“Is it on yet?” she called from the kitchen.
There was no reply from Brian. He hadn’t been talking very much lately, either.
She reached into a cupboard and took out a tin of beans. It wasn’t exactly what you’d call a feast but it had been a while since either of them had earned any money and she was beginning to feel the pinch. She looked around the kitchen for a clean plate but there weren’t any. Every surface was covered with dirty crockery, a tower of soiled plates and bowls rose out of the sink. Gwenda decided she would eat the beans out of the tin. She plunged her hand into the brown, filthy water and somehow managed to find a fork. She wiped off some of the grease on her dress and hurried from the room.
The lights were out in the sitting room but the glow of the television was enough to show the way. It also showed the mess that the room had become. There were old newspapers scattered across the carpet, overflowing ashtrays, more dirty plates, old socks and underpants. Brian was sitting on a sofa that had looked ugly and second hand the moment it had left the shop. There was a nasty stain on the nylon cover. Ignoring it, Gwenda sat down next to him.
The smell, which had been bad throughout the house, was worse in here. Gwenda ignored that too.
It seemed to her that everything had gone wrong since Matt had left. She didn’t quite know why. It wasn’t as if she had actually liked him. On the contrary, she had always known there was something weird about the boy. Hadn’t he dreamt that his mother and father were going to die the night before the accident actually happened? She had only taken him in because Brian had persuaded her – and of course, he’d only wanted to get his hands on the money that Matt’s parents had left their son. The trouble was, the money had gone all too quickly. And then Matt had gone too, taken away by the police as a juvenile delinquent, and all she’d been left with was the blame.
It wasn’t her fault. She’d looked after him. She’d never forget the way the police looked at her, as if she was the one who’d committed the crime. She wished now that Matt had never come into her life. Everything had gone wrong because of Matt.
“And now, on ITV, it’s time once again to take your chances and spin… the Big Wheel!”
Gwenda settled back as the Big Wheel theme tune began. Fifty-pound notes twisted and spun across the screen. The audience applauded. And there was Rex McKenna walking down the flashing staircase with a pretty girl holding onto each arm. He was dressed in a bright, sequinned jacket, waving and smiling, happy as always to be back.
“Good evening, everyone!” he called out. “Who knows who’s going to win big-time tonight?” He paused and winked straight at the camera. “Only the wheel knows!”
The audience went wild as if they were hearing the words for the first time. But of course Rex always began the show the same way. “Only the wheel knows!” was his catch phrase, although Gwenda wasn’t quite sure if it was true. The wheel was just a big piece of wood and plastic. How could it know anything?
Rex came to a halt and the applause died down. Gwenda was staring at the screen in a kind of trance. She had already forgotten her baked beans. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she wondered how it was that the television still worked when the electricity in the house had been turned off two weeks ago because she hadn’t paid the bill. But the back of her mind was a very long way away and it didn’t really matter. It was a blessing. How would she get through the nights without Big Wheel?
“Welcome to another show where the spin of the wheel could mean a million pounds in your pocket or a return ticket home with absolutely nothing!” Rex began. “And what a busy week I’ve had. My wife woke me up at six o’clock yesterday morning to remind me to put the alarm on. The alarm went off at seven and it still hasn’t come back!”
The audience roared with laughter. Gwenda laughed too.
“But we’ve got a great show for you tonight. And in a minute we’re going to meet the three lucky contestants who are competing for tonight’s big prizes. But remember. If you want to get your hands on a million quid, what do you have to do?”
“You have to spin to win!” the audience yelled.
Brian said nothing. It was beginning to annoy Gwenda, the way he just sat there.
“But before we can get started,” Rex went on, “I want to have a quick word with a very special lady, a real favourite of mine…” He stepped closer to the camera and, as his face filled the screen, it seemed to Gwenda that he was looking directly at her.
“Hello, Gwenda,” he said.
“Hello, Rex,” Gwenda whispered. It was difficult for her to believe that he was actually talking to her. It always was.
“And how are you tonight, my love?”
“I’m all right…” She bit her lip and folded her hands in her lap.
“Well, listen, my darling. I wonder if you’ve given any more thought to what we talked about. Matt Freeman. That guttersnipe. That little creep. Have you decided what you’re going to do about him?”
Rex McKenna had started talking to Gwenda two months ago. At the beginning, it had puzzled Gwenda. How could he interrupt the show (watched by ten million people) just to speak to her? Somehow he even managed to do it in the repeats, and that couldn’t be possible because some of them had been recorded years ago. At first it had worried her. When she’d told Brian about it, he’d laughed in her face and said she was going mad. Well, Rex had soon put her straight about Brian. And now she didn’t worry about it any more. It was bizarre but it was happening and the truth was, she was flattered.
She adored Rex and it seemed he was equally fond of her.
“Matt Freeman made a fool of you,” Rex went on. “He came into your house and he ruined your relationship with Brian and then the boy got into trouble and everybody said it was your fault. And now look at you! No money. No job. You’re a mess, Gwenda…”
“It’s not my fault,” Gwenda muttered.
“I know it’s not your fault, old love,” Rex replied. For a moment the camera cut away and Gwenda could see the studio audience getting restless, waiting for the show to begin. “You looked after that boy. You treated him like a son. But he’s pushed off without so much as a by-your-leave. No gratitude, of course. Kids these days! He’s cock of the walk now and you should hear the things he says about you! I’ve been thinking about it and I have to say… I believe the boy ought to be punished.”
“Punished…” Gwenda muttered the word with a sense of dread.
“Just like you punished Brian for being so rude to you.” Rex shook his head. Maybe it was a trick of the studio lighting but he seemed almost to be reaching out of the television set as if he was about to climb into the room. “The fact of the matter is that Matt is a very nasty piece of work,” he said. “Everywhere he goes, he causes trouble. You remember what happened to his parents.”
“They died.”
“It was his fault. He could have saved them. And there are other things you don’t know about. He upset some very good friends of mine recently. In fact he more than upset them. He killed them. Can you believe that? He killed all of them. If you ask me, there’s no question about it. He needs to be punished very severely indeed.”
“I don’t know where he is,” Gwenda said.
“I can tell you that. He goes to a school called Forrest Hill. It’s in Yorkshire, just outside York. That’s not so far away.”