The Winner.

Another effort for this week’s homework. We could write about someone inheriting something, or someone winning the lottery. I went with the lottery winner. This is his story;

THE WINNER

There were all the usual ‘save the world’ ideas, ‘share it all with family and friends’ 'end world hunger’ thoughts running through my mind when I found out I’d won six million pounds on the lottery.

£6,000,000 on the lottery was a lot of money by anybody’s standard.

I remember when I first read the numbers off the telly, I was having dinner with the lads. I didn’t have my ticket in my hand, but even as the TV was on in the background, I glanced up, and knew I’d won. I always pick the same numbers;

28 the age I got married

32, the age I became a father

35, the age our second born arrived

38, the age I was when we moved to the country

48, the age I was when Margot left me

53; my age when the business died

59; my age when we lost the home

All key ages and stages on my life. And now I could add another; 64, the age I was when I won six million quid.

Here I was in a sheltered accommodation, and surrounded with people who were like me, in the same situation of being at the bottom of the barrel of life. The TV was an old one, with wonky colours, but the numbers showed up bright enough.

Joe asked me if I was all right, as I’d turned a funny shade of white. Nah, I replied, just something I ate. I went to my bed, in the dorm, and dug out the ticket from my shoe, it was the only safe place to keep anything important.

Sure enough, there were the magic numbers. Now I know you’ll be thinking, how come some homeless old chap has a spare quid for the lottery?  Well, it was my birthday present to myself. No one else was going to buy me one.

The last copy of the big issue had been bought that day, and I popped in to the news agent to get my birthday present.

I had been living on the streets, making do, making ends meet for over five years now.

People would look at me from under their noses, pretending they didn’t see the smelly dirty clothes. “I was once like you I wanted to say… I once had a wife, children, car, mortgage the whole ‘normal’ deal.” But sometimes life just takes you in a direction that nobody can foresee.

I thought of Margot, her loving eyes on the day we got married, she was a sweet soul. And on the day she gave birth to our first son, the love and sparkle of new motherhood that beamed from her eyes. We moved to the country after our second son was born.  The business was going well. Not paying major money, but doing well enough for us to enjoy some luxuries. It was the happy family scenario we all dream of, and I was the happiest I’ve ever been. Then my darling Margot got breast cancer, and just like that our happiness was thrown away. It’s a fragile thing, happiness. The light in her eyes disappeared that day, and we watched her fade away before us. That sparkle lost to us forever.

Of course, that was sixteen years ago, and now-a-days they say that so much can be done for breast cancer, but it was too little too late for Margot. I started drinking then, just a couple of glasses when I got home from work. It all seemed innocent enough, a way of coping. But I felt barely able to function one foot in front of the other just to get through the day, without a drink or two. The boys were well cared for by the nanny or the au pair, or whoever I had in the house at the time. But gradually we drifted apart. It’s horrible to look at it now, but I had lost my way without Margot, and the boys were spending so much time with the nanny, or with Margot’s mother that I gradually withdrew from them. Finding my solace in the bottle. It ended badly, but so slowly, like dying but taking your whole life to die. Each day a bit more of me melted along with the ice in my glass. And still the drinks slipped down, and the business slipped away from me. Then the house, and finally, my dignity.

The boys had grown and gone to university, they had no need for dad and their lives just grew, even as my own just shrank. Their worlds getting bigger, and mine smaller. Until one day I found myself on the streets. It didn’t seem like a conscious decision, but I guess I chose it, really, or did it choose me? I disappeared for a few days the first time, and nobody seemed to notice… then for a couple of weeks the second time, and nobody batted an eyelid. I think they lost me long ago, to the drink, and the grief. I wondered how my now adult sons would react if they bumped into me on the street now? I don’t think they would recognize me. I look in the mirror and I don’t recognize myself.

I picked up the winning ticket, and shuffled out the door. I’d go to the local ‘offie’ and see if I could get another drink. One the way I passed the woman on the corner, with her collecting box. ‘Hi Sid’ she smiled cheerily to me, how’s it going? “Fine love”, I replied as I folded the slip of paper in half, and posted in to her charity box “Cancer, help us find a cure’ it said; “Never better” says I, and winked as I walked past.