Millions

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  ‘What the hell are you doing up there, you daft bat.’

  To be confessional about it, I did actually cry. He pulled me over and carried me down the ladder. I couldn’t breathe properly. He kept hold of me and didn’t say anything for a while but, ‘Hush.’ He walked into my old bedroom and whispered in my ear, ‘Remember in here? This is your old room, eh? Come on, just get your breath.’ I was trying to, but every time I started to feel calmer this horrible mixture of crying and hiccups kicked off again. He took me into the next room. ‘And this was mine and, you know, hers,’ he said. We went over to the bay window and stood looking out.

  ‘The day we moved out, I saw you take the key. When you were gone after the play, we went home to see if you were there. I noticed the key was missing from your windowsill. So . . . here we are, eh?’

  Anthony held up his video phone. ‘I was worried about you, so I rang you,’ he said. ‘Could you not see me on the screen?’

  ‘The phone was in my coat pocket.’

  Dad stared at the video phone. ‘Would someone mind telling me what is going on?’ he said.

  I looked at Anthony. I knew I couldn’t do this any more. He nodded his head. I said, ‘There’s a bag behind the water tank.’

  Dad went up and got the saddlebags. They didn’t close properly. So he was just about to step back on the ladder when he saw what was inside. He said something unenlightening. Then he said, ‘Where the bloody hell did this come from?’

  ‘It just fell out of the sky. I thought it was from God.’

  ‘From God? Why would God give you . . .’ He looked into the bag.

  ‘There were 229,370 old pounds,’ said Anthony. ‘What’s left is still valid for twenty-two hours.’

  ‘Blimey.’ He looked at the pile of money. ‘And you really thought you could keep it?’

  The way he said it, it sounded obvious that we’d just made a mistake, like making pastry instead of cake.

  We looked at each other.

  ‘You daft pair,’ he said. ‘Come on.’

  ‘What’re you going to do?’

  ‘Hand it in, of course.’

  ‘Will we get into trouble?’

  ‘Not at all. They were only going to burn it anyway. They’ll be very pleased with you.’

  He ruffled my hair.

  Anthony said, ‘Will we get a reward, then?’

  ‘Get in the car,’ laughed Dad, and he drove us home through town and opened the sunroof, so we could lie on the seat and watch the Christmas lights passing over our heads.

  There were some fat white angels, and some red and green bells, and some words like ‘Peace on Earth’ and ‘Goodwill to Men’, and I thought, Of course Dad would make everything all right again. And I didn’t even mind that the illuminated Santa Clauses looked nothing like the real St Nicholas. And when we got home, who was waiting at the door but Dorothy? It all felt like a big, happy ending.

  But it wasn’t the ending. And it wasn’t happy.

  16

  It’s not unusual to have a bad Christmas. Even on the first Christmas, King Herod heard about another king being born in a stable and he thought it must be a plot against him, so he spent the whole time fretting. Which wasn’t exactly relaxing. And when he’d worried about it for a while, he decided that the safest thing for him to do was to send his soldiers to kill all the newborn boys in Judaea. So that year the baby boys of Judaea had an even worse Christmas than Herod did.

  Jesus got away, obviously. Even though statistically it was really his fault that the others died. They were collateral damage, like the people who were killed by the fatal flying splinters at the execution of St Catherine. It’s amazing how many people get hurt just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  Dad was pleased and surprised that Dorothy was waiting on the doorstep. He flashed his headlights and pipped the horn. But in the headlights, I saw her face. She was biting her lip and looking worried. Dad parked up and got out. Anthony hissed, ‘He’d better not tell her. And you’d better not tell her either.’

  When I got out of the car, Dorothy was holding Dad’s hand. She put her other hand out for me to hold. I could smell her orangey shampoo again. She was saying, ‘I just came by, you know, and the front door was open. I never thought for a minute . . . I’m so sorry. I did call them right away.’

  We’d been burgled. The front door was splintered round the lock. The Christmas tree was flat on the floor, in a litter of broken baubles and tangled tinsel. It looked like it had been hit by a tornado. The presents were squashed. The ceramic coals from the living-flame gas fire were all over the place. In the kitchen, the cupboards had all been emptied on to the floor, as had the rubbish from the bin for some reason. Dad sat down and just stared at the mess.

  He was still staring when the community police officer arrived. ‘You’ve not been burgled. You’ve been ransacked,’ he said, and wrote a number down on a piece of paper. ‘You give that to your insurance company and make a claim. Obviously they can’t really recompense you for this. They can’t give you your Christmas back. It’ll probably be next Christmas by the time you get the cheque.’

  Dad just sat there staring.

  Dorothy had made a pot of tea. ‘I couldn’t think what else to do,’ she said.

  The community policeman said, ‘Well, you could do a bit of toast.’

  ‘Oh. Sorry.’

  ‘They’ve given it a right old going-over, haven’t they? The strange thing is, they haven’t taken that much. It’s more like they were looking for something. Is there anything they should be looking for?’

  Dad just carried on staring.

  ‘Only we’ve had reports about one of these bags of sterling being missing in the area, which might explain this spate of robberies. Not that they can do anything with it now anyway. The banks have all been warned to report any large deposits and they’ve only got a day before it all turns into waste paper.’

  Then he went. Dad never said goodbye, never got up. Just sat there staring at the tree. Now that I came to notice it, so did Anthony. It was Dorothy who saw the policeman out. When she came back she said, ‘I was collecting once for War on Want, CAFOD maybe, one of them. At the NEC in Birmingham. They had Nelson Mandela talking for them. Did my job for me. Couldn’t sign up the standing orders fast enough afterwards. D’you know what he said? He said, “The only wealth is life.” What d’you think of that? He said money can be a prison just like, you know, no money. The only wealth is life. Which you’ve got plenty of . . . You’ve got each other, got a place, got your health. Life. Everything else is a disappointment. Like the Great Wall of China.’

  I looked at her. So did Anthony. The Great Wall of China?

  ‘Surely you know.’ She shrugged. ‘It’s not really made of china at all.’

  I snorted. Anthony snorted. Dad looked up. She bit her lip. He started laughing. And he carried on laughing until I joined in and I carried on until Dorothy joined in and finally even Anthony was laughing.

  Then Dad stood up and went out to the car. Anthony went after him. He said, ‘Dad, don’t. Please, Dad, please don’t.’ But it was obvious he was going to. He strode back in with the donkey’s saddlebags and dropped them down on the dining table.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Dad picked them up and shook them so all the great lumps of money fell out like bricks from a hod. Dorothy gasped. Anthony groaned, then took himself off to bed.

  ‘Where did that . . . Is that yours?’

  ‘This is what they were looking for,’ said Dad.

  Dorothy touched the bag of money gently, like she was worried it might explode. ‘You know what I said about the only wealth is life? Well . . . this is the life.’

  He laughed again, but it wasn’t a happy laugh. ‘They took our Christmas. We’ll take their cash.’

  And that was the first time I realized he was going to keep it.

  ‘But you can’t keep it. That would be stealing.’

  ‘If you steal something,
you have to steal from someone. Who would you be stealing from?’

  ‘The government.’

  ‘Well, obviously this is between you three,’ said Dorothy, ‘but you do know – I’m just saying – you do know the government was planning to burn this?’

  Dad jumped on that. ‘Yeah. Burn it! When there are poor people everywhere. Why couldn’t they just give it to the poor? That would’ve been better, wouldn’t it?’

  Anthony had explained that to me already. ‘Well, it’s to do with the money supply. You see, the way it works . . .’

  ‘All right, all right, I know how it works. I’m making a point.’

  ‘Which is?’

  ‘That we are going to take this into town tomorrow, change it for euros and spend it.’

  The doorbell rang. Dad and Dorothy looked at each other in fright and started to shovel the money back into the bags.

  I went to the door. ‘Not yet,’ hissed Dad, still shovelling. ‘All right. Go on.’ I could hear him trying to push the bag into the cupboard under the sink as I opened the door.

  It was Terry from IT. ‘Is your dad in?’ he said.

  I took him through to the living room. ‘I heard about your intruder and wondered if there was anything we could do as a Homewatch group by way of support.’

  ‘It’s a bit late for that, Terry,’ said Dad.

  ‘We can access back-up from Victim Support, help you deal with the insurance company forms and all that. Or if you need short-term financial assistance . . .’

  Dorothy sort of hiccuped a laugh at this. Terry stared at her. ‘Pot of tea?’ she offered.

  ‘No. Thanks. They made a right mess of your tree. What’s the point of that? It’s just plain envy, isn’t it? They can’t stand it that you’ve worked hard and reaped the rewards. They think if they want something they can just take it. Because they haven’t got it in them to really earn this stuff. That’s what it is. If you ask me.’

  ‘Dead right,’ said Dad. He had his hands behind his back.

  ‘Oh. Missed something anyway,’ said Terry, and he bent down and picked up a pair of twenty-pound notes from near Dad’s feet. He held them out to Dad. Dad hesitated.

  ‘Oh. Sure they’re not yours?’ Dad said.

  ‘Well, they were on your carpet,’ said Terry, a bit surprised.

  I realized that Dad still had a fistful of money. He couldn’t put his hand out to take them. He said, ‘Just, errrm, put them down . . . in case of fingerprints.’ You could see where Anthony got it from.

  ‘Oh, God, yeah,’ gasped Terry. ‘I never thought of that.’ And he dropped the notes like they were red-hot. They fluttered back to the floor.

  ‘I like your tie,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘Yeah. I like it too,’ said Dad, too quickly. Then he sat down suddenly on the big chair with his hands still behind him. I could see that he was trying to stuff his fistful of twenties down behind the cushion.

  That’s when I decided to go to bed. When I saw that the money had made Dad scared of Terry from IT.

  I got a fright when I went into my room. There was someone sitting on the end of my bed. It was Anthony. He held up his hand and said, ‘I’m listening.’

  I listened too. I could hear Terry’s tie playing the Scooby-Doo theme. Then I heard him saying goodbye and the front door closing after him. Then I heard . . .

  ‘Shush,’ said Anthony. ‘Now. What can you hear?’

  ‘Counting.’ They were counting the money.

  ‘She’s got him counting it. Can you believe that? Talk about rubbing it in. She is pure evil.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, come on, we come home and find the house turned over and there she is on the doorstep. What a coincidence!’

  ‘You think she did the burglary?’

  ‘She was looking for the money. If only she’d known what an utter sucker Dad is. She must’ve been pretty surprised and pleased when he just told her all about it.’

  Downstairs Dad suddenly burst out laughing. A big, happy laugh, as though someone was tickling him.

  ‘She’ll wait till his back is turned and run off with the lot.’ Anthony went back to his own room.

  I lay there on the bed listening to the voices downstairs – counting and laughing, then starting to count again. After a while, I was aware that the talking had stopped. I wondered how long for. When I looked around, I realized Dad was standing behind the half-open door, watching me.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Why aren’t you asleep? D’you want a story?’

  ‘Dad . . . the money . . .’

  ‘Is owed me.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I work every minute God sends just to cover the mortgage to give you a decent home. I am drowning in debt. I’m permanently knackered. And now everything I’ve worked for is wrecked. I’ve had enough now. This is it. This is payback time. We’re going to town tomorrow to change it and then we’re going to spend it. Now goodnight.’

  After he’d gone I got out of bed and tried to sleep on the floor. I thought I could hear something moving up above me, on the other side of the ceiling. Someone was on the roof or maybe inside the roof.

  I went out on to the landing and stood outside Dad’s bedroom door. I wasn’t sure whether to wake him, in case it was someone only I could hear. The sound followed me. It was right over my head now. Something touched my hair. I looked up. Nothing there. Just the hatch to the loft. Then a fine shower of dust fell down and landed in my eye. The hatch was moving. Suddenly it disappeared and I was looking up into a window of darkness. Cold air poured down on me. Then it was like one clot of darkness had come away from the rest and was dripping down through the hatch – two long dangly gobs of dark were dangling right over my head. They seemed to be both attached to some bigger dark at the top. They dropped on to the floor and it was only then that I saw they were legs and it was a body with a face that was looking right into mine. The man with the glass eye had jumped down from the loft and was crouching in front of me. He put his finger on his lips. I didn’t scream. I had the feeling it wouldn’t be the right thing to do.

  ‘In there,’ he said, pointing to my room. When he talked he barely opened his mouth. It was like he was talking inside my head. It was like listening to fear.

  I went back into my room and sat on the bed. He came in, closed the door and looked around. ‘I know you’ve got it. It’s mine,’ he said. ‘You’re going to change it tomorrow and that’s a good thing. Saves me a job. Understand?’

  I nodded. I was trying to look him in the eye so that he’d know I was telling the truth, but then I thought perhaps I was looking in his glass eye, so I looked in the other one. He picked up the mobile phone from the bedside table and started to poke at it, looking for the number. I tried to make conversation. I said, ‘Was it you who burgled us, then?’

  ‘What? Nothing’s been stolen, has it? I just want what’s mine. I couldn’t find it. So I thought I’d wait for you.’

  So the burglary wasn’t really a burglary, just like the train robbery wasn’t really a train robbery. Both times it was just a way of hiding someone. Glass Eye crouched down in front of me and breathed words into my face. ‘This is what you’re going to do for me. Tomorrow night, when you’ve done the job and everyone else is in bed, I’m going to call you on this phone. You’re going to come down, open the front door and let me in. Then I’m going to take the money and go. OK? I won’t say a word. And you won’t have to worry about it any more.’

  To be logical about it, I actually had something in common with Glass Eye: we were the only ones who knew the money was a worry. When he said that about worrying, I knew he understood the money better than Dad or Anthony or any of the others.

  ‘Just keep your phone switched on,’ he said. Then he was gone.

  I sat on my bed for a while, just to be on the safe side. Then I decided I didn’t want to be in my room any more. I went out on to the landing. I didn’t really want to stand under the hatch to the loft
again, so that put Dad’s room out of reach. I went down to the kitchen. The donkey saddlebags were lying on the table with a mostly drunk bottle of wine, two glasses and a plate of crusts. Dad and Dorothy must’ve made toast while they were counting. I put my head on the saddlebags and listened to the comfortable tummy-rumbling of the central heating.

  I must’ve fallen asleep because I didn’t hear her come in. I just felt the tug at the saddlebags. I sat up and Dorothy was standing there, looking down at me.

  ‘Hi,’ I said.

  She put her finger to her lips and went, ‘Shush.’

  Dorothy put the saddlebags over her shoulder, opened the back door quietly and slipped out.

  I didn’t say anything. I didn’t move until the door clicked back into place. Then I ran to the front window and ducked under the curtains to look out. She was putting the money on the back seat of the car. The yellow internal lights were on so I could see her clearly behind the glass as she put the key in the ignition. She looked across to the house. The internal lights went off as the engine started up but she was still looking at me. She did her unique little finger-only wave. Then the red indicator light started to pulse and she drove away. Her car was a Smarties-yellow Vauxhall Nova. ‘No va’ is Spanish for ‘don’t go’ or ‘doesn’t go’. But this one went. Obviously a mistake in the translation.

  17

  The patron saint of motorists is St Christopher (no dates, probably legendary), obviously. The story they always tell about him is that he was this huge great bouncer who decided to work for the king of some country which I don’t know. Then he discovered that the king was scared of Death, so he thought, well, I’m not working for second best, I’ll go and work for Death. So he goes off to work for Death – I don’t know what he did exactly; you wouldn’t think Death would need much help. Anyway, it turns out that Death is scared of something too – namely the child Jesus, so Christopher . . . well, you can see where this is headed. It turns out that the whole thing is utterly and completely fictional, obviously. In fact, rubbish. So there never was a St Christopher and he’s officially banned, along with St Pyr, who was found dead drunk at the bottom of a well and made into a saint by clerical error.