Life's Lottery

by Kim Newman

  Kate puts on her duffel coat. Now you’re here, she can go home. You’ve talked about having her live in, which would be more convenient, but, though she’s never said as much, she can’t bring herself to surrender the last of her life to Vic. She came to you in the first place because of who Vic was — like every teenage girl of the last twenty years, Kate thought Vic was talking directly about her — and her devotion is still based on the music. If she were here round the clock, she wouldn’t last.

  Before she leaves, Kate hugs you.

  ‘Good night, Griff,’ she says.

  Then she goes. You are alone in the house. With Vic. Recently, you have started wondering what it would be like to sleep with Kate. It wouldn’t be a good idea.

  On the worst days, Vic already thinks you and Kate plot against her. Still amazingly perceptive, she’d know if you were having a relationship. She’d interpret it as a threat. She has all sorts of defences against threats.

  As you climb the stairs, you remember the long-gone objects — plastic comb, picture frame, toothbrush — once placed on each step. You never did find out what that was all about.

  You have the glossy folder Heather Wilde prepared. It won’t be any use in an argument. Vic distrusts gloss. So, deep down, do you.

  ‘Vic,’ you say, not loud, ‘it’s me.’

  There are no lights on the landing. Above the ground floor, Vic won’t have electric lights. You made do with candles until she set fire to her night-dress — her thigh is permanently scarred from that: a rough grey patch on her smooth white skin — and now get by with battery torches and night-lights.

  You feel for a switch and flick it. A white plastic clown-head, with very red lips, glows.

  ‘Vic?’

  ‘Griff,’ she says.

  She has been standing in the doorway of her room. Which you used to share. In the clown-light, she looks as she used to. Only, you know the white streaks in her black hair aren’t dye any more. Shadows fill the sharp depressions in her face, under her eyes and cheekbones.

  ‘Don’t look at me,’ she says.

  She steps back into her room, vanishing into blacked-out dark, but doesn’t close the door. You are allowed in.

  Constructing a smile that’s wasted in the dark, you step over her threshold.

  Vic not only won’t have electric light, but also refuses to heat her room. She mummifies herself in ragged shawls, like some punky Miss Havisham. She still has trunks full of clothes from her stage days — all loose on her stick-thin body — and often dresses up in the gloom, adding layer upon layer.

  You feel the cold of the room.

  Always, in the cold and dark, you remember the first time you and Vic came to Sutton Mallet.

  How did you get here from there?

  Of course, you’re still physically in the same place. This is where it started, and this — you don’t like to admit it, but it’s true — is where it will end.

  The idea was to reject the notions of success your parents passed on to you. Somehow, that made you both very rich very quickly. Then kicked out the chair from under you.

  A noose of expectation tightened round Vic’s neck in 1982 and has been throttling her ever since. You have been gripping her around the waist, holding her up.

  ‘Shut the door,’ she says.

  You obey. There is a flutter and a clunking. A torch-beam shines, making a red mask of Vic’s drawn face, and is then directed at the floor. A white circle of light lies on the carpet. You and Vic are shadows, edging round each other.

  ‘We need to talk,’ you say. ‘Like grown-ups.’

  ‘Don’t want to,’ she snaps.

  ‘Vic?’

  You instantly regret the tiny whine that makes a two syllable word of her name.

  ‘Gri-iff,’ she parodies, nasally. She is merciless when she catches weakness.

  ‘Come to me, Vic,’ you say. ‘Meet me on my level.’

  ‘No,’ she replies. ‘You come here. Down here.’

  She sits on the bed, cross-legged, a lotusing scarecrow. Her elbows are sharp. Her hair is a bird’s nest.

  ‘Cut this Howard Hughes shit, Vic.’

  She laughs, musically. She deliberately whines and does funny voices, not wanting to use her singing voice, the clear shriek that used to come out of her. It was always the voice that made her Vic Conyer.

  Without the voice, the songs weren’t that good.

  Maybe you had to be a girl to understand?

  ‘Howard Hughes Sings the Blues,’ she croons. ‘Album title. First track: “Tussle With Russell”. Last track: “Nine-Inch Nails”.’

  She is capable of making up an album’s worth of material impromptu and then forgetting it. Vic creates songs the way you blow your nose, then tosses the tissue away with no more intention of coming back to it than you have of revisiting your snot.

  Once, you tried rigging up hidden microphones, taping everything on the machines in the studio. She found out and went into her Trappist phase, sub-vocalising the music in her mind, mouthing a song cycle she called ‘Vow of Silence’.

  ‘Come down from the space shuttle, Vic.’

  ‘Splash down.’

  ‘Derek Leech has made an offer.’

  ‘He’s the Devil, you know.’

  ‘Yes, of course he is. But the Devil always lives up to his contracts. Dr Faustus got the twenty years, remember?’

  ‘Literary reference, Griff. That’s cheating. We’re not supposed to be clever, remember? That was the point. Being clever is putting your head over the parapet. It doesn’t make you happy.’

  ‘Happiness can’t buy everything, Vic.’

  She has edged back along the bed and now has the board against her back. It’s the same bed you found here in 1977: once the mattress was replaced, it turned out to be a surprisingly decent piece of furniture.

  You sit on the foot of the bed, stroking the acreage of quilt that separates you.

  Vic hugs her torch like a baby, stretching layers of black lace over the light. Spider-web mottles cover her face, like wrinkles. Actually, her skin is too tight to wrinkle.

  ‘Vic?’

  She brrrings, impersonating a tone-phone.

  ‘Nobody home,’ you say.

  ‘You’ve reached the brain of the girl who used to be famous. She can’t come up to your exalted level of consciousness right now, so leave a message when you hear the primal scream.’

  She opens her mouth and fills her lungs. You flinch, knowing the eardrum-assaulting screech she is capable of.

  ‘La,’ she sings, a pitch-perfect note, ‘la, la, la …’

  ‘Vic, it’s Griff,’ you say. ‘Pick up, would you?’

  ‘La, la, la, la …’

  ‘Oh well. It’s Leech’s offer. I’ve been over it. I think it looks good. I think you’re protected. I’m advising you to sign.’

  ‘Crrrck! You have been cut off. Replace the receiver and dial again.’

  Your knees are on the bed now. You slip off your shoes. It’s cold. You’d like to be under the cover. You crouch, like an animal waiting to spring.

  ‘For ever and always,’ she says.

  You pull up the quilt and dive under, writhing towards her.

  ‘For ever and always?’

  Her voice is muffled.

  She weighs down the quilt at one end but releases it, slipping her legs under. Your cheek glides past the rough patch on her thigh.

  You emerge at her end of the bed. She looks down at you. She will not repeat herself again.

  ‘Always and for ever,’ you admit.

  She takes hold of you, fiercely.

  And so on.

  Begin again?

  65

  On the first day back at college in 1978, you have a morning of ‘What did you do over the holidays?’ Stephen Adlard even asks you what you got for Christmas. You wonder when presents stopped being the obsessive focus of the holiday. You can’t think of anything you did, except wait by the telephone. Rag Day was last year and it’s f
orgotten.

  You have a French class with Rowena coming up in the afternoon. She can’t avoid seeing you then. You keep an eye out all morning, prowling from library to common room, and hang about in the cafeteria through the lunch period. Ro is a no-show.

  Is it deliberate?

  Of course it is.

  In the cafeteria, you see Victoria, chatting with Michael Dixon and Penny Gaye. Her hair has gone black again but she’s wearing red eye-liner that matches her lipstick. She looks like a vampire. She ignores you.

  You remember her verdict: Keith, you’re pathetic. It’s hard to argue with.

  As you arrive, ten minutes early, in the room where the French class is scheduled, you bump into Stephen again. Is he following you deliberately?

  ‘You look ill. Have you got this flu that’s going around? It’s murderous.’

  ‘I’ve had it.’

  Mrs Douglass said Ro had the flu. Maybe she’s not well enough to come back to college.

  That would explain it. You feel almost relieved. You need to sort things out. But not necessarily yet. More time to think, to sort out what to say, would be welcome.

  For the first time in your educational career, you haven’t done your homework. You were supposed to prepare a translation of the first act of Les Mains Sales over the holiday, but you didn’t. You intend to plead illness.

  Flu alone wouldn’t have stopped you.

  You aren’t sick any more. You’re just in love.

  That’s a song title, you remember. You’ve been thinking more and more in song titles.

  Stephen has prepared his translation and typed it up. In its little red folder, it looks ready for publication.

  You take your usual chair. The classroom is laid out in a U, as if the lecturer, Mademoiselle Quelou, were being interrogated by a panel of inquisitors. Ro usually sits on the opposite bar of the U, two seats off from facing you directly. Mary Yatman has taken her place, next to Ro’s empty chair. Other chairs fill up.

  Stephen is still talking but you don’t listen.

  The lecturer comes into the room and takes her chair. She wishes you all ‘bon apres-midi’. The class isn’t full yet. It’s not due to start for a few minutes.

  Mademoiselle, who can’t be more than three years older than her pupils, takes off her coat and gets the register out of her satchel.

  Ro appears like a shadow, creeps across the wall, and sits next to Mary.

  Your heart hammers. You’re sure everyone is staring at you.

  Ro has changed her hair. She has a long fringe, which hangs over her eyes. She looks down at her books.

  Everyone is here. Mademoiselle takes the register.

  You don’t pay attention to the class. It takes place around you, but doesn’t involve you. You try not to stare at Ro. But you have to.

  Can you read her? Is she avoiding looking at you? Or is she casual about it? Does she even remember Rag Day? Did she get your phone messages? You know she does and she did. But she is going to pretend otherwise.

  This is torture.

  You’re not sure about her new hairstyle. She used to have very long hair and wore an Alice band. Now, she has a 1920s-looking bob, like Thoroughly Modern Millie. It makes you look at her face more. You see a sadness in her eyes nobody else notices. Only you understand.

  After the class, you’re going to have to talk to her. You run through approaches.

  Mademoiselle asks you about your homework and you explain you have had flu. You promise to get it done by the beginning of next week. You assume the lecturer will buy the story, since you have such a perfect record. She nods, not happy — suspecting something? — but lets it stand. Stephen presents his translation proudly and Mademoiselle — she doesn’t like Stephen, you realise with your new-found powers of understanding — clucks over its neatness.

  Then she asks Ro. She hasn’t done the work either.

  ‘I had flu,’ she says, weakly.

  ‘Toi aussi? It’s an epidemic. Have you been kissing Keith?’

  Ro instantly goes scarlet. You do too.

  ‘Very well. But you two had better have it sorted out by Monday morning.’

  Mademoiselle Quelou goes on to other things.

  You think it through. Ro will hurry off afterwards. You’ll have to chase her, maybe trap her against a wall. What will you say? What can you say?

  ‘Ro, I just want you to know that I love you. I’m sorry, but there it is.’

  That would have the advantage of being the truth. But is it too scary? Would any girl think you were a wild-eyed loon? Let alone Ro, who knows the beast you really are. You curse yourself.

  How about: ‘Ro, I know how you must feel. I just want you to know that I’m sorry. I acted like a swine,’

  —a comical word, surely? One step away from ‘cad’ or ‘rotter’. How about ‘bastard’? It’ll have to do—

  ‘I acted like a bastard. I shouldn’t have.’

  That would understate your feelings, maybe draw her out more. The first would be a blow-it-all-on-one-bet shot. She might fly into your arms or spit in your face. Afterwards, there’d be no going back. The second would be more gradual, would open a path, settle the waters. You’d have a step-by-step chance to win her round.

  The lesson ends. Mademoiselle Quelou lets you go.

  Ro is the first out of the door. You are second. Down the corridor, by the lockers, you catch up. You tug her sleeve. She turns round, face unreadable.

  If you tell her you love her, go to71. If you apologise for being a bastard, go to 79.

  66

  Wednesday, 25, February 1998. You arrive at work and find a package on your desk with the morning post. It was posted two days ago, 23-2-98, using five commemorative stamps left over from Christmas. The bank’s address has been snipped from a letterhead and sellotaped to the brown paper wrapping. Above the address is hand-printed your job title, ‘OVERDRAFT OFFICER’. The package is mummified in an entire roll of tape, a transparent layer sealing in the paper. You wonder if some disgruntled debtor has sent you a dog-turd. You’ve heard of that sort of thing happening at other branches.

  Still, it’s unusual for you to receive any sort of package at work and hard not to think of it as a present. The rest of your post-bag consists of letters of explanation, pleas and excuses from the recently-unemployed-and-unlucky-in-jobsearch, newly-graduated-but-still-out-of-work students, mortgage-holders strangled by the latest wave of negative equity and the just-plain-irresponsible. You’re not a hard-hearted man. You’ll consider each case fairly, but in all conscience you know when a situation isn’t likely to improve. You’ve more patience with those who despair and confess they can’t see any way out of their hole than with those who pretend chipper optimism and promise imminent cash infusions.

  You told Kate, the work-experience girl, that all letters from overdraft-holders remind you of Billy Bunter’s expectations of a postal order. Not only does Kate, who has a pierced nose, not know who Billy Bunter is, but she has not heard of postal orders.

  You leave the package until last, then consider the best way into it. Your nails can’t get a purchase on the sellotape to scrape through to the flaps of paper, so you use one blade of the scissors to slice through. Inside is a cardboard box, printed in faded cream and red. It originally contained two tennis balls but looks like something you’d keep around the house for spare screws or batteries. It has a flip-top lid, hinged with fabric tape.

  When you rattle the box, small objects roll about inside. There’s a dusty brown stain on the underside. You feel faintly sick and don’t know why. Maybe you should call Kate in to open the box.

  Take the money, open the box. Kate wouldn’t understand that either. That quiz show — what was it called? — is ancient.

  You put the box down on the desk and look at it. It is not going to contain rolls of stolen cash intended to pay off a debt. It is not going to contain dried canine faeces. And it is not going to contain a lump of plastique wired to an old alarm clock. It ce
rtainly won’t be a pair of tennis balls.

  Should you call Tristram, the manager, out of the office you still think of as your father’s? This might be special. Or it might be nothing.

  Rot and nonsense.

  With your fingertips, you lift the lid.

  The first thing you see is a postcard. The Cob at Lyme Regis. You pick it up and turn it over, looking at the message. I HOPE THIS SATISFIES YOU, capital letters say. IT’S NOT A POUND OF FLESH, BUT IT’S A START.

  Nestled on a bed of cotton wool are four severed human fingers and a thumb, splayed out to suggest they come from a left hand. A wedding ring is loose on the third finger. The cut ends are greenish grey, like spoiled meat. The skin is a little shrivelled. The nails are black.

  ‘Kate,’ you call …

  ‘You’re Keith Marion, aren’t you?’ the policewoman says. ‘We were at school together.’

  Mary Yatman is now a detective sergeant. Her blonde hair is drawn back from a wide forehead and fastened with a grip at the nape of her neck. She wears a man’s sports jacket about a size too big for her and smart jeans. She smells healthy and her face is unlined, clear. Like you, she must be thirty-seven or-eight.

  ‘Didn’t you marry Rowena Thingy?’

  She holds her hands out in front of her chest, making D-cups. At school, a long time ago, Ro was famous for her breasts.

  ‘Douglass,’ you say.

  ‘That’s right,’ Mary says, hands falling to her lap. ‘Douglass. How is she?’

  ‘Very well,’ you say, too quickly. ‘Older, of course.’

  ‘That happens.’

  Mary looks exactly as she did when she was eighteen. You remember her as a monster at primary school, but a quiet girl at college, a bit of a brain.

  ‘Your father used to be manager here. It’s all coming back to me now. I suppose you’re planning to take over his old job one day?’

  Tristram Warwick, the manager, three years younger than you, has spent the last year on training courses. The branch is completely computerised and you can’t see him moving out much before retirement. If you are ever offered a promotion, it’ll mean moving to another town.