Page 32 of The Lucky Winners

Sixteen Years Earlier

I stood at the kitchen sink, washing the dinner dishes when Mrs Webb’s voice sliced through the air like a knife.

‘Did you track mud in here again, Janey? Look at this floor!’

‘I – I don’t think it was me,’ I mumbled, my voice small and uncertain.

Mr Webb appeared in the doorway, his presence loosening some of the tension. He glanced from me to the faint smudge on the floor, then to his wife. ‘Let it go, Maureen,’ he said, his voice calm but firm. ‘It’s just a bit of dirt. No harm done, eh?’

Her face crumpled. ‘What are we going to do?’

Suddenly she wasn’t talking about the floor. She reached for the kettle and I saw her hand was trembling.

‘What are we going to do?’ she said again.

‘I don’t know.’ He sighed. ‘But don’t take it out on the girl.’

Don’t take what out on the girl? I wondered.

The next day, I was in the garden, pulling weeds from the patch of soil Mr Webb had given me.

‘It’s your own space, Janey,’ he’d said, his tone softer than usual. ‘Up to you what you grow here when you’ve cleared it. But it’s your responsibility to keep it tidy.’

The ground was stubborn, with roots buried deep, but I worked at it with my hands and a rusty old trowel I’d found in the shed.

There was something almost soothing about it – the dirt under my nails, the smell of earth and grass.

It made me feel like I was planting something of myself there, too.

Like I was leaving a mark, however small.

‘We just had some bad news,’ Mr Webb mumbled, almost to himself. ‘Some very bad news. Things are going to change around here.’

My mouth felt dry. ‘How?’

He shook his head, not really hearing me. ‘There’s a big problem coming. We didn’t expect it and we’re going to have to make some decisions.’

Decisions about what?

He didn’t look at me, just kept wiping his hands on his overalls, his expression blank and grim. Whatever glimmer of warmth I’d seen in him earlier was gone. As if someone had snuffed it out, like a candle.

Over the next week the weather was warm outside, but the inside of the house grew colder as if an invisible frost hung in the air. I wondered if it was anything to do with the bad news Mr Webb had mentioned. I wondered if they were going to send us back to Clay Bank.

Sometimes I’d catch myself staring at the job boards in the corner shop, half hypnotized by ads for cleaning work or café shifts. I didn’t have much – no car, no connections – but I had two hands and a determination to get Beth out.

If I could save a bit, just enough for a deposit somewhere small … It wasn’t much of a dream, but it was mine. And it was real.

Once I heard the Webbs talking in hushed tones in the kitchen, but the only words I caught were ‘She’s the one we have to watch,’ and ‘We need to keep them safe.’

The unease in my stomach grew bigger, but I didn’t dare ask.

One evening, when Mrs Webb was out, I was helping Mr Webb tidy the shed.

He was quieter than usual, his movements slower.

‘You know,’ he said, not looking at me, ‘you and your sister came as a pair. Maureen always had her heart set on a little girl with blonde curls. We liked the fact you two would look after each other … if there was ever a problem, I mean.’

I blinked, unsure what to say. But I felt the lightness in me drain away as I touched my wiry dark hair. They’d wanted Beth more than me. ‘What kind of a problem?’

He glanced at me briefly. ‘It’s not your fault, Janey. It’s just how it is. We thought all that was behind us, see? But now … now everything’s going to change and this is not the best place for you to be. It’s not going to be safe.’

‘Why not?’ I said quietly.

They’d changed their mind about keeping me. They just wanted my sister.

Mr Webb didn’t answer and went back to coiling more twine.

I swallowed hard, forcing the lump down my throat again. I’d always suspected it would happen. But hearing it out loud made my chest ache.

They were going to send me back to Clay Bank and keep Beth. They were making excuses by saying things were changing and it wasn’t safe for me here.

I went to my patch of soil and knelt on the damp earth, pressing my fingers into it. I heard Beth singing through the open window.

I dug and dug with my bare hands. Deep down where the woodlice and worms and the ugly things that people didn’t like to look at lived. I dug deep enough to find a place of my own. I imagined it was deep enough to disappear.

I could feel it now – the resentment hanging over me like a shadow. Beth flitted around the house, sunny and sweet, and I was the outsider.

I felt invisible in this strange family, like a shadow that didn’t belong.

That was until the next morning at breakfast when everything changed.

The house hummed with the usual quiet routine – the tinging of cutlery against plates, the familiar chink of cups on saucers.

Mrs Webb buttered her toast slowly and deliberately while her husband read the paper, his coffee steaming beside him. The scent of bacon lingered in the air, mixing with the sweetness of jam from Beth’s half-eaten slice of toast.

Then the front door opened and all movement stilled.

A hush descended as a tall, skinny man stepped into the living room.

He looked scruffy, like a student who’d spent the night in his clothes. His soft-soled shoes made barely a sound on the hardwood floor. He didn’t look at Mr or Mrs Webb – it seemed as if he hadn’t even noticed them. Instead, he walked straight over to Beth and me and looked down at us.

We didn’t move, just sat frozen, waiting for someone to speak. To explain.

It felt hard to breathe, as if all the oxygen had been sucked out of the room.

For a second or two, there was just silence. My stomach churned, a horrible sick feeling creeping in, like I’d done something wrong but didn’t know what. Beside me, Beth twisted her fingers together in her lap, her eyes darting around nervously.

The man finally spoke, his voice sharp and nasal. ‘Who have we got here, then? Are you the two little orphan girls?’

I scrambled for something polite to say, but my mind was blank. I glanced at Mr and Mrs Webb, silently begging them for some kind of guidance, anything to tell me how to react. I didn’t want to ruin things here. They’d taken us in, kept Beth and me together. I couldn’t mess it up for her sake.

Mrs Webb finally spoke. ‘Janey, Beth … this is our son, David.’

A jolt ran through me. This was David junior? Mr Webb had mentioned a son in passing but now here he was, tall and looming. A fully grown man.

‘Hmm,’ David muttered, his eyes sweeping over us. His gaze lingered on Beth, who hugged herself tightly. Then his eyes fixed on me. ‘Nice to meet you, Janey and Beth,’ he said, dragging out our names slowly. ‘I’m looking forward to getting to know you both.’

Mrs Webb put down her cup so hard, I thought the saucer might crack.

Over the next few days, I realized this was the big change Mr Webb had mentioned. Their son was moving home.

I learned that David was twenty-five and had been at university studying a science degree – something I couldn’t even pronounce. Now he was home again.

I overheard Mrs Webb telling the neighbours how proud she was of him. ‘Such a bright young man, our David,’ she said, ‘with a brilliant future ahead of him.’

But inside the house, it was a different story. A few times, I heard Mr and Mrs Webb arguing when David wasn’t around.

‘How long is he planning to live here rent-free?’ Mr Webb snapped. ‘When’s he going to get a job? He’s bad news. Always has been.’

When David was home, he followed Beth and me around. Not constantly, but often enough to make me feel uneasy, bringing back memories of Mum’s boyfriends.

Sometimes David said nothing, just stood there watching, listening to everything we said. But I preferred that to his questions.

‘Why didn’t your parents want you?’ he asked one evening, while I was drying the dishes. His voice was casual, as if he were asking about the weather.

My hands trembled and the plates clattered against each other. I stared at the floor, unsure how to answer.

‘Dad died when Beth was a baby,’ I said eventually, keeping my voice low so Beth wouldn’t hear from the other room. ‘Then Mum passed away about eighteen months ago.’

David raised an eyebrow. ‘Oh, yes, that’s right.

Alcohol poisoning, wasn’t it? Maybe she felt she didn’t have anything worthwhile to live for.

’ He shrugged, then added with a smirk, ‘She mustn’t have noticed how pretty and clever you girls were getting – that would’ve given her a reason to stick around. ’

He smiled then, but it wasn’t a kind smile. It was sharp and sly, like he was daring me to react. I wanted to snap back, to say something clever and cutting, but my throat tightened, and I nodded, pretending I hadn’t heard him properly.

I quickly learned that this was the game David liked to play. He’d get me alone, then push me until I was on the edge of tears or ready to flee the room, then change tack. He’d say something kind or make a joke that almost made me laugh, and for a moment, I’d think maybe I’d misjudged him.

But the next time, the cruel questions would return, and the tightness in my chest would creep back.

Once, I thought about telling Mrs Webb. I almost did. But I’d seen the way her face lit up whenever she looked at David. She laughed at his jokes, even when they weren’t funny.

Mr Webb, on the other hand, said very little when David was around, but he never actually asked him about getting a job.

It felt like there had been a seismic shift inside the family home and we were all just waiting for David to decide exactly how things would run from now on.

Until the awful thing happened.

It was raining heavily, the kind of storm that darkened the sky even in the middle of the day. I was in my bedroom, staring out of the window, listening to the rain lash against the glass, when I heard a big crash from below.

I ran downstairs frantically and found Beth lying on her side on the kitchen floor. Her face was blanched pale, her arm bent at a strange angle beneath her.

‘Beth!’ I dropped to my knees beside her. ‘What happened?’

Her lips trembled, and her eyes were wide. ‘I – I fell,’ she whispered, but her voice sounded off.

I looked up and saw David standing in the corner by the door, watching us. He didn’t look concerned and he didn’t move to help. Had he seen Beth fall?

‘She’s clumsy, your sister, isn’t she?’ he said, his tone matter-of-fact.

Fury surged in my chest, hot and fierce. Before I could say anything, David stepped forward. He crouched beside us, his voice soft now, almost tender.

‘Come on, let’s get you off the floor,’ he murmured, cradling Beth as if she was made of glass. ‘It’s all right, you’re OK. We’re here now.’

He rang for an ambulance and I watched as he helped her onto the sofa, wrapped a blanket around her shoulders, and even made her a cup of tea while I sat and held her hand.

For a moment, I even wondered if I’d been wrong about him. Maybe this was how he showed he cared.

But even as we waited for the ambulance to arrive, a small voice inside my head whispered that something wasn’t right with David Webb.

Something wasn’t right at all.