mates at the Weaver’s Arms. I was pretty sure that Dad would have preferred that to being cremated in a posher coffin.
But now the whole business of money was really starting to get to me. The bank, the benefits people, they’d have to be told. What would happen when I couldn’t pay the mortgage? Would the bank take the house back? Or was it my house now? Did I inherit it from Dad when he died, or was he supposed to leave it to me in his will? I didn’t even know if he’d made a will. Jesus … maybe it would end up belonging to my mother. Where the hell would I live then?
If Dad
had
ever made a will, I had a good idea where I might find it.
I pushed open the door of his room. The curtains were still open. Dad always made his bed right after he got up, but that was usually as neat as he got in here.Shirts and jeans of varying degrees of dirtiness were still piled on his bedside chair. His chest of drawers was strewn with copper coins not worth the trouble of gathering up, old pens, and dried-up bottles of antiperspirant he hadn’t thrown away. The room still smelled of him, I noticed, but the scent was fading, succumbing to the smell of gathering dust. I transferred the clothes to the bed, dragged the chair over to the wardrobe, and climbed up onto it. Under a crushed, musty collection of hats was a Chinese fibre suitcase with two clasps, one busted. I grabbed the handle, dragged it down, plonked it onto the bed and flicked the good catch open.
The case was crammed with documents, some in manila folders, others in envelopes, in no particular order that I could see. The first envelope I looked into held yellowing official certificates. The topmost had the word “BIRTH” at the top. In a column on the left I made out my birth name, Finn Pearce Grey. The next document had the word “MARRIAGE” at the top. Noel Patrick Maguire, actor, to Lesley Helen Grey, actress. I put the certificates back. They were no use to me.
A second bulging manila envelope held a whole wodge of printouts, all similar. I recognized the bank logo on the top left-hand corner, but the entries and the figures and the endlessly repeated phrases merged and blurred as I stared at them. I did make out three wordsthat kept reappearing at the head of each page:
Interest-Only Repayments
. I stuffed them back in the envelope and went on searching. After half an hour my eyes were aching and my head was pounding and I hadn’t seen the word Will anywhere.
I stuffed the envelopes and folders back into the suitcase, flipped the lid shut and clicked the catch. I was going to shove the case back on top of the wardrobe, but decided not to bother; I’d probably need it again soon. I slid the case under Dad’s bed, picked up his shirts and stuffed them into the laundry basket. Then I wondered why. He wasn’t going to wear them, and I didn’t want them. But I wasn’t ready to stuff them into a bin bag and dump them in the doorway of a charity shop. I wasn’t being sentimental, though part of me wished I felt that way. I just couldn’t be arsed.
The Chapel of Rest was dimly-lit, slightly stuffy and windowless. For a moment it reminded me of the room in the nick where I’d been questioned, but this one was slightly larger. Its most distinguishing feature was Dad, lying in a casket resting on wooden trestles. The coffin was shiny lacquered chipboard trying to look like wood, with golden plastic handles that weren’t even trying to look like brass. Presumably when you bought thecheapest possible coffin Mr. Stone made sure everyone could tell, in case any other punters got the same idea.
Dad was beyond caring, of course. He looked asleep, although his head was tilted slightly too far back, as if he was trying to keep his chin clear of his shirt, but maybe that was to conceal the damage to his skull. Stone’s people had dressed him in his second-best suit. My dad only had two: this one was the dark-brown designer number he found in a second-hand shop,
But now the whole business of money was really starting to get to me. The bank, the benefits people, they’d have to be told. What would happen when I couldn’t pay the mortgage? Would the bank take the house back? Or was it my house now? Did I inherit it from Dad when he died, or was he supposed to leave it to me in his will? I didn’t even know if he’d made a will. Jesus … maybe it would end up belonging to my mother. Where the hell would I live then?
If Dad
had
ever made a will, I had a good idea where I might find it.
I pushed open the door of his room. The curtains were still open. Dad always made his bed right after he got up, but that was usually as neat as he got in here.Shirts and jeans of varying degrees of dirtiness were still piled on his bedside chair. His chest of drawers was strewn with copper coins not worth the trouble of gathering up, old pens, and dried-up bottles of antiperspirant he hadn’t thrown away. The room still smelled of him, I noticed, but the scent was fading, succumbing to the smell of gathering dust. I transferred the clothes to the bed, dragged the chair over to the wardrobe, and climbed up onto it. Under a crushed, musty collection of hats was a Chinese fibre suitcase with two clasps, one busted. I grabbed the handle, dragged it down, plonked it onto the bed and flicked the good catch open.
The case was crammed with documents, some in manila folders, others in envelopes, in no particular order that I could see. The first envelope I looked into held yellowing official certificates. The topmost had the word “BIRTH” at the top. In a column on the left I made out my birth name, Finn Pearce Grey. The next document had the word “MARRIAGE” at the top. Noel Patrick Maguire, actor, to Lesley Helen Grey, actress. I put the certificates back. They were no use to me.
A second bulging manila envelope held a whole wodge of printouts, all similar. I recognized the bank logo on the top left-hand corner, but the entries and the figures and the endlessly repeated phrases merged and blurred as I stared at them. I did make out three wordsthat kept reappearing at the head of each page:
Interest-Only Repayments
. I stuffed them back in the envelope and went on searching. After half an hour my eyes were aching and my head was pounding and I hadn’t seen the word Will anywhere.
I stuffed the envelopes and folders back into the suitcase, flipped the lid shut and clicked the catch. I was going to shove the case back on top of the wardrobe, but decided not to bother; I’d probably need it again soon. I slid the case under Dad’s bed, picked up his shirts and stuffed them into the laundry basket. Then I wondered why. He wasn’t going to wear them, and I didn’t want them. But I wasn’t ready to stuff them into a bin bag and dump them in the doorway of a charity shop. I wasn’t being sentimental, though part of me wished I felt that way. I just couldn’t be arsed.
The Chapel of Rest was dimly-lit, slightly stuffy and windowless. For a moment it reminded me of the room in the nick where I’d been questioned, but this one was slightly larger. Its most distinguishing feature was Dad, lying in a casket resting on wooden trestles. The coffin was shiny lacquered chipboard trying to look like wood, with golden plastic handles that weren’t even trying to look like brass. Presumably when you bought thecheapest possible coffin Mr. Stone made sure everyone could tell, in case any other punters got the same idea.
Dad was beyond caring, of course. He looked asleep, although his head was tilted slightly too far back, as if he was trying to keep his chin clear of his shirt, but maybe that was to conceal the damage to his skull. Stone’s people had dressed him in his second-best suit. My dad only had two: this one was the dark-brown designer number he found in a second-hand shop,
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