Winner Takes It All (4 page)

‘
Yes,
grandmother’s family used to own Sheridans, then her cousin brought
it out.’

‘
Cousin, hah!
It’s folklore that Louisa Cusack was ever a relative of ours. That
woman duped Great Aunt Bridget into selling Sheridans then handed
it over to her scummy Cusack son. Why, the Sheridans and Cusacks
have hated each other for hundreds of years. It eats poor
grandmother alive knowing that interlopers have what is rightfully
hers.’

Poor grandmother
thought Tom. The same grandmother who had disowned his mother just
because she fell in love with the wrong man.

‘
Well I don’t
see what we can do. All this happened years ago, before we were
even born.’

‘
That’s
irrelevant. We’ve got to get Sheridans back. If we do nothing, in
2011 that company will go to either Michael or Alex Cusack. It
should go to me, I’m more of a Sheridan than they’ll ever be. Just
imagine it Tom, if you were made a shareholder, all those profits
could fund your writing.’

‘
Your
grandmother wouldn’t want me anywhere near the board. I’ve got
Irish Republican blood in me don’t forget.’

‘
That’s where
you’re wrong. She’s willing to accept you into the family fold - if
you’ll help us out.’

‘
I can’t do
anything.’

‘
But you can.
The Cusacks won’t have anything to do with us and because the
company is in such good health, we can’t make a takeover bid just
like that. We need to ruin Sheridans just a little bit, so rather
than Christian hand it down to his kids, he has no option but to
sell it.’

Tom laughed out loud,
finishing his drink.

‘
Jackson it
might have escaped your notice, but I’m hardly the type to go in
and ruin a company. You have the wrong man.’

‘
But you’re
the right man, can’t you see? You’re the disowned sister’s son.
You’re ordinary, you went to state school, you’ve never held down a
job, you’ve got no money. The Cusacks have no reason not to trust
you. I need to you infiltrate the family. Grandmother’s positive
there are secrets flying around and I need someone to uncover them.
Anything to discredit the Cusacks and make our bid go more
smoothly.’

‘
I can’t do
it,’ Tom said with a shake of the head. ‘It’s not my
style.’

A steeliness fixed
Jackson’s eyes and he seemed to bore right into Tom’s
soul.

‘
How else are
you going to repay me my one hundred and fifty thousand
pounds?’

‘
But you
said….’

‘
Look, Tom,’
he said, trying to make his voice softer. ‘Just do this favour for
us and grandmother will write you back into her will. I’ll give you
a seat on the board of Sheridans, make you a major shareholder and
you won’t just be putting on poxy little plays in fringe theatres
in Islington. You’ll be able to afford to open in the West End.’ He
smiled like a wily fox. ‘Why I might even start buying
theatres.’

‘
But these
people have done nothing to me. I can’t spite them.’

‘
They took
away your inheritance Tom. Sheridans should be ours and if you
really want to repay me
and
be a part of this family, you’ll
do this one thing to help us get it back.’

‘
How do I
start?’

‘
Well cousin,’
he smiled smugly. ‘You start by going home and packing your
suitcase because you’re coming to New York with me on Thursday.
You’re going to stay in my Manhattan apartment; we’re going to have
some fun and you can meet grandmother for the first time
ever.’

Tom sighed, feeling as
though he’d just made a pact with the Devil.

‘
I don’t have
much choice in this do I?’

Jackson sat back, that
lofty expression returning to his face.

‘
No Tom, you
don’t.’

Three

Alex couldn’t remember
when she last felt so bored. She had a stack of paperwork to get
through and was dying to get started on the project her father had
set her, and instead she was stuck here in The Amersham Arms,
watching The Bell Jar - Tim’s other passion. As well as conducting
ridiculous and pointless research projects, he also played the
keyboard and acted as a sort of manager for the group. Alex
couldn’t possibly begin to imagine who would pay good money to
watch a bunch of middle class students who were all around thirty,
performing their fey little songs.

As well as her contempt
at the music, Alex also couldn’t stand the group members. Justin,
Tim’s best friend and Mini Me was the guitarist; an extremely
irritating girl called Annika played drums and the singer was Toby
Jenson – quite possibly the most annoying man Alex had ever met. He
liked to consider himself an activist, a socialist and generally
right on and yet his father was a life peer, a member of the
Conservative party and somewhere right of Ghengis Khan. Toby
couldn’t be blamed for his father’s sins, but there was something
about him that made Alex feel he was pretending to be a man of the
people and come the day the trust fund matured he’d go running back
into the fold of his family.

Right now they were
performing ‘Gone’ a song about a teenager who has a secret abortion
and kills herself. Alex sat surrounded by mainly Tim’s fellow
academics who were swaying to the whistful music, pursing their
lips and nodding appreciatively, feeling somehow worthy because
they were listening to songs with ‘proper’ lyrics. Alex couldn’t
share their enthusiasm and this made her feel slightly guilty. Of
the Cusack family, it was only Paula and her brood who were
academically inclined; none of the others had bothered beyond
A’levels. Alex had excelled at sport in school and had gone to the
University of Essex to study Sports Science. However her first year
hadn’t involved much studying, more getting drunk and sleeping with
the various boys who thought she was gorgeous. She met Tim in the
library when she couldn’t find a book and asked him for help. They
got chatting, he asked her to attend a lecture on the Suffrage
movement, and flattered, she agreed and that was it, her life
changed.

Tim Bradbury was unlike
any other boy Alex had been out with. His father was Professor of
Modern Art at Manchester University; his mother Georgina Gray was a
well-known feminist writer. He liked Radiohead and Pink Floyd and
introduced her to older indie bands like the Pixies and Throwing
Muses. He was good looking in a sort of geeky way, and Alex had
felt so excited to be allowed into the inner sanctum of the
university intellectuals. Christian was delighted when she asked if
she could switch to Media Studies, pleased that one of his children
was actually doing something academic. Alex suddenly became an
authority on dissecting film and television shows; sitting in
groups with Tim’s’ brainy friends feeling awfully superior to the
students she used to hang around with.

It all changed somewhat
in 2001 when they graduated. Alex went to work for her father’s
company while Tim remained in academia. They moved into a flat in
Hoxton and Alex would come home from a stressful day at work to
find the place in a mess while Tim was sat at the table writing his
MA in Early Cinema. She hoped it would all stop when he got his
further degree and he would start looking for a job in the ‘real
world.’ However he was offered a position in the Research
Department of the University of North West London, excited because
they were frequently given huge amounts of money by the EU to study
the most ridiculous topics. Alex grew more and more frustrated with
him, wondering when he would finally leave ‘school’ and decide to
become a grown up. After all, he was almost thirty one; by the time
her father was that age, he’d been running Sheridans for eight
years.

Her feelings of apathy
just made her even sadder given how much this gig meant to the
band. The Amersham Arms in New Cross was quite a prestigious venue
and to be playing here was a big thing. It wasn’t their fault they
had the luxury of not worrying about business and making money.
Maybe a part of her envied them their naivety. The initial euphoria
of being thrown the golden chalice by her father had started to
wear off and she realised she had just under a year to acquire
three hotels. Christian had allocated her a budget to find staff -
just a small team to help her out and because she didn’t know what
she was doing, she had no idea who she was going to take on.
Michael however, was already up and running. He’d gone to school
with Georgiou, a nephew of Mykonos Dimitrious, the Greek shipping
magnate who had lots of fingers in loads of pies and he was at
present holed up in his yacht moored just off Cannes, trying to
schmooze him and help him buy an airline. There was no one Alex
could turn to. For eight years she’d surrounded herself with people
who thought capitalism was evil and would rather stick pins in
their eyes than help her build her empire and she could have done
with staying home and drawing up plans rather than sitting here
listening to Toby droning on about teenage pregnancy.

Deciding she’d had
enough, she took herself through to the other side of the pub to
get a drink. The bar was packed and in the background they were
playing
Smells Like Teen Spirit
, reminding Alex of her
teenage crush on Kurt Cobain. She was driving that night so
couldn’t drink and fished around in her jeans pocket for a couple
of pounds so she could buy an orange juice. She waited patiently
amongst the heaving crowd, lost in her own thoughts until a
piercing call came shouting over the top of the loud
music.

‘
Alex!’

She looked up and almost
staggered in shock to discover Melanie Williams behind the bar.
They’d been best friends during those heady days of her first year
at university. Around the time Alex met Tim, Mel had discovered
academia wasn’t for her and dropped out. As was the norm, the girls
promised to keep in touch and for a few months Alex did receive the
odd postcard from Mel, telling of her travels around the world, but
gradually they tailed off and they lost touch. Alex had often
wondered what had become of her wild, Liverpudlian friend and never
dreamt she’d find her here!

Stepping up to the bar,
Alex saw time had done nothing to change Mel. She was still one of
the most beautiful women Alex had ever seen. Like she had at uni,
she still wore her blonde hair in a cropped, almost masculine
style; her body was skinny and androgynous and yet she had the most
beautiful, feminine face. She reminded Alex of a young Annie Lennox
with almost feline blue eyes and cheekbones that could cut you.
Even dressed in a scruffy blue t shirt and jeans, she still looked
like a goddess.

‘
Mel!’ Alex
cried. ‘Is it really you?’

‘
What the fook
happened to you girl?’ Mel asked in that broad Liverpudlian accent.
‘You look like you’ve been dragged through a hedge
backwards!’

Mel was one of those
people who could get away with saying something like this. She
never meant to be insulting. It was just her way of being helpful
and she could remember Alex at her most gorgeous. Before Tim and
his feminist friends got to her.

‘
I’m not
nineteen anymore!’ Alex laughed. ‘I can’t still look like Britney
Spears!’

‘
Rubbish, you
were always hundred times better looking than her. Anyway, what yer
doing ‘ere?’

‘
My
boyfriend’s band’s playing in there.’

‘
The Bell
Jar?’

‘
Yeah.’

Mel wrinkled her nose
up.

‘
You’re not
still going out with that drip Tim Bradbury are yer?’

‘
Tim and I
have been together for eight years thank you very much,’ Alex
laughed. She noticed the man next to her looking rather agitated at
witnessing these two girls catching up and not much serving being
done.

‘
You’d better
serve this man,’ she said. ‘I can wait.’

Mel did as she was told
and served the guy next to Alex. As soon as he was satisfied, she
moved back to her friend.

‘
So what you
doing these days?’ she asked.

‘
I’m working
for Sheridans,’ Alex replied. ‘I was Head of PR up until the other
week. Now daddy’s given me a major project so I’ve got to
concentrate on that. Do you work here full time?’

‘
Nah, I do a
bit of this, a bit of that, you know what it’s like la. I’m trying
to save the money to buy a bar in Ibiza.’

‘
Sounds great.
Look do you fancy meeting for a coffee tomorrow?’

‘
I’d love to.
I’m doing me beauty counter in Selfridges tomorrow so meet me
outside at one.’

‘
Great,’ Alex
beamed. ‘I can’t wait. It’s great to see you Mel.’

Mel served her with her
drink and she made her way back into the stage area. Toby was now
reciting poetry over a musical background and Alex wished she’d
bought her iPod just so she could plug it into her ears and drown
out the noise! She sat and sipped her drink, thinking about Mel and
how ironic it was she’d come back into her life on this night when
she’d been feeling so reminiscent. The two of them had spent some
wild nights together sharing a flat in Colchester, often bringing
back boys from nightclubs and partying with them until the break of
dawn. Mel had always been far more sexually adventurous than Alex;
going in for threesomes and sometimes shagging boys whose name she
didn’t even know. Alex had thought she was great and couldn’t help
but feel a little excited to be reunited with her once
more.