‘Two million! And all he’s left me is two grand a month? Why, the—’ He looked away. ‘What a bastard, what a lying, cheating bastard. But—’
Conflicting emotions crossed his face.
‘But—two million. What would I have done with that?’ He snorted, smiled a little, then looked right at Mary. ‘I’d have tied myself in knots, wouldn’t I? Tried to be clever, tried to be sensible, wouldn’t know what to do. Like those lottery winners, they don’t get happy, do they? Two grand, two grand a month—maybe that’s about right.’
‘It could pay for someone to care for Rachel.’
Rod looked up. ‘Yeah, it could, couldn’t it?’
He stared out of the window, thinking over what he’d learnt.
‘Yeah, he wanted to say thank you. And sorry.’
‘Sorry?’ asked Mary. ‘For what?’
‘Those A-levels—there’s something I didn’t tell you.’
Rod had been hoping for a top grade in his Maths A-level, good enough to take him to university. Frank wasn’t so good at Maths: he didn’t have the patience to pick his way through a maths problem and always looked for short cuts. The two friends had sat next to each other during the exam, at the back of the hall. Rod remembered it as two hours that flew by. He’d prepared well for the paper. He picked three questions and he devoted thirty-five minutes to each, growing more confident, sensing that he’d got to the root of the problem each time. And then—he looked round and realised he’d finished early. Still twenty minutes left. He looked back over what he’d written, but didn’t want to change anything. For no good reason, he felt uneasy, constrained in the room. He got up, said he wanted the toilet, but walked out of the building, had a smoke. Then he realised he could miss the end of the exam: he needed to fill in the cover sheet. In those days, he explained, you attached a cover sheet which went round your exam script and you filled in the numbers of the questions you answered.
He got back into the exam room just in time: the invigilators glared at him. Frank was looking nervous and Rod guessed that he hadn’t found the exam so easy. Almost as he sat down, the invigilators announced the end of the exam and then called the boys to leave, row by row. Frank left like a shot—Rod thought that was a bit odd, Frank liked to play it cool, watch the other kids queuing in a big huddle, then stroll up to the top desk and hand in his paper like he was doing the invigilators a favour. Rod filled in the details on the cover sheet, then flicked through his answers, just one last time, just for luck. He got the shock of his life: Frank’s exam paper was there.