Chapter 25: Part Two: Her Lovers' Touch

Richard I sit in the conference room, wading through brochures, catalogues and websites, trying to find something….

…. suitable….

…. and just the tiniest bit original….

And something she doesn’t already have….

*sigh*

There’s movement in my office beyond.

Elizabeth?

She’s early….

Quickly, I whisk a plan of the City Project site over my work area, but when I look up, it’s not Elizabeth but Michael standing in the doorway.

“Hi, Richard… Hope you don’t mind. Francis let me in. Thought I’d spend half an hour on some more of that lot while I was twiddling my thumbs.” He gestures towards the stack of tattered and dusty boxes housing forty years of junk paperwork from Elizabeth’s recently deceased Uncle Albert.

“Not at all. It’s very good of you to keep at this on Elizabeth’s behalf.”

“It’s no problem at all. I’m waiting for James and Charlotte so it’s not as if I have anything better to do ‘til they turn up. And as I mentioned, I’m actually finding it quite interesting….”

Each to their own….

He picks up a box, already half-empty, so I assume he’s been working on it before, and flicks out a sheet, examines it briefly then tosses it in another box being used for waste.

I return to my own thankless task, flicking through web pages looking at more and more useless crap.

Useless expensive crap….

Not that I can't afford it, but Elizabeth already has everything.

What else can I give her?

A lot of what I see is simply bling, usually with a designer name attached, so folks with pretensions and more money than sense buy it.

Sighing, I try a change of tack.

A theatre performance perhaps…. A movie? The Opera?

She hates Opera Ballet perhaps?

Michael’s head pops up. “Something wrong?”

“It’s Elizabeth’s birthday in a couple of weeks.”

He chuckles. “Yes, I can see that would give you a problem. Settled on anything?”

“No. It's all the same-old-same-old. She has a wardrobe full of clothes and more in boxes in the attics plus all the bags and shoes and jewellery that might go with them. She has two cars....”

“Something for the cars then? Accessories for those?”

“The fact is, she never drives. It's always Ross or me. Her cars sit in the garage. About the only time they move is when Ross brings them out to turn the engine over and give them a polish.”

“Books maybe? That always a hit with Charlotte.”

“She's not very bookish. The odd light novel, but she's not um....”

I don't like to talk down my own wife but.…

“.... academically inclined as Charlotte is.”

“I can see you do have a problem.”

“If you have any ideas, let me know.”

He touches his forehead in a mock salute. “Will do.”

I eye the stack of mouldering papers on the tabletop in front of him without pleasure. “You’re working through a lot of junk there.”

“Yes….” He drops a handful of what looks like receipts, faded into illegibility, into the waste box…. “But I keep finding the odd pearl.”

“Really? Such as?”

“Oh, nothing major, just clues to a life gone by.”

“You mentioned you’d found he was a bankrupt….”

“Yes.” He points. “The documents are over there on that stack.”

I pick up a manila file, crisp with age, flicking disinterestedly at the contents. “Did you find out who his creditors were?”

“Um... It’s there somewhere.…” He stands, glances at the file in my hand then rummages through the stack it came from. “There were a few, but the main one was some company called um…. VLD Entertainment….” He passes me the sheet. “Mean anything to you?”

I suck at my teeth. “Yes, VLD was a holding company for a string of casinos and gambling dens in the area. They went out of business years ago…. Or perhaps they were bought out…. I can’t really remember. It’s got to be thirty years back.”

Michael sniffs, reflectively I think, “Casinos eh…. If he had a gambling problem, that would explain a lot.”

“It would indeed.”

“Explain what?” It’s Elizabeth, standing in the doorway.

“Did you know your Uncle Albert had gambling debts? It drove him to bankruptcy.”

“Did he?” She stares into space, twiddling with the top button of her blouse. “That makes sense of a few things.”

“Like what?”

“I was just a little girl, but Uncle Albert never had any kinds of games in the house, no board games, no quiz books, no playing cards, not even the sorts for children. You know, Snap or Happy Families… that kind of thing. And now I think about it….” Her voice turns distant…. “Whenever we children were playing anything, if he tried to join in, Aunt Delia would find some way to call him away.”

“Aunt Delia was his wife?”

“His second wife. The first one left him.”

“Do you know why?”

She shakes her head. “I was just a baby when it was happening.” She sucks at her lower lip. “If he went bankrupt, perhaps that broke up their marriage.”

“Perhaps.”

Michael works through a handful of yellowed papers, glancing at each one before screwing it up and tossing it to the waste. “What are you planning on doing with the house?” he asks. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“I don’t mind at all. But the house isn’t mine. It came to the family through Aunt Delia. It goes back to her daughter.”

“Oh!” he sounds surprised. “Sorry, I assumed….”

“No…. The house goes to Monica. The bit of cash there is going to Albert’s sons, David and Stephen.”

Michael scratches at a temple. “So…. Albert’s sons and Delia’s daughter are inheriting everything of value, but Albert appointed you as executor to the will?”

Elizabeth holds up her hands, gesturing around the office. “What do I need with more money?” She laughs. “I’m hardly scraping around the bottom of my purse for the last few coppers to put in the meter.”

“No, of course not, but….” Michael bites down on whatever he was about to say.

Elizabeth surveys the expanse of paper. “Perhaps he just wanted someone impartial to administer the will?”

Michael gazes at the heap, and the other boxes, tugging at his chin with thumb and forefinger.

“Perhaps.”

I can’t, or at least don’t want to continue my search for a birthday gift for Elizabeth with her sitting there, so I make my way next door to my office instead.