Did I Mention I Won The Lottery? (19 page)

Rebecca was
exhausted with the sheer emotion of the last 24 hours and the
excitement that had kept her going all these weeks had disappeared
with barely a trace. She hadn’t told Helen and Emma yet but she
planned to break the news to them later that afternoon. And when
she got to Darlington she would go visit Carol and Susie.

And then they
would all know. There would be no mores secrets, no more double
lives and yet as Rebecca sat with a cup of tea in her hand gazing
out onto the courtyard she couldn’t stop the tears from rolling
down her face.

She spent the
rest of the day preparing her house for an absence that she hoped
wouldn’t last very long. She eventually phoned Helen and Emma and
listened to their shrieks of excitement and then had one last
evening, tucked up on her settee with the red throw over her knees.
She didn’t put on a film, she didn’t read a book. She just sat
there with her head resting on the back of the settee and revisited
in her mind every glorious wonderful moment that she had
experienced over the last 8 weeks. Her life had changed forever.
The old life was over, she was about to start a whole new one so
why did it feel like a bereavement, like it was all about to
end.

There didn’t
seem any point in putting off the inevitable so Rebecca drove back
to Darlington first thing Friday morning and this time parked her
little Fiat on the driveway.

She could feel
Daniel’s energy the minute she walked in the house. He was walking
around the living room floor talking to someone on his mobile. His
voice was loud, confident. Maybe a little too confident, he sounded
brash and threatening to Rebecca. His shirt sleeves were rolled up
and there were countless cups of half-drunk coffee spread on every
available surface.

He stopped the
call shortly after she arrived and threw the phone onto one of the
chairs.

‘I’m glad
you’re here,’ he announced pushing past her to pick up a file from
the coffee table.

Rebecca smiled.
There was no point doing this with a bad grace.

‘I said I would
come.’

‘We need to
move the money.’

Her smile froze
in place.

‘W - what?’

‘The money!’
Daniel exclaimed impatiently. ‘What on earth possessed you to put
it in your account?’

Rebecca stood
very still in the middle of the room.

‘Do you know
that the snotty little bank manager refused to move it for me!’ he
carried on indignantly. ‘Said it was your money and he didn’t have
the authority to move it into any account without your say so!
Little shit. How dare he stop me using my money.’

He was
shuffling through the papers, ignoring Rebecca even as he regaled
her with the faults of the bank manager.

‘Well he’ll
regret that attitude. I’ve told him we’re moving the account. I’ve
made a few calls already, you tell a bank you want to open an
account with 13 million and they can’t do enough for you.’

‘Did he move
any of it?’ asked Rebecca.

‘What? I’ve
already told you, he refused. Anyway you need to phone him up and
tell the idiot to get that money in our joint account straight
away. I’m putting together the deal of a life time here and I won’t
be held up by some pompous git who thinks he can control my
money!’

Rebecca left
the room as Daniel’s mobile rang again. She walked upstairs into
the bedroom and closed the door tightly before taking out her own
phone and ringing the bank manager whose private number she now
had.

‘Richard?’ she
asked as he answered the phone, ‘Richard it’s Rebecca Miles.’

‘Ah, I was
hoping you’d phone.’

‘Richard I am
so sorry. But this is really important Richard, you won’t move any
money will you? I mean, I may ask you to move some and if I do then
that’s okay but if Daniel, Mr Miles should ring you won’t...’

‘Rebecca,’
interrupted Richard Dickinson calmly, ‘do you remember the very
first conversation we had? This is your money and yours alone. It
is in your bank account and it will stay there until you personally
tell me otherwise. No-one else has a right to it Rebecca not even
your husband. Please don’t worry.’

Rebecca
apologised again. She could imagine his conversation with Daniel
had been far from pleasant and then she went back downstairs.
Daniel was shouting into the phone still and she slipped into the
kitchen and put on the kettle.

‘Why is
everyone so bloody inept,’ he growled following her. ‘If you want
anything doing, do it your bloody self, that’s what I always say!’
and then he stalked back out.

Rebecca took
him a cup of tea.

‘The valuation
has come in!’ Daniel looked up at her his eyes blazing with barely
contained excitement. ‘4.8 million!’

‘What!’ Rebecca
put Daniels cup down on the coffee table before she dropped it.

‘But that’s so
much money, 4.8 million. We can’t afford that!’

Daniel snorted.
‘That’s why people like you shouldn’t be allowed to have large
amounts of money,’ he stated pompously, ‘you really have no idea
how to invest it wisely.’

Rebecca’s head
was whirling.

With the money
she had already paid for the house the car, the furniture etc. she
still had over 13 million in the bank. But she had arranged trust
funds for the children and was arranging to pay off all their
student loans and buy them a little car each. She was still
undecided on whether to invest in Parklands and if she did that
would be another 3.8 million. There were bequests to friends. With
Daniels potential investment of 4.8 million that would still leave
her with over 2 million in her bank account but she couldn’t help
but remember what the bank manager had said, a couple of million
here, a couple there and soon it’s all gone. She had a house to
maintain and children to look after, she wanted to live a
comfortable life. It was all disappearing rather faster than she
had wanted.

‘Oh by the way,
I’ve told those so called friend of yours about the win.’

Rebecca looked
puzzled. ‘Which so called friends?’

‘Carol and that
bloody tart Susie, I called in earlier this week to see if they
knew where you were staying. I said that I’d lost your address in
Leeds. That smug faced bitch Susie, I could tell she thought you
were having an affair so I went back and put her straight. Told her
we’d won millions and you were in Leeds taking it easy. That shut
her up.’

Rebecca’s eyes
blazed. ‘You told my friends?’

But Daniel had
lost interest and had pulled out his calculator to add up a row of
figures.

With a yelp of
anger Rebecca pulled it out of his hands and threw it to the floor,
ignoring the look of absolute surprise and shock on Daniels
face.

‘You told my
friends?’ she demanded.

‘Yes I did,’
Daniel snapped back. ‘I thought the secret was over.’

Rebecca was so
angry she wanted to punch him in his smug face. She had told so
many lies, in particular to Carol and Susie and the one thing she
had needed to do was tell them the truth herself, try and explain
why.

‘How dare you,’
she ground out, ‘how dare you interfere.’

‘Interfere! Oh
excuse me. My wife had disappeared and I went to see her friends to
see if I could track her down!’

‘But you went
back Daniel - you went back and you didn’t have to.’

Daniel sniffed.
‘Serves her right,’ he snapped. ‘Uppity bitch. Thought she knew all
about you. I put her right, you should have seen the look on her
face.’

And he pushed
Rebecca to one side so he could rescue his calculator before
turning his back on her and resuming his tapping.

Resisting the
desire to throw his tea in his face, Rebecca clenched her fists and
stormed from the room. Grabbing her coat and her car keys she flew
outside, jumped into her car and screeched out of the drive.

Arriving
outside the Deli she found a parking space and almost ran to the
shop. There were three people at the counter and one couple who
were just putting on their coats and leaving their table after an
afternoon tea.

Susie and Carol
both looked up as Rebecca came in and although they smiled it
seemed to Rebecca that they were tight, uncertain smiles. She
waited patiently by the door until the couple had paid and left
along with their mountain of plastic shopping bags and the last
customer at the counter had been served.

‘Hello,’ she
said softly, walking towards her two friends.

They both
nodded, Susie wiping her hands and staring down at the counter and
Carol meeting Rebecca’s eyes with a confused look.

‘I know Daniel
came in,’ started Rebecca, wondering how she could explain to her
friends why she had lied to them for so long. ‘I had wanted to tell
you myself.’

‘Is it true?’
asked Susie with wide eyes, ‘Have you won the lottery?’

Carol nudged
her friends arm and Rebecca smiled.

‘Yes, it’s
true. I won 15.7 million pounds.’

Carol gasped
and Susie squealed. ‘15.7 million!’ she screamed. ‘Crikey Rebecca,
15.7 million pounds!’

Rebecca carried
on smiling, how could she not. After all she had won millions of
pounds.

‘We were a bit
confused,’ said Carol coming from behind the counter and giving
Rebecca a hug. ‘Daniel said he needed to know where you were
staying in Leeds. He seemed so angry and desperate. Then he came
back and told us you’d won the lottery and you were staying in
Leeds for a bit. He said that’s why you were leaving work. We
didn’t tell him you’d left weeks ago.’

Rebecca smile
slipped and she slumped into the nearest chair. Carol leant over
and flipped the shop sign to closed and Susie came round and sat
next to Rebecca.

‘The thing is I
won almost 2 months ago.’

Susie’s jaw
dropped open.

‘No!’ she
gasped.

Rebecca
continued. ‘I won the money, I bought a house in Leeds and I’ve
been living there during the week.’

She could see
the confusion in both their eyes.

‘You see, when
I won the money I didn’t tell Daniel!’

There was a
moment of stunned silence in the room.

‘Oh my God!’
yelled Susie, ‘You did what?’

‘I won millions
of pounds, left work and moved to Leeds without telling my
husband.’

Rebecca looked
up at the shocked faces before her.

‘I lied to you
about Mum being ill and needing to visit her. I lied to you about
leaving work because I needed to spend more time with her. I didn’t
want to, believe me I wanted to tell you both what had happened.
But I couldn’t. Not until I told Daniel and I just... didn’t tell
him.’

Carol was still
silent but a smile had started to spread across Susie’s face.

‘Oh this is
wonderful Rebecca. This is priceless! I take it you’ve left the
miserable old bugger now?’

‘No!’ insisted
Rebecca. ‘Of course not!’

‘But you didn’t
tell him about the money.’

Rebecca twisted
her fingers together. Susie was right. It didn’t look good.

‘But not
because I was going to leave him,’ insisted Rebecca. ‘It was just
that it was hard finding the right time and place.’

‘Not really,’
reasoned Susie. ‘I mean if I won I’d just go home and say to my old
man ‘guess what, I’ve won the lottery’. It’s pretty easy
really.’

Rebecca saw
Carol nudge Susie hard and Susie stopped talking.

‘I’m so sorry
about the lies Carol, I’m so sorry but I had to keep it a secret
until Daniel found out.’

Rebecca looked
beseechingly into her friend’s eyes and Carol nodded
reassuringly.

‘It’s okay
Rebecca, don’t worry. It sounds - complicated.’

Susie couldn’t
keep quiet for long and she leant towards Rebecca with her eyes
shining.

‘So when did he
find out?’ she asked curiously.

Rebecca sighed,
thinking back to the moment when Daniel had come bursting through
the door.

She told the
two women the whole story accompanied by gasps of horror from Carol
and excitement from Susie. They ignored the rattle of the locked
shop door and as Rebecca paused for breath Carol rescued a bottle
of wine from the fridge and poured them all a glass.

‘It’s like
something from Dynasty,’ breathed Susie when Rebecca finally
finished and they all looked at each other and burst into
laughter.

‘So you’ve
really won all that money.’

It was a
statement not a question and as Rebecca nodded they fell quiet and
all gazed into the future.

‘It must feel
absolutely fantastic,’ said Susie with a tinge of envy.

Rebecca didn’t
answer. It had felt fantastic. At first, when she was in Leeds and
no-one else knew. Now it felt more complicated. Now it was a
struggle.

‘I should go,’
said Rebecca standing up abruptly. She had suddenly remembered
Daniel pacing their lounge spending over 4 million pounds with no
consultation.

They all hugged
and Carol assured Rebecca that there were no ill feelings regarding
the lies and Susie couldn’t stop the giggles that kept erupting at
the thought of Daniel not having a clue about his wife’s
fortune.

‘I’ll see you
both soon. There’s a lot going on at the moment as you can
imagine,’ Carole nudged Susie before she made any comment. ‘But
I’ll be in to see you both soon. After all, we need to go on a
shopping spree to end all shopping sprees!’ and Rebecca grinned
from ear to ear blowing a kiss to them both and returning to her
car to drive back to Daniel.

Daniel was
still in the living room when she returned. The tea had been
replaced by a whisky and he still had the mobile clamped to his
ear. Rebecca was exhausted. She wasn’t going to cook tonight she
decided, they would have a take away. They could afford it. She
looked in the fridge and found half a bottle of white wine. She
took out the biggest glass she could find and poured in most of the
contents of the bottle. She couldn’t bear to listen to Daniel, he
sounded so thoroughly obnoxious as he banged on to the sales broker
about how money was no object, how he expected that the staff would
be delighted when they found out he would be taking White's back
into number one position, how someone had to make up for the
mistakes of Peter Thompson.