Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery (7 page)

‘What if I want to go public?' I asked – not that I had any real opinion on the matter.

‘We'd hold a press conference, give the press a chance to get the story and hopefully they'd lose interest quite quickly,' said Gilda. ‘It's a difficult choice.'

‘It'll be fine,' said Mum, ‘as long as you don't do anything to fuel the fire, as it were. You'll have to really behave yourself, Lia, if you're in the public eye.' She looked thoughtful, a hint of a smile on her face.

‘What do you mean, fuel the fire?' I asked suspiciously.

‘Oh, you know, unwise behaviour,' said Mum. ‘I've read about lottery winners going off the rails.
Drugs . . . dodgy boyfriends . . . you know the kind of thing. Big headlines. Lots of fuss.'

‘Oh, that's very unusual,' said Gilda. ‘Most of our winners are nice, normal people, just like you.'

OMG. I was in danger of becoming a celebrity. Oh my God. Any secret I had would be unearthed.
Heat
magazine would circle my zits – not that I suffer badly, but everyone has the occasional bad skin day. I'd be chased by crowds of paparazzi. Publicity was a seriously bad idea.

‘I'm going to stay anonymous,' I said, glaring at Mum.

‘Some people don't tell a soul,' said Gilda. ‘They want everything kept absolutely secret. I saw a couple a few years ago, they had three children, all grown-up and living in their own homes, bringing up their own families. Didn't want them to know. One woman – I went round to her house and she kept on looking out of the window. Checking her watch. After a bit I asked her what the matter was. “I'm just looking out for my husband,” she said. “Don't want him finding out about this.”'

Mum laughed. ‘Talk about tight-fisted,' she said. ‘You'd never have got away with that, Lia. Mind you, I can't see why anyone would want to.'

I examined the bracelet that Natasha'd given me for my birthday.

‘You might enjoy the publicity,' said Mum. ‘I bet we could get you into magazines, try modelling, that kind of thing.' She'd obviously appointed herself as my PR adviser. Trust her to try and take over.

My mum knows all about press conferences because she works for a PR agency. She spends her life calling journalists and trying to get them interested in her lame clients who are never real celebrities, just people who've done boring stuff. Naturally, she doesn't earn megabucks. I kept telling her she needs to represent cooler people – Lady Gaga, for example – but she never listened.

‘Well, I still think anonymity would be better,' said Dad.

My phone buzzed. I'd turned off the sound, but it'd been jumping and vibrating all morning, like a bumblebee caught in a glass.

Gilda said, ‘How many people already know, Lia? Is this going to be a secret you can really keep?'

‘Err . . . I'm not sure,' I said feebly.

‘Are you on Facebook, Lia? How many friends have you told?'

Whoops. I hadn't got around to posting it on
Facebook. But loads of people had left comments on my wall, and Natasha had already created a page called, ‘My sister's won the lottery.' Fifty-seven random kids liked it already. Oh-oh. . .

Mum said, ‘We told some of the neighbours . . . and Lia's told some friends. There were people in that internet café, weren't there, Lia? And I suppose Natasha might tell a few of her friends. And so will Jack and Shazia – you know, really, Ben, Lia, we'll have to have a press conference. As soon as possible, really.'

So Gilda and Mum started talking about the arrangements, and Dad sighed and said, ‘It seems a shame,' and I sat there trying not to vomit. Trying not to panic. Working out how I'd avoid unfortunate headlines. Could I do it? I'd have to.

The press conference was set for the next day. Mum booked us in at the hairdressers, although I was desperate to get down to Camden and make sure I nabbed the leather jacket before anyone else did. In the end, Shazia offered to go for me. What a friend! I generously gave her twenty pounds to spend on herself.

She turned up with it at the salon, as we sat there being wrapped in aluminium foil – chestnut
highlights! Yay! I flew out of my seat to hug her.

‘Wow! Thanks Shaz! It's fabulous!' I tried it on and twirled round the salon.

‘Perhaps you could come and sit down, we're only half done,' said the hairdresser.

‘Oh, whoops, sorry,' I said.

‘You don't think you're wearing that to the press conference, do you?' said my mum.

I wanted to see what Shaz had bought for herself. ‘Of course,' I said, coldly. ‘Oooh, Shaz, that headscarf is gorgeous. I like the shiny stripes.'

‘And what else were you thinking of wearing?' asked Mum, dangerously cool.

‘Well, there's my mint green top . . . you know, the one I got from Cancer Research for three pounds fifty and chopped the sleeves off. And then there's that denim skirt – the really short one that I customised with the tartan. . .'

That skirt was two pounds fifty – Help the Aged. Honestly, I didn't see why anyone would ever spend more. If you know what you're doing with vintage, you never have that awkward moment when you turn up at a party and you're wearing the same H&M dress as the class anorexic, but three sizes bigger. Plus you're saving the planet
and
helping good causes.
Win, win, win.

Mum sniffed. ‘You want to appear on TV and in all the papers wearing second-hand clothes?' she said. ‘Clothes stripped off
corpses
? Old ladies' leavings? That disgusting jacket, which stinks and is probably contaminated with
fleas
?'

To be totally honest, the jacket did have a funny whiff about it. I hadn't realised at the open-air market stall. It clashed badly with the pong of the hair dye. But there was no need for her to trash my style.

‘What's wrong with my clothes? You're just jealous because I look so good and you're so old and boring and conventional.'

Natasha and Shaz made eye contact in the mirror.

‘Lia didn't mean that,' said Natters soothingly, while Shaz said, ‘I think your hair looks great, Mrs Latimer,' even though Mum was at the clips-and-foil-strip stage and looked like an armoured hedgehog.

‘Time to come to the basin, dear,' said the hairdresser. Mum got up. ‘Tell you what,' she said, ‘let's just have a little trip to Harvey Nicks this afternoon. If you really want to wear charity shop clothes after that, be my guest.'

I couldn't be bothered to fight. I was too busy
scrolling through hundreds of texts on my new iPhone – first purchase, naturally. The whole school seemed to know my news. I had messages from everyone.

Everyone except Raf.

Surely, if he liked me, he'd have texted . . . asked me out? I knew he had my number because I'd put it into his phone on some flimsy pretext to do with Science homework. He'd never contacted me. What was his game? Did he even have a game?

How could I win eight million pounds and not get the boy of my dreams?

I was brooding about Raf all the way to Knightsbridge. But I forgot him as soon as we went into Harvey Nichols. I'd never been anywhere quite like it.

Normally I hated shopping in ordinary shops. But this was no ordinary shop. It was stylish, mega-expensive, the kind of place where you might see a celebrity buying knickers. Just walking through the departments – quiet as a museum – made my outfit feel shabby and old. The assistants smiled, but their eyes judged us – Nat's bulging jeans, Mum's Zara trouser suit, my smelly jacket. My confidence was stripped away. I felt angry – how dare they? – but also ashamed. ‘We're not poor!' I wanted to yell. ‘I've won millions of pounds!'

Then Mum had a word with one of the assistants, explained about the lottery and the press conference. And everything changed.

We had a massive changing room, just for us. We had orange juice and little biscuits. A lady – the personal shopper – brought us stuff to try on. Shoes . . . bags . . . even underwear. And the clothes . . . the clothes. . .

I'd always scoffed at designer clothes before. I couldn't understand why people would pay thousands of pounds for a pair of trousers. But trying them on – a pair of Chloé trousers, a top from Dolce and Gabbana – the gorgeous, silky feel of them, the way they fitted, the way they looked. It was seductive. It was fun. It even felt like my mum and me . . . we were getting on.

I actually liked the final outfit she picked out for me – a flouncy red skirt (Dolce and Gabbana) and a little black jacket (Frost French).

I even drummed up a little bit of enthusiasm when she tried on a desperately dull beige suit and minced around the changing room saying, ‘I think this is Euro-chic personified, don't you, girls? The kind of thing that Carla Bruni would wear if her daughter won the lottery.'

Obviously, I could have pointed out that Carla Bruni is a supermodel as well as being the French president's wife, and looks as much like my mum as Natasha looks like Naomi Campbell, no offence.

But I just said, ‘Paula, that's
so
your colour. It really matches your foundation,' which made her narrow her eyes and say, ‘Perhaps I'll try it in the taupe.'

There was something about being somewhere so different from anything in our ordinary life. It softened us. It made Mum clap her hands when I did a twirl in my skirt and say, ‘Oh Lia, darling, you look beautiful.' It made me grin right back, when normally I'd have grimaced and insisted on principle that the outfit was rank and there was no way I'd be seen dead in it.

I wondered if it was just money that was making us feel like this, if shopping trips and a nicer house and exotic holidays would magic away all the arguments, all the hurt. It didn't seem to me that life could be that simple, that buy-able. But here we were, getting on, laughing together, picking out the best outfits for each other.

Mum paid for the clothes, but I promised to pay her credit card bill. £1,013. I felt like Bill Gates in my incredible generosity. Then we met up with Dad and
admired his new Paul Smith jacket. And we had supper in one of those sushi bars where the food travels round the counter on a little train and you work out how much you've spent by looking at the coloured rim of the plate.

We'd been there once before, for my fifteenth birthday, and then we were under strict instructions about how many plates we could take, and which colours to choose. But today we could have anything we wanted. A plate of sashimi went by, and Paula grabbed it. A plate of California rolls – snaffled by Natasha. Prawns. Crab. The train went on and on and round and round.

We were all laughing and chatting and talking about Gilda and the press conference.

‘We can finally expand the bakery,' said my dad. ‘That was always your grandad's dream, Lia.'

‘And houses,' said Mum. ‘How about a nice, big house with a conservatory? A huge garden? An en suite for everyone?'

‘Do you think if I have singing lessons, I can get good enough to audition for
Britain's Got Talent
?' said Natasha.

I suppose I could have told them all about my plans for a flat of my own and leaving school and being
independent, but it didn't seem like the right moment.

Maybe, I thought, we're going to be a happy family now, a smiling, laughing, rich, happy family. It only took eight million pounds. Easy-peasy.

Maybe being a lottery winner would change me too. Maybe I'd start being a nice person – someone who didn't wind everyone up, who curbed her urge to tease her sister, whose dad took her seriously, whose mum actually liked her. I knew money couldn't buy health or happiness, but becoming a multi-millionaire had to change me . . . didn't it?

The train rumbled round and round and we kept on taking things, but the plates were always full and the food just kept on coming. And that's when I realised that my life from now on was going to be like a sushi train – with infinite choices, on and on, forever and ever, round and round, more and more.

It made me a little bit queasy.

Chapter 7