One Summer Night At The Ritz. Jenny Oliver

you email me this morning?’

      She looked away from him towards the view of the Shard.

      He laughed then started to scroll through his emails. ‘Here it is…’ he said, ‘Bro, hope you’ve had a good morning. I’m gonna need another five grand. Zeph. And – hang on – let me find the next one. Here we go, William, I know we agreed the terms of the deal but my lawyer feels the company assets are worth more than your offer suggests. Hope you’re well, Aunty Violet.’ Then he tilted his head as if his point was proved.

      Dolores sucked her lip.

      Will’s phone rang. He paused before picking it up. ‘When you have evidence of widespread altruism, Dolly, I’ll give this Jane character more than twenty minutes. Mum, hi,’ he said as he picked up the phone. ‘I’ve got ten minutes, max.’

      ‘Hello, darling. You work far too hard.’ Francis Blackwell’s voice always had the calming melody of someone who had nothing to do except read her book in the sunshine with a glass of rosé. ‘Right, so ten minutes. OK. Well, I was clearing out the attic yesterday and I remembered something about those diary pages. You’ve read them, haven’t you?’

      ‘Course I’ve read them.’

      ‘Yes, well you’re so busy—’

      ‘I’ve read them.’

      ‘Well, it was something your father said years ago. He knew her. This Enid character. Well he didn’t know her as such, but he knew of her. He went to that little island. Strawberry something?’

      ‘Cherry Pie.’

      ‘Cherry Pie Island, of course. He went. His mother took him. He said they stood on the bridge and they watched this woman at the cafe and her child playing outside. I remember him saying that they didn’t go over the bridge, just stood on it and his mum just stared and then they left. But he never knew why and they never went again. I suppose this is why, isn’t it? She knew, Granny knew. She was always a cold fish, they all bloody were; the Blackwells. I hear Violet’s asking you for more money? What happens if you say no?’

      Will peered down towards street level, down to the tiny people and tiny cars. He sighed. ‘She has to find an investor, or I do, to buy her out, or we have to split the assets which would be a nightmare. I can’t pay her any more. I’m only just getting us back on even, there’s no more to give her.’

      His mum sighed. ‘Yes, Dad did rather er… Well you were handed a bit of a millstone, darling. We all know it. Sell it all off, if you ask me.’

      ‘Can we not go into this?’

      ‘OK, sorry, Will. I’d better go, my ten minutes is up, isn’t it? I just thought that was quite interesting. That he’d seen them. Enid and her little girl. That he’d remembered that. Ties it all up quite nicely. Anyway, ciao, darling.’

      Will slipped his phone in his pocket and narrowed his eyes at the view. He thought for a moment about his dad. All ambition and crazy ideas and happy-go-lucky and ‘let’s just give it a go’. Thought about when they’d go and stay with his grandmother - Prudence Blackwell. The big, dark house, like there were never any lights on, yet he could see the big gold chandeliers blazing even now when he thought back. Could feel her cold hands and hear her clinking rings. Her lip raised in a sneer watching to see if Will would make a noise, kick his ball in the house, draw on the wall, anything that she could suck her breath in at and leave his dad tense and panicked and trying to please her but also wishing his son could just run about the garden without the possibility of damaging the roses.

      He thought of the summer he’d stayed with her when his mum had had Zeph. Struggling to cope with a rambunctious ten year old as well as a newborn, they’d reluctantly packed him off to granny. The worst summer of his life. Sitting round the huge table being forced to eat things like liver and tongue, lying in bed hearing the creak and crack of the house at night and her saying that it very well could be ghosts who took unkindly towards naughty little boys. This dreadful, brittle woman who had terrified him and ignored him but also kept him on the tightest rein. A summer where he had sat on the side of the bed and cried and when she had heard him had come in and slapped him on the cheek and told him to grow up and be a man. He’d cried into the pillow after that, terrified she’d come in again. A summer that had left him furiously resentful of his brother when he got home, bitter that no one had come to get him. Angry at this baby who seemed to have stripped him of his lovely life with his mum and dad. And then that September Will was sent, like every Blackwell boy – paid for by Granny Prudence – to boarding school and his relationship with Zeph never moved past brother to friend. And his relationship with his father had developed an edge that he wished it hadn’t, one where he saw a man desperate to be free of this woman’s rule but ‘what was expected’ keeping him tied. Saying that it was probably best that Will went away to school anyway because Mum was having difficulty coping with the two of them, and Will pleading to stay and his dad wavering. Almost. But then Prudence chipped in – said it was time the boy grew up, that he was weak, that his father had babied him with just this kind of leniency. That he needed to build some character. And the Blackwell tradition won out. She won out. His father not quite strong enough to stand up to his own mother. And at the end of it – after university and a business MA – Will came home an adult. Came home with the hard edge Prudence had so desired. Came back to step into the shoes his father had set up ready for him as part of the company. As was expected. A company, however, that everyone working there knew had expanded too quickly, that didn’t have the infrastructure in place to cope, a company – his father’s pride and joy – that was failing.

      Back in the present, Will turned away from the London view. Tried really hard to stop his brain from thinking of any more. Refused to let the image of him standing in this very office after the worst meeting possible, het-up, frustrated, angry with his father’s ‘it’ll be ok’, ‘just keep pushing on’ attitude when it clearly wouldn’t be OK and just losing his rag. Bashing the table top to get his dad to stop with the constant flow of daydreams and, to his for ever regret, saying exactly what his Aunt Violet had started to say. That the company was a shambles. That it wasn’t worth saving.

      He put his hand over his eyes. The look on his father’s face. It was just the worst thing he’d ever seen.

      Dolores poked her head round the door. ‘They’re waiting for you in the boardroom.’

      Will glanced up, pretended he was just scratching his forehead. ‘I’ll be right there,’ he said and she nodded. He poured himself a quick glass of water, straightened his tie and headed to the next meeting.