She doesn’t answer, so I take her arm, unchain the portcullis of a door, and steer her along the passage to the lift. We hardly seem to move at all, but the lights are flashing down down down from the two-thousands to just two. Two is the floor marked “Restaurant” and we step out into gold and turquoise carpet and swoony music. We’re in some huge ante-room, fierce with chandeliers; the longest queue I’ve ever seen snailing past rows and rows of slot machines. I treat the queue like a river, follow it to its source, where two men in dinner jackets are directing operations.
“Miss Toomey and Miss Joseph,” I announce, standing in front of Norah so that I hide, if not her head, at least her chest. Norah’s chest is not the sort which needs attention drawn to it by embroidered monograms. “We’re the prize-winners,” I explain. My dungarees look wrong as well. Anything would look wrong against those swanky black tuxedos.
“I don’t care who the fuck you are. You’ll have to wait in line like everyone else.”
I’m really shocked. He swore. A Gold Rush top employee swearing at a prize-winner. “Look, I don’t think you’ve any right to …”
“Alberto!” The older man snaps his fingers and a security guard springs out of the shadows, a savage-looking gun in a holster on one hip and a truncheon on the other. It seems a bit excessive when I haven’t even jumped the queue, not really. I trail back to the end of it, Norah tagging after. He’s six foot six, that guard, and they probably shoot to kill here.
Norah has her eyes closed, so I prop her against the wall, and pass the time making up stories about all the different people in the room. A lot of them look really rather ordinary, and elderly – no more sequins like I saw last night, or bow-ties and cummerbunds. It’s odd that the staff should dress more grandly than the guests. Not just those two tuxedoed Nazis, but even the girls giving change or nannying the slot machines are kitted out in dazzling gold and scarlet, with plunging necklines and very brief frilled skirts. Their black-seemed legs totter down to three-inch-heeled gold sandals, frilly scarlet garters on one thigh. Their glamour has rubbed off on the machines. I’ve played a few fruit machines back home – boring ones in tatty pubs. These are solid gold. Well, I suppose it’s only brass, or fake, or something, but they look like gold, and there’s so many of them you feel they’re more important than the people. And each one has a matching seat, not just a stool, but a gold vinyl shiny seat with padded back and arms. No one expects you to suffer while you win.
Everybody’s winning. I watch a woman so obese she overlaps two seats at once, fill two large plastic cartons with her loot. The cartons are stacked by each machine and look like giant-sized yogurt pots, except they’re monogrammed like Norah. If you stay here long enough, you probably get branded with ‘GR’ right through to the flesh and end up like a stick of rock. Several men are halfway there already, wearing baseball caps with “GOLD RUSH” printed on them, GR metal badges on their sweatshirts and GR plastic cartons in each hand.
The fat woman starts to play again, three machines in turn, stuffing them alternately. Maybe she’s dieting herself and this is her indulgence. She certainly seems deprived, the way she crams the coins in, hardly waiting till they’ve dropped before she pulls the lever – two levers, three; greedy eyes on plums, oranges, fat and ripe red cherries. Her hands are black, black from filthy lucre. She wipes her face with them, leaving a grey streak. Coins are overflowing both her pots, but she’s still not satisfied. She’s a woman with three stomachs, three huge and gaping mouths. She’ll faint if she stops stuffing, die from malnutrition. A waitress wiggles up to her, revives her with a cocktail, a long-legged glass with two striped scarlet straws and thick with ice and fruit. The cocktails are free here if you play.
Her hunger is infectious. I begin to feel weak and empty myself, long to cram and gorge. My hands are itching to pull those little levers, fill those plastic pots. And I’ve spotted something else now – “The World’s First Hundred-Dollar Slot machine” – it’s written just above it – “The World’s First High Roller Slot”. I love that word “high roller”. They explained it in the guide book. It means a gambler, one who really spends, pours out his money on the tables and the slots. Vegas courts high rollers, provides them with free suites, free meals, free cars; even lays on women for them; exotic showgirls who revive them if they’re flagging.
I stare at the machine. It’s huge, and self-important, lit up with coloured lights and with a sort of scarlet canopy above it, as if it were a statue in some Spanish church. You have to feed it great fat silver tokens, as big as last night’s fruit plates. I watch it gobble twelve in quick succession, spit out nothing in return. If I played it now myself, I’d be bound to win. The law of averages. My money’s all upstairs, though. They warned us in our Bible to beware of pickpockets, suggested that we lock our cash and valuables in the special private safe provided in each room. Actually, the locks were so damned complicated, I couldn’t make ours work, so I hid the cash instead, stuffed it under a cushion on the sofa. Shall I slip back and fetch it, leave Norah in the queue? It’s moving so damned slowly, I’ll have time to go twice over.
“Norah, listen, I need some money. Can you stay here while I … ?”
“No, no …” She moves out from the wall, sways a little before slumping back again. “No, please don’t …”
“Okay, okay. But I hope you realise you could be losing us a hundred thousand dollars.”
Norah stares in horror. I’m probably exaggerating – I’m not sure how much those jackpots pay, but if she’s going to be so feeble all the time … It’s so exciting here – all that whirring, clicking, jangling, and the clatter of the coins as they cascade into the metal trays and that romantic stirring music still playing in the background which gears you up, makes you feel you can only dare and win. The machines play little tunes themselves and everybody’s chinking coins and chattering, so that the human noise merges with the music and the whole room throbs and hums. My headache’s disappeared. I feel light and white inside, a bride.
Forty minutes later, the whiteness is a little smirched. We’re still starving and still queuing. In fact, it takes a whole hour and seven minutes to rejoin the two black dinner jackets, who don’t look any friendlier. I’m beginning to wonder if this is just a simple brunch, or a queue for crack-troop training or military manoeuvres, the way they shout and drill.
“Right, two more. No, not you, Sir. Get back in line and wait your turn. Okay, you girls, table number 207.”
“Quick march,” I add, but softly. No point in upsetting them when we’ve been cleared, at last, to pass the barricades, and are being press-ganged down the passage to the restaurant.
“This way, girls. Come on, make it snappy.”
No, I have to stop, I have to. I can’t just be hustled to a table before I’ve breathed in all the splendour. I’ve never seen a restaurant quite so grand. It’s more like a coliseum, fused with some gigantic greenhouse. The ceiling is a huge glass dome tangled with real grapevines. At least, I think they’re real; the bunches of black grapes are so perfect, so highly-shined and burnished, they may be just pretend. There are plants all round the room, acres of them, all vibrant green and bursting with rude health. Now I understand why the Gold Rush needs two hundred indoor gardeners (which is ten times more than the number of psychiatrists at Beechgrove, and half of those still training).
The food is the real show, though. It’s all set out on tables in the centre of the room which is lower than the sloping sides, and so really forms a genuine auditorium. Each table is circular itself, dressed like a bride in white, with lacy petticoats and a bouquet of pastel flowers. And the food – Holy Christ! – the food! Where do I start, for heaven’s sake? I don’t mean eating, just describing it. It looks too beautiful to eat. There’s a huge pink creamy salmon thing, shaped like a fish with silver fins and swimming on a sea of shredded lettuce, and a paté which has been made into a peacock with real peacock-feathers rainbowing from one end and an olive-eyed head and beak
the other, and a ham with a paper crown on, and tribe-sized joints of meat being carved by tall white chefs, and every type of salad, cake, pastry, egg-dish, vegetable, and, oh, a meringue swan filled with strawberries, and more exotic fruits soaked in brandy and champagne. And the champagne itself, bubbling out of what looks like a garden hose which can fill twenty glasses in as many seconds and is attached to a sort of refrigerated cabin-trunk, with ten spare trunks lined up behind and …
It’s no good, I’m being frogmarched on, past the food, past two hundred frothing glasses, past the cornucopia of fruits and boulangerie of croissants, to a scarlet-clothed table set with gold-medallion place-mats, and squashed so close to a swarm of other tables we can hardly squeeze in. There’s a statue on the table – a white ram on its hind legs, curly horns wreathed with fresh green vine leaves.
“Bloody hell,” I say, which I know is hardly adequate. Norah’s not much better. She hasn’t said a word for half an hour. Jan would be delirious by now. Brunch in Vauxhall is usually baked beans, or two eggs instead of one.
“Good morning, ladies. What can I get you?”
A waitress has come gliding up to our table. Well, I suppose she’s a waitress, though she’s dressed more like a sultaness (or are they called sultanas?) in sort of silken robes with fake almond eyes (Max Factor) and dangling paper lotus-flowers for earrings. The only problem is she’s over fifty, looks quite grotesque with her crêpey skin and crowsfeet contradicting all that Eastern Promise.
“Champagne for me, please.” I’ve got to drink some more, just so I can go back and brag to Jan. Two magnums in two days.
The sultana flashes Western-style false teeth. “Just help yourself to that, hon. But if you’d like any other beverage, I can bring it to your table. We’ve got coffee, sanka, coke, hot chocolate, any juice you like, punch, root beer, tea …”
“Tea?” Tea is Norah’s Bollinger, her first word in thirty minutes. Her face looks even eager for a moment.
“Yeah, sure, hon. Tea with milk, tea with lemon, herb tea, China tea … ?”
“Just tea.”
Norah’s enthusiasm is catching. “Okay, tea for me as well, please. Oh – and coke.” Why not live it up a bit – tea, coke, champagne … ?
“Right, two teas and a coke, then. Diet coke?”
“No, thanks.” I refuse to diet, not in Vegas. Vegas is for stuffing.
“Right, folks.” The sultana’s terminology doesn’t match her gear. I was Madam on the plane, not folks and hon. “Just help yourselves to everything. The plates are down there with the food. Take as many as you like – no one’s counting – and pile them up as often as you want. And listen, girls, those aren’t just any plates. They’re the largest in the world: a whole fifteen inches in diameter, specially ordered for the world’s largest buffet. What we say at the Gold Rush is, ‘Imagine the biggest feast you can, then multiply by a hundred.’ Enjoy your brunch.”
“Thanks,” I mumble as she swishes off. Immediately, another girl snakes up. This one is much younger, and mostly leg and cleavage, with lashes mascara-ed so stiff and black they look like iron railings. “Call me Barb” is written on her badge. She’s carrying a clipboard and a sort of nosebag full of cash. “Wanna play Keno?”
“Play what?” I ask. “Barb.”
She starts explaining, pointing out the little racks with printed forms (numbered up to eighty) and crayons to mark them with, which are waiting on our own and every table, where the HP sauce and ketchup bottles would stand in boring England. Keno is apparently like bingo, but without the caller. You pick out your own numbers on a form (which Barb calls a ticket), and then, a few minutes later, twenty numbered ping-pong balls are drawn at the central Keno desk. If enough of your chosen numbers come up, you’re a winner – and you can play as many tickets as you like. Obviously time spent eating in Las Vegas is time wasted unless you’re also making money.
“You ladies can win fifty thousand dollars on just one two-dollar bet.” Barb’s teeth look false as well, but cosmetic-false, not old-false. Her glossy scarlet lipstick has strayed on to the over-gleaming white.
“Damn,” I say. “Our money’s all upstairs.”
“Well, play after brunch then. The great thing about Keno is that you can play it wherever you are or whatever else you’re doing. We have Keno runners in all our bars and restaurants, or we can bring your tickets and winnings to the slot machines or gaming tables. There’s a new game starting every eight minutes, and that’s twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. And the Gold Rush has the biggest Keno lounge in all of Vegas, so if you’d rather play it there, we provide free cocktails, free hors-d’oeuvres, special recliner chairs and …”
“Okay,” I tell her. “Later.” Just now, I want my full and undivided attention for the food. I wait until she’s safely out of earshot, then, “Come on, Norah. Charge!”
Actually, you can’t charge. There are too many people and too many impediments in the shape of chairs, tables, plants and statuary (more rams and other mostly horned and horny-looking beasts). Still, it all helps to tempt the appetite, build up the suspense. I feel like someone in a fairy-tale. Will the magic feast vanish before I reach the golden dishes? Will a waiter wake me with a kiss?
Nothing’s vanishing. There’s more food now, if possible; the waiters far too busy to bother kissing anyone. They’re sprinting back and forwards with great steaming trays of scrambled egg and so much bacon there can’t be any pigs left in all the Western States. I ignore the eggs and bacon (even Vauxhall can manage those occasionally), help myself to paté peacock, salmon, and King Ham, and as many vegetables and salads as I can cram on to the plate (which has “GR” stamped across it, though hidden now by asparagus and palm hearts, green beans amandine, and seven variations on potato).
Norah is standing motionless, staring at a jelly. The trouble with Las Vegas is that the words are all inadequate. Jelly is kids’ party stuff, cheap and wobbly, and mostly boring red. This is a four-colour fantasy with chunks of fruit arranged in flower shapes, layered between the jelly, and shining with stars of white whipped cream. Norah takes a teaspoonful – not the cream or fruit, just jelly and just green.
“Norah, how about some protein first?”
“What?”
“You know, meat and stuff. That’s pheasant there.” I couldn’t tell pheasant from corned beef, but all the dishes are labelled, some in French: Selle de veau à la Francfortoise; galantine de Dindonneau. I take a portion of each, to improve my French. My plate looks full already until I compare it with the other plates, dipping and jostling around all the different dishes, and being dangerously overloaded by their owners. They haven’t stuck to mere meat and vegetables, but have mixed sweet with savoury, swamped beef with trifle, ham with chocolate mousse. I glance back at our seats, dwarfed now in the distance, the intervening space jammed with tables, chairs and crowds. It would probably be more sensible to cut down on the trips, copy the locals and forget tedious distinctions such as first and second courses. I balance a piece of gâteau on my fish; sauce my beans with rum-and-orange soufflé; dip into the strawberries.
Norah takes a roll – the plainest simplest sort without icing, raisins, poppy seeds or cinnamon.
“Look, Norah, this is free.” Maybe she hasn’t understood and is frightened that they’ll charge for every item separately. (We’d be bankrupt if they did.) “You can eat anything you like here, gratis and for nothing.”
She dares one pasta shell, six peas.
“Champagne?”
“No thank you.”
“Well, get some anyway. I can always drink it.”
The garden hose is still gushing into glasses. I pick out the two fullest with fewer bubbles and more body, entrust one to Norah, pick up my plate again and begin the journey back. Perilous! Crowds of hungry people are weaving through the tables in the opposite direction, colliding with Keno runners who are whisking back and forth, shouting “Keno! Keno!” in full quadrophonic sound. I scatter “sorry” s l
ike confetti as I spill asparagus or soufflé on the hordes of stampeding starving. My plate looks much less brimming as I set it down, at last, on the gold medallion mat. A gold medal for persistence. My banana-cream gâteau is now soaked in vinaigrette and the hot things have gone cold. Our tea is cold as well, and over-stewed. I remove the tea bag from my cup, drink a little – breakfast – before starting on the lunch.
Now I’m glad that Norah’s silent. I want to simply eat, with no distractions. The last few months have all been make-and-do meals, eat-what-you’re-given at the hospital, or eat-what-you-can-scrounge in the canteen. (I started chatting up the Beechgrove serving-girls who sometimes saved me buns and things which had gone too stale to sell.) I’ve got fatter from the stodge, but I actually feel weaker. It’s time to change all that, to build strength like an athlete, strength to win – not just competitions, but jackpots, millions. There’s some primitive tribe or other who eat their enemies’ hearts and balls so as to suck in all their strength. And in Russia they give ginseng to their crack-troops, and pedigree dogs get Pedigree Chum. So what you eat is obviously important. I’ve become a patient by eating patients’ food, sloppy stuff which takes away your backbone, puddings to make you puddingy, too much grease and suet so that you’re wax in Sister’s hands.
I start on the salmon. That’s five-star food, kings’ fare. And peacocks stand for glory, and strawberries in December put you in the winners’ class. And palm hearts sound like palms which are emblems of triumph, and champagne’s a victory drink. I eat and triumph, eat and glory, eat and win. I’m growing stronger by the forkful; my digestive juices are gleaming golden bubbles, my blood has turned to liquefied red carpet. Majestic coloured tail-feathers are sprouting from my chair-seat, paper crowns poised above my head. I’m gently gently swelling like a soufflé, rising, turning gold. It may be just champagne. I’ve drained both the glasses now. I’m a very special vintage, château-bottled, full of fizz and grape.
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