Page 10 of The Lucky Winners

The Watcher

Eighteen miles away, he moves slowly around the small kitchen, the shuffle of his slippers the only sound in the dim, yellow-tinged light. The bulb overhead flickers, but it doesn’t bother him. It’s been like that for ages and he knows it’ll go soon. Everything does, in time.

He opens the cupboard and takes out one of the seven tins of beans he keeps each week in there – one for each day. He sets it down carefully on the counter – always in the same spot, just beside the knife block where the Formica has peeled at the edges.

His fingers are stiff as he works the tin opener carefully around the edge.

It sticks halfway, as it always does, and he exhales sharply before wrenching it free.

He pours the beans into a dish and pops it into the microwave.

Then he reaches for the bread, takes the last two slices from the packet, and slots them into the ancient toaster.

The lever needs coaxing down, as it has done for years.

The room smells of damp and old cooking oil and, beneath that, the faint, lingering ammonia tang of cat pee.

He needs to get on his hands and knees again, scrub the bottom of the door where Frederick used to spray.

The bugger got territorial in his old age, but he misses the little menace more than he’d thought possible.

He stares into space for a long moment, recalling the soft white fluff on Frederick’s ears, the way the cat would wind around his legs, a low purr rumbling against his ankles.

The only living creature that had cared about him. The only soul he’d talk to, sometimes for days on end. And now even he has gone.

While he waits, he adds to the shopping list. His pencil scratches on the small notepad: bread, milk, can of beans to replenish his stock. Only the essentials, always watching the pennies.

The toaster pops. He lifts out the slices, turning them over in his hands, inspecting them.

They’re a bit scorched at the edges and barely touched in the centre, but he doesn’t care enough to do anything about it.

He takes the dish out of the microwave. A splatter of sauce lands on his wrist, hot against his pale skin.

He scrapes butter onto the toast, then pours the beans over it, the heat spreading outwards, seeping into the bread. He lifts the plate carefully on to his lap tray, adds cutlery, and carries it through to the sitting room.

The local newspaper is wedged in the door, damp from where it’s been shoved through the letterbox. He sighs. He sets the tray on the arm of his chair, then bends to retrieve the paper. His knees crack as he straightens.

He sinks into the chair with a groan, remembering how Frederick would jump on to the armrest, curling neatly into himself, tail brushing against his master’s elbow. He feels the loss like a physical pain.

He eats slowly. There’s a method to it, the way he balances the beans on his fork, cutting the toast into neat squares before lifting each piece to his mouth.

He chews steadily, his gaze wandering over the peeling wallpaper, the damp-stained ceiling.

He should get that seen to. But who for?

There’s no one here but him now the cat’s gone.

Halfway through his meal, he flips open the paper, the ink smudging slightly where the damp’s bled through. He skims the usual rubbish – council disputes, another shop closure in town, some busybody droning on about potholes – and then his gaze locks on to a photograph.

Notts couple win dream home!

The picture shows a young man and woman, standing on the porch of a fancy glass-fronted house and they’re beaming. They’re so happy, he can almost feel the joy radiating off them as they clutch the oversized key.

Underneath the photograph, the caption reads: Merri Harris and Dev Jain: the lucky winners!

His breath catches in his throat, and he tries in vain to relax his shoulders before he peers again at the image. Her hair is changed, as one would expect after all this time, but the name is all wrong. She looks different from how he remembers her …

He begins to doubt himself. Gently, his thumb slides over the slightly grainy photograph.

The woman’s face is only half turned towards the camera as if she’s shy of the lens.

But even through the poor resolution of the photograph, surely there’s no mistaking that smile, the same sly tilt to her head – it all rushes back to him in an instant.

It’s her. It could really be her.

Janey.

His stomach clenches. The fork clatters on to the plate.

His hand trembles as he grips the edges of the paper. His tongue is dry, his mouth sour.

It should have been her who suffered.

He stands abruptly, the chair groaning beneath him as he paces the room, the paper crushed in his fist. His breath comes shallow and fast as his heart hammers against his ribs.

It’s been years, but now his rage is fresh, alive . Fermenting in his gut, like something rotten and acrid.

Here she is, smiling for the cameras with her feckless husband. Winning a dream house, living the dream life. Living .

Meanwhile, the people he cared about are all dead, including his beloved cat. And now … Well, now he is truly alone in the world.

The newspaper trembles as he smoothes it out, his thumb pressing hard over her face.

His throat burns, his vision tunnelling as memories claw their way up, dragging him under.

He exhales sharply. This means it isn’t over. Not by a long chalk.

His fingers tighten, the paper crumpling.

‘Janey,’ he whispers, so softly his lips barely quiver.

He’s been searching for so long but had almost given up hope of ever finding her again.

She’d left so suddenly – vanished, really.

Without a word. He’d been in the grip of pneumonia, fighting for his life in hospital. They hadn’t expected him to survive.

But he had survived and he’d never forgotten her. How could he when she’d single-handedly ruined his life?

At first, the ache of grief had consumed him for months. It had naturally waned over time, of course, but the hatred had lingered all these years. And now he could feel that same hatred invigorating him, easing his loss.

He stares at the man in the picture again – Dev – his arm draped casually around her shoulders. His jaw clenches.

Has he any idea who his partner really is? Or what she’s capable of?

A new house and a new life perhaps, but still the same selfish Janey.

His head buzzes with a strange mix of emotions – rage, curiosity, excitement. After all this time, the truth has finally surfaced, and he knows where she is.

Suddenly he has a purpose again.

When he looks down, he sees his thumb has ripped straight through the paper. Obliterating Janey’s face.