‘Dev, what’s happening?’ This is too much. I feel a rush of nausea and pause halfway down the stairs. ‘Who’s at the door?’
Even though I know it can’t be anything to do with what happened, the old fear never lessens.
Dev is babbling incoherently. His nonsense fades out as I take another couple of steps down and see the dark shadow of a person through the opaque glass panel that runs down the centre of the front door. As I get closer, the shadow moves and I realize there’s more than one person outside.
I swallow, my throat pulsing.
He cuts off the call, and just as I get to the bottom of the stairs, the doorbell chimes yet again, ricocheting around my skull. I snatch open the door, suddenly seething. ‘Can you please stop ringing this bloody bell!’
A woman with blonde shoulder-length hair and a full face of make-up stands there, grinning. Behind her are two more people and they’re both grinning too. One has a camera. A big one.
‘Hi! Merri, isn’t it?’ The woman beams, glancing at a card in her hand. ‘Merri Harris?’
I frown, folding my arms to hide the tea stain on the front of my dressing-gown. ‘Yes. Who are you?’
‘I’m Susie from DreamKey Homes, and this,’ she sweeps a hand behind her, ‘is the DreamKey crew!’
‘What?’ I grip the door frame, my skin suddenly clammy. I actually question if I’m hallucinating for a second, but no. There reallyisa cluster of smiling, slightly manic-looking people on my doorstep. A couple of doors across the street are already open with our near-neighbours peering out, watching the circus.
The man with the camera thrusts it forward, and when the red light starts to flash, Susie from DreamKey sparks into action. ‘Congratulations, Merri!’ she sings, her wide mouth slick with red lipstick. She pushes a microphone towards me. ‘How does it feel to be our lucky winner?’
5
The woman steps aside and gestures to a high-sided van parked close to the house, ‘DreamKey Homes’ emblazoned across its bonnet. The gold lettering alone has drawn a few more neighbours to their doorsteps, openly watching the activity with curious expressions.
I blink, trying to process the chaotic scene before me. ‘Lucky winner?’ I repeat vaguely, my brain still refusing to compute. Then it hits me. My anniversary gift! The ticket Dev gave me …
An actual drumroll booms out from a speaker on the van and Susie looks like she might burst. Party poppers explode in our faces as she yells, ‘You’ve won a three-million-pound mansion in the Lake District, and that’s not all … You also get a quarter of a million pounds! Congratulations!’
The enormous screen on the side of the vehicle lights up and the most beautiful house of glass and steel is displayed. Taken at night, every room in the property is fully lit and overlooking a vast expanse of water.
My hand flies to my throat. It can’t be real.It can’t!Things like this just don’t happen to people like us. There must be some mistake.
I’m about to ask her to repeat it when a blur and a screech of tyres cuts me off. A cab pulls up behind our broken-down Ford Fiesta, jutting out untidily into the road. The passenger door flies open, and in seconds Dev is bounding up our tinyfront path and then he’s right there, standing right in front of me, fizzing with energy like an overexcited schoolboy.
‘They rang me on the bus, on my way in to work,’ he yelps, bouncing on his toes. When I look at him, he laughs and pulls me into a bear hug. ‘Merri, we’ve won! Do you understand? We’ve won the bloody house!’
Dev throws back his head and lets out a euphoric roar of delight, prompting a couple of passers-by to begin clapping. I notice a few of the neighbours across the street are smiling and waving now, too.
‘Congratulations to you both!’ Susie shouts triumphantly, her ever-widening grin distorting her features. ‘How do you feel, Merri, Dev? How does it feel to be an instantmillionaire?’
For a second or two everything sounds as if it’s happening far away before it springs back into sharp focus. Dev’s arms are open wide as if he wants to pull the whole street into this moment with him. Someone hands him an enormous gold-cardboard key.
‘It’s the most amazing feeling in the world! Thank you, Universe!’ he cries, practically bursting with joy. ‘Thank you, DreamKey!’
Dev is the perfect winner, providing every emotion they want to see. He holds the outsized key aloft while the photographer circles him, like a great white shark, snapping what seems like hundreds of machine-gun shots.
When the camera turns to me, I freeze.
I must look like crap, still in my dressing-gown with bed hair – more than that, I don’t like cameras. Cameras capture things. They make moments permanent. And the last thing I need is for someone, somewhere, to recognize me and start raking up a past I’d rather forget.
I’m Merri Harris now. I left Jane Meredith Harrison behind a long time ago. There’s no one left from back then to comeafter me. Nobody who would put two and two together and start to dig. Yet all this press attention feels very uncomfortable. Most reporters are resourceful by nature. They’d happily ruin someone’s life for the sake of a story.
And if they did, what the hell would I tell Dev? How would I explain, after all this time? It would break my heart if he couldn’t get over the truth.
I shiver. It’s unlikely, but you never know …
Susie latches on to my distraction. ‘Come on, Merri, share how you’re feeling with us! Isn’t this win just beyond your wildest dreams?’
