Gutless invited me to stay for dinner and that was fine by me. His mum was a good cook and, being well aware of her son’s waistline, dished up huge quantities. We ate in Gutless’s bedroom, of course, on the grounds that time around a dinner table, eating with the family, was time wasted when you could be blowing things up. I didn’t mind that too much, even though Gutless’s bedroom smelled of mouldy pizza, festering underwear and old farts. I didn’t mind because his dad was a bit of a dick and would try to get my opinions on politics and current affairs. Gutless didn’t expect anything from me and I was cool with that.
‘Don’t you ever make your bed, Gutless?’ I asked, looking around the darkened wasteland. He never opened his curtains but even in the murk I could make out rumpled bedclothes, an assortment of dirty dishes and a small collection of Coke cans scattered on the carpet.
‘What’s the point? I’m sleeping in it later on.’
‘Fair enough.’ At least he stopped gaming to sleep. Did he dream about crosshairs and exploding heads?
I tried to find a place on the bed to stretch out while Gutless booted up his computer. I shifted a dinner plate from where a pillow might have rested if it hadn’t fallen onto the floor. Something brown and congealed was smeared on the plate. God knows what it had been, but there were tinges of green around the edges. I wondered how long it had laid there. We might have been talking weeks. Life was thriving in Gutless’s bedroom. It just wasn’t the kind of life I’d be happy sharing my pit with.
The big G himself plopped down in his computer chair and stuck on his headphones, leaving one ear exposed, the better, I imagined, to gather my responses to his gaming wisdom. That was fine by me. I didn’t normally listen to him anyway, but just grunted at regular intervals. What I’d do is watch the huge flatscreen TV that he had permanently turned on in the corner of his room. That is one thing about Gutless. He doesn’t stint when it comes to electronic gadgetry. He has more stuff than an average JB Hi-Fi store. State-of-the-art computer gear, five-hundred-dollar earphones, a gaming mouse he proudly told me cost nearly three hundred bucks, as well as console machines, TVs and other things that wouldn’t have looked out of place in NASA headquarters. Well, assuming NASA had no problems with dinner plates that were growing their own bacterial cultures and bedding that hadn’t been washed in living memory.
I avoided the centre of the bed. I couldn’t see clearly and I sure as hell didn’t want to look, but I reckoned the odds were good that I’d be lying in some stain or other. Then I’d start to wonder where the stain came from and it’s a short step from that to asking if I could take a hot shower. So I lay along the edge where I could see the TV over Gutless’s right shoulder. There was some desperately sad game show on. The sound was turned down, but that didn’t matter to me. Those kinds of shows are much better when they are muted.
‘Dude,’ he said. ‘You have got to check out the size of the maps on this video game. They’re at least half as big again as Insurgency Max, or District 19, The Revenge. We are talking fucking huge. Shit-hot graphics, as you’d expect, and up-to-date weapons shit. Based on some of the latest developed in the States. Hey, some of these guns aren’t even used in the actual military yet. Plus, a bigger range of vehicles. Look, I’ve messed around with that capture-the-flag shit, but the real good stuff is in the death matches. Now, I know what you’re going to say . . .’
I was glad he knew, because I had no idea. On the TV screen some guy with impossibly white teeth and exceptionally bad hair was charming the hell out of an old woman with brown teeth and equally bad hair. She looked like just being in the game show host’s presence was a validation of her existence. Take me now, Lord, at the pinnacle of my happiness. I hate television, but it can be entertaining. Especially when the sound is muted.
‘. . . it all depends on the quality of your team. Shit, man. I got myself into this team of complete fucking noobs last night. I made this head shot and they’re all like, whoa, that was fucking great, man, and I’m like, yeah, it would be to you bunch of dicks ’cos you have no fucking idea what you’re doin’ . . .’
I let his voice drone on. It’s better that way. Sometimes I fall asleep for fifteen minutes or so and Gutless never notices. I wake up and he’s still talking. I’m like that dinner plate. I could be there in three weeks and going green around the edges and he probably still wouldn’t notice. I love Gutless. If he didn’t exist I’d have to invent him.
The game show ended and there was a news report. Some blonde chick only about four years older than me was staring at the cameras and looking all serious. She was probably talking about the latest crisis in the Middle East and giving the impression she’d been studying this shit for years and was some kind of expert. Seriously. About twenty. I know a number of twenty year olds. They couldn’t find their own arseholes with a torch, let alone the Middle East on a world map.
Watching the news with the sound off is much better than listening to it. I like to work out when the fun human-interest stories come on. The face of the presenter normally changes from this-is-serious-shit-so-I’ve-got-a-serious-expression-on to a broad smile. Occasionally, I get it wrong. She smiles and then a picture comes up in the background of people dying in some third-world country. What can I say? I’ve got to play some kind of game while Gutless is occupied with his.
I almost didn’t notice the lotto numbers on the bottom of the screen. But it must have been the mathematician in me, picking up on patterns. They seemed familiar, which was weird. Just as I was really paying attention, the numbers disappeared and I didn’t catch the last three. Something came up instead about oil futures, whatever they are. I tried to put it out of my mind. It always seems to happen with lotto numbers. When they come up, they appear an obvious winning combination. 12, 18, 37, 38, 39, 45. Of course. What else could they be? But I couldn’t rid myself of a nagging thought.
‘Gutless?’ I said, interrupting him in full flow.
‘What?’
‘Are you on the internet?’
‘Duh, dude. It’s an online game.’
‘Okay. Could you check the lotto numbers for me, please?’ I could have used my phone but it’s pre-paid and I was low on credit.
Gutless took his eyes away from the screen and gave me an incredulous look.
‘I’m in the middle of a death match, man. Can’t it wait?’
‘I guess,’ I said. ‘How long?’
‘Well, shit . . .’ His screen exploded with flashes of light and the sound of panicked voices dribbled from one headphone earpiece. Gutless turned back to his computer and the barrel of a machine gun loomed up in the screen’s foreground. I waited while he did whatever needed to be done. This appeared to involve crawling through a realistic swamp, bursts of gunfire, considerable swearing and even more smoke. At one stage, the machine gun dipped out of sight and a hand grenade appeared briefly. A flash of light and an explosion followed. It was incredibly loud and I was getting only half the sound effects. God knows how Gutless’s ears were dealing with the strain, but I reckoned he’d be stone deaf by the age of thirty.
Anyway, I returned my eyes to the television and tried to get the numbers up again in my mind: 10, 13 and 27. I was sure of those. And now I knew why they seemed so familiar. The numbers I’d given Summerlee. I’d just made them up on the spot, but I thought they were the first three.
Eventually, Gutless must have succeeded in wiping out sufficient of the enemy because the noise abated and he half-turned in his chair.
‘Lotto, man? You serious?’ I nodded. He turned back to the screen and brought up a small Google window, though the game continued in the background. He typed a few letters, selected from the drop-down options and within twenty seconds, the numbers were on the screen. I sat on the side of his bed and peered over his shoulder.
10, 13, 27, 28, 39, 41. Supplementary numbers 7, 21.
I couldn’t remember. Not exactly. But I was pretty damn sure she had most of those. If she had bothered to get the ticket at all, of c
ourse. She hadn’t mentioned it to me again. I pulled out my mobile phone and excused myself from Gutless’s bedroom. I don’t think he heard or noticed me leaving. His bedroom is close to the back door, so I slipped out into the garden. The last thing I wanted to do was run into his old man. He’d probably want my opinion on Syria, and unfortunately I didn’t have one.
Summer’s number is in my phone, even though I never call her and she never calls me. I pressed to connect. Her phone rang for what seemed like ages and I was sure it would divert to message bank, but then she picked up.
‘Hello?’
The noise was horrendous. Of course. Summer’s eighteenth birthday do was never going to be a quiet affair. I wondered if her two hundred mates had drunk themselves into oblivion and spread wall-to-wall vomit around the public conveniences. How can anyone have two hundred mates? I’ve got one, Gutless, and he probably doesn’t even count. It will be a sad occasion, my eighteenth birthday. Me and Gutless in a pizza place, him talking about video games and me wondering where my life had gone wrong.
‘Summer?’
‘Who the fuck’s this?’ She was bellowing into the phone, competing with a song in the background that could loosen your fillings. At least it wasn’t Spider’s band. This had a semblance of harmony.
‘It’s me. Jamie.’
‘Who?’
‘JAMIE.’
‘Jamie?’
‘Yes.’
I was glad I hadn’t been invited. If this was the quality of conversation you could expect on Summer’s big day, then I was better off talking to Gutless. At least I could hear him, even though I didn’t want to.
‘Whaddya want?’
‘Did you get lotto tickets for tonight’s draw?’
‘WHAT?’
‘Lotto tickets. Did you get them?’
‘I can’t hear you.’
‘Never mind.’
‘WHAT?’
What a waste of the little credit I had. I hung up. She had them or she didn’t. It was unlikely she’d have them on her person, anyway, even if she had bought them. When she’d left home with Spider, she’d been wearing something tiny, tight and flimsy. Lotto tickets had nowhere to hide.
I went back into Gutless’s bedroom. I was right. He hadn’t noticed I’d gone. I lay down on the bed again and closed my eyes. Those numbers. They rang bells. They rang very loud bells.
CHAPTER 6
Sunday. Normally, Summer would have to work but she’d had a word with the supervisor and rearranged her shift. This was undoubtedly wise. I hadn’t heard her come in, but I guessed it wouldn’t have been much before three or four. When Summer parties, she parties hard. And she’d have a hangover with a long half-life. I guessed it would be late afternoon before anyone would see her.
Phoebe had had her breakfast hours before I made my appearance downstairs. She gets up at sparrow fart, while I like to have some kind of sleep-in on the weekend. She was in the front room doing homework. I think Phoebe does homework even when it hasn’t been set.
‘Yo, poo for brains,’ I said. ‘How are you?’
She lifted her head from the exercise book and gazed at me blankly for a moment or two. She gets so into homework that returning to the real world can take a moment or two.
‘What?’
‘Did you sleep well, or did you make a few mistakes?’ I said.
‘I slept great until Summerlee came in.’
‘What time was that?’
‘Dunno. Really, really late. Or really, really early.’
‘Made a lot of noise, huh?’
‘No, but she stinks when she’s been drinking. I mean, she stinks. She’s all sweaty and then she sleeps with her mouth open and everything and that just spreads the stink further. It takes like about two seconds for our bedroom to get filled up with this smell of sweat and booze and it just stinks.’
Her little mouth was set in a thin line. I could see what she’d be like in ten years’ time and, boy, you wouldn’t want to be on the receiving end of her disapproval. I felt sorry in advance for her boyfriend, the poor bastard.
‘I think you’re trying to tell me something, Phoebe,’ I replied. ‘Reading the subtext, I think you are trying to suggest Summerlee stinks.’
‘It’s not funny, Jamie.’
‘No. You’re right.’
‘So why are you laughing?’
‘I’m not.’
‘You are.’
‘Only a bit.’
Phoebe returned to her exercise book. She printed something carefully, methodically, onto the pages, the tip of her tongue peeking from the corner of her mouth. ‘She snores as well,’ she added.
I cracked up then, which didn’t please Phoebe at all. She made me leave, so I went to my bedroom and started up my computer. It’s a bit of a sad machine when you compare it to Gutless’s. It doesn’t have a clear case and flashing lights within. It doesn’t have the design style of something taken from the flight deck of the starship Enterprise. It’s dark and box-like, but it works, which is the only thing I care about. I checked the lotto website, just to confirm the numbers. The site had been updated and showed the number of winners: four division-one winners, each receiving seven million, five hundred thousand dollars. Division two was way down at eleven grand because there were so many winners, but still, let’s be honest, better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick. I confess I was a little excited. Summer was going to get something. Shit, four numbers paid sixty bucks and I was pretty damn sure she had four. Assuming she’d bought the tickets. I closed the site and shut down the computer. I had homework of my own. English and maths. Hmmm. Tricky decision. I got out my maths textbook and turned to a section on deductive geometry.
Summer surfaced at four in the afternoon. She edged her way down the stairs as if every step was torture. Turned out it was. When she got down she stood for a minute or so, holding the banister for support, then oozed into the kitchen and sat at the table. A small moan issued from her mouth and she put her face into her hands.
‘Afternoon, Summer,’ I said. ‘Good night, was it?’
She moaned again. It was music to my ears and I adopted an even cheerier tone.
‘Sounded like good times when I rang you,’ I added. ‘The place must have been hopping.’
‘Stop shouting, Jamie,’ she whispered through her fingers. ‘Please?’
‘I’m not shouting, sis,’ I said, though I confess my decibel count might have been slightly higher than normal. ‘Drank a bit too much, huh?’
‘Shitfaced,’ she groaned.
‘Alcohol,’ I said. ‘The work of the cursing class.’
‘Stop shouting. Please.’
I’d been looking forward to tormenting her, but it wasn’t as satisfying as I’d anticipated. She did look like hell. Her hair was knotted and lank at the same time. When she lifted her face from her hands I would, under normal circumstances, have pissed myself. It was obvious she hadn’t removed her make-up before collapsing into bed. She’d probably been incapable of removing her make-up. Mascara was spread all around her eyes and down her right cheek. She’d lost her false lashes on one eye, which gave her a lopsided look. It was a situation ripe for ridicule, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. She was so vulnerable. The night before had kicked her senseless and I didn’t have the heart to add my own boot-print. Instead, I got up and went to the fridge. I poured a glass of orange juice and then took two paracetamol from the kitchen cabinet. I placed them on the table.
‘You need some vitamin C, sis,’ I said. ‘And pain relief.’
She groaned, but took the tablets and washed them down with the OJ. She grimaced and I suspected her mouth must have had the texture and consistency of the bottom of a bird cage.
‘Thanks,’ she said. Then she lay her arms across the table and rested her head on them.
‘Did you ever buy those lotto tickets, Summer?’ I asked.
‘What?’ She didn’t move her head.
‘The lotto tickets. You were
going to get some for your birthday.’
‘Oh. Yeah.’ The synapses were clearly not firing. They’d probably been drowned or pickled. Maybe both.
‘Did you use the numbers I gave you?’
‘What?’
Having a conversation with Summer was, at best, like pulling teeth. This was almost impossible.
‘Do you know where the tickets are?’
‘What?’
Jesus Christ, I was talking to a vegetable. I almost gave up, but decided to give it one last go.
‘Do you know where the tickets are?’ I enunciated each word carefully and slowly as if communicating with a moron. Which wasn’t far from the truth.
‘Handbag . . . bedroom . . . I think.’
‘Can I check?’
She moaned, which I took as agreement. It was much more likely that she hadn’t heard me, since under normal circumstances Summer would never let me go anywhere near her personal possessions. But I was curious and she was brain dead. I skipped up the stairs before she had a chance to process the request, understand it and stop me.
Phoebe was spot on. The bedroom stank. It was a sour smell, a heady cocktail of sweat, vodka, vomit and cigarette smoke. I felt sorry for the little tacker, having to sleep in that miasma. No wonder she got up at sparrow fart. Summer’s bed was a dump and so was her bedside table, shit littered across the top and dribbling down onto the floor. Literally dribbling. A half-used tube of some kind of cream. I couldn’t find her bag. In the end I got down on my hands and knees and looked under her bed. It was on its side about half a metre in and I fished it out, removing a couple of rather unpleasantly damp tissues that had stuck themselves to it. I sat on the bed and opened it.
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