Rebecca had listened and nodded. She wasn’t required to participate. Daniel didn’t ask for her opinion, he didn’t even ask if she agreed, he simply told her that he was going to buy White’s Packaging Corporation. With her money.
‘What on earth where you thinking buying that little car?’ demanded Daniel as he came back in. ‘You don’t want a silly little thing like that, I’ve already chosen a good car for you. Don’t worry, we’ll use the Fiat as part exchange.’
‘I don’t want a 4X4 Daniel, I’ve already told you that. I like my little car.’
‘Rubbish,’ said Daniel. ‘You need something bigger, stronger. I’ll take you to see the car I’m thinking of later in the week.’
Rebecca gritted her teeth. She was keeping her little car. He wandered to the window looking out into the garden.
‘I’m going to have to go back to Darlington today. Start putting things in motion for White’s. You need to come with me.’
Rebecca stiffened.
‘It looks bad us living in two separate places. Looks like the money has come between us.’
Did Rebecca sense a warning tone in Daniel’s voice.
‘No!’ The last thing Rebecca wanted was to go back but she had no more excuses. Not now the truth was out.
‘No,’ she said again a little calmer. ‘I can’t go back right now.’
‘Why not?’ Daniel was blunt and to the point and Rebecca desperately searched for reasons.
‘Well now that you know I need to tell Mum, Sarah and Toby. I need to organise things.’
‘What kind of things?’
He was unrelenting, staring her down as her mind raced.
‘Well there’s lots I haven’t done because I was waiting until you knew and now I can do them,’ Rebecca finished weakly.
Daniel turned and walked to the door. ‘You can have today then I want you back in Darlington.’
And he left, getting in his car and driving away.
Rebecca clutched at her stomach, the toast and eggs churning. She had the distinct feeling that her joy at winning the money was about to disappear altogether now that Daniel finally knew.
She phoned Toby and broke the news to him that she had won several million pounds on the lottery. He was half asleep and more than a little hung over and it took a while to sink in but eventually his brain connected and Rebecca could hear his whoops of joy echoing around his room.
He promised to come and visit as soon as he could and when Rebecca told him that she had already bought a house in Leeds he promised to come up even sooner. Toby had hated Darlington even more than Rebecca had. Next she spoke to Sarah who wept with joy at the thought of having her student loan disappear.
‘Is that what the big secret has been Mum? Why on earth didn’t you tell me sooner?’
But she was too excited to really take Rebecca to task and she was easily fobbed off with stories about how it took time etc.
Next she drove to Parklands and broke the news to Gwen who was at first very confused and had to be reminded what the national lottery was but when she realised that Rebecca had become very rich overnight clutched her daughter’s hand.
‘You can do whatever you want now my darling,’ she said meaningfully, looking deep into Rebecca’s eyes, ‘whatever you want.’
Everyone around her was so happy for her good fortune and the tea tray came round loaded with biscuits as they all drank to her health.
Rebecca was exhausted with the sheer emotion of the last 24 hours and the excitement that had kept her going all these weeks had disappeared with barely a trace. She hadn’t told Helen and Emma yet but she planned to break the news to them later that afternoon. And when she got to Darlington she would go visit Carol and Susie.
And then they would all know. There would be no mores secrets, no more double lives and yet as Rebecca sat with a cup of tea in her hand gazing out onto the courtyard she couldn’t stop the tears from rolling down her face.
She spent the rest of the day preparing her house for an absence that she hoped wouldn’t last very long. She eventually phoned Helen and Emma and listened to their shrieks of excitement and then had one last evening, tucked up on her settee with the red throw over her knees. She didn’t put on a film, she didn’t read a book. She just sat there with her head resting on the back of the settee and revisited in her mind every glorious wonderful moment that she had experienced over the last 8 weeks. Her life had changed forever. The old life was over, she was about to start a whole new one so why did it feel like a bereavement, like it was all about to end.
There didn’t seem any point in putting off the inevitable so Rebecca drove back to Darlington first thing Friday morning and this time parked her little Fiat on the driveway.
She could feel Daniel’s energy the minute she walked in the house. He was walking around the living room floor talking to someone on his mobile. His voice was loud, confident. Maybe a little too confident, he sounded brash and threatening to Rebecca. His shirt sleeves were rolled up and there were countless cups of half-drunk coffee spread on every available surface.
He stopped the call shortly after she arrived and threw the phone onto one of the chairs.
‘I’m glad you’re here,’ he announced pushing past her to pick up a file from the coffee table.
Rebecca smiled. There was no point doing this with a bad grace.
‘I said I would come.’
‘We need to move the money.’
Her smile froze in place.
‘W - what?’
‘The money!’ Daniel exclaimed impatiently. ‘What on earth possessed you to put it in your account?’
Rebecca stood very still in the middle of the room.
‘Do you know that the snotty little bank manager refused to move it for me!’ he carried on indignantly. ‘Said it was your money and he didn’t have the authority to move it into any account without your say so! Little shit. How dare he stop me using my money.’
He was shuffling through the papers, ignoring Rebecca even as he regaled her with the faults of the bank manager.
‘Well he’ll regret that attitude. I’ve told him we’re moving the account. I’ve made a few calls already, you tell a bank you want to open an account with 13 million and they can’t do enough for you.’
‘Did he move any of it?’ asked Rebecca.
‘What? I’ve already told you, he refused. Anyway you need to phone him up and tell the idiot to get that money in our joint account straight away. I’m putting together the deal of a life time here and I won’t be held up by some pompous git who thinks he can control my money!’
Rebecca left the room as Daniel’s mobile rang again. She walked upstairs into the bedroom and closed the door tightly before taking out her own phone and ringing the bank manager whose private number she now had.
‘Richard?’ she asked as he answered the phone, ‘Richard it’s Rebecca Miles.’
‘Ah, I was hoping you’d phone.’
‘Richard I am so sorry. But this is really important Richard, you won’t move any money will you? I mean, I may ask you to move some and if I do then that’s okay but if Daniel, Mr Miles should ring you won’t...’
‘Rebecca,’ interrupted Richard Dickinson calmly, ‘do you remember the very first conversation we had? This is your money and yours alone. It is in your bank account and it will stay there until you personally tell me otherwise. No-one else has a right to it Rebecca not even your husband. Please don’t worry.’
Rebecca apologised again. She could imagine his conversation with Daniel had been far from pleasant and then she went back downstairs. Daniel was shouting into the phone still and she slipped into the kitchen and put on the kettle.
‘Why is everyone so bloody inept,’ he growled following her. ‘If you want anything doing, do it your bloody self, that’s what I always say!’ and then he stalked back out.
Rebecca took him a cup of tea.
‘The valuation has come in!’ Daniel looked up at her his eyes bla
zing with barely contained excitement. ‘4.8 million!’
‘What!’ Rebecca put Daniels cup down on the coffee table before she dropped it.
‘But that’s so much money, 4.8 million. We can’t afford that!’
Daniel snorted. ‘That’s why people like you shouldn’t be allowed to have large amounts of money,’ he stated pompously, ‘you really have no idea how to invest it wisely.’
Rebecca’s head was whirling.
With the money she had already paid for the house the car, the furniture etc. she still had over 13 million in the bank. But she had arranged trust funds for the children and was arranging to pay off all their student loans and buy them a little car each. She was still undecided on whether to invest in Parklands and if she did that would be another 3.8 million. There were bequests to friends. With Daniels potential investment of 4.8 million that would still leave her with over 2 million in her bank account but she couldn’t help but remember what the bank manager had said, a couple of million here, a couple there and soon it’s all gone. She had a house to maintain and children to look after, she wanted to live a comfortable life. It was all disappearing rather faster than she had wanted.
‘Oh by the way, I’ve told those so called friend of yours about the win.’
Rebecca looked puzzled. ‘Which so called friends?’
‘Carol and that bloody tart Susie, I called in earlier this week to see if they knew where you were staying. I said that I’d lost your address in Leeds. That smug faced bitch Susie, I could tell she thought you were having an affair so I went back and put her straight. Told her we’d won millions and you were in Leeds taking it easy. That shut her up.’
Rebecca’s eyes blazed. ‘You told my friends?’
But Daniel had lost interest and had pulled out his calculator to add up a row of figures.
With a yelp of anger Rebecca pulled it out of his hands and threw it to the floor, ignoring the look of absolute surprise and shock on Daniels face.
‘You told my friends?’ she demanded.
‘Yes I did,’ Daniel snapped back. ‘I thought the secret was over.’
Rebecca was so angry she wanted to punch him in his smug face. She had told so many lies, in particular to Carol and Susie and the one thing she had needed to do was tell them the truth herself, try and explain why.
‘How dare you,’ she ground out, ‘how dare you interfere.’
‘Interfere! Oh excuse me. My wife had disappeared and I went to see her friends to see if I could track her down!’
‘But you went back Daniel - you went back and you didn’t have to.’
Daniel sniffed. ‘Serves her right,’ he snapped. ‘Uppity bitch. Thought she knew all about you. I put her right, you should have seen the look on her face.’
And he pushed Rebecca to one side so he could rescue his calculator before turning his back on her and resuming his tapping.
Resisting the desire to throw his tea in his face, Rebecca clenched her fists and stormed from the room. Grabbing her coat and her car keys she flew outside, jumped into her car and screeched out of the drive.
Arriving outside the Deli she found a parking space and almost ran to the shop. There were three people at the counter and one couple who were just putting on their coats and leaving their table after an afternoon tea.
Susie and Carol both looked up as Rebecca came in and although they smiled it seemed to Rebecca that they were tight, uncertain smiles. She waited patiently by the door until the couple had paid and left along with their mountain of plastic shopping bags and the last customer at the counter had been served.
‘Hello,’ she said softly, walking towards her two friends.
They both nodded, Susie wiping her hands and staring down at the counter and Carol meeting Rebecca’s eyes with a confused look.
‘I know Daniel came in,’ started Rebecca, wondering how she could explain to her friends why she had lied to them for so long. ‘I had wanted to tell you myself.’
‘Is it true?’ asked Susie with wide eyes, ‘Have you won the lottery?’
Carol nudged her friends arm and Rebecca smiled.
‘Yes, it’s true. I won 15.7 million pounds.’
Carol gasped and Susie squealed. ‘15.7 million!’ she screamed. ‘Crikey Rebecca, 15.7 million pounds!’
Rebecca carried on smiling, how could she not. After all she had won millions of pounds.
‘We were a bit confused,’ said Carol coming from behind the counter and giving Rebecca a hug. ‘Daniel said he needed to know where you were staying in Leeds. He seemed so angry and desperate. Then he came back and told us you’d won the lottery and you were staying in Leeds for a bit. He said that’s why you were leaving work. We didn’t tell him you’d left weeks ago.’
Rebecca smile slipped and she slumped into the nearest chair. Carol leant over and flipped the shop sign to closed and Susie came round and sat next to Rebecca.
‘The thing is I won almost 2 months ago.’
Susie’s jaw dropped open.
‘No!’ she gasped.
Rebecca continued. ‘I won the money, I bought a house in Leeds and I’ve been living there during the week.’
She could see the confusion in both their eyes.
‘You see, when I won the money I didn’t tell Daniel!’
There was a moment of stunned silence in the room.
‘Oh my God!’ yelled Susie, ‘You did what?’
‘I won millions of pounds, left work and moved to Leeds without telling my husband.’
Rebecca looked up at the shocked faces before her.
‘I lied to you about Mum being ill and needing to visit her. I lied to you about leaving work because I needed to spend more time with her. I didn’t want to, believe me I wanted to tell you both what had happened. But I couldn’t. Not until I told Daniel and I just... didn’t tell him.’
Carol was still silent but a smile had started to spread across Susie’s face.
‘Oh this is wonderful Rebecca. This is priceless! I take it you’ve left the miserable old bugger now?’
‘No!’ insisted Rebecca. ‘Of course not!’
‘But you didn’t tell him about the money.’
Rebecca twisted her fingers together. Susie was right. It didn’t look good.
‘But not because I was going to leave him,’ insisted Rebecca. ‘It was just that it was hard finding the right time and place.’
‘Not really,’ reasoned Susie. ‘I mean if I won I’d just go home and say to my old man ‘guess what, I’ve won the lottery’. It’s pretty easy really.’
Rebecca saw Carol nudge Susie hard and Susie stopped talking.
‘I’m so sorry about the lies Carol, I’m so sorry but I had to keep it a secret until Daniel found out.’
Rebecca looked beseechingly into her friend’s eyes and Carol nodded reassuringly.
‘It’s okay Rebecca, don’t worry. It sounds - complicated.’
Susie couldn’t keep quiet for long and she leant towards Rebecca with her eyes shining.
‘So when did he find out?’ she asked curiously.
Rebecca sighed, thinking back to the moment when Daniel had come bursting through the door.
She told the two women the whole story accompanied by gasps of horror from Carol and excitement from Susie. They ignored the rattle of the locked shop door and as Rebecca paused for breath Carol rescued a bottle of wine from the fridge and poured them all a glass.
‘It’s like something from Dynasty,’ breathed Susie when Rebecca finally finished and they all looked at each other and burst into laughter.
‘So you’ve really won all that money.’
It was a statement not a question and as Rebecca nodded they fell quiet and all gazed into the future.
‘It must feel absolutely fantastic,’ said Susie with a tinge of envy.
Rebecca didn’t answer. It had felt fantastic. At first, when she was in Leeds and no-one else knew. Now it felt more complicated. Now it was a struggle.
&n
bsp; ‘I should go,’ said Rebecca standing up abruptly. She had suddenly remembered Daniel pacing their lounge spending over 4 million pounds with no consultation.
They all hugged and Carol assured Rebecca that there were no ill feelings regarding the lies and Susie couldn’t stop the giggles that kept erupting at the thought of Daniel not having a clue about his wife’s fortune.
Did I Mention I Won The Lottery? Page 15