The Trouble With Money (The diary of a Lottery winner)

by Frank Rawlins

  None of them gave a clue as Ronnie finished his story.

  ‘She’s been having a very tough time. I thought a move down here would help the weaning-off process but it seems to have heightened her fear of coming off. I just couldn’t cope and do the job as well, so … she’s at her mother’s.’

  The girls clucked like mother hens; admirable mother hens.

  ‘I can’t go on living like that. It’s what got us into financial problems in the first place, not the car. I want a life, I want this job, Harry. You know. It’s what I do.’

  Nobody blamed him; nobody blamed her. These things happen, sadly. But we all got slightly melancholically merry (Sarah on alcohol-free lager!). Then we went home and counted our blessings.

  Monday, June 10

  FR popped his pilgalric round the office door today. I made a great show of introducing him to Ronnie for the first time, hoping it might take his mind off Saturday’s pantomime. Of course, it did just the opposite.

  He insisted on dragging me into The Crown for a quick lunchtime pint, and while we were waiting for the amber brew to arrive he said, ‘So, is Ronnie taking over?’

  ‘Pardon?’ was the best reply I could manage.

  ‘Are you selling the business?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Sorry, mate – just being nosy. Reporter’s curse. Sorry.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  ‘So, how does Ronnie fit in then?’

  ‘He needed a job, and he’s a good designer.’

  ‘And …?’

  ‘He will take more responsibility, as I approach retirement.’

  ‘Right, it’s just that MJ and I were wondering why you were considering buying a £380,000 house … it was in our property paper.’

  ‘Buy!? No – Jules used to work with Elaine; Mrs Webb-Lawson. Didn’t even know it was for sale until we saw the board. We just happened to be passing by …’

  ‘Right.’

  But his look said, ‘I don’t believe a fucking word of that, mate.’

  I made a show of careful thought, as I thought furiously, and then said, ‘You and MJ had better come round to dinner. Friday night – you’ll have to be patient till then.’

  ‘I'll try.’

  Jules and I are relieved. A little worried about the final consequences of this forthcoming disclosure, but still relieved.

  We phoned Cornwall and Lincolnshire. Told some major lies – but persuaded them they had to come to meet our new famous friend (‘can’t say any more, but we all love his music … sorry, gotta go.’).

  NOTES

  The almost unimaginable happened last night – Lennox Lewis battered Mike Tyson to a crushing defeat. The bully was humbled. Brilliant.

  Tuesday, June 11

  Well done, boyos. The Paddies beat Saudi 3-0 and go through to next round. Sadly, so do the Krauts, after beating Cameroon 2-0. Macaroons missed a hatful of chances.

  Wednesday, June 12

  Joy of joys. England-Nigeria is an anti-climactic 0-0 draw, but we are through. And almost as satisfying – Argentina could only draw with Denmark and are out. Yabberdabberdoo …

  Friday, June 14

  They arrived in reverse order of proximity – Pedro and Murdo, closely followed by Tel and Madge, followed half an hour later by the couple who live round the corner.

  The greetings were of course warm and genuine; as was the bemusement of FR and MJ as the other four rattled off a string of quips about our ‘famous friend’. Jules and I put them out of their misery as soon as everyone was settled and had a stiff drink to hand.

  They thought it was a wind-up to start with, even when I showed them our photocopy of the Camelot cheque.

  ‘Very good,’ said Tel. ‘Knock it up on your computer?’

  Even Jules – not renowned for telling porkies – couldn’t convince them she was telling the truth. In the end I went and fetched our bank folder and showed them the statement which confirmed that £3,456,768 had been deposited to our joint names.

  The silence was tantamount to tangible. For a few seconds. Followed by what sounded like four separate soundbites from a convention of blasphemers. Followed by hugs and kisses, handshakes and hearty congratulations – and Murdo’s mock sad sigh that she’d much rather meet a celebrity. Then we all got started on the business of getting as pissed as farts while we waited for a huge Chinese dinner to be delivered.

  ‘Never seen so many silver cartons since Blue Peter did the Great Wall of China, life-size,’ said Pedro afterwards. ‘You must be rich, Aitch.’

  Just as well we didn’t take them to The Randolph; they would have been expecting me to see to the national debt.

  We were all mellow by then, so we settled down in the living room for some serious drinking and talking. It could have been tricky offering them money, or not offering them money, but now was the time to do it, while we were all glowing. So I went through my practised spiel about family and good causes first, took a deep breath, and said ‘So, we’d like our best friends to share in our good fortune as well.’

  And what friends. They all insisted – in their couples – that they didn’t want any money; it might spoil the friendships. Jules and I insisted that they should have some; we were all too close and too sensible to let any such thing happen.

  It was then that I had a brainwave. ‘How much you chaps got left on your mortgages?’

  Once it would have been a relatively simple sum; these days it’s calculus. FR and MJ had changed their mortgage provider twice in the past five years, gone from endowment to repayment, switched from variable rate to fixed rate, capped, with the option of …

  ‘Roughly?’ I interrupted.

  ‘Twenty-odd grand, I suppose, because of the endowment,’ said FR. ‘Bloody house only cost thirty grand; God knows how much interest we’ve paid.’

  Tel and Madge said maybe £25-30K; Pedro and Murdo, because of the nature of their home (attached to the business), were more like £60K.

  ‘Let us pay off your mortgages then,’ I said, thanking the god of personal finance that none of them had started those mortgages in recent years.

  They declined again, so Jules had a good old go at them. Berating them for denying us the pleasure of helping our oldest friends. Well, what could they say – they accepted £30K per couple. And my declaration-cum-admonition that if they should ever need a few bob urgently they were to let us know. Or else.

  Saturday, June 15

  They all stayed the night. FR and MJ, who could have got a taxi, didn’t want to split up the party so they asked to take the floor/sofa in the living room; widescreen TV permitting. No way, I slurred. I volunteered to take the floor, MJ could kip with Jules, and FR could take the sofa – if he promised to tell me how the Reporter’s Curse would deal with the problem of knowing this juicy piece of Lottery news but also knowing he could never divulge it, let alone write about it.

  ‘Is this bribery?’ he asked jokingly.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘I would have settled for a bottle of good malt.’

  We all laughed, and I got out my last half-empty bottle of good malt. It hit the spot, even though the spot was wavering a tad. We lads sat up for a final tot or two while the girls crawled off to bed, but ended up seeing off the bottle in the small hours (strange expression; they were still 60 minutes long), and dropping off one by one, fully dressed, on and around the sofa, armchairs, and widescreen TV.

  A good move, as it turned out – the football would be on before we knew it.

  I woke at about half-six, opened a window to freshen up a room with more than a hint of bodily odours about it, and tiptoed to the cloakroom for a quick refreshing face wash and a pee that went on for about five minutes. Then I filled the kettle – from the tap! – for lashings of hot coffee, sorted out the frying pan and half the contents of the fridge, and started to cook a full pre-football English breakfast.

  It was all done bar the eggs when I remembered something – I ought to wake the lads. They weren�
�t best pleased; until they smelled the coffee and fry-up, and heard those magic words – ‘footie soon, widescreen TV, England, big match, wake up, wankers!’

  They all went for a dab of flannel and a downpour of pee, and settled one by one at the dining room table suddenly wide awake and demanding coffee and food.

  What a way to start the day. England 3 Denmark 0. Lest I forget: an early goal by Rio Ferdinand, Michael Owen scored his first of the tournament, and then Emile Heskey came in from the cold of the left wing to hit a cracker.

  Only one thing spoiled the day – lucky bloody Germans got another easy run, beating Paraguay 1-0.

  We all went round to FR’s in the afternoon for another impromptu party – an afternoon/evening steak barbecue to which the rest of the Oxons were invited: FR’s lot and our lot, including our surrogate son Ron. Everybody made a great fuss of Sarah, who is beginning to swell like crazy and bloom like a fragrant English rose.

  Sunday, June 16

  And so back to normality, or as normal as it ever gets these days. The out-of-towners went their separate ways, Jules and I had a quiet day on our own, and we both enjoyed the drama of the Ireland-Spain match and the Paddies’ last-gasp equaliser. They should have won, having all the impetus with them, but missed their chances and – not unexpectedly – lost on penalties.

  As Jules said – her mother could have hit a better penalty than some of the Paddies.

  Headline in The Rag: GUN IN GARDEN WAS A PLANT, COURT TOLD

  Tuesday, June 18

  Finally got round to tackling the repointing of that old bit of wall at the back. Tricky job, repointing. For someone who’s none-too-practical anyway. I tried to do it properly, with my shiny new trowel, but most of the mortar ended up on the ground rather then in the gaps between the bricks. I ended up shoving it in with my fingers. Much easier.

  Jules came along halfway through and expressed her disdain – for jeopardising the soft hands that she depended on to soothe, stroke, and caress her.

  ‘Put some rubber gloves on,’ she suggested in a tone tantamount to an order.

  Well, I couldn’t put soothing, stroking, and caressing at risk, could I?

  NOTES

  Italy knocked out 2-0 by South Korea! An apt punishment for all their diving, play-acting, time-wasting, conniving ways. Simulating!? Fucking cheating, more like. It’s just not British. And, thank God, it’s still anathema to most of our players, despite the influx of foreign players .

  Wednesday, June 19

  Woke up with Stiff Little Fingers. Which was a shock because I thought they had disbanded in the 1980s. Seriously though, folks, it was a shock to wake up with arthritic fingers. I remember the agony my mum went through in her later years.

  Of course, Jules put me straight: ‘Arthritis? It’s just inflammation from three hours of shoving cement in little holes. They’ll be back to normal in a day or two.”

  ‘Mortar, sweetheart,’ I corrected, somewhat aggrieved that she had brushed off my pain, which was real and insistent, so lightly.

  ‘All right – shoving cement in little mortars.’

  That cheered me up.

  Arnie phoned me at the office. That really cheered me up. He and Mags had decided to go ahead with a thirtieth wedding anniversary party at their place. We exchanged some brief banter (yet again) about us going to Barbados and them settling for Boddingtons, and then I promised to let him know which of the kids could make it, before he rang off with his now accustomed abruptness.

  The bastard. He’s never forgiven his upstart little brother for getting married before him. He and Mags had been engaged for years, planning the wedding for months, and then Jules and I came along, known each other for less than a year, and got married without even bothering with an engagement (a dreadful breach of etiquette in those days). Six weeks before he and Mags did the deed.

  Jesus, Arnie – Jules and I didn’t give a shit who got married first. The date was available, fitted in with a holiday we had booked, we didn’t want to wait any longer, so we went for it. We weren’t trying to steal anybody’s thunder – never even occurred to us. We tried to explain; he tried to accept it. But I don’t think he ever did. Or Mags. Petty bastards.

  Looked up Stiff Little Fingers on tinternet while I was at the office. They disbanded in 1982, reformed in 1987, and are still going strong! Good for them.

  Thursday, June 20

  Cory popped in with yet another invitation. ECO is opening its doors to the public – well, its richer members, not the hoi polloi – on Friday July 5 , the day before Arnie and Mags open their doors to the richer half of the family. I know which one I’m looking forward to.

  Friday, June 21

  Double disaster – we lose to a freak goal, Germany go through.

  What a sickening disappointment. It looked so good after Michael Owen scored, but we seemed to lose all momentum after Brazil equalised. And then that freak goal knocked all the stuffing out of us. The fight, the True Brit Grit just dribbled away. We never looked like getting back into it.

  Then the USA play the Krauts off the park and lose 1-0.

  Sad sad day, and I can’t sleep.

  Sunday, June 23

  Stiff Little Fingers painful again when I woke up. I did some finger stretching/pressing/wiggling exercises and they eased off. So I couldn’t even blame them for the crap golf I played.

  Well, crap for the first 12 holes, and then I started hitting the ball like a dream. One gross birdie, four pars, and only one bogey in the last six holes. Stupid sodding game. What is about sport – that it can turn sane intelligent men into idiots?

  I am much more mellow about playing badly than I was a few years ago, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to accord with Kipling’s way of treating this impostor called Disaster. Still, he does make exceedingly good cakes.

  FR had a pretty good game, and somehow we both got a bit carried away in the clubhouse. MJ had their car and would come and pick him up when he was ready. Did I fancy a few? She could drop me off home, and I could pick up my car tomorrow. Did I!? I did. So I phoned Jules. She was fine about it; she wasn’t cooking; a pizza would do.

  Haven’t done the Sunday lunchtime session for ages – got fed up with spending my Sunday afternoons/evenings snoring in my armchair – but I was ready to let rip. And so was FR apparently. We had five, possibly six, pints of Ruddles each. And a couple of cigars each. Naughty boys.

  It’s a bit worrying, actually. I only have the odd cigar when I have a pint, but I’m starting to go to the pub most lunchtimes, mainly to have a cigar. It’s like the old joke – ‘I only smoke after meals; I’m on fifteen meals a day now.’

  And Jules can always smell it in my breath when we have a snog – even if it’s hours afterwards. Tonight we didn’t snog. She was already asleep when I went up. I was wide awake after an evening snoring in my chair.

  Remembered at last to tell FR that I haven’t forgotten our Lottery pact – I owe him a new set of clubs. But he wouldn’t hear of it; not after the £30K. Said he’d bloody wrap his present clubs round my neck if I tried to surprise him with a new set.

  I think he meant it.

  Tuesday, June 25

  My SLF are still painful in the mornings, and then ease off during the day. And I’m getting worried – it’s now a week since I did the repointing. To make matters worse, I keep thinking about the dropped custard and the dropped glass, and then keep telling myself they were nothing to do with SLF. Surely …

  If they are still painful by the end of the week I shall have to make an appointment with Doc Macca.

  Even more painful – Germany got through to the final, beating South Korea 1-0. The plucky Koreans were so close to dumping the lucky sods.

  Wednesday, June 26

  Sanity prevails. Brazil beat Turkey.

  Friday, June 28

  Started work on ‘Mad Dogs And Roy Keane’. Not sure about the title. If I ever get it accepted for publication, will I need to ask his permission to use his nam
e? Not sure. FR should know when the time comes. Rattled off the first three pages (not bloody bad!) to get a feel for the idea before launching into more time-consuming research, and then went for a pint.

  And a cigar.

  For a change it was a fortuitous decision to have a cigar. I always cadge a light because buying another lighter is the first step towards full-time smoking again, and I happened to ask Mr Zippo, a bloke I hadn’t seen before, who was standing next to me at the bar. He was happy to give me a light with his Zippo in return for a chat – about this, that, and then nothing but the Zippo. A brief history of the Zippo, how it was virtually used as currency when he was in the Navy, how you could make it work with paraffin or meths or white spirit, but watch out for your eyebrows, how he had collected about 50 different Zippos, how they were now worth…and then I spotted Blind Hugh come tapping in with his stick and made my excuses.

  I have never really had a proper conversation with Blind Hugh before; we’ve just passed the time of day occasionally or exchanged pub banter. But today we talked seriously, and I was glad I did. Thank you, Mr Zippo.

  What a nice man Hugh is; and what an intelligent man. Understandably, he is just sore (sometimes bitter, sometimes seriously bitter) with what life has dealt him. He was only a kid when his poor sight slowly dwindled to blackness, and in those days there was either Braille or Braille. No computers, let alone speaking computers, no real chance of educational fireworks despite the small dedicated band of specialist teachers, no career path out of the ordinary or manual for an intelligent blind boy.