X20

by Richard Beard

  The moral of Walter’s Firing Squad story depends on its ending. In this version the moral is: ‘Don’t believe everything you read.’ Other versions have different endings and therefore different morals, but among the different versions there is always one certainty. Because Walter is right there, telling the story, the caterers from the King’s Own Scottish Borderers obviously didn’t shoot him.

  DAY

  9

  The only tobacco in the house was the cigarette I’d once taken from Julian. I kept it loose in my Helix scientific instruments tin, between the dividers and the compass, loosely partnered by the sharpened butts of HB pencils. My suitcases were now unpacked and Julian was wrong because instead of self-pity I found only socks and pants and T-shirts and sweaters, paperback novels and a Courage ashtray, my Helix pencil-box and a pair of trainers. I hadn’t tidied any of it away because I was still about to set off for New York: the week after next at the latest. In the meantime, clothes were strewn everywhere, half in and half out of the opened suitcases.

  I kept the Helix tin on the bedside-table so that I could write down the dreams I dreamt as language, but it was always too late and I could never remember them. Instead, still only half awake, I pushed the pencils aside and picked out the cigarette, trapping it lengthways between my index-finger and thumb, turning it in slow-motion arcs through the afternoon light like the disembodied wing of an aeroplane. I watched it from every possible angle, flying it one way and then the other, waiting for inspiration.

  I looked at it for so long that in the end there was nothing left to understand. It was just a cigarette, some dried leaf packed into a roll of paper with a filter at one end. There was no other truth to be extracted from it. It had no special moral to offer me, no message to impart. It was just one cigarette among hundreds of thousands of others which could be bought all over the country in shops very much like Simpson’s, Tobacconist and Newsagent, newly famous in our area since Mr Simpson the proprietor had been charged with selling cigarettes to minors.

  The Chamber of Commerce were thought to have withdrawn his nomination for an OBE.

  Walter is back.

  He is wearing an Australian Army Burma Theatre of Operations hat. It is faded almost white and on one side the brim is buttoned to the crown. There is a drawstring pulled tight under his chin which has the effect of bobbing the hat forward on his head whenever he speaks or chews on the mouth-piece of his pipe. Haemoglobin is lying contentedly at Walter’s feet and the room smells of tobacco again, the way it should.

  When Walter told me that Humphrey King was dead I thought he was going to cry. I was embarrassed for him and looked away. I brushed my hands through the plant on the desk as if I was checking for aphids.

  ‘He was one my best friends,’ Walter said. ‘The miserable old bastard.’

  Walter tells me how he and Humphrey once shared a hookah pipe outside a brothel in Tangiers, and one of the plant’s broad leaves snaps off in my hands. He sniffs back a tear and I rip the leaf at its edges, folding it and unfolding it and tearing it again.

  The funeral is tomorrow and Walter told Mrs King I’d be there. He noisily blows his nose into a limp white handkerchief, and then whenever tears seem inevitable he sucks on his pipe, swallows, and the tears miraculously dissolve in tobacco smoke.

  ‘In Tangiers he said he wanted to die with his boots on,’ Walter says. ‘He didn’t.’

  ‘Natural causes then?’

  ‘Of course not. It was cancer of something. It always is.’ I try to distract him by asking if he knows anyone called Stella.

  ’Stella,’ Walter says slowly.

  ‘Emmy told me you were supposed to give me a message about someone called Stella.’

  ‘Used to be a cigarette brand, years ago.’

  ‘I think it’s a person.’

  ‘Humphrey used to smoke them.’

  He takes a huge draw on his pipe and I look down at the skeleton of a leaf my fingers have picked out. It is very fragile, very fine. I throw it in the bin. The desk-top is littered with strips of leaf which I push into a neat pile. Then I slide a sheet of paper underneath the pile and tip all the pieces of leaf into an envelope, which I seal carefully and put away in the top drawer of the desk.

  I have no idea why. It’s an irrational but organized thing to do, which seems about as decent a response to death as any.

  In 1960 Theo was 24 years old and a doctor of philosophy. He wasn’t extravagant: not smoking and not drinking had always been a limited gesture of rebellion against his mother, but now his mother was dead. There was a small pension from the Glasgow Underground but the money seemed pointless without their ritual bicker over how much should be set aside for whisky and cigarettes. Otherwise, all he had left of her was a wardrobe of clothes smelling of smoke.

  Unwilling to accept the random nature of her death, Theo decided to gamble the pension-money as a kind of scientific research into Providence. If he lost all the money, was evicted from the flat, and as a consequence died from exposure or starvation on the streets of Glasgow, then God would only have himself to blame.

  He therefore took a train to the race-track at Ayr. It was a mid-week meeting and there were only four races on the card. To prolong the tragedy of it all, he decided to lose a quarter of the money on each race, and he chose the horses arbitrarily. In the 2.30 he had Rocky Bay both ways. It fell. In the 3.00 Doc’s Divine Chance came in second, but Theo had his stake on the nose, In the 3.30 Mr Clinamen failed to start and although Theo’s stake was reclaimable the bookie forgot to tell him. In the last race he put all his remaining money on a three-year-old gelding and rank outsider called Too Good To Be True.

  As the race started Theo was already pushing his way out of the grandstand, dazed by grief, newly orphaned and now destitute, categorically abandoned by his mother’s God.

  They were lying on the floor of Julian’s room, probably. Facing each other, dealing cards and smoking cigarettes. Laughing nearly all the time. With their poker-playing smokers’ fingers they were arranging straight flushes of hearts to bluff against each other for small piles of England’s Glory matches. Later they would count up the matches and convert them into the harder currency of cigarettes. They were at it all the time.

  His plain beige-coloured bean-bag left behind no interesting patterns on her naked back and buttocks. I imagined her face, heart-shaped. It was all a bet. It was only a bet. Or worse, it wasn’t a bet at all and she’d really liked me and I’d ruined everything, but before I could work out what this meant they were making love again, without restraint, mindless of absent neighbours.

  Afterwards, looking up at the canopy of smoke above the bean-bag, they amused themselves by picking out the wholly ridiculous shape of Gregory Simpson’s face, foolish and innocent, non-smoking, pale and frightened in the street-level reflections of the glass skyscrapers of New York. They bet each other a carton of Marlboro that within a week he’d fall in love and be seduced beyond saving by an intelligent, athletic, gorgeous, and infinitely demanding transvestite.

  They were very experienced gamblers, so they were probably right.

  There were fifteen or maybe twenty voices following Emmy Gaston in a harmonized version of We Shall Overcome, and we’d already smoked two cigarettes each working up enough courage to leave. Jamie had already gone home, flicking V-signs as he ran backwards along the walkway, and Theo was trying to convince Walter that it was alright if he didn’t want to come anymore, considering the trouble it must be causing at home.

  ‘I’m a smoker,’ Walter said, clamping his pipe-stem proudly between his teeth. ‘Always have been. Always will be.’

  ‘You shouldn’t have to fight with your own daughter.’

  ‘Never shied away from trouble.’

  ‘Please, Walter. You’ll just make it worse for yourself.’

  Walter peered at the underside of his pipe, as if he suspected it was leaking.

  ‘Go home, Walter,’ I said, ‘or she’ll think we’ve abducted you.�
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  ‘Can’t,’ he said.

  ‘Think of yourself for a change,’ Theo said.

  ‘I am.’

  Emmy had found out that it was Walter who’d given Jamie the cigarette.

  ‘It was in a good cause,’ Walter said. ‘To pay him for being our look-out.’

  ‘He’s only a child.’

  ‘You didn’t really think he was doing it for chocolate? Anyway, never did me any harm.’

  Along with Walter, Jamie was our only other ally. He liked to carry out a rough approximation of his old job, and every Wednesday he ran across the wasteland to meet us, shouting ‘she’s here again, she’s here again.’ She always was.

  Emmy was much better at allies than we were. She knocked on the doors of strangers and politely described how Theo gave cigarettes to children and pregnant women and old sick dying people. Would they be interested in signing a petition? She made contact with health professionals and anti-vivisectionists and the local committee of ASH, then organized them into rotas.

  She christened her collection of anti-smokers the League against Unprincipled Nicotine Groups. Then she had LUNG hats made which looked like sailor’s hats with a No-Smoking badge on the front over the words Kill-Me-Quick. She took her petition beyond the Estates and started working up the hill towards the bridge. She made banners: LUNG for Lungs, LUNG for Life, which she waved from the walkway as inside No. 47, listening to the singing, we all decided on one final smoke before leaving.

  ’She’s a damn fool,’ Walter said, filling his pipe. ‘She’s never been the same since she married that Frenchman.’

  Theo stopped his lighter halfway to his cigarette. He looked at Walter through his eyebrows.

  ‘It’s all fight the good fight with her,’ Walter said. ‘Fight any fight.’

  The standard European wheel has thirty-six numbered compartments, half of them red and half black. There is also a compartment with the value of zero, which is painted green. Ten different bets can be placed at the table, ranging from the single number with a pay-out of 35 to 1, to a line of twelve numbers (‘colonne’) which pays out at two to one. For less courageous players, bets are available on red/black, odd/even, and high (manque)/low (passe) numbers, although the pay-out on these is an unmiraculous evens. If the roulette ball falls into the compartment marked zero the bank collects all bets.

  There is some doubt about the game’s origins. Some say that roulette was invented in the seventeenth century by the French mathematician Blaise Pascal, who also invented the digital calculator, the syringe, and the hydraulic press. Others claim it was the exclusive idea, early in the eighteenth century, of the papal legate to Toulouse, Cardinal Joseph-Bienaime Caventou. More plausibly, however, it was invented in China and transported back to France by Dominican monks.

  Although the outcome of any spin of the wheel is decided by chance, gamblers often sense that an element of judgement is involved, dependent on probabilities which are usually calculated as percentages. Unfortunately, too strong a faith in probability will eventually lead to the mathematical anomaly known as the Monte Carlo fallacy. This is the false assumption that probabilities apply to individual events, when in fact they are only accurately predictable ratios. This basically means that successive bets fail to compensate each other.

  To a gambler standing at the roulette table then, percentages of probability, have little or no value. Anybody can either lose everything or win a fortune, because all gamblers know that mathematical expectation is seldom the only reality. For obvious reasons, roulette players often prefer to trust in destiny.

  Variations on the European game of roulette can be found both in the United States and in Russia.

  I opened the door, arms crossed, feet apart. But it was only Lilly, enormous at the top of the stairs.

  ‘Oh, hi Lilly. I didn’t hear Theo dancing.’

  ‘Let me and this woman in,’ Lilly said, pushing past me. Emmy followed her in, looking calm and composed in white trousers and a sweater. Her hair was pulled back and I saw, in this light, that her face wasn’t unkind.

  Theo came out of the kitchen with a dog-bowl in one hand and a fork in the other. He spread out his arms.

  ‘Welcome,’ he said.

  ‘This lady tells me you’ve been selling cigarettes to children,’ Lilly said, ushering Emmy into the middle of the room. ‘She wants me to sign a petition against smoking, and she’s causing a queue in the shop.’

  Emmy stroked Bananas on the head as he sniffed at an ashtray.

  ‘It’s all lies,’ I said.

  ‘Now you two make it up,’ Lilly said. ‘Because we’re all nice people and I’ve my customers to serve. If you boys want feeding, just dance.’

  She had a mumble to herself as she thumped down the stairs, and Theo said well this was a nice surprise and did Emmy fancy a cup of tea?

  ‘I’m not here by choice,’ she said quickly. ‘However, I’m quite thirsty.’

  Theo put the dog-bowl on the television and I went into the kitchen to make the tea. When I came back I was surprised to see them both sitting on the sofa. It meant that I had to sit on a chair miles away. Emmy was saying:

  ‘But you’re sure you’ve thought about it from every possible angle?’

  ‘Enough milk?’ I asked politely. She ignored me so I lit a Carmen and blew the smoke directly at her face. By the time it reached her it had floated well above her head. Theo said:

  ‘Look at Walter, he seems alright.’

  ‘Walter is very frail and always in danger.’

  ‘Walter’s as strong as an ox.’

  ‘He is frail If he carries on smoking he will die.’

  ‘He’s ninety-eight years old.’

  ‘Precisely. How much longer can it go on?’

  She peered closely at Theo and he shut his mouth to hide his teeth. ‘When was the last time you had a check-up?’

  ’Sorry?’

  ‘If cigarettes do more good than harm, like you say, then when did you last see a doctor?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Theo said. ‘Fit as a fiddle. Never been ill in my life.’

  ‘That’s what my husband always said.’

  ‘Ah yes, your husband.’

  She stood up and handed Theo her mug. Theo said,

  ‘More tea? Biscuits?’

  ‘No doubt I’ll be seeing you at the Estates. Thanks for the tea.’

  ‘We have biscuits.’

  But Emmy was already closing the door behind her. Theo listened to her footsteps on the staircase, then sniffed at the tea left in her mug. He raised it to his lips and sipped. He swallowed, then sighed, almost as if it was the first cigarette of the day.

  ‘You liar,’ I said. ‘We never have biscuits.’

  Dad: ‘Well how was I supposed to know? They all look the same and they all wear make-up and they all act so bloody grown-up all the time.’

  Mum: ‘That’s not the point.’

  Dad: ‘And they all lie. It’s not as though I’m selling acid drugs, for God’s sake.’

  Often, though usually while lying in the bath, I had pretensions to brilliance so extreme and absolute they were brilliant in themselves. Exploring my latent greatness, I became enthralled by long sequences of imagined triumphs which weren’t to be disturbed by doors slamming downstairs, or by heated voices rising clearly through the floor-boards from the kitchen below.

  Dad etc: ‘And I suppose you’ve never made a mistake in your life?’

  Mum etc: ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Never peeked out of the bedroom window?’

  ‘That was fifteen years ago.’

  ‘And watched him parade naked, entirely for your benefit.’

  ‘He was never naked.’

  ‘You used to drool.’

  ‘Nothing happened and I never used to drool.’

  ‘Only because you wouldn’t kiss a smoker.’

  ‘Now you’re being silly.’

  ‘He wouldn’t have lasted ten minutes with your nagging.
’

  I turned on the hot tap with my toes and slipped my ears under the water until all I could hear was the whale-song of the water-pipes. I was the centre of the universe, poised to rescue beautiful women, and in this place there was no death and no loneliness and I believed it was my destiny to live forever.

  Too Good To Be True came in first at twenty to one, leaving Theo a great deal richer than when he arrived at the race-track. The following day, undeterred by God’s perversity, he bet on the outcome of a Hamilton by-election. A surprise win by the Scottish Nationalists meant that he more than doubled his money. He tried to lose it again by joining an illegal blackjack game in a Pollokshaws cafe, followed by roulette in Glasgow’s only licensed casino, the Rubicon. He later moved on to greyhound-racing, bingo, push-pennies, and one-armed bandits.

  To ensure that the outcome was uniquely the responsibility of his mother’s God, he decided that none of his bets should involve any skill. He could therefore bet on football and horses and the Embassy World Darts because he knew absolutely nothing about them. His second rule was never to back outsiders, so as to avoid the possibility of an enormous win. The obvious disadvantage of this was that it made winning more likely.

  He once had a bet on a four-way distance-spitting contest outside a pub in the Grassmarket in Edinburgh. He knew nothing about the spitting backgrounds of any of the competitors, so he bet on the favourite. The favourite won.

  In two years of gambling he always won a little more than he lost, and there came to be a type of wildness in both the gambling and the winning. He let his hair grow longer. More than once he declined offers of teaching posts at the University, because he was never satisfied that he’d established unequivocally the existence of a benign God suffering constant remorse for the injustice of his mother’s death.

  He therefore carried on gambling even though he missed the more consoling results of research into plant cells. It was only in 1962, after a coincidence completely outside his control, that he was unexpectedly rescued from this desperation of good fortune by the Royal College of Physicians.