Bone China
Bone China
Roland had his future all mapped out. But his confidence could have been misplaced...
Issue #27, Sunday 27 August 2023
Bone China
(1,060 words)
Roland Burgess pushed roughly past his mother’s maid as she opened the drawing-room door to him.
“Mother…” he began.
“Sit down, Roland, and have some tea. It’s just been made.”
“I don’t have time for this. I need to…” He stood glowering in front of her as she sat at the antique side-table. He was a big man, and his fists were clenched.
She gazed up at him, her fine features set in that disapproving look he knew so well. How many times had he seen that look during his childhood and even throughout his adulthood? Too many times.
“You surely have time for tea, Roland. It will help you calm down. Please sit.”
Deflated, he sat in a flower-patterned armchair which was probably worth thousands. He had never been someone who understood the antiques market. It creaked a little under his weight.
“Do you like the tea set?” she asked conversationally. “It’s new. Bone china. Almost transparent.” She held up an empty cup, and he could see a cloudy light shining through it. “Terribly expensive, of course.”
“Of course,” he said sourly. “Mother, I need to talk to you about money.”
“Wait for the tea, dear.” She carefully poured from the elegant teapot into the cup she had just held up.
Roland’s mother, her white hair tied back into a firm bun, was a perfect match for the bone china. Now in her early 90s, she had become thinner, paler and more delicate with every passing year, and now she seemed like some semi-transparent piece of crockery herself.
“You take milk, of course. Lately I have decided that I prefer it with lemon. Strange how one’s tastes change.” She handed him the cup.
He sipped impatiently at the tea, annoyed by the way his large hands had to struggle with the exquisite cup. He preferred large mugs.
“It’s about the family trust,” Roland said, putting down the cup with a clatter, and splashing a little tea into the saucer. “I need you to transfer me a big chunk of cash. One of my manufacturing companies needs to retool its equipment, or we won’t be competitive.”
She frowned. “Again? It was only two months ago you needed cash to cover your financial firm’s investment losses.”
“You don’t understand these matters, Mother. In fact…”
She looked up at him sharply. “In fact?”
He plunged on. “In fact, I think it’s time for you to step down as trustee. The trust’s investments have been far too conservative over the years. We could make much more by investing more aggressively.”
“Like your firm did, you mean?” There was a faint smile on her thin lips. “The one that lost so much money?”
“That was a mistake. I sacked our investment manager over it. It won’t happen again.”
She sipped her tea from the fine china and shook her head sadly. “No, dear, I don’t think I’m ready to step down. I’m sure your father wouldn’t have approved. He placed control of the trust in my hands, after all.”
“But that was forty years ago, Mother!” Roland stood up angrily. “I was only in my twenties then. And now you’re…”
“In my nineties, yes, dear, I’m quite aware of that. But you haven’t changed, have you?”
Roland said a foul swear-word. He towered over her and his face turned red.
“Language, dear,” she said. “Do sit down again, you haven’t finished your tea. Have one of the cucumber sandwiches.”
“I don’t damn well want a sandwich, or any of the damn tea. I want some money. Damn it, I want all the money, now, not when you die.”
“If I ever do? Is that what you are thinking?” She looked up at him with calm blue eyes.
He stood shaking with rage. “I…”. He stopped and forced himself to calm down. Finally, he sat down again in the over-decorated armchair.
“Well, it doesn’t matter what you say,” he said at last. “I’ve had my lawyers draw up the papers. You’re clearly too old to be managing so much money. You’ll be declared incompetent and the trust’s assets will be transferred to my control.” His florid face showed his satisfaction with the idea.
“I see,” she said quietly. She picked up the teapot again, looking thoughtful, and poured herself another cup of tea. She looked inquiringly at him, and he shook his head, his face still red, lips compressed.
She sighed. “You are a great disappointment to me, Roland. I believe I have handled the trust well over the years. I have made some investments with a degree of risk, but they were carefully chosen and they have all paid off. Unlike yours.”
He leaned forward menacingly. “Mother, you don’t…”
“Understand? But I do, dear. You should have seen the need to reorganise your manufacturing business five years ago when the Koreans entered the market. In fact, I’ve been talking to members of your board. I invited them all here the other night and we had a most congenial dinner together. I was able to lay out the facts, and they agreed with me that you have been making most unwise decisions recently. You will find when you return to the office that they have met and decided to remove you as Chairman and Chief Executive.”
“What? You…! Damn you!” He stood again, and then, in a fury, stooped and picked up the delicate bone china teapot and hurled it with all his strength at the marble fireplace. A stream of tea trailed after it.
To his astonishment, the teapot simply bounced off the stone and rolled unharmed to the carpet. He stood staring at it for a moment, then strode over and kicked it again at the fireplace. The same thing happened. He tried to stomp on it, and very nearly lost his balance when it refused to crack beneath his foot. Open-mouthed, he turned to his mother, who had been watching with amusement.
“It’s made from a new ceramic, dear, incredibly strong. One of my investments was in a company developing several radical new production techniques. I believe the ceramic is going to be used for the heat-shields of the next generation of spacecraft, among other things. Very profitable.”
She went on calmly, still sipping her tea, “Roland, dear, I do have my own lawyers. What judge would assess me as being incompetent once he sees how well my investments have paid off? And how poorly yours have done? You really must learn to think things through.”
He finally spluttered “Who…?”
“Who will be the new Chief Executive? Why, it will be myself, of course. Dear, dear, Roland, your blood pressure!”
© Copyright David R. Grigg. All rights reserved.
About This Story
I can’t now remember the prompt for this little piece of flash fiction, but I am pretty sure it must have been prompted by Chuck Wendig’s blog: he regularly posted useful creative prompts, including the one which gave me the idea for Glorious Gold.
And that’s all for this issue. I’ll try to post a more substantial story next month.