An arm and a leg

The For Sale sign at 236 Wallace Drive, Jolley Cove, was erected before anyone on the street knew that Eleanor Felton had kicked the bucket. None of the neighbours made much of an effort to find out what had happened to her, because – and not altogether cruelly – none of them particularly cared. They called the house the Fortress of Solitude, its imperial iron gates encasing the tall magnolias that surrounded the corner house. That Martin and Eleanor Felton had a good deal of wealth was all but assumed to anyone who set eyes upon the place, even if only from beyond the gates.

To say the Feltons kept to themselves was as truthful as one could put it. They were hardly seen and just as hardly heard. At town meetings, their absence was unremarkable. At neighbourhood gatherings, their non-attendance was expected. Regrets were always sent, for they were not impolite people. A wreath, feebly festive relative to the grandeur of their home, adorned their door each Christmas to placate anyone who might unduly regard them as misers: See, we don’t hate Christmas, we have a wreath.

Anyone in the habit of paying the Feltons any attention might have noticed that Martin Felton’s once regular outings had become much less frequent over the years. Speculation circled as to whether the solitary spouses had starved within the gates of their mansion, or at least taken to eating the cat. Indeed, rumours about the Feltons had swilled around Jolley Cove since they had arrived in the small town twelve years ago. Whispers passed from one to the other, embellished with each pass, as was natural when no one ever truly knew anything.

According to Geraldine Prang at number 238 – whose gossip, generally speaking, was as good as gospel – the Felton children had something to do with it all. Such a rarity it was to see a car pull up at the gates, let alone four, that almost everyone on the street had watched as the Felton children parked their cars in the driveway of the house one chilly winter’s morning. Well-dressed, well-groomed, and one particularly well-fed, they had passed through the gates speaking quietly between themselves.

A forgotten window on the upper floor of the corner house told Geraldine all she needed to know. The siblings spoke freely between themselves unaware that their trills caught the afternoon air from the half-opened window, where below Geraldine pressed her ears greedily to the skies.

So, Martin Felton had died. They spoke of his death without a trace of grief. They made arrangements for a burial with administration and diligence. And yet, later, as she sat at her kitchen table digesting with a plate of biscuits all that she had heard, one particular remark struck Geraldine as especially odd. She would have sworn she heard them remark that the house looked poorly. Peering at the corner house, its garden as immaculate as ever, she dusted off another biscuit and concluded to herself that the wind must have betrayed her ears.

The four cars were not seen again for almost two years when they arrived again in Jolley Cove, this time for Eleanor. The children had arranged a funeral, realtor and executor within the week. The contents of the home were tipped out to the driveway and an impromptu garage sale was advertised.

And so it was that an invitation beyond the gates of number 236 was finally extended. A sense of long-awaited entitlement drew in the residents of Jolley Cove. They had little interest in buying any of the scattered items displayed for sale but moved between the wares as their curiosity carried them.

Curiosity was quickly replaced by bewilderment, and Geraldine was quick to boast that she had known all along. It simply didn’t add up. They had envisioned marble floors, polished balustrades, extravagant paintings, perhaps a chandelier or three. Instead, strewn across the long driveway of the majestic house was a tattered sofa bed, a frayed bedhead, a weathered dining table and a handful of splintered chairs. Wardrobes, garden benches, a writing desk, each as worn as the next. Boxes upon boxes of pieces and trinkets, and a pile of chipped china.

The neighbourhood rolled in and the neighbourhood rolled out. Scarcely a sale was made as the afternoon dwindled into dusk.

And then it happened.

It had been thrown in with a box of old books, and it was picked up by chance by the Gimbles’ teenage son, Bruno, at number 241. It was turned on its side, the pages flicked back carelessly with a thumb. There was nothing to see until there was. In the middle of the book, as unassuming as its reader, the handwritten words inked in black.

Bruno had the good sense to hold his tongue. He picked up a handful of nearby books, feigned a passable level of interest in each, and placing the small black book in with the stack he asked the nearest Felton sibling with as casual an air he could muster if he could have them all for $10. Perched on a wicker ottoman, she looked up and took his money, waving him away without a glance at his hands.

Ten minutes later, the Felton children stood in an empty driveway. Before them, the many residents of Jolley Cove who had so suddenly and inexplicably returned in a rush to purchase what they had earlier dismissed, now scurried back down the long driveway.

With bemused derision, the siblings sneered to themselves. Balancing a dining table between them, Nancy and Bernard Gimble crossed the street into their front yard. Bruno followed with the wicker ottoman in tow. Lugging a bedside table in his shopping trolley, Leo Krueger at number 232 waved jovially to Bernard as he passed by. Ambling down the street side by side, Frank and Maria Vittoria at number 241 each held a cane in one hand and a shabby dining chair tucked under the other. And exactly what wonders their mother’s moth-ridden vanity had so suddenly excited in the two teenage boys hauling it westbound, they could not fathom.

With nothing left but the boxes of chipped china and trinkets, the Felton children called it a day. They counted the days’ takings and bickered as to how to split the modest sum between them. There was, of course, nothing modest about the $20,000 lining Bruno Gimble's pockets.

The gates to the Fortress of Solitude swung shut and as the four cars drove away, champagne bottles popped all the way down Wallace Drive. Glasses were raised to Eleanor Felton and, for good measure, to her children. And as the night set in, Geraldine Prang hopped from house to house, a wad of cash in her pocket and a little black book tucked under her arm, open somewhere in the middle…

Dear reader,

To you, I leave this book and all its possibilities.

The idea came to us the day my eldest son proclaimed that my illness had cost them, our children, “an arm and a leg”. Of course, my illness had cost them nothing in the strictest sense, we never had need to call upon them for financial support. To my children, my ongoing care meant a dwindling in the vast inheritance each so hungrily assumed would befall them upon our death.

We sold our belongings, all but a few we needed for comfort. My jewellery, Martin’s collections, the many things we had collected and surrounded ourselves with over the years. We gave the majority of our wealth to various foundations and charities. We lived together in quiet, for my health could not tolerate much more, and my children cared not to visit. Forgive me, we would have cherished a different life.

I know this book will fall into hands other than my children. They will cast it to the curbside as junk along with our other belongings. They will make straight for the bank and there, they will find nothing but a hefty mortgage with just enough to settle on a sale.

And so I invite you to take from me, an arm and a leg.

The armchair beside the fire, where my beloved Martin read to me each night – open it from beneath and reach within the stuffing. The legs of our dining table, where we ate breakfast and smiled across the table at each other every morning – twist each to the left to remove the encasements. The armoires, our clothes side by side as were we in life – lift the panel at the back and slide it off. You get the idea. Don't stop there.

I do believe this is your lucky day.

E.F.