“Well, honey, you pay just fifteen dollars which gives you as many as fifteen different possible ways to win, using four groups of two combination. Let me give you some examples …”
She starts showering me with dollars – dollars in hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands. All I have to do to win them is group the numbers I’ve already marked in twos, circling them with my crayon. I do the same on Norah’s ticket. Must be fair.
“That’ll be thirty dollars,” the girl says, checking both the tickets.
“Thirty?”
“Yeah, fifteen each.”
Even I can work that out. It’s just the sound of it which scares me. Thirty dollars is almost a week’s dole, a skirt or pair of jeans, a hundred tins of Heinz baked beans, at least two hundred eggs.
“Look, I’m not sure if …”
“Ya don’t have that much time, honey. This game’s closing in three minutes.”
I hand her six five-dollar bills, gulp my champagne, start stuffing in my food. I need courage, instant strength. Thirty dollars is not a load of groceries, or a few cheap chain-store clothes. It’s an investment, a downpayment for the future. I shovel in a piece of duck, using just my fork. The fingers of my other hand are crossed. “Win,” I whisper between mouthfuls. “Believe.”
The Keno girl returns with copies of both tickets and a dazzling smile. (I suppose her dentist cost so much, she’s keen to show him off.) “Good luck,” she whispers huskily.
I nod, continue eating, though I hardly taste the food. My eyes are fixed on the Keno board which is set up on the wall (several of them all around the room, so you can see one from wherever you are sitting). The numbers drawn at the central desk flash up on these boards in coloured lights, so there’s no need to leave your seat. I check my watch, which I suspect is jet-lagged, actually, since I’ve never known it quite so slow and sluggish. Even the second-hand seems drugged. “Come on,” I urge, swallowing my Hung Shao Yu which could be plastic Keno-board itself for all I’m relishing the flavour. It’s numbers that I’m eating, not mere food, sucking Norah’s threes, spinning out slow delicious mouthfuls of my own twos and twenty-twos.
Oh, God! They’re coming up now. A 48 is winking on the board, followed by an 8. I push my plate away, put the tickets in its place, use my fork as a pointer. It hovers over 22. I check the board again. No. Damn. It’s 26, one I didn’t mark. I glance back at the board. A 4 comes up and then a 70, a 13 (unbelievable), a 7. I cram a prawn ball in my mouth, whole, hold it there, not chewing. My stomach is a war-zone. Not one of mine or Norah’s has come up yet, not one single one. But wait – more numbers – flashing up so fast now, it’s difficult to check through both the tickets.
Relax, girl. If you get so damn uptight, you’ll miss them when they do come up. I force the prawn ball down. It sticks halfway. I try a gulp of coke. It tastes bitter, poisonous – bitter like the fact that neither I nor Norah have marked a single number on that board. I check once more, try to concentrate. I’m new to this and with all the noise and clatter in the restaurant, the babbling voices, clash of cutlery, not-so-background music, I could be missing things. I start at 1, go slowly down to 80, up and down each line. No – I’m right – not one. Near misses, yes: 34 instead of 33; 1 and 21, both of which I marked originally. I should have stayed a single, looked after number one.
The screen is still now. No more flashing lights. Just twenty numbers mocking there, dead numbers. The odds against that happening must be absurdly unfairly high. It can’t be mere bad luck – more like spiteful fate. I wasn’t meant to win. I must be programmed as a loser, another Norah. My life was fine (well, bearable) until just last summer. I had a father and a future, a boyfriend and a home. All vanished now. Okay, so it’s only one game, and a silly game at that, just a distraction while you’re eating, not a serious distinguished game like baccarat or black-jack. All the same, it hurts. I trusted, I believed, and still it let me down. I stuffed myself with kings’ food and ended up a lavatory attendant.
I push my plate away. Kings’ food, hooey. Soggy batter oozing oil, mounds of slimy rice. How could I have eaten all that greasy fattening rubbish when I’m already a fat slob? I glance around me. A dumpling of a woman dressed in shiny pink, cramming in éclairs as if she’s stuffing a silk cushion; a Japanese baby being force-fed by its mother, spewing out creamed spinach both sides of its mouth; an ageing gangster ripping up a chicken breast, sinking yellow china teeth into young white flesh. The noise is terrible. Not just jangling knives and forks, but the yelp of plates as the cleaners scrape and clear them, the groan and slurp of wasted food cascading into pig-bins. No pigs left – just carcasses and bones. Calves and lambs slaughtered in their thousands, pheasants shot in droves, salmon bloodying whole rivers – and all to feed us fatsos.
The background music has changed from a victory march to Christmas carols. “Silent Night.” The “Rest in heavenly peace” is drowned by raucous shouts of “Keno! Keno!”, a sudden bray of laughter from the table opposite. They’re drunk. I ignore my own glass, fumble for my bag. I feel sick with stuffing, sick with lies. I push my chair back, struggle down to the exit, past all the loaded tables in the centre. Norah’s jelly has collapsed into a multi-coloured mess; the meringue swan has a broken neck, the fish is skin and bone.
I return to the restroom. No sign of Norah, and a new attendant – a gigantic black woman wearing pink rubber gloves to match her overall.
“Norah!” I shout, as I dash through to the cubicles.
The woman follows. “You lookin’ for you friend?”
I swing round again. “Yes, I am. Where’s she gone? There was another woman here before – Mexican or something. Did they leave together?”
“No. Ramonda’s gone to lunch. You friend’s in here.” The woman raps a door. “In trouble.”
“What d’you mean, trouble? What’s happened?”
“She got the runs.” The attendant heaves with laughter. “Got ’em bad. She come out, yeah, but back she go again, three times. I say to her: ‘That somethin’ you ate, hon?’ but she didn’t get me. Where you friend from?”
I don’t bother to reply. I’m talking to Norah, hammering on her door. “Why didn’t you tell me you had diarrhoea?”
Okay, so Norah’s shy, fastidious, but I feel somehow hurt, left out. Friends are meant to share things, even grotty things like bowels. Jan and I discuss our bowels (and periods), breathe on each other before important dates to check we don’t need Listerine, borrow each other’s laxative or tampons – or used to anyway.
I slump against the wall. I can hear Jan’s voice saying “Bon Voyage”, see her walking out as Sister rings the little bell which marks the end of visiting-time. Once she’d left – really left, for Bristol and for Christmas – I felt another awful pang (the worst one yet, in fact) that it was me and some near-stranger jetting off, not me and my best friend. The feeling surges back as I bang on Norah’s cubicle again. “Are you still bad?” I shout.
She mumbles something indecipherable. The fact she’s in there still is reply enough. I feel a monster dragging poor old Toomey to a sixty-five-course banquet with champagne, when she should have stuck to water and dry toast. But how was I to know? It’s usually her bladder, not her bowels.
“You best get her somethin’.” The attendant has followed me again, and is listening in, hand on hip, head cocked. She’s obviously enjoying this diversion, this rest from swabbing floors. “Diar-Aid’s real good. Don’t clog you up for days like some of them things do. An’ it’s jus’ a small white pill, so you friend won’t have to swallow all them pints of chalky goop. There’s a drugstore jus’ three blocks away. You go out the back of the hotel – not the main front entrance – an’ take a right, then cross the street an’ …”
I try and follow her directions, get lost before I’ve even left the hotel. It’s so huge, so overwhelming; too much crystal, velvet, bronze, to dupe the senses, too many attractions and distractions to trap me, hold me up. Cul-de-sacs which end in
cocktail lounges, stairs which lead to bars or balconies instead of to the street, vast mirrors which confuse and duplicate, taped music to make me moon instead of march. I’m on the ground floor now, at last, drifting past a long arcade of shops. I stop, peer in a window. Perhaps there’s a drugstore here in the hotel and I shan’t need to brave the streets. The window glares with jewels – greedy boasting diamonds; emeralds, amethysts; great chunks and chains of gold. I walk on, past a kiddies’ fashion shop selling tuxedos for toddlers and spangled plastic pants, and an Eastern bazaar offering everything from yashmaks to alligator boots – but nothing for loose bowels.
It takes me ten more minutes to locate the exit, and then it’s the front one, not the back, which means about-turn and another hundred miles of daunting carpet. No one seems that eager to direct me to the back. I understand why when I finally stumble on it for myself. It’s the Cinderella exit, the ugly-duckling cat-flap. Instead of golden palace portals opening on to palms and plashing fountains, this is a furtive sort of doorway, flanked with dustbins. I stare in shock. Rain, puddles, litter, an overflowing drain. This can’t be exotic Vegas. All the brochures show it sunny with blue skies. This sky is the colour of smudged charcoal. Even the clouds look stained and tatty, ragged round the edges. My “awful weather” has become a dismal fact. A waste of car park stretches on both sides. I cross the concrete, find myself in a side street, but looking towards the Strip. Can it be the Strip? It’s a different place entirely from the Magic Colour Show of after-dark. The glitter and the sheen have disappeared. No peacock-blues, no fairy-pinks. Only drab grey pavement, ugly posters, a petrol station, a huge sign shouting “LOANS”.
I struggle on, huddled against the rain, pass a cheap motel built of plasterboard and signs (“Lowest Rates in Vegas”, “Fourth Nite Free”), and a Woolworth’s-type shop spilling its goods out on to the pavement – curvaceous coffee mugs with red-nippled breasts as handles, Las Vegas tee shirts (“I Lost my Ass in Vegas”), toy fruit machines made of tin and plastic.
“Wanna fun-book?” A man steps out from the entrance of the shop, presses something in my hand. I barely glance at it, stick it in my pocket. It’s too wet to stop. I’m soaked already, had forgotten I would need a coat – not just coat, but umbrella, gloves and snow-boots. It’s colder than back home. Shouldn’t I have crossed the street by now, and which street did that woman mean, in any case? I try to re-run her directions in my head, but they’re drowned out by the drumming of the rain, the cough and belch of traffic. I stop at the lights, watch the cars flash past. Judging by the empty pavements, everybody drives here. Only losers walk. There are two huge hotels in front of me, a gap between them like a missing tooth, a vacant lot piled with builders’ rubble. I cross over, take a look. I can see the desert struggling to break through – sand beneath the rusting strips of iron, grey-leaved scrubby plants pushing up between girders and old pipes. Beyond me rear the mountains: brown, bare, jagged, desolate.
I break into a run, to try and outwit the rain, but it follows, cold and sullen, slams against my back. Where in God’s name is that drugstore? I’ve hardly seen a shop at all, except those cheap bazaars stuffed with souvenirs. No supermarkets or grocery stores, no friendly little corner-shops selling life’s essentials such as bread and aspirin, milk and cigarettes. All you can buy are huge great ugly clocks with their figures made of dice or cards, naked-female playing cards, roulette-wheel key rings, nesting pairs of dice – and every type of instant meal and snack. I pass a Diet Centre wedged between “Frankie’s Foot-Long Frankfurters” and “Have a Whopper – Visit Burger King”. I’m completely lost by now, though at least the rain is easing. I remove the soaked fun-book from my pocket. I’m not sure what a fun-book is, but it may include a fun-map. I separate the pages, print smudged from the wet. “Thirty-nine-cent breakfast; Big Six Wheel of Fortune; craps 3 for 2 Match Play; your own personal Jackpot Photo taken next to a genuine slot machine.” No fun Diar-Aid, no free dry toast.
I’ve reached another set of lights. The pedestrian sign says “STOP”. I’m glad to stop – I’m tired – jet-lagged maybe, or just fed up with trying to walk in a pair of squelching court-shoes. The rain has stopped as well. I lean against a newsstand to remove one shoe, peel off my sodden sock, squeeze the water from it. There are these little perspex newsstands at every junction, with magazines and newspapers inside. No vendors, as in England, shouting “Standard, Standard!” or “Twelve killed in Armagh”. Here, you help yourself. “DON’ T BE ALONE IN LAS VEGAS” is printed across one stand. They must know how I’m feeling.
I open the flap, remove a magazine. “FREE”, it says. “Take one. Adults only.” I leave my shoe and sock off, eyes on stalks as I skim through the first page. “Classy lasses (or lads) direct to your room. Golden girls and guys available twenty-four hours a day. Call our sensual, sensational Vegas play-pals.” I stare at the pulsing bosoms, the pouting lips, the lace and whalebone corselettes, the micro g-strings. “Call Angie Ample – the girl your mother warned about”; “Brigitte Bardot look-alike gives French lessons – very strict with naughty boys”; “Mistress Marilyn, experienced in bondage”. My hands are trembling. I feel disgusted, yet horribly excited. Classy Carole. Champagne Carole. Experienced in … The pedestrian sign says “GO” now. I pick my shoe up, step forward automatically, eyes still on the print. “Double your pleasure. Two blondes are better than one. Let Blue-Eyes and Bombshell work on you together.” “Call Dawn – prettier than a sunset …”
“God! I’m sorry. I didn’t hurt you, did I?”
I’ve collided with some guy, dropped my shoe and sock. The magazine is face down in a puddle. I blush as he retrieves all three, hands them back to me. The light has changed to red again. I dither, dart back, forwards, back again, as an Oldsmobile bears down on me with hungry scarlet jaws.
“Oh, Christ!” I shout, confused by all the curses and the honks. Another car is panting on my legs, some Goliath of a driver winding down his window to add to all the uproar. Someone grabs my arm, hauls me back to safety.
“Gosh, thanks,” I say, glancing up at him. It’s the same guy I bumped into – tallish, middle-aged, with greying hair, and wearing a black mac. I look straight down again. Men in macs have a frightful reputation. My mother was always warning me about men in dirty raincoats (or was it dirty men in raincoats? I don’t recall. Anyway, I freeze.)
“On your own?” he asks.
“Er … no. I’m with a friend. Just waiting for her – him.” He’ll know I’m lying. I’m really scarlet now. I hate it when I blush.
“Oh, are you an escort girl?”
“No, no. I’m not. Of course I’m not. I’m just a visitor, a tourist.” I’m back by that damned newsstand and still brandishing that girlie magazine. He must assume I’m a demonstration product, a sort of on-the-spot free sample. I’m disproving all their advertising – not a golden girl in whalebone and black lace, but a drenched and wringing wreck wearing a plain white cotton Marks and Spencer bra (one strap safety-pinned), beneath mud-splashed dungarees. The Brigitte Bardot double probably looks appealing in a sack. I need props and help, and preferably dry hair. I’ve still got one bare foot. I stop to put my sock on, overbalance, almost topple over. The black arm is there again, steady as a rock.
“You okay?” His turn to ask me now.
“Y … Yes, fine.” I think I must be pissed still, reeling from champagne. I don’t feel pissed, just scared of him, but I suppose he’s sort of saved my life, so I force a smile, let him act as prop while I ram my shoe back on.
“You must be from England with that accent.”
“Mm.”
“London?”
“Mm.”
“I’ve never been to England. I had a trip planned once, but … Hey! Watch your step.”
I’m so keen to get away from him, so clumsy from sheer nerves, I’ve just tripped again on a broken piece of paving stone. He must think I’m some spastic, or completely paralytic drunk. He steadies me, steers me round the hole
.
“What’s your name?”
“Er … Jan.” I keep staring down. So many hazards to avoid.
“Nice to meet you, Jan. My name’s Vic.”
“Vick?” My mind’s on drugstores still. Vick to rub on chests.
“Well, maybe Victor, if you’re English. I had an English buddy once and he was Edward, never Ed. Though I guess Jan’s short for something, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, Janice. But no one calls me that.” Too right they don’t. I’m impressed, despite myself. Victor’s just the name to have in Vegas. Careful, though. He may be Victor Capone.
“You look cold, Jan. Want my coat?”
“No. No, really …” It’s the old old story. They give you sweeties (coats), then lure you into the woods. Actually, there’s hardly a tree to be seen, only garish hoardings and a sign saying “Breast sandwiches” which makes me fear mutilation as well as just plain rape. Perhaps I ought to wear the coat. My blouse has gone transparent in the rain and my own breasts may be outlined in full uncensored detail – red rag to a bull. Anyway, he’s already struggled out of it and is draping it round my shoulders. Probably just an excuse to feel me up. I side-step, mumble “Thanks”, steal another glance at him.
He looks quite different in his suit, which is almost boring in its dull and formal grey, but what my father called superbly cut, and obviously expensive. I should guess he’s pretty rich. He’s got a diamond in his ring, another in his tie-pin. Okay, so men in diamonds aren’t my style, but this is Vegas, and half the men I’ve seen so far wear so much jewellery they clank. His at least is tasteful. I saw one guy with a great 3-D crucifix dangling round his neck, the dying Christ picked out in dazzling rubies.
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