The Fall of Chance

by McGowan, Terry

  She didn’t bother to sit back down. It didn’t matter: Croker scratched around for one of only two balls in the and then announced her number anyway.

  Smiling with devilish sweetness, she rolled her dice and called out “Eight”. She cocked her head at Kelly, waiting for him to state the obvious.

  Looking flustered, Kelly said, “A score of one above your Order. As yours is the highest Order, you will draw from your own. Approach Mr Morley and draw from pot twelve.

  Taking the cue, Colé skittered barefoot over the wooden floor like the dancer she was. She plucked the one ball from its pot and without bothering to read it, looked and Kelly and said “Thirteen.”

  You have drawn Mr Locke,” Kelly told her, “You may now return to your seat”.

  As she slipped back to her bench, Colé threw a wink in direction of one of the rows: Locke likely. He was another dancer so it was a good pairing but there wasn’t a boy in the room who didn’t wish that wink was for them right then.

  “Lucky sod,” Bull summed it up with typical bluntness but then his face brightened. “Then again,” he said, “Every girl down narrows the field between me and Crystal.”

  Unt let his retort slide as Kelly made his next draw and the Managers came up. There were eight girls in the group, including the ones who’d got the post he wanted. How ironic it would be if he ended up married to one of them.

  There was a serious chance of that happening, too. With three Orders separating them, a score of four or less would lead whoever Morley drew to Unt. That was a one-in-six chance: it wasn’t impossible that the next girl drawn would be his.

  Unt thought through the possibilities, their names still fresh in his mind after they’d pipped him to his post. They were all solid six or sevens out of ten. There were maybe even a couple of eights in there but none of them got him excited.

  Morley called and it was a girl called Chylla who was up. She was probably the looker of the group and Unt watched with interest but she rolled a six. That bagged her the only male Educator and that meant that any girl from the Functionaries now had a one-in-thirty-six chance of drawing from the Medics.

  And then, as if on cue, Delanda was called.

  “Hold me,” Bull gripped Unt’s hand.

  Unt snapped it away sharpish. “Delanda’s gonna crush you,” he whispered.

  Bull might have been laughing but Unt felt a hint of genuine concern as Delanda pushed herself to her feet. Manly hands cast her dice and a second later she called out, “Three.”

  A Manager. She’d got herself a Manager. For the first time all day, Unt was glad he’d never got the post he wanted. Delanda went and made her draw and got a Housing Manager. So, he’d have been all right in the end but it drove one thing home: the right job wasn’t everything.

  A whole host of girls came and went in quick order but in spite of the odds, Kelly didn’t draw out for the Medics. Two successive girls drew from the male Medics and that got Bull’s attention but neither went to him in the end.

  Shortly after, the last girl from the Managers Order was called. She rolled for the same Order and the boy she rolled was Kroos, the boy who’d won the other management post. Her name was Amber, she was pretty and she would have been Unt’s.

  He watched her as she went back to her seat. She was smiling when she caught him looking and he couldn’t tell what she thought. He was thinking she would have done nicely.

  Bull nudged his elbow, “I’m telling you, man, it’s gonna be me and Crystal.”

  And it seemed he would be right. The very next ball drawn was for the Medics. With baited breath, the pair of them watched Morley draw out the name.

  “Sixty-two,” he called. Not Crystal. Her number, twenty-four, was set in Unt’s mind. Sixty-two was Xlandra, as Morley now stated.

  At his summons, a girl with silvery-blonde hair in a plain silver dress stood up. She was a beautiful girl but serious. Unt knew she was smart and had scored high in academic subjects. She knew she was good-looking but seemed to hold her looks in scant regard, like they were simply her due. Xlandra tended to be everyone’s second-thought after Crystal and she wasn’t a bad second-best.

  In the half-minute it took between her being called and her roll, Unt wondered if he could live with her. Did her looks compensate for the attitude? But then she rolled for her own group and it no longer mattered to him. Bull, on the other hand, was suddenly leaning forward and watched her all the way to Morley’s counter. Any hopes he had were soon dashed as she drew the last Medic who wasn’t Bull. A flicker of a wintry smile on her face suggested she was pleased with the outcome.

  “Never mind: fish in the sea,” Bull exhaled loudly.

  But there was only one fish Unt was thinking of right now. Crystal’s number had finally been called out.

  Unt rechecked his figures. Anything less than seven would bring her into Unt’s range and he was the only candidate who would then apply. Fifteen rolls out of thirty six belonged to him. He had a better chance than any single boy left and almost as good as the lot of them combined. But it still left twenty-one shots at her falling to someone else and six of those belonged to Bull. Maybe he’d been right all along.

  From three rows deep, behind his right shoulder, Unt watched her stand. It was the first time Unt had ever seen her looking nervous. She was wearing a dress of peach, dotted with bright red flower buds. She was the dawn of summer but her face was uncertain.

  She looked at the board, making her own calculations. Unt supposed that events this morning had given her the need to reassess things. She’d have come into today expecting Rob to have Unt’s post and the path to him laid open. Now, Rob was a long shot but still in the running somewhere. Doubtless she was working out that she needed to roll eleven.

  Did Unt feel guilty at hoping she failed? Yes, but those weren’t the rules. She and Rob may have thought things were their entitlement but life didn’t always work that way. The system gave everyone the chance of every opportunity and Unt knew whatever the outcome, it wasn’t his doing.

  Today had already seen the highs and lows of the system in operation and it was nobody’s design. Not an hour before, Unt had been looking a life of disappointment square in the face and if he’d ended up stuck there, that would be no-one’s fault too. So yes, Unt felt guilty but he also felt a kind of moral right to his selfishness.

  He couldn’t see Crystal roll so he watched her eyes instead. He heard one die settle while the other continued to roll. He saw a flash of something there - hope? A six or a five, then. If it was a six, that was a chance for Rob and no chance for Unt: the lowest she’d get was a seven which was no good to him. Her total had to be less than seven. If her first die was five, a one would do him but only a one.

  The calculations flashed through Unt’s head with a speed that came from years of working the odds. The second die could only have been in motion seconds more than the first but time just stretched and there was plenty to spare for worry to set in.

  The die stopped. Crystal’s eyes were downcast on her score. It could have been in relief or despair. Her lovely lips were parted as though a cord of air was ready to pluck the breath from her mouth.

  “Six,” she said.

  Six? That was enough! She was his! Unt’s mind swung up to the rafters and then a heartbeat later came crashing down. He needed her to look up. He needed to look her in the eye and see she didn’t find this too horrible.

  But she didn’t look up. She just remained there, looking at the dice as Kelly declared, “You have rolled one below your Order, which means you will draw from the Order of Councillors. Proceed to Mr Morley’s counter and draw from bowl two.”

  It sounded to Unt like Kelly was pronouncing sentence and so it looked on Crystal’s face. As she approached the bench her eyes were locked at the same angle, as though she were still seeing the dice before her. It was the shuffling march of the condemned.

  Fate’s sake, was he really that much of a disappointment? He knew he wasn’t what she’d
hoped for but surely he wasn’t that bad? She wasn’t the only one who’d been let down today and after Unt had got the Councillor post she’d surely have expected that this was on the cards.

  Her beauty didn’t make her any more special. Her intelligence didn’t make her any more special. Her kindness didn’t make her more special. She was a queen brought low and he pitied her but he was also angry that she’d reacted like this. He wasn’t ugly, he wasn’t a brute and he wasn’t a dim-wit. She could have done a lot worse but she bore it like a millstone.

  Crystal reached the bench and took the solitary ball from Unt’s bowl. She read the number: Unt’s number.

  “You have drawn Mr Unt,” Kelly told her, “You may return to your seat.”

  “You lucky bastard,” said Bull, “You lucky, lucky bastard.”

  * * * *

  It was strange to watch the draw continue and not really care about it. The last round had kept him hanging on almost to the end but now, as far as he cared, everything was settled. All he had to do was reflect.

  When Crystal had gone back to her seat he’d hoped at some point she would look at him, maybe give him a sign that she didn’t find him too bad. But the only thing that she would look at was Rob, a pleading look for help.

  Unt could appreciate how Tressa felt, the humiliation of public rejection. “She won’t look at me,” he whispered to Bull.

  Bull shrugged. “Who cares? You get to look at her and that’s the point.

  “I’d kind of like my wife to like me back,” said Unt.

  Bull gave him a stony look, “Don’t worry, mate, she’ll come round. You might be miserable and pig-ugly to boot, but you’re a decent bloke and she’ll come round in the end.”

  “Could we have silence, please?” Kelly spoke to the room but looked at Bull.

  Bull kept his tongue for almost a minute before he launched back in with a furious whisper. “Look, she might be all into Rob right now but it’s just a teenage crush. Look at all the couples around town and all their happy families. Don’t think they never had eyes for someone else. They got what they got and learned to live with it. Just give her time.”

  Kelly fixed Bull with another stare and he shut up but he’d already said his piece. The words had had an impact upon Unt and he felt hope inside him. Bull was right; this was the wrong time to worry about it. Crystal would need time to learn to like him but he had years to win her over. As the draw rolled on, he began to feel good about himself.

  He felt even better when Bull’s name was drawn. He’d been so caught up in himself that he’d forgotten about his friend. From out of the blue, he was pulled by an Educator called Min. It didn’t seem the likeliest of matches and this girl had never featured in one of Bull’s boastful projections but right now he was looking like the cat with the cream.

  Unt was happy, Bull was happy and now he remembered Mélie. He’d forgotten she’d got an Educator’s post and now he wanted her to do well. She had always been nice and she deserved a bit of happiness. Unt thought he would have been happy with Mélie if he hadn’t got Crystal.

  He could see her sleek hair off to his left. Her head was unmoving as she waited for her number. The field had thinned and there was a mix of decent guys and bad ones. He was relieved when she got a clerk called Durum. He was a bit weedy and a bit boring but at least he wasn’t like Colun.

  Colun got some other poor soul. It would have been better if it had been Olissa and they could have had a lifetime grating on each other but Olissa drew someone else. She got a cartwright named Mitt who was as plain in looks as he was in wit. Unt felt a shameful bit of pleasure at her less-than-happy look.

  Unt had thought that that was the last bit of interest for him but he’d forgotten one person. Once more, Rob had yet to be drawn. Unt had forgotten to even look at him after Crystal picked himself. Now would Rob show the same emotion as his father? Would the same furious look be set upon Unt?

  He glanced over in a rush, half afraid to do so, but Rob wasn’t looking at him. He only had eyes for Crystal and he stared at her, unblinking. His whole body was a statue, immune to proceedings around him. If his name had come up, he wouldn’t have noticed, he was so intense.

  For Unt, it brought doubts about Crystal flooding back. If she felt the way for Rob that he clearly felt for her, Bull’s reassurances stood for nothing. For the first time in his life, Unt felt jealousy: proper jealousy, not your day-to-day, grass-is-greener outlook on the little things. It was absurd because it was Rob who should be jealous but that was definitely what he felt.

  With an effort, Unt decided that he would be the better man. He would will a bit of fortune on Rob. In all honesty, Rob had done nothing to deserve his appalling luck today and another girl might be some crumb of comfort to him.

  The remaining girls were probably eying him up too. They’d been given a chance that they’d never thought they’d have. That made a second person who would benefit from Rob getting a partner and there was the added bonus that a wife for Rob might help split the bond between him and Crystal.

  Unt continued to watch the draw. There were sixteen girls left now and twenty three guys to choose from. The odds weren’t overwhelming but they were in Rob’s favour and the sixteen girls weren’t a bad set.

  The first of those girls went to someone other than Rob, then another, then another. Each pin down shortened the odds. A good chance became an even chance, became a poor chance, became a long shot. At last, there were three girls left; two girls; one. One girl for eight guys.

  Her name was Kitt and she held the hopes of eight men in her hands. She rolled and got the Functionaries. Excellent, thought Unt: that was Rob’s Order. He was one of three still left in the pot and as Kitt went to pick her fate, Unt surprised himself with how much he cared. Her hand went in. She drew a number: it wasn’t Rob.

  There were six points of disappointment around the room and one great sigh of relief but from Rob there was nothing.

  * * * *

  That was the last pairing and all that was left now was to decide where each couple should live. After the seriousness of the two draws before it, such a thing seemed trivial and there was impatience to get it over with. All the youngsters cared about was that they were moving into a place of their own: where it was scarcely mattered right now.

  This time, it was the boys’ turn to make the deciding roll and for most, it was a very simple matter. A single die would be rolled and on a score between one and three, the new couple would live with the man’s order: on a score of four or more, they would live with the woman’s.

  Unt was the exception in caring because he didn’t want to leave his home. He was also an exception because his outcomes were different. On a roll of one, he and Crystal would move in among the Councillors: on a six, they would live with Crystal’s Medics. Anything else and they would stay where they were.

  Unt had expected not to care, but he did. Living among the Councillors had a prestige to it. Living with the Medics would keep him in the same neighbourhood with Bull. They were both good options but the more he thought on it, the more he was certain he didn’t want to move.

  When his turn came around, he rolled a three. He’d be staying where he was: Crystal would be moving in. In a day of victories, this one felt the most pure.

  * * * *

  When all the housing had been done away with, Kelly began his closing remarks. Everyone was now keen to get away but first they had to listen to the Councillor. “Partners in Fate, the final draw has been made and the Fall of Chance is concluded. Now, it is time to relax and reflect with friends and family.

  “Try not to dwell on what you see as good or bad fortune. Fate is not judgmental, it is not biased, and it the end, it always adopts balance. The time to accept that might not be now but it will come and then, happiness will follow.”

  True enough, thought Unt but the mood around the room didn’t reflect that. The contented ones listened with benign neutrality while the unhappy ones whom it was aimed at ju
st didn’t hear the words. He was surprised at the negative vibe that held the balance.

  The whole crowd shuffled as though ready to rise but Kelly wasn’t finished. “I have one last thing to say,” he said. “The Fall of Chance is not the end of your destiny. For each of you, there are pleasures and pitfalls ahead. There is no solution to this except to take the bad with the good and I urge you all to do so.

  “Now, go in peace and may Fate be with you.”

  And that was that. The Fall of Chance was over. Released from long-imposed restriction, the whole crowd rose in body and voice. Hours worth of suppressed conversation were suddenly released.

  Only Unt, it seemed, was weighing Kelly’s words. It didn’t say much for him as a speaker that his words of warning were as fruitless as his ones of hope but in Unt at least, they’d struck a chord. It seemed unnatural that such good fortune could fall in one swoop. He was looking out for the setback.

  Bull had spun round and was shaking hands with a host of friends so he wasn’t on hand to catch Unt’s sombre mood or to tell him to snap out of it. Unt too was suddenly bedecked with handshakes of his own and was swamped with hearty words of congratulation.

  He smiled and accepted it and made polite remarks wherever he could remember how people had got on. The warmth of affection was so genuine that he found himself embracing the mood.

  The spectating families were already on their feet, pressing for the exits so they could catch their sons or daughters as soon as they left the Hall. As the initial flurry of talk subsided, the kids started to move to the exit as well.

  With no parents to meet, Unt was happy to let the others get ahead. He’d join up with Bull’s folks eventually but that wasn’t quite the same. He sat back down and let the throng pass.

  “Congratulations,” a dead voice said. An open palm was thrust before him. He looked up and Rob was standing before him.

  “You too,” he said, not knowing what else he could say. There were no words he could give Rob that would fit.