Chapter 9
The solicitor’s office was on the first floor of an old Tudor building.
No lift. It took nearly ten minutes for Cheryl to heave her mother up the stairs, and of course she got the blame for making them late.
Once they’d been greeted by a woman who seemed far too young to be a solicitor, but who was perfectly polite and pleasant, as much to Cheryl as to Sheila, they sat around a small wooden table and the solicitor ran her eyes down a sheet of handwritten notes that Sheila had handed over.
‘No mortgage on the house, that’s much easier, estimated value of around five hundred thousand,’ the young solicitor read.
‘Savings of some twenty thousand, around ten thousand in premium bonds. We’re looking at an estate in the region of half a million pounds.
So, what are your intentions, Mrs Young? ’
Sheila’s hands were clasped on the strap of her handbag. She took a breath and spoke up clearly. ‘I plan to leave my entire estate to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute.’
For several seconds, silence filled the room.
Then, ‘Your entire estate?’ the solicitor queried.
‘That’s right.’
‘To be clear, everything you own, once any taxes and sales expenses have been paid? All to the RNLI?’
‘That’s what I said.’
As Sheila sat back on her chair, her expression a mixture of defiant and smug, Cheryl found her voice. ‘Mum, you can’t be serious.’
Her mother’s head snapped round to make eye contact. ‘Why can’t I?’
‘What about me?’
Thin eyebrows lifted. ‘What about you?’
Feeling a moment of shame that they were having this conversation in front of someone else, Cheryl forced herself to go on. ‘What will I do? How will I live?’
Sheila’s stare hardened. ‘You’ll get the state pension like every other scrounger out there.’
‘I’m not sure I will. And not for years yet. How will I live till then?’
‘Meadowcroft are always looking for staff. Especially on the night shift.’
Meadowcroft was the local care home. Her mother was expecting Cheryl to spend the rest of her working life doing almost exactly what she’d spent the last twenty doing: caring for elderly people, bringing them food, cleaning their rooms, helping them get washed and dressed, wiping their arses when they could no longer do it themselves.
And all this for minimum wage. She thought of the travel brochures tucked away on the highest shelf of her wardrobe and wanted to weep.
‘I’ll have no home,’ she managed.
‘You’ll find a room somewhere. Nice bedsit. Be easier than keeping my house clean. I’m doing you a favour if you could see it.’
It was the casual cruelty that hurt the most, the totally unfeeling way in which Sheila had stripped away her daughter’s hope and her future.
‘At least now I won’t have to worry about you slipping me something in my tea.’ Sheila chortled to herself. ‘It’s in your interests to keep me alive as long as possible.’
Cheryl looked to the young solicitor for help. The other woman seemed uncomfortable, even upset, but said nothing.
Sensing an advantage, Sheila pressed it home. ‘What? You thought you’d be a kept woman all your life? You haven’t even had to put out for it.’
The unexpected coarseness shocked Cheryl more than her mother’s plans to disinherit her. She turned to the solicitor again.
‘She’s not in her right mind. You can see that, can’t you? She doesn’t know what she’s doing.’
A hand slapped down on the tabletop. ‘I know exactly what I’m doing. I know my worth and I know yours. I’m leaving my money to the lifeboats. I can’t think of a more worthy charity. Can you, Cheryl?’
Cheryl felt the blow like a physical pain. Her mother hadn’t moved again, hadn’t touched her. But it felt like she’d been gut-punched.
Sheila wasn’t done. ‘Well, can you?’
This was a battle she could never win. Cheryl felt her whole body deflating. ‘No,’ she said. ‘I can’t.’
Sheila turned back to the solicitor. ‘So, you can draw something up?’
The young woman stood up, clearly wanting to bring the meeting to an end. ‘Of course. I’ll get a draft to you in the post.’
Cheryl got to her feet and followed her mother towards the door.
‘Miss Young.’
The solicitor was standing in front of her desk when Cheryl turned back. It was the first time the young woman had spoken directly to her and not to her mother.
‘I’m your mother’s solicitor so I can’t advise you,’ the girl said. ‘But I strongly suggest you get some legal advice of your own as soon as possible.’ She gave Cheryl a half-smile.
‘Good luck with that,’ Sheila said as she reached the top of the stairs. ‘You’ve no money and legal aid isn’t what it was.’
How had she reached such a state, Cheryl wondered, as they made their laborious way down the stairs, when a few kindly meant words of a stranger were all that stopped her sinking to the floor in despair?