Erica wasn’t sure quite what to say. Alex had a more
practical approach. “Finn doesn’t appreciate spectators when she’s like this.
Anything I can do to help?” Erica snapped out of it and took her tablet from
the table. “Do you think Finn would mind if we use this as an office? I mean, we are in kind of a rush,
here.”
“She won’t mind at all.” Alex was sure of that.
They were both on the phone for what seemed like
hours. The most urgent things were taken care of.
Erica took her leave of Alex, promising
she’d be back later, maybe the next day. Finn
still had to sign off on a few things. Alex was mostly happy that they’d
managed to keep the wind from underneath her in-law's
wings. The cancellation was made with
dignity and kindness. Everyone was thanked
and paid for their services. And cake, flowers, and food were all donated to
people who needed it much harder than any of them did. That was the way Finn
did things. Since Brent was on a plane to god knows where, she was the one in
charge, not her in-laws. That should give her some satisfaction, Alex thought.
He made two cups of tea, took the biscuit tin and made
his way upstairs, to his daughter who lay on the bed. There had been tears. Of course, there had been. She was only human.
“Is everything taken care of?” She asked her father,
trying to look composed as she sat up. Her
makeup was smudged all over her face and bedding. When she saw her father look
at it, she got up and checked the mirror. “Oh god, I look like something from a
horror film. So?”
Alex brought her up to speed about the arrangements
made to take her mind of her feelings.
“Oh, that’s good.” She came back and sat back down,
gladly taking the tea he handed her. “
“Brent. Can I ask what happened?” He tried. He knew
his daughter very well and knew things
often struck inwards with her.
“That bastard.” She started. She related the
conversation that had taken place. “She was waiting for him in a cab outside.
The fucking nerve.” Anger was good. It felt good to Finn. She had the right to
be angry.
“And he had the nerve to say he’d proposed because I wanted it so badly. That I
deserved it.” Finn had never given any hints that pointed towards a proposal.
When he had, in the middle of the country club ball, it had seemed like a fairy
tale.
“Bet his mother tried to talk him out of it.”
“Well, she should be happy. Becky is fully society
approved. Probably hand-tested by every man of the club.”
Despite Finn’s predicament Alex had to laugh. That
lightened the mood.
“So now what?”
She shrugged. “I can’t decide today. I’m drained. Suggesting loads of comfort food,
possibly wine. A good night’s sleep and we’ll see tomorrow. Suppose you have to
go home tomorrow anyway.”
Alex sipped his tea before answering. “I could stay
away longer. Or you could come with me.”
The thought was tempting. Although Finn didn’t look forward to being cooped up in the parental
abode. “Tomorrow.” She promised. He had to agree with her. It was stupid
deciding on anything when drained and high on emotion.
“Coming down for a bit? I’ll run up to the grocery
store for all that comfort food. We’ll make a picnic out of it.” Alex
suggested.
“Erica is gone, she’d be by tomorrow. A few things
still need signing.”
“Sure. I’ll get changed. See you in a bit.”
Alex was already out by the time she got to the
kitchen. It was a mess. She started to clean up. From the corner of her eye, she saw her wedding dress hang from a
hanger from a cupboard. She allowed herself to stare at it. Part of her wanted
it destroyed. It had all been a lie. It wasn’t her. She would never have chosen
such a fitted and elegant dress. What had gotten into her? She was playful,
different, weird. When had she lost herself?
She zipped up the bag around it, to prevent it from
getting dirty. She would donate it as well. Plenty of women who would love a
dress like that, but couldn’t afford it. It had cost much more than Finn could
ever have imagined. Now it was all passed, she was ashamed even to want to spend that kind of money on a
dress. How many people could she have
helped with that? Brent had always brushed that away. As a society lady, she could help so many, he’d assured her.
Yes, by attending posh parties and fundraisers. It had taken her way too long
to catch up with that.
Amidst the mess on the table, she found her phone. 37
missed messages. She quickly ran through the list. Brent had tried to call her
twice, seeing the time, probably from the airport. He’d not left any messages.
Other than that, it was friends. Or
friends of his, she should say. They either wanted the inside scoop or pretend to be worried about her.
She didn’t know whereto Brent had rebooked. Frankly, she didn’t care. ‘I assume you’ll have
moved out by the time we get back’. Had that been a threat? Or a suggestion?
She was of a very good mind to throw out all his things. She wasn’t vindictive,
but she’d given him four years of her life. And he was going to kick her out,
just like that? The house was in his name, of course. There was no way, with
her wages though not bad, that they’d get a mortgage for a 3.5million pound
house.
The tub of ice-cream Alex had bought, never even made
it to the freezer. In all stress and things that needed doing before, Finn had
had nothing more than a bowl of yoghurt in the morning.
“Ha, no more having to fight to maintain my size 6 to 8.” She said as she’d divided
the contents of the tub into two bowls. They vegged out in the living room.
Alex flawlessly followed his daughter’s lead in not talking about anything
substantial. He knew she needed time to process.
While they watched TV
and chatted, a considerable amount of ice cream, chocolate, crisps and red wine
disappeared. Finn got drowsy with the alcohol and carb overdose. Not to mention
her jet lag catching up with her. “I’d go to bed
if I were you.” Her father suggested. It was only 8 pm. Finn didn’t argue and
did as he said before she’d have to be carried up the stairs.
Alex cleaned up the room and had a cup of coffee in
the kitchen. He blamed himself more than anyone. He should have told Finn Brent
was bad news. Rich, successful men always thought the world ran according to
their rules. For them, it was mostly
true. Why did he keep failing her as a father, not being able to protect her
from harm, again?
The house was quiet when Finn woke up. For a while, she lay back in bed and let everything
run through her mind. She’d have to find a place to stay. Work wouldn’t be that
much of a problem, she thought. Maybe she could call the office and see if she
could be deployed abroad immediately. Back with Dave, Eddie and Cameron
preferably. But she wasn’t picky. There weren’t many women in her field of
expertise. And for a moment she even considered a position in training. She’d been offered as much before. She had to start
all over again, so it felt. She could do whatever the hell she wanted. If not her entire life’s savings had evaporated with
the wedding. They’d agreed to pay for it from her savings account and
see to it later. Crap, she only had a few thousand pounds left to her name. No
home, no car, Brent had convinced her to sell it because there was only one
parking space in front of their house. She’d have to do the maths.
Finn took her phone from the nightstand and found that
both of their mutual accounts were blocked.
He had made very sure she’d not be able to get to his money. That rat bastard.
Think, she had to think. It was only 4 am, but there’d be no more sleep.
Quietly she made her way up to the attic, where Brent
had a home office. He didn’t use it all too often, vastly preferring his posh
space in his father’s building in the city. Sometimes he retreated there
though. It was also the place he kept their paperwork.
Finn was a woman on a mission. Meticulously she went
through the drawers of his desk and file cabinets. She even tried to break into
his computer. Nothing of use she could find. Not even her papers and she’d need those to apply for a
place to live and perhaps a new job. Then she turned to the safe. She’d hoped
to run into the lock combination, she had found the key, but that wasn’t
enough. Why had he not written that down somewhere? She was an engineer and was
used to writing everything down. It was easy to get numbers confused if
you worked with so many.
Then she decided there was only one thing to it. But
she’d have to wait until her father was away. She did not want him to witness
it, and if she’d try and break into the safe now, she would surely wake him up.
Breakfast was on the table when he got out of bed.
“You look like you’ve had a good night’s sleep.” He
said as he kissed his daughter’s temple.
“I did. I’m trying to embrace getting rid of him.”
“You should.”
She smiled.
“What are you up to?” He knew her too well.
“Erica will stop by in a bit. After that, I’m going to have to see to my finances
and things. Find a new place to stay.”
“Finn…”
“Yes, dad. I know. I’m not sure I want to stay in
London. Maybe I’ll move somewhere a bit closer to home.”
“That would be awesome.”
“You can forget about Dumbarton though. I am not
moving there.”
“I understand.”
“And I’m not coming home with you to stay over there
until I find something else.”
“Why do you hate that house so badly?”
“It’s old. It’s laced in history. It’s not home.” She
could see she’d hurt her father with that. Through
the years he had taken much effort to make the place feel like home to her.
Brent had of course been in love with the house, and the idea that it would be
theirs when Alex passed, only gave it more appeal. It spoke of power, old royalty.
Finn’s mother had come from a family of wealth and power. “I’m sorry.”
“So am I kiddo. Do you want me to stay here?”
She shook her head. “No, I’m good. Won’t be here for
long myself, I guess. You can go home. I’m sure you have things that need seeing
to.”
The estate
wasn’t much to be managed much anymore these days. There was a housekeeper,
trying to do the best she could. A group of gardeners who’s main purpose was to maintain everything the way
it was. The house needed a loving hand to restore and make it come to live
again. At times, even to Alex, who had lived there for over 40 years, it felt
like a mausoleum. He would love to make it a home for his daughter. He was lost as to how. He had never been very
handy, that was not why Gertrude had picked him. They had money and people to
do things. That had been then.
Erica came by in the morning. After that Finn drove
her father to Euston station. He told her
he could take the underground, but she wanted to spare him two transfers. The
journey back up North was long enough as it was. Both valued their independence.
When Finn
returned home, she took some of her gear from her office, behind the kitchen.
When moving in, she was granted some workspace. Most of her work tools were in a storage locker somewhere
else. Brent could not handle being faced
with it on a daily bases, and some of it
was too big and heavy for Finn to haul up and down the stairs all the time.
On the desk in
the attic, she unpacked her fine drill
set. Her laptop was beside it. It had been ages since she’d cracked a safe, but
she was confident that, given enough time, she could. She was not going to ask
Brent for the code. He didn’t deserve that much consideration. Finn hummed as
she prepared her tools. “Specialized drills for the win.” Sounded through the
attic as she worked.
It took her about 30 minutes. A professional
safe-crack would have done it in a minute, she was sure. But the satisfaction
it gave her when it opened was worth every minute.
She sat down at the desk, pushed her things aside and
spread out the papers. There was a wallet with some cash, a few thousand. For
someone like Brent small change. Although she didn’t mean to steal, she did
need it now her savings were blown on the wedding. The rest was quite
useless. Papers for the house, to the car. To Finn’s surprise, she saw the car was
registered to her name. Was he so cheap that they had done so because
insurance would be cheaper? For whatever reason, she took her win. Brent loved that car. She could sell it
and take the money for a down payment on another property. If she were to move
back to Scotland, she could come a long way with the budget she had. She could
find something cheap at first, work abroad for another year and then find
something nice. Her job paid very well in that respect. Warmth spread over her.
It took a while for her to recognise it.
She’d lost the fire inside of her, during her time with Brent. She’d not
noticed it at first. Constantly adapting to him, to try and be the person he
wanted her to be. The feeling she had lost herself while she was with him, was
now even stronger than it had been the day before. She had been sad, angry.
After a good night’s sleep, she started to realise
she was better off without him. Was it too soon? To move out on the day after
getting dumped? It probably was. But he hadn’t wasted any time. Why should she?
The papers she couldn’t use, she shoved back into the
safe. It wouldn’t lock anymore, but that wasn’t her problem.
Alex had done some serious thinking on the train back
home. It was clear that Finn wasn’t going to swoop in and live back home. He
had hoped that at some point she’d take a greater interest in the house. That
was one of the reasons he’d never really changed anything about it. So she
could alter it to fit her life.
He wasn’t getting any younger. The least he could do
was to make the house good to sell when
he would no longer need it. There was a lot of deferred maintenance. Where had
the years gone? How would he find someone who wanted to take on a job that big,
on a limited budget, and even more, with a clear vision and respect for the
house and its history? He’d have to do some research into that. He had time to
come up with a plan. He didn’t fancy dying any time soon, and he didn’t have a
lot of other things on his hands.
Finn took her time packing her things. It wasn’t that
much. Again that notion of how much she’d given up of herself in this
relationship.
The wedding was supposed to have been Saturday. On
Wednesday she took her new car with all of her things from the house, she drove
to Glasgow. She’d found cheap living accommodation. She had been willing to
settle for the cheapest two-bedroom or large one
bed she could find. The compromise with her father was that she paid a little
more, but had a locked communal hall, and concierge services. It wasn’t in a
very good neighbourhood, but she didn’t care about that much. Working with men,
and being out and about in areas that didn’t know how to deal with women like
her, meant that she had excellent self-defence
skills. The run-in with the guy in the
bar, before her wedding, had not been a
first.
Because her new apartment was two beds, it also meant
she could keep her gear at home and wouldn’t have to rent a separate storage
locker for them. And with everything lined up, she’d called the agency that
dispatched her, the first thing that
Monday. She would hardly be home anyway.
She wouldn’t fly back to Canberra, to the team. But
she’d be there on the next job, they’d promised her. The team was too good to
split up. Dave, Eddie, Cameron, and Finn could blindly trust each other. An
essential quality if you hung strapped in a harness, twenty meters in the air
to fix something and the guys had to secure the line. They all had their specialities. The team had operated like that
for over six years already. They’d been all over
the world together. It did mean Finn had a few weeks off. All for the better. It gave her time to come to
terms with her new existence. At first,
it had been hard to see what her life away from Brent would look like. Being away from London and on her own
made it easier though.
Alex had helped her move in. Not much had to be done. Some furniture had come from a charity
shop. Lots of clothes, which Finn had started selling on e-bay the moment she’d
unpacked them. Alex had noticed the casual wear when he helped to move her in. He’d not seen her like that for
ages. And another time, when she came out to the estate, she wore a short
skirt. She felt free and was happy to laugh.
“Wow, I’d ask you how you feel, but I can see you’re
doing better.”
“I do.”
“It’s good to see you be yourself again.”
She nodded, knew what he meant. She wasn’t up to
admitting that the whole thing with Brent had been a big mistake yet. “Why are
you still here, dad?” She wanted to know. She looked around.
“I feel at home here. And I had hoped at some point you would want to move back
here.”
Before she could answer,
he stopped her. “No, I know you’re not. That’s why I’m looking for someone who
will fix up this place, so you can sell it after I’m gone.”
“Dad…” She looked at her father. The man that had
always been in the shadow of his wife. Who had
quit his job when she needed looking after, and all friends and family had
abandoned her. He had sacrificed his entire life for Finn and her
mother. “I’m sorry. I tried.”
“I know you did, Sweetheart. It was my choice not to leave. When
she was still alive. Or later. Not hers, not her family’s, and not
yours.”
“Sometimes when the house is quiet, I can still hear
her scream,” Finn admitted. Maybe it was
because she hadn’t been there those last days.
“Me too. If anything, I’m glad Brent didn’t break you.
He didn’t deserve you.”
“You know what, dad? I think you’re right. No more
millionaires for me.”
Brent’s return from his vacation with Becky did not go
unnoticed. He called Finn, and for the
fun of it, she let him rant for several minutes about the safe and the car.
“You can’t just sell a man’s car, Finn. That’s mean. I
thought that kind of thing would be beneath you.”
“It is. But the wedding had wiped out all of my
savings. I needed to find a new place to live and a proper job, since the thing
we had lined up for after the honeymoon wasn’t going to be enough to live off.
Things like that take time. And you had all my papers up in that safe, without
leaving me with the code.”
“You could have called me. I’d have helped you.”
“Probably. Now according to my solicitor…”
“Your solicitor?”
“Yes, we calculated the whole thing through. After the
sale of the car and the money I took from the safe you still owe me…” He
wouldn’t let her finish. “I owe you?”
“Yes. You cancelled the wedding, remember? You cheated
on me. I’ve kindly agreed to pay half of what it had cost, so you still owe me.
It wasn’t a cheap wedding.”
That made him back down. “If you’d rather go to court
over this, that’s fine. The car was in my name. Good luck proving it was yours.
And you cancelled the wedding. Jurisprudence showed that in all similar cases,
the entire cost of the wedding had to be paid by the cancelling party.”
She could hear him gasp. “It’s your decision, of
course. Just know I’m not willing to back down on this. I’ve bent to your ideas
and will for four years. Not this time, Brent.”
“Does it have to end this way, Finn? Is this what you
have become? A bitter old maid?”
“No, a free one. And one who finally sees what had
been going on. What’s wrong? Becky not
everything she’s cracked up to be? I thought her perfect figure and her perfect
country club demeanour made her the perfect partner for you. Oh, right, she’s
five months in. Getting fat and cranky, I
presume.” Brent had always been the first to notice when she’d gained weight.
The first to say it out loud. And not in an encouraging tone either.
“Finn, don’t talk about Becky that way. She’s…”
“You know, Brent, I don’t care what she is or is not.
Let me know about the money. I’ll have my
solicitor send it out to you. I have a plane to catch.” She’d had her little
victory. Dragging it out would only diminish the experience. She’d fought, and she’d won.
“Finn!”
“Goodbye, Brent.
I hope you’re happy with the choices you made.” Without giving him more time to
answer, she hung up.
The next day she got an e-mail from him, telling he would give her the money and some extra if she
were willing to sign the papers to get
her name off the joint accounts quickly. Since she had to be in London anyway,
over the next week, she went by his office to do so. He wasn’t there. She’d
made sure of that. His secretary received
her. They’d known each other pretty well.
“I’m very sorry about…”
“So am I. It’s not your fault though, the papers
please?” Finn had taken extra care to dress inappropriately.
A short skirt, black tights and shoes with chunky heels. A black T-shirt. Not
the proper attire for a 36-year-old
woman, but she didn’t care.
On her way out, she walked passed Brent’s father. He
looked at her as if he saw a ghost. “No worries, sir. You’ll never have to see
me again. Only came to sign me out of
your lives.”
The money was in her bank account the very next day.
It was very tempting to go house hunting immediately.
But Finn decided to stick to the original plan. Work like mad for a year and
then look for something nice.
