Rebecca was struggling. She was trying to tell Daniel that she had won over 15 million pounds on the lottery. She was trying to tell him that their lives had changed for ever and he was telling her about Peter Thompson.
‘Right,’ said Rebecca uncertainly. ‘Well that’s news but Daniel I have something really important to …’
Daniel reached out and grabbed Rebecca’s shoulders. ‘Listen to me Bec! Peter Thompson is leaving.’
Rebecca wriggled free. ‘I know Daniel but…’
‘He’s left his job. The job he stole from me. He’s left.’
‘Yes Daniel but I need…’
‘And who do you think is going to replace him Bec?’
Rebecca stood very still.
‘What?’
‘He took my job Bec, everybody knows it. That was my job and I didn’t get it because we were in the wrong place at the wrong time. But now he’s going and I’m in the right place at the right time, Bec. This time I’m here when I need to be.’
Rebecca sank onto the settee pulling at the trench coat still wrapped tightly round her body.
‘Where’s Peter going?’ she asked
‘Peter! Who cares where that little shit’s going!’ Daniel raked his hand through his hair. ‘He’s got some fancy job down South somewhere, what does it matter. The fact is - he’s going!’
His face was ablaze with excitement. More excitement than Rebecca had seen in a long, long time. His eyes were bright and his mouth was grinning as he looked at her.
‘And they’ve offered you the job?’
‘Yes! Well, not officially, not yet. But the thing is,’ Daniel couldn’t stop laughing now, ‘I heard them talking. Old man White was going on about how this time they would recruit from within. This time they didn’t need to go elsewhere to find someone for the role. This time,’ Daniel reached forward and grabbed Rebecca’s hand, ‘this time they had someone right in their midst who was perfect for the job.’
Rebecca stared at him. ‘And you think...’
‘I don’t think, Bec! I know! This time the job is mine!’
And he laughed, throwing his head back and laughing out loud with pure joy.
Rebecca was in a dilemma. Standing up she pulled off her coat throwing it carelessly over the back of the chair. There was no doubt that Daniel was convinced he had the job, although Rebecca couldn’t imagine in a million years that White’s would actually want Daniel for the role. Peter Thompson hadn’t stolen Daniel’s place. Although it was a subject that was never discussed, Peter lived in Harrogate, only a few miles north of where Rebecca and Daniel had lived. He had been given the job on his merits and he had done a superb job, taking White’s Packaging Corporation forward and developing a reputation for them as an innovative and eco minded packaging company. He had re-educated the sales force, put a whole new spin on their advertising and improved their sales figures by a record amount. And the sales team had taken on board Peter’s new direction with enthusiasm and confidence as evidenced by the increased amount in their pay packets each month.
All, that was, apart from Daniel. He had been adamant that he would have been offered the job had he lived closer to head office. He had refused to support Peter in any initiative he had launched. He had refused to be re-educated and insisted on sticking to his old and tired marketing routing with a determination and misguided self-belief that wouldn’t be shaken even as his own pay packet dwindled and dwindled with every month that rolled by. He was bombastic and deliberately high handed in all his dealings with Peter and so determined to prove that Peter was wrong going down the eco route that Daniel made a point of doing the exact opposite. Of course, everything Daniel did actually proved Peter right and that’s why Rebecca was now struggling to believe that with Peter’s departure White’s would be rushing to offer Daniel the job.
‘Have they actually offered you the job? I mean have they actually said that you will replace Peter?’
‘They didn’t need to - it’s someone in house, who else could they possibly offer it to?’
Just about anyone in the sales department thought Rebecca.
‘But they haven’t actually said it will be you?’
Daniel’s smile disappeared.
‘What is wrong with you Rebecca? I’ve told you that I’m getting the job. Why do you have to make such a fuss over everything? Why can’t you just be pleased for me. Why…’
Rebecca jumped up, putting her hand gently on Daniel’s arm to stop the tirade. ‘I’m sorry Daniel! It’s just, well I think it must be the shock!’
The smile came back, stretching into a grin. ‘It is a bit of a shocker isn’t it! And things round here will change, no doubt about that.’
Rebecca stiffened. ‘Change?’
‘Well I’ve done a bit of digging and you wouldn’t believe how much that waste of space was stealing from the company. The wage they were paying him to write sob stories about trees and the environment - it’s bloody criminal! Anyway, it will mean a huge increase in my wage,’ Daniel said smugly. ‘We’ll be much better off.’
‘I see.’ Rebecca answered slowly.
‘So it’ll be a new car, a new house - I think we should even have a holiday don’t you?’
Rebecca closed her eyes and sank back onto the settee as a whistling Daniel wandered into the kitchen to make a cup of tea.
More money, a new car, a new house, a holiday. If only Daniel knew. She chewed her lip. He was so happy, so confident. There was a little glimmer of the old Daniel in his eyes. He needed this, he really needed this.
She was still sitting there when Daniel came back into the living room a few minutes later carrying tea and biscuits. He had put a handful of digestives on a cracked plate and Rebecca stared at them with tears in her eyes as he placed it on the small coffee table.
It was the most considerate thing Daniel had done in the last 5 years.
‘Thought you might need one,’ offered Daniel gruffly. ‘You look done in.’
And at that point Rebecca realised that she couldn’t tell him about the millions sitting in her bank account. Not right now, at this minute. How could she look him in the eye and explain that it didn’t matter about the job that he wanted so badly and the extra money he would be earning because weeks ago she had won millions of pounds but just hadn’t gotten round to telling him? So Rebecca said nothing. She said nothing and instead she smiled, sipped her tea and ate one of the digestives from the chipped plate.
Later that day as Rebecca finished cleaning the kitchen, she heard the door slam to signal Daniel’s return. He had told her he needed to pop out and desperate for some time to herself Rebecca had been quite relieved and told him to be as long as he needed.
She put some washing in, vacuumed the living room floor, ran a duster over the conservatory and cleaned the kitchen. And all the time her mind whirled with Daniel’s news.
Why would White’s give Daniel the job she wondered. They had a team of excellent sales men, all trained and groomed by Peter Thompson to understand the new direction that packaging plants needed to follow. Only Daniel had refused to take Peter’s instruction on board and as a result he was by far the worst performing sales man at White's. But Daniel seemed so sure about the job. And not just sure but so positive and so like his old self that Rebecca just couldn’t bring herself to burst the bubble. She had to let him enjoy his moment.
‘Bec,’ he yelled as he walked into the living room. ‘Come and see what I’ve got.’
He was grinning from ear to ear as he guided her onto the settee.
‘I know you’ve never really liked it here Bec. It was all a bit of a rush, the move and everything and you didn’t really get chance to choose exactly what you wanted.’
A bit of a rush! Daniel had come home one evening and announced that the house had been sold and they were moving in four weeks. As Rebecca had stared at him open mouthed he had thrown details of two houses in her direction and told her she could make the final decision. Neither were houses
that Rebecca and the children wanted to live in and they had eventually chosen the one closest to the new school the children had just discovered they would be attending.
‘We’ll be able to buy a new house now Bec so I thought you might like to start looking.’
Rebecca looked down at the pile of glossy A4 leaflets on her knee. Houses, houses and more houses. Several looked identical to the one they were sitting in, a couple had mock Tudor fronts, some had exposed stone stuck to the front and one seemed to have a field for a garden. But the theme was the same. They were moving from a 4 bed executive detached into a luxury 4 bed executive detached. And every last one of them was in Darlington.
Rebecca flicked through them slowly.
‘Do we have to stay in Darlington?’ she eventually asked, looking up at Daniel who was hovering in front of her.
He stared at her in disbelief.
‘Stay in Darlington? Of course we bloody well have to stay in Darlington!’ he puffed. ‘Are you mad? Why would they give me the job if I didn’t live in Darlington? I need to be close to Head Office that’s the whole bloody point. If I lived somewhere else the whole bloody saga would start again. Of course I need to ...’
‘Peter didn’t live in Darlington.’
The silence in the room was heavy, Rebecca dropped her eyes back to the leaflets.
‘I need to stay in Darlington,’ ground out Daniel his hands shaking with anger. ‘I’m offering to buy you a new house and all you can go on about is moving back to Leeds. Listen carefully Rebecca. We are not moving back to Leeds. Not now, not next year and not the year after. We are staying in Darlington.’
Neither of them spoke for a few minutes until Daniel made a visible effort to regain control.
‘Anyway,’ he added with something of a forced smile, ‘you can have a look through those and this time you can decide which one we’ll have, eh?’ and he left the room.
Rebecca sat very still. Was this why she hadn’t told him about the money she wondered? Because she knew that he would have his own ideas about where to live, what to do with it. Maybe she had been trying to avoid this all along. What was Daniel going to say when she finally broke the news, not only that she had won millions of pounds and neglected to tell him but that the first thing she had done was buy a new house, in Leeds?
The weekend seemed never ending. Daniel’s good mood soon returned and he even insisted on giving Rebecca a break from cooking after her traumatic week and they went to the local pub and had a lovely meal. He could barely contain his excitement as he spoke about how he would change things for White's, how he would improve sales figures, make them the number one in the area.
Rebecca smiled and nodded and tried to be encouraging.
On Sunday she discovered that she was not the only one with hidden stashes of magazines as she opened the drawers of the sideboard to find dozens of brochures for new cars. Great big 4X4 cars. Cars that seated 7 people, that could go up and down mountains, that could switch in a moment to allow driving in fields and across lakes.
‘Great aren’t they?’ asked Daniel grinning as he found her looking through them.
‘But won’t you still get a company car?’
‘Of course! These aren’t for me. About time we got rid of that rust bucket of a car you’re driving round in. These are for you!’
‘Me!’ Rebecca looked down in alarm. ‘But I don’t want anything as big as this Daniel. I’ve actually been thinking about a new car and I’d like one of those new Fiats. They look a bit retro and so sweet and…’
‘Rubbish,’ declared Daniel. ‘You’ll be much happier in one of these.’
And the conversation was over.
The next batch of brochures were all for holidays. And every one of them featured golf.
‘No point doing without,’ declared Daniel stroking the front of one of the brochures. ‘We need a holiday.’
‘We could go to somewhere exotic, where we can just relax all day, maybe snorkel, walk along the beach. Maybe be in one of those little huts on the edge of the sea.’
Daniel stared at her. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ he said as though she had lost her mind. ‘Who wants to do that? We’ll go to the Algarve and I’ll play golf and you can…read.’
And that was another conversation finished.
By Sunday evening all Rebecca wanted was to be back in the quiet, peaceful luxury of her new house. She longed to curl up on one of the kitchen settees with a cup of tea as she watched the rain pour outside. She watched TV with Daniel, another programme about cars being rescued and made to look like something completely different and she thought about which of her DVDs she would watch if she were at home. She would curl up under the rich red throw with a glass of wine and the heating turned up. It was no good, she had to go back.
‘Daniel.’
‘Mmm?’
He didn’t take his eyes from the TV and Rebecca waited a few more minutes until the adverts came on.’
‘Daniel.’
This time he half turned in her direction although his eyes were still fixed on the TV.
‘What?’
Rebecca took a deep breath. ‘The thing is Daniel I do have something important to tell you. If you remember I tried to tell you yesterday when I came home but you had your own news. Daniel!’ and in exasperation Rebecca snatched at the remote control and flicked off the TV.
Now she had his attention.
‘Bec! What are you doing?’
‘Daniel please listen to me for a minute. I have something really important to tell you.’
Grumpily he turned to face her.
‘Well make it quick, I don’t want to miss the rest of the programme.’
Rebecca stretched out her fingers, trying to stop them shaking.
‘The thing is Daniel…’
‘Oh my God this isn’t going to be one of those I need to tell you how I feel chats is it?’ Daniel’s nose was turned up in disgust. ‘Can’t it wait Bec. I am in the middle of watching something.’
‘Well if you’d stop interrupting I could tell you and you could get on with watching whatever you wanted,’ snapped Rebecca.
‘I need to tell you that… well I need to stay in Leeds for a few weeks.’
Daniel stared at her. ‘What the hell for?’
‘Because there’s a problem with Parklands. I think it might be on the verge of closing. And if it does we need to find somewhere else for Mum to stay.’
‘It’s closing?’
‘Well it’s not official, not yet. But they’re struggling and I don’t think it will be much longer.’
‘Then wait until it closes and then find somewhere for Gwen,’ offered Daniel with a shrug.
Rebecca tightened her hands into fists.
‘But you know how long it took us to find somewhere she liked the first time round. If Parklands suddenly closes and we can’t find anywhere for Gwen, well... she’ll have to come and live with us for a while.’
‘What! But surely…’
‘Daniel, it took 6 months of looking before we found Parklands. Mum can stay with us for 6 months, that’s not a problem but the sooner we start looking the quicker we find somewhere.’
Daniel rubbed his face. There was a definite glimmer of panic in his eyes. ‘Well how long are you going to be there, where will you stay? I haven’t got the job yet you know, we can’t afford hotel bills while you wander round Leeds for weeks on end.’
‘Don’t worry, I can stay with Sarah, or maybe even at Parklands or...maybe with- well I don’t know but I’ll find somewhere.’ Rebecca had been about to mention Helen or Emma but Daniel hated the fact that she kept in touch with her old friends to the point where he would actively try and stop her from meeting with them. Rebecca had long ago stopped telling him when she was going to Leeds for lunch with her two friends.
He was still looking unsure.
‘And I’ll come home at weekends of course,’ offered Rebecca reluctantly. ‘So you can bring me up to date on what’
s happening with the job.’
Daniel sighed. ‘I suppose, but what about your job?’
Rebecca stared at him. Of course he didn’t know that she had already left the Deli.
‘Well, I can ask Carol for time off,’ began Rebecca. ‘I’ll explain that…’
‘Why don’t you just hand in your notice?’ said Daniel unexpectedly.
Rebecca stared at him open mouthed.
‘I don’t like you working with those common women anyway. Susie!’ he spat out, shivering in disgust. ‘You won’t need a job soon, take some holiday and then tell them I’ve been promoted and you’re leaving.’
Did I Mention I Won The Lottery? Page 11