Nat nodded. It suited her. The meals she was cooking added up too. While Phyllie had allocated a budget for their food, she was beginning to think she could utilise the money in better ways.
‘Now, have you heard anything from that sister of yours?’
‘Hannah? Why on earth would I hear from her?’
Phyllie shrugged. ‘She has a few things going on. I thought she might have needed a shoulder to lean on.’
Nat snorted. ‘I’d be the last person Hannah would turn to for anything. Surely you know that by now.’
Phyllie sighed. ‘You two don’t realise what you’re missing out on. Having a sister is such a blessing. I’d give anything to have Isobel back. It’s hard to believe eight years have passed since she died.’
‘You and Great Aunt Isobel weren’t like Hannah and me. You were both on the same page with things and enjoyed each other’s company. Hannah and I are too different.’
‘Not different enough to take an interest in each other and care about each other. She’s having a hard time, and I think she could use a friend. The two of you seem to forget just how close you once were. Perhaps when we’re there tomorrow for Amy’s birthday you could make more of an effort.’
Nat smiled. She could just imagine how Hannah would receive any effort she made. It was utterly pointless but it was a conversation Phyllie had with her every year or so. She wondered if she spoke to Hannah too.
She picked up her coffee. ‘I’d better get on with it. Anita’s expecting me to finish a section of the site this morning.’
‘Okay, love. And don’t forget to show me what you’ve been doing later, will you?’
Nat wondered again how Anita was as she climbed the stairs to the second floor of Phyllie’s three-bedroom home. The house was cosy, and despite Phyllie’s initial eye-rolling at the thought of having a babysitter in the house, overall she had been very welcoming. As Nat had hidden away, saying she was working, she hadn’t been in a position to interfere with Phyllie’s daily routine, which she knew was one of her grandmother’s biggest concerns.
She closed the bedroom door behind her and locked it. She didn’t want Phyllie coming in unannounced and seeing what she was really doing. She hesitated as she went to sit at the small desk she’d set up in front of the window overlooking the back garden and the garden of the neighbour behind. Why did she care if Phyllie saw what she was up to? She wasn’t doing anything wrong. Phyllie would probably enjoy trying out the site herself. Nat had asked for more instruction when it came to playing poker, and they’d spent many evenings with a pack of cards and Phyllie sharing her tips and strategies. Her thoughts flittered to the conversation they’d just had. Her grandmother was right that she hadn’t been volunteering at Shared. But she had rectified the situation with her financial contributions. Just after moving in with Phyllie she’d had the inspired idea to donate half of the prize money from any game she won to Shared. As she’d moved on to more expensive tables, and the stakes for each game increased, so had her donations.
Her mobile rang as she placed the coffee cup on the desk and switched on the computer. It was Pip. Nat hesitated. Pip had called the previous day too and she’d let it go to voicemail. She didn’t feel like speaking to her right now so she declined the call. She’d text her later and check that all was okay.
The computer made all sorts of noises as it started up. It was an old machine and always took ages to load. Once it was up and running, it was fine though. It had been a bonus to discover Phyllie had internet. ‘Of course I do, you silly girl,’ she’d said when Nat had asked. ‘Everyone has it. How would I keep in touch on Facebook if I didn’t?’
There had been quite a few surprises for Nat when she’d moved in with Phyllie. Discovering her glued to her iPad first thing in the morning and late at night had been a real eye-opener. It turned out Phyllie had more Facebook friends than she did. There was a large group she’d been to school with who had their own private group, and she was in there all the time, chatting or commiserating when another member died. ‘Just a reality at this age,’ she’d said. She logged in to the obituaries each morning and was forever sucking in breaths when she recognised a name. At eighty-nine, it was surprising there were still so many people in her school Facebook group.
‘It’s all that fresh air and socialising we had as children,’ Phyllie had explained. ‘We’ll all live well into our nineties and beyond. Whereas your generation will all fry your brains with the radiation from your devices. Eventually, it will go full circle, and life expectancy will be thirty, not eighty. It’ll be like smoking, where twenty years after it’s encouraged, the authorities realise it kills you. Technology will be the same and you’ll all die of brain tumours.’ She’d chuckled at the thought. ‘It will fix the ageing population issues in an instant.’
Nat hoped her grandmother was wrong.
Her computer finally booted, and she navigated to the web page. Time for her workday to begin. She had some losses that she needed to rectify to get back on track. She clicked on the link to Poker4Me and waited for the site to load.
Excitement built for Nat with each hand she played. The adrenaline rush when she won was so addictive. She’d found it exciting initially to win on the five- and ten-dollar tables, but the euphoric feeling dulled as she got more experienced and won more often. She quickly found that to retain that buzz she needed to up her stakes. She’d almost had a heart attack the first time she’d played a hundred-dollar table. She overanalysed every move and ended up being knocked out of the tournament in the first few hands. She realised the key was playing consistently. When she applied the same rules she’d used at the poker night and on the cheaper tables she usually placed in the game. She just had to stick with that strategy.
After only a few days of playing the hundred-dollar tables she found herself losing the buzz again. She’d win a game and open another, the high not the same as it was earlier in the week, so she upped the ante once again. It was unbelievable to think that only a couple of weeks after joining the site she was playing on the two-hundred-dollar tables. It was even more unbelievable that she was actually winning. Not every game, of course, but she was winning. And winning on a two-hundred-dollar table brought with it a much larger return.
Nat’s heart raced as the final hand of the game was played and the You Placed First banner appeared on the screen. She was having a good day and had had an even better one the previous day. It was an incredible buzz to not only win a game but then log straight on to the Shared website and donate a substantial amount. The buzz of clicking on the donation button was almost as good as the buzz of seeing the You Placed First banner. Sure, gambling wasn’t giving back to the community in the way her support officer role did, but financial contributions were the core of any successful charity, so she could still play her part. Hopefully, if things continued as they currently were, she’d be able to make a real difference.
Hours after her win a knock on the bedroom door jolted Nat into action. She minimised the screen and muted the volume on the computer.
‘You alive in there, Nathalia?’ The door handle rattled as Phyllie turned it. ‘Why is this door locked? Is that necessary?’