Millions

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  There were five days left to € Day. All the banks were crowded with people carrying carrier bags, boxes, socks and freezer bags, all stuffed with change, all to be turned into euros. The cashiers poured the coins into weighing machines and then into big bins under the counter. It sounded like being inside a big tin during a hailstorm. The bank clerks were wearing orange earmuffs with little € signs on to keep the noise out. It took us half an hour to reach the counter.

  ‘We want to open a bank account,’ said Anthony.

  ‘What?’ said the woman in the orange earmuffs. Anthony pointed to his ears and she took them off.

  ‘We want to open a bank account.’

  ‘Okey-dokey. Is your mummy with you? Or your dad?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I really need an adult signature. And some kind of ID.’

  Anthony had thought of this, obviously. He gave her his leisure pass from the baths. It had his photograph on and his address, but it wasn’t enough. ‘You really need to ask your mum to come in.’

  ‘We can’t.’ Anthony looked her in the eye and said, ‘She’s dead.’

  She looked at him. She looked at me. I tried not to look too sad because I didn’t want to contribute to Anthony’s errors. But it was hard to look actually happy. And then she did what everyone else always did when we mentioned Mum – she gave us something. An €-shaped money box and two free euros.

  We hauled the bag of cash out again. It was heavy and we were nervous that something would happen to it. And that’s the thing. We thought the money was going to take care of everything but we ended up taking care of the money. We were always worried about it, tucking it in at night, checking up on it. It was like a big baby. And now we were carrying it round the precinct in a carrycot.

  Anthony said, ‘I told you we should’ve bought a house.’

  We carried it all the way to Toys ‘’ Us. If Anthony couldn’t hide it, he was going to spend it.

  We put the cash in a trolley and pushed it down the first aisle. The top end was ‘Barbie’ so we didn’t even slow down. The bottom end was ‘Action Man’. Anthony was delighted.

  I said, ‘A doll by any other name.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Action Man’s a doll.’

  ‘Do not start that again.’

  ‘He’s in the same aisle as Barbie. Doesn’t that tell you something? Look, you can buy clothes for him, like Barbie. And little bags.’

  ‘It’s not a bag, it’s a tool kit.’

  ‘OK, buy it, then.’

  ‘I don’t need it.’

  We left the Action Man aisle and went into the Gameboy aisle. There were stacks and stacks of boxes, all plastered with bright monsters and women, their eyes bulging and their arms out. The boxes were noisy to read. I’ve never seen so many exclamation marks.

  Anthony stood scanning them and scanning them. ‘We can have any we want,’ he said. ‘Any. Or all.’ Then he said, ‘And we don’t want any.’ He pushed on into weaponry. They had everything – guns, lasers, grenades, knives, spears, swords and mortars. Anthony said, ‘If they were real I’d want them.’ And moved on. He was getting panicky and quick. ‘We’re depressed. There must be something here that will cheer us up.’

  We were now in a whole aisle entirely full of lunch boxes. There was another aisle full of gel pens that smelt of different fruit. There were over 100 to collect. You could also collect plastic poodles with different hair colours and styles, each with their own birth certificate.

  Then Anthony spotted something that he thought was fantastic. It was a castle shaped like a big angry skull. The eyes opened and closed, and when they opened warriors shot out on flying black horses. ‘Now that, that is fantastic,’ he said. ‘Look at that. We’ve got to have that.’ It was €166.99

  We unwrapped it greedily on the grass over in the car park. It was smaller than it looked on the box and it was made of a brittle grey plastic. When you launched the flying warriors, they mostly fell into the skull’s nostril. Unless you pressed really hard and then the spring shot out. We tried to fix it but I cut my finger.

  ‘The world is crap,’ said Anthony. ‘We could have anything in it but everything in it is crap.’

  On the way home, we binned the castle and stopped at The Carphone Warehouse and bought two video phones and 200 euros’ worth of credit each. We put all the credit on them on the bus and rang each other. My ring tone was the theme from Harry Potter. It was good that we could see each other’s faces on the screen, but we couldn’t think of anything to say.

  When we got home, something was standing at the bottom of the stairs. It was the bin. ‘Hello, Damian. Hello, Anthony,’ it said. ‘My, my, what a massive bag!’

  13

  Anthony tried to push the bag behind his back out of sight, which was a bit like trying to push a school behind you out of sight. It was never going to work. And anyway it was pointless, because the bin couldn’t actually see. It wasn’t the bin who was watching us. I knew who it was. It was the smart lady from school. When I looked at her, she lifted her hand and waved, with just her little finger. I’ve never seen anyone else do this before or since. It’s unique. She said, ‘Hello, Damian.’

  I said, ‘Hello, Bin.’

  ‘Is that really your school bag? You’ll give yourself a hernia,’ said the smart lady.

  For once Anthony was stumped. Luckily, she took his silence for a question. She said, ‘The speaker on my bin was broken. Your dad offered to fix it for me.’

  ‘Well, it’s fixed now,’ said Anthony. And he kept the front door open, as if she was going to leave.

  ‘My name’s Dorothy, by the way,’ said Dorothy. ‘And yes, your dad did a great job.’

  She took her coat down from the coat rack. Dad came out of the kitchen, still carrying his screwdriver. He said, ‘Oh, you’ll stay and have a cup of tea?’

  ‘Well, maybe just a cuppa.’

  She followed him into the kitchen with a backward glance at Anthony, who scowled and then hauled the bag upstairs.

  In the kitchen Dad put the kettle on and pulled a bag of mince out of the fridge.

  She said, ‘Couldn’t I do a bit of chopping or peeling while I’m waiting for the kettle?’

  ‘No need. Honestly, we know what we’re doing,’ said Dad.

  ‘I’ve been living on Pot Noodle for weeks. I just fancy a bit of chopping.’

  Dad passed her an onion and a sharp knife. She split the onion in two and gave me half. ‘Just do what I do,’ she said. She turned her half over so it looked like an igloo, then cut it across the middle and looked at me. I copied her. She said, ‘Good.’ Then she cut it again, three times. I did the same. She said, ‘Good, good, good.’ Then she cut the onion into hundreds of tiny pieces, going, ‘Good, good, good, good, good, good . . .’ and I did the same until we were out of breath.

  She looked at Dad and said, ‘Pan?’

  He said, ‘The tea’s ready. We’ll take over now . . .’

  But she’d spotted a pan. She put some oil in it, heated it up and we both dropped handfuls of onions into the oil. She gave me the wooden spoon and said, ‘Keep stirring these.’ I used to always stir things before we moved house. When everyone had a big craze on porridge, for instance, I used to stir that, and when we were making jelly, I used to stir the cubes in the boiling water until they disappeared. So I had experience.

  Dorothy drank her tea and said, ‘That was lovely. I suppose I should go now really.’

  Dad said, ‘I suppose you should stay now really. Since you did practically cook the supper.’

  ‘No. Thanks all the same,’ said Dorothy. ‘Unless you’ve got a couple of tins of tomatoes.’

  Dad looked puzzled, but he did have some tins. She put the meat in with the onions and then emptied the tins on top of it. Then she asked for another pan. It took ages to find one, because we only used one and that was just for beans. Then Dad found a whole nest of them, one inside the other. He put them on the side. ‘The time has come for us t
o embrace multi-saucepan-ness in our life.’

  Then she wanted milk, then a casserole dish, then cheese, then a cheese grater, then pasta . . .

  ‘Pasta? I’m not sure . . . What exactly are we doing here?’ said Dad.

  It turned out she was making lasagne from scratch. I had no idea it was so complicated. You can’t just go off and watch the television while the oven warms up. The meaty bit is a sauce you make with mince and the tinned tomatoes plus herbs, and you have to let it simmer for a long time to reduce. You could just thicken it if you liked, but reducing makes the flavour more intense.

  The white bit is another sauce, which is all in the timing. You make a paste of flour and butter, then very slowly, almost a drop at a time, you add the milk. You have to do it slowly or it goes lumpy. And you have to keep stirring. So I was stirring two pans at once while Dorothy dribbled the milk. Someone rang at the doorbell and she howled, ‘Oh, no!’ but then we heard Anthony answering it. The last of the milk splashed in and I stirred it with a regular and consistent movement. Dad dropped in the grated cheese. I continued to stir until the cheese was all melted.

  Dorothy came and looked over my shoulder and laughed. ‘Look at that, not one lump. You could pour that through a sieve. You could drink it from a glass.’

  As she bent closer I could smell her hair. It was kind of orangey. Then we heard singing. Anthony had opened the door to carol singers. We all went through and listened to them. It was a family – a mum, a dad, a boy and a girl. The girl was Tricia from Year Five. She gave me a little wave but didn’t stop singing.

  Dad joined in when they sang ‘Silent Night’. I say he joined in. He sang the same song, but not in the same key.

  Dorothy laughed and said, ‘Do you know “The Holly and the Ivy”?’

  Anthony said, ‘They don’t do requests,’ and tried to shut the door on them, but she stopped him and gave them two euros.

  Then we ran back into the kitchen and started to assemble the lasagne. You pour the meat sauce into the oven dish, then pave it with the lasagne. The sauce seeps up through the gaps in the pasta like red moss. Then you pour on the rest of the meat sauce and half the white. Then you pave that. Then you pour on the rest of the white and some grated cheese.

  Anthony came in and snarled, ‘Why is the kitchen so messy?’

  ‘Because,’ said Dad, ‘we’re cooking in it.’

  Anthony said, ‘It’s not like this when I cook.’

  ‘You don’t cook. You warm. And if you feel so strongly about it, you can help clear up while the lasagne is cooking.’

  Even Anthony’s eyes lit up a little bit when he heard it was lasagne.

  I washed the pans. The kitchen started to fill up with lovely, appetizing smells. From inside the oven, you could hear the cheese whistling as it cooked.

  I said, ‘Pasta’s Italian, isn’t it? Is this what St Francis would’ve cooked, then?’

  Dad said, ‘No. He was from the north. It’s rice in the north – risotto and that. Pasta in the south. Also there was no pasta until Marco Polo brought it back from China in 1295. Pasta’s a Chinese invention really. It’s designer noodles.’

  Dorothy said, ‘Rubbish. How could pasta be invented by people who don’t use forks?’

  And Dad went on to explain about forks and how the first person to bring them to England was Thomas à Becket.

  I said, ‘Thomas à Becket (1118–70), Archbishop of Canterbury, martyred in the cathedral sanctuary.’

  ‘What are you two like? A pub-quiz team, that’s what.’

  Which is a thing I’d never thought about – that one day I’d be old enough to be in a pub-quiz team with Dad.

  ‘I just know about saints,’ I said. ‘Dorothy of Cappadocia, died 304, am I right?’

  She said she was sure I was. I told her the whole story of how St Dorothy was going to be executed, and how her jailer laughed at her when she said she was going to Heaven. He said, ‘Send me some flowers when you get there.’ And when he got home his bedroom was filled with roses.

  ‘Why was she going to be executed?’

  ‘She was a virgin martyr.’

  ‘Oh. Right.’

  ‘What exactly is a virgin martyr?’

  She said, ‘Blimey. The lasagne.’

  And we took it out of the oven. It didn’t look anything like the frozen ones. It was bubbling and squeaking like it was alive and the cheese sauce had a thick, crackly skin. When we broke into it, a plume of meaty steam rose up from deep inside, like a prayer.

  And at that moment Dad finally and unexpectedly told us what the transporter bridge was. It was like a cage and you drove your car into it and then a crane carried it across the river. I didn’t say anything, but I stored the moment in my heart. Dad’s general knowledge had come back with a vengeance.

  ‘That must’ve been fantastic,’ said Dorothy. ‘Like flying in your own car. I think they should bring it back.’

  I said, ‘Do you by any chance wear a tinted moisturizer?’

  Dad said, ‘Damian!’

  ‘Leave him alone. If you never ask, you never learn. I do as a matter of fact. It takes a bit of confidence to get up and do what I do. Not in your school. Your school’s lovely. But the older ones . . . It’s good to have a bit of a mask, you know. It’s very clever of you to notice.’

  When we’d all finished, Dorothy looked at her watch and said, ‘I’m much later than I planned. But I can’t go without helping you to wash up.’

  Anthony said, ‘No, no. We don’t mind washing up. We do it every night. If you’ve got to go, you . . .’

  Dad stopped him. ‘Anthony,’ he said.

  ‘What?’

  Dad looked at him for a second, as if he was trying to work something out, and then he said, ‘What is in your school bag, by the way. Can’t all be homework.’

  It could have been a dangerous moment, but Anthony had had time to think now. ‘It’s sort of homework. It’s costumes. For the nativity play.’

  Dorothy lit up like a Christmas decoration. ‘Nativity play!’ she said, ‘I haven’t seen a nativity play for years. What are you? The kings? Are you going to let us have a look? Go on, go and get them. Give us a treat.’

  ‘No.’

  The light went off inside her.

  Anthony shrugged, ‘You’ll spoil the surprise.’

  She lit up again. ‘Surprise? Are you inviting me to see it?’

  Anthony looked like he’d just stepped into a big mantrap. He said, ‘Well, I’m not sure. It’s really just for . . .’

  ‘I love a nativity play. I haven’t seen one for years. I’ll be there. Definitely. As long as you don’t mind.’

  ‘First I’ve even heard of it,’ said Dad. ‘I get told nothing.’

  Anthony looked really cross. He started to clear the table. By the time we’d washed up, it was time for Who Wants to be a Millionaire?, which we’re always allowed to watch. Dad used to love it, but he never watches it any more. Tonight, though, he sat at one end of the couch. Dorothy sat at the other. And I sat in the middle.

  The first contestant looked at the 80,000-euro question and decided to quit, even though Dad was yelling the right answer at the screen.

  ‘You do know, don’t you,’ said Dorothy, ‘that this was filmed a while back. The poor woman is beyond your help now.’

  The next contestant was a financial consultant from Bradford with unusually long hair. Disappointingly Dorothy got the 1,000-euro question wrong. I won’t embarrass her by repeating it. She said, ‘If you ask me, knowledge is overrated.’

  The 80,000-euro question was:

  Was Dick Turpin hanged in:

  a) London

  b) York

  c) Edinburgh

  d) Glasgow?

  The financial consultant went 50/50, which really infuriated Dad on the grounds that everyone knows it’s York. Dorothy said that even she knew it was York. In the end, even the financial consultant went for York and on to the 160,000-euro question, which was:

&nb
sp; After which Catherine is the Catherine wheel named:

  a) Catherine of Aragon

  b) Catherine of Alexandria

  c) Catherine the Great

  d) Catherine de Medici?

  ‘I know, I know,’ I said.

  ‘How can you know that? How can anyone know that?’ said Dorothy, and she turned to Dad. ‘Do you know?’

  ‘I think I’d phone a friend and my friend would be this little fella here.’ He put his arm round me.

  ‘Catherine of Alexandria ( 4th century), partly mythical, another virgin martyr and the patron saint of the town of Dunstable in Bedfordshire.’

  The financial consultant got it right too. So he was on to the 250,000-euro question, which was:

  Who was the first person to play James Bond? Was it:

  a) Sean Connery

  b) David Niven

  c) Roger Moore

  d) Robert Holderness?

  The man on the telly tried to think it out. He knew that David Niven had been in Casino Royale but he wasn’t sure if it was the first Bond film. Dad was getting agitated. ‘It’s a standard pub-quiz question . . .’

  Then the man on the telly noticed the last name. He said, ‘Bob Holderness. Oh. It was him. It was on the radio. It was on the radio before it was a film and it was him. I’m going for d), Chris.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Dad.

  And he played d), and that took him to the 600,000-euro question, which was:

  How many lines in a clerihew? Is it:

  a) 4

  b) 7

  c) 5

  d) 14?

  Dad knew it wasn’t 14 (sonnet) or 5 (limerick), so he would’ve crossed out those two in his head, gone 50/50 and hoped that one of them would still be there, which would give him the right answer.

  The consultant just shrugged. ‘I’ve had a great night. Thanks a lot. I’m going to take the money and run.’

  Anthony said, ‘That’s the trouble with this show. People don’t realize that you’ve got to speculate to accumulate.’

  ‘He could have had a go. He had a lifeline left,’ groaned Dad.