Perfectly Ordinary People(54)

Mum, Pippa, Harry and Aisha were squashed into the kitchen, peeling and chopping while drinking cocktails. Actually, as far as I could see, they were mainly just talking, but cooking was their official occupation. Dinner was not going to be happening anytime soon.

In the lounge Dad, Eirla, Tom, Tracey and Suzie were arguing, of all things, about politics and the Irish presidential election. Suzie, for some reason, had taken it upon herself to make everyone mojitos, and she handed me one almost the minute I set foot in the room.

‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That’s, um, a nice summery idea.’ It was eight degrees and cloudy outside so it seemed a strange choice.

I listened to them arguing about Mary McAleese for a while, and then drifted out to the backyard where the cousins were discreetly passing round a joint.

‘I still think he should call her, just in case,’ Harry’s daughter Alice was saying as I stepped outside. ‘What if it’s money or Premium Bonds or something?’

‘Who should call who?’ I asked, and Alice finally noticed my presence and turned to face me, making a futile attempt at hiding the joint behind her back. Because there’s nothing I like more than being hip with the youngsters I beckoned to her until, looking nervous, she handed it over.

‘Your dad should call Ethel,’ Peter said, answering for his sister.

‘Ethel?’

‘Yeah,’ Peter said. ‘Grandma Genny’s cousin.’

‘I don’t . . .’ I said, shaking my head and speaking through smoke. ‘I have no idea what you’re all talking about.’

‘Careful,’ Alice said, addressing Peter. ‘We don’t know what it’s about. And we’re not even supposed to know.’

‘Oh, Ruth’s all right,’ Peter said, then, ‘Alice overheard your mum talking to Dad. Apparently Ethel’s been trying to get in touch with your dad about something. But he’s not interested enough to even phone her back.’

‘I would, wouldn’t you?’ Alice said. ‘It could be to do with his inheritance or something.’

‘So this is my dad’s inheritance from his mother Genny we’re talking about?’ I asked, playing catch up as I handed the joint to Peter.

‘Yeah,’ Alice said.

I shook my head. ‘Then I don’t know why you’re so excited. Even if it was about that – which I doubt – Grandma Genny isn’t your grandmother at all. Or your great-grandmother, even. I know everyone called her that, but she’s not related to your parents in any way.’

‘No,’ Peter said. ‘No, I know that. But when my mate Tommy’s grandad died, they discovered he was loaded. And there was so much dosh that they dished it out to the whole family.’

‘Ah,’ I said, laughing. ‘I see.’

‘But even if he doesn’t choose to do that,’ Alice said, attempting to sound a little less calculating, ‘it would be nice for him, for your dad, wouldn’t it? To inherit something, I mean? Because he didn’t get anything when his dad died, apparently.’

‘I met Grandma Genny, and she was not a millionaire,’ I told them. ‘So I doubt very much that they have some secret stash of gold bars that nobody knows about. And why would Ethel have anything to do with it anyway? I’m not even sure how she’s related, but I think the link is pretty tenuous. She’s, like, Genny’s second or third cousin or something.’

‘But they had a business together, in Brighton,’ Alice said.

‘A restaurant, I think,’ Peter said. ‘And Dad says Brighton’s crazy expensive.’

‘So that might be worth a bit.’

‘It might be Wagamama or something. Maybe she owns Pizza Express.’

‘OK,’ I said, frowning at the fact that my cousins knew more about my grandmother than I did. ‘I’ll, um, see what I can find out, OK?’

‘But don’t say we told you,’ Alice said. ‘Even Dad’s not supposed to know.’

I waited until after lunch to interrogate Mum. I suppose I could have gone to Dad, but he’s always been a bit of a clamshell and if you try to get something out of him directly, he just closes up even tighter. Past experience had taught me that the easiest way to ease him open is to go into the attack with pre-existing information. The only thing Dad likes even less than revealing his secrets is not knowing – or rather, not having control over – which bits of the secret you know.

‘Yes, she’s written to him twice,’ Mum said. ‘And phoned as well.’ She was wiping down the worktop and kept glancing out to the hallway to check that we were still alone.

‘But she didn’t say what it was about?’

‘No,’ Mum said. ‘I told you. He hasn’t called her back yet.’

‘But you spoke to her. So you could have asked her yourself.’

Mum laughed at the idea. ‘It’s not my family, is it?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I suppose not.’

‘And if she wanted to tell me, she would have.’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Fair enough. She and Grandma Genny were cousins, right?’

Mum nodded and scooped the gunk from the sink strainer into the bin. ‘Not direct cousins, I don’t think. Not first cousins, I mean. But they were close. They flat-shared for years.’