Sharpe's Downfall

My name is Islington Sharpe. My friends at the club call me shagger. I mean, that's not true, they called me shagger once after I had relations with a horse, but they usually just call me pin. Short for pinhead and related to Sharpe – Sharpe being my last name as I wrote two lines ago. I used to have a fear of frogs. One exploded on me after I found it inflated on the pond at our summer home in Spain. No, sorry, not Spain. Portugal. Hmm, it was one of those places. Mediterranean. Hot as shit. Frogs that swell up in the heat and explode, as I recall.

But that was then, and this is now.

We don't live in Surrey anymore. Daddy took a hit in ’05 and we moved to get away from the gossip. We live in New England now. Daddy bought a house for mummy, but she died just after her Green Card arrived. I love New England. The colours. The trees. The yacht is my first memory, if I'm honest. Watching Daddy sail away with his chums. Mummy used to get awfully drunk when daddy was away. She'd cry when Uncle Stephen left too. Told me not to tell daddy about Uncle Stephen. She says, even though they aren't brothers, they hate each other all the same and daddy would get angry to know that he'd visited mummy while he was away with the boys.

I loved Uncle Stephen. He used to take me out for walks in the morning so mummy could have time to rehydrate. Alcoholism is such a bind in mothers. I do miss her.

I once bought a spot of land in Slovakia. Best thing I ever did. The price has rocketed ever since the locals were relocated. We found oil which is now officially ours after the court hearing. Twenty years of oil. That should take me over ten billion. We're already thinking about where to start with the fracking process, but we don't want to do that while the oil is still chugging up. The stock prices rise every day. I check them every morning.

But I do miss Uncle Stephen. I think about him often. Thinking about him now… but then again, I suppose it would be impossible not to think about them when you're writing about them, what. I just wish he hadn't disappeared like that so soon after mummy’s passing. I needed a shoulder. A big strong shoulder. But, off the face of the planet. It's like he was burned to dust or dropped in the ocean somewhere. I just don't know. I regret not telling him I loved him. I wanted to show him my Lamborghini. I got it with my inheritance. I love my inheritance. In a way I'd say it's my greatest achievement. Mummy used to say she’d never leave me anything, but I managed to worm my way into her good books… with some help from Uncle Stephen. I carry a lock of his hair with me in a little case. I have it in my pocket right now. There you go Uncle Stephen. Giving you a nice stroke. You liked to be stroked didn't you? I have this recurring dream where he's my Golden Retriever and we frolic on the fields. He used to sing a song to me: ‘Alice’ by Roy Chubby Brown. It's my favourite song. I think if I was forced, I'd seriously consider giving my life for that man as long as there were paramedics and doctors standing by. I loved his scent. I used to say ‘you know, Uncle Stephen, if I was a woman, I'd fall for you so hard’. I said it too often. But he always smiled. But now, all I have is Daddy, and I never see him. Hardly ever.

Poor mummy. Poor me.

So, it came as a huge surprise when daddy found out about me and Uncle Stephen. He was furious. He wrote me out of his will. That was failure number one. Number two was the uprising in Slovakia and the dictatorship of a man whose name I have difficulty pronouncing. I lost the oilfields. As all the property I had was in daddy's name, that became failure number three. Failure number four was not knowing about Unemployment Benefit. I was basically starving for three weeks, living only on water provided by the food bank. I don't eat tinned food, you see. Gives you cancer.

But then I met Jason and Susie. Such charming people. Collectively, they have thirteen teeth and they smell a little, but I only know that because people hold their noses around them. I have anosmia from the accident on daddy’s yacht. The swinging sail that knocked me overboard. They said it was a good thing I lost consciousness when my nose broke or I would've died of a heart attack when the shark showed up. Attracted by the blood, you see.

Lovely people, Jason and Susie. They told me about Job Seeker’s Allowance and so now I get free money. I give them half to help them get by, but no matter how many times I tell them about mummy, they just won't stop drinking. “Ach, that'll never happen tee us, ye dumb bastard ye!” I told him that studies show that the more alcohol you drink, the greater is the probability that you'll die from alcoholism. He said, “Scottish people, de ne die fre alcohol, see-me? Scottish people, especially fre Glasgee can hold their liquor. See me...”

I did see him. I saw them both, but I couldn’t understand a blessed word they were saying. Though, if I could – understand them – I’d check out what they said on the computer if I had the money to buy one. As it is, I just took his word for it.

And I love their accents. They remind me of the servants we used to have in our London home. ‘Jolly Scotch Fuckers’ is what daddy called them. But when he said it, it was as though he didn't really like them. I love them though. Have you ever been to the highlands? Oh, lovely place. Was thinking about buying a tent when I have enough money and asking for a lift (just to remind me what it was like to have a chauffeur, what). I was thinking, when I get there, I'll pitch up somewhere on the coast and just sit and watch the sea and the sun when there's a gap in the clouds.

Yes. A gap. I think I'll just sit there until I get too weak to do anything about it and I fall over from exhaustion. Too weak to move my eyes so all I can see are the waves and I can think about the yacht and Uncle Stephen and… well, then it'll be over and I'll be in heaven and I'll finally find out if the rumours were true about why Uncle Stephen disappeared.

I'll see if I can come back as a ghost, just like the Jedis do and give daddy a surprise. Hopefully that'll finish him off and he'll be together down there with mummy. They never did like the heat that much. Pity.