― Iris Murdoch
Who knows his heart really? I mean who has a firm understanding of his mind and motives? I don’t, and I think anyone who claims to have a clear insight into his inner world is a liar and a fraud.
Our insides are murky even if others see us and applaud and anyone who appears to be perfect is decidely not…
But is actually scarred like the rest of us though adept at disgusing the flaws.
Do I sound cynical? Well, I am, particularly now as the Christmas season encroaches with sights and sounds foreign to me that conjure a vision that was never real for me.
I took over the family business when I graduated university. Creighton Cards was a vey successful firm and I looked up to my uncle Richard whom I thought was a good man of business, so much so I shivered at the prospect of filling his shoes.
“You can’t be too sentimental, Lucas, he’d tell me, “and don’t be so trusting or you’ll shipwreck the firm.”
Well, no one could accuse Uncle Richard of being soft—he was as ruthless as the robber barons I studied in my History classes and about as successful when it came to earning money.
Uncle Richard died last year and as the sole heir to the family fortune I inherited everything he amassed over seventy years of clutching and scraping pennies.
Yep, old Richard Creighton was a modern incarnation of Scrooge as Dickens portrayed him in A Christmas Carol.
I had every intention of not following in his footsteps but I found good intentions were not enough to change peoples’ perceptions.
Not only did the public despise my uncle but anyone connected with his nefarious enterprises, and most of all me, the man at the helm of a flim flam concern.
Hell, even my employees kept their distance, the way people avoid a contagion for fear that close contact will result in transmission of a disease.
And so it turns out I’m sitting on a fortune but opressed with a curse that turns everything I touch into gold and makes me questions the motives of everyone I meet.
Do I distrust everyone? Absolutely, because I can’t be sure anyone about me is genuine and I distrust even my own motives since I was mentored by my uncle and carry the same DNA in my genes.
I feel imprisoned by the family history and walled off from others by my fortune.
“You want to give away most of your fortune like Bill Gates?” Edward Longmans asks incredulously.
He’s the family lawyer and is the one person I have come to trust over the years.
“I don’t want any part of Uncle Richard’s wealth and I certainly don’t want to be known as the heir to the Creighton Estate.”
The older man shakes his head sadly, “I understand your motives, Lucas, but it won’t make a shred of difference. There’s a blot on the family escutcheon and nothing you do or say will be believed. So many people have been hurt over the years that this stain of the family shield just won’t easily go away.”
“What if I do?” I ask, “What if I change my name and start over in a new place—somewhere remote where people have never heard of me?”
“Well, there’s a problem with that—you’d be punishing yourself and have to leave everything you know that’s familiar to you, with no guarantee that you wouldn’t be discovered and outed by the press. Face it, Lucas, you can’t change the past and alter peoples’ attitudes. You’re condemned to be rich, a Fate I might add, that most would envy if they could be in your place.”
I left the law office feeling incredibly depressed and trapped convinced I’d have to live out the rest of my life as the plaything of Fortune.
It was at that moment when a thought occured to me—if I couldn’t divest myself of my wealth in order to change peoples’ view of me, perhaps I could change my appearance and take a job in a typical occuption where no one would suspect I was anyone but a typical young man working for a living.
Uncle Richard had made sure the media had no photos or images of me that would make me vulnerable to being kidnappedand held hostage for some exorbinant sum—mostly because he wouldn’t want to pay it, but it did offer some protection for me.
Now the question was who was I going to be and what role in society was I about to play? The question was a dizzying possibility but an opportunity for me to have a chance at a normal life and not question the friends I’d make or worry about being viewed in a negative light.
The prospect of staring over overwhelmed me but filled me with hope for a new beginning in a worl which up until now was closed to me.
I could be a nobody and the thought completely excited me.