Wake In Fright (5 page)

‘Yes, come on.’

They went back into the eating room and collected Grant’s steak.

‘I’ll have to be pushing off,’ said Crawford, after paternally seeing Grant to a seat at one of the benches.

‘All right, Jock, thanks for showing me around.’ Grant was glad to see the end of the policeman now.

They shook hands and Crawford said: ‘See you ’round,’ and went out into the night.

The steak, Grant found, justified none of the claims Crawford had made for it. It was stringy and grossly overcooked,
and Grant suspected that it would have tasted slightly ‘off’ if it had not tasted so overwhelmingly of burnt leather.

Nevertheless he felt much more clear-headed when he had eaten it, and the accompanying pile of soggy potato chips, and drunk the coffee which tasted, and looked like, milk which had been diluted with water, discoloured with some brown substance, and heated. The fare at the Two-up school was not, he decided, of the same standard as the entertainment, but probably was better than the average meal served in outback cafes.

He looked at his watch. It was eleven-thirty. His aircraft left for the east at eleven-thirty. He had twelve hours to fill in.

He made a pretence, for his own benefit, of considering what he would do now—go to bed, drink some more, go for a stroll. But he knew quite well that he intended to go back and watch the Game. He had been more interested in the spectacle than he cared to admit; moreover, an as yet bloodless phantom of intention was flitting about the darker recesses of his mind and he was pretending he could not see it.

In the playing room yet another man in the ring had built an imposing collection of notes about his feet. He lost the lot in a moment when the pennies fell with tails to the carpet.

Grant stayed against one of the walls, watching intently
the method of betting. His thoughts were running to the odds involved in heads or tails being thrown four times in succession, and he was very aware of the notes in his wallet.

Normally he seldom gambled, because opportunity seldom arose. But now he could feel in himself an emotion that was completely new to him—the strange passion that gamblers know.

‘It would not matter a great deal,’ he told himself, ‘if I lost the seventeen pounds or so I have in cash—and I might win.’

Deliberately he evoked the phantom, calling it into the light, recognised it as intention and gave it the authority of his will.

He took a five-pound note from his wallet.

The prospect of actually laying the bet produced a sense of diffidence, and he moved vaguely forward through the crowd with the note in his hand. Just in front of him, on the edge of the ring, a man had about a hundred pounds at his feet and was crying:‘Come on, another fifty wanted on tails. Anybody betting tails?’

Grant stood indecisively. He felt gauche among these confident gamblers and could not quite bring himself to lean forward and drop his five pounds on to the floor. Besides, he was not at all convinced of the infallibility of the system of distribution of winnings.

The note was snatched from his fingers.

‘On tails, mate?’ said a seedy-looking character who was standing directly behind the man calling for business.

Grant nodded because he could not think of anything else to do, and saw his five-pound note flutter to the floor.

Presently the controller called: ‘All set?’ and the coins were spun.

‘Tails!’ And Grant found himself pushed aside as players pressed forward to collect their winnings. He attempted to struggle forward himself, but could not summon the self-confidence required. Soon all was ready for the next spin, and Grant was crushed back against the wall, with no idea of the whereabouts of the man with whom he had laid his bet.

So much, he thought, for each man taking his due. He looked around angrily for someone from whom to claim his money, but with no real hope.Then he saw the seedy-looking character jumping up and down, trying to look over the heads of the crowd.

He was saying loudly: ‘Anybody seen a tall bloke with a coat on? Anybody seen a tall fair sort of bloke with a coat on?’

Grant waved at him energetically and he came weaving through the players.

‘There y’are, mate,’ he said. ‘Thought I’d lost ye.’ He handed Grant two five-pound notes and began worming his way back
to the ringside without waiting for an answer.

Grant looked ashamedly at the money and gestured remote thanks to the man who had rescued it. He was putting the money in his wallet when he experienced an entirely new emotion—the remorse of a gambler who has not put all his money on a successful wager.

He paused with the money halfway into his wallet. He had twenty-two pounds ten shillings.Twice that was fifty pounds. Twice fifty was a hundred. Twice a hundred…

Confident now, he thrust through the crowd and even managed to squeeze himself on to the bench at the ringside. He took all his money from his wallet and held it in his hand, waiting for the completion of the present spin.

He gave no thought to whether he should bet heads or tails. He was out to win money on pure chance, and he knew that chance was not governed by whim.

When the time came he dropped his twenty-two pounds ten to the floor and called out: ‘Twenty-two pounds ten on tails.’ He chose tails simply because the man next to him was calling for bets on heads.

Immediately someone dropped a bundle of notes on to Grant’s pile.

‘Twenty-two ten on heads,’ said a voice above him, adding conversationally: ‘There’s twenty-three there, mate.’ Only then
did Grant realise that the odd ten shillings was slightly out of place.

Again Grant’s mood changed. He felt quite withdrawn. His bet had been made, in a few moments he would have fifty pounds or nothing. He could not change his mind now. Nevertheless he kept repeating to himself: ‘It does not matter if you lose. It’s a chance you’re taking. It does not matter if you lose.’And by some instinct he could not analyse he kept his eyes tight shut with his head hanging low so that he might not be seen by the casual gambler whose money lay before him.

And his eyes were still shut when he heard the call of ‘Tails.’

I have fifty pounds, thought Grant, and turned to give his opponent his ten shillings change. But nobody behind him gave any indication of having had anything to do with the bet. A matter of ten shillings was of inconsiderable moment at the Game.

His money was still at his feet.

‘Leaving all that on tails, mate?’ said a voice above his head.

In one convolution of his mind he considered the matter, decided for it and said ‘Yes.’ In the next convolution of his mind he thought: Oh God, why didn’t I take some of it out at least?

But the wad of notes had dropped swiftly from above and he had one hundred pounds before him.

Now he didn’t give a damn what he looked like. His hands trembled grossly as he lit a cigarette and drew the smoke deep into his lungs with sucking breath.

He became terribly aware of the smoky room, the heat that gave the impression it could be shovelled away, the sweating tense faces of the gamblers, the insouciant greed of the controllers; and then the pennies were spinning, higher, higher, turning in a double arc, small brown discs of fortune: and down they plummeted.

‘My God!’ said Grant aloud. ‘It’s tails.’

He looked at his money, lying there all green and crumpled, and leaned forward to gather it up. And in the very act of leaning forward he experienced his third strange emotion that night—the mysticism of gamblers. He knew the pennies would fall tails again. He knew that as surely as he knew that he existed. All that was required was the will to act on his conviction and he summoned that very easily.

He sat upright again, leaving his money where it was and cried: ‘One hundred pounds on tails!’

Three different gamblers contributed to cover Grant’s money. He sat back on the bench and looked around while the other bets were made. He was not thinking; he was
possessed with foreknowledge, and while that strange devil spoke Grant would not even contemplate his own actions.

He almost felt doubt when the pennies described their arc and began to fall, but there was not time for doubt to crystallise before the controller called: ‘And it’s tails again!’

The reaction struck Grant hard in the stomach. For a moment he felt as though he would faint across his winnings. Then he leaned forward and began cramming the notes into his pockets.

He did not think of throwing a tip to the controllers, and they apparently had not noticed his win, for they demanded nothing. He pushed through the crowd, holding his hands on the money in his jacket pockets, almost staggered outside into the dining room, the rear yard, the lane among the shadows of the loiterers, even more ghostly now that his eyes were unaccustomed to the dark, and then he was in the street.

His whole body sang with the exultation of his soul. He had won almost two hundred pounds. His seventeen pounds ten had become two hundred pounds.

The words ‘two hundred pounds’ kept on being repeated in his mind. ‘Two hundred pounds.Two hundred pounds.Two
HUNDRED
pounds. Unbelievable.
TWO HUNDRED POUNDS!’

And he had his wages cheque intact in his pocket.

He had never had so much money in his life before, and
now he could feel it swelling his pockets, making his clothes bulge, rustling when he walked.

He had to get somewhere where he could count it, look at it.

He never remembered the time he spent going back to his hotel room except for the moment when he fumbled for his key, and that was only because he had to rummage among the notes that jammed his pockets.

In his room he emptied the money out on to the floor and carefully counted it, laying the notes out on the floor in order of denomination. Then he took out his pay cheque and laid it alongside them.

Two hundred pounds in notes and a cheque for one hundred and forty pounds.Three hundred and forty pounds and tomorrow he would be in Sydney.

He looked into the mirror and saw his face, young and still taut, sweat-streaked; and his eyes glittering with the stimulus of winning money; his straight hair rumpled where he had been running his fingers through it.

‘Grant,’ he said to his image, ‘you’re a clever lad.’

He flung himself on his back on the bed, and stared at the ceiling, tingling with the joy of it all.

For the first time in a long while he thought about Robyn, and laughed at himself for supposing that two hundred
pounds would make her any more accessible. Robyn of the long blonde hair, bound in plaits around her head. Robyn, confident and assured and remote. Robyn as he had last seen her a year ago, a week before he left for Tiboonda, standing at the gate in front of her home with the light behind her, making her hair shine.

Robyn, who had shown singularly little interest in John Grant. But, ah God! she was a lovely girl.

Could he not now, at this moment, put through a long-distance call to her, telling her he was coming home, that he was rich? But then Robyn was more used to money than he, and might not be so impressed at the idea of three hundred and forty pounds.

He laughed and leaped up and began to undress, and then stopped, stunned by the enormity of a thought.

If he had let his bet stand…and if tails had been thrown just once more…he would never have had to return to Tiboonda. He would have won four hundred pounds. Four hundred pounds and his wages cheque would have paid off the Education Department bond and left him enough to live on while he sought work in Sydney.

One twist of the coins. Five seconds of time and he would have been saved a whole year in Tiboonda. Would have been…could still be…

He sat down on the bed and looked at the money. It was wonderful, but what did it offer apart from a few glorious weeks in Sydney. He could have that anyway, with his wages. And if he lost the whole two hundred pounds he would be no worse off than if he had lost the original twenty-two pounds ten.

But if he won, tomorrow he would be in Sydney to stay.

He argued with himself for several minutes, pointing out in exact terms why the risk was worth taking, and, in due course, he convinced himself.

He looked at his face in the mirror. The glitter had gone from his eyes, but the tautness of his skin had increased. Slowly he stood up, put his jacket on, packed the money into neat bundles and slipped them into his pocket, put the cheque back in his wallet, looked once more in the mirror and grinned briefly at his preoccupied face, and went back to the Two-up school.

They let him in at the gate without query and he went straight through into the betting room. The crowd did not seem to have changed; if anything the room was hotter than before and the smoke heavier.

Grant felt more or less calm. He was no longer exhilarated by the idea of gambling. He knew that he had an even chance of getting what he wanted, and he was going to take that chance.

He spent about five minutes working his way back to the ringside, and, as he pushed gently forward, he determined that he would bet on heads this time.

A space on the bench was vacated by a man who seemed to have won a fortune, and Grant sat down.

The controller walked over to the player next to Grant and offered him the kip. It was the custom in the Bundan-yabba Game that the pennies should be spun in order of place by betters on the ringside bench.

The player shook his head, and the controller offered the kip to Grant.

For the rest of his life he was to remember the impulse that moved him to take it and follow the controller to the centre of the ring.

Normally he would have been embarrassed at being the centre of activity, but he knew the attention of everyone in the room was on the pennies and not on the spinner.

‘How much?’ said the controller.

Grant had no intention of prolonging his ordeal—a fifty-fifty chance was a fifty-fifty chance, and held as validly for one toss as for several.

‘Two hundred,’ he said, and drew the money from his pockets.

The controller counted it perfunctorily.

‘Two hundred,’ he called, and notes came in from around the ring.