The Billionaire’s Curse (5 page)

G
erald had been impressed by the luxury of the private jet, but his reaction didn’t compare to the trills of ecstasy that his mother emitted when they stepped inside Geraldine’s five-story house in Chelsea later that night. Vi spent much of the evening wandering from opulent room to opulent room with an expression of rapture plastered on her face.

In the morning, Gerald was surprised to find Mr. Fry serving breakfast in the dining room. He did notice a slight thawing in the Englishman’s attitude, even offering Gerald seconds of bacon.

They left for the funeral service soon after breakfast. Mr. Fry was dressed in an immaculate chauffeur’s uniform and doffed his hat as Gerald climbed into the back of the Rolls.

In the backseat, Gerald leaned across to whisper to his father, “Dad, what’s the story with Mr. Fry? Is he going to go everywhere with us?”

Eddie pondered the back of the chauffeur’s head and, in a hoarse whisper, replied, “Not sure, son. He was Aunt Geraldine’s butler for years—he’s part of the furniture. I don’t think we can get rid of him.”

Vi shifted in her seat and looked up from a newspaper report of their arrival at the airfield.

“And why would we want to get rid of him?” She sniffed. “He’s a dream, and he knows how a lady ought be treated in her own home.”

Gerald and his father looked at each other.

“Uh, Mum,” Gerald said. “It’s not your home.”

“Oh really?” Vi said to Gerald, her eyes affecting a half glaze as she returned to her newspaper. “Let’s see what the day brings, shall we?”

She let out an indignant grunt. “Listen to this. ‘Vi Wilkins touched down in the Archer corporate jet last night to lay claim to one of Europe’s greatest fortunes. She boldly predicted that she would inherit the lion’s share of the grand estate, built by teabag baron Dorian Archer and later by his daughter, Geraldine.’” Vi snorted derisively. “I never said that.”

Eddie flicked through a stack of newspapers in the back of the car, each one opened to the page with the news of their arrival.

“I think you’ll find all the papers are saying the same thing. Here, look at this.”

Eddie turned up the volume on the television in the back of the limousine. It had been flickering away silently, tuned to an early-morning news program. Behind the onscreen announcer’s right shoulder was a photograph of Great-Aunt Geraldine.

“…meanwhile, the funeral of businesswoman and philanthropist Geraldine Archer takes place in Chelsea today. Friends and relatives from around the world are converging to see how the vast estate will be split among them. Her niece, Vi Wilkins, jetted in from Australia overnight and had this to say…”

The story then cut to footage of Vi and Eddie at the airfield. Vi was standing with both fists on her hips, her feet set well apart and her chin jutting out. “I won’t say that I was Geraldine’s favorite, but compared to the rest of the family, let’s just say I wouldn’t be quitting my job yet if I was one of them!”

From the back of the Rolls, Vi frowned at the TV and muttered something about context, but Gerald wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the screen. As Vi talked to the cameras, a tall slightly hunched figure clad in black drifted behind her toward the jet. The figure turned to the cameras. But that was all Gerald needed to recognize the white face and the impenetrable sunglasses.

“Dad!” Gerald burst out, stabbing his finger at the screen. “That’s him. That’s the man from the airport last night, the one who grabbed me.”

Eddie glanced at the TV, but the thin man had melted into the night. The only thing Eddie saw behind Vi was his own face, staring out embarrassed.

“Oh Gerald,” Vi said. “Will you get over it. One autograph hunter and you go to pieces. I don’t want to hear another word about it. Look, we’re coming to the church now.”

The Rolls glided to the side of the road. Vi fixed a determined eye on both Gerald and Eddie. “Right, you two—I’ve waited half a lifetime for this. Don’t make a hash of it!”

The scene at the church was almost a replay of their arrival at the airfield the previous evening. Banks of cameras exploded in a whir of shutters and flashes as the Wilkins family emerged from the car.

“Right, let’s go!” Vi ordered, and grabbing the others’ hands, she pulled them scuttling up the path, past a line of mourners waiting to get inside—“Excuse me, we’re family!”—and into the church, the photographers’ cries still ringing in their ears.

Vi dropped Gerald and Eddie’s hands and rearranged her large black hat. She inspected Gerald for the fourth time since breakfast. Clicking her tongue, she batted off his protesting hands to adjust his tie, licked her fingers, and pressed down a patch of unresponsive hair. Satisfied that everything was in place, Vi led the way to the front of the church. She flicked a
RESERVED
sign off the seat closest to the altar and settled into her place. Gerald and Eddie followed close behind.

The church was full. The pews, which faced each other across the central aisle, were lined with silver-haired men and tight-faced women, all dressed in somber suits and speaking in hushed whispers. The men wore an assortment of club ties and lapel pins indicating some honor or other, and the women wore black hats of all dimensions. In front of the altar sat a coffin on a wheeled stand, draped with the white-and-red flag of St. George. A green laurel branch lay on the coffin lid. Organ music played softly in the background, and despite it being a sunny summer day, it was distinctly cool in the low light of the church.

Gerald found himself staring across at a boy and a girl of roughly his own age. The boy sat hunched forward, his bulky shoulders supporting a pumpkinlike head. The girl had long dull hair, parted sharply down the middle and tied back in two stringy pigtails. Her face was a picture of determined boredom.

“That’d be yer cousin Octavia,” a gravelly voice whispered into Gerald’s right ear.

Gerald swiveled around to come face-to-face with a man in the pew behind him. The man’s round head sat atop an even rounder body.

“She’s yer cousin on yer mother’s side,” the man said, chewing on something. After a moment’s reflection, he added with a grunt, “Nasty piece of work she is, too.”

Gerald blinked. He had a cousin?

He stared agog at the stranger. The man was about the same age as Gerald’s father, but his skin was the color and consistency of old floorboards, like he’d spent half his life in the tropics.

Gerald went to speak but before he could utter a word the man raised his hand and flicked a small white ball into the back of Gerald’s mouth.

“Here,” the man said. “Have a peppermint.”

Gerald gagged as the sweet bounced off the back of his throat.

“Not too strong for you, I hope. I likes the strong ones.”

Gerald couldn’t respond. Tears started to well in his eyes.

“She’s the daughter of yer mother’s brother—yer uncle Sidney,” the man continued, indicating the girl across the aisle with a nod. “He’s the large brick outhouse over there.”

Gerald turned back and saw that the girl was sitting next to a hulk of a man, bald headed and looking uncomfortable in an ill-fitting suit and a shirt that couldn’t quite fasten around his tree stump of a neck. This man was clearly also the father of the pumpkin-headed boy.

The stranger leaned forward and whispered into Gerald’s left ear, “And yer know why they call that there hairstyle of young Octavia’s a pigtail?”

Gerald sucked his peppermint and looked across at the freckled nose of his newfound cousin. He felt the man’s lips brush close to his ear. “Well, have ya ever, at any time in yer life, seen a face that looks more like a pig’s arse?”

Gerald coughed to dislodge the peppermint from his windpipe.

From the head of the pew, Vi glared at him with a look that would stop a clock. Gerald tried to mime that he had been talking with the man behind him, but when he turned to look over his shoulder the seat was occupied by an elderly woman busy adjusting her hearing aid. Gerald cast about to his left and right but could find no sign of the round-headed man. He gave his mother an apologetic shrug and slouched back into his seat, chewing the peppermint and trying to spy the strange man among the other mourners.

The funeral service seemed to go on forever. The reverend said a few words, and people from a number of charities got up to praise Geraldine for the large sums of money that she had donated over the years. After the fourth person spoke about a particularly generous gift, Gerald noticed that his mother’s hands were gripping the front of the pew so tightly that her knuckles were white. A couple of hymns were sung, a few more words said, and then the coffin was wheeled down the aisle.

Gerald had sat impassively throughout the service. He had never met this woman. He didn’t feel anything toward her. The only thing that seemed to link them was a shared name—a name that Gerald detested. As the casket passed him, though, Gerald said a quiet word of good-bye under his breath, and he wondered whether he would have liked his great-aunt Geraldine.

The church began to empty through the front entrance, but Vi took Gerald by the elbow and guided him across to a side door.

“Come along, Gerald,” she said. “The main event’s in here.”

They walked into a church hall that had been set with rows of white plastic chairs. Along one wall was a table laid out with sandwiches and pots of tea. At the front was a fold-up table behind which sat Mr. Prisk. Vi pushed Gerald into a chair at the back of the hall.

“You stay there, Gerald. Out of harm’s way,” she said, a hand heavy on his shoulder. “This bit won’t concern you, but your father and I need to talk with some people.”

Eddie had already made a beeline for the refreshment table and Vi edged her way into a group at the front of the hall near Mr. Prisk. “Ah, you must be Sir Mason Green. So good of you to come.”

The hall filled quickly and people gradually took their seats. Gerald noticed that Fry, whom he hadn’t seen during the funeral service, sat in a chair in the second row, directly behind Vi and Eddie. At the other end of the front row sat Gerald’s cousin Octavia with her brother and their father, Sidney. It seemed that Vi and Sidney were taking great care not to acknowledge each other’s existence. The other rows filled with people of all ages, none of whom Gerald recognized. He was staring at a white-haired man who looked sort of familiar when a voice grated in his ear, “What a bunch of hyenas!”

Once again Gerald startled. The round-faced man had appeared from nowhere and pulled up a plastic chair to sit next to Gerald. Gerald declined the offer of another peppermint.

“And aren’t they all eager to see what’s comin’ to them.” The man popped a mint into his mouth and began chewing loudly. “Greed’s an ugly thing to see red raw in the flesh.”

Gerald saw the chance to get a word in.

“Who are you? How do you know so much about my family?”

“Who am I? Now there’s a question!” The man rasped out what Gerald assumed was a laugh, but there was no smile on the face. “I, my boy, am an old friend of yer great-aunt’s family. We go back a few years now.” The man stood up, wiped his right hand on his jacket, and offered it to Gerald.

“My name is Hoskins. You can call me Mr. Hoskins, or you can call me Sir—the choice is yours.”

He gave Gerald’s hand a crushing shake.

“Your great-aunt told me a fair bit about you. You even look a bit like her—did yer know that?”

Gerald shook his head in confusion.

“But I never even met her,” he said. “How could she know anything about—”

Before Gerald could finish, Hoskins raised a finger.

“You may never have met the lady, but she knew all there was to know about you,” he said. “Family was very important to her.”

“Not so important that she’d jump on that giant jet and visit us,” Gerald said.

Hoskins bristled.

“Listen carefully, young fellow,” he said, jabbing a finger in Gerald’s chest. “That lady had good reason to keep her distance. She needed to protect the—” He stopped abruptly and turned away, concentrating on his mint.

“To protect what, Mr. Hoskins?” Gerald asked.

“Never you worry. But family was the first thing in Geraldine’s mind in everything she did.”

Gerald looked around the room. Vi and Eddie never spoke about family. Eddie was an only child and his parents were long dead. Vi’s parents had died before Gerald was born. He grew up with no grandparents, no aunts and uncles, no cousins. So who are all these people? Gerald wondered. Who’s that old woman half asleep leaning against the wall over there? And those two white-haired men chatting by the urn; who are they? What about the rest of the collection of eyeglasses, silk ties, long gloves, false teeth, and ear hair in the room? Who are you all?

Gerald’s eyes came to rest on his cousin Octavia, fidgeting in the front row.

“Ah, yes,” Hoskins murmured. He had been following Gerald’s gaze with interest. “The next of kin.”

“How do you mean?” Gerald asked.

“Yer mother and her brother are the only two of Geraldine’s line: niece and nephew to as fine a woman you could ever hope to meet. Then comes you, of course, and yer cousins—the disgraceful Octavia over there and her equally rotten brother, Zebedee.”

“Uh, Zebedee?” Gerald said, wrinkling his nose.

“Yes, I know. What are some parents thinking, eh?”

Gerald stifled a laugh.

“Geraldine never married. She had no children of her own. And when her brother died—your grandfather—that left her the sole beneficiary of the Archer fortune,” Hoskins said.

“And now Mum and Sidney are the next in line?” Gerald asked.

Hoskins nodded.

“Who are the rest of these people?” Gerald asked.

“A mixed bunch. A lot of very distant cousins many times removed, a few old employees from the family firm, some servants from the country house. Anyone who reckons they could be due a few bob from the old girl,” Hoskins said.

Just then, at the front of the room, Mr. Prisk stood up and a hush settled over the gathering.

Gerald opened his mouth to ask Hoskins something, but the man raised his finger to his lips. “I suggest you listen very carefully,” he rasped. “You’ll find it concerns you.”