by M Y Alam
I jumped. Thick kohl eyeliner, red lipstick, short dark hair.
‘A Cosmopolitan,’ I said, the words sounding like a tape recording of my voice playing through my vocal chords. The waitress nodded.
‘Are you in, ma’am?’ said the croupier.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m in.’
‘You’re not from around here, are you?’ said the balding man, leaning towards me.
‘How can you tell?’ I said and smiled. It felt strangely comforting to be inside an experience I had already had, like sinking down into a well-worn couch.
It took me an hour to double my money and then lose it all. I didn’t remember what numbers I’d rolled in the dream, so I picked red and black at whim, high and low. I trusted I was doing what I was supposed to.
Jim was down a thousand dollars.
‘I just can’t hold back,’ he sighed. ‘Marie’s on the machines, she can stay over there for hours, and I just like to watch the pretty little numbers going round.’
I stared at the place where my chips had been.
‘Out?’ asked the croupier, turning away as if he already knew the answer.
I could have stopped. I could have walked away with nothing but an hour’s fun for two hundred dollars. I could have sliced through the strings that had my hands dancing and my tongue moving, and gone back to the hotel and straight to bed. The thought swirled around my mind, but it was no good. I knew what I was going to do. I reached down to undo the strap on my right shoe.
The croupier stands statue-like, my beautiful sandals by his right hand, waiting.
‘Well, girl, you gonna do it, blow the lot?’ grins Jim. He drains his fifth scotch, watching me.
The waitress whistles softly.
‘Honey, I’m not supposed to interfere, but those little darlings, you don’t want to just…I mean, you can’t…’
I barely hear them. I’ve gone too far now to stop. I’m inside this thing, and have abdicated control. I take hold of the pile of plastic discs with both hands and push them away from me onto red thirty-two. Thirty-two. That, the dream was very specific about. Thirty-two are the years of my life, I think as I lift my fingers from the chips, and what do I have to show for them? A husband gone, buried before he had a chance to get old, before we could really begin to fit inside one another. I never imagined it would all be over like that. I thought we had all the time in the world, but all we had was an instant.
From almost our first date, Glen talked about having children. He never knew about the one he almost had. I hadn’t told him when I found out: we had only just got engaged, we were barely beginning our life together. Now I’m alone, left with nothing of my husband but a wardrobe of T-shirts and jeans and his favourite boots.
I look away from the pile of plastic exchanged for a pair of angel shoes that could have been made for my feet. Folding my hands in my lap, as the dream’s stage directions specified, I say: ‘Roll,’ and the ball begins its journey. Fast at first, it circles the numbers, bumping and jumping from one to another, my eyes can’t keep up with its dance. Then it begins to tire, moving around the wheel more lazily, looking for its place. Slower and slower it winds, over ones and twenties, fives and fifteens, and then in to thirty-two it sinks as if it has come home.
And then out.
I lose.
I lose six hundred and forty-five dollars, and I lose my shoes.
The croupier finally shows some emotion. He looks at me, raises his eyebrows and blinks.
‘I’m sorry, ma’am,’ he says. He gathers the chips to him, and then he slides my sandals into a drawer under the table.
The waitress puts her arm around my shoulder, the Texan offers me a handkerchief. They expect me to cry, to beg and plead with the croupier, to claim that this is unfair, that betting a pair of shoes must surely be against the rules, to threaten to take it to the management.
Instead I stand up.
‘Thank you,’ I say to the croupier. He nods. Jim winks, wishes me luck.
The waitress, bemused, picks up her tray and takes away my cocktail glass.
Walking towards the doors, my toes sink into the red carpet.
‘A good night, ma’am?’ says the security guard on the door. Then he sees my feet. His eyes open wide. ‘Miss, are you…?’
I don’t hear the end of his sentence. I am out in the street barefoot and people are staring at me but I don’t care. I am free. I have sacrificed the most perfect things I ever owned. I loved them from the first moment. They were mine for a tiny ripple in the great ocean of time and then they were gone. It is like I have shed my skin and am standing naked and new again. I am Eve in the garden before the snake arrives, and this time I am going to do it right.
Love Of Fate
Anthony Cropper
The little boy was sitting at the end of the table and the man was by his side, helping him with his food. Carefully, the boy placed down his knife and fork.
‘Tell me something funny,’ he said.
The man thought for a moment then smiled.
‘I was out the other night and I asked for a pitcher of water. The waiter brought me a photo of the Atlantic Ocean.’
‘I don’t understand,’ said the boy. ‘And how come you get more food than me?’
‘I’m bigger than you, as is your mother. We need more fuel inside us. You’re bigger than the dog, so you get more fuel than her. It’s a size thing.’
The boy cleared his throat and straightened his knife and fork.
‘I think I’ve had enough to eat now. Can we finish the rocket?’
‘But you’ve barely touched it. Just one more mouthful.’
‘One more will make my head hurt.’
‘Then do you want something else?’
‘Did you say you had choc-ices?’
‘I did. But not unless you eat some more of that.’
‘But choc-ices make my headache go away.’
The man stood up and scraped the remains from one plate to the other. Then, he took the plates and the cutlery through to the kitchen. He filled two glasses with water and returned.
‘Your mother said she smelled gas this morning. Did you smell gas?’
‘What’s gas?’
‘It goes underground, for fires, for fuel, for heating. It’s in pipes. You can’t see it, it’s underground.’
‘Do trees use gas?’
‘No. Trees drink water.’
The man placed the drinks on the table and took his seat.
‘And that’s underground,’ said the boy. ‘You told me once there’s a table under the ground, and trees have roots that drink water from the table.’
The boy took a sip of his drink.
‘Sort of. Yes. Did I tell you that?’
The man glanced out of the window. It was evening. Over the road, above the houses, the sky had turned orange-red.
‘Maybe it was a fire, maybe your mother smelt a fire. Sometimes you can smell things from a long long way away.’
The boy sniffed and smiled.
‘I can smell Australia.’
‘Now that is a long way away.’
‘It smells like an ostrich.’
‘What do I smell like?’
‘You smell like, like a truck that’s tipping out sand.’
‘That’s great. You smell of, of…’
‘A field with chocolate in.’
‘You’re too good at this game. I wish I had some of your imagination. You lose a lot when you grow old.’
The boy took a drink of water then gazed around the room.
‘I spy with my little eye, something beginning with C.’
‘Cloud.’
‘No.’
‘Car.’
‘No.’
‘Crayon.’
‘No. It’s a cement mixer. It went past the window. It’s gone now. It’s your turn.’
The man stroked his beard and looked back towards the window.
‘I spy with my little eye, something beginni
ng with T.’
‘Train.’
‘Nope.’
‘Trampoline.’
‘Now where’s the trampoline?’
‘In the back of that truck over the road.’
‘How do you know?’
‘There might be.’
‘Yes, there might be, but it’s not a trampoline.’
‘Okay. It’s a tree.’
‘Yes. That’s it. Well done. You’re a very clever kid.’
‘When will mum be back?’
‘She won’t be long.’
‘Yes. But when will she get here? You said she’d be back soon.’
‘She will be.’
‘Will she be drunk?’
‘No. She’ll be fine. Why not do another I spy?’
‘I can’t think of anything. Can I just sing?’
‘Of course you can sing. You’re very musical, I can tell.’
‘Oh the grand old Duke of York, he had ten thousand ladders, he marched them up to the top of the hill and he marched them down again. And when they were up they were up, and when they were down they were down, and when they were only halfway up, they were neither up nor down.’
The man clapped his hands together and smiled.
‘That’s fantastic. I like ladders.’
‘So do I. You didn’t get me a choc-ice.’
‘Did I say you could have one?’
‘Yes.’
‘Ok. I’ll get you a choc-ice. Then let’s finish that rocket.’
The man stood up again and brushed his hand over the boy’s head.
‘Are you leaving tonight?’ said the boy. ‘I saw you packed a suitcase. Are you leaving?’
‘I might be. Yes. Probably. I will be. Why don’t you sing another song? You’ve a good voice.’
‘I don’t know any more songs.’
‘Me and your mother. Listen.’
‘The first time you came you gave me an aeroplane.’
‘Did I? Did I do that?’
‘Yes. I hope her next boyfriend is like you.’
The man ruffled the boy’s hair.
‘He will be. Don’t you worry. He will be.’
The Categories Of Ernest Bookbinder
Nathan Ramsden
1. A Greeting
Ernest was born in the suburbs. His parents were middle class and lacked aspiration: they owned a semi-detached house with a larch in the front garden and a row of gangly sweet peas at the back. A line of rectangular flagstones led from the patio to a vegetable patch, behind which, partly screened by shrubbery, lay a small pond. Ernest’s father, an engineer, had always wanted a pond. He had collected frog spawn as a child, in jam jars stolen from his mother’s pantry. He sometimes put them back in there to see what would happen. His mother had not enjoyed the discovery of putrid jelly nestling between the biscuits and condensed milk. His pond was his solace; he would watch boatmen and an occasional newt while he dug over the potatoes. Ernest’s mother gave birth at home because she did not like hospitals. Her husband had faith in technology and did not share her distrust of those who wielded it. ‘All my family have died in the care of doctors,’ she said, neglecting to add she was too embarrassed to be strapped into unflattering stirrups, and feared she would be inappropriately spied upon by medical students whose experience of pudenda was limited to the diagrammatic. The baby was delivered by a cousin.
Ernest was a slight child and urinated an extravagant arc upon his entry into the world. It was his first, and for many years only, transgression.
2. On Youth
Ernest grew up looking out of windows. The one in his bedroom provided a view over the back garden. It pleased him, though at the time he did not know why. Fences drew borders on left and right between their garden and those of the neighbours; at the rear was a hedge of bushy leylandii which had grown tall. Over it peeped the mottled clay roof-tiles of houses on the next street. Ernest liked to count the chimneys. There were twenty-seven. He also liked the vegetable patch, though not as much as the patio; he developed a suspicion of the pond.
Of the other windows in the house, Ernest most often sat by the one in the living room, scanning the street as if awaiting someone. His mother was perplexed. ‘Play with your toys,’ she would say. Ernest had a large and varied collection of die-cast cars and trucks. His favourite game was to set them in a grid across the carpet. Once, his mother came along with the vacuum cleaner and made him heap them on his lap in a chair. Ten minutes later she was back to polish the ornaments. The cars had been returned to their original positions.
The master bedroom played to Ernest’s nascent sense of mystery. He longed to enter his parents’ private domain and indulge in a new panorama; more, he yearned to throw open their wardrobe and see his father’s ties swinging like gamebirds on the rack. His father caught him one day squinting beneath the door. He was going to clip Ernest’s ear but was slayed by a look of such sorrow he bent and kissed the boy instead.
The glass in the bathroom overlooked the neighbour’s drive but was heavily frosted and passed only slabs of colour. Ernest was ten before he could reach the handle and was unimpressed by the vista. To compensate, he tipped his box of cars onto the floor. After twenty seconds of staring at them unmoved, he realised he had outgrown both his hobbies. The disappointment never left him.
3. An Education
Being neither very bright nor very dull, Ernest passed through school unremarkably, though the rougher sort mistrusted him for his lack of sport and indifference to girls. He harboured no desire for either; his parents abandoned attempts to engage him with both.
Unpopularity came as naturally to him as mediocrity. Tenth in an egg-decorating competition one Easter he stepped round a lonely corner of the schoolyard to be confronted with a phalanx of other, disgruntled, losers. A dozen arms were raised; a dozen old eggs were thrown. Ernest calmly walked back into school, where the caretaker helped clean him up and gave him a boiled sweet. The stink followed Ernest for a week; even teachers spurned him. He bore the ignominy with grace.
In the evenings he stayed mostly around the house and was a help to his mother. On his fourteenth birthday his parents bought him a bicycle. Ernest helped bake his own cake. His father choked to death on the icing. Ernest inherited his ties.
4. On Work
His mother knew the butcher. She got him a job as assistant. On his first day the butcher took him into a cool room at the back and presented Ernest with the strung carcass of a sheep and an array of knives. The butcher grinned. It was this, as much as the disembowelling, that sent Ernest down the high street in mortal panic.
It transpired the post office required a clerk. Ernest applied in his most rigidly dependable handwriting and was appointed within the week. Being a clerk suited him; a propensity for order allowed him to flourish, as much as is possible for a post office clerk. Ernest’s filing earned him a reputation. It outgrew him when it was discovered he had not only perfected the regulation methods but improved upon them secretly. No one could make sense of it; Ernest was let go for insubordination.
5. On Sex
After what seemed a polite and proper time, Ernest’s mother allowed him to appear happy again in public. It was decided he should improve his standing through lofty social circles; she took him along to church meetings. Ernest did not feel able to relax under the starry, benevolent gaze of two dozen Ladies but became popular. One young member, a girl not much older than Ernest, took a particular liking to him and after morning service coyly suggested it would be a shame to waste such a beautiful day indoors. Ernest agreed, equally coyly, and they strolled down to the park with proud and jealous eyes upon their backs. They hardly spoke. ‘What’s your name?’ she said. ‘Ernest,’ said Ernest. ‘I’m Clarissa,’ said Clarissa. Later, Ernest could name two plants and Clarissa was impressed. Clarissa made a daisy chain because it was spring. Mostly, the afternoon passed quietly under the shade of a tree. Ernest had a few coins his mother had given him. He used them to buy fish and chi
ps which they ate together sauntering back. Somewhere between the working men’s club and the gasworks, Clarissa took his hand and pushed it up her skirt so his palm lay flat on the front of her pants. Ernest politely left it there as she moved around. She grew hot and damp; Ernest removed himself, thanked her for a lovely time, and ran home. His mother heard the door slam. Ernest spent twenty minutes in the bathroom.
Ernest enjoyed living with his mother. It never occurred to either of them he should attempt independence. She suggested to him he learn to drive. His father would have taught him, but now that was impossible she offered to pay for lessons. Ernest lacked interest but did not complain. The lessons continued for some weeks but he made little progress. His instructor, a fat ex-policeman with a neatly trimmed beard, was helpful and encouraging. One day Ernest stalled amid a crossroads. He felt a warm, pudgy hand come to rest on his thigh. Ernest drove perfectly all the way home with the instructor’s fingers nestled next to his crotch, took his leave and cancelled the lessons. When challenged by his mother, Ernest said his bike was enough.
6. Concerning the Chief Systems
Success appeared to Ernest in the form of a library. He liked to visit and borrowed regularly. A poster in the window advertised a vacancy and when Ernest had been given the job the staff joked they had lost the one thing that kept them in business. Modestly, Ernest laughed.
He took to wearing his father’s too-big suits for work. ‘I need to look smart,’ he told his mother. ‘Dad always looked smart.’ ‘He did,’ said his mother. ‘He filled them.’ Ernest did not mind. He was happy to bring something of his father back to life.
The head librarian was a glowering man, a little shorter than Ernest but bristling. ‘A library is like an army,’ he said. ‘Efficient and smart. There are ways of doing things.’ Ernest remembered the post office.
Things went well. Ernest developed an admirable capacity for recollecting the location of almost every book in the catalogue. There were two competing systems: a musty old microfiche with squealing gears, and a nearly modern computer, the daisywheel printer of which battered headaches into many a head as it rattled and thundered out its faded copy. Ernest was faster than both. Unsuspecting members of the curious public would inquire as to the existence of something recherché and off he would lope, leaving behind his fellow staff in the green basilisk’s gaze of the monitor.