Page 81 of Gold Digger
“No problem, darling,” Margot piped up happily as she grabbed the newspaper from him, took it to the bin in the corner of the room, screwed it up with undisguised enthusiasm and dumped it inside.
“But seeing as tabloid gossiphasbeen brought up,” Ollie went on, “we may as well discuss it before moving on to therealissues. My mother came to know Lottie and Hayley during Lottie’s time in my employ. Miss Lottie Forest took a loan from my mother. This loan was to cover the extra tuition costsfor her sister. I believe you have the educational reports from nine months ago describing the recommendations for Hayley? Hayley’s school was not able to meet these educational needs. Indeed, her SEN money was never used specifically for Hayley – it was put into a pot with the rest of the specialist funding. This was totally inadequate. Hayley was not making progress, and at that time Lottie did not have the means to fund private educational psychology. The loan she took covered these additional expenses, and it has now been fully repaid. I have my mother’s bank statement proving this. My relationship with Miss Forest has nothing to do with any financial transaction between her and my mother.”
“I am not in the business of buying women for my son,” Margot put in. “As you can imagine, he has always been quite capable of attracting interest from that quarter without my input or any money changing hands.”
“Well, I?—”
“Let’s cut to the chase, shall we,” Ollie put in smoothly, his tone turning lethal now as he leaned forward over the table. “Are you suggesting that I paid Miss Forest for sex?”
“Lord Harding,” Denise said in a high voice. “I’m sure we don’t need to go into?—”
“It’sYour Grace.”
“W-what?”
“The correct way to address me is, Your Grace.”
“Oh, I just meant that?—”
“Do you think I have to pay for sex, Mrs Corbett?” he asked Denise, whose mouth fell open in shock. A snort from across the table drew my attention. Laura’s face was bright red, and her lips were pressed in a tight line, clearly trying to stop herself from bursting out laughing.
“I very much doubt it,” Denise finally said in a choked voice, and Ollie inclined his head in acknowledgement.
“No, the real question here is why Hayley’s grandparents, with the much betterresourcesthey purport to have at their disposal, did not offer Miss Forest financial help for this extra psychological and educational support for Hayley?”
Tony cleared his throat and shifted uncomfortably in his chair. “Well, we didn’t really think that… we didn’t know…”
“You didn’t know what?” Ollie asked, raising a single eyebrow. “Were you unaware of the extra costs Miss Forest was incurring?”
“We didn’t think all that nonsense was necessary,” Brenda spluttered, and the room fell silent.
“Did youreadthe educational reports?” Ollie put in, his voice now low and dangerous, real anger bubbling underneath his tone.
Brenda rolled her eyes. “That’s all just a bunch of tosh. The girl just needs boundaries. Not some fancy therapy. Load of American rubbish.”
At that, I’d had enough. I was going to take my lead from Ollie. It was time to stop walking on eggshells with this woman.
“Because boundaries and emotional unavailability worked so well for your son?” I put in.
“How dare you!” Brenda snapped.
“The reason my sister doesn’t speak is not because of a lack of boundaries.” I was surprised by how clear my voice was, but this was my family I was fighting for, and I could feel Ollie’s hand around mine. I could do this. “It’s nothing to do with howI’velooked after her. She wasn’t speakingat allwhen she came to me. She was damaged. Now, why is that?” There was a heavy silence as Brenda looked at Tony, and Tony seemed to shrink in his chair. “Where is your son now?”
“That’s not fair,” Brenda spat. “If he hadn’t got involved withyour mother,he never would have?—”
“I amnotdefending my mother,” I said. “Believe me, I will never defend my mother. Butyour sonchose to have a child with her, and your son also chose to leave his family when my sister was only five. He left her with an unstable woman who slipped back into alcoholism. Something he knew would happen. He did not ring me to tell me he’d done it. He just left. I was the one to go and check on my sister. I was the one who found the flat a complete disaster. To find my hungry sister sitting in filthy clothes, her voice hoarse from crying, whilst my mother was passed out on the sofa.Ireported it to social services.Itook my sister home with me, and I looked after her.Ijumped through all the hoops I had to in order to foster her.Ipushed and pushed for psychological assessments when she stopped speaking. And, by the way, she may have stopped speaking to other people, but sheneverstopped speaking to me. I comforted her at our mother’s funeral. I’ve been there for her since she was a baby, unlike your son and the both of you.”
“We couldn’t see her when she was with your mother,” spluttered Tony. “She was completely unreasonable, and we didn’t approve of any of her?—”
“My mother was not a reasonable person,” I said. “Sober, she was a very difficult woman.Very difficult. Drunk, she was hell on wheels. She consistently let me down, neglected me and emotionally abused me. However, she was deemed responsible enough to retain custody of my sister after she was born. At that time she was sober, but I knew that wouldn’t last. So,Imade sure I maintained a relationship with her. I did this to look after my sister. The alternative was estrangement, and where would that have left Hayley? Did I have to jump through my mother’s hoops? Yes. Would I have walked through fire for my sister? Also, yes. The fact is that both of you washed your hands of my mother and, in turn, your granddaughter for years.”
“It appears to me that the only adult to have put Hayley’s needs first in all of this is Lottie,” Ollie put into the silence that followed. “You’ve made it clear how much you dislike Lottie. Yet shestillfacilitates your relationship with your granddaughter. She still brings Hayley to see you. She even brought Hayley over for Christmas Day last year. Didn’t she? She trekked all the way out to your house on public transport on Christmas Day.”
Brenda and Tony started to look uncomfortable at this point. I wondered where Ollie was going with this.
“Did Lottie spend those hours in your house also?” Ollie asked, it was then I caught the shot of white-hot anger running through his tone.
“No, of course not,” Brenda snapped. Tony looked down at his hands.
