Our Father Who Are Out There...Somewhere (33 page)

David takes it out of her hands and opens the page.

“What do you think?” asks Lily.

David nods his head as he reads the particulars. Since Ruth demanded the return of the ransom money, it makes sense to rent somewhere. A teacher’s salary doesn’t go far, particularly when you have a daughter used to the finer things in life, like tennis lessons and skiing holidays. Ruth made it quite clear that she wasn’t going to be funding their new abode. At least Lily doesn’t expect much. “It looks good. Give them a ring, let’s go and see it.”

Lily’s heart is beating too fast as she rings the agents. “It’s still available,” she shouts from the hall as she puts the phone down. She comes back into the kitchen. “I said we’d meet them there Monday, after school. Where’s Fiona?”

“She’s spending the day with Stuart and her mother. Apparently Ruth is taking them to London to see Starlight Express, as a birthday treat.” His tone is peevish.

“We could get a video,” suggests Lily, anxious to offset his loss. “Gran and Granddad won’t be back til late. Or we could go to a show. I’ll pay.” Her overdraft might just stretch to it.

David smiles and puts his arm loosely round her shoulders. “A video tape will be just fine. So long as you promise not to get
Dirty Dancing.
”

They meet outside Fern Cottage at 4 o’clock on Monday. Lily walks round with Alice and Arthur and Tess. David had offered to pick Fiona up from her school on his way from his, but Fiona insisted on getting a taxi so she wouldn’t be late. The cottage is unfurnished and could kindly be described as ‘old-fashioned’. With the five of them, the estate agent and the dog, it feels like it’s bursting at the seams, but it has three bedrooms on the first floor and a room in the attic, which Lily falls in love with. They sign the lease on the spot. David pays the deposit. “I’ll get a job,” offers Lily, in a moment of rashness. “I’ll pay my share of the rent.”

“Well, we’re alright for the moment,” says David. “You need to take some time to figure out what you want to do.”

“The first thing I need to do is go back to Accrington,” says Lily. “I have to hand the keys back, sort out a few things.”

“I’ll come with you,” says Fiona.

“You can’t, Fi. You’ve got school,” says David, as he walks round the front room checking for electric sockets.

“School’s boring.”

“Thanks, but it’s something I need to do it on my own,” says Lily.

“How long will you stay?” asks Fiona.

“Don’t know. A few days; there’s a lot to do. I might go to Leeds as well, clear up there.”

“Well, if you need anything,” says David, “just ring.”

Two days later, Lily pushes open the front door of her mother’s council house and steps over the stack of mail that’s built up in the hallway. She closes the door and drops her bag on the floor. The house smells of stale fish and chips, joss sticks and that other lingering smell that Lily doesn’t like to think about. It’s so cold Lily can see her breath. She picks up the stack of mail and goes into the front room. Fiona’s school blazer is still on the bed and the newspaper fish and chip wrappings from that first night are screwed up on the floor. The room looks like someone just ran out of the back door, which of course they did, a month ago. She’s travelled so far in a month, Lily doesn’t recognise these reminders of her past life. Strands of Fiona’s hair still lie on the floor. Lily can’t remember what she looked like before they cut her hair off. That gawky schoolgirl they spent so much time stalking never seemed to materialise. It’s impossible to equate her with the Fiona she knows now.

Lily puts the tokens she stopped off at the SPAR to buy, into the electric meter. The bulb in the ceiling lights up and the fridge starts to hum. There’s no point getting the gas reconnected but she’s going to freeze her ass off while she’s here.

She takes the stack of letters into the kitchen, opens all the ones addressed to her mother or ‘the occupier’, and sorts them into two piles on the worktop. There are three letters addressed to her, which she puts to one side, unopened. One of the two piles she picks up and drops into the half full bin liner, that’s lying against the back door. The smell makes her recoil. She ties the bag and puts it outside the back door.

Once she’s made herself a cup of tea, she writes to all her mother’s creditors, her fingers blue gripped around the pen, before turning her attention to her own post. A card from Aunt Edie, a letter from Leeds Polytechnic, asking whether she intends to return to her course, and a letter from a firm of solicitors asking her to contact them, ‘with regards to her mother’s estate’.

Lily lifts the receiver but there’s no dial tone. She puts her coat on and walks to the phone box at the edge of the estate. She rings Aunt Edie first, and after apologising for disappearing, arranges to go round for tea. Next she rings the solicitors and speaks to an elderly-sounding receptionist, and makes an appointment for Monday morning. Then she walks back to the house, grabs the roll of bin liners she bought from the SPAR and heads for the loft. She’s guessing David has no use for a pair of beige chinos with the crotch missing.

As she picks up a copy of
Brave New World
a photograph slips from its pages and flutters to the floor. Lily picks it up and sees her parents sitting on a scooter, David at the front, wearing a thin black tie and a shiny grey suit, his hair spiked, while Lily’s mum peers out behind him, her arms wrapped tightly around his waist, wearing a helmet and a broad grin. Lily puts the photograph in her pocket and scoops everything else into the bin liners.

When Lily has moved all the contents of the loft down to the front room she lugs the Hoover she’s borrowed from Mrs Delaney at number 34 up the ladders and sucks up all the cobwebs.

The next day, she sugar soaps walls, trying to scrub off the nicotine stains, scrubs the bathroom, crow bars the planks of wood they had nailed across the window of her old bedroom, and boils hundreds of bucketfuls of hot water. All her mothers' tent-like clothing she bags up, and drags to the recycle bins at the local supermarket, and grins when she sees she’s donating it to the Salvation Army.

On Friday Lily is invited to Aunt Edie’s for tea. She puts her mother’s small wooden jewellery box into her backpack, and catches the bus across town, her arms aching from a day of scrubbing the greases stains from the kitchen.

 “Aw, thank you, pet,” says Aunt Edie, opening the empty wooden box.

“Sorry there wasn’t any jewellery.”

“But it’s nice to have a keepsake. You’re looking well, child; you’ve finally got a bit of meat on your bones.”

“That’s thanks to Alice, my grandma.” Lily experiments with the words. “I have a dad, a sister, a gran and a grandpa. I’ve got aunts and uncles and five cousins too, but I haven’t met them yet.”

“Yes, well, you want to watch that one, Alice. Marjorie never took to her.”

“I know, Alice said they were disappointed Mum married David. Apparently they thought she married beneath her.”

“Poppycock. Your granddad might have thought that, I don’t know, but I can tell you Marge wasn’t the sort to look down on other people. We weren’t exactly the Rockefellers when we grew up.”

“Well, whatever, it’s all in the past.”

“Your mother never liked her either.”

“My mum didn’t like anyone unless they were carrying pizza.”

“Don’t be too hard on her, Lil. She did her best.”

“You weren’t saying that when she was alive.”

“Aye, well,” Aunt Edie bristles. “If there’s one thing I’ve learnt it’s judge not, unless thee thyself want judging.”

Lily stands in the doorway between the kitchen and the front room, the smell of bleach in her nostrils, and she slowly nods to herself. It’s taken her five days of working like a dog, and the muscles in her arms feel warm and tight, but it’s done. She moves across to the kitchen window and pulls the clasp to close it. It took nearly a full day to scrape the fat splashes from the wall next to the cooker, but now the tiles, which she’d always thought were beige, gleam creamy white in the morning sunshine. Walking through to the front room, she bends to pick up her rucksack which contains some clothes, including Fiona’s school blazer, a couple of photographs and a hand mirror from her mother’s bedroom, which used to belong to her granny. Everything else has been burnt, tipped or donated. Lily takes one last look around the front room, before stepping out into the crisp January air, pulling the front door firmly to behind her.

It’s only when she’s handed in the keys at the housing office on the edge of the estate, that the relief she feels in her head translates to a light feeling in her chest. She adjusts the weight of her rucksack and sets off into town. As she rounds the corner at the bottom of the street, she almost trips over a manky black cat, its right ear missing.

The red paint is faded and peeling off the front door of the solicitor’s office. Lily checks the piece of paper in her hands, and steps inside. Her appointment is for 9.30am. It’s not quite twenty past. An elderly receptionist in a floral cardigan stands to greet her, pink lipstick not quite running to the edges of her thin lips. “Lily Appleyard, we’ve been expecting you,” she says.

Lily looks around the small waiting area, with its tattered magazines piled neatly on a small coffee table, and suspects she’s the first client they’ve had in this week, possibly this year, although it is only January. She follows the receptionist through a narrow corridor to the back room, where an old man is bent over his desk.

“Miss Appleyard,” he says, standing up. His shoulders are so hunched that his head faces downwards, so that Lily feels his eye level is somewhere around her knees. He holds out a gnarled hand. “Thank you for coming. Please accept my condolences.”

“Thank you,” says Lily softly.

“Please.” He gestures towards the only other chair in the room. Lily shrugs the rucksack from her shoulders and sits down, folding her hands on her lap. Once seated, she makes eye contact with the old man. He stares at her for a few moments, before speaking. “Would you like tea or coffee?”

 “I’m ok, thanks.”

“Just a tea for me then please, Miss Farnley,” he says to the old lady as she shuffles from the room, closing the door behind her. The solicitor lowers himself down into the well worn leather chair opposite Lily’s. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, young lady. Thank you for coming. Now, about your mother’s estate.”

“I wanted to ask,” Lily inches forward in her seat. “Can they make me responsible for her debts?”

“They may be able to claim against your mother’s estate, but there would be little value in doing so, as your mother, I would imagine, had very little in the way of assets. Did she leave a will?”

“Not that anyone’s said.”

“I heard a little about her over the years. The world is a small place and Accrington smaller still. I promised your grandfather I’d keep an eye on her. I would assume she has no estate to claim against.”

“I got a letter from the council saying I could inherit the tenancy, but I, well I said I didn’t want it.” Lily’s voice falters. “I hope that was ok?”

“Sometimes a clean break is for the best,” says the old man, as Lily fights the tears she feels threatening to spill into her eyes.

“So why do you want to see me?”

“Well, Miss Appleyard, may I call you Lily? You won’t remember me, but we have met. You were about three years old. Lily, I was a friend of your grandfather’s. He was a great man; I miss him to this day. I was executor of his will and, as you may or may not be aware, his estate was left in a complex trust.” He pauses, his statement really a question. Lily shakes her head.

The old man continues. “His reasoning being that he didn’t want to leave his estate to your mother, in light of her…” he spends several seconds searching for the right word, “difficulties. He stipulated that; in the event your mother failed to meet the criteria necessary for her to benefit from his last will and testament…”

Lily fidgets in her chair. She wishes she’d had a fag before she came into the office, as she has this feeling that she might be there a while, especially at the speed the old man speaks, each word carefully considered, chosen and expressed.

“On her death, it would pass to you.”

He pauses, waiting for a reaction. Lily nods, her attention caught by the ticking of a large, old-fashioned wooden carriage clock on the mantelpiece.

“So, you are now set to inherit your grandparents’ estate.”

“Ok,” says Lily.

“Which amounts to, let me see,” he pats at the pieces of paper in front of him, but Lily has the feeling that, despite his advanced years, he knows exactly how much, down to the nearest penny. “This may not be an exact figure. The money is currently held in trust and interest will need to be calculated, but somewhere in the region of one hundred and thirty-seven thousand.”

“Pounds?” asks Lily, suddenly feeling too warm.

“Pounds Stirling,” the solicitor says, as he sits back in his chair and smiles at her, a slender black fountain pen in his gnarled hand.

“But where did they get that much money from?”

“It’s not a terrific sum.”

Lily pulls a face.

“There was the sale of their house, some unit bonds, stocks and shares, that sort of thing. The money has been invested these last fifteen years, cautiously, yet yielding some return. You may have to pay tax on the sum, but I can put you in touch with an advisor who will be able to guide you through that process.”

“Wow.” Lily sinks back in the chair and lets out a long low breath. “Did my mum know the money was there?”

The solicitor nods his head. “Your grandfather attached certain stringent conditions to his last testament; conditions that your mother would have to have met in order to benefit from his estate.”

“What kind of conditions?”

“There were several, including but not limited to, being in full-time employment or registered on a full-time educational course.”

“What did my mum think about that?”

The solicitor throws his head up, so that Lily catches a glimpse of his face. “Not a great deal. In fact I think Miss Farnley is still recovering, and she was in the outer office at the time.”