Питер Джеймс: Short Shockers: Collection Two

The whole table erupted into peals of laughter. Ricky stifled a wry smile. Then the owner of the restaurant — a wiry, cheery man in his late fifties — bounded over. In a broad Italian accent he said, ‘OK, who wanta know tonight’s lottery numbers?’

Ricky raised a hand.

The owner read them out. ‘1, 23, 34, 40, 41, 48.’

Ricky frowned. ‘Could you repeat those?’

‘Si, signor. 1, 23, 34, 40, 41, 48.’

‘Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?’

‘I sure. I go check, if you like? Make absolutely sure?’

‘Please.’

Gail stared at him, and Ricky avoided looking at her. Inside, he was trembling. He downed the remainder of his glass of wine, reached for the bottle with a shaking hand and refilled it.

‘It’s a rip-off, the lottery,’ Hilary Wickens, the wife of his best man, said. ‘I think it’s a mug’s game.’

Ricky remained silent. Totally silent. Only Gail, staring at him intently, noticed all the colour had drained from his face. But she said nothing.

Suddenly the owner was standing over Ricky’s shoulder, leaning down, handing him a tiny sheet of paper, torn from a pad, with the six numbers written on it. ‘Si, Signor Walters, I have checked. Called the phone line to make-a-sure for you!’

Ricky said nothing. He nodded silent thanks, read the numbers carefully, folded the sheet and tucked it into his jacket pocket. He was aware of Gail’s intense gaze and avoided her eyes. He downed his newly filled glass in one gulp. He was shaking, almost uncontrollably, and did not want to be at the restaurant any more. But he had to go through with the rest of the evening.

He picked at his main course, a thick, broiled veal chop on the bone, normally one of his favourite foods, but right now he had no appetite at all. And why the hell did Gail keep looking at him so strangely? Annoyed that he wasn’t in the party spirit? Well, hey, big surprise, it didn’t take much to annoy her these days.

A massive cake arrived, with forty candles and a big firework thing in the middle. Everyone sang ‘Happy Birthday’, with most of the rest of the people in the restaurant joining in. Then he had to blow out the candles. Of course, they were those stupid jokey ones that kept relighting themselves.

Then he was called on to make a speech. He bumbled through the words he had prepared on a scrap of paper he produced from his pocket — although he was much more interested in the scrap of paper in a different pocket.

He finished his short speech by quoting George Carlin. ‘Life’s journey is not to arrive at the grave in a well-preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting, “Holy shit, what a ride!”’

Everyone laughed and applauded, except for Gail, who sat staring at him in stony silence.

She leaned over to him when he sat back down, as Bob Templeton was rising to his feet to begin his speech. ‘Are you all right?’

‘Never better!’ Ricky said.

And he meant it.

And at the end of the evening, he insisted, absolutely insisted, on paying for everyone on his credit card. Despite almost coming to blows with Gail, who kept telling everyone he was drunk and to ignore him.

The cab dropped them home just after midnight. Ricky, well lit up with three Sambucas inside him on top of everything else he had drunk, slumbered for the entire short journey. He went straight into the bathroom, closed the door behind him, then pulled out the crumpled piece of paper the owner of Topolino’s had given him, on which were written the winning National Lottery numbers.

His numbers!

Oh shit.

Oh shit.

He focused hard on them, to make absolutely sure he was not mistaken. He knew them by heart. They were one of the group of numbers his computer algorithm had calculated was bound to come up from the combination of six balls dropping. And now they had.

He was not mistaken.

As he stepped back out of the bathroom, Gail gave him a quizzical smile. ‘So, what’s going on?’

‘What do you mean, what’s going on?’

‘You’ve been very quiet most of the evening. Didn’t you enjoy your party?’

‘I’d have enjoyed it more if you hadn’t tried to make me look so small over the bill.’

‘You were drunk, darling. Everyone had already agreed to contribute — you didn’t need to do that.’

‘No? Well, let me tell you something. I’ve won the lottery! My numbers have come up — and you never believed me when I said I would win. Well, I’ve been looking forward to this moment for a long time — a long, long time. You see, I don’t want to be with you any more. I’m in love with someone else and have been for a long time. Now, finally, I can afford to divorce you. You don’t have to worry, I’m not going to dump you in the shit. I’ve thought about it very carefully and done the maths. I’ll make sure you’re well provided for.’

‘Very thoughtful of you,’ she said, acidly.

He gave her a drunken leer. ‘Yeah, well, I’m all heart. Too bad you never recognized that.’

‘Silly old me.’

‘I’ll be gone in the morning,’ he said. ‘I’m going to start packing now. I can’t stand the sight of you for another day.’

‘You know how to make someone feel good,’ she said, ‘that’s for sure.’ She stepped past him, up to the washbasin, and began to remove her make-up.

‘You’ve always ridiculed my system. You told me I would never win. So, just how wrong are you?’

‘Not wrong at all,’ she said, dabbing away her mascara. ‘I thought it might make a fun evening if you thought you’d won the lottery. So I asked the waiter to give you those numbers, which I wrote down for him. Oh, and just in case you are wondering, I have tonight’s actual winning numbers. I suggest you tweak your system — you didn’t get a single one of them.’

She liked him on Facebook. He liked her back. Actually, he liked her a lot.

He liked her smile. He liked her photograph. She was the right age for him — late twenties, he guessed. An age when people started to mature and know what they wanted. She had a serene air about her, and a friendly smile that suggested she could be fun, a bit of a sport, maybe very sexy. But at the same time he could sense a slight hunger in her eyes. As if she was looking for something she had not yet found. He liked her name too. Teresa Saunders.

He wanted to be her friend. Very badly. Oh yes. You are one stunning girl. We could definitely hit it off. Me, I could be that guy you are looking for. Really I could!

He clicked to see more photographs, but all he got was the message: No photos to show .

Damn, he thought, she had her privacy settings high. He sent a request to be Teresa Saunders’ friend. Then he waited. Twenty minutes later, it was past midnight and there was no response. He had to be up early for an important client presentation: the launch of a new food brand, a vitamin-packed, cholesterol-busting super-porridge that would be all the breakfast you ever needed. So he logged off and went to bed.

Teresa came to him during the night in a dream. Her long, wavy hair, the colour of winter wheat, floated in slow motion around her face. Her blue eyes smiled at him. She kissed him lightly on his forehead, on his cheeks, then on his lips. He woke with a start, convinced, for a fleeting instant, that she was in the room with him. And feeling horny as hell.

Of course, it was just a dream. But what a dream! He could feel some kind of strange, magical and deeply erotic connection with her across the ether. It was so powerful he had to switch on the light just to make sure she was not really in the room with him. But he was alone, of course. Alone in his big, loft-style bedroom, with its bare wooden floors strewn with rugs, and the curtainless picture window overlooking the inky waters of the Thames, half a mile upstream from Tower Bridge.