymond said, and for a moment he was. He admired Gayle, and to disenfranchise your own children completely was a terrible thing to do.

‘However,’ he added. ‘It really was his last will and testament. And he was in sound mind when he wrote it.’

‘Was he really?’ Gayle murmured, moving towards him, maintaining her mesmerising eye contact throughout before moving away. ‘Of course, you had no choice. You drafted what he wanted. You had no choice.’

‘He drafted everything, I merely received,’ Raymond corrected, appreciative of her understanding, while Beatrice hissed in the background. He always managed to encourage the perception that he was on everyone’s side, expressing sympathy for events beyond his control and they believed him.

‘That
bitch
,’ Beatrice hissed. ‘That BITCH has got it all.’

‘Hush,’ Gayle said.

‘Diana has been heroic,’ Raymond said quietly. ‘It hasn’t been easy.’

‘Bitch,’ said Beatrice. ‘Perverted bitch.’

‘Be quiet,’ Gayle said. ‘That isn’t fair. Would you give her condolences, Raymond?’

Gayle smiled at Raymond, entirely in control of her emotions, and he knew he was afraid of her without knowing the reason why, while being grateful to her for keeping the peace.

‘Formidable girl,’ Gayle murmured. ‘Truly formidable. She took him on, coped wonderfully well. Is there anything she fears? Poor soul.’

She turned to Raymond, trustingly. ‘Tell me,’ she said, looking into his eyes. ‘Anything at all? We must try and help
her through this terrible time. She did nurse our father after all. Artificial feeding and everything. Kept in touch. Must have been hell.’

And where were you?
Raymond began to stutter under the impact of her gaze.

‘Yes, I think it was. Yes, of course she has fears, everyone does. She’s claustrophobic, I think: it was hard, being shut in—oh well, never mind.’

He had said too much.

‘That might explain why she needs so much space to live in,’ Gayle said smoothly. ‘We do want to help. To comfort, to understand. Poor Di, didn’t she have a terrible childhood? Didn’t she go to prison, once?’

‘We’ve had her THOROUGHLY INVESTIGATED,’ Edward shouted. He was slightly drunk at that stage, although not as drunk as he would be. He could hardly control his fury. All these years, he had been studying, valuing, for
this.
Raymond smiled, uncomfortably, disliking himself for spilling the smallest bean. Edward laughed, not quite in tune, not an amusing sound.

‘You know what you are, Forrest? You’re a bastard. You’re the messenger boy. You’ve got us all believing that Thomas was going to leave it to us, while all the time you knew he wasn’t.’

‘I didn’t say that. I said he would do his duty.’

‘And YOU think, YOU,’ stabbing Raymond’s chest, ‘YOU think we know nothing. But we do, you know, we bloody do. Like we know what an evil bitch she is. We’ve got her dad, we’ve got him watching.’

The ravings of a disappointed lunatic.

‘Hush,’ Gayle said. She got up and moved Raymond towards the door.

‘Thank you, Raymond, for being so trustworthy. Keep in touch and tell us anything we can do.’

The door closed behind him. Silence followed. Patrick continued to draw, Beatrice to hiss.

‘Well, there’s the clue as to what to do first,’ she said. ‘We get the claustrophobic little bitch sent straight back to prison. Like her dad said, that’ll kill her.’

‘Hush,’ Gayle said again, turning to her husband.

‘She killed him,’ Beatrice said. ‘She killed him.’

‘I’ve got a plan,’ Edward said.

Patrick put his hands over his ears.

T
he wedding was a distant memory when, four days after the date of Thomas’s death, Raymond Forrest walked down the pier, circumnavigated the café at the end, retraced his steps to the road and turned left purposefully. The sea murmured to his right, traffic ran parallel to his steps; shops and the town centre were somewhere beyond. He had never been particularly interested in the place, but thought it was time he explored it.

An English seaside town, with all the hallmarks of decay, was an unlikely place for an almost-millionaire inventor to live, unless said rich old man was as eccentric and as splendidly single-minded as Thomas Porteous. Raymond made himself walk faster against the wind. He was prematurely elderly himself for sheer lack of exercise, so his own dear wife told him, and he was thinking that it was a great advantage in a man with a mission to have a younger spouse, something he applauded in Thomas, but not, maybe, a marriage with such a colossal age gap. Raymond and his wife
were a mere decade apart, both middle-aged, so at least they sang from a similar hymn sheet and had some national history in common. Surely there could not have been similar reference points between Thomas Porteous and his incredibly young wife, Diana, as named in the will. They could not have known the same songs, or even the same rhythms. Impossible, with almost two generations between them, even allowing for one being preternaturally youthful for his years and she being unnaturally old for hers. And yet she was the inheritor, and Thomas always knew what he was doing. Or so it had seemed. He should have lived for ever, because no doubt about it, Thomas had been happy; they had been as happy as a pair of singing birds, even if some of the songs had been sad.