Loser Takes Al

“We haven’t dried up yet, and we’ve been doing nothing else but talk.”

“It would be so terrible,” she said, “if we became a couple. You know what I mean. You with your paper. Me with my knitting.”

“You don’t know how to knit.”

“Well, playing patience then. Or listening to the radio. Or watching television. We’ll never have a television, will we?”

“Never.”

The rockets were dying down: there was a long pause: I looked away from the lights in the harbour. She was squatted on the floor of the balcony, her head against the side, and she was fast asleep. When I leant over I could touch her hair. She woke at once.

“Oh, how silly. I was dozing.”

“It’s bed-time.”

“Oh. I’m not a bit tired really.”

“You said you were.”

“It’s the fresh air. It’s so nice in the fresh air.”

“Then come on my balcony.”

“Yes, I could, couldn’t I?” she said dubiously.

“We don’t need both balconies.”

“No.”

“Come round.”

“I’ll climb over.”

“No. Don’t You might…”

“Don’t argue,” she said, “I’m here.”

They must have thought us crazy when they came to do the rooms—three beds for two people and not one of them had been slept in.

SEVEN

After breakfast we took a taxi to the Mairie—I wanted to be quite certain Miss Bullen had not slipped up, but everything was fixed; the marriage was to be at four sharp. They asked us not to be late as there was another wedding at 4.30.

“Like to go to the Casino?” I asked Cary. “We could spend, say, 1,000 francs now that everything’s arranged.”

“Let’s take a look at the port first and see if he’s come.” We walked down the steps which reminded me of Montmartre except that everything was so creamy and clean and glittering and new, instead of grey and old and historic. Everywhere you were reminded of the Casino—the bookshops sold systems in envelopes, “2,500 francs a week guaranteed”, the toyshops sold small roulette boards, the tobacconists sold ashtrays in the form of a wheel, and even in the women’s shops there were scarves patterned with figures and manqué and pair and impair and rouge and noir.

There were a dozen yachts in the harbour, and three carried British flags, but not one of them was Dreuther’s Seagull. “Wouldn’t it be terrible if he’d forgotten?” Cary said.

“Miss Bullen would never let him forget. I expect he’s unloading passengers at Nice. Anyway last night you wanted him to be late.”

“Yes, but this morning it feels scary. Perhaps we oughtn’t to play in the Casino—just in case.”

“We’ll compromise,” I said. “Three hundred francs. We can’t leave Monaco without playing once.”

We hung around the cuisine for quite a while before we played. This was the serious time of day—there were no tourists and the Salle Privée was closed and only the veterans sat there. You had a feeling with all of them that their lunch depended on victory. It was long, hard, dull employment for them—a cup of coffee and then to work till lunch-time—if their system was successful and they could afford the lunch. Once Cary laughed—I forget what at, and an old man and an old woman raised their heads from opposite sides of the table and stonily stared. They were offended by our frivolity: this was no game to them. Even if the system worked, what a toil went into earning the 2,500 francs a week. With their pads and their charts they left nothing to chance, and yet over and over again chance nipped in and shovelled away their tokens.

“Darling, let’s bet.” She put all her three hundred francs on the number of her age, and crossed her fingers for luck. I was more cautious: I put one carré on the same figure, and backed noir and impair with my other two. We both lost on her age, but I won on my others.

“Have you won a fortune, darling? How terribly clever.”

“I’ve won two hundred and lost one hundred.”

“Well, buy a cup of coffee. They always say you ought to leave when you win.”

“We haven’t really won. We are down four bob.”

“You’ve won.”

Over the coffee I said, “Do you know, I think I’ll buy a system just for fun? I’d like to see just how they persuade themselves…”

“If anybody could think up a system, it should be you.”

“I can see the possibility if there were no limit to the stakes, but then you’d have to be a millionaire.”

“Darling, you won’t really think one up, will you? It’s fun pretending to be rich for two days, but it wouldn’t be fun if it were true. Look at the guests in the hotel, they are rich. Those women with lifted faces and dyed hair and awful little dogs.” She said again with one of her flashes of disquieting wisdom, “You seem to get afraid of being old when you’re rich.”

“There may be worse fears when you are poor.”

“They are ones we are used to. Darling, let’s go and look at the harbour again. It’s nearly lunch-time. Perhaps Mr Dreuther’s in sight. This place—I don’t like it terribly.”