It took him a while to start but when he did it all came out.
‘It started fresher year.’
‘What did?’ When he stayed silent she added, ‘Say it, Theo.’
‘My gambling.’ He had the good grace to look down. Lydia hadn’t been expecting that response and she knew if he looked at her now he’d see shock written all over her face. She’d been expecting him to say he liked to spend on holidays, clothes, dinners out and generally living the high life in London and way beyond their means.
Her voice was barely audible. ‘Is that how you lost all our money? Playing games?’
‘If you want me to tell you everything, I need you to stay calm.’
He had a cheek, but as her mouth opened to yell at him, she realised she needed to do as he’d said and she’d find out everything.
‘When my dad left, I was gutted. I was furious. I hated him. I went out with my mates, got wasted and tried to forget about what he’d done to my mum.
‘When I started university I was hanging around with a good crowd but they were from pretty privileged backgrounds, not a student loan between them. Anyway, they took me to a casino in Bristol one night and we spent a bit, not too much, and had a good laugh. They were regulars there and at first I held back, knowing it was stupid to even try to join in but they were persuasive and I ended up back there, again and again. At first I wasn’t spending hardly anything and I’d watch them, win or lose, but generally escape everything else.
‘When my mum ended up at the doctor and he prescribed antidepressants, my anger at Dad flared up all the more. He’d done that to her. For my eighteenth birthday, Dad had given me some money, a decent sum, and I hadn’t touched it at all. I was determined I’d work a part-time job through university like most other people, because then that money would be there at the end of it.’
This was the Theo Lydia knew, the Theo who worked hard, not the Theo who lied and went behind her back. ‘Go on,’ she urged.
‘Mum was in a terrible state. According to Grace, some days she couldn’t even get herself out of bed. Grace was petrified she’d do something stupid but insisted that what Dad had done was a sign that the marriage was at an end. She told me it happened to people all over the world every day but I hated that she was making excuses for him. I saw red. I withdrew a decent chunk of the money from my account and thought well, hey, if he can piss his life away with an affair and a broken marriage, maybe I’ll just do the same. I don’t know what good I thought it would do, I wasn’t thinking straight. Up until then I’d only ever bet small amounts and had a couple of wins, nothing major. So I upped the stakes. I got into poker, dice games, and I lost a bit but had enough wins to mean I wasn’t spending a huge amount.
‘Then one night I made a major bet, a thousand pounds in one hit.’
Lydia put her hands across her mouth. ‘You lost it all?’
He harrumphed. ‘That’s the laugh of it. No, I didn’t. I won, I won big. I tripled my money and I was totally high on the feeling. It was like a drug, the rush that sends you over the edge, makes you feel invincible, as though you can do anything. It was the best feeling I’d had in ages. After that night I was there, at the casino, every week. The crowd I hung with were all my mates, the atmosphere was buzzing, electric, and I forgot about everything else.’
‘Your mum, you mean?’
‘Her and Dad, and they’d occupied my mind for so bloody long that I needed an escape.’
‘Had you spent all of your dad’s money?’
‘Not at that stage, no. I won big a few more times after that, then had a couple of losses, but I figured you couldn’t always win. It was a game but one I felt I was on top of. I started thinking I could make it into a profession, I’d heard of someone from school doing that. He didn’t have a job, he played games, quizzes, slot machines, and that’s how he made enough money not to work a nine-to-five office job.’
‘Sounds like a load of crap.’ Lydia’s voice startled Theo. ‘I mean, what a load of shit, Theo! He sounds like a lazy-arsed idiot thinking that could be a job.’
Theo shrugged. ‘You’re probably right. The reality hit for me soon though, because after nine months and a few big wins, came the losing.’
Theo cut off the conversation and went to the bathroom while Lydia made a cup of tea for each of them. He still looked devastated, a demeanour that helped her keep her anger levels low.
When he returned he admitted, ‘I lost pretty much all of the money Dad left me.’
‘How much?’ One look from Theo said it all. It was a lot. ‘How much, Theo?’
‘Ten thousand pounds.’
Her cup of tea dropped to the floor.
*
‘Let me do that.’ Theo took the saucepan of potatoes and carried on mashing them. It was a token gesture but Lydia thanked him. He’d always made the best mashed potatoes, no lumps, unlike hers.
But it was going to take more than mashed potatoes to fix this.She looked at the patch on the carpet in the lounge area where her tea had gone everywhere and they’d done their best to clean up the mess.Since his admission at losing his entire savings to gambling, they’d not said a word about it. Lydia had taken off for a long walk and the second she got back she went onto autopilot to fix them something to eat – a normal task to take her mind off what he’d told her.
They ate dinner in silence, cleared up, and Theo poured two glasses of wine.
