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‘I did well at the bank. I’d always found numbers easy and I was interested in the business si
de of it all. But what I learnt was how many people there were out there who couldn’t get a loan because they didn’t have enough capital or a guarantor, or their ideas were too risky. That didn’t seem right to me. So what I wanted to do was set up a consultancy firm that helped them—and, at the risk of sounding arrogant, I knew I would be able to make a go of it.’
After Claudia died. After those terrible months when the sickness had moved in with inexorable, insidious finality.
‘I decided to try to do just that. So I liquidated everything and worked out of—and lived in—a tiny rented garage.’
Of course his parents and his sisters had offered him a roof and help, but it had seemed vital to him that he achieve it all on his own.
‘It was a lot...but it worked. I’d found a niche. There are so many people out there with innovative, fantastic ideas. I provided finance and advice and help, and it took off. I worked every hour I could, so I could fit around different time zones. It was a mad time.’
‘And a confusing one, I imagine. A lot of that drive and energy must have been fuelled by grief.’
‘Mostly I think I was driven by my own ambition.’
‘I don’t believe that. Claudia’s illness, the tragedy of losing her, must have been beyond awful.’
‘It was hard.’
He’d been there for her every minute, taken unpaid compassionate leave, tried to do everything he could to somehow mitigate the sheer tragedy. To help Claudia come to terms with her illness and navigate the acceptance that she had only months to live.
‘I did my best. She wanted to live the time she had left to the fullest, but it was hard as she got weaker. We tried. I took her to Paris because we’d never been, and to Disneyland. We watched all the films she’d always wanted to.’
As he spoke he realised he’d never shared those bittersweet, tragic months with anyone—hadn’t been able to, given the aftermath of his betrayal. But now, sitting on the green-and-orange-plaid rug in the moonlight, it felt cathartic, and he knew it was something to do with Gabby, with her ability to listen and her warmth.
‘It sounds like you made her last months happy.’
He shook his head. ‘Then weeks after she died I started my business. I’m not proud of that, but there it is.’
‘You should be proud—Claudia would be, I’m sure. I wish she could have seen it, been part of it,’ she said simply. ‘I hope that somehow, somewhere, she can.’
‘It wouldn’t make her proud. Why would it?’ The words were tinged with bitterness and he sipped his wine, hoped the rich spiciness would remove the taste, but knew nothing could.
‘Because she loved you. She’d want you to be happy, to have achieved your dream.’
Suddenly he couldn’t let her believe that. He wouldn’t share the whole truth—couldn’t betray Claudia’s memory—but he could at least burst the bubble that painted him as someone he wasn’t.
‘It wasn’t her dream,’ he stated. The words had never before been uttered, and they felt full of portent. ‘Claudia didn’t share this dream, this ambition. And so it took her death for me to get all my wealth and success. The worst thing of all is that I have enjoyed it—every step of my path to success. I’ve loved it all. So what sort of man does that make me? No need to answer that. It makes me a number-one bastard.’
There was a long silence. He kept his eyes on the sea, rougher now, the dark waves crested by moonlight.
Then, ‘No, it doesn’t.’
‘That’s easy for you to say.’
‘Actually, it isn’t easy. Because I know how you feel. I know.’
Her voice was low, the words caught by the light evening breeze. The dusk had deepened and the warm night air held a different scent now. Cooking smells, sea spray, deeper and stronger.
‘I know how it feels for a life to benefit from a death.’
Her tone was weighted with sadness and he moved closer to her so they sat shoulder to shoulder.
‘My life. My mother was an addict. Drink, drugs... She was the all-time party girl. And becoming a parent didn’t make any difference to her at all. She just took me along for the ride. My father was a drug dealer, a criminal... He eventually died in a prison brawl. Not that I ever knew him. My mother had moved on by then. She broke my grandparents’ hearts—only came home when she needed money or when she needed somewhere to dump me. Sometimes it was a day, sometimes a week, sometimes a month.’
Zander was sure he heard the crack of his heart as a surge of impotent anger coursed through his body for tiny Gabby, tossed from pillar to post, never knowing where she would be from one minute to the next. No wonder she craved security.
‘Anyway... When I was seven she left me with Gran and Gramps and she didn’t come back. Eventually we were told that she’d died—overdosed. And you know what stinks? When I found out, my first emotion, my first thought, was, maybe I can stay here. With my grandparents. Where there is food and safety and security. So if you’re a bastard, what does that make me?’
