Millions

by Frank Cottrell Boyce

  Dorothy said, ‘Why don’t you go on it? You’d be a lot less frustrated if you went on it. And not only less frustrated but more rich as well. You’d be a millionaire. You’d have a million pounds.’

  Anthony pointed out that it was a million euros now and not a million pounds, so it wasn’t worth as much any more. Dorothy said she’d cope with the shortfall somehow.

  ‘But you’d give it all to the water people, anyway, wouldn’t you?’ I said.

  ‘Me? Fraid not, love. I don’t actually work for Water Aid. I work for an agency. I collect for whoever pays – National Trust in the summer, homeless at Christmas, whatever. If I won a million I’d put it in the bank and never shake a tin again.’

  I was surprised and disappointed by this turn of events and would have said something if Dad hadn’t said, ‘I wouldn’t want to be a millionaire. I’d be happy with half. I’d pay off the mortgage, stop having to work extra hours to make ends meet, spend a bit more time with my boys, maybe take them on a nice holiday. Give the rest away.’

  I realized then that Dad would make a great millionaire, much better than us, that there he was wishing he could be rich when the house was already stuffed with money and I was suddenly bursting to tell him. But Anthony stood up and said, ‘We’re supposed to go to bed when Millionaire’s over.’

  ‘Go on, then,’ said Dad.

  ‘And you’re supposed to read us a story.’

  Dorothy said, ‘I’ll get off. I’ve had a lovely evening . . . but . . .’

  Then she and Dad said together, ‘. . . but this wasn’t it!’ And they both fell about laughing.

  On the way out, she picked up her bin and her coat. There behind it was a big model made of cereal packets. ‘Blimey, that’s very impressive,’ she said.

  Anthony shrugged and said, ‘Tracy Island. I won a prize for that.’

  ‘I’m not surprised.’

  I was surprised. I had no idea how it got there. It was like he’d got so good at lying, the Weetabix boxes believed him.

  I went to Anthony’s bedroom window so I could watch Dad and Dorothy saying goodbye. Anthony was lying on his bed. ‘Come and see,’ I said. Dad was holding the car door open for her.

  ‘Don’t want to.’

  ‘Come on. She’s good.’

  ‘She is not good.’

  ‘The lasagne was good.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t. My mum’s lasagne was good. That lasagne was rubbish. It didn’t even have sweetcorn in it.’

  There’s no point talking to him when he’s like this, so I just listened to her engine starting up. Then I heard Dad slapping the roof of her car as it moved off. She pipped her horn softly. I was going to go then, but Anthony snarled at me, ‘Why is it always me? Why do you leave everything to me?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You found the money. Why don’t you ever help?’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘The minute we walked in she was staring at the bag. Just staring at it. Like an X-ray machine and what did you do?’

  ‘I said hello.’

  ‘You said nothing. It was me who did the talking. I had to make up that thing about the nativity play and she said, “I’ll have to come and see it.”’

  ‘It’ll be nice.’

  ‘Damian, we’re not in the nativity play. Remember?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’

  ‘And she knew we were lying. And who had to make up the lie? Me? And who’ll have to get us into the play now? Me. And who went upstairs and hid the money in the Subbuteo box?’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘Yes, I did. And then what happened? Someone was at the door. Did you answer it? No, I did. And who was there?’

  ‘Carol singers.’

  ‘Carol singers. It was Tricia with the Tracy Island thing.’

  ‘I did wonder how that got there.’

  ‘And her dad and her brother. And she’d told them that we had loads of money. And they were asking for some.’

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘He said the VAT were going to close his business down if he didn’t give them three grand by tomorrow, so could I give him three grand.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘If I gave him the money, he’d know it was all true and what would happen then? Millions of people all wanting three grand knocking at the door day and night.’

  ‘So you said no.’

  ‘I couldn’t, could I? She came out of the kitchen. I had to get rid of them. I told them I’d give them the money if they pretended to be carol singers. I gave them three grand. She gave them two euros.’

  ‘It’s good that they’re not closing his business, though.’ ‘It’s not good, Damian. None of this is good. Have you thought about this? Everyone knows we’ve got money, right? So soon everyone is going to start wondering where we got it from. And that’s when the police will get involved. Have you thought about that?’

  ‘No. I haven’t.’

  ‘Well, luckily I have. I told them we won it on the scratch cards.’

  ‘That’s good.’

  ‘And her, she knows. She knew they weren’t carol singers. All that, do you know “The Holly and the Ivy” stuff. She was trying to catch them out. That’s why I said, “They don’t do requests,” and shut the door.’

  I could see he was tired and worried. ‘You’re cleverer than me, that’s what it is. You’re just cleverer . . .’

  Suddenly the room was filled with a cold, blue light. I thought it might be a bit of a vision, so I pretended not to notice. But Anthony could see it too. He said, ‘Cops. Look.’

  There were two police cars down in the road below. They had big black numbers painted on their roofs. One was and one was 23. Anthony said these were so the police helicopter could tell which car was which.

  Dad came in. ‘There’s been a burglary,’ he said.

  I gasped, ‘Is it us?’

  He looked surprised. ‘Why would it be us? You daft bugger.’ He ruffled my hair, while Anthony kicked me discreetly on the shins.

  ‘Hang on, though,’ said Dad.

  The community policeman was walking over to ours. Dad went down and opened the door to him. We leaned over the banister and listened. Someone had burgled the Mormons.

  ‘I didn’t like to mention it in their current state of distress,’ said the community copper, ‘but we could all do with a cup of tea.’

  ‘Oh, sure,’ said Dad.

  ‘And toast if it’s going.’

  ‘No problem.’

  Anthony said we should sneak down and follow them into the kitchen.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Because we won’t be able to hear them once the kettle starts.’

  ‘What do we want to hear them for?’

  ‘Intelligence and surveillance, obviously.’

  The kettle was incredibly loud actually. I hadn’t noticed it before. The community copper was saying, ‘I suppose if someone had to be burgled at this time of year, it was best it was them. They don’t actually celebrate Christmas, I believe. So it’s not spoiling much for them.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Dad. ‘And they’d just bought all that new stuff. The dishwasher and that. I suppose they left the boxes out for the bin men and someone spotted them.’

  ‘It’s a possibility. There again, they didn’t take the dishwasher. Or the telly. Or the DVD player. Very unusual. They’ve turned the place over but they don’t seem to have taken anything. They seem to have been looking for something.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘Spiritual comfort and encouragement, I suppose. Anyway, their being done improves the odds on the rest of you not being done, statistically, so that’s a comfort. Two sugars for me and I don’t know about the CID.’

  Dad helped him carry the tea out to the crime scene. Anthony tried to follow him, but Dad sent us back to bed.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘show’s over. Off you go.’

  Anthony came into my room. He said, ‘Hear what he said? The burglar
s were looking for something. You know what that was, don’t you? The money. The train robbers are looking for their money and they know it’s round here somewhere. They saw that lot buying all kinds of stuff and assumed they had it.’

  ‘You said the Mormons were the train robbers yesterday.’

  ‘New evidence, Damian. Like they’ve just been burgled. How can they be the robbers if they’ve just been robbed.’

  ‘So who are the robbers, then?’

  ‘Obviously, it’s Dorothy.’

  ‘No. Obviously it’s not Dorothy.’

  ‘Think about it. You put thousands in her bin. Does she give it to charity? No, she tells the head. Why? Because she wants to know who put it there. Which is you, idiot. Then when she’s found out, does she go home? No, she hangs around the school, getting pally with Dad. Why? So she can find out where we live. The next thing, she’s wandering round our house like she owned it, rooting around in our kitchen and all that. Why? So she can check up on us and find out where the money is. The next thing you know, the neighbours get burgled.’

  Now I could see Anthony was passionate in his belief, but I could also see that he was mistaken. ‘Anthony, if she knew we had the money, why would she burgle the house next door and not us?’

  ‘I don’t know. A communication problem, probably. She’s not on her own, is she? It’s a big organization. There’s dozens of them. And they’re everywhere and they all know and they’re all after us. And not just them. Everyone who hears about the money wants it. But it’s OK . . .’ He didn’t look OK. He looked like he was going to cry. ‘What we’re going to do. We’re going to hide it in your den.’

  ‘It’s not a den. It’s a hermitage.’

  ‘Whatever. We’re going to hide it there and take a wedge each . . .’

  ‘What if someone looks there?’

  ‘Like who? No one else knows about it. Do they?’

  ‘The man with the glass eye.’

  It took him a while, but eventually he managed to repeat, ‘The man with the glass eye?’

  ‘He had a look inside the day we . . .’ I didn’t go on. Anthony looked like he was going to cry. ‘Anthony, let’s tell Dad. He had really good ideas about what to do with it and . . .’

  ‘You don’t understand a thing, do you? We can’t trust anyone.’

  ‘But Dad . . .’

  ‘Dads and Mums are no different. One minute they’re there and the next they’re gone. You should know that. We’re on our own, Damian. Get used to it.’

  By the time I’d thought of something to say back to him, he’d gone to bed. He was curled up in a ball deep under the sheets, pretending to be asleep.

  14

  Next morning, Anthony shovelled all the money out of the Subbuteo box and into our school bags. ‘We’re going to have to keep it with us. All the time. No days off. If we leave it in the house, it’ll get burgled or she’ll find it. We can’t put it in your den. We can’t put it in the bank. We’ll have to keep it with us. Maybe we should stay off sick?’

  ‘But we’re not sick.’

  ‘No good anyway. They’re casting for the nativity play today. We’ve got to get parts or our cover’s blown.’

  So we put the bags of cash on our backs. To be metaphorical about it, the money had become a burden.

  There was a man outside putting up a sign that said, ‘This is a Homewatch Area.’ Dad said it was pretty ironic putting it up on the day after the burglary. We set out for school.

  Terry from IT was getting into his car. He pointed to the sign and said, ‘Irony, eh? Do they still do irony at school? If they ask you for an example, that’s it.’

  ‘OK. Will do,’ said Anthony, and walked on.

  When we were crossing the field, I said, ‘What if we don’t get picked? For the nativity play?’

  ‘We’ll get picked, don’t worry.’

  When we were at All Saints Primary, everyone wanted to be in the nativity play because you got a special party of your own afterwards. It turned out to be different at Great Ditton. When Mr Quinn came in and said, ‘Right 5M, this class is going to provide Mary, Joseph and the shepherds for the juniors’ nativity play. Who wants to be Joseph?’ I shot my hand up in the air, the same as anyone would. But when I looked around, instead of being surrounded by waving arms, I was on my own. Not one other boy had put his hand up. They were all sitting there looking at me. I couldn’t understand it. Then I looked closer and saw that every one of them was clutching a twenty-pound note under their desks. Anthony had paid them all off.

  Mr Quinn looked uncomfortable, ‘No one else?’

  I kept my hand up there.

  ‘No one else want to be St Joseph? Damian could be a shepherd. He’s probably had enough of saints, eh? Jake, what about you?’

  ‘Couldn’t do it, sir. Allergy, sir.’

  ‘Allergy to what?’

  ‘Synthetics, sir.’ Mr Quinn looked puzzled.

  ‘The beard.’

  I kept my hand high up through all of this, so he had to pick me in the end.

  Trying the costume on was interesting. I’d always endeavoured to emulate the saints but I’d never actually dressed like one before. I had sandals, a crook and a big black beard.

  Mr Quinn helped me put them on. He said, ‘St Joseph never did anything weird, did he? I mean, he didn’t spurt milk or levitate or anything?’

  ‘Not unless being visited by angels is weird.’

  He looked me searchingly in the eye and then said, ‘No, no. I can live with that.’

  Anthony was playing one of the kings. His teacher (Miss Nugent) said, ‘Now there are three kings – Melchior, Caspar and Balthasar. Which d’you want to be?’

  ‘The one with the gold.’

  The one with the gold was Melchior, by the way.

  Miss Nugent made Anthony a block of gold out of a Rockport shoebox wrapped up in gold paper. He carried that block of gold with him everywhere. He became interested and inspired by historical aspects of the nativity story. For instance, he said to me, ‘Do you realize how much a block of gold that big would be worth at today’s prices? A lot. An awful lot. It makes you wonder.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, he had all this money and then later on, when he was grown up, he was poor. They must’ve spent it. They must’ve had a great time.’

  We had a big dress rehearsal. We didn’t go home after school. We all took sandwiches and waited in class for our turn to see the make-up lady, which was Tricia’s mum. There were dozens of little girls dressed as angels. They had to stand in the corridor and practise ‘Silent Night’ and ‘Little Donkey’ until they sounded like real angels. Miss Nugent kept giving them orange squash. I know they weren’t really angels but they still made me feel safer.

  Tricia’s mum drew lines on my face with an eyebrow pencil to make me look old and she made my hair grey with flour. And I was ready to go on.

  I’d already managed to Google up quite a lot about St Joseph. I think Miss Nugent found it all very useful. For instance, when it was my turn to knock on the inn door, she said, ‘Remember now, Damian. Be tired. St Joseph has walked a long way. So he’s very tired.’

  I said, ‘Well, he was a carpenter, so he was very fit. And the walk from Nazareth, well, people did walks like that all the time. It would’ve been like taking a bus to them. Also, she was going to have a baby. So they weren’t exactly planning to sleep. They might have been stressed, but I wouldn’t have said tired.’

  You could see she was impressed by the way she said, ‘Whatever,’ and went straight on to the three kings.

  When I came off, Tricia’s mum said my beard was too tight. ‘The elastic’s making your ears go red. See if you can fix it yourself.’

  I went to the boys’ toilets to try and loosen it in the mirror. There was a man already in there with a huge black beard and a big wooden staff.

  ‘St Joseph,’ I said, ‘dates unknown.’

  ‘I just had to say, you’re doing a great job.’

&nb
sp; ‘Thanks very much. I’m not making you sound too stressed?’

  ‘No. I was stressed. The way you’re playing it, it really puts me back in there.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  ‘Do you want me to take you through the birth, because obstetrics has really changed?’

  ‘I think we’re going to skip that bit.’

  ‘OK. Well, break a leg.’

  In the corridor, Mr Quinn said, ‘What about the bag, Damian? You’re not going to be carrying that round with you on the night, I hope?’

  I’d got so used to the bag, I’d forgotten it was there. If I couldn’t carry it, where could I put it? I looked at Anthony. He just shrugged.

  ‘What are you wearing it for anyway?’ said Mr Quinn.

  I looked at Anthony again. He looked at me pleadingly.

  Mr Quinn said, ‘You don’t need it, do you?’

  He was coming towards me. He was going to take it off me. I blurted out, ‘My mum’s dead.’ He took a step backwards immediately. Raised his hands and said, ‘OK. I’m sure St Joseph was carrying a lot of stuff with him on the day. Why don’t you go and practise with Dave?’

  Dave was the donkey. He was made of plywood and fun fur. He stood on a platform with castors on it and he had a pair of sacking saddlebags stuffed with straw. I took him out in the corridor and practised pulling him up and down with Mary (Rebecca Knowles) on his back. It took a while, but I eventually got the knack of steering him. We powered up and down the lino, doing three-point turns by the fire doors.

  Rebecca kept saying, ‘I will be the Mother of God,’ over and over, and we could hear the angels practising ‘It was on a Starry Night’ in Miss Nugent’s class, and I wished that I could live my whole life inside a nativity play.

  That night, I was still humming ‘It was on a Starry Night’ when I went up to bed. There was going to be a collection for Water Aid after the play. The angels were supposed to give out envelopes before and collect them again afterwards. I managed to get hold of a whole packet of envelopes. I lay on the floor putting a twenty-pound note in each one. I was planning to put them in a bag and hand them to the Angel Gabriel.

  Suddenly a big leather sandal stood on the envelopes. There was a huge hairy foot in it. I looked up. Above me was a brown robe with a massive man inside. Round his waist was a belt with seven chunky iron keys dangling from it. I sat up and hit my head on the biggest one. The big man said a swearword. I won’t say which one as it was unenlightening. And then he said, ‘Don’t put your address on the back of them. They pass it on to other charities.’