Game Theory (6 page)

Anyway, I returned my eyes to the television and tried to get the numbers up again in my mind: 10, 13 and 27. I was sure of those. And now I knew why they seemed so familiar. The numbers I'd given Summerlee. I'd just made them up on the spot, but I thought they were the first three.

Eventually, Gutless must have succeeded in wiping out sufficient of the enemy because the noise abated and he half-turned in his chair.

‘Lotto, man? You serious?' I nodded. He turned back to the screen and brought up a small Google window, though the game continued in the background. He typed a few letters, selected from the drop-down options and within twenty seconds, the numbers were on the screen. I sat on the side of his bed and peered over his shoulder.

10, 13, 27, 28, 39, 41. Supplementary numbers 7, 21.

I couldn't remember. Not exactly. But I was pretty damn sure she had most of those. If she had bothered to get the ticket at all, of course. She hadn't mentioned it to me again. I pulled out my mobile phone and excused myself from Gutless's bedroom. I don't think he heard or noticed me leaving. His bedroom is close to the back door, so I slipped out into the garden. The last thing I wanted to do was run into his old man. He'd probably want my opinion on Syria, and unfortunately I didn't have one.

Summer's number is in my phone, even though I never call her
and she never calls me. I pressed to connect. Her phone rang for what seemed like ages and I was sure it would divert to message bank, but then she picked up.

‘Hello?'

The noise was horrendous. Of course. Summer's eighteenth birthday do was never going to be a quiet affair. I wondered if her two hundred mates had drunk themselves into oblivion and spread wall-to-wall vomit around the public conveniences. How can anyone have two hundred mates? I've got one, Gutless, and he probably doesn't even count. It will be a sad occasion, my eighteenth birthday. Me and Gutless in a pizza place, him talking about video games and me wondering where my life had gone wrong.

‘Summer?'

‘Who the fuck's this?' She was bellowing into the phone, competing with a song in the background that could loosen your fillings. At least it wasn't Spider's band. This had a semblance of harmony.

‘It's me. Jamie.'

‘Who?'

‘JAMIE.'

‘Jamie?'

‘Yes.'

I was glad I hadn't been invited. If this was the quality of conversation you could expect on Summer's big day, then I was better off talking to Gutless. At least I could hear him, even though I didn't want to.

‘Whaddya want?'

‘Did you get lotto tickets for tonight's draw?'

‘WHAT?'

‘Lotto tickets. Did you get them?'

‘I can't hear you.'

‘Never mind.'

‘WHAT?'

What a waste of the little credit I had. I hung up. She had them or she didn't. It was unlikely she'd have them on her person, anyway, even if she
had
bought them. When she'd left home with Spider, she'd been wearing something tiny, tight and flimsy. Lotto tickets had nowhere to hide.

I went back into Gutless's bedroom. I was right. He hadn't noticed I'd gone. I lay down on the bed again and closed my eyes. Those numbers. They rang bells. They rang very loud bells.

CHAPTER 6

Sunday.
Normally, Summer would have to work but she'd had a word with the supervisor and rearranged her shift. This was undoubtedly wise. I hadn't heard her come in, but I guessed it wouldn't have been much before three or four. When Summer parties, she parties hard. And she'd have a hangover with a long half-life. I guessed it would be late afternoon before anyone would see her.

Phoebe had had her breakfast hours before I made my appearance downstairs. She gets up at sparrow fart, while I like to have some kind of sleep-in on the weekend. She was in the front room doing homework. I think Phoebe does homework even when it hasn't been set.

‘Yo, poo for brains,' I said. ‘How are you?'

She lifted her head from the exercise book and gazed at me blankly for a moment or two. She gets so into homework that returning to the real world can take a moment or two.

‘What?'

‘Did you sleep well, or did you make a few mistakes?' I said.

‘I slept great until Summerlee came in.'

‘What time was that?'

‘Dunno. Really, really late. Or really, really early.'

‘Made a lot of noise, huh?'

‘No, but she
stinks
when she's been drinking. I mean, she
stinks
. She's all sweaty and then she sleeps with her mouth open and everything and that just spreads the stink further. It takes like about two seconds for our bedroom to get filled up with this smell of sweat and booze and it just stinks.'

Her little mouth was set in a thin line. I could see what she'd be like in ten years' time and, boy, you wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of her disapproval. I felt sorry in advance for her boyfriend, the poor bastard.

‘I think you're trying to tell me something, Phoebe,' I replied. ‘Reading the subtext, I think you are trying to suggest Summerlee stinks.'

‘It's not funny, Jamie.'

‘No. You're right.'

‘So why are you laughing?'

‘I'm not.'

‘You are.'

‘Only a bit.'

Phoebe returned to her exercise book. She printed something carefully, methodically, onto the pages, the tip of her tongue
peeking from the corner of her mouth. ‘She snores as well,' she added.

I cracked up then, which didn't please Phoebe at all. She made me leave, so I went to my bedroom and started up my computer. It's a bit of a sad machine when you compare it to Gutless's. It doesn't have a clear case and flashing lights within. It doesn't have the design style of something taken from the flight deck of the starship
Enterprise
. It's dark and box-like, but it works, which is the only thing I care about. I checked the lotto website, just to confirm the numbers. The site had been updated and showed the number of winners: four division-one winners, each receiving seven million, five hundred thousand dollars. Division two was way down at eleven grand because there were so many winners, but still, let's be honest, better than a poke in the eye with a burnt stick. I confess I was a little excited. Summer was going to get something. Shit, four numbers paid sixty bucks and I was pretty damn sure she had four. Assuming she'd bought the tickets. I closed the site and shut down the computer. I had homework of my own. English and maths. Hmmm. Tricky decision. I got out my maths textbook and turned to a section on deductive geometry.

Summer surfaced at four in the afternoon.
She edged her way down the stairs as if every step was torture. Turned out it was. When she got down she stood for a minute or so, holding the banister for support, then oozed into the kitchen and sat at the table. A small moan issued from her mouth and she put her face into her hands.

‘Afternoon, Summer,' I said. ‘Good night, was it?'

She moaned again. It was music to my ears and I adopted an even cheerier tone.

‘Sounded like good times when I rang you,' I added. ‘The place must have been hopping.'

‘Stop shouting, Jamie,' she whispered through her fingers. ‘Please?'

‘I'm not shouting, sis,' I said, though I confess my decibel count might have been slightly higher than normal. ‘Drank a bit too much, huh?'

‘Shitfaced,' she groaned.

‘Alcohol,' I said. ‘The work of the cursing class.'

‘Stop shouting. Please.'

I'd been looking forward to tormenting her, but it wasn't as satisfying as I'd anticipated. She
did
look like hell. Her hair was knotted and lank at the same time. When she lifted her face from her hands I would, under normal circumstances, have pissed myself. It was obvious she hadn't removed her make-up before collapsing into bed. She'd probably been
incapable
of removing her make-up. Mascara was spread all around her eyes and down her right cheek. She'd lost her false lashes on one eye, which gave her a lopsided look. It was a situation ripe for ridicule, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. She was so vulnerable. The night before had kicked her senseless and I didn't have the heart to add my own boot-print. Instead, I got up and went to the fridge. I poured a glass of orange juice and then took two paracetamol
from the kitchen cabinet. I placed them on the table.

‘You need some vitamin C, sis,' I said. ‘And pain relief.'

She groaned, but took the tablets and washed them down with the OJ. She grimaced and I suspected her mouth must have had the texture and consistency of the bottom of a bird cage.

‘Thanks,' she said. Then she lay her arms across the table and rested her head on them.

‘Did you ever buy those lotto tickets, Summer?' I asked.

‘What?' She didn't move her head.

‘The lotto tickets. You were going to get some for your birthday.'

‘Oh. Yeah.' The synapses were clearly not firing. They'd probably been drowned or pickled. Maybe both.

‘Did you use the numbers I gave you?'

‘What?'

Having a conversation with Summer was, at best, like pulling teeth. This was almost impossible.

‘Do you know where the tickets are?'

‘What?'

Jesus Christ, I was talking to a vegetable. I almost gave up, but decided to give it one last go.

‘Do you know where the tickets are?' I enunciated each word carefully and slowly as if communicating with a moron. Which wasn't far from the truth.

‘Handbag . . . bedroom . . . I think.'

‘Can I check?'

She moaned, which I took as agreement. It was much more likely that she hadn't heard me, since under normal circumstances Summer would never let me go anywhere near her personal possessions. But I was curious and she was brain dead. I skipped up the stairs before she had a chance to process the request, understand it and stop me.

Phoebe was spot on. The bedroom stank. It was a sour smell, a heady cocktail of sweat, vodka, vomit and cigarette smoke. I felt sorry for the little tacker, having to sleep in that miasma. No wonder she got up at sparrow fart. Summer's bed was a dump and so was her bedside table, shit littered across the top and dribbling down onto the floor. Literally dribbling. A half-used tube of some kind of cream. I couldn't find her bag. In the end I got down on my hands and knees and looked under her bed. It was on its side about half a metre in and I fished it out, removing a couple of rather unpleasantly damp tissues that had stuck themselves to it. I sat on the bed and opened it.

I fossicked carefully. There were bound to be tampons and associated gear that I
really
didn't want to see, let alone touch. I found the ticket in a side compartment. It was all scrunched up and I had to use Phoebe's desk to flatten it out and make it readable. She'd bought herself about ten or twelve entries. I nearly crapped myself laughing when I saw the first set. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6. What a dick. But it was the second line that almost caused my heart to stop. I read it twice. Then I read it a third and a fourth time. I even took Phoebe's ruler and laid it under the line to make
sure I wasn't transferring a number from the string of numbers below. I checked the date. I checked the line again.

Then I stumbled down the stairs, the ticket in my hand. The noise of blood pumping in my ears was loud and everything seemed strangely distant.

‘Summer,' I said.
‘You've won the lotto.'

She didn't stir. She must have fallen asleep again, there at the kitchen table. I prodded her arm with a finger and she grunted in annoyance, twitched her hand and settled her head further into her arms. I shook her shoulder. That produced a response. She lifted her head up and fixed me with spectacularly bloodshot eyes.

‘Will you just FUCK OFF, Jamie?' she said. Then she grimaced, probably at the volume of her own voice. ‘Leave me alone, willya?'

‘You've won the lotto.'

‘What?' Her eyes hadn't cleared, but at least I had her attention and some connections were being made in her alcohol-soaked brain. ‘Whaddya on about?'

‘The lotto. Drawn last night. You won.'

She sat up then and wiped a strand of hair away from her face.

‘How many numbers I get?'

‘All of them,' I said. ‘Well, not the supplementaries, obviously. That's not possible, not if you got the six. Which you did.'

‘I got all six?'

‘Yes.'

The enormity of the news had not struck her yet. I had had
a few minutes to let it sink in. Plus, I knew the pool prize. She had no idea. Summerlee took a long swig of her orange juice and grimaced again.

‘You're telling me I won the lotto?'

‘C'mon, Summer. This is not a difficult concept. Well, actually it is, in a way. You got all six numbers in last night's lotto draw.'

‘You're bullshitting me.' She gave a half-grin of triumph. ‘And how would you know, anyway, since you don't know what numbers I bought? You're winding me up, Jamie, and it's not going to work.'

I held the ticket up.

‘That's how I know, Summer. Your winning ticket, where you said it would be. In your bag.'

‘You've been in my bag?' Her eyes narrowed.

I was tempted to rip the fucker up at this stage. Here I was, telling her the biggest news of her life and she was about to go off at me because I'd been in her bag when she'd said I
could
go in her bag. Well, she'd grunted, which is definitely not a refusal.

In retrospect, I wish I had ripped it up.

‘You said I could,' I lied. ‘Anyway, that's not important. You've won. Check for yourself, if you like.'

She took the ticket and peered at it through bleary eyes. I indicated the winning lines.

‘Those numbers I wrote down for you, remember?' I said. ‘10, 13, 27, 28, 39, 41. That's the winning combination.' I took out my mobile phone, logged onto wi-fi, and did a quick search on the
internet while she was trying to focus on the ticket. I got the result up and held the phone's screen to her face. ‘Look,' I said. ‘Check it out. The winning numbers. You've won the lotto, Summer.'