How it all started …
“So, which one of us is going to do it then?” I ask.
Dana, who’s sitting at the other side of the kitchen table, doesn’t answer straight off but takes a breath so deep I can actually see her chest rise and fall.
“Well?” I press.
“You,” answers Dana emphatically. “You’ll have to, Rosie. I just couldn’t.”
“Okay.” I pull the phone towards me. “Well, here goes.” My stomach is churning. All day, ever since this morning, I’ve been near sick with excitement. But now I feel really nervous too. I’m all jittery.
“Go on!” urges Dana.
“All right, all right.” I pick up the receiver.
“Hang on a minute!” she cries.
“What?”
“What are you going to tell her?”
“What do you mean, what am I going to tell her? I’m just going to – you know – tell her.”
“Maybe you should prepare her first. Maybe you should say something like, ‘Caroline, you’d better sit down because I have some news to tell you.’.”
“Okay, I can start with that.”
“No, no, hold on. That sounds like you’re about to tell her some bad news.”
“I’ll leave it out then.”
“Or …”
“Or?”
“Or you could say, ‘Caroline, you’d better sit down because I have some good news to tell you.’ You know, making sure to emphasis the word ‘good’.”
I sigh. “Look, why don’t you just make the call?”
“No, no, you do it.”
“Then let me get on with it and no more interruptions.”
I dial the number.
“Is it ringing?” asks Dana.
I nod.
“Put it on speaker. I want to hear her reaction.”
I put it on speaker. We both listen to it ring. On and on. I glance over at Dana. I see her brow furrow. She looks like she’s about to say something but, then, we hear Caroline’s cheery voice:
“G’day –”
“Caroline, it’s Rosie!”
“And Dana! We’re –”
“– Caroline here! Sorry I can’t take your call right now but if you leave your name and number after the beep I’ll get back to you!”
“Oh my God! Oh my God!” cries Dana. “What do we do now?”
“I don’t know!”
“Hang up! Hang up! We can’t just leave a message!”
Beep!
I hang up.
“We can try again later,” I say.
“I guess. But I hate this waiting.”
And it’s then, at that exact moment, I have my brainwave. That’s when it hits me. “Or …”
“Or?”
“Or we could always fly over, tell her in person.”
“You’re kidding!”
‘I’m not sure I am.”
“We can’t just fly all the way to Australia!”
“Why not? What’s there to stop us? Think of the surprise Caroline would get. We can bring her back with us. I’ve always wanted to see Australia. You know my sister lives there.”
“But –”
“And it’s not like we can’t afford it!”
“But –”
“Think of the shock on Caroline’s face if we just turn up!”
“Rosie! It’s a crazy idea!”
“Oh, come on, Dana. Let’s live a little. Let’s just do it!”
The chance of being struck by lightening is two and half times greater than that of winning the Irish National Lottery.
1
“Rosie, are you awake?”
“Hmm?” I open my eyes. I see Dana’s face leaning over me, her big brown eyes peering at me, magnified through the lens of her glasses.
“Oh, so you are awake?”
“I am now,” I grumble. Slowly I sit up. I stretch my back. I rub my neck. I yawn. I look around confused. “Are we nearly there?”
She shakes her head. “No, we’ve hours yet.”
“Why did you wake me then?” I grumble as I give another yawn.
“I didn’t mean to,” she answers but I suspect she did.
“You won’t mind so if I go back to sleep.” I turn, shut my eyes and try to get comfortable. But then I get a nudge.
“Jeez, Dana! What?”
“Rosie, please don’t! I can’t bear sitting here with no one to talk to. I’m going mad. I swear my head will explode! I can’t stop thinking.” Then suddenly she bursts out, “I mean, when you do think about it, about us of all people winning eleven million euros!”
I sit bolt upright. “Dana! Shhh! Keep your voice down!”
I quickly look around and am relieved to see that those in the seats nearby who aren’t sleeping are oblivious, each absorbed in their own private drama. One is engaged in trying and failing to get the remote for his TV working. One is trying and failing to get the lid off her can of peanuts. And one has his head tipped right back, his face scrunched up, his eyes screwed shut, his fists clenched tight and looks like he’s desperately trying, and failing, to pretend he’s elsewhere – somewhere – anywhere – but stuck for hours on end in this cramped tubular container high up in the sky with nothing between it and the vast teeming ocean below save thousands of metres of nothingness. I know the theory – sort of – but how do planes fly, really?
Enough with aerodynamics? What’s that about eleven million euros? Okay, well . . .
‘It could be you,’ as the ad says and it was. Or I should say us – me, Dana and Caroline – exactly five days ago. Honestly, I’m not joking. Last Saturday to be precise though we didn’t find out until Sunday morning. Or rather that’s when Dana and I found out, Caroline hasn’t yet. So how does it feel to win eleven million euros? Hmm . . . Pretty indescribable really. But let me try. Okay, think how you would feel if the person you’d loved from afar for years upon years just turned up on your doorstep one day and declared his undying love for you. Or think of the feeling you’d get if you just found out you’d sailed through that all-important exam or got that all-important job on which your whole future depended upon. Or how you’d feel if you were standing at the open door of a plane, about to do a parachute jump ... Actually, no, none of these feelings, not even combined, come close. Besides, you could expect all these things to happen. But winning the lotto? Who really expects that, really expects that? Sure, I’ve day-dreamed about it – who hasn’t? – but for it to actually happen, well, that’s way, way, way beyond my wildest dreams. But it has happened to us – to me – and the feeling it generates is just so much bigger, so much more fantastic, so much scarier, so much more extraordinary than any I’ve ever felt. It’s like – oh I don’t know – no single word exists though maybe un-bloody-believable – comes close. Yeah, winning the lotto feels absolutely un-bloody-believable. Yet, even that’s a bit like saying the world is a big place – it’s still completely and utterly inadequate. But the world, our world at any rate, is a different place. Everything has changed. And we haven’t even got our hands on our winnings yet.
Take this morning. Alarm clock goes: beep! beep! beep! beep! I wake up. I’m disorientated. Predawn. Pitch dark outside. Horizontal rain sleeting against the window. For a split second I go to turn over, reluctant to face my usual workday schedule: the tiresome journey into work, work itself, that collection of random people I know as my colleagues and with whom I routinely spend so many of my waking hours. And then – wham – it hits me. That’s right, I’m no longer a wage slave. I am in fact a millionaire, correction – multi-millionaire, and my alarm isn’t set to propel me from my bed at such an ungodly hour to go to work but, rather, to go with Dana to the airport to fly off in order to break our most stupendous news in person to Caroline the third and, as yet, unsuspecting member of our winning syndicate who’s on an extended holiday in Australia with her boyfriend, Mick.
Apart from the fact that we simply can (being multi-millionaires and all), that’s the reason Dana and I are on this plane. Yes, sure we could have used the telephone, that was our original intention, but hey, millionaires are supposed to jet off at the drop of a hat, or an airplane wheel, or on a crazy whim. It’s part of the job description. Don’t you know that flying is like taking a bus to the wealthy? And, besides, there’s been so much media speculation as to our identity it seemed like a good idea to take ourselves out of the picture for a little while, until the fuss abates. It’s pretty hard to act normal enough not to arouse suspicion in such abnormal circumstances.
So how did all this come about? Well, Dana and Caroline grew up together and I’ve been friends with them for over five years, ever since I moved in with them in the house we rent from Caroline’s older brother, Donald, and share with another friend of ours, Shane. For the past few years, even before Shane moved in, we’ve had this little syndicate going. Ever-dependable Dana is the organizer and every Wednesday and Saturday she’s unfailingly bought a €6 Lotto Plus ticket. This is the sort of thing Dana is very good at, being the methodical kind she is. She even has this dedicated little red notebook in which she keeps tabs on how much we owe her. Every so often, when we think of it or when she thinks to pester us, we stump up whatever’s outstanding. Dana even kept it going when Caroline left Dublin two months ago to travel around Australia with Mick.
Anyway, last Sunday when Dana and I were having a late leisurely breakfast she happened, as is her habit, to check our lotto numbers – 1,3,7,11,18,40 – in the newspaper. 1 – Caroline’s Birthday, 3 – how many of us there are, 7 – just because it’s traditionally considered a lucky number, 11 – Dana’s birthday, 18 – my birthday, and 40 – our house number. And there they all were. Each and every one of them. Six out of six. All sitting in a pretty row.
I can still hear Dana’s scream. My eardrums have yet to recover. My ribs too – who’d have thought there was so much strength in Dana’s skinny little arms but she nearly squeezed the life out of me when she lifted me up and danced me around the room – no mean feat, I have many inches in height on her. Not one of the most dignified moments of my life, but definitely amongst the happiest.
Anyway, since winning the lotto – how I love those words – since winning the lotto, since winning the lotto, since winning the lotto, since wining the lotto, Dana and I have the same conversations over and over and over, conversations about just how truly unbelievable it is (and I think part of us doesn’t really quite believe it yet), conversations about what we are going to do with our money and it is a lot of money, no two ways, or even three ways, about it. €11 million split three ways is €3,666,666.66 each (we won’t squabble over the final cent). That Sunday was spent in a daze but we did make the decision not to tell anyone, not a soul, not our families, not my boyfriend Finn, not Dana’s boyfriend Doug, nobody – not until we’d first told Caroline. Sure, this secrecy is only temporary yet I feel bad. I’ve never had to tell so many lies. My boss thinks I’m in bed with the flu while Finn and Mum and Dad think I’ve been sent to London by my boss. At least I didn’t have to lie to them face to face (which I’m not sure I’d have managed) but could hide behind the telephone. My parents live on the outskirts of Dublin so I don’t see them all that often and Finn – who’s a musician (and, I might mention, the best thing that’s ever happened to me and yes, that does include winning the lotto) – is up the country playing a string of gigs.
So, anyway, Monday saw us ringing in sick and maxing out my already over-stretched credit card to book our flights. Tuesday was dedicated to getting our visas. Which brings us to today – Wednesday – which sees us in the air, winging our way to an unsuspecting Caroline to tell her news that will change her life forever, news that came at a particularly fortuitous time in the wake of all our recent bad luck, of which there has been much. Not least the failure of Love Potions, the shop we three put our blood, sweat and tears into setting up and for which we shed even more tears when it closed down again. But – hey! – these are happier times. It’s time to look forward.
“Rosie?”
“Yeah?”
“Caroline is going to get such a surprise, isn’t she?” Dana speculates. Since she’s been speculating in this fashion since we got our plane tickets, and before, all I do now is make vague agreeing noises but that’s encouragement enough for Dana. She goes on. “Such a land. I can’t wait to see her face!” She falls silent. For a moment. “Rosie?”
“Yeah?”
“Are you sure we shouldn’t have told her we were coming?”
Again, this is not the first time Dana’s asked this question and again I answer as I did every other time.
“Yes.”
“You’re absolutely sure?”
“Absolutely sure.”
“Maybe we should have emailed her?”
“Maybe, but we didn’t and, anyway, I’m not sure she even reads all her emails. She hardly ever replies to any I send, too busy having the time of her life with Mick.”
“But what if we can’t find her?” worries Dana, as is her way
Again I answer as I’ve already answered before. “We have her address from the last email, don’t we?”
“I know, but what if she’s moved on?” worries Dana.
“Then we’ll give her a ring. Stop worrying. Look, if we’d told her we were coming it would have been impossible not to tell her why. She’d have started with all the questions, wormed it out of us – me at any rate, and then what would be the point in coming at all? No, no, it’s better to wait until we get there, until we’re face to face and just imagine the look on hers.”
Dana laughs. “I can’t wait!”
Now Dana falls silent again. I glance over at her. As is often the case of late, I see she has this great big happy-to-the-point-of-goofiness smile on her face to which the only possible response is to grin back.
“You know,” she says, still beaming, “any moment now I think I’m going to wake up and find it’s all a dream.” She lays her head back on the head rest. “It is though. It is un-bloody-believable.” There, that word again. “One minute we’re going about our everyday ho-hum, hum-drum, regular boring old lives, worrying about how we’re going to make next month’s rent and, the next – wham, bam – our lives are turned upside down and we’re rich beyond our wildest dreams. Just like that!”
She clicks her fingers and gives a happy sigh.
