Love Lottery

by Cathy Hopkins

  He closed his eyes, pursed his lips and moved in for another snog.

  ‘And do you understand “no” in the language of love?’ I asked as I pushed him away.

  Lal opened his eyes then shrugged. ‘I guess. Want an ice cream?’

  I nodded. ‘I’ll come with you.’

  When we got to the café at the top of the beach, Cat was standing in the ice cream queue with her little sister, Emma. Both of them waved when they saw us.

  ‘Hey, Em,’ I said.

  ‘Hey, Bec.’

  ‘This is Lal,’ I said.

  ‘Hi, Emma,’ said Lal.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I need to pee.’

  I laughed. ‘Well, there’s a chat-up line if I ever I heard one.’

  Cat looked at the queue and then at Emma, then at Lal.

  ‘Er . . . would you mind, Lal? I want to keep my place and need a word with Bec. The Ladies is just back there, down the alley.’

  Lal looked totally horrified. ‘What – me?’

  Emma was gazing up at him adoringly. ‘You’re a great man,’ she said. ‘I like you.’

  I gave him my best smile. ‘Brownie points, big boy.’

  Lal sighed and held his hand out to Emma. ‘Come on, kid.’

  He walked off with her, muttering something about bossy women and how other boys managed.

  ‘So, how’s it going?’ asked Cat as soon as he was gone.

  ‘Honest?’

  ‘Honest,’ said Cat.

  ‘I think our relationship has run its course, but I haven’t the heart to tell him. I can’t bear another miserable face in my life.’

  ‘Have you tried?’ asked Cat. ‘Because it might be like when you wanted to finish with Mac and were agonising over it and in the end he’d been thinking the same thing all along.’

  An image of Lal, eyes closed, lips pursed came into my mind and I shook my head. ‘No. Really, Cat. He’s still into me. My plan is to hang out with him until he goes back and then let him down gently. I mean, he’ll be up in London. I’ll be down here. It shouldn’t be a problem, and then I can say I’ve met someone else or something.’

  ‘How’s it going otherwise today?’ Cat asked. ‘At home?’

  I let out a long breath. ‘Weird. Quiet. When Dad was home, you always knew it. You could hear him, either talking on the phone or putting the kettle on or Radio 4 would be playing. I miss him.’

  ‘How’s your mum?’ asked Cat.

  ‘Don’t know. Don’t care.’

  ‘Becca! That’s awful. Why don’t you care?’

  ‘It’s all her fault. She pushed him away . . .’

  ‘No. No,’ said Cat. ‘I’m sure it wasn’t like that. It takes two to make it work and it takes two to end it.’

  ‘Since when are you the relationship expert?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m not, but . . . well, I know your mum and she’s nice. So’s your dad, but I can’t see that she’d drive him away on purpose.’

  ‘You don’t know. You haven’t lived with her. She’s always on at him, belittling him, always about money.’

  ‘I read that finances are one of the top things that break couples up. I’m going to make sure that I always have my own career and finances so that I’m not dependent on a man.’

  ‘Me too,’ I said. ‘Although I won’t mind if a guy is mega-rich and wants to treat me to the best. I’ll just make sure I have back-up money too. Thing is, Mum has been the breadwinner for so long, and I think Dad has felt bad about it. But now he’s got his book deal things should have got better as he’ll be earning again, but things have just got worse. Really, Cat – it’s her, not him.’

  Cat looked wistful for a moment. ‘Give her a break, Becca. It can’t have been easy for her these last years. And . . . you’re lucky to have a mum. She’s kept it together for you all this time – like, imagine if your dad had lost his job and your mum hadn’t been able to pay the bills. What would have happened?’

  ‘Yeah, but . . . but she needn’t rub everyone’s face in it all the time.’

  ‘Just give her a break,’ Cat said again. ‘I reckon there are always two sides to a story. And, well . . . you only get one mum.’

  ‘Suppose,’ I said with a shrug. I guessed Cat was sticking up for my mum because hers had died. For a moment I tried to imagine how it would have been if that had happened to me. Would I have missed her? And how would Dad and I have survived? God. It must have been awful for Cat, I thought. I know Mum and I don’t get on sometimes but I couldn’t imagine life without her.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a strange sight coming round the corner by the alley. I rubbed my eyes, as I thought I had double vision and was seeing things.

  ‘Cat. Cat. Look. Over there at Lal. Ohmigod. He’s duplicated himself!’

  Cat laughed and glanced over to where Lal was approaching us, still hand in hand with Emma but on her other side, holding her other hand was a taller, older-looking version of Lal.

  ‘Dingbat,’ said Cat. ‘That’s his brother, Steve. He arrived last night.’

  ‘Steve?’ I vaguely remembered Lal telling me something about an older brother, but somehow I’d imagined that he’d be a lot older, like in his twenties, whereas the boy who had just arrived in front of me looked about eighteen and was very, very cute, in a Harry Potter kind of way with shoulder-length dark hair and hazel brown eyes behind his glasses.

  For a moment, I totally lost my cool and pointed at him. ‘You brother . . .’ I muttered sounding as if I was in a Tarzan movie – Me Tarzan. You Jane. Me Becca. You Steve. Ug.

  Lal grinned. ‘Yeah. He brother. Ugly specimen, isn’t he? Steve, this is Becca. My girlfriend, Becca.’

  Steve looked unimpressed. ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Lal’s girlfriend, huh?’

  ‘Yeah. No. Or at least yeah, but please don’t hold that against me.’

  Steve almost smiled. ‘I’ll try not to, but I have to question your taste.’

  ‘Really?’ I said and gave him my best flirty look. ‘And would you question his?’

  Steve shrugged and looked away as if he had lost interest in the conversation. I glanced over to check whether Lal had heard, but Emma was dragging him away by the hand towards the sea, so he was out well of earshot.

  Cat had heard, though, and when Steve went to join Lal, she gave me a sharp dig in the ribs. ‘Chocolate or strawberry, Becca?’ she asked in a clipped voice.

  ‘Oh. Er . . . what flavour would you recommend, Steve?’ I called.

  ‘Whichever,’ he called back. ‘Vanilla.’

  ‘I’ll have the same as Steve, then,’ I said to Cat.

  Cat looked at me and then at Steve, and then rolled her eyes.

  ‘For God’s sake, Becca,’ she whispered. ‘He’s Lal’s brother.’

  ‘So?’ I asked. ‘It’s not as if he fell at my feet. In fact, I have never had a boy register such disinterest before. He’s not like Lal at all, is he?’

  ‘So what do you care?’

  ‘Duh. He’s major cute – or didn’t you notice?’

  ‘Don’t you have any feelings?’ asked Cat. ‘I don’t know what’s happening to you lately. You don’t care about your mum. You don’t care about flirting with Lal’s older brother right under his nose. You’re in danger of becoming heartless.’

  I felt horrible when she said that. ‘I do have feelings,’ I said. ‘Course I do. Lots of them. All over the place. Hundreds of them. But that’s just it, Cat. I don’t know what to do with them sometimes, so I push them down and put them in a box deep inside . . .’ Suddenly all those boxed-up feelings threatened to come roaring up to the surface. It really hurt to think that Cat thought I was heartless and I felt like I was going to cry. Cat saw immediately and put her arm around me.

  ‘Hey, hey, come on. It’s OK. It will be OK,’ she said.

  ‘No, it won’t. It will never be OK again and I can’t kid myself any more by pretending that everything’s all right, because it isn’t.’

  Suddenly I wanted to get home. I
didn’t want to be out snogging Lal or flirting with his brother and I had no appetite for ice cream. I needed to talk to Mum or Dad and really face up to what was going to happen.

  DAD WAS IN THE KITCHEN when I got home. He had the photo albums and my note in front of him on the table.

  ‘Where’s Mum?’ I asked.

  ‘Not back yet,’ he replied, then indicated the albums. ‘But I think we need to have a talk. Just the two of us. Don’t you?’

  I nodded slowly. I wanted to face up to the reality of what was happening, but inside, I felt like I was an innocent victim just about to be given a jail sentence.

  Dad took a deep breath. ‘Listen, Becca, about your note . . .’

  ‘Is it my fault?’ I interrupted. ‘Did I do something to spoil things? Have I been too demanding? Been a bad daughter? Heartless? Only thinking of me? I know it was hard when I wanted to go up for the Pop Princess finals and you didn’t have the money . . .’

  ‘No way is it your fault!’ said Dad. ‘And you must get that thought out of your head right this instant. You’ll understand when you get older. It’s no one’s fault, just sometimes feelings change.’

  ‘Tell me about it,’ I said. ‘I know all about feelings changing. I don’t have to wait until I’m older!’ I thought about all the boyfriends I’d had. All four of them. Phil Davies in Year Eight – a blip, but I had liked him when I was young and demented. Mac in Year Nine. Luckily, we’re still mates. Henry, although we weren’t anything serious. He was just a holiday romance. And Lal – another one soon to be an ex. ‘I know. It’s hard letting people down, even when you’re sure it’s not working, but . . . with you and Mum it did work.’

  Dad nodded. ‘It did. For many years. But no one’s let anyone down here – honestly. It’s a mutual agreement. Both your mum and I want to split and we’re going to stay friends. We really are – unlike some couples. We’ve had too many good years, as you’ve seen looking through the albums, to let it all go. In fact, when we’re apart I think we’ll be better friends.’

  ‘Really?’ I wasn’t convinced. Mac’s mum and dad hadn’t stayed friends. Far from it – they were barely on speaking terms. And Mrs and Mr Abbott that used to live next to the post office, they hadn’t stayed friends either. I remember they’d had a great argument when they split up. She chucked him out with his cases and he was standing in the street, looking sad, with a whole crowd of nosy parkers looking on. He looked back at her and called out sadly, ‘Julie, any last words for me to remember you by?’ And she said, ‘Yes. Get him, Rover.’

  ‘Sometimes in life, Bec,’ said Dad, ‘you have to accept that something isn’t working and you have to let go of some aspects of what has become familiar and look for a way forward. It isn’t as if we haven’t tried to make it work.’ He let out a long sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. ‘Do you think you can possibly understand?’

  I thought for a moment. I thought about my songwriting. About how that wasn’t working and about how I could keep plugging on with the lyrics when I knew that really they were worse than mediocre. Or I could move on. Accept that I had tried, but that I had limitations – that maybe songwriting wasn’t for me. I was sure that there were other people on the planet who could write but not sing. Some lucky people could do both, but Dad was right. Sometimes in life, you have to accept what you can and can’t do. Let go and move on.

  ‘I do understand, Dad,’ I said. ‘Sometimes you have to let go and accept that something is not going the way you’d hoped. But what about me? I don’t want you to go. I like having you here. It’s not fair. I like living with you . . .’ I could feel the tears that I’d been holding back threatening to spill out. ‘I know what it can be like. I’ve seen it with Mac. His dad promised all sorts of things, but in reality, he hardly ever sees him and his dad has a new girlfriend. Mac doesn’t even have his own room at his dad’s place . . .’

  This ought to have been a cue for Dad to reassure me, but he just grinned.

  ‘Dad! Why are you grinning like that? Are you so happy to have got away from us?’

  ‘Not all relationships are the same. Not all marriages are the same. Not all divorces are either. What happened with Mac has nothing to do with us. For one thing, I haven’t got a girlfriend. And for the record, I like living with you too.’

  He picked up a paper from the table and waved it at me.

  ‘What are you doing for the rest of the day?’ he asked.

  ‘Not sure. Why?’

  ‘Want to come and look at a property in Kingsand with me?’

  ‘Property? Kingsand? What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, if you’re going to have a room with me as well as here with your mother, then I think you should give any place that I take your seal of approval, don’t you?’

  I felt confused. ‘Room with you? I thought you were going to Bristol to stay with your sister.’

  ‘Only for a couple of weeks! I was going to go up there, clear my head and have a think about things, but your mother and I know what we want in the long run. We talked about it in Prague and, to be perfectly honest with you, that wasn’t the first time we’d discussed splitting up. Things haven’t been right with us for a while. We did try to make it work, but now . . . well, we’ve both agreed that this is for the best. But I don’t want to move away – that was never on the cards, and anyway, I love this area. The plan was to get a flat, house, whatever, as near as possible and for you to have a room there too.’

  ‘Near? Me? With you?’

  ‘Yes. Of course. And you’ll keep your room here with your mum. I thought it would take a while to find the right place, with it being the summer and most places already having been taken but something’s come up. I saw old Dan Jason in the pub in Kingsand last night and we got talking. He has a few properties around the area and he’d just been let down by a tenant who was supposed to be moving in next week. Dan was in the pub cursing the man, but I saw an opportunity . . .’

  ‘You . . . you mean, you’re going to get a place in Kingsand?’

  Dad nodded. ‘Yes. This place could be perfect. I had a quick look this morning, but I want to know what you think. It has three bedrooms, so there’s one for me, one for you, one for my office. And it’s got lovely views looking out over the bay. It’s the blue one up to the left of the village if you’re looking out to sea.’

  ‘I think I know it! Not far from the fish and chip shop?’

  Dad grinned. ‘Exactly We might have landed on our feet, kid. Half the week, you can live with your mum and the other half the week you can live with me. You’ll always have a room wherever I live – you know that, don’t you? I’d always make sure of that.’ He pulled out a set of keys and waved them at me. ‘I’ve still got the keys, so we can go over and have a wander round and see what you think. You can see your room. But if you don’t like it, we’ll look for somewhere else.’

  An amazing feeling of happiness rushed up through me from the inside, like someone had switched on a heat source beneath me. As the surge of emotion rose from my stomach up to my throat, much to my surprise, I burst out crying.

  ‘Becca! Oh. I thought you’d be pleased.’

  ‘I am . . .’ I sobbed. ‘At least I think I am. I’m really, really happy. I feel like I’ve won the lottery or something. But . . . I’m . . . I’m confused . . . I thought you were going and I wasn’t going to see you any more and I had to be brave and act like I didn’t care and be grown up, because loads of people’s parents have split up – it’s not as if you’ve died or anything – but it felt like you’d gone, even though you’re still here . . .’ Another wave of tears engulfed me and I couldn’t help but sob even louder. ‘Sorry. Sorry. I’m happy. Really, I am . . . And I love Kingsand. It’s nearer to Squidge and Cat too.’

  Dad started laughing then and so did I, then he gave me a big hug.

  ‘I wouldn’t leave my favourite girl behind now, would I?’ he asked, which only set me off crying again. I felt like I was going mad. Happy, sad, cry
ing, laughing. Totally mad.

  When I’d calmed down, we got into his car and drove over to the village. Dad parked behind the pub and we bought enormous ice creams at the teashop by the bay, then went to look at the house. I’d walked past it a thousand times on my way to Squidge’s. It was painted pastel blue and had big bay windows with seats for sitting in to look out over the sea.

  ‘I think I love it,’ I said as we wandered through the downstairs rooms and out on to the little terrace, which overlooked Kingsand Bay.

  Upstairs were three bedrooms and a bathroom, all light and airy rooms with great views. I could easily see myself living here and Dad writing his books and looking out to sea. It’d be fab.

  ‘But . . . what if Dan wants his house back?’ I asked.

  Dad shrugged. ‘Renting out property is how he makes his living, Bec, so I don’t think he will for a while. He wants to let it on a long lease, saves all that coming and going of short holiday lets, never knowing if people are going to turn up or let you down at the last minute. He’s so glad to have a long-term tenant that he’s going to give it to me at a special rate. And if he does change his mind for any reason in the future, it’ll be fine. I might look for somewhere to buy while I’m here. If the right place comes on the market, why not? Things change. Life changes. The only thing that doesn’t change is you and me. I’m your dad and you’re stuck with me for life.’

  I wrapped my arms round his waist and gave him a hug.

  ‘I think we’ll be very happy here,’ I said.

  ‘I think so too,’ he said. ‘I’ve always wanted a place by the sea.

  Dad dropped me at home after we’d thoroughly explored the house, then he went off to seal the deal with Dan. Mum was in the living room tidying up when I got in, so I went through to talk to her.

  ‘OK, Mum, you have three choices,’ I said. ‘Lesbian, nun or Mr Riley the newsagent.’