Chapter 7 Zoe Spring 2025 #2
‘It may be that you decide that Sara should live here, as she is the only one with children currently as I understand it.’
Sara laughs nervously.
‘Look, is there anything else we need to know from you at the moment?’ Fiona glances at her watch.
‘Well, I will need to do a thorough analysis of the estate, in order to calculate the tax due. The value listed in the will is only approximate. It may be that items have been sold or purchased since this was written.’
‘Mum refused to sell anything that she considered an heirloom. I’ve sold a couple of paintings which were in storage and some of Dad’s first editions,’ says Zoe.
‘To fund repairs on the house.’ The idea of this man’s too-pale hands raking through her mother’s jewellery, touching her books in the library, makes her shiver.
The solicitor’s biro scratches across the paper. ‘Noted,’ he said. ‘Perhaps after your mother’s funeral, I can arrange a time to come again to go through things.’
‘Perhaps,’ says Fiona, in a voice Zoe remembers from her childhood when she was asking for something and Fiona didn’t want to give it to her.
Fiona stands and nods at Zoe to do the same. The others follow, and the solicitor is left scrabbling around to shove his papers back in his folder and the folder in the briefcase.
He turns at the drawing-room door, Fiona right behind him. ‘I’m very sorry for your loss,’ he says again. ‘I appreciate it’s a difficult time and I’ll try to make this as painless as I can.’
‘This way,’ says Fiona, her arm pointing into the hall. Zoe sinks back down and hears the front door slam.
‘What a waste of time,’ says Fiona, striding back into the room. ‘He’s clearly out of his depth.’
Sara nods. ‘Yeah, he didn’t seem to get what you were trying to say. Pompous little man.’
‘I can’t imagine Mum dealing with a solicitor like that, somehow,’ says Steph, who was mostly silent the entire time he was here. Zoe smiles at her.
‘Yeah, exactly,’ says Fiona. ‘I doubt he was even alive in the 1990s when she lodged the will with the firm. It was probably an older partner. I’m going to drop my own solicitor a note.
’ She opens her laptop. ‘He can help us challenge the will and ensure Highdown is split equally. Then we can all decide what to do.’
‘Thanks, Fi,’ says Zoe, looking around the drawing room. Split Highdown. She hates the expression but she’s grateful that Fiona wants to sort it out.
‘I can’t understand what Mum was thinking,’ says Sara. ‘Highdown has always been your home. It’s right that you should have it – or at least an equal share of it.’
‘Let’s see what my lawyer says.’ Fiona is punching the keys. ‘Either way, just because we own Highdown now – or rather we will when probate goes through – we’re not going to throw you out, Zoe. In fact, we can’t legally throw you out.’
Sara nods and grips Zoe’s hand.
‘Absolutely not,’ says Steph. ‘It’s your home.’
‘We’ll get to the bottom of it,’ Fiona says.
Zoe glances around the room. They never really felt like a family to her.
The six-year gap between her and Sara was bad enough, but eleven years between her and Fiona meant by the time Zoe was a teenager, Fiona had already left home.
Steph she barely knows at all. But somehow, them all being here together, they feel like her family for the first time.
Maybe it is the love of their mother that has brought them all together.
Their lives might be completely different.
She thinks back to how she has dismissed them in her own mind – Fiona for flying round the world like there’s no climate crisis.
Sara a total victim of consumer capitalism, always needing to buy the latest thing – and she feels guilty.
She’s judged them without really knowing them.
And despite resenting Steph for never being here, she seems to have more in common with Zoe than the others.
The doorbell rings and Fiona looks at where the solicitor was sitting. ‘Please don’t tell me it’s that man again.’
Steph is on her feet, collecting up the empty mugs. She glances out of the window. ‘It’s not the solicitor,’ she says, craning her neck. ‘It’s a woman, I can’t quite make out who.’
‘A neighbour from the village, I expect,’ says Zoe. Come to nose around.
Sara walks into the hall to open the door and squeals. ‘Alice. Oh my God.’
Alice, of course. She would have found out straight away. Zoe follows Fiona and Steph to the front door.
Alice stands on the threshold, a Tupperware container wrapped in tinfoil and a bunch of daffodils in her hands. Zoe’s face and neck suddenly feel hot. She should have told her about Mum.
‘I’m sorry to barge in,’ Alice says. ‘I heard the news and wanted to give you my condolences.’ She hands the flowers to Sara and the Tupperware to Steph. ‘It’s a vegetarian chilli. I know Zoe’s vegan and I guessed that you’d still be a veggie, Steph.’
Steph smiles. ‘Thank you, Alice, that’s really thoughtful of you.’ She takes the pot, opens the lid and sniffs. ‘Smells delicious.’
‘Come in,’ says Sara, opening the door wide. ‘I haven’t seen you properly in years.’ She leans forward and gives Alice a hug, crushing the flowers between them.
Their father’s funeral would have been the last time, thinks Zoe. But Sara didn’t stick around for long then. Funny how they’ve all stayed on at Highdown as if their mother’s death is truly the end of something.
Alice stands in the hall, looking around and rubbing her hands.
Zoe follows her gaze. The table gleams with furniture polish, the bowl empty of years-old potpourri.
What happened to that? Mum had potpourri in there for as long as Zoe could remember.
The glass in the clock face and mirror is polished to a shine.
It looks like Sara and Steph have even waxed the floor.
Maybe all Highdown Hall needed was them all here bringing it back to life together.
‘Come into the kitchen, let’s have something to drink,’ says Fiona, leading the way. ‘It’s so good to see you.’
Steph sets about putting on the kettle and getting out more mugs while the four of them settle around the kitchen table.
Zoe can’t catch Alice’s eye. Ever since she had to tell her that they could no longer afford for her to come every day, or even the twice a week they’d reduced it to, she’s tried to avoid Alice – even when she came to Highdown Hall to visit Mum in those last few months.
It feels like it’s her fault that after Alice worked for them all her life, they had to let her go in her sixties.
Maybe she should have tried harder to persuade Mum to sell something.
It’s not like they haven’t needed Alice’s help, or her company.
‘I’m so sorry to hear about your mum,’ Alice says, as Steph is sitting down. ‘She was quite a woman.’
‘She was,’ says Sara, pressing her lips together.
‘She’d be glad to see you home, I’m sure. Especially you back from Singapore.’
‘Sadly we didn’t make it in time to say our goodbyes,’ says Fiona. Zoe grinds her teeth. This again. ‘But at least we’re together now.’
‘You’re all so properly grown-up,’ says Alice. ‘Your mum was so proud of you.’
They sit in silence, basking in this praise.
‘How are your three children?’ Alice asks Sara. ‘Your mum spoke often about them, always showed me pictures.’
‘Oh, they’re so wonderful,’ says Sara, grinning.
‘Hard work at times, but just wonderful. We feel really blessed to finally have children.’ She looks down at her hands.
‘This is the longest I’ve been away from them.
I video-called them last night to read the twins a bedtime story but I’m not sure they really got it. I miss them.’
Zoe feels the familiar irritation. There’s a brief silence. ‘Will they come for the funeral?’ asks Alice. ‘Do you have a date yet? I guess it’s early days.’
‘We do,’ Fiona says. ‘We spoke to the vicar yesterday and he’s suggested Monday morning at eleven fifteen in the church. Mum had planned all the details so there’s not actually that much for us to do.’
‘John will bring the girls for the day. We’re going to have a small celebration back here afterwards, if you’re free,’ says Sara.
‘Of course I’m free,’ says Alice. ‘Now tell me what I can bring. You four have enough to be getting on with at the moment, you don’t need the hassle of baking.’
A warmth spreads through Zoe and she can feel that she’s starting to cry.
‘That’s so kind of you,’ Sara and Fiona say in unison, and then laugh.
‘Some of your cheesy stars would be amazing,’ says Sara.
‘I was going to say it’s okay because I’ve sorted out caterers, but now you’ve mentioned cheesy stars, then yes please,’ laughs Fiona.
‘And that apple cake you used to make,’ says Steph quietly. ‘Not for the funeral, but for afterwards.’
‘Oh yes, the apple cake,’ says Sara.
‘We’re just like kids again,’ says Fiona. ‘Squealing over what you’ve baked us after school.’
Alice looks at each of them in turn. ‘I know you’re grown women now but I will always think of you as the children I knew. All those years tidying up after you, the cheesy stars, the walks into the woods for a picnic.’
Sara sniffs. ‘Gosh, that seems a long time ago.’
‘What’s in those boxes?’ asks Alice, nodding towards the tea crates and cardboard boxes stacked in the corner of the kitchen. ‘You clearing stuff out already?’
There’s a long pause.
‘Well, actually we’re looking for answers,’ says Fiona eventually, glancing at Zoe. ‘Mum’s will was—’ She stops.
Alice looks between them.
Zoe glances out of the window. ‘Mum’s will didn’t include me,’ she says.
‘What?’ says Alice.
‘It did include you, Zoe,’ says Fiona, sighing. She turns to Alice. ‘But Highdown and its contents is split equally between Steph, Sara and me. Zoe gets the jewellery but has the right to remain in the house for as long as she wants.’