Lucas put his arms behind his head.
‘Wouldn’t you? Why not?’
‘Well, I’d never be able to decide what to do with the money if I won.’
‘Yes, you would. A big house, straight off.’
Rachel frowned. ‘I suppose…’
‘I know what I’d do,’ said Lucas, glancing over his shoulder for the bill as he slipped his cigarettes back into his shirt pocket. ‘I’d invest in a couple of properties, give some to both our families and put some in trust for our kids.’
‘Well, where would you draw the line?’ asked Rachel. ‘I mean, how much would you give your family? And where does ‘family’ end? You’ve got all those second cousins!’ She tried smiling but Lucas was busy rummaging for coins.
‘There’d have to be a cut-off, obviously. You’d have to be professional about it – get proper advice. A pot for personal use, a pot for family, a pot for other stuff.’ Now Lucas looked at her, ready to deliver his coup de grâce. ‘Because wouldn’t it be great to make a difference, you know? Give to worthwhile causes; give to charity?’
The woman behind the bar wasn’t bringing the bill. This time Lucas waved, making a little signing gesture with his hand, though Rachel wasn’t finished: all sorts of thoughts were tumbling around her head. Couples were destroyed by this kind of thing – you read about it all the time. Wills causing disputes; disagreements between siblings or parent and child – why didn’t you give me a bigger share? Why aren’t my needs as important as theirs? It was human nature, to want more, to have more. Money is power, and power corrupts, as her O-level history teacher had never tired of repeating while he scratched his litanies across the blackboard.
‘I wouldn’t claim it,’ she said, turning towards the window again. A young man in a leather jacket glistening with damp sauntered past, his hand quickly checking his flies. ‘Or I’d give it all away. I’d have to do it quickly.’
‘Thanks!’ Lucas rolled his eyes. ‘Never mind your wretched husband, pissing peanuts all day long to keep you in overpriced coffees!’ He stood up, scraping back his chair so that an old man at a seat in the corner looked across, then looked away. ‘We’re going to have to abscond to get some attention…’
He walked over to the bar, where the woman was re-filling a tray with some greasy-looking pastries in between flipping eggs on the griddle behind her. Rachel, meanwhile, looked around for a loo, not knowing how long it’d be before they found another.
The cubicle was tucked away behind a drinks cooler. When she emerged Lucas was impatient to leave. As he held open the door he pushed something into her hand.
‘Here,’ he said. ‘I got you one. If you win, I want half!’
Rachel looked down in dismay at a slip of paper with a drawing of a church in coloured ink and the number 700321 above the words ‘Loteria Nacionale’.
‘I don’t want it,’ she said, but he wouldn’t take it back.
‘If you win and don’t claim, it would be an abdication of responsibility.’ He was teasing still – laughing and needling. ‘Think of all the anti-malarials it could purchase. Think of all the sex workers you could save or the slum children you could educate! Or maybe you’d rather do nothing? Now that would be something to feel guilty about.’
Rachel scrunched the ticket in the palm of her hand and thrust it into her shoulder bag. Lucas was right and he knew it and was already forgetting, moving on to the next thing, striding across the road, peering through the fog to the hire car. She, on the other hand, was culpable now, whichever way she looked at it.
The ticket stayed in her bag until the weekend. She checked the numbers at a roadside kiosk in La Coruña without telling Lucas and when she discovered she hadn’t won anything, she almost cried with relief.
Rachel is watching Simplemente Maria one afternoon when the phone rings in the hall. Elena has not joined her today – she has missed a few episodes lately, but Rachel tunes in, regardless. She doesn’t care about the storyline – Maria’s eyes fill with tears, Maria wears a jacket with big shoulder pads, Maria’s old love comes calling with flowers. The routine helps her breathe inside the flat. It helps calm the high-pitched sound in her head.
‘Hello, Rachel!’ says a soft voice. It is Suzie. The two have seen each other once or twice for coffee since Suzie sent the nappies, always at Suzie’s flat – never on the thirteenth floor. The nappies aren’t a secret, exactly, but Rachel tells herself that because they aren’t paying for them, Lucas doesn’t need to know.
Today, Suzie has some news.
‘We’re moving!’ she says, brightly. ‘Not far – to a little old house in the Tsar’s Village! It’s rotten and full of mice and God only knows what skeletons, but we’re going to do it up – the full remont! The rent is a ludicrous amount – I could see the dollar signs popping in the owner’s eyes. Rob will beat her down. You must come and see it. I need to know what you think!’
A house, thinks Rachel. Not a flat up in the sky, but a house on the ground.
‘All right,’ she says. ‘I’d love to.’
‘Next week,’ says Suzie. ‘When Rob says it’s ours.’
Rachel meets Suzie in the car park and they stroll across the tramlines together, Ivan in the pushchair, no need for his snowsuit today. Suzie is wearing grey wool trousers that show off her slender legs and a cream ski jacket with a neatly cinched waist. Rachel is wearing her new jeans, even though she told herself she’d save them for parties. The sun is shining. A few petals of pink apple blossom float above the dump bins. It’s a beautiful April day.
‘He’s growing so fast!’ observes Suzie, as Rachel stops to pick up the hat Ivan has tossed down to the tarmac. ‘Soon he’ll be walking, won’t he?’
Rachel remembers what Dr Alleyn told her. ‘He’s tall,’ she says. ‘So he has a higher centre of gravity. Maybe not yet.’
She and Suzie pick their way past the burnt-out Lada on the corner and on up the lane through Tsarskoye Selo. Rachel has walked here countless times, up and down from the monastery and the kiosks by the war memorial at the top of the hill. She has counted the wooden gates hinged with twists of wire and the battened and boarded cottages, each with a single upstairs window like a blank eye peering out from under the steeply angled eaves. Some are more dilapidated than others, with a scrawny cat lying on the steps or torn netting hanging from untended trees. There may be people inside, though Rachel never sees anyone – just a lick of paint on the fretwork above the doorways, a bright piece of sanitary ware sitting under a tree or a freshly concreted path, shovelled hastily, its edges already crumbling. Others appear uninhabited, their shutters tightly closed, though their gardens suggest otherwise: neat rectangles of tilled earth beside the steps; green shoots just emerging; fruit trees showing signs of recent pruning, their bare stumps painted an alarming dark red.
‘Can you imagine?’ says Suzie. ‘Me, in one of these? Rob says it’ll take three months to make it habitable. Then I can decorate it how I like, but you know me, it’ll be white, white, white!’
‘Fairytale houses,’ says Rachel, thinking of trails of breadcrumbs. ‘You’ll be like Hansel and Gretel.’
Suzie laughs her smoky, throaty laugh. ‘Oh, I was thinking more Sleeping Beauty! Ivan’s my prince. Look, this is us!’ She pulls Rachel down a stony track and they pass between two cottages towards a more isolated house beyond. It has a mansarded roof, a long, thin orchard displaying the first dabs of blossom, and a peeling waist-height picket fence painted the usual faded blue. There’s a figure bending over by the steps, but Rachel knows it isn’t Rob because Suzie has promised her that he is out of town. Besides, the figure is too short. It looks more like an old woman wearing baggy trousers. Her hair is tucked beneath a sort of knitted beret; thin scraps of it are escaping.