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Never FORGET your Old DAD, KEN.
I stare at the letter, hardly taking it in. Seeing his writing like that, hand scratching across the page as he’s propped up in bed. How long would that have taken him? I scan the letter again. What kind of treasure could he have? His dad’s old war medals? His mum’s rings? Ancient bottle of whisky? No chance!
That feeling of it being someone else pushing open the bedroom door, slinging the bedclothes back on the bed, peering underneath it. Piles of dust balls and just the box. Dark wood like about a foot wide with gilt trimmings. I pull it out and the dust billows into the room. Brush it with my T shirt and give the corner trimmings a rub. It’s like a kid’s treasure chest with the curved lid and a gilt clasp with a tiny padlock. Solid with the weight of something. I take the little key and open it.
The box is lined with purple velvet. A scroll of papers tied with a ribbon. I lay them to one side and there it is, gleaming in the dull light, stamped with Roman numerals and hallmarks. The size of a large bar of chocolate.
Cool solid weight. Heavier than chocolate. Rub its smooth surface against my cheek. Bite it like some Jack Sparrow testing his loot. I move towards the window, stunned with disbelief as I run my finger over the embossed stamp and letters that confirm:
1 kilo
Fine Gold Bullion.
Wrong Move – Gethin
Francesca throws her pizza dough onto the round baking tray, then watches me trying to pull my wonky oblong into a circle.
‘Frankenstein pizza?’ she teases.
I sling the dough on my baking tray and glance up at her mocking eyes. Am I blushing, of all things? Look away.
‘Hey!’ She moves to the fridge. The brushed steel of the door reflects the deep red of the walls as she holds it open. ‘Remember we used to make monster pizza with Pat at Halloween?’
Instant flash of me and Fran standing on our plastic stools, carving bits of pepper into teeth with knives that weren’t sharp enough.
‘Let’s see, we’ve got cherry tomatoes. Courgettes.’
‘I’ll have courgette for my eyes, slice of olive for the pupil.’
‘These stuffed green ones, like bloodshot! Mushrooms?’
‘For noses,’ we both say, giggling as we remember how we’d argued about mushroom noses.
‘It was my idea, you were going to have a tomato,’ I start.
‘You ate my mushroom nose.’
‘You stole my idea.’
‘I’m going to get you back!’ She pinches my nose, pretends to pull it off, holding the tip of her thumb between two fingers, putting it in her mouth and chewing.
I grab a mushroom and try to squash it into her nose. She gets hold of my hands and we wrestle for control, laughing our tits off. Our heads touch and she looks up, all shiny cheeked with laughter tears. I release my hold, suddenly awkward.
Fran starts spreading tomato sauce onto her pizza base as the doorbell rings.
‘Get it will you, Geth? Probably Mum forgot her key.’
I walk down the corridor, see the outline of a blond head through the stained-glass panel. Looks like…
‘Emily!’ I say as I open the door. Taking a direct hit from the afternoon sun, all I can see is the shine of her hair. I shield my eyes. ‘Fran’s in the kitchen.’
‘I’m not coming in.’ Her voice is tight as fuck. ‘It’s you I’ve come to see. Pat said you might be here.’
‘OK,’ I shrug in an effort to control my banging heart, shift so the sun’s out of my eyes.
‘I thought I could help you, you know, talk through this stuff about your dad. After all, with my experience…?’
‘Your what experience?’ Just her superior tone demolishes any hope that she wants me back.
