Read Did I Mention I Won The Lottery? Online

Authors: Julie Butterfield

Tags: #betrayal, #second chances, #lottery win, #new start, #failing marriage, #lifestyle changes, #escape unhappy marriage, #millionaire lifestyle

Did I Mention I Won The Lottery? (3 page)

BOOK: Did I Mention I Won The Lottery?
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She could buy
the children cars as well, nothing over the top but something to
give them some independence.

She hugged
herself. What fun! What else could she buy?

She thought
about a holiday and realised that Daniel would only want to go
somewhere he could play golf - regardless of what Rebecca might
want to do. He certainly wouldn’t be interested in a weekend in
Prague or New York, ‘who wants to go to a city for a break, just go
into Newcastle and shop instead’ he would say. He wouldn’t dream of
going on a cruise ‘surrounded by people who thought they were
better than they were’. He certainly wouldn’t want a couple of
weeks on a tropical beach ‘God knows what you’ll catch and why go
all that way when there’s perfectly good beaches much closer to
home’. And as for skiing - Rebecca could just see his face turning
purple as he explained to her how many people broke their legs or
even worse, their necks on the ski slope every year.

So she moved
quickly on and thought about a house. But she knew that would be
another problem. Daniel would want to stay in Darlington. They had
moved here five years before when Daniel had decided he needed to
be closer to Head Office. It made no difference as Daniel’s area
spread right down to the Midlands but he had decided they needed to
move and that’s what happened. The move had coincided with Peter
Thompson’s arrival at White’s. Daniel decided that the reason he
hadn’t been promoted and that Peter had been chosen for the job was
because Daniel hadn’t lived close enough to the office. Daniel had
been overlooked because of his location, because he wasn’t in the
office every day to remind them who he was and how good he was.
Rebecca was of the opinion that if Daniel had been good enough for
the job they would have given it to him anyway but muttering about
being held back and needing to compete Daniel had dragged them all
North.

Rebecca and the
children had hated it. Rebecca had loved Leeds. She had loved the
village they lived in on the outskirts of the town, she had loved
her friends, the life she had grown for herself over the last 15
years. The children were appalled to be dragged out of their school
and away from their friends but Daniel had gone steaming ahead. It
was what he needed and as he was providing the roof over their
head, they would all have to get used to a move to Darlington. They
had never recovered from that move.

With 15.7
million they could buy the house of their dreams wherever they
wanted. And as far as Rebecca was concerned it would be anywhere
but Darlington.

She finished
the brandy with a sigh. Her virtual spending wasn’t exactly working
out. Making a decision she jumped up and ran up the stairs to find
some socks for her still cold feet, slip on some boots and grab her
coat. Before leaving the house she held the lottery ticket in her
hand. It had lived in her pocket throughout the previous week and
had gone everywhere with her. But now that she knew it was worth so
much, she was frightened at the thought of taking it out of the
house. Suppose she lost it? Suppose she put it in her purse and
then she had her purse stolen? If she put it back in her pocket it
might fall out.

Should she
leave it in the house? And if she did where did she put it? She
didn’t think for a moment that Daniel would start looking. He
despised her for wasting her money every week on what he called a
loser’s game. But suppose someone broke in? Suppose the house burnt
down? By now Rebecca was sweating, the back of her neck was damp
and her top lip had beads of perspiration. Leslie had said it was a
good idea to photocopy the ticket but where did she do that? If she
took it into a print shop they would know why she wanted to copy
it. She couldn’t give it to Daniel and ask him to take it into
work, which is what she would do with anything else she needed
copying.

Making a
decision she pulled her gloves out of her bag and folding the
ticket as small as she could she pulled on her left glove and then
pushed the ticket down until she could feel it against her palm.
The ticket was going with her, she wasn’t letting it out of her
sight until the money was in her bank.

Tesco was quite
full but Rebecca didn’t mind. She grabbed a bag snorting with
laughter at the thought of filling it with 15.7 million pounds of
Tesco items. Ignoring the stares of other shoppers, she set off
down the aisles, the ticket still held against the palm of her left
hand.

A little while
later she looked at the contents of her basket and smiled.
Examining baskets was something she often did when queuing to pay.
Out of boredom she would look down at the baskets in the queue and
decide who they were shopping for. Singles were easy to spot, meals
for one, bags containing two apples and one tomato. The men would
have a few beers tucked in there, the women a bottle of wine. Busy
working mums topping up the cupboards were easy too. Nearly always
another loaf of bread, peanut butter for lunch boxes, packets of
crisps, cans of pop, milk, beans. Shopping for a dinner party she
could spot - fromage frais, vanilla pods or ginger stems, exotic
herbs, fancy pasta, sun dried tomatoes, expensive wine, anchovies -
nothing practical.

Rebecca looked
down at her basket. A printer, small, compact and easy to install
according to the box. A bottle of very expensive Pinot Grigio which
she had once bought for a dinner party but never for herself. A
pack of knickers, not the plain cotton that she usually bought but
soft silky ones with lace edging and little bows and flowers
embroidered along the top. A pair of slippers, soft fluffy and
almost sexy. An Ideal homes magazine. A throw - pale duck egg blue
with circles on that Rebecca had admired last week and thought
would look lovely on her favourite chair. Having just paid the
electricity bill she had stroked it and moved on but now it sat
defiantly in her basket. And a salmon fillet. Ready to be poached
when she got home and eaten when she opened the Pinot Grigio. What
did Rebecca’s basket say about her? Rebecca grinned, it certainly
didn’t say she had just won 15.7 million on the lottery but it
definitely had an air about it. A casual carefree air. It had a
whiff of the extravagant and a little touch of luxury.

Having only
managed to spend £81.57 Rebecca added a selection of brochures from
the little travel agent in the lobby and headed for home, where she
threw some bread that was far from stale out for the robin, shooed
the cat away and turned the heating up to maximum.

When Daniel
returned home later that evening, Rebecca was curled up in a corner
of the settee with a glass of wine in her hand. If he had
concentrated he would have detected the aroma of salmon in the air,
poached with a handful of herbs and served with the tiniest squeeze
of lemon. Rebecca hadn’t bothered to do any potatoes or vegetables
with it - which is what Daniel would have insisted on. She just had
salmon and a glass of chilled white wine.

‘What a bloody
waste of time,’ growled Daniel as he came into the living room.
‘What a complete waste of time and money.’

He threw his
keys and change onto the small table by the door. Rebecca had asked
him more times than she could remember not to put them there. She
had even bought a little wooden bowl and placed it on the hall
table for Daniel to use for his bits and pieces. But he ignored her
and every night he would walk past the bowl and into the living
room to throw his keys and loose change onto the small cream table.
She didn’t bother asking him anymore and tonight his keys skidded
onto the surface that was scratched and marked from the nightly
onslaught.

‘I had old
David Murgatroyd here,’ he thrust the palm of his hand in Rebecca’s
direction. ‘Right here.’ He clenched his fist, his face almost
purple with rage. ‘And then that silly little upstart of a son
started bleating on about sustainability and environmental impact,’
he spat the words out as though they were poison. ‘And then he had
the nerve to tell me that they had put all their business with
Hanson’s now.’ He was quivering with anger as he spoke, ‘Bloody
Hanson’s! I bet they didn’t take him out and pay for a round of
golf and dinner!’

Rebecca watched
him as she took a sip of her wine. She doubted that any of the
sales staff at Hanson’s would be stupid enough to pay for golf and
dinner. They probably just did their job properly and told David
Murgatroyd and his son how the whole of their packaging plant was
now geared towards packaging with a conscience, with one eye on the
environment. Just like Daniel could have done if he had actually
listened to anything Peter Thompson had tried to tell him over the
last five years.

‘What’s for
tea?’

Rebecca raised
her eyebrows at her husband.

‘Nothing - you
told me that you were eating out.’

Daniel stared
at her as she took another sip of her wine.

‘But you always
make something anyway,’ he spluttered, ‘and the meal at the golf
club was bloody awful despite costing a packet! I was looking
forward to coming home to eat something.’

Rebecca
shrugged. She did always make something and Daniel always sneered
at her and reminded her how he had just eaten at a first class
restaurant and why would he want some of her food and what a waste
of time and money both the meal and Rebecca were.

Turning on his
heel Daniel went into the kitchen and Rebecca could hear the oven
door slam and the microwave open and close as he checked all
possibilities. She heard the fridge door open and the clink of a
glass as he poured himself a glass of wine and she took another sip
of her Pinot Grigio. She had gone in to the kitchen when she’d
heard Daniel’s car on the drive and put the bottle behind the fish
fingers in the freezer. She had replaced the now empty spot in the
fridge with a bottle of the cheap wine they bought each week.

Daniel came
back into the living room glaring at her as he threw himself in the
settee. ‘I wouldn’t have thought it was too much to ask,’ he
muttered, taking a huge drink of wine. ‘I’ve been out working all
day and you’ve been sat at home reading magazines.’

He kicked the
Ideal homes magazine that was on the floor. ‘Most women would have
actually thought to make their husband something to eat.’

Rebecca
wondered when she had lost the inclination to argue with Daniel.
When they had first moved to Darlington she had been furious with
him and they spent most of their first 12 months arguing day and
night.

But one day she
had watched him spluttering and pontificating about the rights and
wrongs of the move, his importance in the general scheme of things,
her lack of importance in anything and she suddenly just couldn’t
be bothered anymore. She had let him rant and moan and halfway
through she had just stopped listening. And it had been pretty much
that way ever since.

She took
another sip of wine. Daniel hadn’t offered her a top up. In a
moment she would go and empty the rest of the hidden bottle into
her glass before going upstairs and treating herself to the luxury
of a bath before she climbed into bed. Daniel always said that
baths before bed were a complete waste of time. She would have a
shower in the morning, what a waste of water and gas to have a bath
before bed.

‘Are you
listening to me?’ Daniel stuck out his foot to shove her roughly on
the leg and Rebecca looked up from her glass and her thoughts.

‘You told me
you were having something to eat,’ she reminded him. ‘I didn’t want
to waste food.’

He growled
something under his breath. One of his favourite complaints was
waste. If she cooked too much it was a waste of food. If she went
to the shop and came home without any milk it was a waste of
petrol. If she washed on a rainy day and used the tumble drier it
was a waste of electricity.

‘It wouldn’t
have been a waste if I ate it – would it?’

He pulled
himself to his feet and stumbled off towards the kitchen, returning
with a topped up glass, still not offering any to Rebecca.

‘You just need
to be a bit more thoughtful. I’m working as hard as I can to keep
this roof over our head, the least you could do is support me now
and then.’

Rebecca drifted
off, he was starting on the supporting lecture. The one where he
did everything and she barely contributed. She had heard this so
many times before.

She should have
bought some really nice bubble bath at Tesco. She didn’t normally
buy any. It was something else that Daniel thought was a waste,
spending money on bubbles. Bubbles were air, they disappeared as
soon as you emptied the bath, what was the point in spending money
on something whose purpose was to disappear. But she liked bubbles.
One of those lovely scents that made you feel as though you had
just spent the day at the Spa. She would get some tomorrow. Maybe
she would splash out and buy some really expensive stuff at the
little perfume shop on the corner of the parade. And some candles.
Daniel laughed whenever she lit candles and would ask if the
electricity had gone off. But she would get some scented candles
and some expensive bath foam and not care what Daniel said.

Rebecca
realised it had gone quiet and looking over she saw Daniel’s glass
tipping to a dangerous level as his eyes closed and a gentle snore
started. Sliding off the settee Rebecca took the glass out of his
hand and into the kitchen. She took the Pinot Grigio out of the
freezer and emptied the last of it into her glass before wandering
upstairs, humming happily to herself as she ran a bath.

Chapter 3

On Monday
morning Daniel was like a bear with a sore head. He had woken on
the settee in the early hours of the morning and came stumbling to
bed complaining loudly about being abandoned by an uncaring wife.
Rebecca, who was in the middle of a dream which involved a huge
bath full of bubbles and a waiter handing her a cocktail on a
silver tray, rolled over and took no notice. Rebeca was on an
afternoon shift at the Deli and she held her tongue and supplied
tea and toast until eventually Daniel and his complaints walked out
of the front door and finally it was just Rebecca and a welcome
silence. She took out the number Leslie had given her. This time
she was far more focused and started by apologising for her rather
emotional response the day before. Leslie laughed and assured
Rebecca that it had been the expected response from someone who had
just won 15.7 million pounds.

BOOK: Did I Mention I Won The Lottery?
6.04Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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