Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery (13 page)

Sometimes your money will be a bit of a social embarrassment – like bad breath. It gets in the way of normal relationships.

‘Jesus!' yelled Jasper and he rushed over to Raf. I stayed frozen with shock in the doorway. Jasper dropped to his knees, turning Raf over.

‘Wake up! Wake up!' said Jasper urgently, shaking him roughly. Then he drew his hand back and whacked Raf in the face.

Oh my God. I was getting chest pains. I couldn't breathe. Was he dead? Was his brother abusing him?

Raf's whole body seemed to twitch, and his eyes opened. I stepped back swiftly, hiding behind the door.

‘What's going on?' I heard him say, and then the rumble of Jasper's reply, but I missed anything else because I was quickly tiptoeing down the stairs, so
shaken that I had to hold on to the wall to stop myself stumbling.

Once back in the café I couldn't decide what to do. Should I leave? Call the police . . . social services? Or stay and see what happened next?

‘Hey Lia!' Oh God. Possibly the last people on earth I wanted to talk to. Alicia and Georgia.

‘Hey,' I said, unenthusiastically.

‘What are you doing here? Thought you'd have bought your own Apple Mac by now, rich girl.'

‘None of your business,' I said.

‘Come to buy yourself a boyfriend, have you?' sneered Georgia.

‘Get lost, Georgia,'

‘Because that's the only way someone'd look at you. If you paid them lots of money. And even then, they'd want to put a bag over your ugly face.'

I had a choice, really. I could ignore her or. . .

‘You bitch!'

‘Slag!'

‘Stupid cow!'

‘Minger!'

I felt someone touch my arm.

‘Err. Lia. Jasper said you wanted to talk to me.'

Raf was standing next to me. He was pale, and
there was a red mark on his face, right next to the almost-faded bruise on his eye. But he was effortlessly stylish as usual. I didn't know anyone else who could make a T-shirt look so good.

I gave one last, furious glare at Georgia, and said, with as much dignity as I could muster, ‘Oh yes, hey, Raf. I just wanted a word about . . . about something. Science coursework. You know, those experiments we had to do together.'

‘Oh yeah, right,' he said, looking a bit puzzled – understandably, because I'd just invented the coursework. Georgia was looking baffled as well – it was unfortunate that she was actually in our Science group.

‘Perhaps we could talk somewhere more private,' I said hastily.

Alicia and Georgia erupted into snorts and giggles. Raf ignored them and said, ‘Yes, thanks Lia, I could do with some help with those experiments. Let's go into the office,' and walked fast to the back door.

I couldn't resist a triumphant glance at the girls as I followed him. No one was pretending to look at Facebook now. Several had their mouths open.

Jasper reached into the fridge behind him. ‘What do you want, kids?' he said, ‘Coke? Lemonade?'

‘Coke, please,' I said, and Jasper tossed me a can. After a short pause, Raf helped himself to a Sprite, and led the way upstairs.

He pushed the office door open. ‘It's a bit of a mess here, I'm sorry,' he said.

Looking round the room I spotted a couple of things I'd missed before. A rickety chest of drawers in the far corner, cream paint chipped and scarred. It looked like something out of a skip. A microwave, a toaster and a kettle. A plate, a fork. A towel, folded on the back of a chair. A stack of books against the wall.

The bedding on the mattress had been crumpled and creased. But now the duvet was pulled smooth, and some faded red cushions were arranged on it, in a slightly pointless attempt to make it look like it might be a sofa and not a manky old mattress.

Raf stood in the centre of the room, clutching his can. I noticed a little bit of toothpaste on his face. It'd make any other boy look like a dribbling nerd. On Raf it was just incredibly sweet and – when one thought about how close to his lips it was – very tasty.

He gestured at the mattress. ‘That's all I've got to sit on here, I hope it's OK. Or you could have the chair.'

The office chair had a nasty brown stain on it.
I slid down onto the mattress, sitting with my back against the wall.

‘This is fine,' I said. ‘Very comfortable.'

‘Yeah,' he said. ‘I'm sorry.' There was a silence which went on just slightly too long. Awkward.

‘I'm sorry, Raf,' I said, ‘I didn't mean to disturb you. I just thought I'd come and see you, make sure . . . you know, no offence, from the other day.'

He sat down, not quite next to me, but near enough. ‘That's all right,' he said. ‘I might have come over as a bit . . . a bit rude. I'm sorry.'

Yes! Very promising! I was surreptitiously scanning the room for anything that would explain Raf's near-coma-like state before. No empty bottles or pills anywhere. I sniffed the air. Bleach underpinned by damp. Not even a whisper of pot.

Not that I really thought Raf was the sort of boy who'd indulge in drink or drugs. That'd be too normal and boring. No, more likely he was recovering from a night of running with the wolves. (Where would werewolves go in north London, anyway? Hampstead Heath? Or would they hang around dustbins like urban foxes?) Or
maybe
he was low on human blood to drink. I shivered and subtly shook my hair in his direction so
he could smell my irresistibly edible scent.

‘Are you . . . is everything all right, Raf?' I asked, with enormous and unusual tact.

He looked straight at me then, weighing me up with those hard, grey eyes. I felt as though he could see straight into my head.

‘What do you mean?' he asked.

‘I just wondered. I just . . . I was worried about you.'

He smiled then, almost laughed. ‘You've just won millions of pounds on the lottery and you're worrying about me?' His voice was disbelieving.

‘I saw that bruise . . . and you haven't been in school all week. I was worried about you. What's wrong with that?'

‘Nothing,' he said. ‘It's kind. You're a very nice person.'

I was blushing, I knew it. ‘Oh, umm, thanks.' I said, and opened my can.

He opened his. We both took a swig. Awkward pause.

‘I just thought, you know, that it would be better if we weren't friends,' he said, all in a rush.

‘You did?
Why
?'

‘Umm . . . errr . . . I always get things wrong when I try and explain. . . Oh God.' He gave me a cute,
crooked smile. ‘I'm sorry, Lia. It's complicated and I'm bad at putting words together. Your life has changed a lot overnight, and I suppose I just thought you wouldn't. . .' His voice trailed off. He tried again. ‘It's just that you're . . . all those girls
stare
and I just thought. . . Jesus, what am I talking about? I don't know. Tell me about you. What's it like, winning all that money?'

So many people had asked me that over the past few weeks. But he was the first one I could really honestly answer. Everyone else was writing it down, or excited, or wanting stuff or giving advice or lecturing, or telling me about their feelings and problems with my money.

‘It's odd,' I said. ‘It's strange. I don't know who I am any more. I'm just the Lottery Girl, you know, not Lia Latimer any more. I mean, it's great, obviously, it's really exciting and it's fun and all that, but I feel it's changing everything in my life and I don't know where I am in all that.'

‘Everything changes around you, just like that' – he snapped his fingers – ‘and you don't know if you've changed as well.'

‘The bank manager wants me to go on a weekend away for young people who've got lots of money.
Integrating Wealth, it's called. To understand about what it's like and how to cope and stuff.'

He took a sip of Sprite. ‘Sounds like a good idea,' he said.

‘I thought so . . . but now I don't know. What if they're all spoilt and posh and I don't fit in with them either?'

‘It'll be fine,' he said. ‘You belong with them.'

That seemed to kill that bit of the conversation dead. We both took big gulps of our drinks.

‘Lia,' he said, ‘you won't tell anyone I'm living here, will you? It's just that I think it's against regulations. It's meant to be an office, and they might stop me.'

He lived here? He actually lived in this dive? What about the big house on Melbourne Avenue?

‘Umm, of course not,' I said, but he must have caught what I was thinking because he said, ‘It's just really convenient, you know, when I've done late shifts. I really need the space . . . the quiet. I'm going to make it nicer, maybe paint the walls or something.'

‘Yes but, couldn't you . . . what about . . . your family? Don't you live with them?'

‘This is better. This was the best I could do. That's
why I was off last week; I had to sort out the furniture and stuff.'

I looked around. There must be a sink somewhere, and a loo, but did he even have a shower? And the microwave/kettle combo must be his kitchen.

He must have been desperate to come and live here, I thought, desperate to escape the big house I'd seen him go into. Come to think of it, it had looked a bit dark and eerie compared to the shiny cars and new paint jobs of the neighbours.

Maybe he really was a werewolf. Or a vampire.

Or maybe he had horrible, abusive, neglectful parents as well as a violent brother.

‘Raf . . . are you . . . is everything OK?'

His smile was bigger and more confident. ‘It's getting better. I've never really had my own home before. Actually, it's amazing. Do you ever get that feeling that you just want to be on your own?'

Was that a hint? I wasn't sure. But we were sitting quite close on the lumpy mattress. He was smiling – more relaxed than I'd ever seen him. . . I could see the fine hairs on the back of his hand.

Perhaps, I thought, he's like me. He's ready to be grown-up – say twenty-three – and independent, running his own life. He didn't wait until he had
eight million pounds; he just got on and made it happen all by himself.

‘Oh,' I said. ‘Wow. Good for you. That's just what I want. That's just what I'm thinking, that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to have my own place.' And then I ground to a halt, because I was comparing my dream penthouse to this bare room and I thought I'd better shut up right away, before I said something he'd take as an insult.

‘I'm sure you'll find somewhere that you'll like,' he said. ‘Will you buy a flat? Or a big house for your whole family and you could just have your own bit of it?'

What was this . . . some kind of new Angelic Message? Raf seemed very keen on family togetherness, as long as it was
my
family and not his mysteriously awful one.

‘A flat . . . I think. . .' I said. ‘It's a bit difficult. I'm not sure how to tell my parents that I don't want to live with them. And the bank manager said I shouldn't look at properties, because they'll know I've won the lottery and they'll put the price up.'

Stupid, stupid Lia, I thought. I was actually getting somewhere and then I have to start blabbing on about myself and my money. On the other hand,
what else did I have to talk about? My money had taken me over. I
was
my money.

‘I could help – if you want,' he said, and then looked away, as though he were embarrassed, had stepped over some invisible line.

‘Could you? How?'

‘Well, I could talk to estate agents. Get the details of flats for you. Maybe go and look at some. And then we could look at them together and no one'd realise it was you because they'd think we were together . . . ummm . . . not that I'm suggesting. . .'

‘You'd look at flats for me? That'd be great,' I said quickly. ‘I could . . . I could pay you for your time, if you wanted?'

‘You don't have to pay me,' he said.

Oh God, I'd done it again.

‘Oh, I'm really sorry,' I said, ‘I didn't realise you were a Muslim. But surely it's OK if I pay you for a job; I mean, it's not like a gift. Maybe you could ask the imam?'

‘Ummm . . . what are you talking about? I'm not a Muslim.'

Oh God, how embarrassing. ‘I'm really sorry. I didn't mean to offend you.'

Sometimes talking to Raf was like talking to an
alien. I could see him thinking through what we'd just said, trying to work it out . . . giving up, shrugging his shoulder. . .

‘I'm not sure what . . . I've never been a Muslim. I used to be a Catholic and now I'm nothing.'

This seemed to me to be
exactly
what a fallen angel might say. Angels were Catholic, weren't they? Or was that saints? I wished I'd concentrated a bit more in RE.

‘It's just that my friend Shaz. . . Oh well, never mind. Why can't I pay you? I mean . . . it seems so daft that I've got all this money and you won't take any. You could do this place up a bit.'

He smiled then, and I realised how rare and precious that smile was. ‘To be honest, Lia, I could do with the money. But you don't need to pay me. I'd like to help you out.'

I reached out and touched his face, the side of his eye, still yellow and swollen.

‘What happened?' I asked.

‘This? Oh . . . my eye. It was just a stupid accident.'

I didn't believe a word of it.

‘Come on, Raf, someone hit you. Who was it? Jack?'

‘Your
boyfriend
?'

‘Jack is
not
my boyfriend,' I growled.

‘Oh,' he said. That smile broke through again. ‘Oh. I thought he was.'

Somehow we'd moved closer together on the mattress. Somehow my arm was brushing against his shirt. Somehow our eyes had locked onto each other's. I could feel his breath against my skin. I was holding his shoulder, tipping my face up to meet his. . .