‘Mum?’ Stevie sidled into the kitchen, aware of the nervous whine in her voice but unable to do anything about it.
‘What, Stevie? I’m in a hurry.’
‘You’re going to meet the solicitor. I know.’
‘I’m surprised he didn’t want to see you too, considering he asked for me and Fern to be there.’
‘Um… yeah… about that…’
‘Of course, I don’t blame your aunt. No one wants to see their hard-earned money being frittered away.’
There was that word again, frittered.
‘Never mind, I won’t see you starve,’ her mother added, generously. ‘Now, what is it you wanted, because I’m going to be late.’
Stevie debated not telling her mother at all and letting Mr Gantly do her dirty work for her, but she had a feeling she might seriously regret it if she allowed her mother to be blindsided, so she gathered what little courage she could find and blurted it out. ‘She left it all to me.’
‘Left what, dear? Where, oh where, did I put my keys?’ Hazel scanned the kitchen worktops while patting at her raincoat pockets.
‘The money. Aunt Peg. She left it to me.’
‘What are you talking about, dear? Be a love and see if you can find my keys. I could have sworn I left them in here. I came home from my flower arranging class last night, took my coat off, put my— Ah! I know. The bathroom. I had to do a mad dash for the loo. I must have left them in there. Would you run and fetch them for me?’
‘OK, but listen, Mum. I went to the solicitor, yesterday. He wanted to see me. Aunt Peg left me practically everything.’ And with that, Stevie turned tail and made a dash for the stairs, racing into the bathroom and slamming the door behind her.
Her mother’s keys were sitting on the side of the wash hand basin. Stevie scooped them up, cradling them to her chest as she listened for the fallout.
Silence.
After a minute or two, she risked opening the door and poked her head out.
Still silence.
All was quiet as she tiptoed across the landing, and the calm held as she crept down the stairs.
Her mother was waiting expectantly, exactly where Stevie had left her. ‘I was just about to send a search party. I thought you must have fallen in. My keys?’ Hazel held out her hand.
‘Did you hear what I said, Mum?’
‘Hmm?’ Her mother was now digging through her bag, looking for something else.
‘About Aunt Peg’s will?’ Stevie persisted.
‘What about it?’
‘That she left nearly all of it to me.’
‘Very funny, dear.’ Hazel clearly wasn’t taking this seriously.
‘Mum!’ Stevie took a couple of steps forward until she stood directly in front of the older woman. ‘It’s true. Mr Gantly asked to see me yesterday.’
Hazel narrowed her eyes. ‘You didn’t say anything.’
‘I assumed you’d be there too, and when you weren’t and he told me Aunt Peg had left it all to me, except for a thousand pounds each for you and Fern, I sort of didn’t know what to say.’
‘I bet you didn’t! I hope you told him Aunt Peg was being unfair and it should be split three ways.’
You’ve changed your tune, Stevie thought. A minute ago, when you assumed Aunt Peggy’s inheritance was going to be divided between you and Fern, you didn’t mention anything about a three-way split then, did you? she continued to herself.
‘I did,’ Stevie sighed. ‘No dice.’
‘What do you mean, “no dice”?’
‘If I try to give any money to you or Fern, then it all goes to the cats’ home, Mr Gantly said.’
‘Oh, what does he know? It’s your money, you can give it to who you like.’
‘Apparently, not.’
Hazel put her hands on her hips, her mouth drawn in a straight line. ‘Why you?’ she demanded.
Stevie shrugged. There was no way she was going to divulge the contents of the letter she’d received from Aunt Peg or confide in her mother her own educated guess that it might be because Stevie had actually cared for the old lady, and her mother hadn’t given two hoots.
‘You get it all, then, do you?’ Hazel demanded, eyeing her narrowly.
Stevie shrugged again, not wanting to get into an argument, but not seeing how she could avoid one, either.
‘And your sister and I get a thousand each?’ her mother continued, tapping her foot.
Stevie nodded once.
‘The ungrateful old bat!’ Hazel shook her head. ‘After everything I did for her.’
Stevie was about to ask exactly what it was that her mother had done for Aunt Peg, but she wisely kept her mouth closed.
‘I wonder what Fern will have to say about this,’ Hazel continued. ‘She wants an extension.’
Fern always wants something, Stevie thought. Never happy with what she had and forever searching for the next quick fix – if I have a top of the range hot tub, I’ll be happy; if I could just get my hands on that new Smeg fridge which does practically everything, including the ironing, I’ll be happy; and so on. But her new acquisitions never did make Fern happy. As soon as she got them, she immediately forgot about the whatever-it-was she had so desperately wanted and moved onto some new thing which she simply had to have. Over the last couple of months, she’d had the garden landscaped, and now she was talking about building an extension.
‘Fern can say what she likes,’ Stevie said. ‘It won’t change anything. She still only gets a thousand pounds.’
That’ll buy her a couple of tons of bricks, Stevie thought, uncharitably.
‘She won’t be happy,’ her mother predicted. ‘I’m not happy about it, either. I’m glad you warned me before I saw this Gantly person. I’m going to contest it, you know.’
Stevie had guessed as much.
‘I don’t know why she left it all to you. It’s not as if you’ll do anything useful with it,’ her mother continued.
It stung to think her mother had so little faith in her. ‘You’re wrong there,’ she said. ‘I’m going to open my own place.’
Hazel’s eyes narrowed even further until they were nothing but slits. ‘Exactly how much did Peg leave you? You never actually said.’
No, she hadn’t, had she? Stevie was reluctant to say now, but she had little choice. Either Mr Gantly would tell her mother, or Hazel would find out by other means. It might be better to simply get this over with.
‘Two hundred and sixty-three thousand pounds,’ Stevie said, in a small voice.
Hazel slapped a hand to her chest and gasped, her eyes bulging out of their sockets. ‘She never had that much!’
‘She did,’ Stevie said, mournfully, wishing she’d never heard of Mr Gantly or the money. It was going to cause more trouble than it was worth. Now that her mother was aware of the full extent of the inheritance, she’d never let it lie.
And Stevie was right, as she discovered later, when her mother returned from her less-than-satisfactory meeting with the solicitor with Fern in tow.
‘I can’t believe you’ve had all this land in your lap,’ Fern announced, as soon as she spied Stevie. ‘It’s not as if you’ve had to work for it, is it?’
Stevie slammed a lump of dough down on the worktop and kneaded it furiously. Fern, having done hardly a scrap of work in her life, was a fine one to talk. At least Stevie had worked every day since she left school, often for a pittance, except when she’d broken her leg and had been unable to. Fern had managed a couple of desultory years swanning from one temp job to another, before bagging Dezza and living the sort of life she’d always wanted. Once she’d had the children Fern had considered her job done, and was now a lady who lunched while the kids were in school (and shopped, and played tennis, and did lots of other things which involved enjoying herself). Fern had everything dropped in her lap and was now accusing Stevie of the very same thing.
I bet she’s jealous, Stevie thought, pummelling the dough into oblivion. She always did like baking as a means of working out her frustration. She’d got the first batch of pastries started almost as soon as her mother had whisked out of the door. I bet Fern wished she was me, Stevie mused: I’ve got all the money and no boring Dezza to put up with. Or maybe not.
Two hundred and sixty-three thousand pounds wouldn’t get you very far in London, and it certainly wouldn’t buy a four-bedroomed, two reception-roomed house in a nice area like Fern lived in. Nor would it be enough to send two children to private schools. It wouldn’t really be enough to give up work, unless she planned on doing nothing except eating toast for the next forty years and never stepping foot outside her front door ever again.
Her aunt’s words came back to haunt her. Don’t waste it, Peg had said. But was treating herself to the odd holiday, or upgrading her beaten-up, ancient hatchback, wasting it? Or was it simply making life that little bit more bearable?
Suddenly the dream of using the money to set up her own business seemed very far-fetched indeed. It was a tidy sum, but not enough to do anything constructive with. Not unless the business was a van and she sold cupcakes out of it (that was a thought but one Stevie and Karen had only contemplated for a few moments).
Sadly, and with one final thump of the innocent bread dough, Stevie set her dreams to one side. Despite her enthusiasm about setting up a tea shop after her drink with Karen, she’d since decided, hadn’t she, that the sensible thing would be to get a job, then take stock of her situation? At least she could afford to rent somewhere decent for a change, and not flat-share with twelve other people (OK, that was a slight exaggeration). Job first, then she’d have some idea where to rent, because she didn’t want to spend three hours on the Tube every day, just to get to and from work.
Of course, this was assuming she could actually stand the recriminations and the guilt trip her mother would lay on her for the foreseeable future.
Decision made, Stevie put the bread in the airing cupboard to rise and returned to the kitchen to face the music.