Freddie had his arms around her. Gus was staring at the screen as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing and Harriet, who was sat next to Gus, finally felt as if she might be able to cry.
‘Right, you all listen carefully now,’ Andrew continued in his loud, clear voice. ‘I’m sorry that I’m dead. I might be a lot older than I am in this video, but I’ve a feeling that I’m not. The doctor said my heart wasn’t the most stable and I knew that it might give out at any time. I could have maybe had some surgery but I didn’t want to do anything which didn’t come with a guarantee, and surgery didn’t. But living does, because living comes with the guarantee of death. So I chose that.’ He paused, turning his head. ‘Gwen, are you getting all this?’
‘Yes, Andrew, clear as a bell,’ Gwen’s voice replied. Goodness, it didn’t surprise Harriet that Gwen was her father’s partner in crime on this.
So, her father shunned surgery, without even discussing it with them. That made her angry but also, it made sense. Her father hated illness, didn’t believe it in. As children, they had to be practically hospitalised to get a day off school.
‘Right, so I’m dead, and you’ve buried me now, so all that remains is for you to hear about my last will and testament. And I know, you’re not greedy children, but anyway I have money, and I’m dead, so I don’t need it and it has to go somewhere.’ He took another pause.
‘He looks as if he’s enjoying this,’ Freddie pointed out.
‘He certainly likes saying that he’s dead a lot,’ Harriet concurred.
‘It’s so strange,’ Gus said.
‘Daddy could be eccentric,’ Pippa pointed out.
He started talking again and they all fell quiet.
‘So where was I? Ah yes, my last wishes. Well my dear friend David will have a copy for each of you, and as I don’t know what date it is – I mean, I know what date it is today, but I don’t know what date it is when you are watching this, then I cannot say for sure. Gwen, does this make sense?’
‘Not really, Andrew,’ again Gwen’s voice rang out.
‘OK, so this isn’t exactly my will, I’m not sure how legal a video recording would be, but the thing is that David will read you my final will and testament a year from the day when you are hearing this. To reiterate, this isn’t my will, it’s kind of a pre-will, and in a year’s time you’ll hear the final thing.’
‘What the hell?’ Gus said. The four siblings looked at each other aghast.
‘What the hell I hear you ask?’ Andrew continued. Harriet shivered, this was beyond bizarre. Seeing, hearing, her father like this, it was both comforting and uncomfortable. ‘Well, you see, my dear children, it’s like this. I might not have been the best father to you all. I tried, but after your mother died, as your only parent, I feel I was lacking. I tried to give you all you needed, or all I thought you needed, education, money, ambition and strength, but I’m not sure I was able to show you how important happiness was, because after I lost your mum I forgot how to be happy a lot of the time. I missed her, I missed her dreadfully, and when she died a part of me died with her, but I couldn’t fall apart, not properly, because I had you four.
‘I know I pushed you all to do well, I wanted you to be carbon copies of me, but only because that was all I knew how to do. And I think I made a mistake. I think your mother would have taught you to be who you wanted to be and I fear that I always tried to drive you to be who I wanted you to be. And at the same time I spoilt you all materially.’
Harriet felt thick with emotion. Yes, her father had been a hard taskmaster but she loved him and it killed her – bad choice of words – that he felt he had failed them. Why hadn’t she ever told him that he hadn’t failed them? Now it was too late.
‘Now I am proud of each of you, I know you didn’t always think I was, and I know I didn’t say it enough, but I am. My only regret is that I didn’t try harder to keep us closer as a family. I let you go too easily.
‘Harriet, my darling firstborn, you are such a high-flyer and I couldn’t be prouder, but I wish I had tried to get you to visit me more. I would so have loved to see you in person and not just on the computer. Although it’s too late for regrets now I know that.’ He seemed to look right at her and Harriet felt sick.
‘And, Gus,’ he continued, ‘I didn’t support you enough with the divorce. I sometimes think that I only saw you because of Fleur and I adore my only granddaughter but I love my son too and I’m not sure I ever told or showed you that enough.’
Harriet couldn’t look at Gus; she couldn’t bear to see the hurt on his face.
‘And also, Gus,’ their father continued, ‘I never let you be who you wanted to be. That is my biggest failing. One I wish to rectify now, but more of that later.
‘Right, Freddie, well you are the most infuriating of my children, all that party, club stuff, but I wish I had reached out to you and made sure that you were all right and not doing drugs or having sex with women in nightclub toilets all the time.’ Harriet glanced at Freddie, she was pretty sure that was exactly what his job entailed. ‘Freddie, you might be a party boy, and the only of my children who asked for money on more than one occasion …’ Now they all looked at Freddie who blushed. ‘But I should have tried to get you to settle down, and I feel that I might have failed you in that. If so, I am sorry. You have such potential and if you want to do your parties then that’s fine, but you need to grow up I’m afraid, we all do at some point, and perhaps I should have helped you more with that.’ Freddie wiped a tear away.
‘Finally, my little Pipsqueak, well I saw more of you than the others, but still I worry about you. I don’t feel that you are as happy as you deserve to be. I’m not sure if it’s Mark – I think it is him – but you didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask. I think I should have asked more about all of you and I feel if I had been there for you all, then you all would have been closer to each other.’ He looked and sounded as if he was choking up. Harriet had never seen her father cry but this was close. ‘I love you all, so so very much.’ There was another pause where they saw their father pick up a glass of whisky and take a drink.
‘This is surreal,’ Freddie said. ‘I mean, wow, really? Are you sure we can’t have a drink?’
‘Shush,’ Gus told him as their father began to speak again. Harriet felt the familiar voice stirring her emotions. It hurt her, slicing through her. Grief. Finally this was the pain that she wanted to feel, to prove that she was alive and that she loved her father. He was like a god to her. That wasn’t in dispute. But now, apart from on the screen where he was slightly left of centre, she would never see him again.
‘I will miss each and every one of you, please believe that. And I want to put things right for all of you, so that is why the following might come as a shock to you. My actual will will be read a year from today. David will take care of that. Have I already said that, Gwen?’
‘Yes, Andrew, I told you you should have written a script.’
‘No, it’s all here, I don’t need a script.’ He tapped his head. ‘And until then, I need you to fulfil my last, dying wish. Or dead wish because I am dead of course. Ha!’ He paused and stared straight at the camera.
‘We are sure he’s dead?’ Gus asked. ‘Because this is madness, and I have the feeling he’s going to jump out at any time and say
