Junk Mail

Chapter Twenty Three - Christmas, Clashes and Companions

"Oh it all looks so beautiful!" Hillary cried, eyes sweeping over all the food on the table. "It's going to be the best Christmas dinner ever. Now kids, do you want to open your presents before dinner or after? What do you think Larry?"

Larry thought that he was very happy that he had gotten the food catered for. He knew his ex-wife's cooking skills were terrible because he had had to choke down her food on several occasions when they had been married. He didn't really care about opening presents as he had opened his presents from Ben, Ara and Helena that morning and had no more presents left to open.

"I want to open them now, mum," Hen said, eyeing the gifts under the Christmas tree. "Wren said he wants to as well. We've been waiting all day so can we please, please, please open them now? Please?"

Hillary smiled at how well her daughter was delivering the lines Hillary had written out for her. Hillary was hoping that she could recreate the Christmases she had spent with her children when they had been much younger and unaware of her love for money, and that by doing so she could worm her way back into the family. Hillary was very much aware of how well Larry and Ben had done in terms of business and financial success after they had left her behind, but she was fed up of being left behind. Hen was hardly going to bring Hillary a fortune with a hair and makeup station in the middle of Berkton shopping centre, and Wren was not exactly moving up the ranks in his mechanic's shop at a very fast pace. Hillary wanted instant access to a whole lot of money and clothes and everything else that money bought, and Ben and Larry were her targets.

"Ben, sweetie, do you want to go and open your presents with your brother and sister?" Hillary asked sweetly. "It's Christmas! Go and have a look at all the lovely things you've got."

Ben felt quite sluggish. He hadn't slept again the night before and he was lacking the energy to do anything, let alone start opening Christmas presents with all the enthusiasm in the world. Nevertheless, he did slowly move towards the tree, sit beside Wren who was ogling all of Ben's presents and then begin unwrapping them.

Ben saw books, scarves, DVDs, a new tablet and stationery in his pile of presents from Ara, Helena and his dad. When he came to the joint present from the remaining members of his family, Ben found that they had given him a few things. He saw a framed picture of the family at Christmas (the year in which Ben had been in hospital with tonsillitis) so someone had edited Ben into the image. Ben also received an autograph from his mother, used eyeliner from his sister (who quickly took it back) and a blank cheque.

Ben wanted to know why they had given him a blank cheque.

"So you can give back to us," Wren said, as though it should have been obvious why Ben had been gifted a blank cheque on Christmas day. "You've been living a life of luxury for the past five years and you never once thought about us, but even then we sent you Christmas presents every year and birthday presents too. The blank cheque isn't for you. It's for us. If you fill it in with your bank details, we'll fill in the amount of money we want."

Ben stared at his brother in shock.

What Christmas and birthday presents was Wren talking about? All the presents Ben had ever gotten were from Pepe, Ara, Helena, his father or the other work friends he had made. Never once had Ben come across anything from his brother.

"Well dad went and chose and paid for the presents," Wren said, when Ben raised his confusion. "But we asked him to stick our names on the gifts, so we did give you things. Are you honestly telling me you didn't know we gave you presents? Are you being serious right now?"

Ben was fuming by the time his brother was done speaking, and proceeded to promptly rip up the blank cheque into shreds as his family looked on, shocked. Wren and Hen were appalled, whilst Hillary sensed that she was losing her ties with Ben and Larry so tried to cover the whole thing up by pretending it had all been a joke. Nobody found it funny, least of all Ben who knew it was most definitely not a joke, but was told to calm down by a desperate Larry.