Just My Luck

by Andrea Bramhall

  “I was doing all right, just a bit slow. Some of this writing’s like, I dunno, it’s tiny. Look.”

  “Yeah, it’s pretty bad.” In truth it really isn’t, but why kick the kid when he’s already feeling bad about himself? “Well, since I’m already here, why don’t I start checking the stuff, and you can direct the forklift with the pallets?”

  “That’d be great, thanks.” He grins at me. A big toothy grin. “You’re brilliant, Genna. You always know just what to do.”

  “Yeah, well, by the time you get to my age, so will you.”

  “You’re not old—”

  “No, just older than you are.” He laughs with me as I take the clipboard from him and start checking over the stack of pallets.

  It only takes me fifteen minutes to check them and get back inside, where Cathy is pouring hot water into a mug for me.

  “Coffee or tea?”

  “Vodka.”

  “Coffee it is,” Cathy says, ignoring my heartfelt request, and hands me a mug.

  I hang my coat up and stand next to the radiator, trying to get my bum as close as I can without burning it.

  “So, what was wrong?” she asks.

  “Nothing.” I shake my head and take a sip, careful not to burn my tongue. I hate that feeling. When that little blister starts to form right on the tip, and you can’t taste anything properly for days. “Liam sprained his wrist this morning, so he was checking the invoice. Too slowly for Dave’s liking.”

  “He still not told them he can’t read?”

  “Nope, and if you give me a couple more months, he won’t have to. He’s doing pretty well, and he’s motivated. He really wants to be a good dad, bless him.”

  “Babies raising babies.” Cathy shakes her head and sinks back onto her chair.

  “Well, at least he’s sticking around.” Not like mine. Lumbered me with the worst name in the world, then fucked off. Bastard.

  “True. Here, check my lottery numbers, will ya?” She drops a slip of paper on my desk and waves her hand towards my computer.

  “Cathy, you use a computer every day. Why can’t you ever check your own?”

  “It’s bad luck. Now go on, you can check yours while you’re at it.”

  “But it’s not bad luck for me to check mine?”

  Cathy shrugs. “Probably, but I’m hoping your bad luck will be my good luck, and then I’ll split my winnings with you for being my lucky charm.”

  I pull up the website, still trying to wrap my brain around her arse-backwards logic. “You do know that makes no sense at all, don’t you?”

  “Yep. I’m an enigma, wrapped in a conundrum—”

  “Covered in bullshit—”

  “Parcelled in a riddle. Thank you very much.”

  “I’ll read them out, you check what’s written on your slip. Okay?”

  “Yep. Gimme yours and I’ll do that at the same time.”

  “Eh, I’m not sure I trust you.” I grin at her and offer her a wink to let her know I’m only joking. “Let me write my name on the back—”

  “Cheeky little bugger.”

  That doesn’t stop me writing my name. Full name, mind you, in case it becomes legally binding. Then I turn it over and hand it to Cathy. She doesn’t hesitate to turn it over and check out my name. Three years, three hundred and sixty days I’ve kept the secret of the worst name in the world from her. Not anymore. “Genesis!”

  I refuse to respond.

  “Genesis Collins.”

  I told you it was the worst name in the world.

  “I never would have put your mum down as the religious type.”

  “She isn’t religious.”

  “Oh. So is your dad religious then, Genesis?”

  “No. He’s a music fan.”

  “Huh.”

  “He was a Phil Collins fan.”

  “Phil Collins. The drummer—”

  “From the band Genesis. Yes.”

  To her credit, she does try to control the hysteria that hits her. She does a piss-poor job of it, but she did try. I timed it. Just out of curiosity. Eight minutes and a trip to the ladies’ later, I am ready to read out the Euromillions lottery numbers. She wipes her eyes once more and resettles her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

  I clear my throat. “Two.” I wrap my hands around my mug, my fingers still cold from being outside.

  “Hm.” She looks from one pink slip to the other. “You’ve got that one.”

  “Good start. Nine.” I sip my coffee.

  “Oh,” she says, smiling. “We’ve both got that one.”

  “Excellent. Fourteen.”

  “You’ve got that one as well.” She looks at me over the tops of her little glasses. “What do you get for three numbers?”

  I frown and shrug. “Something like a tenner, I think. Twenty-nine.”

  “Well, it’ll be more than a tenner, lassie. That’s four you’ve got.”

  “That means I’ll have to buy the takeaway this weekend.”

  “Oh, the hardship of it. What’s the next one?”

  “Forty-one.”

  She stares at me. Her mouth open in a little round circle.

  “What?”

  “Bloody hell, girlie, you’ve got ’em all.”

  “You’re joking?”

  Cathy shakes her head at me. “I’m not. What about them lucky thingies? You have to get them too.”

  “Lucky Stars? They’re three and seven.”

  Cathy’s staring at me like I’ve grown another head.

  “What?”

  “You’ve won.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve won.”

  “What?”

  “You’ve won the bloody lottery.” She thrusts the paper into my hand and waves at the computer screen. “You’ve won the lottery. How much was the jackpot last night?”

  “What?”

  “Now who’s got the IQ of a plant? How much was the jackpot last night?” She spaces the words out like she was talking to a very old, very deaf person.

  I still don’t get it.

  She tuts and points at the screen, then takes the mouse from my hand and scrolls up so she can see the estimated jackpot total. “Bloody hell!”

  “What?”

  “Can’t you say anything else?”

  “No.”

  “Well, that’s a start.” She waves at the screen again. “It was a rollover. For weeks, by the look of it. Just look at that jackpot prize!”

  I do.

  Then I blink.

  Then I look again.

  Then I look at Cathy.

  She looks at me.

  I do the only thing I can think of.

  I blink again.

  “Well? Have you seen?”

  I do something exceptional then… I nod.

  “It’s huge.”

  She peers over my shoulder and points my head back at the screen.

  “That’s in millions of pounds, isn’t it?”

  I nod again.

  The fog starts to clear from my eyes, and the numbers on the screen actually start to register in the shock-addled depths of my brain.

  “One hundred and fifty-six million pounds.” This is a breakthrough. I know I barely whisper the words, but I engage my brain enough to get my mouth to form words. Not just random words. Words with meaning. Words that can now shape the rest of my life. No, scratch that. Words that will shape the rest of my life. Mine and everyone’s around me. “One hundred and fifty-six million pounds.”

  “It says it’s the biggest jackpot they’ve ever had,” Cathy says.

  “Yeah.”

  “It says on the back of that slip that you have to ring this number to claim your prize.” She points to the paper in front of me. The one I’m staring at as if it’s going to bite me. “Well?”

  I turn my head and look at her.

  “Are you going to ring it, then?”

  I manage to nod my head again. I’ve become a nodding puppet as well as a mute imbeci
le.

  “You’re in shock. I’ll make you a cup of tea.”

  She’s been gone two minutes or an hour for all I know. That whole time-standing-still thing I was talking about earlier? Forget I mentioned it. I totally lose track of everything while I sit staring at those numbers on the computer screen. All the pixels become a blur, and I swear I’m starting to see things—moving things—in all those little squares. The blues and whites converge to create this giant mosaic before my eyes. Little stories play out their plots, creating another world while I just sit there. Watching.

  “Here, throw this down your neck. Mind, though, it’s hot.” She puts the mug in front of me and actually wraps my hands around it for me. “Have you rung yet?”

  “No.” I look around for the owner of the squeaky voice before I realise that it’s mine, so I shake my head instead.

  “Do you want me to dial for you?”

  I clear my throat before I open my mouth this time. “Yeah, please.”

  Cathy puts the phone on speaker and takes care of the whole call for me. She writes down the address and time of where I have to go and makes a note that I have to take my driver’s license and passport with me. She phones the train line and even books tickets for Ruth and me to go to Watford in the morning. I just sit there like a lump of wood, staring at the screen.

  “Should I call Ruth for you? Get her to come and pick you up?”

  “No, she was at work last night.”

  “Abi?”

  “Yes.”

  Cathy picks up the phone.

  “No, wait.” I should tell my partner before my friend, right? Abi shouldn’t be the one I share this with. Not first. It should be Ruth. She’s my partner. She’s the one I live with. But I can’t bring myself to say that to Cathy. I can’t bring myself to wake Ruth up and share with her the news that will mean she doesn’t have to work every night anymore. I can’t do it. What does that say about us? About me?

  “Your mum?”

  “Huh?”

  “Shall I call your mum for you? To come and pick you up.”

  “Yeah, that’d be good.” I start to sip the tea she’s made for me while I wait. I don’t know what she tells my mum, but barely fifteen minutes pass before she’s pushing me back into my coat, handing me my bag, and leading me by the arm out of the door. Mum’s parked just outside the gates. Meeting her there is always easier than trying to find a place in the compound, where she won’t get her tiny tin can of a car crushed by one of the delivery wagons. Mum drives a vintage Mini Cooper. Not one of the modern BMW ones. Vintage. She has an old wire coat hanger for a radio aerial, and the locks don’t work. It’s a good thing she doesn’t have an actual radio in it, because it gets broken into at least twice a week. There’s a homeless guy that sleeps in there when it rains, and she even found a couple having sex in there one night. In a mini!

  “What’s happened? Is she sick?” Mum asks.

  “No, she’ll be fine. Just had some very shocking news,” Cathy replies. “She’ll tell you when you get her home.”

  “Why can’t you tell me now?”

  “’Cos you need to drive, Addison.” Cathy says.

  I leave them to it and climb in the passenger side of Mum’s tin can, the ticket grasped firmly in my sweaty little hand. I’m anticipating the look on Mum’s face when I tell her. And Ruth’s. Will she stay home tonight so we can celebrate, or will she feel that she still needs to go in to work? She’ll probably go in. She’s too honourable a person to leave her colleagues in the shit at the last minute. Mum’ll probably have a drink with me to celebrate, though.

  I don’t even hear it when she gets into the car. “So, what’s happened? Are you all right? That arsehole hasn’t sacked you, has he?”

  “No, it’s good news. I promise. Just, please can you take me home first? I think I need a drink.” I don’t see any of the scenery pass by as she drives me from the outskirts of Manchester to Edgeley.

  “Okay. I’ve stopped driving, now tell me.”

  “I won the lottery.”

  “Don’t play games with me, Genesis Collins. What’s going on?”

  “I won the lottery.” I hold the ticket up in front of her.

  “What?”

  “I won the lottery. The Euromillions, from last night. I won it.”

  “You’re pulling my leg, right?”

  I shake my head.

  “Oh. My. God.”

  “I know.” I’ve heard the expression “eyes like saucers” many times before, and I always thought people had a real tendency to exaggerate. I think in future I’ll give people the benefit of the doubt. Mum has really big blue eyes anyway. Now I can see the white all around the iris. They look huge. Her mouth’s hanging open too.

  “How—”

  “How much?”

  “Yeah.”

  “One hundred and fifty-six million pounds.”

  “What?”

  “One hundred and fifty-six million pounds.”

  “What?”

  I’m starting to see what Cathy was talking about. “One—”

  “I heard you. Just, what?”

  “I know. You want a drink too?” I climb out of the car and cross the street.

  “Hell yeah. What have you got in here?”

  “Vodka. That was my plan.”

  “You do know it’s only eleven o’clock, don’t you?”

  “Mum, somewhere in the world it’s happy hour. I plan to celebrate it. Just keep it down until I can take Ruth a cup of coffee. She worked overtime last night.” Mum does what mums do and pretends to zip her mouth shut. If only. I open the door and we both step inside quietly. I let my bag drop from my shoulder and put it on the small table while Mum starts to put her coat on one of the hooks.

  “Oh God, baby. Fuck me harder.”

  Was that my imagination? Did I pass out and wake up in bed? I’m looking around myself, checking where I am. Then I look at my mum.

  “Oh, Ruth, baby, just like that.”

  Mum’s eyes get just as big as they were in the car. Not my imagination, then. A video? Is my lover of three years watching porn while I am out at work? Not a great boost to my ego, but, hey, I can live with that. I walk up the stairs, purposely avoiding the one that squeaks. Mum follows my footsteps exactly. Now, I’m pretty sure that whatever’s going on in my bedroom is going to be pretty embarrassing for Ruth. And probably me. Do I really want my MOTHER along for the ride? That’s not such a good phrase, considering the situation, but you get what I mean. I turn and look at her. I’m sure she knows that I want her to leave, but she just stands there looking at me. Smiling at me. Offering me support. Thanks, Mum. I should say something, but I’m totally in stealth mode, and I dismiss the thought the second it crosses my mind. What can I say?

  “Oh God, I love it when you fuck me with that big cock! You’re gonna make me come!”

  I suppose you could always say that.

  Brace yourselves…I’m going in.

  Now, my bedroom is something of a sanctuary to me. A private space, if you will, where I can relax and be the undisguised me. The me where I let all hang out. Where the extra five or ten pounds I’m carrying don’t matter, because it’s my private space. I share it with one other person. Just one. Singular. One. The opposite of many. The person I love. The woman I love. The woman I make love with in our bed. The woman who loves me. She tells me she loves me. She’s the woman who doesn’t care about the extra ten or fifteen pounds I’m carrying. The one who doesn’t care that I’ve got red hair—everywhere. The one who tells me I have beautiful eyes. Even if you can’t tell if they’re green or brown from one day to the next. The one who finds me sexy. Even when I don’t. The woman who thinks I’m special, when I’m decidedly average. The woman who is shagging a skinny fucking blond in my bed.

  I’ll say that again because it bears repeating.

  The woman who is shagging a skinny fucking blond in my bed.

  For the purpose of accuracy, I should really say our bed,
but I don’t really care about accuracy at the moment. That’s my bed! And my girlfriend. And I’m not getting shagged.

  I want the earth to open up and swallow me. It doesn’t happen. I want the alarm to go off and wake me up from this nightmare. It doesn’t happen. I want drugs to take away the image of Ruth’s arse framed by black strips of leather, banging away at the slapper. In my bed.

  Maybe I’ll get them later.

  Next best thing?

  I pull open the wardrobe and jump up to reach my holdall on the high shelf. I’m five-foot four. Said shelf is at least eighteen inches above my head. Snowball’s chance in hell of reaching that quietly, hey?

  Must be the fourth time I jump for it that I manage to snag the handle and drag the damn thing down on my head. Not sure if it’s the motion or the expletive I shout that finally catches the attention of the rutting whores, but all of a sudden there’s movement from them not centred on their vajayjay’s.

  “What the—Genna, babe, what are you doing here?”

  Points for originality? Um, nil. “I live here.”

  “I thought you were at work.”

  “Obviously.”

  Blondie is now trying to pull the bedclothes from off the floor while still hiding behind Ruth.

  “Mum, could you please go and get me some black bags from the kitchen?” I grab some clothes from the wardrobe and shove them into my bag.

  “Genna, what are you doing?”

  I stare at her as if she’s stupid. It’s one of those looks where you just know it says everything you want it to. “What does it look like I’m doing? Sightseeing?” I don’t have a clue what clothes I actually grab. Really, I couldn’t care less. Same from the drawers. It could be her underwear I’m grabbing for all I could see, but I refuse, absolutely refuse, to let either of them see me cry.

  “You don’t have to go anywhere, babe.”

  “Do not call me that.” Now, I’m a redhead. We’re talking stop-sign red here, but I don’t have the legendary temper that’s supposed to go with it. Having said that, she’s really starting to piss me off. Scratch that, we’re well beyond “starting,” but in my defence may I point out the skinny blond she was screwing in my bed? Thank you, Your Honour, I will continue.