PROLOGUE
Following parts 6 and 4, this is part 3 of my 6-part series.
The characters are aged 50, 30, and 27. All locations are generic rather than specific. Any allusions to criminal activity are in story context and not endorsed.
Thank you for the kind reception given to my earlier efforts. I have tried to reduce the preamble this time, but the backstory explains the 'action'.
My ten-year-old Mazda MX5 rolled along as I drove cross-country to see my mother and sister. We hadn't been together for a long time; indeed, we were a family that rarely met up with one another. My childhood years, and those of my sister Alice were spent away at boarding school and then we went to separate colleges. Even holidays were spent apart at various camps and courses. I rarely saw my parents and grandparents, and Dad passed away about five years ago. I guess it's just the way it turned out for us.
However, my mother Barbara had contacted Alice and me, and summoned us to her fiftieth birthday dinner. It was an order. I had to bring my best suit and be there for midafternoon. Mother lived in a large single-story house in rural Lincolnshire, which she and Dad had built several years ago, moving from Essex near to the Thames. It was a very smart residence, sitting on a two-acre plot, with three big bedrooms and all very modern. When I arrived there were two cars in the sweeping drive, a brand-new silver BMW soft top, which I assumed was mothers, and an old blue VW Polo, which I remembered belonged to Alice. I carried my small case and suit bag up to the door, which was opened by Blanche, who was Mother's home help. But instead of her usual housecoat, Blanche was smartly dressed in a black pantsuit, looking like a maître d'hôtel. Despite my protests she took my case and bag and told me to go to the back of the house.
Mother and Sister were sat at a table on the patio under an umbrella with teapot and cakes laid out. They both stood up to greet me. Mother was looking very good for fifty, she had obviously been to the salon as her hair was set in a fashionable bob, and she wore a patterned summer dress that showed off her trim figure. I hadn't seen Alice for over a year, and she looked well in red blouse and black slacks. At five eight she was a couple of inches shorter than me, and her glossy black hair was tied in a ponytail. Alice worked in London for one of the Swiss Banks as an interpreter. She spoke fluent French and Italian, having been to Uni in France. In London she shared a flat with Camille, her partner who she had met in Paris. I had met Camille, who seemed very nice, and I was pleased that my sister was settled and happy. We enjoyed the tea and chatted about nothing. Mother asked how my job was going, and I replied that it was okay but rather tedious. I had a degree in modern history, but really wanted to write novels although all my attempts had stalled. I worked for a publisher in Manchester as a reviewer and general dogsbody, and I knew I was treading water. Alice asked after my love life, and Mother grinned, but I confessed that there was no one in my life, I spent most of my leisure time training with the soccer team, as we played to a good standard in the local league.
Mother clapped her hands.
"Right, time to get ready for dinner. We have the caterers coming in for the celebrations, go and have a shower and get changed, drinks on the terrace in one hour, I have a lot to tell you this evening." Alice and I looked at each other with raised eyebrows, and she shook her head.
I went to one of the spare rooms, to find that Blanche had laid my suit out on the bed, with my shirt on a hanger. I stripped off and started the shower in the en-suite and heard Alice's shower on the other side of the wall. I got dressed and looked at myself in the long mirror. My black Hugo Boss suit fitted me well, and I had a nice shirt with a pale blue stripe and red tie.
Not bad for twenty-seven, shame there are no spare ladies this evening
.
As instructed, I went onto the terrace where the caterer had set up a small bar under the sunshade, and a pretty girl asked what cocktail I preferred.
"An Old Fashioned, please." And she started to blend the whisky, sugar, orange, and bitters. It tasted very good. Then Mother came onto the terrace looking very glamorous in a red cocktail dress with a long slit up the side showing a surprising amount of shapely tanned leg. She looked at my drink and asked for the same.
When Alice emerged, she was wearing a 'little black dress', and the hem finished at mid-thigh. I never knew she had such good legs; they were shapely and clad in black stockings with black strappy sandals. She looked very attractive, and I thought it a shame that she was a gay lady. She asked the bartender for a Mojito, and we chatted idly in the early evening sunshine. Time flew by, and after another drink Blanche came to tell us that dinner was served.
The dining room had been laid out beautifully, and the white tablecloth had a clever floral centrepiece. Silver cutlery completed the effect. The chef came out of the kitchen and told us that it was a tasting menu, and that there would be several courses with small portions and wine to go with them. The ensuing meal was a delight, and mother looked at us.
"We are a strange family; we hardly ever meet, and you might have asked yourself - why? I am going to reveal two things to you tonight. They are the two things that drive everything along. Money and sex."
I gulped on my excellent prawn terrine and Alice almost spat out her crispy duck. We looked at each other as if to say whaaaat?
"Let's talk about the money first, we can get to the sex later. How much do you know about your family history, Tom?"
I thought for a moment. "We used to live in a nice house near Grays in Essex before you and dad moved here. Dad owned some warehouses near Tilbury and ran a small fleet of lorries and a repair garage. Uncle Colin runs a car sales pitch next door, he sold me my Mazda. I remember Grannie living nearby in an old farmhouse. I never met anyone else."
"Alice?"
"Same as Tom, but wasn't there a pig farm when Grandad was alive? I seem to remember the nasty smell when I was little."
"You are both right. My Mum and Dad ran a pig farm, Mum inherited it from her dad. Yes, it stank, and I got teased at school because I brought it in with me. When I met your dad, I was 19 and he was 22. He was a delinquent in his youth and got sent to join the Army as they thought it would make him see sense. He was a good looker and I fell for him big style. He had me pregnant within a week. Mum and Dad weren't at all happy, but they liked him, He moved to live on the farm, and we got married straight away but he didn't want to be a pig farmer. He was a trained Army mechanic, and he wanted to be an owner driver with a big Volvo lorry. My grandma was still alive and lent him some money. He kept the lorry on the farm and converted one of the big barns into a repair shop. But he turned out to be a good businessman, and within a couple of years he was running three lorries and employing mechanics in the workshop. Your Uncle Colin wasn't interested in pigs either, he was starting to buy and sell cars, so Mum and Dad let him have a bit of the farm to use as a car pitch. Then Dad got cancer and didn't live very long, so Mum stopped farming, and we had the idea of putting up some warehouses as Tilbury was getting busy with container traffic, indeed they had plans for a big container port next door. Business was booming and we were making good money, enough to send you both away to school as we wanted you to have a better start in life. "
Mother paused and took a swig of her chilled Sancerre wine. The bartender had been coming in with a different bottle all the time, and it was all very jolly.
"Then everything changed, thanks to an old man named Reuben Herschel. I say old, he was forty years older than me but looked older. He was an accountant and did Dad's tax returns. Quite why a Jewish man would audit a pig farm I never worked out. Apparently, he came over from Belgium to avoid the Holocaust, and Grandad gave him his first job. He was a very lovely man and passed away a few weeks ago aged ninety. He had a proposal for Dad. His nephew Zach was a shipping agent in Antwerp and there was an opportunity to ship a container of electronic goods from the Far East, out of the port without attracting EU tariffs. This wasn't smuggling drugs, or booze, or people. His nephew would square away the paperwork. Dad was interested and knew of a shipping agent in Essex called Cyril who was desperate for cash to pay off his gambling debts.
So, we did it. Zach ran his end, Cyril ran his, and Dad moved the container. All the paperwork was spot on, and Reuben sorted the money. The container was full of branded video recorders and an unmarked truck came the next weekend and took them away. We never asked where they ended up.
Mother took a swig of a delightful vintage claret and continued.
"This continued at intervals for some time. We made a lot of money on top of the regular business, but Reuben kept the books in order, and we paid a lot of tax. Then it all came to a sad halt nine years ago. Zach and his wife were passengers in that bad train crash in Germany and lost their lives. They had no children. Reuben shut the whole thing down straight away. Your dad and I sold off the transport business and put up another big warehouse to rent out. Then we bought the land here, built this house and sold up in Essex. And the reason you are both here tonight is for me to give you some of the money."
Alice and I looked at each other, and I had a good gulp of my fine burgundy.
"Reuben was a sharp as a tack. Seven years ago, he switched a lot of money into some sort of trust scheme with you as the beneficiaries. All the tax has been washed off, and it's absolutely kosher, as Reuben would have said."
Mother opened a drawer in the sideboard and brough out two slim envelopes and a fat package.
"Each envelope has a banker's draft in each of your names, for one million pounds. I love you both, and if your father was here, he would say the same.
