Page 28 of A Midlife Gamble

And for the second time that morning, Helen and Caro’s eyes met in a glance as complicated and unique as a snowflake. Helen looked away. They had discussed Kay’s illness with any real depth only twice. The day Caro had turned up at her house, to break the news, and leaving the hospital on the day of her operation. Since then, with treatment underway, it had become harder to think about it. Life did what it was prone to do, it carried on relentlessly. Libby had been in the thick of re-taking her finals, so there had been an awful lot of grandmothering duties to undertake. Caro had been away much of the time. On those occasions that she had seen Kay, she’d looked well enough, reporting back that her scans were good. And so as the distance between the initial shock of hearing the news had expanded, so Kay’s cancer itself had receded. Kay was still Kay. Relentlessly wise, and alive. A few times, Helen had sat herself down and forced herself to concentrate upon what she had learned from her mother’s illness. Survival rates, secondary sites… But still it remained abstract. How do you understand an illness, until its trajectory is spelled out in the physical reality? She lifted her chin as she looked across at the strange and noisy landscape. She had, she realised now, been expecting to talk all this through with Caro. It felt like another blow, and tears of angry frustration welled. How could Caro have behaved the way she did? Friends this long-standing weren’t hanging from every tree. How could she have thrown away such a precious resource? And for what? A man?

‘Ladies?’

Startled, Helen turned.

Tony had lifted his arm, was funnelling them now, easy as water, past the front line of slot machines, and then the second and the third, until looking around it was clear to Helen that the landscape had transformed. The ceiling felt lower, the lights dimmer, all exits vanished. They had stepped through the wardrobe, slipped through the looking glass. She strained to look back at the way they had come, but all she could see now were people and machines, machines and people, through three hundred and sixty degrees… machines, people. She rose up onto her toes. All the pain in her feet and the heat from the sidewalk vanishing. The room was unspeakably noisy, but the air was so cool! And maybe it was the nostalgia of long-remembered childhood memories that set her excitement levels racing. She’d always loved seaside arcades, the delicious and slightly naughty refuge they offered on a wet seaside afternoon. Her mother mildly disapproving, but always ready to press a fifty pence piece into her hand. She’d continued the tradition with her own children, despite Lawrence, who’d never bothered to hide his contempt and who’d always tried to sabotage things with a fossil-hunt suggestion. But Jack and Libby always chose the arcade, and yes, the glow of a small victory had been nurtured as they’d left him to his wet and sandy hour. Once again, just as it had on the strip, the thrill of Vegas touched her. 'Sure beats the arcade on Newquay seafront!’ she said.

‘Chairs!’ Caro gasped.

Helen turned. Caro was right. Finally there were chairs… Everywhere! Great, huge, comfortable-looking chairs! With ashtrays, if she smoked, which she didn’t. Still she thought she might start. Just to kick off her sweaty sandals, lean back and light up!

Caro had already hobbled over and was just about to collapse into the nearest one when an elderly man in apricot shorts called out, ‘You might want to give that one a miss!’ He was pushing an equally elderly woman in a wheelchair, complete with oxygen bottle, as casually as if they were strolling down St Albans High Street.

Caro looked down at the chair.

‘It’s a little damp.’ The man nodded. ‘They’ll be along soon enough to sort it.’ And he tipped his baseball cap at Tony. ‘How you doing?’

Tony raised a hand in greeting.

‘Does he know you?’ Kay asked.

He shrugged. ‘I still get recognised. It comes with the terrain.’

Beside him, Marianne flushed with pleasure.

‘Did someone spill a drink?’ Caro had moved around to the side of the chair and was now leaning over it, a hand stretched out ready to test the seat.

‘I wouldn’t do that if I were you,’ Tony said. ‘Sometimes folk don’t wanna leave a machine, if you know what I mean.’

‘I don’t,’ Caro said archly. 'My feet are somewhat—'

‘They don’t always make it in time.'

‘Don’t make it…’ Halfway through her sentence, Caro’s words dried up. She stared first at Tony, then at the damp patch, and then slowly straightened up. ‘Ah. I see. I’ll umm… I’ll stand for now.’

So she did, and beside her Helen and Kay stood too. A curiously still island in the midst of this electronic jungle. Like children on the first day of school, Helen couldn’t help thinking.

‘So ladies,’ Tony said, with a huge indulgent smile. ‘What’s your bankroll?’

‘Bankroll?’ Helen asked.

‘How much are you playing with?’ And before anyone could answer, Tony stuck his hands in the pockets of his jeans so the thumbs stuck out like two fat worms, rocked back on his heels, swelling out Kurt Cobain’s head, and took a huge breath, as if he were playing Hamlet at the Hollywood Bowl, warming up for his 'to be, or not to be' moment. ‘Well,’ he started, ‘the rule of gambling is never to play with more than you can afford to lose.' Pausing for effect, he nodded seriously. 'So you have to ask yourselves a question.'

'We do?' Helen said flatly; she couldn't even feel her feet now.

'And what might that be?' Caro said, an unmistakable edge of irritation in her voice.

Tony turned his palms to the ceiling. 'How much can I afford to lose today?That's it. That's the question.'

Afford to lose? Helen turned to the others. She couldn’t afford to lose anything, which seemed utterly ridiculous, standing as she was in the midst of a thousand gambling machines.

Kay looked back at her, equally baffled and then Caro said, ‘You mentioned penny slots?’

Helen nodded. Penny slots, yes. Penny slots sounded good. Penny slots sounded very much like Newquay seafront. And if there was one thing Caro could be trusted with, it was fiscal responsibility.

Tony let his head fall to one side as he raised his palms in an expansive and ever so slightly condescending manner. ‘Absolutely!’

‘Perfect,' Caro said crisply. ‘Can you show us the way?’

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