The Mother-in-Law(47)

“I see.” Diana’s voice is calm and controlled and there’s something sinister about it. “And what do you think would happen to Lucy if Ollie died?”

I open my mouth, but Nettie doesn’t miss a beat.

“I imagine that Ollie has life insurance.”

“Enough that Lucy doesn’t have to work?” Diana laughs. “I doubt it. She has two children to feed, clothe, educate. And what kind of job will she be able to get, after taking all these years out of the workforce?”

“Mum!” Ollie says.

Diana looks around the room. “What? You all look horrified, but tell me. What would you do, Lucy?”

“Mum, that’s enough!” Ollie says.

“Lucy hasn’t even thought about it,” Diana says, turning away from us all to look at Nettie. “Is that the kind of mother you want to be?”

Nettie and I rise to our feet and Tom and Ollie struggle to insert themselves between us. But they are a couple of pieces of tissue and we are bullets.

“You want to know what kind of mother I’d like to be?” Nettie screams. “The kind that helps her children when they come to her for help. The kind that makes them feel good about themselves, instead of like lazy, worthless spongers.”

“So you’ll give your children anything they want?” Diana says. Her pitch rises slightly and I can see she’s starting to get flustered. “Teach them they can have something for nothing, and not have to work for anything?”

“You think I haven’t worked for a child?” Nettie’s voice is ragged, her face red. “I’ve been trying for three years. I’ve been on every fertility drug known to man. I’ve done two failed rounds of IVF. I’ve had four miscarriages.”

Diana shakes her head, looking away. But as she folds her hands in her lap, I notice they’re shaking. “Helping is the worst thing I could do for you, Nettie,” she says.

“In that case, you’ve been fantastic,” Patrick says from his bar stool at the end of the table. He raises his beer; a ‘cheers’ to the room. “Merry Christmas to us, eh?”





28: LUCY


THE PRESENT . . .

Patrick throws his head back and lets out a long, loud, wrong laugh. Gerard and Nettie and Ollie look away uncomfortably, but I can’t stop looking at him. He looks . . . different. His lips move in jerky, twitchy movements, as if they can’t decide whether to curve up or down. “Are you saying Diana hasn’t left her children anything?” He presses the thumb and forefinger of his right hand to each temple and shakes his head.

Gerard looks down at the documents in front of him. “Just some personal effects.” He lifts a page and places his glasses on his nose. “Photo albums, furniture from your childhood bedrooms to be retrieved at your convenience. Nettie has been left Diana’s engagement ring and Ollie has been given his father’s cigar collection. Lucy has been left a necklace—”

Patrick releases a spasm of air that might be a laugh or possibly a gasp. “And the cash? The properties?”

“Diana’s charity business will continue operating, and a board will be appointed to oversee the running of it. The cash will support the running of the business, as well as any other ventures deemed by the board to be in the interests of the charity. The properties will be sold and the proceeds will also go to the—”

“I’m sorry,” Ollie interrupts this time, holding up a hand. “Can we back up a second? We don’t get anything aside from personal effects? No. This must be some kind of mistake.”

Gerard looks somber. “I can assure you, there is no mistake. Diana made her wishes very clear.”

He blinks, pauses. “Can we contest it?”

“You can,” Gerard says, clearly expecting this. “But it wouldn’t be a quick process.”

“Would we win?”

“You might.” He hesitates. “I can’t be the one to advise you on this, as the executor, but I suggest you get advice once you’ve had a chance to think it over.”

“We don’t need to think about it,” Ollie says. “We’ll be contesting it.”

“I . . . agree,” Nettie says.

“So do I,” Patrick says.

“Lucy?” Gerard says. “What do you think?”

I swivel in my chair and look from Patrick to Nettie to Ollie. Their faces are etched with hurt and bewilderment. But there’s something else in their faces too, something ugly. So ugly, in fact, that I have to swivel my chair back again.

“It has nothing to do with me,” I tell Gerard. “Nothing at all.”





29: DIANA


THE PAST . . .

Apparently our house has over thirty rooms. I still find that hard to fathom. The first time Tom brought me to look at it, I’d point-blank refused to live here. I spent my days with women who lived in homes the size of a car parking space, why should I live in a palace? But Tom, as usual, talked me into it. It’s funny how quickly things become normal. Funny how morals can bend.

Tonight, Tom and I are in the den. I’m down at one end of the Chesterfield and Tom is at the other. His trousers are pushed up to the knees and I am massaging his calves. His legs have been giving him some trouble lately. (“It’s the old age,” he always says, when I tell him to go to the doctor.) At night, I often find him pacing around the bedroom, walking off the cramps in his calves.