They Thought I Was Dead: Sandy’s Story

10 Early July 2007 — Looking back

When did it start to really go south? My dissatisfaction with my life began soon after I met Tamzin and envied her so much. When I realized I wanted so much more than I had — and unless I made some changes, so much more than I would ever have. I know now that I matured through my twenties, my hopes and dreams became more cemented, and I could see that my life dragging out as it was would bore me. I needed more.

Looking back, there were a few things building up that on their own might not have led to me leaving Roy but together they created a monster that eventually whacked me in the face and left me with no obvious alternative. One sad little building block happened on a wet Tuesday in May. I’d gone out in my lunch hour, at the medical practice where I was then working in reception, to buy a copy of the Argus newspaper. Roy had texted me that there was a big piece in it about a murder he was working on.

He was newly promoted to DI and this was the first case on which he was the Senior Investigating Officer, and I was proud as hell of him. And there on page five was a very handsome photograph of him, with a quote beneath it. Something about being on the verge of a breakthrough with the case. We kept all his cuttings in a scrapbook.

While I was in the newsagent, not a gambler by nature, I bought a lottery scratch card on a whim. I’d never bought one before, and I hadn’t realized there was such a range of choices. The lady behind the counter was really helpful, actually — scratch that, no pun intended — she was just a brilliant saleswoman. I’d gone in to buy a newspaper and came out having spent £40 on scratch cards and a bunch of lottery tickets — at a time when money was tight for us. We’d just bought the house we loved, close to the seafront, for more than we could really afford.

We had overstretched ourselves with the cost of furnishing and decorating it but the house really was in a dilapidated and sad state. It needed more money spending on it than we had. I just suddenly thought, you know, if I could get lucky with a scratch card or a lottery ticket, then all our financial problems would be over. And, on the third scratch card, I couldn’t believe my eyes.

Five hundred pounds!

Seriously.

I went back to the newsagent to make sure I hadn’t got it wrong. She gave me ten fifty-pound notes, with a big smile. I was walking on air! I bought a bottle of Champagne on the way home, planning to crack it open when Roy had finished with his case and was no longer on call. But I couldn’t help telling him the moment I saw him, excitedly. He wasn’t excited, not really, not in the jump-up-and-down way I’d hoped. Sure, he was pleased about the £500 we suddenly had, but he told me it was beginner’s luck, to be happy with that and to forget doing it again.

But I couldn’t. The lightbulb was burning brightly inside me. This could be my path to a lifestyle like Tamzin’s. I bought a bunch more scratch cards and lottery tickets the following week. And I won again, incredibly, first £25, then £100 and then another £500! I bought a pond for the house from a garden centre, but this time I didn’t let on to Roy it was out of my gambling winnings — I told him my parents had given it to me. I’m not sure he believed me, because he knew what tightwads they are. As another example of that, for last Christmas my father’s present to Roy was a rather horrible golf club tie, which, I found out, he’d won in a tombola at his golf club. And, worse still, it had a tiny bit of egg inside the tip — which meant someone had worn it — OMG.

So anyway, I figured I was on a winning streak. By sheer chance, that Saturday I was going with Roy to an evening of greyhound racing. It was in support of a charity we really cared about as dog lovers, the Brighton Retired Greyhound Trust. And it felt special to go back to the place where we had first met.

It’s a three-course sit-down dinner, during which you get to bet on six races — all very civilized and easy, smiling servers bringing betting slips to the table. I knew nothing about greyhounds at all, other than that I think they look beautiful. Somehow, I picked five of the six winners, and at the end of the evening, with my £270 profit in my purse, was kicking myself for not placing bolder bets.

But what I did know was that I was really beginning to like this gambling malarkey. I felt signs — whatever — something telling me I had what it took to be a winner.

Not that Roy was impressed. A few weeks later he was rummaging through our kitchen bin, looking for a receipt he’d thrown away by mistake, and found a whole bunch of scratch cards I’d bought, where I’d won nothing — just a temporary losing run. A few hundred pounds, no big deal. But he was furious, partly because I’d hidden it away but mostly because he added up the amounts and was shocked with what he saw as my frivolity, when we were in a financially tough time. He just looked so exasperated, and it made me feel guilty. I can still see his face now. An expression not of anger, but disappointment. The worst kind.

I tried to make myself feel better by reminding him that he played a regular game of boys’ poker with his chums, every Thursday evening that he was free. He pointed out that they set a limit, so no one could lose more than £100 in any poker evening, and repeated to me that the scratch cards he’d found totalled over £500.

Paraphrasing Shania Twain, that didn’t impress him much.

To tell you the truth, that wasn’t impressing me much either. But I knew it was just a passing glitch. From now on I would keep my gaming to myself, then one day soon I would surprise Roy with our solution out of this financial crisis. We didn’t need millions and millions, but a big enough win to lift the stress from ourselves and live in our lovely home and be happy together. Be a little bit more Tamzin. That’s how I liked to describe it.

I’d got the bug. The BIG WIN was out there, waiting for me. I just had to find it. And I would. I was convinced of that. Me and — well, let’s just say a lot of other hopefuls.

I was smarter than all of the other hopefuls. I really did think so.

Although I’d had a dismal school record, the one subject I was good at was maths. And I reckoned I’d worked out a winning formula.

I was going to be the one. The modern version of Charles Wells — the Man Who Broke the Bank of Monte Carlo.

Bring it on!