Page 30 of A Midlife Gamble

‘I just need…I just…’ Caro’s lips continued to move as she frowned. ‘I just need one more comb…’ Again, she banged down on the start button.

‘How about we leave you on this and we find another one?’ Kay said, standing up.

Caro didn’t answer.

‘Send a text when you’re done and we’ll come back?’

‘I’m not sure we’ll find it,’ Helen muttered. She too stood up.

‘I’ll find you,’ Caro answered, wholly distracted by a new roll of cellos and combs.

'Right then.' Kay looked to Helen. 'Shall we?'

'We shall,' Helen sighed and linking arms, they began a slow meander away.

‘I never thought I’d see the day Caro got sucked into a slot machine,’ Kay said, laughing softly.

Helen nodded. It was funny. Caro, so organised and sensible, fixated on what was nothing more than the random roll of a dice. A penny gamble.

‘Where on earth did we leave Marianne and Tony?’

‘Oh.' Helen stopped. 'I don’t know,’ she said. And she didn't. There wasn’t a single identifying landmark with which to guide themselves. ‘Shall we just walk?’

So they did. Past rows and rows of slots, the wash of fluorescent light, ghastly blue on players’ faces, as if a hundred fridges had been opened and a hundred faces sat, staring in. Past people weaving scooters and wheelchairs, people clutching oxygen machines, holding canes, folded over walkers. For Helen, Newquay arcade had been as navigable as a duck pond compared to this, the fifty pence piece in her hand more than capable of satisfying her childish dreams. But this? She felt uprooted, as if she walked in chaos. All the talk of max credits and bonus spins left her cold. Caro had grasped it. And Kay. They’d worked out Titanic in a few minutes, while she’d watched, as lost as any third-class passenger in the bowels of that doomed ship. It was beyond her. As far away conceptually from the seaside arcade of her childhood as it was geographically.

Trundling on they turned another corner, walked straight into a pot plant and were – or Helen was – wholly amazed to see Tony and Marianne almost exactly where they had left them. Had they walked a full circle? She had zero idea.Zero.

‘Having fun?’ Tony asked. He had bent to collect a handful of winnings from the slot he was playing.

‘Caro is,' Kay said. 'She's found a Titanic slot.'

'Titanic!' Marianne's eyes lit up. ‘I loved this film! Apart from the ending. The ending was bad. She should have let him get on that door with her. There was plenty of room.'

Tony laughed. 'Artistic licence, my love. Although, I would always have made room for you.'

'You’re just in a good mood because you won!' Nudging his shoulder, Marianne beamed. ‘One hundred and twenty dollars.'

Helen's eyes widened. 'You just won that?'

‘Told you,’ Tony said, looking right at her. ‘Some of them give out a lot more than others.’

‘Mmm.’ Helen smiled. She wasn’t warming to this man at all. Neither the way he was winking at her, nor the way his pot belly distorted Kurt’s head. ‘It’s all a bit much for me,’ she said lightly. ‘Max bets and all that. I never was very good at maths.’

‘Me neither,’ Marianne said as she slipped down from the chair. She was, Helen noticed, so short, it was a drop to the ground.

‘Oh, it’s simple enough,’ Tony started. ‘You want to be playing maximum credits to get the highest odds of winning and—’

Helen raised her hand.Please stop,she wanted to say.Please. Just. Stop.First of all, it really was hopeless. Like all those awful Sally had five apples and Billy had three, problems she thought she’d left decades ago… Secondly, she really was having trouble liking him.

‘Maybe…’ Tony shrugged. ‘You should try one of those newer machines. They’re proving pretty popular and they seem darn simple to me. There’s one over there. No bets. It’s just a claw, to grab a prize.’

‘A claw?’

‘Like the pub machines back home,’ Kay said. ‘You can do that, Helen.’

She could. How many times had she taken control from a furious Libby, or a miserable Jack, as they’d tried repeatedly and failed to win some hideous, highly flammable bright green ball of fluff. And her win ratio was surprisingly high. The best in the family. Which wasn’t saying so much considering that Lawrence never tried and the kids had been useless.

‘Where is it?’ she asked now. Claws she could do.

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