Winner, Winner…

She looked at it and whimpered, struggling to contain the surge of adrenaline that now coursed through her body. Her head was spinning.

Numbers.

On the screen.

Her numbers.

All seven of them!

Through a daze, she heard the presenter’s voice.

‘…with an estimated jackpot of eight million pounds for one lucky-‘

‘What’s the matter with you?’ A coarse growl suddenly jolted her back in the room. ‘Got trapped wind or summat?’

‘Huh?’ Gina was shaking her head in disbelief. She looked across at her husband, wedged into the armchair closest to the television. Never taking his eyes from the screen, he continued.

‘What’s up with you? You just squeaked like a bleedin’ rat!’

‘Did I?’ she said. ‘S’nothing, just a bit of indigestion.’

But he wasn’t listening. Screwing up his lottery ticket, he threw it at the bin.

‘Waste of time that is, again,’ he said, stabbing the TV remote in the direction of the screen. The picture changed to something equally loud and bright, another televised talent contest. Another Saturday night in. With him. As she made to walk out of the room he raised an empty beer can.

‘Going out? Get us another tinny would you?’

Gina took the can and hurried into the kitchen. She had to be sure. Those were definitely her numbers, she played them every week, but now she couldn’t remember having bought this week’s ticket. At the supermarket? No, they had both gone shopping this week. She remembered avoiding the lottery booth. There was no way that he could know she played a ticket alone.

Christ, where had she been?

Gina opened the inner pocket of her handbag. Inside was a ticket, and they were her numbers, all present and correct, but the date? She held the ticket up against the kitchen calendar.

The dates matched!

She checked it again and again, all the time feeling a swell of excitement within her. She flicked on the kettle and as it came noisily to a boil she allowed herself a small, inaudible squeal. However, the spell was quickly broken-

‘You got lost out there?’ he called from the lounge.

Gina zipped the ticket safely back into her bag. ‘Just coming,’ she called.

Seven cans later he was arguing with the News at Ten. Knowing that it would only be a matter of time before he turned his drunken belligerence towards her, Gina escaped to the kitchen. The remains of the roast dinner she had cooked still lay on the side, in spite of his promises to tidy them away. She busied herself with cleaning up.

All that money. She couldn’t stand to see what he would do with it; flash cars, chunky jewellery, overtly branded clothes, he would be insufferable. Just rubbing it in people’s faces, he’d be more disliked than ever. Friday nights in the pub would become torture. ‘Drinks all round!’ On the hour, every hour. Funny at first, but friends would soon turn their backs.

And holidays! Oh god, holidays. He’d expect plenty of them, in places far more exotic than they were used to. No more Tenerife or Majorca, he’d want the kind of trips they saw on those celebrity programmes; The Seychelles, Tuscany, bloody Dubai. She could just see him there, waving notes around, embarrassing himself in front of people that had real money. Old money. Earned money.

She picked up a dirty carving knife and wiped it clean of chicken grease. There was no way that he was getting his hands on that money. It was hers. Trapped in a loveless, abusive marriage for the last ten years, this was the opportunity that she’d been waiting for. Her chance to finally go it alone. But how to remove him from her life? Holding the knife in her hands, she studied her reflection in its steel.

The microwave clock read 3.35am when she came back downstairs. Gina placed her passport in her handbag, along with nearly three hundred pounds she’d been saving for Christmas. Not much, but it would buy an anonymous hotel room for the night, just long enough to claim her prize, then flee the country. After that, a new identity.

Silently closing the front door, she saw her taxi idling at the end of the street.

Pangs of guilt? No, she was past that. Turned out severance was painless. For her anyway. Besides, he’d bought this on himself. He was gone now. A bad memory from a past she could now afford to erase.