The Inheritance (15 page)

The fragile winter sun peeked
tentatively through the curtains.  Without looking at her watch Emma knew she
had to get up.  She could hear her roommate Amy stirring.  At the hostel all
the women were expected to be at the breakfast table by eight.  At least I have
a roof over my head, Emma thought.  It could be worse.  I’ll only be here for a
while, just until I get a job, she told herself.  She’d been telling herself
that for the past two weeks, though, and now she was beginning to feel
desperate.   As she got up and made her bed, she recalled her conversation with
Reg the other night.  It’d taken her a while to pluck up the courage and call
him.  The phone had rung and rung and she’d thought he wasn’t going to answer
it.  But at last he did.

‘Hello?’

‘Hi.  Is that Reg?’

‘Yes.  Who’s calling?’

‘It’s Emma.  We met on the train to
London… well you were going to Reading, I was going to London.  We chatted.  
You gave me your card and said I could call you if I ever needed a chat…’ She
trailed off.  There was a long pause.  Oh great, she thought, he doesn’t have a
clue who I am.

‘Oh yes,’ he said cheerfully. 
‘Emma, yes, I do remember now.  We had a good long chat on that train journey. 
It’s been quite a while.  I do hope you’re enjoying life in London.’

Emma swallowed a sob.  ‘Um… well I
was…’ She stopped unable to continue without bursting into tears.

‘Oh, my dear, whatever is the
matter?’ he asked.

Emma knew she didn’t have long on
the payphone.  It was expensive and other hostel users might want to use it.  So
trying to be as quick as she could she told Reg about her life in London (she
glossed over some of it) and how it had all gone wrong.

‘So I just wanted to ask you a
favour.  Would you be able to phone my father on my behalf and let him know I’m
struggling a bit?  It’s just that if I ring him I think he’ll put the phone
down on me.’

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t do that,
Emma.  He’s your father, he loves you.’

‘No, I don’t think he does
anymore.’ Her voice was shaky.  She took a deep breath.  ‘The thing is I
blackmailed him into giving me my inheritance.  I wasn’t meant to have it until
I’m twenty five but I wanted to leave the farm so I insisted on having it.’
There.  She’d said it.  Reg would want nothing to do with her now.

‘I see.’ He sounded thoughtful. 
‘Emma, my dear, if you thought you’d shock me with that piece of information,
let me tell you now that I’ve known people to do far worse.  You don’t fight in
and survive a bloody war without witnessing far greater crimes than the one
you’ve just told me you committed.  You certainly did your father wrong by
blackmailing him.  But it doesn’t necessarily mean that he doesn’t love you
anymore or that you can’t make amends for it.  I would be happy to speak to him
on your behalf, but from what you’ve told me about him I’m sure you could be
reconciled with him.’

Emma felt the rope around her
stomach loosen a little.  She grinned into the phone as if Reg could see her
somehow and gave him her father’s number.

‘Thank you so much,’ she said, her
eyes full.  ‘That means a lot to me.’

Now as she ate her breakfast, Emma
wondered what her father’s reaction to Reg’s phone call had been.  She’d spoken
to Reg last week but had heard nothing so far.  She felt racked with insecurity. 
Maybe Reg had had second thoughts and decided that he didn’t want anything to
do with her after all and so hadn’t phoned her father.  Or he had spoken to her
father as promised but he still didn’t want anything to do with her.

‘What are you doing today?’  Amy’s
chirpy voice broke Emma’s thoughts.

‘What are any of us doing today?’
Emma said gloomily.  ‘None of us actually have anything to do, do we?  That’s
why we’re here.’

‘All right, Miss Mopey.  I just
wondered if you’d considered selling the Big Issue.  You know, until you can
find a proper job.’

Emma perked up at this.  She’d
often seen people selling the Big Issue on the streets of London.  She knew
that potentially it could lead somewhere, maybe give her a bit of a boost up
the ladder in terms of looking for a job.

‘No, I hadn’t really thought about
it.  Are you a vendor then?’

‘Yes.  Of course I’m not exactly
earning millions but I’m gradually putting aside a bit of money.  I reckon
you’d be good at it.  When you’re not wallowing in self-pity, you’re actually
quite a bubbly, outgoing person.  Why don’t you try it?  I can help you get
started.’

‘Yeah, OK, why not?’

Emma knew she had nothing to lose. 
Deciding to sell the Big Issue made her feel like a prisoner being set free. 
There could be a future for her.  The following day she rang the London office
who gave her the lowdown on what she would need to do to get started.  Two days
after that she was able to begin.  She collected her magazines to sell from the
distribution point one freezing cold December morning.  Then she went to her
designated patch on a busy street in Clapham.  The cold air slashed through her
winter coat as if it was a thin rag and as she was standing on the wide
pavement, she shivered constantly.  She had to remind herself that it was
essential for her to be here.  There was no other option left for her.  She
smiled brightly at people as they walked past her, calling out, ‘Big Issue, Big
Issue for sale.’

For a long while all the passers-by
ignored her and Emma became despondent.  But then a harassed looking man in a
business suit stopped.

‘I’ll take one,’ he said.

‘Oh thank you so much,’ Emma
replied.  ‘Here you are.’ 

She took his money – fortunately he
had the right change – and he nodded brusquely before walking off.  Emma was
elated.  Her first sale!  It was slow going after that however and she constantly
had to stamp her feet to keep warm.  By the end of the day she was exhausted,
but she’d sold all her magazines.

‘Wow, Em, you’ve done really well,’
Amy told her, giving her a big hug when she returned to the hostel that
evening.

‘Thanks,’ Emma grinned.  She
flopped down on to the easy chair in the communal lounge in the hostel feeling
ready for bed.  After chatting for a while with Amy and a couple of other women
she could barely keep her eyes open.  Sleep was calling her.  She said good
night to them and went to bed.  That night for the first time in weeks she
slept soundly.

The following days passed in much the
same way: Emma would get up, have breakfast at the hostel and then head out to
her patch where she would spend the rest of the day selling the Big Issue.  But
not every day went as well as the first.  In fact, after a while, things seemed
to slow down for her; less people approached her to buy the magazine, even
though she was calling ‘Big Issue for sale’ until she was hoarse.  She wondered
if it might in part be down to the cold weather.  People walked past in a hurry
wrapped up like Christmas presents in their hats, coats and scarves, with their
rosy red noses and cheeks bearing the brunt of the cold.

Emma’s coat was the worse for wear
now.  She’d had it for years.  When she came to London she’d nearly thrown it
out but had decided to keep it as she liked it.  Now though it was falling
apart and she desperately needed a new one.  She’d had to sell pretty much all
of the wonderful clothes she’d bought when she was living with Natalie.  She had
needed the money, but somehow even after selling all of her lovely things the
money she made had got swallowed up in paying the rent on the bedsit and basic
things like food. 

Christmas was only just around the
corner now and as Emma was standing on the pavement, stamping her feet to get
warm and trying to entice people to buy her magazine, she wondered again how it
had come to this.  She’d had everything, a wonderful house, clothes, shoes – a
seemingly endless supply of money, only it hadn’t been endless as she’d found
to her cost.  Then her thoughts returned to the farm and her family.  She had
been unfair to them, she saw that now.  She had scorned her father and resented
him for standing in her way.  She’d misjudged her sister, had barely understood
her and had scoffed at her for wanting to stay on the farm whilst she, Emma,
had loftier ambitions. 

She could clearly see her own
folly.  She should have just forgotten about the inheritance and earned her own
money, made her own way in the world instead of harassing her father until he
gave her what she wanted.  She had had the privilege of a loving family and
she’d blown it with them.  What could she do now though?  It was too late to
make amends.  Her father wouldn’t want anything to do with her again, let alone
her sister who would most likely disown her.

Then it came to her.  She thought
of the hired hands her father took on to help with the farm work in busy
periods.  They earned way more than she was earning at the moment and they
didn’t have to stand around for hours in the cold.  She knew her father would
never accept her again as his daughter, but surely he wouldn’t mind employing
her on a casual basis?  She had grown up on his farm so she did have some
experience of farm work.  But maybe Christmas was a bad time to return, he
might not be hiring people then.  She racked her brain to try and remember
exactly which times of the year he did hire people.

Kate and her father were always
busy though, so perhaps they wouldn’t mind her working for them for a short
while.  Emma had always been impulsive and once she set her heart on something
that was it.  She spent the rest of the day in a daydream plotting her escape
from London.  She didn’t sell many magazines that day; it was as though she was
only partly there on the street in London, like a ghostly apparition.  In her
mind she was already back on the farm in Cornwall.  London had very little
appeal for her now.  She was desperate to leave the city where she had lost
everything and been so humbled.

Unfortunately she didn’t have much
cash at all to get back to Cornwall.  But if she hitchhiked part of the way
she’d save some money.  It was risky, yes, but these days Emma felt she had
nothing to lose.  Back at the hostel that night she discussed her plan with
Amy, who was now a good friend.

‘I don’t think hitchhiking is a
good idea, Emma,’ Amy said as they ate their takeaway.  The hostel only
provided breakfast so the women had to get their own lunch and dinner.  It was
often challenging to eat cheaply if you had very little money, especially in
London where everything was so expensive.

‘I know it’s not ideal, Amy, but I
have no choice.  I’ve worked out that I only have enough money to get the train
as far as Exeter.  From there I must hitchhike.  I can’t exactly walk.’

Amy frowned.  ‘There may be another
option,’ she said.  ‘I have a cousin who lives near Exeter.  She travels to
Cornwall a lot with her work.  She probably wouldn’t mind giving you a lift
down to say Bodmin and then you could get a bus back to your family.’

‘Oh that would be wonderful.  Do
you think she’d mind?’

Amy shrugged.  ‘I can try
contacting her.  I mean, I haven’t seen her for months.  She has no idea I’m… well
in this situation.’  

‘All right, well I’ll pay for your
phone call.’

‘Em, that’s really not necessary…’

‘I insist.’

‘OK.  That’s kind of you.  So
you’ve decided to go home?’

‘Yes.’ Emma screwed up her nose
thinking about the likely reception she’d get from her family.  ‘I am going
home, but hopefully to work for my father as a hired labourer.  I don’t reckon
he’ll take me on as anything else.’

Amy gave her a sceptical look. 
‘You want to know what I think, Em?’

‘OK.’

‘When you get home your dad will be
over the moon to see you again.  All that’s passed between you will be
forgotten.’

Emma laughed humourlessly.  ‘That
will never happen, trust me.’

******

The next few days seemed to crawl
by for Emma as if life was happening in slow motion.  She carried on selling
the Big Issue, but her heart just wasn’t in it.  Her takings for the rest of
the week were low.  She had other things than how many magazines she could sell
on her mind.  In her thoughts she pictured herself returning to the farm and
her family’s stony expressions.  She wondered again if her father would even
let her work for him.  Maybe he’d turn her away as soon as he saw her.  And she
wouldn’t blame him.

It was a Friday evening when Amy
came into the room they shared with a cheery expression like a summer’s day on
her face.  Emma put down the old newspaper she’d been reading.

‘Guess what?’ Amy beamed.

‘You’ve won the lottery?’

‘Not quite, but nearly as good. 
You’re going home!’

‘You mean your cousin can help me out?’

‘Yes!  I rang her just now.  She’s
happy to give you a lift.  She can meet you at Exeter train station.  She told
me that she usually travels to Cornwall on a Tuesday afternoon, so if you could
get to Exeter by lunchtime, that would work out fine.  Now all you’ve got to do
is book the train ticket.’