Did I Mention I Won The Lottery? (15 page)

And that was
another conversation ended as he turned the TV back on and was soon
immersed back in the mechanics of car repairs.

Rebecca parked
her small cream coloured Fiat by the front door and started
unloading the shopping bags into the hallway. The weather had
improved marginally. The rain had stopped and the sun was making
more of an effort to make an appearance during the day but even as
the month rolled into May it was still cold and miserable.

Inside it was
warm and cosy. The heating was rarely off and in the evenings
Rebecca would light the fire in the corner of the living room and
watch the flames flicker. She carried the bags through to the
kitchen. Stocking up a house from scratch was a long business she
had realised and today had involved a visit to the supermarket to
stock up the freezer and her kitchen cupboards. She flicked on the
coffee machine smiling as she remembered how long it had taken her
to produce her first cappuccino and started to unload the bags.

She had spent
the last 3 weeks dividing her time between Leeds and Darlington.
The weekends were long and full of Daniel pontificating about Peter
Thompson’s failures, the failure of White’s not to give the job to
Daniel in the first place, the failure of the sales team to allow
themselves to be taken in by Peter Thompson. But he was happy.
Happier than Rebecca had seen him in a long time so she smiled and
agreed and nodded and waited for the final announcement which was
going to take place at any moment.

And then? Her
mind veered away from the next step. Of course once Daniel knew
that he had the job, he might welcome Rebecca’s news. It may be
that being offered the job was enough and he didn’t actually need
to say yes. Maybe he would still want to accept their offer but
wouldn’t feel the need to stay in Darlington. Rebecca really
couldn’t think any further than the present and she lived one day
at a time trying to minimise the number of lies she was telling as
she lived her double life.

As far as
Daniel was concerned she was in Leeds looking for a replacement
home for Gwen. The same story had been offered to Carol and Susie
although Rebecca could tell from the glance they shared that they
still felt Rebecca was hiding something. Little did they know just
how much.

In Leeds the
story Rebecca gave Gwen, Mrs Wendover, Helen and Emma was that she
and Daniel had decided to move back to Leeds and that she was
staying in the area partly because she wanted to keep an eye on
Gwen and partly because she was looking for just the right place to
buy.

She couldn’t
tell the children the same story because they would know instantly
it was a lie. They knew of Daniel’s absolute refusal to even
consider moving back to Leeds. And although Sarah and Toby rarely
spoke to their father these days it wasn’t beyond the bounds of
possibility that they would pick up the phone to say hello and then
hear his version of Rebecca’s absence. So Rebecca stuck to the
Parklands story for them both and Toby, knowing that their father
would do anything to avoid having Gwen stay with them for any
length of time, had accepted the reasons for Rebecca’s extended
stay in Leeds.

Sarah was
slightly more problematical. More than once Rebecca caught her
staring and she had asked Rebecca outright again if she and Daniel
had split up.

‘I’m a big girl
Mum, I can take the news,’ she had declared after confronting her
mum outside the pizza restaurant.

‘Don’t be
silly! Of course we haven’t. I would tell you.’

‘But you look
so different. Happy, relaxed. And you’re spending money, on
yourself. Not that I think that’s wrong, in fact it’s been far too
long coming if you ask me. You’ve done without ever since we moved
to Darlington whereas it had no impact on Dad at all!’

Rebecca had
explained about Daniel’s new job and the increase in pay but Sarah
was still suspicious.

‘But he hasn’t
got the job yet has he? And Dad is always cautious about money,
particularly about anyone else spending it. How come he’s OK with
you being down here staying in hotels etc. before he’s got the
first pay cheque? I presume you are staying in a hotel?’ And
Rebecca had to work hard, reassuring Sarah that all was okay,
avoiding telling her exactly where she was staying whilst
convincing her that there was no secrets being kept.

The lying was
undoubtedly the worse thing she had decided. It was exhausting and
unpleasant.

She really just
wanted to tell them all the truth, let family and friends share in
her good fortune and let them all know that any money worries they
had were now over. And she would, once she had broken the news to
Daniel.

Helen had asked
why Rebecca didn’t look at her old house and Rebecca had to
constantly come up with new reasons; that they had already found
another house they loved, they were on the verge of making an
offer, they both felt a different house would be better. Helen had
surprisingly agreed that it probably wouldn’t be a good idea to
come back to the same street they had left 5 years before.

A bonus to
being back in Leeds was the time she could spend with Helen and
Emma who was now back from her exotic holiday.

They met
regularly, had lunch and generally caught up on 5 years of
gossip.

‘I really
didn’t think Daniel would ever let you back to Leeds you know,’
Emma had announced cheerfully one day. ‘But I’m glad the miserable
old bastard finally realised he couldn’t keep you away for
ever.’

They were
sitting in Emma’s lovely living room with its polished wooden floor
and huge leather sofas. Rebecca caught the admonishing glance Helen
threw at their friend but she shrugged it off. She didn’t care what
they thought of Daniel. She didn’t care that Susie thought she was
having an affair or that Emma thought Daniel was a controlling
miserable man. She was back where she belonged, that was the main
thing.

Rebecca also
met up with Annie again, taking her out for lunch as a thank you
for her help with the house exchange and the two women sat and
chatted for a long time as they talked furnishings and gardens and
lampshades and locations.

And in an
effort to validate the lies as much as possible, Rebecca had rung
Mrs Wendover and they’d had another chat about Parklands. Mrs
Wendover, who asked Rebecca to call her Brenda, hadn’t take
exception at all to Rebecca’s rather direct questions about how
much longer Parklands was likely to stay open and instead she had
poured them both a cup of tea and admitted that she really didn’t
know.

She’d explained
that the home was actually owned by a Mr Hammond who had bought it
several years earlier. He left its management entirely to Brenda
and as long as he could take a profit from the business at the end
of every month, he left her pretty much too her own devices. But
the profit had been getting smaller and harder to come by. Repairs
and renovation were needed. The central heating needed updating,
the plumbing needed work, decoration was necessary.

‘And,’ sighed
Brenda, ‘as I told you before some of the residents are getting a
little behind with their payments. Dolly for example, she’s been
here for years and when she sold her house there was no question
that the money would be enough to keep her somewhere comfortably
for the rest of her life.’

But with a
steady increase in rates over the last few years Brenda knew that
Dolly’s money had now run out and her family couldn’t afford to
keep her at Parklands.

‘Dolly has been
her for over 20 years. She’s 93, I can’t evict a 93 year old woman
and tell her to spend the last few years of her life somewhere
else, without her friends, the room she thinks of as her home.’

Rebecca sipped
at her tea.

‘What do you
think will happen?’

‘Oh I don’t
know,’ replied Brenda tiredly. ‘Well actually, I do, I just don’t
like to think about it. Sooner or later, and I think it may be
sooner, Mr Hammond is going to decide that the profit simply isn’t
there anymore and he’ll sell Parklands. Then new owners will come
along and ‘renovate’. They’ll probably sell off the gardens to a
developer, they’ll cut the size of the bedrooms in half, cover
everything in easy clean plastic, get twice as many residents in,
reduce the number of staff and make sure the place turns a profit.
That’s what’s going to happen.’

When Rebecca
had left Mrs Wendover she’d thought long and hard about Parklands.
The very reason Gwen had chosen it was because of the gracious,
almost old fashioned living it offered. The original architecture
was still present in most of the rooms, the huge bedrooms were more
like suites and the large bay windows gave the residents a view of
the beautifully kept gardens. They all had their own bathroom and
the communal rooms would not have been out of place in the local
manor house. How sad if the sale did happen. How sad if people like
Dolly were evicted at a time of their life when continuity and
routine was paramount to their wellbeing.

And the news
hadn’t improved. Since Rebecca’s last conversation about Parklands,
Mr Hammond had actually had the business valued which had further
convinced Brenda Wendover that he was about to sell. The house
itself had a worth, in addition to the business and the valuation
had come in at 3.8 million pounds.

It was a lot of
money thought Rebecca, but there again she had a lot of money. But
this wasn’t an investment. The lottery people had explained to her
that she needed to put her money in the right investment plan so
that it could produce even more money. They had talked to her of
high risk and low risk, of commodities, stocks and shares and
bonds. About how she had to be careful not use all her capital
without getting some kind of return for her investment. A lot of
what had been said had gone over Rebecca’s head but she didn’t need
a team of trained investment specialists to tell her that buying
Parklands was not an investment. It wouldn’t be a case of making
money, simply spending money to make people happy. She could carry
out all the work Mrs Wendover had listed, put in place a grant for
residents like Dolly and make sure that Gwen and her friends didn’t
have to worry about their home closing. But there would be no
profit to be made.

So Rebecca
chewed on the problem of Parklands and felt better about the lies
she told to Daniel because now she’d had her suspicions confirmed
that Parklands was about to close and she would have to find Gwen a
new home. Or Rebecca could spend a considerable amount of her money
making sure that Parklands would survive.

Rebecca went
home at the weekend, as reluctant as ever to leave the warm
comfortable house that she had fallen in love with. She didn’t
bother to catch the train this time, now she had a reliable new car
to drive. But of course she couldn’t go home and park it on the
driveway so she made her way to Darlington train station and parked
the Fiat there before hailing a taxi to take her home. She took
very little with her. She had of course shopped like a professional
over the last weeks and the wardrobe of clothes she left behind in
Leeds each Saturday morning reflected the amount of money in her
bank account. In Darlington she was a different person. The
downtrodden wife of a grumpy, belligerent man. It was getting
harder and harder to play the role when she returned. The
confidence that had crept back into Rebecca’s life when she had the
ability to make her own decisions again wasn’t easily hidden when
she opened the door of her 4 bed executive house. She knew that
Susie was convinced Rebecca was having an affair. Maybe she was
right in a way. Rebecca was giddy with the excitement of being her
own person again.

The house was
relatively tidy, Daniel was making more of an effort than normal
and the over whelming feeling of guilt that Rebecca carried with
her had prompted a return to making him meals for every day she was
away.

Daniel was in
the living room when she arrived, just packing his small golf
bag.

He looked up
guiltily when she walked through the door.

‘I know you’ve
been away all week and I should be happy that you’re back but I
need to set up some meetings over the next few weeks, start getting
everybody back on side.’

Rebecca held up
her hand smiling from the feeling of utter relief of not having to
spend a day with Daniel and listening to his long term business
plans yet again.

‘Go! Go on -
don’t worry. I need a few hours to relax anyway.’

Relieved,
Daniel could afford to be generous. ‘Well I’ll try not to be too
late and perhaps we can go out for a meal, go round to the pub
again? Or I’ll bring a take away home?’

Rebecca agreed
and shooed him gently out of the house closing the door behind him
with a soft click.

She wandered
back into the living room. There really was nothing about this
house that she liked and nothing that she wanted to take with her.
When they had moved she had been so angry with Daniel for taking
the decision away from her that she simply refused to engage with
him, about the house or the move. She shrugged when he suggested
the choice of wall colour, ignored him when he talked about a new
suite and refused to let him take her around Darlington so that she
could get to know it better.

If she’d at
least met him half way maybe they’d have had a better life thought
Rebecca. She had taken such pride in the house they had left behind
in Leeds. There wasn’t a corner of their old home that wasn’t
designed and decorated exactly as she wanted. She could have done
the same here, she could have tried to be happy.

Then she
shrugged. It wasn’t really the house. That was just a symptom of
how bad things had become between Daniel and herself. No, the real
problem had been the complete and utter change in Daniel’s
character. He had transformed almost overnight from a loving
husband, a good father and a capable provider to a bad tempered,
over bearing man, obsessed with his job and what he saw as a lost
opportunity. He no longer seemed to see Rebecca as his best friend
and wife, just someone who was supposed to keep his life in order
while he struggled with the injustice of a system that gave Peter
Thompson the job Daniel Miles should have had.