Yeah. I’m here, he typed back.
He sipped his coffee while he waited for her to respond. Just as he thought it was too late and she’d already gone, a message from her popped up on his screen.
Hello, there. How’s your day?
I’ve had better, he admitted. You?
Weird.
Why?
Then he remembered she’d told him that she’d had a letter out of the blue from a solicitor she’d never heard of, asking her to make an appointment because they needed to discuss something with her.
What happened at the solicitor’s?
I’ve been left something in a will.
That’s good, isn’t it?
Unless it was a really odd bequest, or one with strings.
It’s property.
Ah. It was beginning to sound as if there were strings attached. And Gabriel knew without Georgygirl having to tell him that she was upset about it.
Don’t tell me—it’s a desert island or a ruined castle, but you have to live there for a year all on your own with a massive nest of scary spiders before you can inherit?
Not quite. But thank you for making me laugh.
Meaning that right now she wanted to cry?
What’s so bad about it? Is it a total wreck that needs gutting, or it has a roof that eats money?
There was a long pause.
It needs work, but that isn’t the bad thing. The bequest is from my grandfather.
Now he understood. The problem wasn’t with what she’d been left: it was who’d left it to her that was the sticking point.
How can I accept anything from someone who let my mother down so badly?
She’d confided the situation to him a couple of months ago, when they’d been talking online late at night and drinking wine together—about how her mother had accidentally fallen pregnant, and when her parents had found out that her boyfriend was married, even though her mother hadn’t had a clue that he wasn’t single when they’d started dating, they had thrown her out on the street instead of supporting her.
Gabriel chafed every day about his own situation, but he knew that his family had always been there for him and had his best interests at heart, even if his father was a control freak who couldn’t move on from the past. Georgygirl’s story had made him appreciate that for the first time in a long while.
Maybe, he typed back carefully, this is his way of apologising. Even if it is from the grave.
More like trying to buy his way into my good books? Apart from the fact that I can’t be bought, he’s left it way too late. He let my mum struggle when she was really vulnerable. This feels like thirty pieces of silver. Accepting the bequest means I accept what he—and my grandmother—did. And I *don’t*. At all.
He could understand that.
Is your grandmother still alive? Maybe you could go and see her. Explain how you feel. And maybe she can apologise on his behalf as well as her own.
I don’t know. But, even if she is alive, I can’t see her apologising. What kind of mother chucks her pregnant daughter into the street, Clarence? OK, so they were angry and hurt and shocked at the time—I can understand that. But my mum didn’t know that my dad was married or she would never have dated him, much less anything else. And they’ve had twenty-nine years to get over it. As far as I know, they’ve never so much as seen a photo of me, let alone cuddled me as a baby or sent me a single birthday card.
And that had to hurt, being rejected by your family when they didn’t even know you.
It’s their loss, he typed. But maybe they didn’t know how to get in touch with your mother.
Surely all you have to do is look up someone in the electoral roll, or even use a private detective if you can’t be bothered to do it yourself?
That’s not what I meant, Georgy. It’s not the finding her that would’ve been hard—it’s breaking the ice and knowing what to say. Sometimes pride gets in the way.
Ironic, because he knew he was guilty of that, too. Not knowing how to challenge his father—because how could you challenge someone when you were always in the wrong?
Maybe. But why leave the property to *me* and not to my mum? It doesn’t make sense.
Pride again? Gabriel suggested. And maybe he thought it would be easier to approach you.
From the grave?
Could be Y-chromosome logic?
That earned him a smiley face.
Georgy, you really need to talk to your mum about it.
I would. Except her phone is switched to voicemail.
Shame.
I know this is crazy, she added, but you were the one I really wanted to talk to about this. You see things so clearly.
It was the first genuine compliment he’d had in a long time—and it was one he really appreciated.
Thank you. Glad I can be here for you. That’s what friends are for.
And they were friends. Even though they’d never met, he felt their relationship was more real and more honest than the ones in his real-life world—where ironically he couldn’t be his real self.
I’m sorry for whining.
You’re not whining. You’ve just been left something by the last person you expected to leave you anything. Of course you’re going to wonder why. And if it is an apology, you’re right that it’s too little, too late. He should’ve patched up the row years ago and been proud of your mum for raising a bright daughter who’s also a decent human being.
Careful, Clarence, she warned. I might not be able to get through the door of the coffee shop when I leave, my head’s so swollen.
Coffee shop? Even though he knew it was ridiculous—this wasn’t the only coffee shop in Surrey Quays, and he had no idea where she worked so she could be anywhere in London right now—Gabriel found himself pausing and glancing round the room, just in case she was there.
But everyone in the room was either sitting in a group, chatting animatedly, or looked like a businessman catching up with admin work.
There was always the chance that Georgygirl was a man, but he didn’t think so. He didn’t think she was a bored, middle-aged housewife posing as a younger woman, either. And she’d just let slip that her newly pregnant mother had been thrown out twenty-nine years ago, which would make her around twenty-eight. His own age.
I might not be able to get through the door of the coffee shop, my head’s so swollen.
Ha. This was the teasing, quick-witted Georgygirl that had attracted him in the first place. He smiled.
We need deflationary measures, then. OK. You need a haircut and your roots are showing. And there’s a massive spot on your nose. It’s like the red spot on Mars. You can see it from outer space.
Jupiter’s the one with the red spot, she corrected. But I get the point. Head now normal size. Thank you.
Good.
And he just bet she knew he’d deliberately mixed up his planets. He paused.
Seriously, though—maybe you could sell the property and split the money with your mum.
It still feels like thirty pieces of silver. I was thinking about giving her all of it. Except I’ll have to persuade her because she’ll say he left it to me.
Or