A Place of Hiding

His mum appeared to read this. She reached in the pocket of her quilted dressing gown and brought out a tissue that she pressed into Paul’s hand. She said, “You be quick, luv,” and “Ol, let’s see to your breakfast,” to her husband. She added, “He’s gone below,” over her shoulder as they left Paul to prepare himself for his visitor. As if in unnecessary explanation, the booming of the television sounded. Billy had gone on to another interest. Alone, Paul did what he could to get ready to meet an advocate. He washed his face and his armpits. He dressed in the clothes he’d worn a day earlier. He brushed his teeth, and he combed his hair. He looked at himself in the mirror and he wondered. What did it actually mean? The woman, the book, the church, and the labourers. She held a quill pen and it pointed to something: the tip to the book and the feathers to the sky. But what did that mean? Perhaps nothing at all but he couldn’t believe that. How are you at keeping secrets, my Prince?

He went below, where his father was eating and Billy—the television forgotten—was smoking, slouched in his chair with his feet propped on the kitchen rubbish bin. He had a cup of tea at his elbow and he hoisted it when Paul entered the room, saluting him with a smirk. “Good wank, Paulie? Cleaned the toilet seat, I hope.”

“Watch your mouth,” Ol Fielder said to his older son.

“Oooh, tha’ scared, I am” was Billy’s reply.

“Eggs, Paulie?” his mother asked. “I c’n do you fried. Or boiled if you like.”

“Las’ meal before he gets taken away,” Billy said. “You wank in the nick and all the boys’ll want some of it, Paulie.”

The sound of the youngest Fielder squalling from the stairway interrupted this conversation. Paul’s mum handed the frying pan to his dad, asked him to mind how the eggs were cooking, and went in search of her only daughter. When she was brought into the kitchen on her mother’s hip, there was much to do to settle her crying.

The door bell buzzed as the two younger Fielder boys clattered down the stairs and took their places at the table. Ol Fielder went to answer it, and in short enough order he called out for Paul to come to the sitting room. “You, too, Mave,” he called to his wife, which was invitation enough for Billy to join them uninvited.

Paul hung back at the doorway. He didn’t know very much about advocates, and what he did know didn’t make him eager to meet one. They got involved in trials, and trials meant people in trouble. No matter which way the bread was sliced, people in trouble might well mean Paul. The advocate proved to be a man called Mr. Forrest, who looked from Billy to Paul in some confusion, obviously wondering which young man was which. Billy solved that problem by shoving Paul forward. He said,

“Here’s wha’ you want, then. Wha’s he done?”

Ol Fielder introduced everyone. Mr. Forrest looked round for a place to sit. Mave Fielder swept a pile of washed laundry from the biggest armchair and said, “Please do sit,” although she herself remained standing. No one, in fact, seemed to know what to do. Feet shifted, a stomach growled, and the little one squirmed in her mother’s arms.

Mr. Forrest had a briefcase with him, which he placed on a PVCcovered ottoman. He didn’t sit because no one else did. He rooted through some papers and cleared his throat.

Paul, he informed the parents and the older brother, had been named one of the principal beneficiaries in the will of the late Guy Brouard. Did the Fielders know about the laws of inheritance on Guernsey? No? Well, he would explain them, then.

Paul listened along, but he didn’t understand much. It was only by watching his parents’ expressions and listening to Billy say “Wha’? Wha’?

Shit!” that he realised something extraordinary was happening. But he didn’t know it was happening to him until his mother cried, “Our Paulie?

He’s going to be rich?”

Billy said, “Fucking shit!” and swung to Paul. He might have said more, but Mr. Forrest began to use the expression “our young Mr. Paul”

in reference to the beneficiary upon whom he’d come to call, and this seemed to do something profound to Billy, something that made him shove Paul to one side and hulk out of the room. He left the house altogether, slamming the front door so hard that it felt as if the air pressure had changed in the room.

His dad was smiling at him and saying, “This is good news, this is. Best to you, son.”

His mum was murmuring, “Good Jesus, good God.”

Mr. Forrest was saying something about accountants and sorting out exact amounts and who got how much and how it was determined. He was naming Mr. Guy’s children and Henry Moullin’s girl Cyn as well. He was talking about how Mr. Guy had disposed of his property and why, and he was saying that if Paul was going to need advice when it came to investments, savings, insurance, bank loans, and the like, he could phone up Mr. Forrest straightaway, and Mr. Forrest would be only too happy to give all the assistance that he could. He fished out his business cards and pressed one into Paul’s hand and one into his dad’s hand. They were to ring him once they sorted out the questions they wanted to ask, he told them. Because, he smiled, there would be questions. There always were in situations like these.

Mave Fielder asked the first one. She licked dry lips, glanced at her husband nervously, and readjusted the baby on her hip. She said, “How much...?”

Ah, Mr. Forrest said. Well, they didn’t quite know yet. There were bank statements, brokerage statements, and outstanding bills to be gone through—a forensic accountant was already at it—and when that was done, they would have the correct figure. But he was willing to hazard a guess...although he wouldn’t want them to depend upon it or to do anything in expectation of it, he added hastily.