Chapter 13

My meeting went very well, Jerry looked at Helen’s bills, added them up, did a bit of number crunching to estimate an annual total then advised me Helen’s bills weren’t significantly more than the annual running costs of my pool. In other words, I would barely notice the extra expense.

Then came a couple of pieces of good news, firstly a short story I wrote last year for the Sunday Times Magazine was syndicated worldwide, my standard contract allows this, but I hadn’t realised they’d sold this story overseas, so I was pleasantly surprised by a nice 6-figure royalty cheque, I think we will be getting a Bentley.

The second piece of good news was a US TV network had finally paid me for a screenplay. They’d commissioned it specially, I’d spent a long time writing it as it wasn’t really my style, then they cancelled the show, and didn’t pay me, so I sued them, and now I was another £1.5million richer, roughly twice what they should have paid me, maybe Kelly can have a matching Bentley.

Jerry asked me if I had any real work in the pipeline, I told him about my plans for the young adult story, then broke his heart by telling him I wouldn’t be earning much from it, as most of the money would go to Naomi, and I would be paying Helen over the odds to be my agent.

“Tom, when are you going to realise your generosity is costing you more than you earn?”

“I know, I know, but if it makes you feel better, I’ve got the writing bug back, I’ll work on a proper story soon, I promise. One that we can sell to Hollywood, or Netflix, or Amazon. I’ve got an idea, just a germ, but I’ll flesh it out once my life settles down again, give me a couple of months and I’ll have an outline.”

“Excellent news. And I hear Kelly is selling her house, I can put you in touch with a great estate agent.”

“Hang on, nothing’s been decided yet, who told you this?”

“George was in yesterday.”

“Oh man, he’s such a gossip. Ok, we’ll be selling one house, probably Kelly’s as my house is bigger, and I have the pool, so when we’re settled and know we work together as a family, Kelly will be in touch. In the meantime, tell no-one.”

I walked back to the library and collared Helen and Glenda for a quick chat over improvements to the building. I always do this when I get an unexpected windfall, I feel guilty about getting so much money for basically no work, so I give a lot of it away. We decided on a new pod coffee machine for the staff room, some new windows in the meeting room and some decorating in the reference library, the video playback from Monday’s concert showed just how tired the room looked. I also suggested the public toilets needed a bit of TLC.

That was probably about £25,000 worth of work and my conscience salved a little. I told Glenda to get some quotes for the work and drop them round at Jerry’s office.

I told Helen I’d meet them at Pizza Express after they finished at 1:00 and I left to scatter some more money around the village, I gave a few thousand to Clive for the village floral displays, I bought a lot of groceries for the food bank, because even though a lot of the folk were very wealthy, Pixie demonstrated perfectly that there were a lot of hidden poor, and the food bank was a well used resource.

Next I stopped at the Royal Arms, not for a drink, although I didn’t refuse the half pint George gave me, no, instead I paid him for Saturday’s Beautiful Gardens prize giving buffet, and I gave him a few thousand to pay for the annual Christmas party and theatre trip, my unexpected windfall also meant we’d have a very special fireworks display on November 5th.

I made one last trip before I walked back home to collect the car. I felt good as I climbed into the Macan for the short drive to Pizza Express where Helen had already snagged a table.

“Hey Tom,” Helen said as I took my seat, “busy morning?”

“Very busy,” I replied.

“What was your meeting about?” Naomi asked, “I saw you come in and walk right past me to grab Helen, you never even spoke to me, and Helen wouldn’t say.”

Naomi sounded hurt, so I had to tell her something, and the truth is always better than a lie in these situations, so I told her.

“So you’ve just given away what,” Naomi totalled it up on her fingers, “£50 grand?”

“Mmm, closer to a hundred.”

“What! Why so much?” Pixie said, astonished.

“I just went to the bank with your nan, I’ve set up an account to pay for you to go to university, and I gave her a bit of cash to make your dad a bit more comfortable, that chair he sits in all day is looking a bit tired.”

“Why have you done that?” Pixie asked, genuinely confused that someone she barely knew would do something like this.

“There’s a few reasons, firstly, I see promise in you, that story you wrote, you have great imagination, you just need a bit of direction to harness that talent, and I really want to help any way I can.

“Secondly, Naomi likes you a lot, and I like Naomi a lot and want her to be happy, helping you out is also helping Naomi, or that’s the way I see it.

“Thirdly, I unexpectedly found a lot of extra money in my bank this morning, so I’m sharing that good fortune.”

“Thank you Mr James,” she picked up a napkin and wiped her eyes, “sorry, Tom, I’m all emotional and I’m forgetting myself. Nobody has ever been so kind to me before, and I don’t know how to react.”

“That’s ok Pixie, I just want to make sure you’re aware there are absolutely no strings attached to that money. It’s yours to do with as you wish, and you have no debt to me, ever. There’s only one stipulation on the account, well two in a way, the first is you can’t have a penny of it until you’re 18, because it’s meant to pay for university, but you don’t have to use it specifically for university, you could pay for a writers’ retreat, or some other kind of course at a college. The second is most important though, it’s your money, not your nan’s or your dad’s, it’s yours. When you want access to it you come to me, or to Jerry my accountant, and we’ll unlock the account, we won’t ask what you’re doing with the money, we’ll just go to the bank with you and sign the form. Once it’s unlocked the money is yours, for keeps. My name is on the account to stop anyone other than you getting the money, that’s all.”

Pixie was full on crying now, Helen took her to the bathroom, for a bit of privacy and to clean her up afterwards, Naomi looked at me for the longest time, then she leaned over and kissed my cheek, “that’s the nicest thing I’ve ever seen anybody do. We talked so long last night, that’s all we did really, well, we watched you two for a bit, then we had a bit of a cuddle to work off the horniness, but mostly we just talked, or rather she talked, and she’s had such an awful life hasn’t she.”

“Yes, not really the best start in life. I think she’ll get more out of being your friend than she will out of any money I can give her. Being her friend though, it could be hard work at times, because I suspect we’re only seeing one side of her personality right now, I’m sure she’s not always this happy.”

“I guess you’re right. What worries me now though is I’ve got a few weeks with her, we’ll get really close, then I’m gone for 6 weeks. Her phone is rubbish, so we won’t be able to FaceTime or anything, just text messages.”

“I’m sure we can sort her out with a better phone if that’s all you’re worried about.”

“Well, no, I’m more worried about losing 6 weeks of closeness.”

“What are you working your way around to asking, Naomi?”

“Well, erm, is there any way she could come to my school? I know it’s a lot of money, and she probably won’t be able to do all they courses she does now, but it’s a good school, and she’ll get all the help she needs in subjects she’s struggling with, and she’ll be out of that house, is it really as oppressive as she makes it sound?”

“Mmm, it wasn’t a nice atmosphere, and I was only in there for 10 minutes. They were both smoking constantly, cheap cigarettes, probably illegal imports bought from a car boot sale, they smelt really bad. Mel, Pixie’s dad just looked up, thanked me for the books then went back to watching the TV. Her nan, Ruth’s her name, seems nice enough, she was quite chatty, but Mel, he’s angry, you can tell, the room was absolutely buzzing with his anger. I think you’re right, we need to see if we can get her into your school, the money is irrelevant right now, it’s her mental health I’m concerned about.”

“Thank you Tom, I feel a bit selfish asking for you to pay for my girlfriend to come to my school, but it’s not just me being with her, it’s more getting her out of that house.”

I looked up and saw Helen leading Pixie back to our table, “quiet now, do not mention school until I know it’s possible.”

Pixie sat down beside Naomi and they shared a moment whilst Helen filled me in on what Pixie had said in the bathroom, I passed on what Naomi had asked, and told her this meant she was probably relieved of the burden of being a private tutor.

“How did you become the kindest, nicest man in the world? I remember you were a complete shit when we were kids.”

“I guess I just grew up, and now I’ve got quite a lot of spare cash to splash around.”

A saw a waitress hovering, so I tapped Naomi’s arm, they separated and the waitress stepped to the table.

“I am so sorry,” Naomi said, “we’ve had a bit of an emotional morning.”

“No need to apologise honey, we all feel like that sometimes. Are you ready to order?”

We were ready, we ordered a pizza each, a double portion of dough balls and a cheesy garlic bread.

Pixie polished off all her goats cheese pizza and about a third of Naomi’s Fiorentina. On top of all the dough balls she ate and the healthy portion of garlic bread Helen & I were wondering how well she ate at home.

On the way out Naomi suggested we probably want some mints after eating all that garlic, so she popped into a newsagent and bought us all a pack of extra strong mints in a vain attempt to ward off the stinky garlic breath on our way to the first car dealership.

Naomi sat in the back with Pixie, Helen in the front with me.

“Are you kids OK in the back?” I joked as I started the car.

“I can’t move my legs!” Naomi cried.

“Which is why we’re going to look at a new car.”

“Well duh, I know that, I’m just wondering if you could move your seat a bit forward before I lose all feeling in my legs.”

I laughed as I scooted my seat forward a notch, Helen moved her seat forward as well, Pixie was obviously too polite to complain.

“So where are we looking first?” I asked Naomi.

“I’ve been doing some research, and I think you should look at the Bentley Bentayga, that’s going to be really nice inside, and is supposed to be a great drive. Then we’ll go look at the Lamborghini Urus, although I don’t think I’ll like it, too brash, we’ll look at the Rolls Royce Cullinan, which will be the nicest inside, but may not be the most fun to drive, and it’s really, really expensive, and I don’t like the look of the back seats, they don’t look very supportive if you were to put your foot down.

“Then I think you should buy the Aston Martin DBX, just go to the dealership and hand over your card, it looks absolutely perfect.”

“So why do we bother with the other cars.”

“So we can enjoy the test drives, silly.”

“Ahh, of course, right, give me the postcode for the Bentley showroom.”

The showroom wasn’t far, and 15 minutes later we pulled into the lot.

You can tell true class, and the salesman who greeted us had it in spades. If you walk into some places with pink hair and a baggy My Chemical Romance hoodie the salesmen will either ignore you, or actively discourage you from stepping inside. The man whose badge said he was called Paul shook Pixie’s hand first and asked her which car she was interested in. I imagine he had no illusions she would be buying a car, but that wasn’t his problem, he just wanted her to feel special.

“Err, it’s not me, it’s my friend Tom who’s looking at the cars,” she said in a timid whisper.

I stepped up to Paul and he shook my hand and asked me the same question, I politely referred him to Naomi, “it’s my daughter Naomi who’s in charge.”