Things We Never Say (35 page)

‘Ugh,’ she said. ‘His clothes. That’s definitely creepy, and a bit sad too.’

‘He didn’t spend his cash on clothes,’ observed Lisette as she opened the second door. ‘This is all his casual stuff. Sweat shirts and jogging pants. Not that he jogged much.’

‘Hey, if I get to eighty-odd, I’ll be happy to sit around and let people bring things to me,’ said Zoey. ‘I hate the gym.’

‘Are you a member of one?’

‘How d’you think I keep this body?’ demanded Zoey. ‘It’s not from sitting on my arse all day. I have to work at it, you know. I’m not naturally thin like you.’

‘I’m not naturally thin either,’ said Lisette. ‘But I eat well.’

‘I try,’ Zoey told her. ‘It’s hard.’

‘Not if you cook the food yourself,’ said Lisette. ‘That’s the problem with people today. They own lots of cookbooks but they still buy ready-made meals.’

‘Because there are better things to do than slave over an oven,’ Zoey said.

‘No, there are not,’ Lisette disagreed. ‘Cooking is the most important thing you can do. Proper food keeps your body in balance. It is ridiculous that people spend more money on clothes and computers and other things than food. What is the point in paying for an expensive dress if the body it covers is like shit?’

Zoey stared at her. ‘I’ve never heard you sounding so French before. But you guys eat frogs’ legs, you know.’

‘They are delicious,’ said Lisette. ‘Like chicken wings.’

‘Gross,’ said Zoey.

‘All I’m saying is that more care with your food means less hard work in the gym.’ Lisette opened the final door. ‘Oh my God!’

‘What? What?’

‘He kept her clothes,’ said Lisette.

‘Yeuch!’

‘They’re OK.’ Lisette ran her fingers over a selection of dresses and trousers. ‘Not so bad, actually. Good quality.’

‘They’re over ten years old!’ cried Zoey.

‘I keep clothes for more than ten years,’ said Lisette. ‘It’s not a crime.’

‘But she’s dead!’ cried Zoey.

‘Perhaps he got comfort from them.’

Zoey shuddered. Then she dropped to her knees to inspect the interior of the wardrobe more closely.

‘Look,’ she said. ‘Half hidden by those trousers.’

Lisette knelt down too. They both looked at the safe. It was similar to the type found in hotel bedrooms, small and oblong, with a keypad to enter a code.

‘Well, well,’ said Zoey.

‘We found it.’

They exchanged glances.

‘So what’s the code?’ asked Zoey.

‘I have no idea,’ said Lisette.

‘Think,’ said Zoey. ‘What interested him? What could he remember? He was an old man, after all, so it couldn’t be too difficult.’

Lisette keyed in 1234, but the safe remained closed.

‘Bugger,’ said Zoey. She sat back on her heels and considered it. ‘Birthdays?’ she suggested. ‘His, Don’s, Gareth’s?’

Lisette keyed in 0205, which was Gareth’s birthday, but nothing happened. Then Zoey keyed in Don’s with the same effect.

‘This is hopeless,’ said Lisette. ‘We’ll never guess. And we’re wasting our time anyway, because there probably isn’t anything in it.’

She keyed in Fred’s own birthday, but still had no luck.

‘Maybe it’s her birthday,’ said Zoey suddenly. ‘His wife’s.’

‘Ros?’ Lisette rolled her eyes. ‘I have no idea what her birthday is.’

‘Or maybe their anniversary,’ said Zoey.

‘I do know that.’ Lisette punched in 2111, and much to their surprise, the door of the safe swung open.

They stared inside. The contents comprised a red leather box and a large brown envelope.

‘Family secrets?’ whispered Lisette as she looked at the envelope.

‘Something better?’ said Zoey, lifting out the red leather box. She opened it slowly. Inside were two dozen gold coins. She picked one of them out. ‘What the hell is this?’

‘Bullion,’ said Lisette. ‘He must have kept some of his money in bullion.’

‘Real gold?’ Zoey looked at her hopefully.

‘It looks like it.’

‘What’s it worth?’ asked Zoey.

‘I don’t know,’ said Lisette. ‘But gold has soared in value over the last few years, so … a few thousand?’

‘That’s all?’ Zoey looked disappointed.

‘We could check online,’ said Lisette.

‘What’s in the envelope?’ asked Zoey.

Lisette removed it from the safe and opened it.

‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. ‘Money.’

‘Cash? How much?’

‘I don’t know. I …’ Lisette withdrew six bundles of notes and started counting. Zoey watched her intently.

‘My God, it’s thirty thousand,’ breathed Lisette. ‘He must have been mad, keeping this in the house.’

‘And there’s the proof you need.’ Zoey flicked through the notes. ‘Oh Lisette, you know what some old people are like. They need to have hard cash tucked away somewhere. He didn’t make any mention of this in the will, did he?’

Lisette shook her head. ‘Though I suppose it’s included in the contents of the house, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Which means it’s Abbey bloody Andersen’s money.’

‘Only if she knows about it,’ said Zoey.

‘She’ll have to know about it.’

‘Why?’ asked Zoey.

Lisette stared at her.

‘Who’s going to tell her?’ demanded Zoey. ‘You? Me?’

‘But …’

‘What was the point in looking for a safe if we weren’t going to take whatever was inside?’ asked Zoey.

‘I don’t know,’ said Lisette.

‘Look – this money isn’t going to make a whole lot of difference, is it?’ asked Zoey. ‘To you or to me. Even with it, you and Gareth will still owe whatever you owe on the mortgages. Don and I will still be living in our poky house. But what the hell, Lisette,
we
deserve something for ourselves, and we deserve it now. Even if the Americans see sense sooner rather than later, it’ll still take ages to get the whole thing sorted out.’

Lisette looked longingly at the envelope and the leather box. She thought of her kitchen shelf, crammed with envelopes full of gas bills, electricity bills, insurance bills and a whole heap of other things that she couldn’t afford to pay.

‘We can’t take it all,’ she said.

‘Five grand each,’ decided Zoey. ‘That doubles what he left us, which seems perfectly fair to me. We’re entitled to more than Disgruntled Deirdre. And not a word to the boys, because they’d let something slip.’

‘What about Suzanne?’ asked Lisette.

‘What about her?’ Zoey was dismissive. ‘If we get a deal done, we’ll make sure she doesn’t lose out.’

Lisette nodded slowly.

‘So come on,’ said Zoey. ‘We’re entitled. Don’t you think so?’

Lisette nodded again, more vigorously this time.

‘All the time you spent looking after him,’ said Zoey. ‘Suzanne didn’t. And I visited him too. Never even said a word when he spent most of the time looking down my blouse.’

‘He used to pinch my bum,’ said Lisette.

‘There you go,’ Zoey told her. ‘Payment for services to old men.’

Lisette made a face.

‘You in or not?’ asked Zoey.

‘Yes. Yes, I am.’

Lisette took the money from the envelope again. Meanwhile, Zoey divided some of the coins between them.

‘We won’t take them all,’ said Zoey. ‘That way, it makes sense that he’d have the safe for both the money and the gold.’

‘Good idea,’ said Lisette.

Then the two of them closed the doors of the wardrobe and walked out of the room.

Moving into the apartment changed everything. The moment she stepped over the threshold, Abbey felt it was her place, her home, and she wanted to stay there for ever. It had been altered significantly in the ten years since she and Ellen had lived there; both the building and the apartments inside had been remodelled and upgraded so that the living area with its open-plan kitchen seemed bigger and brighter than before. The space in the bedrooms was better utilised too, and the bathroom … well, that sealed the deal as far as Abbey was concerned, because the old acrylic bath with its constantly dripping shower had been replaced by a sleek tiled wet-room which she fell in love with at first sight. Additionally, the overgrown garden behind the building had been made over and now consisted of paved and grassy areas containing fruit trees and flowering shrubs.

In a million years she wouldn’t have been able to afford a place like this on what she made at the Mariposa salon, either renting or with a mortgage. But Pete had insisted that he wasn’t going to charge her rental until after everything to do with the will was settled. At which point, he said, you’ll hopefully be in a position to buy it off me. Abbey had never seriously considered buying San Francisco real estate before. But standing in the apartment, she knew that it was an option she definitely wanted to consider now. And, like Pete said, she deserved it, didn’t she?

Pete was right about so many things. Why should she feel bad for the Fitzpatricks, who’d had a proper family life and had already been looked after by their father? As for Suzanne – well, she might have been hard done by in the past, but she was a smart businesswoman who’d been left a lot of money now, so she didn’t have anything to complain about either.

So it’s not my fault, thought Abbey. Nothing to do with them is my fault. It was Fred’s right to leave his house to whomever he wanted, and if he hadn’t liked me he would have shredded that will.

She wondered if her mother would take the same point of view. She would be meeting her at the weekend, having received an email back from Sister Inez to say that Sister Benita – as Ellen was now known – would be available on Saturday. Abbey was both pleased and nervous. She was glad to finally have the opportunity of talking with her mother about everything, but anxious as to how Ellen would react, especially if she was unaware of her adoption. She was also unsure how she herself would react if Ellen told her that she had known but had kept the information from her.

Abbey felt the weight of responsibility on her shoulders grow as the weekend approached. She tried not to think about it too much by immersing herself in her work, which included studying a website for a nail art competition which would shortly be taking place in LA. Although she’d always refused to participate in competitions in the past, Pete’s recent words about her being passive, about setting impossible targets and not using her talents, had hit home. Part of the reason she’d said that she didn’t want to take part was that she didn’t like leaving San Francisco. But how could she use that as an excuse when she’d recently travelled to Ireland and Spain? And if she wanted to prove to herself (and maybe to Ellen too) that she’d made the right decision in choosing to do nail art, perhaps entering a competition was the way to go. If she won … well, she wasn’t thinking that far ahead, but maybe the experience would be worthwhile. And so she studied the entry requirements, filled in the online form and hit send before she could change her mind.

She also contacted Ryan Gilligan to let him know that she was finally going to see her mother and discuss the inheritance. He sounded quite pleased at the prospect of things finally moving on. Billable hours, she reminded herself. All lawyers love ’em.

She wasn’t thinking about the will, or the competition, or billable hours, or indeed anything other than the fact that she hated flying in bad weather as her plane made a bumpy landing at San Diego airport. Even as they taxied towards the terminal, however, the heavy rain began to ease, and by the time she parked her rental car outside the downtown hotel where she’d reserved a room, the skies had almost cleared.

She walked up to the reception desk and checked in. The receptionist, whom she’d never seen before, welcomed her back to the Old Inn. Abbey knew that because she always stayed in the same place near the Pacific Highway when she visited her mom, her details were already in the hotel’s system, which meant that even the newest person on the desk could welcome back previous guests.

‘Have a nice day,’ said the receptionist as Abbey took her key card and made her way to the fourth floor.

She was pleased to have been given a room that overlooked the bay and not the car park, and she stood gazing out at the ocean for a couple of minutes before telling herself that it was the same damn water that she saw every single day and that she should unpack and get on with it. She knew that she was wasting time so as to delay the moment when she set off for the monastery of Santa Ana in Los Montesinos, which was a little under an hour’s drive from the hotel.

She’d told the prioress that she’d be arriving at the monastery mid afternoon, which meant that she didn’t have too much time to spare. Sister Inez, a kindly and efficient woman, had said that she’d allocate one of the visitors’ rooms to her and Sister Benita, and that she hoped they’d have much to share.

Sister Inez would get her wish, thought Abbey, as she left the room and went downstairs again. She had far too many things she needed to share with her mother. Her heart was tripping in her chest as she went over them all again. She wished (as she’d known she would) that she’d accepted Pete’s offer to come with her. But when he’d suggested it, she’d told him that she’d prefer to meet Ellen by herself. Pete had looked a little wounded at that, but Abbey pointed out that Ellen would immediately assume something terrible had happened if she saw him, and she didn’t want her mother being defensive straight away. Besides, she wasn’t sure that Claudia would approve of Pete seeing his ex again, even if she was now a celibate nun!

‘Call me as soon as you’ve spoken to her and let me know how it went,’ he ordered, and she’d promised that she would.

As she drove along the dusty road that led to the monastery, she toyed with the idea of calling him now but quickly dismissed it. Ellen (Abbey never thought of her as Sister Benita) was her mother and her family. And this was between the two of them, even if Pete now had a vested interest in their inheritance. She pressed the on button for the car radio and listened to the pre-set station, a Mexican one playing a selection from Linda Ronstadt’s
Jardín Azul
album. The songs were traditional, and Abbey remembered singing them with her mother during their Latin American days. She wondered if Ellen had felt the tuggings of a vocation even then. Had she wished that she could leave Abbey somewhere and join the nuns? Many of the health facilities that Ellen had worked in had had religious volunteers as well as lay staff. Abbey hadn’t recognised all of them as nuns then, because not all of them wore habits. Sister Teresa – young, pretty and vivacious – came to the clinic every day dressed in jeans and a checked cotton blouse, and it wasn’t until they were leaving that Abbey discovered she was a nun at all.