I have to tune them out when anyone else is around which might sound easy but is something I often struggle with.
My train of thought snapped back to the here and now when I heard Joanne’s voice echo through the ceiling. She asked what was going on.
‘You need to talk some sense into him,’ John raged.
‘Please lower your tone,’ Joanne requested politely.
Her calmness only poured petrol on the fire. Raising his voice, John snapped, ‘Derek needs to sign this paperwork and he is refusing.’
‘Yes, John,’ replied Derek, his voice quiet and weak to the point that I could only just hear his words. ‘I know how highly you value Tarquin, but I am not ready to entrust the firm to him. Not yet.’
‘You are no longer at the helm, Derek. You need to make Tarquin the CEO so that the company can move forward!’ John was shouting again, but the tone of his words made it sound like a desperate plea.
‘Why?’ Derek wanted to know. ‘Why such a desperate hurry? What difference does it make to you?’
John’s voice was an angry roar. ‘Just sign the paperwork!’
Derek replied in his weak voice. ‘I am not dead yet, John. Regrettably, the current course of treatment is not having any more impact than the last one or the one before that.’ His statement caused a few moments of silence. ‘I will fight on, but the doctor cannot establish what is causing my condition. All he can do is grant me painkillers. However, my brain still works, and I can manage to run the firm from my bed. As principal shareholder, you can appoint Tarquin as my replacement if I die. I will not sign my firm away while I am still breathing, even to a man as talented as my future son-in-law.’
John didn’t shout his response, but it sounded like a threat, nevertheless. ‘This is a mistake, Derek. I cannot wait. I won’t wait.’
‘Why?’ Derek wanted to know. ‘What pressure are you suddenly under?’
If John gave an answer, I didn’t hear it. The sound of heavy footfalls echoed across the ceiling above as someone (presumably John) stomped away.
I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, I really didn’t, and felt guilty that I could hear every word. The Bleakwiths lived in a wonderful sixteenth century farmhouse. The walls and ceiling were a little wonky, as one often sees with old houses. In the kitchen, I had spotted the familiar bow of a ship’s hull in one of the beams. When broken up, parts of old warships were often repurposed for housebuilding. That was particularly true in this part of the world so close to Chatham Naval Dockyard where so many of the Navy’s ships were built.
I know both Derek and John from school. You might say we grew up together. However, where Derek and I were friends – I was organising his daughter’s wedding free of charge - John Ramsey and I did not see eye to eye. John was a nasty boy at school and though he might have changed as he aged, I never felt inclined to find out. I hated him back then and avoided him now.
Derek ran a successful printing business which he built from scratch. It’s where I get all my printing done and I don’t get charged because I am a silent partner in the firm. I invested some seed money thirty years ago when Derek was setting it up. The plan was to pay me back, but Derek suggested I keep a share instead. It has provided a dividend every year since which has repaid the original loan many times over.
I don’t play a part in the firm, or attend any meetings though Derek always sends me an invite and a copy of the minutes. Had I been active, I might have tried to block John joining the firm a year after Derek started it.
I knew Derek was sick and had been for some time. It was something to do with his skin and he was suffering crippling joint pain too. I hadn’t seen him for more than a year – busy lives and all that – when the call came from him to ask if I would arrange his daughter’s wedding.
How could I refuse?
The heavy footfalls were now on the stairs, and curious (never nosey), I craned my head slightly to look back through the house.
John Ramsey’s face was a mask of rage, colour filling his cheeks still as if he might be ready to burst like an overripe berry. Yanking his coat from the hook by the door, he tore the lining inside it, and swearing, stuffed his arms into it as he barrelled from the house.
The solid oak door slammed back into its frame with enough force to shake the house. It caused a fine sifting of dust to fall from the oak beams above my head.
Upstairs, the conversation continued yet now it was a soft muffled mumbling I could hear, the house doing its job to damp out the volume so the words could not be overheard.
Buster snorted, twitching in his sleep as he chased something imaginary in his head. I scratched his belly with a free hand, passing time while waiting for Tamara and Joanne to return and my thoughts drifted to the same subject they always did recently – the eagerly expected royal wedding. Twelfth in line to the throne, and soon to be pushed further back down the list as his eldest brother’s wife was expecting yet another baby, Prince Markus was in possession of a twenty-five-thousand-pound diamond engagement ring.
How do I know that? Because the London jeweller that sold it to the prince’s valet was good enough to let me know. I have a lot of friends and we help each other in a
