Even though my bladder was full, he unnerved me so much that my piss refused to come out. I heard his, though, a smooth torrent gurgling down the plughole. The free-flowing urine of opulent wealth. I pretended to be shaking off the last drops, washed my hands, and scuttled off to find another toilet.
I chose another table with an attractive brunette croupier with freckles and unfeasibly long legs. She looked like she could have been a he at some point. She looked lucky.
This time, I’d concentrate harder.
I was pretty soon down to £75.
I won a few, and lost a few. I hovered around the £60 for fifteen minutes before losing eight in a row and plummeting down to £20.
Gibreel appeared at my shoulder. ‘I’m up to £280 at blackjack. Roulette’s for mugs.’
‘I don’t have a good answer for that.’
‘Dear me, is that all you have left? And still only eleven o’clock.’
‘Get lost.’
This was hurting. I wanted out. I bet the last of my money on green. If it won, I’d get... 35 to 1... £700. Maybe Kemal was right. Maybe this gambling lark was a matter of will. £700! Concentrate on that!
The wheel spun, the wheel slowed, and damn me if the ball didn’t fall into the green zero!
...And fall right out again.
I sat there, stunned. I wanted my foster mum to come and make things right. Well, I wanted any mum. I wasn’t fussy.
I watched the lime fizz in my bottle of Sol. A parrot’s pancreas pickled in piss.
Idiot!
I deserved to lose. I’d just betted haphazardly. If I’d tried to feel more... The future already exists. Prophets can see what is already there. Anyone can predict effects from a given cause. That’s a definition of sentient life, from storing food to satellite weather forecasting. Suppose you could do the same, backwards... See the cause from the effect. It wouldn’t be an intellectual process. It would be...
Ah, bollocks. I’m sounding like Nancy Thing from Iannos’s café.
Three hundred pounds! Just for finishing the evening with more money than Gibreel! Plus whatever I made, on top... Could be quite a few hundred. A thousand even. When would I have an opportunity like this again? I owed more than £3000, quite a lot more, but a few hundred quid would buy me peace of mind and cut me some slack, for weeks.
Thing is, where could I get some more stake money? I couldn’t ask Kemal. My bank card had been eaten.
A little demon blew on the back of my neck. My credit card! Three hundred pounds credit-limit extension. Remember?
Getting deeper into debt, to gamble? Are you crazy?
Look, if you’re going to have to work some greasy windowless job for the next two years to pay off these debts, then it may as well be four.
Damn, no, I’d put my credit card in my suit pocket to use at that sexy little Mexican place with Bella last week sometime. God, had that ever been a stale, pricey evening.
I’m wearing my suit. Dolt.
I tapped my pocket. Plastic tapped back.
No one had said I couldn’t get more stake money...
What if this backfired? The credit card people weren’t going to be impressed. And how about Poppy? She might be carrying your kid around inside her. It’s not just your own future you’re gambling away here. It’s wrong. Just leave. Leave now. You won’t even be able to pay half the abortion cost, if that’s what she wants. And what if that isn’t what she wants?
I’d nailed my doubts down a pit, but I could hear them hammering at the floorboards. I went back to the original table with £300. The croupier had changed. A young chap whose name was probably something like Nigel. Maybe he was from Kennington. Eleven-thirty. I’d better play for £25 per spin.
Playing for colours may give Samuel Beckett better odds, but it had wiped me out just now. This time I was playing for numbers.
How should you choose numbers? Okay, first, my age. Twenty-nine. Odds.
The ball landed on 20. Evens. Another bad start. Down to £275. Still, next number. Numbers from today. How many eggs in Katy Forbes’s omelette?
Four. Evens.
The ball landed on 20, again. Evens! This is better. This is the way to do it. Think of a question with a numerical answer, answer it, and bet. Back up to £300.
How many people had I spoken to today? A quick count. Eighteen, including myself. Even. Listen, God, I know I haven’t been a very loyal member of the fan club, but I swear, get me out of this and I’ll even start going to church again. Whenever I can.
The ball landed on 19. God, the deal’s off, you hear? Down to £275.
How many messages on my answerphone? Three. Odds.
The ball landed on 34. Down to £250. Another question. This time my stake would be £50. Time was running out. Had I pissed off a gypsy recently?
How many teeth do I have? Twenty-eight. Evens.
The ball landed on 1. Fate, what have I done to deserve this? Would you like me to stop believing in chance? I will if you want. Just let me win now. Fate. I am yours. I am fated to win. Two hundred pounds.
Oh shit, this was next week’s food money. Gambling was horrible. People actually did this for pleasure?
How many women have I slept with in my life? Forget it, no time.
‘If I were you,’ said Samuel Beckett, ‘I would do something dramatic.’
Odds.
The ball landed on 4. Fate, fuck you. Chance all the way. One hundred and fifty pounds. Ten to midnight.
How many letters in my name, Marco. Five. Odds.
24. Evens. Down to a hundred pounds.
Jesus, this is tomorrow’s rent. I’m going to have to get a job in Burger King at Victoria Station.
‘Did you know,’ said Samuel Beckett, ‘that you can bet on four numbers at once? It’s called a Carré. Place your chip on the intersection where they meet. Payment is 8 to 1.’
Where? ‘Will you choose it for me?’
‘No.’
I put my second-to-last chip on 23/24/26/27.
The ball landed in 28.
‘Tough,’ said Samuel Beckett. ‘Still. One last number to go.’
‘Please,’ I said, ‘give me an intersection.’
‘Oh, if you insist: 32/33/35/36.’
I placed the chip. This was my last chance. I realised that I couldn’t watch. As there was no sofa to run behind, I hid my eyes as darkness engulfed me.
Nearing the speed of light, time buckled. Sound thickened to the consistency of hair gel. Poverty walked towards me through the crowd, a bed at Summerford Hostel would set me back £12.50. A large pile of chips was being raked at me. And left there. I looked up. The croupier was already looking away. An elderly black gent with hair coming out of his ears was looking at my chips covetously. Two girls in matching shiny dresses were laughing right at me.
Samuel Beckett had gone.
There was £400 worth in chips in front of me. I could keep my credit card.
‘My friend,’ Kemal appeared over my shoulder, ‘it is time. I’m glad to see you have not been wiped out. Let us go to the upstairs lobby. Did you enjoy yourself?’
I swallowed hard. ‘It’s so important to play only for the pleasure of it.’
I knew I hadn’t beaten Gibreel, but I had £400, over the £300 I had borrowed. I discounted the £150 stake, since that had never really been mine. So. A modest profit of £100. The leather jacket, £30. Probably enough to pacify Digger, if I promise to manicure his mastiffs for a week. My drums were back. Then there was The Music of Chance gig at Brixton Academy next weekend, which should tide me over until the end of the month. We always got cash on the nail there because I’d shagged the Student’s Union events organiser a few times last year.
Gibreel was looking sheepish in the upstairs lobby. ‘Sorry,’ he said to Cousin. ‘The dealer must have known how to neutralise my system.’