You can send them on then or else I’ll pick them up.
Whatever you like.
Okay, said Tammas and he turned and left the office, pausing to calclass="underline" I’ll get them the morrow morning.
Collecting his jerkin from the locker-area he raced on to the exit and right out and up the road to the betting shop. The boardman was marking up the results of the race his third runner was in, its name being marked up, into the first position, 9 to 1. His third runner had won at 9 to 1. Nine to one. Tammas closed his eyelids. 20’s 16’s and 9’s; 50 to 20 was 10 plus the 50 is 10.50 at 16’s; 10.50 at 16’s. He walked to the counter and got a pencil and a betting slip and went to one of the wall ledges to check the figures. As far as he reckoned he had £178 alone for the treble, £178 going on to his fourth and final runner, £178. That was a lot of money, it was fine, good money, plus the doubles, even if it lost, the fourth runner. Tammas nodded. It was good money — plus the three doubles, the 20’s and 16’s and the other two. Win lose or draw he had £178 plus three doubles — about another thirty or forty quid. Two hundred quid minimum. He opened the cigarette packet, put one in his mouth and looked for his matches, he did not have them, he must have left them on the oil drum or someplace. He walked to the counter and asked the woman cashier for a loan of her lighter. She pushed it beneath the grille to him. A sweetish taste in his mouth. He examined the betting slip once again and dragged on the cigarette. The taste had been there all day, to do with the heat probably, and the copper bars. The fourth runner was forecast favourite and favourites always had a favourite’s chance, the most fancied horse in the race, the best fancied horse in the race, the horse with the best chance of winning — the horse that always let you down. It did not always let you down. Sometimes it won. Just not often.
He walked across to one of the walls where the formpages were tacked up but he stopped. He knew the betting forecast on the race, the favourite being reckoned an even money chance. There was nothing else he needed to know. Not now. He had backed it and that was that, the money was running on and there was nothing he could do about it, either the horse would win or it would lose. There was not anything in between.
A hundred and seventy going on to it, it was good dough. And win lose or draw there was still a return. He would receive cash in exchange for the slip of paper; and that is what it is about.
A show of betting was coming through the extel speaker. The fourth runner in the accumulator was favourite as forecast. They were making it a 13/8 chance. To a hundred and seventy eight was 356 plus 3/8ths say about sixty quid. No — 5/8ths; 356 plus 5/8ths, about another 100, say about another hundred quid, about four hundred and fifty all in — plus all the doubles — and the trebles, the trebles alone, amounting to a fortune. A fortune. No point in even reckoning such a sum, not until it had won — either, or lost. Yet it had to be close to a grand, the thousand — it had to be close to a thousand, the thousand quid, it had to be.
He left the bookie’s and crossed the road and stared into the window of a shop. It was glasses, a display of glasses, a display of glasses, it was an optician’s shop, all fancy types of spectacles. The favourite was on its own. There was no question about that. It was a race for novice chasers over 2½ miles. Some people would call it a bad race to bet in but sometimes it could be a good race to bet in. And the favourite was favourite because it was the best horse in the field, because of its good form over hurdles; this was only its second race over the bigger obstacles. That sweetish taste in the mouth when he inhaled on the cigarette. It would have to do with the copper. The copper and the smoking together.
A loud voice from across the road. Two guys laughing about something at the entrance to the betting shop.
He nipped the cigarette and walked back over.
The favourite was now in to 5/4 which was good or bad, good or bad, depending. Yet it did not matter. None of any of that really mattered. And if the horse stayed on its feet it was a certainty. That was the fact. The only gamble: whether it would jump the fences. Tammas reckoned the horse would have been about 4 to 1 on if the race had been over hurdles. Just before the off the last show of betting had it in to even money.
It fell three fences from home. It seemed to be in a good challenging position at the time, before it toppled, before it fell.
•••
He stepped back a couple of yards, squinted up at the high windows. Lights were on inside. A lollipop-woman was watching him. She frowned at him. The bank doesnt open till half nine, she said.
Aw. He nodded.
There was a grocer’s along the road. He bought an orange and a bar of chocolate, peeled the orange skin as he returned, dumping it into a wastebin at the corner where the bank was. The doors had opened already and two people were in in front of him but when it was his turn he pushed the wad of notes under the grille and said to the clerk: I want to open an account for a hundred and twenty pounds.
Is it current or deposit?
Eh deposit.
Deposit. Fine. The clerk began counting out the money.
He went to the broo afterwards and reregistered; and then to the pawn where he redeemed all the stuff he had outstanding. Back in the house he laid the things on the bed and placed the bankbook upright against the alarm clock, the new UB40 balancing against it. He had paid Margaret rent money in advance and now, from the corner of the bottom cupboard drawer, he brought out a bundle of notes and separated them into their denominations. There was more than £50. Unfastening his wristwatch he laid it on the money, and went into the bathroom, and began filling the bath from the hot water tap.
Around dinner time he walked into town and watched snooker for about an hour, then he went to the pictures. He stayed out afterwards, eating in a Chinese restaurant and sipping two pints of beer in a lounge in the city centre. He finished up in the Royal casino but only gambled £5 on the tables. Next morning he remained in bed until late, spent the afternoon in a different cinema; he ate in a chip shop in the evening and again went to a pub and on to the Royal, this time without gambling at all. It was after 2 a.m. when he got home and there was a light on in Margaret and Robert’s bedroom. He clicked shut the outside door and stayed on the spot for several seconds. He walked very quietly to his room.
The following day, at around 1 pm, he was standing spectating in the snooker hall. He had been there nearly an hour and it was becoming extremely busy. When he was returning from the lavatory one of the elderly attendants was just hanging the full-up notice on the back of the swing doors. He walked to the top table where a tournament was in progress and found a spare place to lean against a pillar. He took out his cigarettes, put one into his mouth; then he took it back out and turned and headed towards the exit, nodding to the old guy on the door. Up the stairs he paused to glance at his wristwatch but continued on, past the pub where he occasionally went for a pie and a pint, down across Argyle Street, in the direction of the bus terminal.
•••
Vi was not in. She would be out at her work. She worked during the day. There had only been a very slight chance that she would have been in. He flapped the letterbox and rang the doorbell again. Nothing. And it was black inside. Vi always closed the kitchen door and the lavatory door so that nobody could see anything by looking through the letterbox.
Tammas was smoking. He took one more drag on the cigarette and then nipped it and stuck the dowp back in the packet, and stepped to the staircase but turned and crossed the landing and chapped Cathy’s door.