Millions (12 page)

Which is a thing I’d never thought about – that one day I’d be old enough to be in a pub-quiz team with Dad.

‘I just know about saints,’ I said. ‘Dorothy of Cappadocia, died 304, am I right?’

She said she was sure I was. I told her the whole story of how St Dorothy was going to be executed, and how her jailer laughed at her when she said she was going to Heaven. He said, ‘Send me some flowers when you get there.’ And when he got home his bedroom was filled with roses.

‘Why was she going to be executed?’

‘She was a virgin martyr.’

‘Oh. Right.’

‘What exactly is a virgin martyr?’

She said, ‘Blimey. The lasagne.’

And we took it out of the oven. It didn’t look anything like the frozen ones. It was bubbling and squeaking like it was alive and the cheese sauce had a thick, crackly skin. When we broke into it, a plume of meaty steam rose up from deep inside, like a prayer.

And at that moment Dad finally and unexpectedly told us what the transporter bridge was. It was like a cage and you drove your car into it and then a crane carried it across the river. I didn’t say anything, but I stored the moment in my heart. Dad’s general knowledge had come back with a vengeance.

‘That must’ve been fantastic,’ said Dorothy. ‘Like flying in your own car. I think they should bring it back.’

I said, ‘Do you by any chance wear a tinted moisturizer?’

Dad said, ‘Damian!’

‘Leave him alone. If you never ask, you never learn. I do as a matter of fact. It takes a bit of confidence to get up and do what I do. Not in your school. Your school’s lovely. But the older ones . . . It’s good to have a bit of a mask, you know. It’s very clever of you to notice.’

When we’d all finished, Dorothy looked at her watch and said, ‘I’m much later than I planned. But I can’t go without helping you to wash up.’

Anthony said, ‘No, no. We don’t mind washing up. We do it every night. If you’ve got to go, you . . .’

Dad stopped him. ‘Anthony,’ he said.

‘What?’

Dad looked at him for a second, as if he was trying to work something out, and then he said, ‘What
is
in your school bag, by the way. Can’t all be homework.’

It could have been a dangerous moment, but Anthony had had time to think now. ‘It’s sort of homework. It’s costumes. For the nativity play.’

Dorothy lit up like a Christmas decoration. ‘Nativity play!’ she said, ‘I haven’t seen a nativity play for years. What are you? The kings? Are you going to let us have a look? Go on, go and get them. Give us a treat.’

‘No.’

The light went off inside her.

Anthony shrugged, ‘You’ll spoil the surprise.’

She lit up again. ‘Surprise? Are you inviting me to see it?’

Anthony looked like he’d just stepped into a big mantrap. He said, ‘Well, I’m not sure. It’s really just for . . .’

‘I love a nativity play. I haven’t seen one for years. I’ll be there. Definitely. As long as you don’t mind.’

‘First I’ve even heard of it,’ said Dad. ‘I get told nothing.’

Anthony looked really cross. He started to clear the table. By the time we’d washed up, it was time for
Who Wants to be a Millionaire?
, which we’re always allowed to watch. Dad used to love it, but he never watches it any more. Tonight, though, he sat at one end of the couch. Dorothy sat at the other. And I sat in the middle.

The first contestant looked at the 80,000-euro question and decided to quit, even though Dad was yelling the right answer at the screen.

‘You do know, don’t you,’ said Dorothy, ‘that this was filmed a while back. The poor woman is beyond your help now.’

The next contestant was a financial consultant from Bradford with unusually long hair. Disappointingly Dorothy got the 1,000-euro question wrong. I won’t embarrass her by repeating it. She said, ‘If you ask me, knowledge is overrated.’

The 80,000-euro question was:

The financial consultant went 50/50, which really infuriated Dad on the grounds that everyone knows it’s York. Dorothy said that even she knew it was York. In the end, even the financial consultant went for York and on to the 160,000-euro question, which was:

‘I know, I know,’ I said.

‘How can you know that? How can anyone know that?’ said Dorothy, and she turned to Dad. ‘Do you know?’

‘I think I’d phone a friend and my friend would be this little fella here.’ He put his arm round me.

‘Catherine of Alexandria ( 4th century), partly mythical, another virgin martyr and the patron saint of the town of Dunstable in Bedfordshire.’

The financial consultant got it right too. So he was on to the 250,000-euro question, which was:

The man on the telly tried to think it out. He knew that David Niven had been in
Casino Royale
but he wasn’t sure if it was the first Bond film. Dad was getting agitated. ‘It’s a standard pub-quiz question . . .’

Then the man on the telly noticed the last name. He said, ‘Bob Holderness. Oh. It was him. It was on the radio. It was on the radio before it was a film and it was him. I’m going for d), Chris.’

‘Thank you,’ said Dad.

And he played d), and that took him to the 600,000-euro question, which was:

Dad knew it wasn’t 14 (sonnet) or 5 (limerick), so he would’ve crossed out those two in his head, gone 50/50 and hoped that one of them would still be there, which would give him the right answer.

The consultant just shrugged. ‘I’ve had a great night. Thanks a lot. I’m going to take the money and run.’

Anthony said, ‘That’s the trouble with this show. People don’t realize that you’ve got to speculate to accumulate.’

‘He could have had a go. He had a lifeline left,’ groaned Dad.

Dorothy said, ‘Why don’t you go on it? You’d be a lot less frustrated if you went on it. And not only less frustrated but more rich as well. You’d be a millionaire. You’d have a million pounds.’

Anthony pointed out that it was a million euros now and not a million pounds, so it wasn’t worth as much any more. Dorothy said she’d cope with the shortfall somehow.

‘But you’d give it all to the water people, anyway, wouldn’t you?’ I said.

‘Me? Fraid not, love. I don’t actually work for Water Aid. I work for an agency. I collect for whoever pays – National Trust in the summer, homeless at Christmas, whatever. If I won a million I’d put it in the bank and never shake a tin again.’

I was surprised and disappointed by this turn of events and would have said something if Dad hadn’t said, ‘I wouldn’t want to be a millionaire. I’d be happy with half. I’d pay off the mortgage, stop having to work extra hours to make ends meet, spend a bit more time with my boys, maybe take them on a nice holiday. Give the rest away.’

I realized then that Dad would make a great millionaire, much better than us, that there he was wishing he could be rich when the house was already stuffed with money and I was suddenly bursting to tell him. But Anthony stood up and said, ‘We’re supposed to go to bed when
Millionaire
’s over.’

‘Go on, then,’ said Dad.

‘And you’re supposed to read us a story.’

Dorothy said, ‘I’ll get off. I’ve had a lovely evening . . . but . . .’

Then she and Dad said together, ‘. . . but this wasn’t it!’ And they both fell about laughing.

On the way out, she picked up her bin and her coat. There behind it was a big model made of cereal packets. ‘Blimey, that’s very impressive,’ she said.

Anthony shrugged and said, ‘Tracy Island. I won a prize for that.’

‘I’m not surprised.’

I was surprised. I had no idea how it got there. It was like he’d got so good at lying, the Weetabix boxes believed him.

I went to Anthony’s bedroom window so I could watch Dad and Dorothy saying goodbye. Anthony was lying on his bed. ‘Come and see,’ I said. Dad was holding the car door open for her.

‘Don’t want to.’

‘Come on. She’s good.’

‘She is not good.’

‘The lasagne was good.’

‘No, it wasn’t. My mum’s lasagne was good. That lasagne was rubbish. It didn’t even have sweetcorn in it.’

There’s no point talking to him when he’s like this, so I just listened to her engine starting up. Then I heard Dad slapping the roof of her car as it moved off. She pipped her horn softly. I was going to go then, but Anthony snarled at me, ‘Why is it always me? Why do you leave everything to me?’

‘What?’

‘You found the money. Why don’t you ever help?’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘The minute we walked in she was staring at the bag. Just staring at it. Like an X-ray machine and what did you do?’

‘I said hello.’

‘You said nothing. It was me who did the talking. I had to make up that thing about the nativity play and she said, “I’ll have to come and see it.”’

‘It’ll be nice.’

‘Damian, we’re not
in
the nativity play. Remember?’

‘Oh, yeah.’

‘And she knew we were lying. And who had to make up the lie? Me? And who’ll have to get us into the play now? Me. And who went upstairs and hid the money in the Subbuteo box?’

‘Did you?’

‘Yes, I did. And then what happened? Someone was at the door. Did you answer it? No, I did. And who was there?’

‘Carol singers.’

‘Carol singers. It was Tricia with the Tracy Island thing.’

‘I did wonder how that got there.’

‘And her dad and her brother. And she’d told them that we had loads of money. And they were asking for some.’

‘What did you say?’

‘He said the VAT were going to close his business down if he didn’t give them three grand by tomorrow, so could I give him three grand.’

‘And did you?’

‘If I gave him the money, he’d know it was all true and what would happen then? Millions of people all wanting three grand knocking at the door day and night.’

‘So you said no.’

‘I couldn’t, could I?
She
came out of the kitchen. I had to get rid of them. I told them I’d give them the money if they pretended to be carol singers. I gave them three grand. She gave them two euros.’

‘It’s good that they’re not closing his business, though.’ ‘It’s not good, Damian. None of this is good. Have you thought about this? Everyone knows we’ve got money, right? So soon everyone is going to start wondering where we got it from. And that’s when the police will get involved. Have you thought about that?’

‘No. I haven’t.’

‘Well, luckily I have. I told them we won it on the scratch cards.’

‘That’s good.’

‘And her, she knows. She knew they weren’t carol singers. All that,
do you know “The Holly and the Ivy”
stuff. She was trying to catch them out. That’s why I said, “They don’t do requests,” and shut the door.’

I could see he was tired and worried. ‘You’re cleverer than me, that’s what it is. You’re just cleverer . . .’

Suddenly the room was filled with a cold, blue light. I thought it might be a bit of a vision, so I pretended not to notice. But Anthony could see it too. He said, ‘Cops. Look.’

There were two police cars down in the road below. They had big black numbers painted on their roofs. One was and one was 23. Anthony said these were so the police helicopter could tell which car was which.

Dad came in. ‘There’s been a burglary,’ he said.

I gasped, ‘Is it us?’

He looked surprised. ‘Why would it be us? You daft bugger.’ He ruffled my hair, while Anthony kicked me discreetly on the shins.

‘Hang on, though,’ said Dad.

The community policeman was walking over to ours. Dad went down and opened the door to him. We leaned over the banister and listened. Someone had burgled the Mormons.

‘I didn’t like to mention it in their current state of distress,’ said the community copper, ‘but we could all do with a cup of tea.’

‘Oh, sure,’ said Dad.

‘And toast if it’s going.’

‘No problem.’

Anthony said we should sneak down and follow them into the kitchen.

‘What for?’

‘Because we won’t be able to hear them once the kettle starts.’

‘What do we want to hear them for?’

‘Intelligence and surveillance, obviously.’

The kettle was incredibly loud actually. I hadn’t noticed it before. The community copper was saying, ‘I suppose if someone had to be burgled at this time of year, it was best it was them. They don’t actually celebrate Christmas, I believe. So it’s not spoiling much for them.’

‘Is that right?’ said Dad. ‘And they’d just bought all that new stuff. The dishwasher and that. I suppose they left the boxes out for the bin men and someone spotted them.’

‘It’s a possibility. There again, they didn’t take the dishwasher. Or the telly. Or the DVD player. Very unusual. They’ve turned the place over but they don’t seem to have taken anything. They seem to have been looking for something.’

‘Like what?’

‘Spiritual comfort and encouragement, I suppose. Anyway, their being done improves the odds on the rest of you
not
being done, statistically, so that’s a comfort. Two sugars for me and I don’t know about the CID.’

Dad helped him carry the tea out to the crime scene. Anthony tried to follow him, but Dad sent us back to bed.

‘Come on,’ he said, ‘show’s over. Off you go.’

Anthony came into my room. He said, ‘Hear what he said? The burglars were looking for something. You know what that was, don’t you? The money. The train robbers are looking for their money and they know it’s round here somewhere. They saw that lot buying all kinds of stuff and assumed they had it.’