Page 56 of A Midlife Gamble

‘So is my lucky mascot ready to up the odds a little?’

‘I think so.’

‘Just remember, keep an eye on those high cards.’

‘And never split on an even twenty,’ she finished.

Enteringthe games room wasdéja vu. Everything looked exactly as it had when they’d left. With no natural light, there were no clues as to how the day had progressed. Or even if it was still day. No deepening shadows, or newly exposed sunlit corners. No clocks. The carpet retained its thick cushion, the TV screens played the same advertisements. Waitresses walked past in low-cut bejewelled corsets, and white-shirted managers stood expressionless and interchangeable. In fact, as Kay paused at the entrance, she could have sworn that over by the craps table, even the players remained the same. A middle-aged man in a washed-out green hoodie and raptor’s cap, his companion, a slim Chinese man in a suit.

‘Weren’t they here earlier?’ she whispered as she leaned in to Tony.

Tony squinted. ‘Possibly.’

Possibly? He didn’t even sound surprised. He led her further back into the room, further than they’d been before. Here, the tables were more spaced out and the players fewer. Here, she noticed, there seemed to be more staff.

Tony turned to her.

‘Here?’ she whispered. Her heart started pounding. She looked from one end of the table to the other. This was a hundred-dollar minimum bet game.

‘You’ve gotta be in it, to win it,’ Tony said, his smile easy.

‘But I only have five hundred,’ she whispered.

‘We’ll play two hands,’ he whispered back. ‘If you lose, we’re outta here.’

‘Promise?’

‘Promise.’

‘Ok… ok.’ Her heart was racing now and the back of her neck felt cold. When she looked down at her hand, resting over the clasp of her handbag, she could see how it trembled. Tony, she knew, had won a considerable amount earlier and the nonchalance with which he’d pocketed his winnings and hadn’t even mentioned it had Kay thinking how ordinary this was for him. His wealth had him breathing different air. Whatever he won, or lost, was inconsequential. The thought made her feel slightly nauseous. She drew a deep breath in, using the pause to attempt to measure just how out of depth she was. Kay the maths teacher did not belong here, no matter how quick her mind. Kay the mother… what on earth wasshedoing here? Overweight Kay. Exhausted Kay. Conscientious Kay. Law abiding, responsible, Kay. There wasn’t, in any of her lived experiences, a single scrap that she could call upon now to help. Except… she looked across the room, aware that something was missing. Wasn’t there another Kay, who might be able to shore her up? The Kay who had sat and watched the desert and finally understood the scope and shape of a human life, how tiny and small its allotted place, within the great jigsaw of existence? The Kay, who might not even be here, this time next year. Whose every time from now on in, could well be the last time. What did it matter? Her heart rate slowed, leaving her abnormally calm; she pulled out a chair, and noticed that the man at the seat alongside had odd socks on. Odd socks? She could have laughed! She hadn’t placed a bet or lost a dollar, she was still five hundred dollars richer than she had been this morning and she was a fifty-year-old woman with terminal cancer, so what in the world was she scared of? Reaching into her handbag, she pulled out every chip she had. ‘I’m ready,’ she said.

The first handproduced a safe eighteen high, with the dealer busting out at twenty-three. Now she was six hundred dollars richer. The second hand she lost, the third and fourth she won. On the next hand she was dealt two tens. She split the play and won. Now she was nine hundred dollars richer. Within another fifteen minutes, she was fifteen hundred richer. Fifteen hundred dollars!

On the next hand she was once again dealt a lucky pair.

Tony laughed. ‘Lady Luck! We have Lady Luck here!’ He turned and called to anyone within earshot.

Lady Luck.Who would ever have called her that? The dealer dealt himself a six. Kay stared at it. She knew the odds. She’d been at the table a while now and seen very few high cards come out, which meant they were still in the pack, which meant the odds were in her favour that the dealer would deal himself high and go bust. Blood pounding in her ears, she split her hand and pushed one one-hundred-dollar chip onto one of her nines. And then she did the same with the other. Along with her opening bet, she was now in for four hundred dollars. It felt unreal. The money, the game, the room. Glancing up, she saw in the long wall mirror across the room a small woman with shiny blonde hair and a sequinned jacket and although at one level, Kay understood that, strip the jacket away, pull the wig off and she would be who she had always been, at many other levels, all the closer-to-the-surface levels, it was very easy to pretend that she was indeed someone else altogether. Look at her! This glamorous bright being, so at ease at the high-roller table, so alive!

The dealer went bust at twenty-eight.

Kay froze.

Tony twisted on his heels and punched the air, his eyes breathing adrenaline.

Four hundred dollars! She had just won four hundred dollars! Added to the chips she had on the table, she was now very nearly two thousand dollars richer!

‘A drink, to celebrate!’ Tony waved at a waitress. ‘Champagne?’ But he didn’t wait for an answer, ordering enough champagne for everyone at the table. Including the man with the odd socks.

Three hands later, and playing more cautiously, she had only lost two hundred back. And as if she were a magnet, the table was now surrounded by spectators.

‘Winners attract, Kay,’ Tony winked.

A winner? Kay looked down at her cards. When had she ever been a winner? In looks, in life, in love? When had she ever won?

And perhaps it was the champagne, or Tony growing louder and more ebullient, perhaps it was the knot of people pressing in from all sides, swaying her this way and swaying her that way. Or perhaps it was simply that word: winner. What did it matter where the feeling came from, when the result was the same. She felt like a winner so she began to behave like a winner. Doubling her starting wager, playing two hands at once, doubling down on her opening bet, handling two hundred dollars as carelessly as if it were two pence. She was on a roll and there was nothing wrong with that because she had a strategy. She had been watching the high value cards and the less she saw, the more she bet. It was ratios and probabilities and she was good at it. She was a winner.

Several hands later, champagne glasses emptied and refilled more than once, the table surrounded, the dealer nodded at Kay’s chips. ‘Want to colour up, honey?’

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