Tilly leads her out the front door and into the bright sunshine. It takes a moment for Paula’s eyes to adjust to the sunlight.
A sudden burst of light explodes in her face and for a moment, Paula is certain she’s having a stroke. She tries to recall the signs one is meant to check for. There’s an acronym she’s supposed to remember, she’s sure of that. Except she can’t remember it. Is it the ABCs? No, that’s airways, breathing and something else. She can’t remember that either. FAST – that’s it! Face, Arms, Speech and . . . what’s the T? Telephone? Do people evensaytelephone anymore? They say phone, surely? But FASP doesn’t roll off the tongue so easily.
But it’s not a stroke at all. It’s people holding cameras, and the flashes are going off in her face, not inside her brain.
‘What’s . . .’ Paula doesn’t understand. Did her children hire photographers to sit outside her house? Five of them? There are men shouting at her, calling her name. Across her front garden, she spots a familiar face. It’s Amy! The nice lottery girl whose mum is also called Paula. She’s standing by the gate, smiling nicely. Amy waves them over, beaming, as Paula wonders fearfully what is happening.
‘Here’s the woman of the hour!’ Tilly shouts to the men, waving at her mother with pride as yet more camera flashes go off. ‘This is my lovely mum. No one has ever deserved to win the lottery more than this hardworking lady right here.’ Her grin gets even wider and more oblivious. ‘She’s won more than twenty million pounds and she’sstillplanning to go back to work at her care home!’
Paula looks at her daughter, frozen with horror. She looks back at the scene before her, caught in the glare. This is a . . . press conference? Some kind of public announcement about the win?
It can’t be. They wouldn’t. Surely they wouldn’t? It was humiliating enough that John’s brothers told so many people at the funeral, but these are strangers . . .
This isawful.
Seb touches her arm, smiling gingerly. ‘Are you OK, Mum? IsthisOK?’ he asks softly. When she doesn’t respond he adds, ‘I know this is a lot. I didn’t realise it would be so . . . We thought it would be one or two . . .’ His Adam’s apple bobs a little. ‘But it’ll be fun, I promise. And, like Tills says, it’s time to start celebrating your good luck and enjoying yourself. You deserve all this.’ He swallows anxiously when Paula doesn’t reply, then gestures at Amy and a makeshift podium across the garden. ‘Come on, we’re supposed to be standing over there.’ The photographers hover around, waiting. ‘It’s just a few minutes of telling the journos all about your lottery win.’ He smiles encouragingly. ‘The pink jumper looks very nice.’
A few minutes of . . . telling journalists?!All about the lottery win?
Absolutely not. No. This can’t happen.
She can’t talk to all those people! She can’t perform for them or tell them about the money. She can’t deal with them asking questions about what she might buy or what she might do. Or about her dead husband.
She lets herself be moved towards the podium. Men start shouting questions at her, crowding closer, yelling louder. She reaches into her pocket without thinking and squeezes the notepad.
Help me, John!
‘Paula! Over this way! Tell us what it’s like to win all those millions!’
‘Mrs Sheldon! Givvus a smile, eh? What did you buy first, eh?’
‘Paula! Who was the first person you called when you got the news about your win?’
It was John, she doesn’t say out loud. It was John she tried to call. Of course it was John. He didn’t answer. Because he was dead.
She blinks again and again as the flashes continue in her face. They get closer. There’s a man practically in her face, shouting her name, asking questions. She can feel his hot breath. She can smell his breakfast.
Tilly steps into the foray, forcing a laugh as she tells everyone to step back and give her mother a moment. Paula doesn’t need a moment. She needs this to not be happening.
John would never have let this happen. He would’ve protected her from this. From this press conference. He would’ve taken care of things – he would’ve taken care ofher.Paula pictures her husband’s face now, his image filling her vision, furious at this intrusion. Livid with their children for doing this to her.
She can’t do it. She breaks free of Seb’s grip, turning on her heel. As she does so, the notebook spills out onto the ground at her feet. She stares at it, frozen, then glances up at the photographers, the fear plain on her face.
One of them leans down to retrieve it. ‘Here, love, you dropped this—’ he begins, but she’s already pounced on it.
‘Don’t!’ she shrieks, her voice almost unrecognisable. The flashes stop. Everyone is staring. She swipes for the notebook,shoving it back into her pocket. For a moment she pants, regarding the strangers with pure panic, as they stare back at her. ‘It’s nothing,’ she adds, glancing at Tilly and Seb, who are watching her with shock. ‘It’s nothing!’ she says it again. The flashes begin around her again.
Tilly’s face is full of regret as she reaches for her mum, but Paula recoils. Fear, rage and horror pool in her belly as she turns away. She runs at full speed back the way she came, back towards the front door. She has to get away, away from the cameras, away from the questions, away from her children. Away from all of it. She throws herself inside, slamming the door behind her. She leans against it, breathing like she’s run a marathon, checking her pocket again.
This is all wrong. The whole thing. All wrong.
What have they done?
6
‘But Mum,’ Tilly sighs down the phone line – she always sighs after sayingMumthese days. ‘We talked about it with Amy, the Lotto woman. At that meeting? She asked if we were happy to go public with the news, and we said yes.’
Paula removes the phone from her ear to stare at it with outrage. ‘We?! I never did, Tilly! I never would have!’ Over the airways, she swears she can hear her daughter pulling a face.
