Lia's Guide to Winning the Lottery (28 page)

 

We'd planned it for months. Neither of us wanted to be virgins a moment longer than we needed to, neither of us fancied waiting to find the right person.

We wanted to know what we were doing when we met the right person.

We wanted to be in control. We wanted to be equally useless. We wanted to be experienced.

We didn't want it to be a big, big deal. We wanted it over and done with. We wanted to do it for the first time with our best, best mate.

So I went on the pill. I didn't go to our local GP's surgery – that would have been too embarrassing. I went to the family planning clinic at the health centre, where they took my blood pressure and explained how and when to take it. I'd been taking it for three months before my sixteenth birthday. I carried on taking it afterwards. It seemed like a grown-up thing to do.

Jack saved up so we could hire a room, and we found a bed and breakfast place in Finchley. I was going to say that I was staying at Roo's and he was going to make up some excuse, but in the end his gran was in hospital, and his parents went off to see her and left him all alone in the house.

So we did it on his Ikea bed, under his Tottenham
posters, after drinking a bottle of sweet white wine and watching a DVD. He wanted to watch some porn to get in the mood, but I didn't want him comparing me to those stupid girls with their satin undies and beach-ball boobs, so I said, ‘Nah, let's get on with it.'

At first I didn't think it was going to work, because whenever he touched me I started shrieking with giggles, and he got all red in the face and said, ‘Shut up, Lia, you're really putting me off. I'll never get it up if you're going to laugh like that.'

But then we started getting more into it, kissing and touching. I was pretending he was Robert Pattinson and God knows who he was thinking about, but we got enough into it to make it work. Just about.

He didn't last for long, and I was quite relieved, because it was a bit uncomfortable. My leg was squashed under his thigh. But it was dead exciting. Just thinking, I'm sixteen, I'm having sex, was enough.

At least, I thought it was enough.

It was absolutely OK, and good to have done it, and I felt like I was really, truly grown-up.

‘Friends with benefits', they call it – at least that's what they call it on
Friends
– but we weren't going to be friends with benefits. We were going
to be friends who'd done the benefits thing once. Just once. Only once.

And then I could continue dreaming about Raf – except I didn't tell Jack that. And he could go on yearning for Shaz – he didn't tell me that either.

Afterwards, I had a shower and used his mum's Radox gel, and then we walked down the road and I wondered if people were looking at my wet hair and what they were thinking about me.

When we got to the newsagent's, Jack said, ‘Bollocks, Lia, I never got you a present,' and he went in and asked the guy how old you have to be to buy a ticket.

And the man said, ‘You have to be sixteen to play the lottery,' and we both started giggling again and Jack bought me a ticket. I stood in that shop, smelling of Donna, laughing my head off, picking my numbers.

And I never thought, not for one tiny micro-second, that I might actually win.

Chapter 31

Get close associates and regular employees – cleaners, drivers, etc. – to sign a confidentiality agreement.

Jack opened the door. Jack in his trackies and a T-shirt. No Donna. No Shazia.

It all felt pretty normal. Just me and Jack. All the money and the mothers and imams and journalists in the world couldn't come between us.

‘Hey, Lia,' he said. ‘We need to talk, huh?'

I nodded. And we went on up to his room.

We sat on his bed, and I looked around at the comfortable sameness of it. His bookshelf – all horror, war, action,
Lord of the Rings
and Harry Potter – his model racing cars, his football trophies. Three cans of deodorant. One bottle of aftershave. High up on the bookshelf, tucked nearly out of sight, Mr Snowy, Jack's grubby polar bear. I remember when he
wouldn't go anywhere without Mr Snowy. I remember when he had a tantrum because Mr Snowy got left in his uncle's car.

How could I be arguing with Jack? We shared so many memories, we were virtually the same person.

‘Jack, what's going on? Are you going to tell the papers about us . . . you know. . .?'

‘No!' I'd never heard Jack sound so definite about anything. ‘No way. Don't worry about that, Lia. We said it'd be a secret and it is.'

‘What about your mum?'

‘She's just upset about the money. Don't pay any attention to her.'

‘Bit late for that advice, isn't it?'

‘You shouldn't have thrown a pie at her.'

‘She shouldn't have called me a slut. I thought you'd told her.'

‘Told my mum? Are you
mad
?'

‘What about Shaz? What did you tell her?'

‘Shazia? She's the last person on earth I'd tell. Wh . . . what did she say?'

‘She said . . . she said . . . she said we were useless at secrets. That's what she said.'

He clutched his head in his hands. ‘That's just Shaz trying to double-bluff you, Lia. She's clever like that.
She could work for MI6. She knows there's some mystery over when I bought you the ticket, but I'm certain she doesn't really suspect. And she must never know, we
agreed
that, Lia. No one must ever know.'

‘I know that. God, Jack, I'm not going to tell anyone. It was just between us.'

‘Yes,' he said. His voice was passionate. ‘She mustn't know.'

‘Yup.' My voice was a whisper. ‘Why didn't you tell me, Jack? Why didn't you tell me what was going on with Shaz?'

‘Come off it, Lia, nothing's going on. How can anything be going on with Shazia? With
Shazia
, Lia? Do you think she'd ever be able to go out with me? Do you think her family would ever accept me?'

I was trembling. ‘They know you're her friend.'

‘They don't, actually. I suppose you've never noticed that I don't go round there.'

I thought back. I supposed I did usually go round to Shaz's house on my own. Jack'd been playing a lot of football, though. How was I meant to notice stuff like that?

‘No, I thought not. You don't really notice anything that's not directly related to you, do you, Lia?'

‘I
do
. What do you
mean
?'

‘Just that . . . it's Lia first, rest of the world second.' He grinned. ‘It's part of your unique charm. Don't worry about it.'

I couldn't believe my ears. ‘
What
? Screw you, Jack! Just because you and Shaz have been sneaking around behind my back, suddenly it's
my
fault?
I'm
the selfish one? You're the one who slept with me when you really wanted to be with my friend.'

‘I . . . err. . . It was completely separate from that, Lia. Anyway, you did it with me although you had the hots for posh-boy. It wasn't serious, you knew that.'

It wasn't. I did know that. But I hadn't quite realised how un-serious it was.

Time to change the subject. ‘Are you going to sue me for half my money, Jack?'

He lay down on his bed. ‘No, Lia, I am not. In fact, I should never have taken that bike from you. Mum won't let me use it, says she's going to send it back and you should give me the money instead.'

I said something very rude about Jack's mum.

‘She is mad as a brush, true, but she thinks she's doing the right thing. She hates running that nail salon, and she really resents it that you've got so much dosh. But I'm not going to accept any money from you.'

‘Why not? Look, Jack, maybe it's not fair. You did buy that ticket.' I gulped. ‘Maybe I
should
give you half the money.'

He blinked. Then he shook his head, and said, ‘No, I couldn't take it off you. I've been talking to Shaz's imam. People should make their own prosperity, not win it by gambling.'

‘
You've
been talking to the imam?'

‘Confidentially, Lia. The imam obviously doesn't know why I'm really there. I'm just trying to see. . .' he swallowed, ‘if I could maybe, you know, go her way.'

‘Oh my God! Jack! You're not even . . . I mean, you don't really believe anything, do you?'

‘The imam thought that might help,' he said. ‘Like I'm a blank slate, sort of. I don't know. It's asking a lot.'

‘But she's really worth it, eh?'

‘Yes.'

I was dazed. I hadn't slept for hours, and nothing in the world was the way I thought.

‘Why didn't you tell me? What about all your strong Islamic principles when we . . . you know. . .?'

‘I don't really have any strong principles, not yet,' he said. ‘I'm trying to work out if I can develop some.'

‘Oh, so you can resist four million pounds, but you couldn't resist a chance to get your leg over?'

He thought about that. Scratched his dumb head. And then he grinned and said, ‘No, I couldn't. I'd been looking forward to that for
years
, Lia. Since we agreed.'

We were fourteen when we thought it up. We thought we were so mature. We'd wait until we were legal, and we'd do it, and we'd never have to do it for the first time with someone who'd laugh at us. And we wouldn't have to use a condom. We'd do it with our best friend.

Love had nothing to do with it. It was all about experience.

‘When we decided . . . it was well before I had any feelings for Shazia at all. And if I really do become a Muslim I'll probably have to wait for
decades
. . . and I haven't even dared ask where they stand on, you know. . .'

I did know. ‘You are
revolting
,' I said, throwing a cushion at him. ‘I hope you do become a Muslim. I hope you grow a beard and wear one of those white tunics and pray all day long. It'll do you a lot of good. And it'll serve you right.'

‘Huh,' he said. ‘I'm starved. Want some toast?'

I was starving too. We went down to his kitchen and made tea and toast, which we plastered with crunchy peanut butter. I told him all about Darryl and Marcus, and he was highly impressed and wanted to know if I'd be seeing them again and whether he could come and hang out too.

‘You're going to be living the high life, Lia,' he said. ‘Tell you what, if you don't want to take over your dad's shop and Natasha doesn't either, then maybe I could.'

‘You must be joking,' I said, spreading a layer of strawberry jam on top of my peanut butter.

‘Not at all,' he said. ‘It's always been my dream job. Imagine. All the cakes you can eat. Doughnuts for breakfast. All the kids in the area thinking you're the nicest person on earth. You know Food Tech's my favourite subject after PE, Lia. Miss Simpson said my Christmas cake was a work of art.'

‘Yeah right, I'll mention it to my dad,' I said, licking jam off my fingers. I felt a bit irritated, though. Just because I'd won the lottery didn't mean I'd definitely decided to chuck Latimer's Loaves. Jack could keep his mitts off my birthright until I'd decided one hundred per cent that I didn't want it.

His mum had left the
Daily Express
on the table.
I started flicking through it, reading out stupid headlines, looking at pictures of celebrities in unwise bikinis.

Until I reached page seven. And I saw my name. And a picture of me and Raf taken in Hampstead. Smiling, laughing, arms around each other.

‘Lottery Lia's new flame' said the headline. ‘“They were talking about moving in together,” said taxi driver, Osman Botnick, 55. “They seemed very happy together.”'

I stared at the newspaper in silence. Great. I couldn't even have a day out with Raf without everyone knowing about it. Soon they'd all be reading every detail of our night together. I'd won the jackpot, but I'd lost my right to privacy.