by Jane Asher
‘Mum, for Christ’s sake – what on earth – what are you doing? What’s going on?’
She looked so guilty and unsure that it scared me. She didn’t look like Mum any more, she looked like one of my friends who’d been caught taking something. She was still holding one of the cards flat on the table with her left hand, and in her right was in fact a nailfile – one of those old-fashioned metal ones that people use to scrape the dirt out from under their fingernails. But that clearly wasn’t what Mum was doing with hers. I knew now exactly what she was doing, but it still made no kind of sense to me. She was looking at me but not saying anything, and her mouth was slightly open and her eyes all stary – almost like she was having a fit, or as if she was one of those people who’ve had a stroke and can’t speak; I almost expected to see some dribble come out of her mouth.
‘Mum, are you OK? It’s me – Sally. Do answer me, for God’s sake: what’s going on?’
‘I’m – I’m –’ she began at last, and she rested the nailfile on the glass surface and lifted her other hand off the card as she sat back slightly on the stool. I could see that card properly now: Game of Two Halves, it had on it, in red against a striped green background. ‘Oh, shit. I suppose this was bound to happen one day, Sally. Sorry.’
‘What on earth are you –’
‘I’m just playing this one. I’ll stop in a second – I –’ She broke off as she saw me looking at the card and she glanced down at it.
There was silence for a moment while I tried to think what to say.
‘Two Halves,’ she went on, ‘you get two games on this one, you see. Two on one card, but they’re entirely separate – you could even win twice in the same game. It costs two pounds, of course, not like the others which are one pound, but it always seems to me that your chances are better somehow on the double one. There’s another here, look –’ And she reached over to the messy pile on her left and began shuffling through them. ‘Somewhere here, there’s a – yes, look, here it is: Millionaire. It’s another two-pound one, and there are two games again. See? And there are five prizes of a million on this one, so I always think that’s a good one to get, because –’
‘Mum, stop – what is all this? Did you buy all these? There are hundreds here – how can you – I mean, how long have you been doing this, and why? This is crazy, Mum. You can’t possibly win on these things – you know you’re bound to lose, don’t you?’
‘No, that’s not true, Sally. I knew you’d feel this way. I knew you wouldn’t understand – I’ve won lots of times, you’ve no idea. I just need to get through a few more and I’m bound to hit one of the big prizes, I’m absolutely certain of that.’ She was beginning to look a bit tearful, and in spite of my own feeling of misery and sadness at seeing my own mother behaving like some lunatic stranger I knew I had to keep calm and be rational enough for both of us or I, too, would start crying.
‘Look, Mum – I know you’ve been upset lately. What with Dad going and everything, it’s been so hard for you. I understand, I really do. But this is just nonsense, Mum, spending all this money on these – these con things. It’s madness, you know that really, don’t you? You’re just finding something to worry about and get worked up about because your real worries are so difficult to sort out – I’m sure it’s something like that. That’s what’s going on. But you’ve got to throw all these away and forget about them – no more, Mum – absolutely no more – do you understand?’
She bent down and picked up the small waste bin from under the dressing table and with the other hand slowly scooped the little pile of dark-grey scrapings into it as she spoke. ‘No, no, Sally – that’s quite impossible. I couldn’t stop buying my Instants: I’ve won loads of times, like I said. And I’m bound to hit one of the big prizes: a really big prize. I can feel it. I couldn’t stop now, not after all this time.’
‘Mum, you’re not thinking clearly. You must have spent hundreds of pounds on these things – and what have you got out of it? Honestly? A few pounds? You can’t go on like this, you really can’t. Mum, you’re frightening me, please – please don’t be so strange. I can’t bear it.’
‘Oh, darling, don’t be so – insecure. It’s all right. I’m still your mum – I’m still the same. It’s just you didn’t know about – about my hobby, that’s all. It’s something that keeps me going, you see. And you’ve no idea how many times I’ve bought you things, or taken you out, on my ill-gotten gains, as my mother would have called them. Other people have hobbies they spend money on, don’t they? Sometimes things that are bad for them – like smoking, or doing some dangerous sport or – you know. Well, I just happen to need to do my little bit of scraping from time to time – it’s not doing any harm. It gives me a chance to feel – excited, and – and on the edge of something. I like to look at them before I’ve uncovered them – you’ve no idea how lovely it is to look at a big handful of them before I’ve touched them, and they’re so perfect and pretty, and they’re holding all those secrets: all those numbers and symbols and words that are hiding underneath that nobody, nobody knows. There’s nothing like that feeling, Sally. They’re so much better.’
‘What do you mean? Better than what?’
‘The pools. That’s all they had, really, in the old days. These are so much better – I can do them whenever I like and I don’t have to post them or – well, you can see that, can’t you? They’re just so much more fun and exciting.’
‘But you didn’t ever used to do the pools, did you, Mum?’
‘Well, yes, I did, darling. Not every week of course, or at least not at first. But yes, I did. And horses. Before they had the lottery and these Instants.’
‘But I don’t understand – isn’t all this just since Dad left? Mum? Oh no, Mum. Please – for God’s sake, please stop doing that.’
She had picked up the nailfile and was scraping on her wretched Game of Two Halves again.
‘No, Sally, I won’t. I’d rather you hadn’t known about all this, but now that you do I’m not going to lie to you. I won’t stop – and I shall go on buying them whenever I like. It’s my money and if I need to spend it on a few cards to keep me happy then that’s my business.’
‘All right. But – if we’re being honest – then tell me how long you’ve been buying these things. Is it since Dad left, Mum? Or were you buying them before?’
She didn’t answer, but she put down the file and stood up. She pulled the stool over to the built-in wardrobe on the other side of the bed and stood on it to be able to reach up to the cupboards at the top. She opened one door and took out a small, blue, travelling vanity case, which had been at the front of the cupboard. ‘Take this a moment, Sally, please,’ she said, and I jumped up and took it from her. ‘Put it anywhere,’ she went on, ‘it’s unimportant. I just use it to – so that no one sees all this.’ She thrust her arm deep into the cupboard and, in one strong, sweeping movement, pulled out a large cardboard box, which tipped on its side and spilled out a vast quantity of fluttering, showering little pieces of card that cascaded onto the floor all around me.
I couldn’t speak for a few seconds. The sheer amount of the fucking things – there must have been thousands of them – together with all that it implied, was impossible to take in. Slowly, I began to understand: the headaches, the locked bedroom door, the radio – now that I knew, it seemed so obvious that something had been going on. How could we all have been so stupid?
‘I don’t understand,’ I said. ‘Why on earth have you kept all these?’
She smiled at me. ‘For one thing I didn’t want you all finding out and telling me to stop, and I couldn’t be bothered to keep hiding them in the rubbish – you know how nosy our old cleaner used to be. Then it got to be a habit, and – I know it’s stupid – I’ve got a system. I’m sure the squares and numbers and things they pick aren’t really random – I mean they couldn’t be – so I check back as often as I can on the old cards of the same types, so I can work out which ones are most lik
ely to be winners. Beat the system. I don’t do it often, but it’s really quite fun, looking back over them. Anyway,’ she went on as she climbed off the stool and began tidying the cards back into the box, ‘what did you want to talk to me about?’
I felt as if I was in the middle of a particularly ludicrous dream, but I answered calmly, as if we’d been having the most normal conversation in the world. ‘Ben’s OK. He’s at a friend’s.’
‘Oh, that’s good.’ She turned and looked straight at me for a second, then shook her head slightly, as if getting rid of a tiresome fly. ‘No, that really is good. I’m not completely blind, Sally – I can see how impossible I’m being. You must think I don’t care about anything at all. It’s just that I’ve – I’ve switched off the part of me that feels things – if it’s on, I find it very hard to bear everything that’s happened. You see.’
Stacey (e-mail)
Hiya, Crystal – Wow! You’re not gonna believe this!! I’m gonna do it – the surgery – and I almost got my surgery date!!! D’you remember when you wrote to me and told me that you’d got yours? I do – ’cos I was so happy for you but I was so jealous at the same time. That’s when I really started thinking that maybe I should do it too. Now I’m coming over to the other side – it’s just so cool I can’t believe it!!
Charlie’s been so great to me – it’s amazing. He has been like an angel – just like you said, and he’s taking care of everything and I just feel sooooooooooooooo HAPPY! We spoke to this doctor up in Manchester (that’s in the north of England, not near here in London) which is one of the very few hospitals in the whole country to do this and the doctor said that once he’s seen me and if all the tests go OK then I can have the op done pretty soon. It costs £7900 – I don’t know what that is in dollars but it’s a LOAD of money, and Charlie is gonna pay it all ’cos to get it done on the NHS – ooops, sorry, you probably don’t know what that is but it’s when the government pays for it – would take forever and he’s not even sure if they would ever pay for it. And I don’t have insurance like you do, so this is the ONLY way and I’m getting it and it’s just soooooooooo cool!! If I was over 29 stone (that’s over 400 pounds!!) then it would cost more, but I’m just 325 pounds (JUST – she says???) so it’s only £7900 (ONLY???). Isn’t that weird, that it costs more if you’re bigger? Do you suppose it’s ’cos it takes longer to get through all those extra inches to find your stomach??? They probably need a map for some people. Only kidding. He said it’s because it’s more complicated to do. More dangers and all that.
Anyway, I thought there’s no harm seeing this bloke and having the tests and that. It’s not like they can force me to go on with it, is it? So I’m going up in a few days to be checked out. I’m feeling a bit scared though. I know some people have died having this surgery, haven’t they? That’s just so strange to think about. Last night I lay in bed and Charlie was asleep next to me (he was snoring so I couldn’t get back to sleep) and I started thinking about it. Is this a chance I’m willing to take? Is it worth it? What if I die? Then I think about all the things my own doctor has said to me about what’s wrong with me and how I’m gonna get diabetes and the heart problems and blood pressure and all – so that makes me think about how long will I live anyway – if I go on like I am now – and I know I’m still gaining, however much I kid myself. And what will my quality of life be if I stay morbidly obese? (You see, Crystal, I’m learning all the right words now.) I kind of wish now I hadn’t asked the doctor about people dying ’cos I hoped he’d say it was impossible but he didn’t, although he says they’ve only ever had one man die in all the RNYs they’ve done and that was some rare complication that I can’t remember. But he went on and said that all operations carry a small risk and all that, so I can’t quite get that out of my mind. But I know really I’m making the right decision. You understand what I’m saying, though, don’t you?
Write soon, Crystal – I’m gonna be feeling so strange now, until it’s all over. Am I really gonna do this? I can’t believe it – it seems so unreal.
Love and kisses
Stacey
Charlie
I thought my life had become unreal enough as it was, what with moving out of my family home and living with an obese checkout girl in Balham, but when I rang Sally back after the frantic message she left at the office I realised things were even stranger than I’d thought. She’d originally rung me about Ben – who has since turned up at a friend’s, apparently. I was trying hard to express the relief I knew I ought to feel, in spite of my continuing numbness to any part of my old life, when Sally went on to tell me that it appears Judy has become addicted to gambling (of the most bizarre kind). One of the compensations, I suppose, for everything having become so peculiar lately – and I don’t use the word lightly – is that nothing much surprises or shocks me. I’m in this wonderfully cushioned state of bliss (I think I appreciate the true meaning of the word for the first time in my life) and, short of anything happening to Stacey, or causing me to be separated from her, nothing can touch me. Dear God, I even found myself crossing my fingers and inwardly praying just now as I let the thought of losing her cross my mind – I think I’d carry a rabbit’s foot or offer up a human sacrifice if I thought it would prevent it. My life would have no meaning without her – no, it’s more than that, because I don’t feel it has a meaning anyway – it would quite simply not be a life. That’s the only way I can describe it.
I didn’t feel anything much talking to Sally, which you’d think I would. Even over the telephone I could hear how upset she was, by the tremble in her voice: it sounded gulpy and very nervous, either because she was trying to stop herself yelling at me, or just because speaking to me made her feel so emotional – I couldn’t tell. Or, of course, maybe it was having discovered that her mother, as well as her father, appears to have flipped (although, from what she tells me, this bizarre addiction to scratch cards has been going on for some time, so the change in my life can hardly be held accountable). Poor kid – two parents going completely doolally simultaneously – I almost feel sorry for her. Unfortunately, though, all my feelings are already spoken for, so I can only sympathise intellectually, rather than actually experience anything first hand.
It does explain the bank account. It threw me into a state of panic initially, but once I got used to the idea that our savings had disappeared I found it almost liberating. A new life should be founded on new money – the pitiful amount remaining in the old account is part of my old life, and I shall not take any more of it.
It was surprisingly easy to borrow money: with my apparently impeccable professional and personal credentials the new bank was only too happy to advance me ten thousand pounds, albeit at an excruciatingly high rate of interest. No matter – if all goes well with Stacey’s tests I shall hand over seven thousand odd within the next few weeks, leaving me a couple of thousand for our living expenses. I have no wish to look much further into the future. Judy earns good money, and if she can just pull herself together I’m sure she’ll manage – it’s not as if anything has really changed in any important way for her as it has for me, and there’s nothing outstanding on the house or the car. I’ve absolutely no desire for her to suffer because of my good fortune and I’ll keep paying a proportion of my earnings into her account, what there are of them.
I can’t, of course, foretell how much longer I’m going to be able to work – there’s no question it’s been affected and I know I’ve messed up a couple of times recently by not taking on some of the cases my clerk had promised I would, but I’m afraid I just can’t worry myself about that at the moment. I must be available for Stacey at all times just now, particularly once she starts this round of tests and evaluations and so on. And – dear God, don’t let me think of it as it frightens me so – I have to be there all the while she’s in the hospital and on the – under the – Christ help me, let her be all right. I hope this surgeon knows what he’s doing, that’s all. It sounds logical enough what they prop
ose to do, and he assures me that, in their unit, they haven’t had a single serious problem since they’ve been doing this operation, but it still terrifies me.
I know I shall have to go round to the house and talk to Judy and the kids, so I’d better do that soon, before I have to go up to Manchester.
Chipstead
This has to be a first. I’ve been asked many strange things in my career in the retail food business, but I don’t think I’ve ever been asked before to grant leave for a girl to have a cosmetic operation. I like to think I keep myself pretty up to date with what goes on in the world around me and that I’m tolerant and fair in my dealings with the staff – in spite of some not inconsiderable provocation – but I have to say that today’s request did take even me by surprise.
Let’s face it – people are fat because they overeat. There’s simply no two ways about it. And nowadays there is no possible excuse for being unaware of that basic fact, just as smoking gives you cancer and too much alcohol damages your liver. I’ve always felt the need to take responsibility for the state of my own body and I do find it hard to sympathise when people cause their own problems.
But let that be for the moment. We’ve all had times when we’ve overindulged and not behaved as we should have, and I’m the first to join in the party spirit on the right occasion and relax a little. My job is extremely stressful at times and I need to let my hair down and have an evening out every now and then. I like a drink as much as the next man, and I’m also very into a bit of Salsa at the moment: great for letting off steam. No, I don’t think I’m being unreasonable when I say that there is a certain point – an invisible line, if you will – which needs to be drawn between a spot of overindulgence and plain greed. And in my book Stacey is a greedy cow. Now I wouldn’t say that to anyone else, but it’s my personal opinion and no one is going to change it. So when she came into my office today and asked for sick leave to go and have an operation to make her thinner I had to bite my tongue to stop myself giving her a good talking to. I’m almost ten years older than the girl and I do feel responsible for her in some way, but it’s not my place, I had to remind myself: this isn’t in your brief. My friends are always telling me I take too much of my work home with me – ‘You’ll wear yourself out, Warren,’ they say to me. ‘You’ve got to stop taking the whole world on your shoulders.’ I know they’re right, but I’m just a people sort of person, that’s the problem. I’m oversensitive to the needs of my staff, that’s always been my downfall – too much sensitivity in every way.
