[four months later]
It was a slow Wednesday morning when Ray and Jade came into the shop. She said her hello's to Sylvia, and me before leaving on an errand for Ray.

Jade had been looking after her father for about a week after he had been discharged from Hospital and after his son, Phillip had left to go home very much with his tail between his legs.

He'd been back a few weeks ago and found Ray in good spirits but with Jade ever-present. Ray and Phillip had had a huge row, which ended with Phillip being banished from the house for good. Jade had taken a leaf out of my book and had recorded the encounter. That recording was later sent to Ray's legal representatives.

The downside of that was that Ray had a fall, and was taken to Hospital in Worthing as a precaution. He was kept in an observation ward overnight for observation before being sent home.

“Take it easy Ray. Slow down. Why don’t you start from the beginning?”

"Alex, my last check-up has shown that the tumour is growing rapidly and my sands of time clock is running out of sand. The incident with Phillip was the last straw. I’ve decided to go into a hospice in Shoreham on Friday. That will keep my dear son off my back. My solicitor is coming over tomorrow. I'm going to sign a letter that permits Jade to stay in my house until my will is read. Both Phillip and Elizabeth have been served with the court order banning them from interfering with my house but knowing them, it won't matter. Phillip needs my money because according to his local newspaper, his latest get-rich-quick scheme went belly up. He knows that I told him years ago that I was done with funding his loser schemes.”

He winked at me. I guessed that he was leaving his house to Jade and wanted her to be in place before he passed. Possession is important when it comes to dividing up estates.

“Has it come to that?” I asked quietly.

Ray nodded.
“I'm having problems with my neck, and my consultants are saying that it will only get worse. At least when I'm in the hospice, my son can't go around making waves. Any scenes, and they'll ban him for good.”

“Does he know about the move?”

Ray shook his head.
"No, and I'm not saying a word until it is all over and done with. That's when I'll call him with the bad news. The last time he was here, Phillip was talking about getting me into a nursing home nearer his home, and away from the people that I know and love. My lawyer, Mr Gerrard knows of my wishes to stay here and to be cremated at Worthing Crematorium. Then my ashes can be scattered at Chanctonbury Ring[1] like my mothers were just over twenty years ago.”

I nodded my head.

“On the subject of love…” said Ray.
“I’ve seen how you look at Jade.”

Ouch… He’d nailed me to the cross in one go.

“Me?”

"Yes, you. As far as I know, you have not had a boyfriend or girlfriend since you came down to this neck of the woods from London. I think that you might like to have a relationship with Jade. If you do just do one thing for me, and that is, don't hurt her. She's been through a lot, especially before she came to this country.
Her mother's family escaped the post-Mao, Cultural Revolution and made it first to Macao and then to Hong Kong. We had a brief affair when her mother came to clean for us. I had no idea that she was pregnant."

Ray looked very sad, which was unusual for him.

“Several years after HK was handed back to the PRC, her mother tracked me down via the Army. I went out there right away. To cut a long story short, six months later, Jade had a British Passport. Not long after that, Jade came over here and went to a public school on the edge of London that was funded by my winnings. I also have funded her university education.”

I smiled at Ray.
"Ray, I get the message. You are being a protective parent. That is fine by me."

He shook his head.
"There is more to it than that. I promised Jade's mother that I would properly look after my daughter. I was a horrible parent to Phil and his sister Elizabeth. Being posted all over the place was hard on them, and when Jade came into my life, I promised to make amends. I spent as much time with her as I could."

“But you never brought her home before your first big fall?”

“I didn’t. You have seen Mrs ‘twitchy curtains’?”

"Oh! I'd forgotten about that busy body. Those trips to race meetings were just a cover then?"

He shook his head.
“They were real. We’d meet up at a course and spend a few days together. She loved being outside and began to love the thrill of racing. She’s hopeless at picking winners but those trips enabled us to spend some quality time together all over the country and away from the prying eyes of my son and daughter. I grew to love her dearly and had begun to hope that I’d live to see her married once she'd finished her transition, but Jade being Jade wants to finish her degree first. Now I’ll never get to give her away… I was in Iraq when Elizabeth was married. I had wangled some leave to be there, but I missed the whole thing due to a dust storm shutting down the airport. I didn’t want to make that mistake twice, but it is too late now.”

I sat thinking for a few seconds before answering.

“Ray, you can rest easy. I won’t do anything regarding Jade.”

He shook his head.
"That's not what I meant at all, and you know it."

I didn’t say anything.

“Just take care of her. She might have travelled a third of the way around the world to be here, but she is not that world-wise. Because of her being trans she has been very careful about dating."

“I understand. I’ve not exactly broadcast my sexuality. Unless you have the right connections, coming out and wanting to be a successful barrister is a recipe for going nowhere. One of the partners in my Chambers found out about my previous relationship with someone who was on the face of it, a respectable lawyer, but in reality, he was a front for organised crime. He made sure that I knew that because I could never be trusted, I’d never become a partner at the chambers even if I qualified as a Barrister. That and many other things made my decision to quit the law very easy, but I not before I dobbed him into the law for drunk driving. That made his life very difficult in the chambers, and not long after I'd opened this place, I found out that he had resigned, and was now working up north somewhere, doing property conveyancing.

“Any regrets about quitting the law? Aren’t there law firms that employ LGBT people?”

“There are some very LGBT-friendly firms, but by then, I'd gotten pretty disillusioned with the law in general. I have no regrets besides, I get to serve great coffee and dish out law advice for the price of something to eat and drink."

“That is true,” said Ray.
He managed a smile, but I could tell that he was hurting.

Ray moved to the hospice that Friday, but before he left, he and Jade came into the shop where he left one last racing tip for the big race at Newmarket the next day. He was in good spirits, but I could tell that he was struggling. Just getting to his feet was a struggle. It was as if the cancer was strangling the messages that were being sent from his brain to control his limbs.

All the regulars were there to give Ray a great send-off. There were a few tears said for this quiet, unassuming man as he left the café for the last time. The mood in the shop after he'd gone was very sombre.

Jade returned a few hours later and gave me a report on Ray.

“He shooed me away as soon as possible. I didn’t mind. He was clear that he wanted to find his way around on his own while he could. The staff will keep an extra eye on him for a few days.”

I poured Jade a cup of her favourite green tea and took it over to where she was sitting. I sat down at the table opposite her.

“How are you managing?”

She didn’t answer right away. Her eyes went everywhere but towards me.

“I’m doing ok.”
"Sorry, Jade, that isn't going to wash it. You need to focus on yourself for a bit now that Ray is being cared for in the Hospice.”

She returned a small nod.
“Are you going back to University?”

“I don’t know. Without Dad, I just feel lost. I have no one left.”

“What about your mother? Wasn’t she in HK?”

"She was, but her phone went dead several months ago after I told her about Ray's condition. My emails get returned as undeliverable. Ray hired a local P.I. to look into things, but it seems that my mother just upped and left. She told no one about leaving. She just didn’t show up for work one day. The P.I. finally discovered that she's gone back into the PRC but could never find out exactly where she ended up. There are lots of her family still there in several parts of the country and I could only afford a bit of travel and the obligatory bribes to officials.”

“I feel sorry for you. I’m always here if you need someone.”

“Dad said that you’d say that but… I’ll soon be all alone.”

“This is my home but…”

“You are going to feel lost and alone very soon?”

"Something like that. Ray tried to tell me that I will be fine, but it does not seem like that at the moment."

"Until the sad day arrives, just get on with life and support your father as best you can, or rather as best as he will allow.”

Jade managed a small smile.
“The latter I’m afraid.”

Ray died thirty-four days later. Jade was at his side for his final few hours. Ray, being the thorough and meticulous person, that he had always been, and had everything arranged for the funeral and his subsequent cremation. Those plans were interrupted by the arrival of his son and daughter.

Thankfully, the funeral home was adamant that they would not release Ray’s body. He’d given them specific written instructions about the handling of his body before cremation. Those instructions had been witnessed by his GP and a local magistrate. Short of a high court writ, nothing was going to happen. I tried to tell Phillip and Elizabeth this, but they were having none of it.

I told them to their faces when they came to confront me about it.
“Please go and consult a lawyer. My advice is free. Theirs won’t be free and will be the same as mine. Your father was a stickler for detail and all that it entails. Deep down, I know that you know that he will have covered all the options.”

“That’s just so that you can benefit from his estate,” said Elizabeth.

"I have no expectations about being a beneficiary to his estate. He told me that I would not benefit financially from his death very early on, just so that I would not be biased in the advice that I gave him. That advice was always caveated with ‘discuss this with your solicitor’. To my knowledge, he always did that.”

“Lies… all lies,” said Elizabeth.

"Please go and consult a lawyer," I replied before leaving them to stew in their pile of effluent.

Thankfully, the funeral service went through without disruption. All three of Ray's children were present, but both Phillip and Elizabeth refused to acknowledge the presence of Jade. I felt bad for Ray. He would not have wanted such bad feelings to exist between his children.

Phillip and Elizabeth didn't hang around for the wake, that I put on at the 'Nag's Head'. As I didn't have a license to sell alcohol, I relied on Ray's friends to bring it along. I provided a table for the booze, and some glasses. My staff laid on a great feast in Ray's honour, and a good time was had by one and all.

I just made sure that Jade was coping with everything. Thankfully, Ray's other children hadn’t spread the word about Jade’s gender but to be honest, I didn’t think that any of Ray’s real friends would have mattered. They treated Jade very well for which, I was very thankful, but I felt deep down inside me that the reading of the will the next day would not be so joyful.

I took Jade into Horsham where Ray's solicitor's office was located, the following morning. She'd worn the same black dress and jacket as she had for the funeral. I knew that this was part of her saying goodbye to her father.

There were eight of us present for the reading of the will. Ray’s solicitor, Frank Gerrard, his son Phillip, daughter Elizabeth, a couple of lawyers who were representing Phillip and Elizabeth, Jade and her lawyer, Justin Shaw, and myself. I’d recommended that Jade get her own legal representative. She'd oringinally wanted me to represent her, but I was not a practising lawyer anymore. I’d made a few calls and obtained the services of a good probate lawyer, Justin Shaw, from Guildford to represent her.

Jade had not wanted Justin to represent her mostly because of the cost. She relented when I told her that Ray had given me an envelope full of cash the day, that he went into the hospice for this very thing. I had a letter signed by him and notarised to back it up. Ray was true to form right to the end.

As Mr Gerrard prepared to start reading the will, Elizabeth interrupted him.

“Why is she here?”
The ‘she’ in question was Jade.
“She is not family.”

Mr Gerrard took out two sheets of paper from his file and gave one to each of the lawyers representing Elizabeth and Phillip.

"As you can see, these are the results of a DNA test showing that Ray was Jade's father. That evidence will stand up in court. Ray had duplicate tests carried out at three other labs, and all the results were the same. Two of those labs are used by the Police to perform DNA testing. Is that good enough for you?” said Mr Gerrard quite sternly.

The two lawyers remained impassive as they looked at the results.

“It appears that Jade is the biological daughter of Ray.”

“We refuse to accept this!” said Phillip.

"That is your prerogative, and you may wish to consult your legal representatives about your options after the conclusion of these proceedings. Ray anticipated your objections and took extensive legal advice on the subject before drafting his will.”

No one said anything, so Mr Gerrard began.

"I will skip the legal jargon at the start of the will suffice to say that this will is dated two weeks after the results of the DNA tests came back, and that will be six years ago next month. I will distribute notarized copies of the will to every beneficiary at the end of these proceedings.”

Again, there were no objections, but it was clear that both Phillip and Elizabeth were getting impatient.

“I'll keep this brief and attempt to keep the legalese to a minimum," said Mr Gerrard, who seemed to sense the impatience of some of those present.

"I leave the sum of £10,000 to my son Phillip, and £10,000 to my daughter Elizabeth. That money is to be held in trust for my grandchildren. When they come of age, it should be used for their education or training."

He continued.
"I leave the sum of £10 to my son Phillip and £10 to my daughter Elizabeth. Have a drink on me, and while you sup it, you should think over what you have done to get up my back so much that I even contemplated giving your both nothing. Your persistent attempts to get me to go into a home at my expense have pissed me off, no end."

“What? He could not have said that!” exclaimed Elizabeth.

“I am here today to read what is in front of me. You will be able to verify what I have said for yourself in a few minutes,” said Mr Gerrard.

"I bequeath the remainder of my estate to my daughter Jade. She has shown more respect to me than either of my other children, and importantly, she never asked me for money nor tried to get me to go into a home yet, she would drop everything to help me whenever I needed it. Half of my estate will be held in trust for Jade to complete her transition.”

“Hold on there… What do you mean ‘transition’?” said Elizabeth, her voice almost shrieking.

“I am transgendered. Dad knew this from the beginning and accepted me with open arms. He said that he would be there for me whatever I chose to do. He was certain that he did not want to repeat the same mistakes that he had done with Phillip and Elizabeth. I guess that Phillip neglected to tell you this? He has known for several years.”

Elizabeth started to say something to Phillip but thought better of it. Her eyes told me everything.

Mr Gerrard then said,
“I have a letter here from Ray addressed to you both. I was present when he dictated it so I can summarise the contents. Ray knew that he’d messed up by not being here for the two of you when you were growing up and didn't want to repeat that with Jade. The letter goes into a lot more detail, but essentially, both of you have forged your own lives without him and he wants you to carry on with that. He is proud of you both but wishes that you had not tried to run his life, especially the constant demands for money from Phillip. The interference started almost the moment he left the Services. I know that Ray made his wishes clear to you both. His letters to you of which I have copies, make it clear that he tried to make amends, but was rebuffed every time. Then… one or both of you decided that there was money to be obtained by cosying up to Ray. Again, I have copies of his letters that tell you in no uncertain terms, to take a hike. He uses those very words so please do not accuse me of making things up."

I could tell that Elizabeth was close to exploding.

“Ray was very… I think the modern term was OCD on documenting everything. His years spent in the stores while in the Army probably has a lot to do with that. He documented every penny he spent right up to when he was diagnosed the second time with cancer. He, as it is called, ‘put his affairs in order’ right after that diagnosis. He prepared a package of documentation for Phillip and Elizabeth to have. Every one of his decisions regarding the distribution of his estate is fully documented, and described. Should you decide to challenge his will, then he hoped that there would be no doubt about the intent of his wishes and that you would see that he was very clear about how he wanted his estate handled after his passing."

Mr Gerrard closed his file and reached down to the side of his chair. He picked up two large shopping bags and put them on the table.

"These are your copies of his correspondence and finances. On top, there are certified copies of his will. Please take them and consult with your legal representatives."

He smiled and looked at Phillip, Elizabeth and their lawyers.

Phillip tried to say something but failed.
Elizabeth stood up and said,
"I'm not staying here to be bamboozled like this. You will all be hearing from me, and I promise that it will not be good news!"

She stormed out, leaving her copy of the documents on the table. Phillip followed, carrying the documents. Their lawyers sat and looked at each other. One shook his head. The other nodded. Then they said their goodbyes and made what I thought was a hasty but dignified exit. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall when they met with their clients outside.

Mr Gerrard sat back smiling.

"I think Ray would be pleased with how that went," he remarked.

Jade had been silent all the time he’d been reading the will.

“What does all this mean for me?” she asked quietly.

[to be continued]

[1] Chanctonbury Ring is an ancient hill fort on the South Downs
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chanctonbury_Ring