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Gail set her dead brother’s photograph on the mantelpiece. Everyone stared, waiting to see what she would do next. She could feel their glares. A faint smile rose in her cheek. This was her time to shine. Colm was her last living immediate family. All these distant aunts and uncles which sat around her in their collective grief earned nothing of what she was about to inherit and Gail owed them nothing in return.
There were always doubts about whether Gail could succeed her father, hence why the business was handed down to her younger brother. Now there were doubts she could succeed Colm. But nobody said anything. Not today. Today were for words of condolences. Gail didn’t need condolences. She wanted the confrontation. She thrived on the idea that these nameless, faceless aunts and uncles think she can’t cut the mustard.
“I’m so sorry for your lose.”
“As am I”. Gail stroked the photograph and turned to the aunt of these warm, fake sympathetic words.
“He spoke so kindly of you, auntie.”
“As did he of you. It is such a tragedy for young Colm to have left us so suddenly. Left you without a mother or a father and now a brother. If there is anything I, we can do, we would all be privileged to help.” This nameless, faceless aunt gestured around the room to all these other nameless and faceless people. Gail realised this was not the time for a confrontation.
“I have to go.”
Gail sat in the oversized leather chair at her brother’s, née father’s, now her desk. At five foot three, of about eight and a half stone, the chair almost swallowed her. The desk itself was large and obnoxious. An antique wooden thing with too many drawers, most of them locked. Gail riffled through a few of the unlocked ones. Nothing but scraps of paper, broken pens and rubber bands. Everything of worth was in these locked drawers.
Gail picked up the phone receiver.
“Can you get me some removal men. I need to clear out this office.”
She paused, listening.
“As soon as possible.”
Two burly men of non-descript Eastern European descendance stood in the doorway of Gail’s office.
“Thank you for coming at such short notice.” She looked around. “Remove everything.”
They began to work.
“Except that chair.”
Gail sat in the middle of the room in the leather chair, circulating around her work, what she had achieved in just a day. An empty room. She had no need for that desk and it’s locked away contents. She had no time for secrets and hidden passageways. If it were so important, the drawers would have been unlocked. This was her office now and there was no need for locks.
The blank slate of this empty room bore down on Gail as she patiently contemplated what she was going to do next. She had always wanted this day to come, not like this of course, but there was nothing she could do about the turn of events. The office seemed so much bigger now without that ostentatious desk. Gail pushed herself out of the chair and began to pace the room, counting steps. She stopped at the wall which stood behind where the desk used to be. Gail had left the family portrait hanging there. She was beginning to regret it.
There was something not quite right about this cereal ad, happy family picture. Everyone looked happy. She remembers being happy. Though, she was seven and who wasn’t happy at seven. Colm was carefully placed in their mother’s arms, who, at two, usually wouldn’t sit still. Gail’s parents looked perfectly happy, coiffed and permed, just as she remembered them. Just perfect. All memory of everything she was about to do sank to the bottom of her subconscious as she stood looking at the picture.
As morning broke and the world was waking up, Colm’s, née their father’s, now Gail’s assistant came into the office to find Gail curled up in the chair, asleep, facing the family portrait.
“Miss Lee?”
Gail woke, blurry eyed, to the sight of her family. She sat up, turned the chair and faced Jude.
“Yes, Jude.”
“Where is everything?”
“I threw it out.”
“The desk, the filing cabinet, the files?”
“I threw it all out.” Jude looked around to study the near empty room. “Besides, isn’t everything backed up on computers or something?”
“Yes, but-” He stopped to think for a moment. “Yes, Miss Lee. Do you want anything, coffee?”
“No, thank you. I’ll get it myself. I need the walk. And a change of clothes.”
Jude left, closing the door behind him. It was the first time the door had been closed since Gail had everything removed. The room looked even more empty. This had to be fixed.
The office was at full buzz as Gail walked through the building. Nobody seemed to know how to react to her, so they just didn’t react at all. Gail took the stairs down, a new sense of vigor inside her as she let the idea of this new venture sink in. Out on the street she hailed a cab and rode to her flat.
There was not much to her flat. Barely bigger than the office she had inherited. But she liked it. She liked small. She liked less.
Gail flicked her shoes off by the door and headed straight for the bedroom. She flopped down on top of the covers and snuggled next to Teddy.
“Where were you all night?”
“At the office.”
“All night?”
“Don’t worry, I wasn’t working.” Gail tilted her head over to the clock. “Why aren’t you at work?”
“I was waiting for you.”
“In bed?”
“I knew it would be the first place you’d go.”
Teddy turned to face Gail. She stroked the hair out of his still closed eyes. He pulled the cover over her and they laid silent for a few moments, falling back to sleep. By the time Gail reawoke, Teddy was gone. It was already midafternoon. With no great rush at all, Gail took a shower and got dressed, intermittently taking calls, writing emails and responding to texts.
Back in the office everyone was gathered in the empty room. Not so empty now and not so large either.
“This was my father’s company. This was my brother’s company. And now it’s my company. But one thing this has always been is a Lee company. This is our company. A family company. And that includes every single one of you. Now, I don’t know how my father or my brother ran this company, but I don’t care. What I do care about is what you do. How you make this company run. I will be going over everyone’s files and jobs to make sure this company runs as efficiently and effectively as it possibly can. But don’t worry, I won’t be firing anyone. Yet.”
The room suddenly became an echo chamber again as everyone left. Teddy funnelled through the crowd to get through.
“Why’d you leave the chair?”
Gail greeted him with a smile and sat in still the only piece of furniture in the room.
“I like it. I have memories of it.”
“And that picture?”
“I don’t know. There’s something off about it, don’t you think?”
“Yeah, you’re all smiling.”
“Ha ha. I mean it. There’s something not quite right.”
“Maybe it’s hung wonky.”
“No. That’s not it. I’d been staring at it all night. It’s probably nothing.”
“That’s why you didn’t come home last night?”
Teddy stepped up the the picture and gave it a long hard look. He wiped a finger through the dust, cutting a line between Gail’s parents.
“It’s probably just that it needs a good dusting.”
“Are you offering?” Gail stood next to him and wiped a few more dust particles away from the portrait. She stood back, darting her eyes around the picture, counting in her head.
“What? What is it?”. Teddy followed her eyes.
“There are nine hands in the picture.”
Teddy looked. Gail’s mother’s hands tightly wrapped around Colm’s. His hands, one on her face, the other in front of him. Gail, like a choir angel, one tucked behind the other in front of her. And her father’s hands, one on Gail’s shoulder, one on her mother’s. But in between a proud father and daughter, another hand fixed to her father’s waist.
Gail lifted the picture off its hooks and stormed out of the office. Having thrown it in the skip, she returned to find Teddy still there, staring at the place the picture used to hang. Only now there was a safe. Gail walked up to it and began trying numbers of importance, birthdays, anniversaries, stock numbers. She ran back out to the skip, memorising the date on the portrait. 2-7-3-8-7. The safe opened.
Gail reached inside. There was just one scrap piece of paper, not too dissimilar from all the other pieces of paper she had found in the unlocked drawers of the desk. All that was written on it was her father’s signature.
Gail felt about inside the safe. There must be more, something else to it.
“I have to go. I’ll see you at home.” She kissed Teddy and left.
Down at the skip, Gail flung open the drawers of the desk. She cobbled together each scrap of paper. It was some sort of contract. It didn’t appear to be in English, perhaps Latin or French, but she could make out a few words. “On your first million and on the 30th of your heir”.
Teddy came out of the office building and found Gail leaning over the desk.
“Is everything alright?”
“I think my father made a deal with the devil... And saved my life.”