by Jason Ayres
It was soon more than a bit of fun as the first three numbers came out of the ball machine, matching three numbers on our ticket.
“We’ve got three numbers,” said Stacey, excitedly. “That’s worth about £25, isn’t it?”
“We’ve got four now,” I said, as the number 44 plopped down out of the machine.
“Oh my God,” mouthed Stacey, watching, as the fifth ball, number 12, appeared. “We could win this.”
The last ball seemed to take ages to appear. We were waiting on number 5. I tried to seem as excited as Stacey was, but it was difficult to fake it. When you knew the result in advance, it took away the suspense.
Sure enough, number 5 appeared and Stacey started jumping up and down and screaming “We’ve won, we’ve won! I can’t believe it!”
Caught up in the moment of euphoria, I grabbed the bottle of champagne from the fridge and popped it open. Stacey was in a state of shock and disbelief, but there was no denying the evidence on the ticket.
Once she’d calmed down sufficiently, she phoned David, who was down in London. In barely an hour, his car was pulling up outside. A call to the claim line confirmed we did indeed have the only winning ticket, and were some £5 million or more better off than we had been that morning.
The celebrations went on long into the night. We sat around the kitchen table, booze flowing freely, talking about what we’d do with the money.
I knew it was of no benefit to me where I was going, so I made my intentions clear. “Stacey, I bought the ticket for you, I want you to have the money. You’ve been talking about moving in with David in London. Now you can buy yourself a nice house there and not have to worry about rent or a mortgage ever again.”
Houses in London didn’t come cheap. I’d read in the paper that the average price in most areas was now well over a million pounds. In areas such as Kensington and Chelsea it was several million.
“All I ask is that you look after me in my old age,” I said, wondering if I’d done enough yet by keeping off the cigarettes to have earned an old age.
Up until now, any changes I had made in the world hadn’t affected our lives directly. Buying the lottery ticket was the first major change I had instigated. From now on, the timeline was certain to diverge from the one I had known before.
Stacey and David were wealthy now and I hoped that this change would be for better, rather than for worse. I knew that money didn’t necessarily buy happiness and they had that already.
If I had any doubts about him or his motives, I wouldn’t have done it. But I had already seen that he had looked after my daughter well for several years when he was the one bringing in the bulk of their earnings. I knew him well enough to know that he wouldn’t want to be with her now just because she was rich.
So that was another timeline potentially in existence, one where Stacey had won the lottery, as opposed to the one where she hadn’t. Whether the original timeline had now vanished, or if it would be just another duplicate I still had no way of telling.
It was more important now that I looked to the past to find out what had happened to Stacey when she was sixteen and try to put it right.
Indulgence
June 2021
Stacey graduated in June which meant that she was soon to leave me again, heading back to university in Southampton for her final term. This was to form the pattern of the next three years: her spending holidays with me, and term times away.
To pass some time, I decided to have a bit of fun with the horse racing again. One of the bookmakers that advertised on television was currently running an advertising campaign that I found incredibly irritating. I had also heard that this particular bookmaker was notorious for banning or restricting horse racing punters who dared to have the audacity to back more than their fair share of winners.
So one Monday, forearmed with the knowledge of the day’s results, I decided to have a little fun at their expense.
I went into one of their betting shops in a town a few miles away from Oxford and placed a £10 accumulator on six horses running that afternoon. I’d worked out that the accumulative odds of the starting prices of these horses would add up to just under £1,000,000. This was the maximum limit that the bookmaker offered for winnings on horse racing.
After I put the money on, I found myself a comfy chair and waited for the action to unfold. I more or less had the place to myself. Other than a couple of pensioners betting rip-off forecasts on the lunchtime dog races, and a few depressed-looking men pouring money into the roulette machines, the place was deserted.
Nobody took a lot of notice of me, as the first two horses duly won at odds of 2/1 and 5/1. It probably wasn’t that unusual for a punter to get two winners up like that. The bored-looking girl behind the counter seemed oblivious to what was going on.
However, after the third horse had won at 20/1, I saw her looking at me, and she called her manager out from the office to look at something on the computer. Clearly, the bet had been flagged up as one with potential liabilities.
I had £3780 going on to the next horse at 9/1. When this went in, my winnings had risen to £37,800. The manager came out from behind the counter.
“Is this your bet, sir?” he asked.
“Yes,” I said. “There’s not a problem, is there?
“Not at all,” he said, cheerfully. “I just like to get to know my customers,” he said.
A couple of other punters were nosing around now to see what was happening. The shop had got progressively busier as the afternoon had worn on.
“What’s the craic, here?” asked one, a pensioner with an Irish accent.
I thought I’d let the punters join in the fun, why not? “Oh, I’ve got an accumulator running up,” I said. “First four have gone in already.”
“How much has he got to come, Brian?” asked another, who reminded me a bit of Josh’s dad.
“I can’t tell you that, client confidentiality,” said the manager, as he headed back behind the counter. He didn’t seem remotely bothered by proceedings. It wasn’t his money after all: he was just an employee. I guessed his superiors at head office were already aware of my bet. Presumably all of the tills were linked up via the internet.
“It’s alright, I don’t mind,” I said, and showed the punters the slip.
“Blimey, you’ve got thousands running up here,” said the Geoff lookalike. “Hey, Nobby, come and have a look at this.” He gestured to a smartly dressed man with a small beard who just happened to be carrying a small pocket calculator. “Nobby will work it out for you.”
I’d already worked it out, but Nobby glanced at the slip, then at the screen and without resorting to his calculator said, “Bloody hell, you’ve got £37,800 running up here,” loudly enough for the remainder of the shop’s punters to gather round.
They had a sniff of a possible big win and were all right behind me. Perhaps they wanted to unite behind one of their number who might be about to strike a major blow at their old enemy. More likely it was just because they were hoping I might splash some of the winnings their way if the bet came off.
I had no reason to suspect that the bet would not pay off; however, I was about to discover that not everything I read in the following day’s papers was set in stone. The fifth horse duly won, generating much excitement from the shop’s punters who sensed they might be witnessing a once-in-a-lifetime moment, but something was wrong.
I clearly recalled the price of the horse being 4/1 when I’d memorised the results from the paper, but when the starting prices were returned from the course, the official price was 3/1.
What was happening here? Had I made a mistake? It turned out that I had, but it wasn’t my memory that was in error.
As the last race approached, all eyes were on the screen to see what price my last selection would be. It had £151,200 going onto it, though it should have been £189,000. I clearly remembered that my final horse, Hot Girl, had also started at 4/1, but I could see as the race approached that
it was going to start at nowhere near that price.
It opened at 7/4 on course and the price instantly began to drop, to 6/4, and then 5/4.
Unlike the other punters who were in a major state of excitement, Nobby was frowning and shaking his head.
“You know what you’ve done wrong here, don’t you?” he asked.
“No, not really,” I said. “But I’m sure you’re going to tell me.”
“You didn’t take the prices on any of these horses, you’ve just let them run at SP. Hot Girl was 5/1 this morning, if you had taken that price, you’d be looking at nearly a million quid now.”
“I was sure Hot Girl would have been a bigger price than this,” I replied. “I thought it would start at about 4/1.”
“And it probably would have done,” replied Nobby, “if it hadn’t been for this bet. The bookies won’t be worried about whether your horse wins or not. They will have sent all the money back to the course or backed it on the exchanges to drive the price down as low as they can. In fact, I wouldn’t put it past them to stop it winning altogether.”
“Does that happen?” I asked.
“Some people think so,” said Nobby. “There was a big scandal about it years ago with a number of jockeys arrested. But it hasn’t happened recently. It would probably be a lot harder to get away with it these days, what with the technology and everything. And they can hedge anything at a bigger price on the exchanges anyway, so they will probably end up making a profit whatever happens.”
This interesting development in the conversation was cut short by the start of the race. Word seemed to have got around the local punting fraternity and a sizeable crowd had gathered in the shop now to cheer Hot Girl on.
It was a five-furlong handicap and it didn’t take more than about a minute to run. Thankfully, Nobby’s conspiracy theories about the horse being stopped proved to be unfounded, and Hot Girl did indeed win amid much cheering, but the starting price was a huge disappointment.
Hot Girl was returned at 4/5, which gave me a grand total of £272,160. Not anything like as much as I had hoped, but a sizeable sum nonetheless.
Unfortunately it was a sum I was not going to be able to lay my hands on. Amid the celebrations and congratulations from the shop’s punters, I made my way to the till. Up until now, I hadn’t really thought about how I might collect the money, but it was more problematical than I’d thought.
“Yeah, they shortened that up, alright,” said Nobby. “Just like when Frankie landed his magnificent seven.”
“Congratulations,” said the manager, who had joined the rest of us in front of the big screen. He seemed as delighted as everybody else. If what Nobby had said was true, his firm had probably done quite nicely out of this. He then added, “I’m not going to be able to pay you out until tomorrow, though.”
Obviously I wasn’t expecting him to have a quarter of a million quid just sitting in the safe, but I had hoped that I might be able to get a bank transfer or a good old-fashioned cheque.
“I don’t have the authority to pay out a win for this amount,” he explained, “but someone from Head Office is coming down tomorrow, and they will present you with the cheque. If you don’t mind, we’d like to get a photographer and a couple of journalists along to cover the story.”
“No can do, I’m afraid,” I said, quickly thinking up a plausible lie. “I’ve got to fly to the States on business tonight and I won’t be back for a month.”
I considered the situation, and then decided I knew what I was going to do. It was time to do a good deed for the day. “I’ve got a suggestion,” I said. “Can we go somewhere private?”
He took me into his office, and I explained what I wanted to do. I then gave him all of my contact details, name and address, and wrote out detailed instructions in a letter, signed it, and left it with him.
If they did contact me to confirm all this, hopefully my future self in this timeline would verify it. I’d instructed him to send £125,000 to the Injured Jockeys Fund, £125,000 to the RSPCA, with the remainder to be shared amongst the shop’s staff and punters.
Happy that I’d given something back to all those involved in putting on the daily sport of kings, I left the shop, head held high, good deed for the day well and truly done.
April 2021
After my memorable experience in the betting shop that afternoon, I only went back a couple more times. I restricted myself to more realistic targets on those subsequent visits, putting on bets that paid out more modest sums like £3,000, but even that proved problematical to get my hands on.
There always seemed to be some sort of issue. Either they didn’t have enough money in the shop and the bank was closed, or they did have the money but it was in a time-locked safe that wouldn’t open for another hour.
In the end I grew rather bored of it: there was no real thrill in the gamble when there was no risk involved, and it was a waste of time waiting around to get paid, so I decided to try another tactic.
As far as I could see, the only way to get a large wad of cash from a bookmaker was to go on-course to a big meeting and bet in cash. It was very handy if I wanted to get hold of a large sum of money for use specifically on that day. Despite the world in general shifting money around electronically via plastic, on-course bookmakers still preferred to deal in cash.
Using the winnings to buy material objects was a waste of time, but what I could buy was experiences. Any money that I laid my hands on came with a strict “expires at 3am” stipulation.
I got into the habit of starting the afternoon with a visit to a racecourse, usually one not too far from London, such as Sandown Park or Ascot. I would take £10,000 or more in cash from the on-course bookmaker’s satchels and then head into London to enjoy some of the finer things in life.
I booked myself into the penthouse suites of some of the city’s most expensive hotels. I dined in three-starred Michelin restaurants, washing down my gourmet dinners with the most expensive wine and champagne I could lay my hands on.
I also got to indulge myself in every sexual fantasy I could ever ask for. My fling with Lauren had given me a taste for sex yet all the same restrictions I’d had before on my sex life still prevailed. Once again it seemed I had no choice but to resort to prostitutes.
My experience in Milton Keynes was long behind me. Now I could afford to pay for the very highest-class escorts. After all, what was the point in sitting in these expensive restaurants and hotels like some Billy-no-mates? Consequently, I always made sure that I arranged a suitable companion for the evening.
These were classy, elegant, well-dressed girls who looked a million dollars. I made sure I looked the part, too. On one of my first visits to London I had found a suit in an upmarket store that fitted me as well as if it were tailor-made.
With a shirt and tie plus new shoes to go with it, not to mention an extremely expensive watch, I walked around oozing class and wealth. To get by in London, you didn’t just need to have money, you needed to show you had it. Walking around looking the part, I found that few doors were closed to me.
Some of the hotels found it a little odd when I paid for the rooms in cash, but no questions were ever asked.
After a few visits I had my routine off to a T. Go to the track, stash the cash, and take a taxi straight into London, arranging my “date” for the night on the way. I’d head straight for the store where it was easy to get myself kitted out – I knew where everything was so just bought the same things straight off the peg every time.
I must have bought that suit 50 times over. It was the ultimate in repeat business for the store. Usually by 5pm I’d be safely ensconced in some luxury suite somewhere looking forward to an evening of the best pleasures money could buy.
My indulgences grew and grew. Sometimes I’d order two girls together and then we’d really have a party. Aged 50 and acting like a playboy, some might have looked at me and seen a man having a mid-life crisis.
I preferred to see it more as a young m
an sowing his wild oats and getting it all out of his system before marriage and parenthood beckoned. I already had Stacey with me during the holidays, and it wouldn’t be too much longer until she was back with me full-time. Then I would “grow up” and become a responsible adult.
Even now, it wasn’t debauched champagne orgies all the time. If Stacey was at home, often I’d go into London after the races and buy the most luxurious delicacies I could find and take them home to Oxford for the evening. So we dined on everything from Beluga caviar to Wagyu steak.
One time I even brought home a 7kg Ibérico ham I had seen hanging in the food hall at Harrods. It cost over £2,000 and was the most delicious thing I had ever tasted.
It was in booze where I really excelled. I found an antique wine dealer in London and frequently brought home a bottle that had cost me over £10,000. As with the suit, it was often the same one. There were only about twenty of these bottles left in the world, apparently, but I must have drunk that particular one at least that number of times myself.
Stacey had no idea of the value of the wine she was enthusiastically glugging down beside me. To have told her would only have raised awkward questions. Officially I was well off, but not that well off.
So that was my life in 2021, a carefree paradise where I could have whatever I wanted. I enjoyed it tremendously for several months, but in the end it began to lose its appeal. For all my fun and games, and despite the fact that I had Stacey, I felt lonely and as if my life lacked direction.
As 2021 gave way to 2020 there were changes on the horizon that I hoped would remedy that.
Work
October 2020
My big “Five-O” was approaching, a landmark birthday. For many, this marked the turning point from the last gasp of youth into middle age. I was more than happy to be going the other way, having seen some significant improvements in my appearance over the past couple of years.
