Can I have some money?
She blinks at the message, reading it a few more times.
Paula doesn’t understand, but it makes her feel funny. Is this the loan sharks again? It doesn’t sound like them. They’ve already made their demands in person and that was only yesterday. This doesn’t sound like Craig or his reality-TV-fan cohort.
But if not them, then who? And how did they get her number? Perhaps it’s meant to be funny? Is it a prank? She’s certainly had enough messages, calls and emails from distant relatives over the last couple of weeks, since it all went public about her lottery win.
‘Are you OK?’ Ivy asks quietly as they file towards Francesca’s office.
‘I just got a bizarre text,’ she confides.
Ivy frowns. ‘Can I see?’
Paula hands her the phone and Ivy quickly scans the odd words.
‘That is a bit disconcerting,’ she admits after a moment, handing back the device. ‘But I don’t think you should worry. When I won the lottery, I got a lot of weird messages, too. Random strangers would call me at work and email my family. There are lottery obsessives out there with no boundaries.’ She shudders, fiddling distractedly again with that silver ring. ‘They feel entitled to you and your winnings. They act like you’re now a celebrity or public property because you had this huge bit of luck. I’m sure it’s just one of those creeps. It’ll die down. It did for me.’
Paula nods, feeling marginally better. She puts her phone away in her bag and straightens her shoulders, trying to shake off the strangeness of the message. Ivy’s right, it’s probably just some lottery fan. And people win the lottery every day; there’s bound to be some other jackpot winner soon for the internet and the weirdos to obsess over. They’ll soon lose interest.
She takes a deep breath, joining the group in Francesca’s office, where all kinds of exciting paperwork no doubt awaits her. She fingers the notebook and the bank card in her pocket again, thinking about what it means for her. And what it apparently means to others.
The money suddenly feels very heavy in her pocket and she doesn’t know if that’s a good or a bad thing.
17
Paula is hiding in the loo. It’s not terribly dignified but it’s better than being out there. With them. With Gerald.
This second session with the family counsellor has so far been even more awkward than the first. The man keeps talking about mutual support and identifying emotions. He must’ve said at least four or five times that he wants tofacilitate dialogue. Which honestly just makes Paula want to scream.
Would that be considered facilitating dialogue? Or would it be him demonstratingactive listening?
And they’ve talked so much about John.
Tilly has cried twice today, talking about her dad. Both times she was telling a story from her childhood. She told Gerald the counsellor about a Christmas Day where the star attraction was the brand-new video camera under the tree. Tilly cried buckets as she described rehearsing a version ofSleeping Beautyall day with Seb, and how John laughed his head off filming their efforts. Then she talked at length about a birthday spent at a theme park, where, she says, her dad had nearly cried from fear in the queue for the biggest roller coaster, but didn’t run away. Tilly smiled through tears,describing how he threw up afterwards, but went on again when she begged.
Paula remembered both days vividly. They were good days.
But when the focus had turned to her – when Gerald had asked her to share some of her own favourite memories – she had stuttered, panicked, then excused herself for a loo break.
It was hard enough talking about John in the last session, before she found out about the fifty thousand pounds. About the loan sharks. About what he might have done.
About what she now knows he definitelyhasdone.
Paula’s spent much of the last two days rooting through John’s things, looking for proof of this fifty thousand pound loan. Looking for proof that he couldn’t really have done this to her or to their children, that surely he never could. But late last night she found a slip of paper, tucked into a pile of unopened junk mail. It listed games played, alongside names Paula vaguely recognised from the snooker club, and the sums and sums of money he’d bet. It took her only minutes to understand that John’s losses added up to that horrible, outsized figure the loan sharks were asking for.
And at the top of the sheet of paper were five letters written in damning capitals: CRAIG. His name was underlined twice, and Paula could feel her husband’s fear in those scrawled strokes.
So now she knows. And Paula doesn’t know where to go from here. She’s been awake all night, questions racing through her mind. She’s surprised to find that she doesn’t feel surprised, but she does feel pain. Pain at the betrayal – not of her, but of their children. How could he do this to them? And how could he not have told her so they could deal with this together? How could he leave her with this huge, awful thingto cope with all alone? She’s been shocked by the rebellious strength of her feelings; by the pure fury she feels towards John. She’s disgusted with him.Disgusted!Appalled that he could do this to her – to the family.
And then the guilt arrives, because how can she be angry with him when he’s dead?
The worst part is that there’s nowhere to put the anger or the guilt. She can’t talk about John here, with Tilly and Seb – and Gerald – not without thinking about his lies. She can’t talk about him without thinking of the cash envelope she’s started putting together, that so far has only around one per cent of the total she needs. She can’t tell them. She knows how much it would hurt them and she can’t do it.
So she’s hiding in the loo. Paula stares at herself in the mirror, wondering how much more of the session she can get away with missing. They’re nearly at the end, maybe she can ride it out in here.
She pulls at the bags under her eyes, wondering if there is anything that can be done there. She looks old. She always looks old. She might even look older than eighty-something Audrey Swift. Though it’s hard to see Audrey properly when she shines all the time, with so much joie de vivre and so many layers of floral clothes.
Could Paula get away with a pashmina? Probably not. She might manage a scarf from M&S but a pashmina made from cachemire goats just isn’t her.
