Charlie Glass's Slippers (8 page)

But this is all Gaby can say, because there’s a soft knock at the door, and Diana’s assistant appears with Oliver Winkle-man in tow.

“Mr. Winkleman, how nice to meet you.” Diana gets up from behind her desk to go and greet him, turning on the full force of her considerable charm. “I’d like to say I’ve heard a lot about you, but I’m afraid Alan Kellaway has never mentioned your name to me!”

“Well, I don’t see very much of Mr. Kellaway.” He returns her handshake, admirably not turning to stone in the process. “He’s the senior partner, you know.”

“I
do
know. He’s also a very dear friend.”

This is a bit of an understatement, seeing as Diana has been conducting an on-again-off-again affair with Alan Kellaway for many years. I used to see him arriving at the front door late at night whenever Diana’s second husband, Gordon, was away on business, and one Saturday lunchtime, when Diana evidently believed she had the house to herself, I actually saw him in the kitchen (preparing a tray of champagne and Diana’s favorite Charbonnel et Walker white chocolate truffles) wearing nothing but white Y-fronts and a pair of argyle-pattern socks.

“Charlotte, darling”—Diana glances in my direction—“would you get Mr. Winkleman a cup of tea? And a couple of the madeleines, if you can bring yourself ? She has to be persuaded to let other people have a nibble of cake,” she adds,
turning back to Oliver with a smile and a wink, “otherwise I honestly think she’d just scarf the lot herself!”

And with this, she proves that there’s never any point in anyone else trying to defend me, because her wrath will just descend on me anyway. Besides, she’s always enjoyed making me perform menial or domestic tasks for her. I think it’s one of her favorite ways of getting back at Mum for daring to “steal” Dad
and
leave her without a decent housekeeper.

So I pour Oliver a cup of tea, and one more for Gaby, toss a madeleine on the side of each saucer, and take both cups over to the plum velvet sofa, where he and Gaby have both taken seats. Diana has gone back to her desk, but she’s not seated behind it as before. She’s perched on the front edge of it, like a friendly newscaster.

“That looks great, thanks so much, Charlie,” Oliver says, glancing up from the sheaf of papers he’s getting out from his briefcase.

“You call her Charlie?” Diana asks, sharply. “Well! Isn’t that all nice and cozy and familiar!”

“Well, we’ve met a couple of times now,” Oliver says, “haven’t we, Charlie?”

He’s so unaware, poor soul, of the minefield that he’s treading into that I’m tempted to take that madeleine and stuff it like a silencer into his mouth.

“Only briefly,” I say, desperate to stop him from strolling into one of Diana’s traps.

“Yes—just this past weekend when I went to do the inventory, and of course when I first went to meet Mr. Glass last year.”

“Odd that you’ve met Charlotte, when
I
hadn’t met you,” Diana observes, with one of her smiles.

“Ah—well, Charlie was the one taking care of Mr. Glass, of course . . .”

“We
all
took care of him,” Gaby says, quickly. It’s one of
the things she happens to share in common with Diana: her insistence on presenting a good face to outsiders. “It was a family effort. Wasn’t it, Charlie?”

I make a vague noise of assent, then go and take a seat on the smaller, leather sofa at the back of the office, as far away from Diana as possible. I’ve just sat down when the door is flung open—no knock this time—and Robyn flies in.

“God, I’m late, I’m late, I know!” she gasps, stalking through the door in a flurry of skintight denim, real fur, and Jo Malone Nectarine Blossom and Honey. Her hair has grown several miraculous inches since I last saw her at the memorial—divine intervention or a trip to the extensions salon, who can possibly say?—and is held back from her face by huge Tom Ford sunglasses. “I’ve kept you all waiting
ages
—I’m so sorry!”

“Actually, we’ve not been waiting.” Gaby has spent many long years attempting to take the wind out of Robyn’s sails, and she’s not about to stop now. “You’re very nearly on time!”

Robyn completely blanks her. She trips across the office, instead, to fling her arms around Diana.

“Ooooh, Mummy, you look fab! That necklace is just to
die
for. Oh, God, sorry!” She throws a hand to her mouth. “Can you
say
that, at a
will reading
?”

“It’s perfectly fine,” Oliver says. Or rather, Oliver croaks. He’s a man, after all. All men are reduced to croaking wrecks in Robyn’s presence.

“Oh, hel-
loooooooo
,” Robyn purrs at him. She pulls off her sunglasses and fixes Oliver with her huge violet-tinged eyes. “You must be Daddy’s lawyer. It’s
so
nice to meet you. Especially as I’m, like,
totally
clueless about all this horrible last-will-and-testament stuff. Is it going to be just like one of those TV murder mysteries? Will all Daddy’s dirty little secrets be revealed?”

“Robyn!” Diana says, but indulgently, which is the way she
almost always talks towards her favorite daughter. “Your father didn’t have dirty secrets! Well,” she adds, with a glance in my direction, “none we don’t know about already.”

“Oh, Charlie, darling, I didn’t see you! What are you doing hiding all the way back there? I’m going to come and be all cozy with you!” Robyn trips her way back towards my sofa and squeezes her teeny-tiny jeans-clad bottom in beside me, slipping an arm through mine. (I’ve never known whether Robyn simply has no problem showing me physical affection in front of Diana or if it’s just that she’s never noticed how much her mother hates it.) “This is so
fucking
exciting!” she declares.

She sounds—and looks, come to think of it—faintly manic, and I can’t help wondering if the effects of last night’s partying haven’t worn off yet. In fact, from her inappropriate outfit, platform heels, and sooty, dilated eyes, I wonder if she came here straight
from
last night’s partying.

Gaby shoots a sour look across the office. “Thank you, Robyn. But I’m sure Mr. Winkleman would like to get started.”

“Well, yes.” Oliver opens his briefcase and pulls out a slim sheaf of paper neatly stacked in a plastic wallet. “I don’t know how much your father told you about his intentions . . .”

“Don’t worry, we know all about exactly what Elroy wanted,” Diana says. “Splitting his shares equally between Gaby and Robyn.”

“Ah,” Oliver says. He looks down at his sheaf of papers. There’s the faintest flush spreading across his cheeks. “I . . . I wasn’t aware that Elroy hadn’t updated you.”

“Updated us on what?” Diana is still smiling, of course, but her eyes have narrowed to slits, and they’re fixed on Oliver as if he’s a tiny bug she’d very much like to crush beneath the heel of her shoe. “What stunt did my ex-husband pull now?”

“I’m not sure you can call it a stunt,” Oliver says. “Plenty
of people make changes to their wills, even at the very last minute.”

“He
changed
his
will
?” Diana isn’t smiling anymore. “When the hell did this happen?”

“Well, Mr. Glass’s decision wasn’t even a last-minute one. Not really. He made the changes back in October. And as of course you are aware, he died in February.”

“Look, Mr. Winkleman . . .” Gaby begins.

“Oliver, please!”

“
Oliver
 . . . could you just hurry up and explain all this?” Her bare legs are jiggling, slightly, beneath her crisp black shift dress. It’s a nervous energy I remember from all the stressful occasions in Gaby’s life, like the day she went to Oxford for her university interview (she enlisted me to take the train all the way there with her, to quiz her on the contents of her revision cards) or the morning she was waiting for her A-level results (she had to get me to open the envelope for her, to reveal an entirely unsurprising string of A’s).

“Well, it’s all pretty straightforward, even if it isn’t exactly what you’ve been expecting.” Oliver glances down at the papers he’s holding and lifts the top one from the sheaf. “Now, this is Mr. Glass’s last will and testament . . .”

“That isn’t even his writing!” Diana shrieks.

“No, it isn’t in Mr. Glass’s writing. He dictated it.”

“Dictated it?” Gaby demands. “Why on earth would he do that?”

“Because by that point, he hadn’t been able to hold a pen for over six months,” I say, quietly.

“Charlie is right, of course. Mr. Glass was having a lot of difficulty holding a pen. But he was able to sign here, at the bottom . . .”

“Ooooooh.” Robyn clutches my hand. “It’s like Daddy’s speaking to us from behind the grave.”

“
Beyond
,” Gaby snaps. “And this isn’t a fucking séance, Robyn. Can we just get on with it, Oliver?”

“Ah, well, like I say, it’s in his own words, so you’ll forgive any . . . er . . . colloquialisms. This is direct from the horse’s mouth, after all.”

“It’s not a real horse,” I whisper to Robyn, who’s just given a little yelp of excitement. “It’s just an expression.”

“So . . . ‘The last will and testament of Elroy David Glass
,
’” Oliver reads from the paper.
“‘I’m going to keep this simple. I don’t have a lot of what they call assets, firstly because the business was the only asset that ever really mattered to me, and secondly because that bitch Diana walked away with all the money from the house when she finally divorced me
.
’
I’m so sorry, Mrs. Forbes-Wilkinson,” he stutters, in Diana’s direction. “I’m only reading exactly what Mr. Glass wanted me to write down. ‘So all I have to leave my girls, as they already know, is the following: a few random bits of family jewelry and silver’
—
they’re the things I inventoried for you, Mrs. Porter, just this past weekend—‘the flat in Earl’s Court, and my remaining fifty-one percent of the business. As regards the flat, I’m told it’s worth a reasonable amount’ .
. .
of course, we’ll bring an estate agent in just as soon as you like, to get you a current market valuation,” Oliver adds, “‘so I’m leaving it to be split, fifty-fifty, between my much-loved elder daughters, Gabrielle Rosemary Glass and Robyn Lucinda Glass.’”

I feel like the leather sofa has just fallen away beneath me, taking the rest of the world with it.

Dad’s given Gaby and Robyn the flat?

He’s given them my home?

There’s a horrible buzzing noise in my head. A thousand questions pile on top of each other.

Where am I going to live? Was Dad trying to punish me for something? Did he forget that Gaby and Robyn already
have homes, not to mention handy trust funds out of Diana’s family money? Was it something to do with Mum? Has there been some kind of mistake?
Where am I going to live?

“Oh,
well
.” Diana is rolling her eyes as she finally moves off the front of her desk and goes around to sit in her chair behind it. She looks relieved. “Is that
all
? Really, Mr. Winkleman, you had us all worried there for a moment!”

“‘They can do what they like with the place
,
’” Oliver goes on,
“‘on the strict proviso that my youngest daughter, Charlotte, is allowed to stay there rent-free for a full six months after my death, or until she’s had time to find herself somewhere new to live.’”

“But it’s still . . .” It’s my turn to interrupt, though my throat is Sahara-dry. I swallow. It doesn’t help. “It’s still my home. And I thought Dad was leaving it to me.”

“Goodness, have you ever heard anything so spoilt?” Diana stares around the room. She’s incredulous and she wants an audience to witness it. “Not everyone has a beautiful London flat fall into their lap, you know, Charlotte!” She doesn’t seem to notice—or care—that only fifteen minutes ago, she was describing the very same flat as “totally grim.” “Though perhaps you were hoping to take after your mother? You know, get a job as a cleaner, steal your employer’s husband, and have
him
buy a flat for you?”

“There’ll be no need for her to do that!” Oliver, who obviously doesn’t know the finer points of his Glass Family History, looks appalled. “Not when Charlie will be a perfectly wealthy woman in her own right. If she wants to liquidate any of her assets, that is.”

“But Charlie . . . doesn’t have any assets,” Gaby says, slowly.

“Ah . . . that’s not quite true. I have a second document here.” He gets up, taking an envelope from his plastic wallet, and—to my astonishment—comes over and puts it in my hands. “The exact contents are for you to read on your own,
Charlie, but I can tell you the gist. Which is that Mr. Glass has left his entire share of the business—all fifty-one percent—to you.”

There’s a stunned silence. Gaby is the first to break it.

“
What?
”

“Well, like I say, the contents are for Charlie to read, but I assure you that Mr. Glass was very . . .”

“Open it.” Diana is on her feet again, stabbing a finger at the letter in my hands. The smile has been wiped clean from her face. Evidently the shock of the last twenty seconds has been enough to dislodge, for once, her usual habit of playing Happy Families in front of witnesses.

“I wonder if Charlie might prefer a little privacy . . .”

“
Open
,” breathes Diana, “
it
.”

My hands are shaking as I tear at the envelope and pull out a single sheet of paper. There are just a few lines on it, written in extremely neat, blue handwriting that obviously belongs to Oliver Winkleman. The voice, however, is Dad’s alone.

My darling Charlie
, it says.
Well, if you’re reading this, I’ll be dead and gone, and you’re probably sitting somewhere in that monstrous new office with your sisters, waiting on Oliver’s every word for my last will and testament.

“What does it say?” Diana is demanding.

“Let her
finish
, Mummy.”

I carry on reading.
Look, I know I should be saying this to you in person. I should be coming back home today, putting my arms around you the way I used to do when you were little (and when I wasn’t stuck in this sodding wheelchair) and telling you this: Thank you, Charlie, and I’m sorry. But I can’t. Because I’m bad at saying thank you, and—you know me, Charlie—I don’t think I’ve ever apologized for anything.