A True McEvoy

The old house is draughty without the old man around, ordering maids to clean faster or for me to stand taller. So I sit outside on the green hill, feeling the sea breeze brush against me and the sun warm my face. I gaze over the estate with it’s tennis courts and balconies, neatly cut hedges and blue tiled swimming pool. That will be mine and so will the rest of the money once I do what must be done. It will be mine, not hers.

I clutch the small black notebook on my lap. My most prized possession. I remember grandpa, sitting in his rickety armchair in the stifling attic library. Books piled, shoved and squeezed into every last inch of the room. I remember standing before his frail figure while he spoke. Stern and direct. Explaining.

“Emma. You are my eldest granddaughter. With your mother gone, you and your younger sister are all I have. Now, as much as I would like to believe I am immortal, some things money simply cannot buy. So I am giving you this book and you must keep it safe.”

The dust and dry air seemed to press around me, suffocating, as I took the book from his sea and sun weathered hands. The book was beautifully crafted. The, once smooth leather, now beaten and aged yet it almost seemed as if it had only grown stronger. Toughened by years of being used.

I glanced up to see the unruly eyebrows of my grandpa, lines traced along his face, “You will not understand this now but you will soon. You will soon be a true McEvoy. A true part of our family. Our legacy.”

I had been so sure then, so certain there was nothing in life that could reach me. I was untouchable.

Now as I run my fingers over the ripped remains of past pages, I stare down at the one name written on the first page. Greg Walter.

Grandpa’s funeral was large. Large enough for all my grandpa’s old business partners to fit. Large enough for a life size portrait of him in oil paints, to be displayed. Large enough and more opulent than was needed. I had been squeezed onto the front bench. My right arm digging into the wooden end of the pew, my other side being pressed hard against my sister, Helen. She wore a heavily frilled dress, clutching a handkerchief as if she would have any reason to use it. We both played the part. The part of the mourning granddaughters. But I could feel her tense, just as I did when the man with the briefcase came over and asked if he could speak to the youngest McEvoy grandchild. Helen struggled to hide her smirk as she glanced my way, standing and following the man with the briefcase. I sat for what felt like hours.

My mouth agape and tears flowing freely down my face. I disregard the looks of sympathy or small touches of the shoulder. I didn’t want these people’s sympathy for they did not know what they were sympathising with. My money. All my money was going to Helen. That was meant to be mine.

I had woken up the next day, eyes swollen and red. I lay there for hours mulling over the events of the day before. The victorious look on Helen’s face when she came out of the room with the man with the briefcase and her beady little eyes when I was asked to enter. The way her cheeks flushed with delight when I saw her next, as we both knew that she got everything. All the property, all the money, all the security, while I got nothing.

I had eventually dragged myself out of bed and found my way to grandpa’s office. I had always felt comfortable in this room, surrounded by the heavy books and walls full of framed family photos. The room felt safe, silent and never changing. I settled in front of the computer in grandpa’s old office, only to see an email.

Check your balance.

I glared into the bright light of the screen, jarring in the early morning darkness, knowing Helen was behind it. Rubbing in the fact that while her bank account was overflowing, mine would now be virtually empty. But I checked it anyway.

I sat frozen. My breath stuck in my throat. I counted the zeros just to ensure I hadn’t made a mistake. There, written in front of me, was the number 20, 000. But why? Where had this money come from? Was this a mistake? What did I do now?

Overwhelmed, I sprung from my seat and paced the office. My eyes traced the mahogany furniture and golden spined books, the glass paperweights and framed photos until my eyes caught on a photo of grandpa. He was dressed for polo, his brother and father standing beside him. Broad smiles on their faces, as their father had an iron like grip on their shoulders. I checked the date on a golden plaque below. 1948. Only a year before his father died, before his brother went missing. No wonder he seems so care free, he hadn’t yet experienced death. He wasn’t yet a true McEvoy.

I took a deep breath and walked back over to the desk. I slowly lowered myself down to see who the payment had come from but I didn’t recognise the account. About to call for my father, that is if he would have heard me in his drunken stupor, I froze when I saw a message attached to the payment- “G.W- 0490 343 675”. I stared in confusion, the questions in my head multiplying till it began to pound. I reached for the glass of water sitting on the table and took a sip. I wince, not water, bourbon.

My father doesn’t drink bourbon, more interested in the less expensive but more effective stuff. However my grandpa did. I could picture him settled in the lavish armchair in the corner, crystal glass in hand, while his guests perched awkwardly on a stiff and unwelcoming ottoman. Grandpa was a man of tradition. A man of repetition.

Each month when the new profit figures of his business were announced he would sit in that chair, glass in hand, his business associates surrounding him in the festivities. When I was younger I would be paraded around the room like a show pony, bow in hair and black shoes shining. That was until I reached my grandfather where he would say the same thing every time, “This is important Emma. This will all be yours one day,” at this he would wink and I would stare back at him blankly. I was seven, how did he want me to react? I would then turn to leave, drained from the constant observation but I would be interrupted, “Be polite Emma,” he would say gesturing at the man always by his side at these gatherings, “Say goodnight to Mr Walters.”

I had shot up in the leather seat then. It had all made sense. The 20,000 dollars. The dark and sullen man, almost on the doorsteps of death himself seated beside my grandpa. And the long history of missing siblings in our family. Generation after generation, a McEvoy sibling would go missing, lost in a terrible accident. I had stumbled around the office grasping at pictures on the wall. My great-great grandfather mourning both his brother and father in the same month, Mr Walters standing behind him, almost like a shadow with his sunken eyes and greying skin. My grandpa standing with my mother, a child by his side, with a tear streaked face as they attended their second funeral in two weeks. First her grandfathers, then her uncles. It all made sense.

I had called Greg Walters then, hands shaking. Certain in my actions, yet fighting the urge to be sick. I dialled the number, the old telephone rattling as I turned the dial. Deep breath. Deep breath. This is what I wanted. The line was picked up, “Hello?” I’d asked, “Mr Walters? I believe you require 20,000 dollars? It is time.”

I am brought crashing back to the present as a scream rings out from the old draughty house. My hands clench the black book tightly. I straighten my back and stand from the grassy hill, surveying what was now finally mine. Straight back and head held high, just the way Grandpa would have wanted.

For now I am a true McEvoy.