by Jeff Noon
Celia Hobart was only eight years old, and she had to stand on tiptoes to catch even the occasional glimpse of Cookie Luck’s dance through the pack of beggars and the haze of flies. She had long, straight, metallic-blond hair, in which a green-and-yellow bird’s feather was knotted. Celia had run away from home only a couple of months ago, during which time she had scraped together a meagre living. Celia hated begging for life, but she’d chosen to be a runaway. The first few days had been the worst, moving alone through the city, so young. Terrified, until discovering the brethren. The other vagabonds had taken her under their cover, united against normality, especially a big, old guy calling himself Eddie Irwell.
Eddie had found Celia one morning, queering his official begging hole in St Anne’s Square. ‘What the fuck is that shit in your hair?’ were his first words to her.
Celia, touching the feather, like a faraway magic wand.
‘This is Big Eddie Irwell speaking,’ the man continued, ‘and this is his fully paid for hole. Now get your half-arse out of my life.’
Eddie was the alpha beggar, with his real home hidden so deep.
Celia ran away, fearful of the big man, even as he settled his bulk into the tiniest of begging holes. But the very next day, there she was, back again, sitting in his hole long before the big guy was even awake, and a whole nano puny in her begging hat already. Eddie had chased her away once again, but ever after, and for the next six days, this little kid had beaten him to the hole. In the end, he gave up, more or less adopted the girl and street-christened her Little Miss Celia. He found her a personal hole on Deansgate Boulevard, right outside a bookshop—prime pitch—just to keep the girl out of his dreadlocks. Which turned into a kind of love.
Nine o’clock, almost striking.
The brethren of the streets were close and warm, despite the rain that almost always poured upon them, and now Irwell was gathering Celia up into his arms, and from there to his shoulders, from which mighty position she could finally see Cookie Luck dancing in all her changing glory. Celia kept glancing at her single domino and back at the screen, wafting away the blurbs, touching her feather. Wishing all the time, and with all of her heart, for Lady Luck to be kind upon this day, this special day.
Eddie always bought her a bone every week, a bone of her own. Four weeks ago Celia’s bone had come up half-cast, winning her 100 punies, but Eddie had claimed it all for himself, the cheat, only to spend it on ultrabooze and metaburgers. But this was Celia’s very first bone, bought with her own money, so she was wishing harder than ever. Special wishing.
Never before had she begged enough to spare, but last Saturday just gone, the kindest woman in the whole world (or else the richest, or else the poorest) had thrown a whole glistening pair of punies into Celia’s hole. The woman had then tried to step inside the bookshop, but Celia had stopped her dead. A clutch to the ankle from deep within the earth.
Thank you, kind miss,’ said Celia to the deliverer. ‘What’s your name, please?’
‘My name?’ The deliverer looked puzzled.
‘Just for the records, you understand. I have to declare all my earnings. To the town hall, you understand?’
‘Daisy,’ replied the deliverer.
‘Daisy? Nice name. You buying some books today?’
‘Selling them.’
‘Wow! You’ve got employment! Daisy what?’
‘Love.’
‘Daisy Love. How embarrassing!’
‘Tell me about it.’
‘Your mum and dad were neo-hippies, right?’
‘Please. I have a job to do.’
‘Daisy Love, be proud. You have saved a beggar’s soul this Saturday’s morn.’
‘Just go spend it. On something wise, please.’
You bet your life! Celia spent one of the punies on a full English breakfast and banana milkquake at the local Whoomphy’s burger bar, and the other on a domino. Of course, Eddie Irwell still had to buy the bone for her, Celia being far too young to gamble. But surely this week was different…
‘Just make my numbers come up, sweet and lovely Cookie Luck!’
Celia was calling out to the dancing stars, her small voice lost amongst the screams and urges and the rabid desires of the begging crew. ‘Just deliver me away! Somewhere good, please. Somewhere ever so beautiful.’ As the blurbs flew in convoy round her head, twinkling like all the forever lost chances, all the forever yet-to-come chances.
Dancing, dancing, number fallout.
PLAY THE RULES
3a.
The game is sacrosanct.
3b.
AnnoDomino may not coerce any of the populace into playing the game.
3c.
The populace may play, or not play, according to their wishes.
3d.
0.01% of the purchase price of every domino will go to charity. All parties will adhere to this ruling.
And still the dance continued, playing the punters like a city of lovers. Daisy Love had her only bone tight in her fingers; Jaz had his five spicy chances arranged in a circle on Daisy’s Formica coffee table; both of them watching in awe, as the dots on their bones slowly settled down in tune with Cookie Luck’s body.
‘Play to win!’ shouted Tommy Tumbler from the TV screen.
‘Yes! Come on, my beauty!’ shouted Jaz to the faraway TV dancer. ‘Even a measly half-cast would do! Just don’t let the Joker Bone come calling!’
‘Cookie can’t hear you from here,’ said Daisy.
‘You want a slice of hot root?’ Jaz cut some shreds from a pungent garlic bulb.
‘Ultragarlic? No thanks. I’m clean.’
‘Clean as a blank bone, sure. Virgin-style.’
‘I’ve got my assignments to do. I need a clear head.’
Jaz Malik laughed and then swallowed two whole slices of the ultragarlic. His breath went sordid, his mind rainbow. Sunglassed eyes back to the dancing screen. ‘Come on and dance for me, you fucking bitch of all bones!’
Nine o’clock chimes, and at last…
‘Game on!’ chants Tommy Tumbler. ‘Play to win!’
‘Game fucking on!’ chants back Jaz.
And at a long last…
Mr Million has deemed it so.
A five. A three. A five and a three. The stars of Lady Luck fall into the shape of a five-and-a-three bone: one dot on each nipple, another on her navel, two more on each of her kidneys; and, below the dividing-line belt of her domino costume, a single on her left hip, another on her crotch, a final on her right thigh. Eight pips of chaos, finally found on a field of sexy black. And all over the city, that exact moment of surrender, countless punters banged down their losing bones in frustration. And Daisy Love was just another loser, her single lonely domino coming up with only a measly two-and-a-four configuration. Jazir Malik, the same loser; his big fistful of chances delivering nothing but mismatches.
‘Fuck it!’ said Jaz.
Game over. Manchester sighs.
Two more losers; another few ounces of money lost to the beast. Another cityful of losers. Daisy and Jaz could only gaze through neon tears of rain as their dominoes went totally cream, used-up and invalid.
Dead bones.
‘Somebody, somewhere,’ called out Tommy Tumbler from the city’s screens, ‘just won themselves ten million lovelies! Remember, my friends, my losers, next week is another game. Another chance to win. Purchase in advance.’
Purchase in advance! sang the blurbs on the street. Play to win!
Jaz switched off the TV in disgust. ‘Fuck that winning shit! Would you like to kiss me now, Daisy, please?’ he asked. ‘Just for some comfort in losing?’
‘With that stink on your breath? I think not.’
‘OK. Fine. What you doing tomorrow night, for instance?’
‘Tomorrow night? Nothing much. Why?’
‘You want to do nothing much with me? I’m going down the Snake Lounge club. DJ Dopejack’s spinning the decks. You know Dopejack? He’s in the second year at y
our college? Some silly guy on the computers. You up for it?’
‘Jaz, you’re too young to go to a club.’
‘I can get in there. Got contacts.’
‘Next week, maybe.’
‘Next week it is. Definite.’
‘I’m not saying definite. I’m backed up with assignments.’
‘Assignments, shit! Jaz is gone.’
Fifty-seven separate punters were now raising a small cheer at having won a half-cast, the five or the three, still pulsing on their dominoes and 100 punies to collect before tomorrow’s midnight. One of these punters was killed for having won so much; it was his second win in the last few weeks, and some loser was too jealous of him. Whilst some more innocent stranger, somewhere else, held tightly on to a living bone; the full and magical five-and-a-three combination.
Chosen combination! Winning hand! Golden hand! Play to win!
Because when you won the big one, you didn’t have to collect the prize; the prize came to collect you. The 10 million lovelies of a domino’s kiss, delivered by Cookie Luck herself. The curvaceous ghost of numbers, coming out of nowhere, coming out of television, to drag you down, screaming with pleasure.
As the blurbflies fluttered through the darkness, singing out loud.
Game 41
Domino Day, lucky old Manchester. The next Friday, game forty-one. Native gamblers, stuck superlove crazy to the televiz, goggle-eyed and numberholic as the credits came in colours. Tango the dominoes, forever changing. Pipsville, dig those chances! Bulging air, message heavy. Blurbflies in a swarm, singing streets alive. Madverts. Dream to play! Play to win! Win to dream! All over the city, that wet and slippy evening, surrounded by biscuits and crumble, herds of punters were banging their bones on café tables and dashboards, mouse pads and park benches, watching tiny dots pulsate in crooked rhythm.
Mr Million has made it happen, the secret boss of bones.
In monasteries, nunneries, football stadiums, birdcages, all-night shopping churches, non-stop brothels, restaurants, cinemas, telephone boxes, bicycles, Rolls-Royces, Pullman carriages and double-decker omnibuses; anywhere there was a switch-on, all the natives were stroking their bones, hoping for a winning kiss.
As little kids ran through the downpour, clutching their domino dolls, pulling strings to activate voice boxes, and learning how to play. Learn to win! Learn to win! The city brought to stillness and desperation.
The tousled, ragged blonde called Daisy Love. Take a look at her this time, once again stuck tight to the black-and-white portable in her bedsit, clinging fast to a treasured domino. Trying her best to ignore the scents of Chicken Tikka Masala and Lamb and Spinach Balti, drifting upwards from the curry house.
A loneliness of spice and air. A tiny handful of luck.
How could a young girl possibly resist such urgings?
Daisy was born in Droylsden, Manchester, in 1980. Changing schools at the age of five, she missed some important lessons. By the time she settled, the other kids could already add up, never mind subtracting. Daisy could only guess at the answers, not knowing the underlying structure. The new teacher had no time for such inaccuracies. Punishment was in hand.
Daisy asked her father to help her, knowing he was good at numbers. He said no, that she could learn for herself, or not at all. She went to her mother, who knew nothing at all about numbers. Her mother was good at cooking and she placed two jam pies on the kitchen table, asking Daisy to count them.
‘One…two…’
‘That’s correct. Well done!’ She added another two. ‘How many pies now?’
Daisy counted them, out loud. ‘One…two…three…four…Four pies?’ she answered.
‘That’s right. Two pies add two pies, makes four pies.’
‘This is all that adding up is?’ asked Daisy. Nobody had ever explained it to her before.
‘Isn’t it easy,’ said her father, disgusted.
Daisy’s journey began.
Domino time! And even as the theme song played away, there came the usual knock upon Daisy’s door. Jazir Malik. Daisy’s only friend. He brought with him another stolen take-out. ‘Here’s your dinner,’ he said.
A meagre offering. Mostly rice, no naan, a few particles of meat.
‘Cheers, Jaz.’ Daisy dug deep, looking for flavour.
‘Hope I haven’t missed anything, love. Cookie hasn’t come on yet?’
‘It’s just beginning. You want some of this?’ Daisy shoved a forkful of rice under Jaz’s nose.
‘Fuck off, Daze. I’m concentrating.’
Play to win! Play to win! As bumptious Tommy Tumbler came, lover-dancing, all the way from the House of Chances.
‘Hello, Tommy Tumbler!’ shouted Jaz at the screen. ‘Oh please won’t you let Cookie Luck deliver me a winner this week? Oh pretty, pretty please!’
Daisy Love kept her chanting to herself, as usual. ‘Why do we have to do the exact same thing every week?’ she asked. ‘You know we’re only going to lose.’
‘Will you leave off, girl! The game’s about to start.’
‘OK punters!’ cried Tommy Tumbler. ‘Clack those bones together. Here she comes, the Queen of All Fortune. Lady Cookie Luck!’
Cookie Luck! Good Lady Cookie Luck! Almost nine o’clock, Manchester. Once again, in a swirl of rain on a road called Claremont, in the rundown district called Moss Side; three men sitting in a parked car, keyed into the radio.
‘Lick my dotties, sweet Lady!’ DJ Dopejack cried.
‘I’m starving!’ cried Sweet Benny Fenton. ‘Can we get a curry after this?’
‘Shut the fuck up, I’m trying to win!’ cried Joe Crocus.
‘Dot shit!’ cried Benny. ‘I just got a Joker Bone come up! That’s the second time in two weeks.’
‘You’re OK then,’ replied Dopejack. ‘It’s gone already.’
‘Sorted,’ said Joe. ‘You never get a double-blank more than once a week, Benny. I told you that already, didn’t I?’
‘You think that makes it easy?’ Sweet Benny’s voice, fading into doubt, as a blurbfly bounced off the windscreen, buzzing out loud.
‘Play to win!’ echoed Dopejack. ‘Play to fucking win!’
‘I hope so,’ murmured Benny, losing himself.
‘I am just a fractal,’ cried Joe, ‘split for action and a million chances. Let the bones come down!’
There are dots and lines and squares and circles and cubes and spheres and fourth-dimensional hyperglobes and from these things the world and its players are made and there are stranger shapes yet scarcely imagined such as the fractal curves which exist between the dimensions for instance the coastline of Britain gets longer the closer you look at it forever hovering between a curve and a surface and the closer you look the more information it contains so that an infinitely branching pathway has an infinite potential for capturing knowledge and a game of fractal dominoes would have more permutations than the spots can show which tells us that meaning falls in the cracks and that everyday life is an infinite branching mazeway set in the multiverse where every choice leads to another life another game won another lost highway.
A young girl calling herself Little Miss Celia, amid a sodden crowd of cheap down-market gamblers, outside yet another all-night luxury store. Moved on by the cops since last week, their latest window had a measly nine and a quarter televisions for sale. All of them tuned into AnnoDomino, of course. Lady Luck, forever dancing.
It was Celia’s second personal bone, only. Thanks again to the generous girl who worked on Saturdays in the bookshop. Once again, enough to spare for a flutter. Allowing Celia, perched on Big Eddie’s shoulders, once again to call out to the dancing dots, ‘Just deliver me away, Cookie! Somewhere beautiful, please.’
As the blurbs flew in orbit around her head.
PLAY THE RULES
4a.
AnnoDomino will allow every player an equal chance at winning.
4b.
Every player will have an equal chance at winning, if they corr
ectly follow the rules of the game.
4c.
The game being sacrosanct, there shall be no favourites.
4d.
Mr Million’s identity will remain secret, in perpetuity.
The city of chances, domino dancing. Daisy Love, with her latest only bone tight in her fingers; Jazir Malik, with his five new spicy chances. Both of them watching in awe, as the dots on their bones were slowly settling down with synchronicity.
Game on. Cookie Luck’s body, falling and folding.
‘Come on, my beauty!’ shouted Jaz to the faraway dancer. ‘Make me a happy man.’
‘The lady really can’t hear you, Jaz,’ said Daisy.
‘You wanna bet? You know there’s some more-than-lucky bleeders out there, who just can’t stop off from winning. They are the chosen ones, and I wanna be one of them bleeders. Come on, my Lady Fortuna! Come tumbling towards me!’
‘Nobody’s chosen in the bones, Jaz. It’s all down to chance, remember.’
‘So that’s why you only choose a single bone?’
‘Five is no more lucky than one, Jaz, with such desperate odds. It’s the gambler’s fallacy. Surely you’ve learned that?’
‘For the likes of us, maybe. But wouldn’t it be nice to be more than lucky? You ready for a slice of the good garlic yet?’ Jaz was cutting some wickedness from his latest Friday-night special.
‘No thanks.’
Jaz Malik swallowed at least four slices. ‘Wow! That’s juicy! Really, Daze, you’ve gotta give in someday.’
‘I’ve got assignments.’
‘Bloody students!’
Nine o’clock chimes, and at last…
’Game on!’ chants Tommy Tumbler. ‘Play to win.’
‘Game on!’ chants a bleary Jaz.
And at a long last…
A four! A blank! A four and a blank. The stars of Cookie fall into the shape of a four-and-a-blank bone: one dot on each nipple, two more on her kidneys, nothing below the belt. Four pips of chaos, finally found on a field of sexy black. And all over the city, that exact moment of surrender, countless punters banged down their losing bones in frustration. And Daisy Love and Jaz Malik, both of them also losers. Nothing but mismatches.