should be leaving well enough alone. With her usual quiet movements she walked into the kitchen and closed the door. Jim heard the rattle of the water tap as it came to life and the solid click of a kitchen cupboard. She would be making tea, strong and hot, perhaps pouring a nip of whisky into hers to ward off the melancholy that stalked her these days. It was true that his mother wished Sarah Gordon had never come to their country. And it was equally true that neither of them would have believed that he could be heir to land in Australia.
‘The place has been willed to you fair and square by Angus Gordon himself,’ said Robert Macken, chewing on the stem of his pipe.
Jim flicked back through the folder. ‘I still can’t believe you waited so long to tell me.’
‘Probate took some time, I told you that, lad; and there was a clause in the will that gave us until next month to respond. I was not of a mind to use it, but your mother insisted. She didn’t want to rush things. We only want what’s best for you,’ his father persevered.
‘Do you?’ Normally his father would begin arguing. They had always argued and the past that grows between father and son is always difficult to erase, no matter whether it has been good or bad. Yet their relationship was now altered. For three weeks Robert had not been his blood father and although Robert knew of his wife’s pregnant state before they were betrothed, the revelation of Jim’s natural father caused a marked alteration in their reasonably contented existence.
‘Now what type of a question is that?’
It was one Jim decided was plain enough, for he knew where his mother’s preference lay. She would sooner see him a pauper than open himself up to grief. As for his father, or his Scottish father as he’d mentally begun addressing the man who’d clothed and fed him, he was beginning to see the makings of what pride could do when there was the opportunity of mixing it with a little revenge.
‘You owe them nothing, lad. Think of the money.’
The sentence was punctuated by the re-entry of his mother, carrying a white plastic tray. Her eyes met his as she placed the cups of tea on the wooden table with a slight clatter of crockery. When she sat again in the wooden rocker that once belonged to her own mother, her hands were wrapped securely around the hot tea. Her cheeks were tinged a becoming red, her eyes soft. More than a nip had been consumed, of that Jim was sure.
‘Jim’s existence has been acknowledged, surely that is enough.’ She blew carefully at the steaming tea; the rocking chair ceased its gentle sway. ‘Besides,’ his mother continued softly, ‘it is Jim’s decision.’
Robert huffed loudly, the noise of his teeth chewing at the pipe filled the room. ‘This is a will, woman. There is no decision. I know we’ve all had much to come to terms with,’ he nodded in his son’s direction, ‘but it’s past the time for waiting. It’s not fair to them –’ his large thumb pointed at the folder – ‘nor us. This is a lot of money. The whole family could benefit from it.’
‘And what happened, Robert Macken, to being happy with our life? How many times in the past have you sat at this very table and told Jim not to wish for greater things, to appreciate his life,’ she held up a quivering finger to his obvious desire to interrupt, ‘and I agreed. We have food and a roof over our heads and the things that have been most blessed to me remain so. My family, this place where I shall live and die, sleek cattle, the pungent scent of peat …’
Robert gulped at his own tea. ‘Don’t be idiotic, woman. Your son is a descendent of the Gordon clan. He is entitled to his inheritance. How, as his mother, could you possibly ask him to ignore this?’ He waved a typed letter in the air, the thick creamy paper crackling with the action.
‘The money doesn’t belong to you, Jim.’ His mother continued sipping at her tea.
Jim admired how a woman of such impoverished birth could turn down the chance of wealth, yet it also surprised him she remained so adamant.
‘Rubbish.’ Robert folded the letter carefully, placing it on the narrow mantlepiece above the fire.
Part of Jim wished that Sarah Gordon had never visited