The Small Fortune of Dorothea Q (15 page)

‘I can’t wait to see her reaction!’

‘Inky!’ The urgency in Mum’s voice made me look up.

‘What?’

‘Don’t tell her yourself. Let me do it. Please. Trust me on this.’

‘Mum, I don’t get it. Why all this secrecy? You don’t even get on with her; she talks to me much more. She
likes
me. If you tell her, she’ll only quarrel with you.’

Mum sat down at the kitchen table with her salad bowl and started to eat. She avoided my eyes. ‘The thing is, I know that stamp, from way back when. There’s a lot of family history attached to it, emotional stuff you can’t possibly understand. It was Daddy’s, his most precious … Oh, it’s a long story. Maybe I’ll tell you sometime.’

T
hat night
, or rather, the next morning, I discovered why Mum seemed always so exhausted. I woke up early to go to the loo. The iridescent hands on my bedside clock said 4:25a.m. Outside the window, a full moon sailed across a clear navy sky, and the room glowed with a gentle white light. On my way out, I noticed Mum’s door was open; I peeped in and her bed was empty; the bedclothes heaped against the foot of the bed. I assumed she was in the bathroom, but found it unoccupied. When I returned to my room, the bed was still empty.

I tiptoed downstairs, taking care to avoid the two boards that creaked. I thought Mum’d be in the kitchen, maybe drinking a glass of warm milk, which was what she did when she couldn’t sleep. But the kitchen door was wide open, the light switched off. Across the hallway, the living room door was closed, and a crack of light at its base was an obvious clue to Mum’s whereabouts. I gingerly opened the door, peeped inside. Mum sat at the dining table, her back to me, so absorbed in whatever she was doing she didn’t hear the door handle’s click.

‘Mum?’

She jumped, and turned around, an expression of clear guilt across her face.

‘Oh, Inky! I… I didn’t hear you come in! I was just …’

She turned back to the dining table and a familiar click told me she’d closed her laptop.

‘I’ve got some extra work, and I thought this was the best time to do it … with Mummy in the house everything’s so hectic. No time for anything!’ she said, answering a question I hadn’t asked.

Sometimes Mum took on freelance assignments, writing articles and even short stories for B-class magazines and journals, as well as editing and proof-reading jobs. Her full-time job as a storyliner for the daily soap
Bed and Breakfast
– a never-ending story centred around a thriving hotel in Blackpool – might have been enough for just the two of us, but not enough to take care of Dad’s crushing legacy of debt. And now we were three, with Gran.

‘Oh, OK. I saw your empty bed and wondered where you were. Want me to read it when you’re finished?’

Sometimes, Mum asked me to read over her freelance stuff and give my opinion. Not this time, though.

‘No, it’s OK. You’d just be bored by this one. I’ll manage.’

‘OK, then I’ll go back to bed.’

‘Good night … I mean, good morning!’ I thought I saw relief cross her features as I turned to go. But I may have been mistaken.

T
he phone was ringing
. I happened to be in the bathroom, helping Gran to get washed. We still hadn’t figured out a solution to the shower problem, and getting her ready for the day took the better part of an hour. First she had to be helped up the stairs, our arms around each other‘s waists, and then she had to be washed at the sink.

I clattered downstairs to answer the phone. Someone wanted to speak to Gran. He didn’t ask for her by name. First he established my identity, and then he asked for ‘my grandmother’, which pretty much established what the call was about.

‘She’s busy right now,’ I said. ‘Could you please call back in about an hour.’

I ran back upstairs.

‘Who was that?’

‘Someone about the stamp.’

‘Eieiei! They must want it real bad! They gon’ call back, or what?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘But I wanted to tell you something before you speak to anyone. You have to be careful, Gran. People are unscrupulous. They wouldn’t be calling if they didn’t think it was worth a lot. And I think it is.’

‘I told you! Fifty thousand dollars!’

‘I think … probably a lot more.’

I could hardly contain myself, but Mum had asked me not to tell – yet. I didn’t understand that. What could be the harm in it? I didn’t think it was a good idea for Mum to be the one to tell her. There were obvious tensions between her and Mum, whereas my relationship with her was good, under the circumstances. Gran liked me, approved of me. She was trying to win me over. Whereas Gran bickered constantly with Mum, which was why I had ended up taking over most of the Gran‘s care. I was the one Gran invited into her room every evening, the one she showed the old photos and told the old stories to, again and again. The one she most connected to.

I made up my mind to disregard Mum‘s plea. Mum harboured a barbed, bulky load of old mental baggage, and whatever it was she feared came from some unresolved childhood conflict. It had nothing to do with our present circumstances. Obviously, I was the best one to break the news to Gran.

And anyway, circumstances had simply taken over. The dealer was going to ring back. He would be calling back within the hour, and now I knew the real value of the stamp I had to prepare Gran to talk to him. Later, we could discuss strategies. Mum had made it clear to me that we had to be extremely careful from now on. No more shady stamp-dealers picked off the Internet. We had to be professional. And so did Gran.

And anyway, my hints had started an interrogation I could no longer stop. My concealed excitement must have been contagious, for she picked at it with the determination of a dog digging for a bone.

‘A lot more? Like what? Seventy t’ousand? A hundred t’ousand? How you know? You find out something? Ow!’ She snatched her head away from my hands. ‘You don’t know how to comb black people hair, or what? Give me that comb!’

I gave her the wide-toothed comb and she styled her hair herself, her deft fingers bringing order into the sleep-matted mane in a matter of minutes.

‘I read something about it,’ I said. ‘You can read it when we go downstairs.’

‘Tell me now,’ she insisted.

So I did.

She took the information as calmly as Mum had done.

‘E.D.Wight,’ she mused. ‘Edward Wight. Pa Theodore’s boss. I knew him; an old man. Two a-them used to work at the Post Office down the road – at the corner of Lamaha and Carmichael. Humphrey’s father George worked there too. Opposite the train station. Mums used to send we there to buy stamps.’

‘The one-cent stamps were used for newspapers,’ I said. ‘So I guess mostly the wrappers were just thrown away. Nobody keeps newspaper wrappers. So Theodore must have kept the stamp, seeing as it had his own initials on it.’

But Gran wasn’t listening.

‘Come, child, I finish. Let we go downstairs. I want to read this t’ing you talking about.’

I put away the comb, tidied the bathroom a little, and helped her down the stairs.

A
stair-lift
.
Or better yet, the bathroom extension Mum and Marion had dreamed of. She could afford it now! She could afford a carer, a personal nurse. Mum’s troubles were over – we were rich! Jubilant, I thought of all the ways Gran could make her life, and ours, easier. Over the past week she had become quite handy at fixing her own food, but the counters were too high for her.
A new kitchen,
I thought. One with low cupboards and counters. Hell, why aim so low? A whole new house! Why not? In Richmond! One of those lovely villas in Croydon. Why not! We were rich! Then I remembered. She was rich. Not we. And she clung to that little bit of paper like a barnacle to a rock. Damn. She would have to see sense. I would make her see sense. She trusted me. I would talk her into selling it.

Finally established at the table, her breakfast in front of her, Gran asked for the article. She read it as she ate. I watched her face, but it remained expressionless; the only clue to her thoughts was a slight raising of the eyebrows, and a simultaneous slight pause in the chewing. I guessed she had reached the part where DuPont won the stamp at auction; the part where I myself had leapt to my feet with a yelp.

‘So?’ I said, when she put the page down without even a glance at me. ‘What do you think? It’s nice, isn’t it?’ The understatement of the century; but Gran’s lack of reaction unnerved me

She sucked her teeth. ‘Them people plenty stupidy,’ she said. ‘What you got a stamp for, if all you gon’ do is keep it in a vault?’

She was referring to the present owner of the famous stamp, John DuPont, currently serving a prison sentence for murder. The stamp had been in a vault for years, decades.

‘What you expect him to do, take it to jail with him?’

She sucked her teeth again. ‘If you got something you treasure, you got to be able to look at it, take it out, admire it, thank de Lord, show you friends, show you grandchildren. Just like I show you.’

She obviously had missed the point.

‘Gran, that stamp – I mean
your
stamp – is valuable! You have to take better care of it. You can’t just keep it in an old stamp album! I mean, it’s a miracle it survived this long, and …’

‘All you-all young people do is break you head over worries,’ she said. ‘In me day, we didn’t have these worries. Look how Theodore keep de stamp, pass it to he chirren and chirren chirren. We did know how to take care of good t’ings, heirlooms an’ t’ings. We didn’t need no vault to keep it safe.’

‘Yes, but you didn’t
know
how valuable it was. If you had known, if Theodore had known, I’m sure he wouldn’t have just left it lying around the house. It‘s so tiny! It could get lost so easily!’

‘Who say anything about it lying around the house? You see it lying around in my room? I know how to keep valuable things safe. What you frighten? We old people, we got we own ways. If I got a treasure I does keep good care of it. Safer than me own teeth!’

She clacked her false teeth at me and cackled at her own joke.

‘You should really give it to Mum to give to the bank. They’ll keep it in a safe, till you can take it to auction, and …’

Oh dear. I was supposed to persuade her gently, surreptitiously. I’d let my own excitement run away with me. That was
not
a smart word. She jumped on it immediately.

‘Auction? Who say anything ’bout auction?’

‘Well … of course … I thought …’

‘All you young people can thing about is money, money, money. You don’t know what an
heirloom
is? Is something of
value
a family passes down the generations. You don’t sell an heirloom. You don’t put it in no auction. You never heard of
sentimental value
? You never heard of
respectin’
you ancestors and
honourin’
them by taking care of the things they leave you? If you turn everything into money you don’t know you lose the past? An’ if you lose the past you don’ know you
lose you soul?
I never gon’ understand you young people. Money, money, money. What de world comin’ to, I don‘t know. Everything going down de drain. Is all money, money, money.’

‘But …’

Clutching the wheels of her chair, she gave it a brusque push so that the chair shot backwards and almost hit the wall.

‘But
what?
You eyes get big, or what? You eyes get big an’ you mind get small. You read some stupidy article, an’ all you can think of is money. Before you go to that damn dealer, all you could think is that Gran holdin’ on to some damn stupidy piece of paper, some raggedy ol’ stamp album. You din’ place no value on it. Is I did value it, because is a family heirloom. A
Quint
family heirloom. You own family; not even
my
family, I is a van Dam. One of the famous two van Dam sisters. We got we own heirlooms, jewels and t’ings. The Quint heirloom is that stamp album. Theodore Quint is not
my
ancestor; I only marry into the family. I was keeping’ this heirloom to pass down to the next generation,
your
generation. My husband pass it on to me to pass on. Is my holy duty. But all you young people could t’ink, is money, money, money. Auction and money. Auction and money. Money, money, money. What the world comin’ to I don’t know. Lord have mercy upon us. Save us from the Scribes and Pharisees. Rescue us from those of small heart, from those devoid of morals. Lead us into green pastures, oh Lord.’

As she spoke she eased herself on to her feet, grabbed her rollator, trundled off into the living room, turned right, shuffled down the hall and into her own room, again, with me right behind her, trying to get a word in edgeways. Nothing doing. Gran wouldn’t let a thing like a rollator and a slow pace take one spark away from the fire of her anger, and she scorched me well and truly. As she crossed the threshold into her room, she held on to the doorframe and slowly, wincing with pain, turned around to face me. In spite of the wince, her jaw was thrust forward and her eyes burned holes into my guilt.

‘You, Inka, you! All these years I was t’inking you is the worthiest of my grandchildren, you the only one who ever bothered to write me. Even Marion’s children, small children I helped raise – never a word to the old grandma once they leave the country. Never a thought for their old grandma. You, I thought, you is of the old understanding. You is not of this modern times; you is the one who would value the heirloom. And now? You is just like all the rest. Money, money, money.’

Her very slowness gave her dignity. She turned her back to me and shuffled off. The door slammed shut in my face.

‘
I
don’t understand it
,’ I said to Sal on the phone, ‘
she
was the one who first mentioned money.
She
was the one who named sums, and asked me how much it was worth.’

‘Well, obviously, her reasons for wanting to know the market value are different from yours,’ Sal said. ‘I believe that for her, the higher the market value, the greater the sentimental value as an heirloom. Which doesn’t mean it has to be converted into hard cash. Whereas for you, the stamp as heirloom has no value whatsoever. You just don’t care. And that’s what upset her.’

‘But if you think about it, it’s really just a scrap of paper.
Her
words, and they’re true. Just because some people want to pay thousands and hundreds of thousands for that scrap of paper, doesn’t make it actually
worth
that much. Why such a fuss?’

I could feel Sal’s shrug through the line. ‘Why do we attach a value to anything, for that matter?’

‘I can understand a family heirloom if it’s, say …’ I paused to think of an example. ‘A piece of antique furniture. Or an old sapphire brooch. Something beautiful, something that in itself is a relic of the past, a piece of history. You’d never think of throwing away, say, a beautiful old painting. Or a marble statue, or an antique necklace. You’d want to hold on to it for its own sake, for its beauty. But a stamp? A scrap of paper?’

‘You think too much. Just accept that it is so, and figure out how you can make it up to Nan.’

‘
You
can talk. You don’t know her when she’s being a bitch,’ I grumbled. ‘She’s only ever been nice to you.’

‘Tell you what. I’ll come over this evening. I’ll see if I can calm the waters.’

‘No work?’

‘Nope. Two days off.’

‘Good. Maybe you can work the miracle. I expect some heavy flirting with her.’

He laughed. ‘Done.’

The minute Sal went off the line the phone rang again. It was the same caller as earlier, a dealer, I supposed, but not Mr Martin, the dealer. Maybe Mr Martin’s boss. Again, he wanted Gran. I rapped on her door.

‘What you want?’

‘Telephone for you.’

A moment later, the door opened. Gran stood in the doorway, crouched over her rollator, eyes smoking.

‘Gimme that thing.’

I gave the phone to her. She shuffled backwards, the door slammed.

W
hen Mum came home
I confessed everything. I’d done exactly what she’d told me not to do and Gran still fumed in her room. Mum sighed.

‘There’s a reason I asked you to let me tell Mummy,’ she said. ‘She’s difficult. I told you she’s difficult.’

‘Difficult?’ I scoffed. ‘She’s a nightmare. I honestly don’t know how you and Marion turned out so nice.’

Mum laughed. ‘Maybe we got it from Daddy,’ she said. ‘He was sweetness incarnate. Or Daddy’s mum, Granny. Ma Quint.’

It was the first time she had ever mentioned family connections from back home. We were making progress.

‘Yeah, and Neville and Norbert got their crankiness from
her.
Makes sense. Speaking of which, Norbert called earlier. Gran didn’t want to speak to him. He was most intrigued to hear that Neville bought her a laptop.’

We both laughed. Neville and Norbert were engaged in a private battle in which each tried to outdo the other in proving they were the better son, Mummy’s favourite. Gran loved their oneupmanship game, as it meant they showered her with ever more generous gifts, and she played it for all she was worth. The rollator, a radio, her own TV set, a more comfortable mattress – all provided by them. Now that Neville had given her a laptop, Norbert would have to think of something better, even more useful, even more state-of-the-art, and Gran would sulk until she got it. The trouble was that Gran wanted luxuries; Mum and I wanted the practical stuff. A stair-lift. A bathtub lift. A potty-chair. Boring stuff, but necessary. Stuff Gran would never think to ask for.