Days 172 and 173

Writing exercise – Something they thought they had known all their lives turns out to be false.

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Someone once told me that weddings and funerals brought out the worst in people.  Even those you thought were family.

Of course, it was not so much the fact that people could be very nasty, they could and with very little provocation, but there was always a catalyst, and it had nothing to do with human nature.

It had everything to do with money.

I knew this because I had spent the last 30 years of my life with my older brothers and, like the last sibling in the family spoiled and treated more favourably than those who came before, but not in a bad way.

After all, we were family.

Our mother and father treated us all with the same disdain the moment we were all old enough to fend for ourselves.  They had the means and wherewithal to give us an easy life, but they instead chose to cut us off the dat we turned 21 and made it a rule we had to fend for ourselves

For David, the eldest, now 45, and William, his twin brother, for Wendy, second eldest, 43, George, third eldest, 41 and Petulia, my youngest sister, 39 and then me, the surprise, Andrew, who just turned 30.

The others went to very expensive schools and had the benefit of the old school tie, some of which they often bemoaned, having spent time at boarding school.

The girls did the same, and then were finished off in Switzerland, the sort of girls who should have married Dukes or sons of Dukes and be living in castles.  They certainly had the expenses, the expensive tastes, and the posh voices to go with it.

Just not the Dukes.

And my brothers, they had all perfected the art of starting, but never finishing, a project and had to be saved, if only to save the family name.

My father didn’t like failure.  I took that to heart and used my polytechnic education and turned it into a gold mine, one I simply avoided telling the others about because I knew this day would come.

The day the cash cow stopped handing out cash.

The day our parents died in a plane crash, in a plane my father was piloting until he had a heart attack and lost control of it, and from which plane my mother had called me to ask me what she could do.

I didn’t get to tell her it was too late.

Three days after the funeral, one that made page two in the national dailies for a reason I won’t go into, that would take a book, we assembled in the morning room of Ballyshore Manor, the family seat.

It was the reading of the will.  It was exactly the same for Mother as it was for Father.

Expectations were high.  My siblings were not the sort of people who understood economics or the vagaries of accounting. 

They had no idea how much it cost to run a household, maintain servants or a hundred-acre estate, or the value of family heirlooms and history.

They had all met, without me, to discuss what it was worth and how they would divvy up the proceeds.  I deduced this when they all arrived at the Manor, and under the guise of reacquainting themselves with their home, each had a section, a clipboard with lots of blank paper and started writing down everything that was for sale.

They thought their surreptitious activities were undetectable.  They forgot about the servants who noted everything they did, and those activities were in Davidson’s report to me.

Davidson was the Butler, the head of the household, along with Joanne, in charge of everything else, and if she was to be believed, everything Davidson was responsible for.

They and the other servants had their future to worry about.  But what they did was no surprise.  They showed no remorse or feelings at the funeral, other than a few crocodile tears.

They filed in one by one, each giving the other a sly look, like they had a shared secret, one that had been kept from me.

Mr Wilkinson of Wilkinson, Wilkinson, Wilkinson, and Wilks, the elder and my father’s best friend from school days, was the solicitor who would be reading the will.

I had asked him if he knew what was in it, and he said no.  Father had made a late change, and Wilkinson, the younger, had attended to the details, then sealed it.

Father had wanted it that way.

And he had said just before the twins arrived, he was looking forward to the roller coaster ride.

With everyone in attendance, I chose a seat in the third row, and the reading began.

“Firstly, I would like to thank you all for coming.  Your father specifically asked that I should do the reading from this room rather than in Chambers.

“It is a pleasure to finally get back here and I know that both your parents wanted to keep the Manor in the family, but, as you can imagine,” he held up the sealed envelope with the new will in it, “I’m guessing it will depend on what’s in here.”

He then made a great show of opening the envelope and showing it the Wilkinson the younger to verify it was the last will and testament.

I could see the reflection of the five other siblings in the floor-to-ceiling doors that, in summer, opened out on the patio, but closed for winter, salivating at the riches they were about to get their hands on.

I tried hard to hide my disappointment.

He read the legal stuff before getting to the meat of the matter.

“Your mother and I were proud as punch when our twins, David and William, were born, and there have been ongoing discussions, sometimes heated, over who was first.  It can now be settled.  David was first, therefore the eldest, and all things considered, the heir apparent.

“In name only, though.  Whether first or sixth, it had no bearing on how the inheritances are allocated.”

A momentary pause while David’s supercilious and smug look turned to a rather pug-ugly expression.

“The idea was that each of you should get one-sixth of the inheritance.  Then Dorothy,” that was Mother’s name, “said we should take into account the benefits we paid out each time each of you stumbled, because quite frankly she was annoyed that after being given the best education and the best start in life all of you managed to fail, not once, but in one case six times.  And all during those failures, not once did you think to exercise economy and stop living high on the hog.”

Wilkinson stopped and looked at each one of them.

When he got to David, David said, ” You can skip the pathetic attempt to tell us we were not as good as them.  It was their fault anyway.  They knew baling us out.  They should have been tougher.”

It probably was their fault, but like all proud parents, they had hoped sooner or later one or all of them might change.

That was never going to happen.

“Well, perhaps belatedly they might be.  Let us continue.”  He shuffled through three sheets, a long dissertation no doubt of their shortcomings, and then at the next took up the reading.

“So, in light of all yor failures, the final sums to be deducted in round numbers, from your inheritances will be, David, twenty three million pounds, William, twenty eight million pounds, Wendy, twelve million pounds, George, twenty two million pounds, Joanne, one million pounds, and Andrew, zero pounds.”

“How does he get no deduction?”  William demanded.

“He had a successful company and contributed about a hundred million pounds to the estate.”

“What?  How?”  David swivelled on his chair to glare at me.

“Father never lent me anything.  I told him I had an idea, and he said to run with it.  When the estate was having financial problems, I contributed some working capital.”

“Which in turn means that your parents have to return those funds as per the terms of the loan agreement between your parents and Andrews company, Lightseek Investments.”

“Wouldn’t that be up to the heirs of the estate?”

“It could be argued that it is possible.  But it would have to be deducted from the proceeds of the sale if such a sale were contemplated by the heirs.”

“Then I guess it’s time to find out who the heirs are, not that we don’t already know.”

I was guessing he had the estate valued, and if he was smarter than I thought he was, he would have asked around whether any of the neighbours and one in particular, were interested.  My own enquiries valued the estate as a going concern, at about three hundred and twenty-five million pounds.

“Right.  There’s just a little more preamble.  After thirty years of disappointing results, I asked a private investigator to look into each of my children and their heritage.  The thing is, my brother’s children are all successful businesspeople and success was written into our DNA.  Samples were taken from each of my brothers’ children and mine and compared.

“Here’s the surprise.  The only child in the room, who is my son, is Andrew.  The rest of you are not.  Apparently, Dorothy had a long-standing affair with another man, and each of you is his progeny, not mine.  Therefore, as far as I’m concerned, none of you is entitled to inherit anything from the estate, except Andrew.  You may be entitled to inherit something from your mother and the man who is your legitimate father.  If you can find him.  Therefore, the whole of my estate and everything else that I possessed are left to my son, Andrew.”

David leapt out of his chair, and his usual high-pitched bluster, yelled, ” This is rubbish.  He can’t do this.  We are his children irrespective of who our real or imaginary father is or was.  We will fight this and win.”

“That might be so, but there’s just one more problem.  You can sue for possession of the Manor, the estate and everything else, but currently it is under an order where, unless the debts of the estate are not paid within one month of the date of your parents’ death, the property will be siexed by the financiers given the debt.”

“That can’t be much,”

“Thirty-six million pounds, after the loan to Andrew’s company, is repaid.  The finance company will have a fire sale, and you will all inherit debt, which none of you can pay.”

“Andrew will pay it,” Joanna said, as a favour to his siblings.  After all, it sounds like he’s made of money, plenty to go around.”

I smiled.  She was sweetly naive but of the same stock as her older brothers and sister.

“No.  You wasted every opportunity afforded you, and I’m not going to perpetuate fathers’ generosity.  You leave her with debts to pay or nothing.  Your high life is over.

“This can’t be happening,” Wendy muttered.  “How can Mother have done this to us?”

I stood and looked at Wilkinson, the elder.  “When does all of this need to be settled?”

“The weeks.  I’ve scheduled a meeting with the creditors.”

“Good.  I’ll see you again in several days.  Tell the staff they have nothing to worry about.  I’ll be staying here for six months of the year.”

“What about us?” George said. 

“You are not family, and have no right to live here or to expect anything.  I suggest you find your real father and sponge off him.  Or, worst possible scenario, get a job.  I’m sure my employment people will find you something.  Wilkinson has the cards if you want one.”

“Did you know?” Wendy asked.

“No.  He never said a word to me or anyone.  He did tell me how proud he was of you lot when he didn’t know you were not his, and had always hoped success would happen.  But maybe he did have an idea because now I remember our last conversation before he died.  He rather cryptically said that he hoped one day that you would overcome the genes you inherited.  I didn’t have much of it at the time.

“You can’t just leave us here with nothing.”

“No.  I guess not.  Tell you what.  You prove to Wilkinson here that you have a job and are earning an income for three months, and I’ll have him issue you with a check for half a million pounds.  And if you can keep that job, a half million each year thereafter.  Take it or leave it.”

They took it.

But what happened on the road to achieving success was another story. 

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©  Charles Heath  2025