Loser Takes All (7 page)

‘Retire?'

‘You mustn't be afraid of retirement, darling. We shall see so much more of each other, and we could fit up a little roulette wheel in your study. It will be so nice when you don't have to cross the road in all weathers.'

That night I brought my winnings up to fifteen million francs before dinner, and I felt it called for a celebration. I
had
been neglecting Cary a little – I realized that, so I thought we would have a good dinner and go to the ballet instead of my returning to the tables. I told her that and she seemed pleased. ‘Tired businessman relaxes,' she said.

‘As a matter of fact I am a little tired.' Those who have not played roulette seriously little know how fatiguing it can be. If I had worked less hard during the afternoon I wouldn't have lost my temper with the waiter in the bar. I had ordered two very dry Martinis and he brought them to us quite drowned in Vermouth – I could tell at once from the colour without tasting. To make matters worse he tried to explain away the colour by saying he had used Booth's gin. ‘But you know perfectly well that I only take Gordon's,' I said, and sent them back. He brought me two more and he had put lemon peel in them. I said, ‘For God's sake how long does one have to be a customer in this bar before you begin to learn one's taste?'

‘I'm sorry, sir. I only came yesterday.'

I could see Cary's mouth tighten. I was in the wrong, of course, but I had spent a very long day at the Casino, and she might have realized that I am not the kind of man who is usually crotchety with servants. She said, ‘Who would think that a week ago we didn't even dare to speak to a waiter in case he gave us a bill?'

When we went in to dinner there was a little trouble about our table on the terrace: we were earlier than usual, but as I said to Cary we had been good customers and they could have taken some small trouble to please. However, this time I was careful not to let my irritation show more than very slightly – I was determined that this dinner should be one to remember.

Cary as a rule likes to have her mind made up for her, so I took the menu and began to order. ‘Caviare,' I said.

‘For one,' Cary said.

‘What will you have? Smoked salmon?'

‘You order yours,' Cary said.

I ordered ‘
bresse à l'estragon à la broche
', a little Roquefort, and some wild strawberries. This, I thought, was a moment too for the
Gruaud Larose
'34 (they would have learned their lesson about the temperature). I leant back feeling pleased and contented: my dispute with the waiter was quite forgotten, and I knew that I had behaved politely and with moderation when I found that our table was occupied.

‘And Madame?' the waiter asked.

‘A roll and butter and a cup of coffee,' Cary said.

‘But Madame perhaps would like . . .' She gave him her sweetest smile as though to show me what I had missed. She said, ‘Just a roll and butter please. I'm not hungry. To keep Monsieur company.'

I said angrily, ‘In
that
case I'll cancel . . .' but the waiter had already gone. I said, ‘How dare you?'

‘What's the matter, darling?'

‘You know very well what's the matter. You let me order . . .'

‘But truly I'm not hungry, darling. I just wanted to be sentimental, that's all. A roll and butter reminds me of the days when we weren't rich. Don't you remember that little café at the foot of the steps?'

‘You are laughing at me.'

‘But
no
, darling. Don't you like thinking of those days at all?'

‘Those days, those days – why don't you talk about last week and how you were afraid to send anything to the laundry and we couldn't afford the English papers and you couldn't read the French ones and . . .'

‘Don't you remember how reckless you were when you gave five francs to a beggar? Oh, that reminds me . . .'

‘What of?'

‘I never meet the hungry young man now.'

‘I don't suppose he goes sunbathing.'

My caviare came and my vodka. The waiter said, ‘Would Madame like her coffee now?'

‘No. No, I think I'll toy with it while Monsieur has his – his . . .'

‘
Bresse à l'estragon
, Madame.'

I've never enjoyed caviare less. She watched every helping I took, her chin in her hand, leaning forward in what I suppose she meant to be a devoted and wifely way. The toast crackled in the silence, but I was determined not to be beaten. I ate the next course grimly to an end and pretended not to notice how she spaced out her roll – she couldn't have been enjoying her meal much either. She said to the waiter, ‘I'll have another cup of coffee to keep my husband company with his strawberries. Wouldn't you like a half bottle of champagne, darling?'

‘No. If I drink any more I might lose my self-control . . .'

‘Darling, what have I said? Don't you like me to remember the days when we were poor and happy? After all, if I had married you now it might have been for your money. You know you were terribly nice when you gave me five hundred francs to gamble with. You watched the wheel so seriously.'

‘Aren't I serious now?'

‘You don't watch the wheel any longer. You watch your paper and your figures. Darling, we are on
holiday
.'

‘We would have been if Dreuther had come.'

‘We can afford to go by ourselves now. Let's take a plane tomorrow – anywhere.'

‘Not tomorrow. You see, according to my calculations the cycle of loss comes up tomorrow. Of course I'll only use 1,000-franc tokens, so as to reduce the incident.'

‘Then the day after . . .'

‘That's when I have to win back on double stakes. If you've finished your coffee it's time for the ballet.'

‘I've got a headache. I don't want to go.'

‘Of course you've got a headache eating nothing but rolls.'

‘I ate nothing but rolls for three days and I never had a headache.' She got up from the table and said slowly, ‘But in those days I was in love.' I refused to quarrel and I went to the ballet alone.

I can't remember which ballet it was – I don't know that I could have remembered even the same night. My mind was occupied. I had to lose next day if I were to win the day after, otherwise my system was at fault. My whole stupendous run would prove to have been luck only – the kind of luck that presumably by the laws of chance turns up in so many centuries, just as those long-lived laborious monkeys who are set at typewriters eventually in the course of centuries produce the works of Shakespeare. The ballerina to me was hardly a woman so much as a ball spinning on the wheel: when she finished her final movement and came before the curtain alone it was as though she had come to rest triumphantly at zero and all the counters around her were shovelled away into the back – the two thousand francs from the cheap seats with the square tokens from the stalls, all jumbled together. I took a turn on the terrace to clear my head: this was where we had stood the first night watching together for the
Seagull.
I wished Cary had been with me and I nearly returned straight away to the hotel to give her all she asked. She was right: system or chance, who cared? We could catch a plane, extend our holiday: I had enough now to buy a partnership in some safe modest business without walls of glass and modern sculpture and a Gom on the eighth floor, and yet – it was like leaving a woman one loved untouched, untasted, to go away and never know the truth of how the ball had come to rest in that particular order – the poetry of absolute chance or the determination of a closed system? I would be grateful for the poetry, but what pride I should feel if I proved the determinism.

The regiment was all assembled: strolling by the tables I felt like a commanding officer inspecting his unit. I would have liked to reprove the old lady for wearing the artificial daisies askew on her hat and to speak sharply to Mr Bowles for a lack of polish on his ear-appliance. A touch on my elbow and I handed out my 200 token to the lady who cadged. ‘Move more smartly to it,' I wanted to say to her, ‘the arm should be extended at full length and not bent at the elbow, and it's time you did something about your hair.' They watched me pass with expressions of nervous regret, waiting for me to choose my table, and when I halted somebody rose and offered me a seat. But I had not come to win – I had come symbolically to make my first loss and go. So courteously I declined the seat, laid out a pattern of tokens and with a sense of triumph saw them shovelled away. Then I went back to the hotel.

Cary wasn't there, and I was disappointed. I wanted to explain to her the importance of that symbolic loss, and instead I could only undress and climb between the humdrum sheets. I slept fitfully. I had grown used to Cary's company, and I put on the light at one to see the time, and I was still alone. At half past two Cary woke me as she felt her way to bed in the dark.

‘Where've you been?' I asked.

‘Walking,' she said.

‘All by yourself?'

‘No.' The space between the beds filled with her hostility, but I knew better than to strike the first blow – she was waiting for that advantage. I pretended to roll over and settle for sleep. After a long time she said, ‘We walked down to the Sea Club.'

‘It's closed.'

‘We found a way in – it was very big and eerie in the dark with all the chairs stacked.'

‘Quite an adventure. What did you do for light?'

‘Oh, there was bright moonlight. Philippe told me all about his life.'

‘I hope you unstacked a chair.'

‘We sat on the floor.'

‘If it was a madly interesting life tell it me. Otherwise it's late and I have to be . . .'

‘“Up early for the Casino.” I don't suppose you'd find it an interesting life. It was so simple, idyllic. And he told it with such intensity. He went to school at a
lycée
.'

‘Most people do in France.'

‘His parents died and he lived with his grandmother.'

‘What about his grandfather?'

‘He was dead too.'

‘Senile mortality is very high in France.'

‘He did military service for two years.'

I said, ‘It certainly seems a life of striking originality.'

‘You can sneer and sneer,' she said.

‘But, dear, I've said nothing.'

‘Of course you wouldn't be interested. You are never interested in anybody different from yourself, and he's young and very poor. He feeds on coffee and rolls.'

‘Poor fellow,' I said with genuine sympathy.

‘You are so uninterested you don't even ask his name.'

‘You said it was Philippe.'

‘Philippe who?' she asked triumphantly.

‘Dupont,' I said.

‘It isn't. It's Chantier.'

‘Ah well, I mixed him up with Dupont.'

‘Who's Dupont?'

‘Perhaps they look alike.'

‘I said who's Dupont.'

‘I've no idea,' I said. ‘But it's awfully late.'

‘You're unbearable.' She slapped her pillow as though it were my face. There was a pause of several minutes and then she said bitterly, ‘You haven't even asked whether I slept with him.'

‘I'm sorry. Did you?'

‘No. But he asked me to spend the night with him.'

‘On the stacked chairs?'

‘I'm having dinner with him tomorrow night.'

She was beginning to get me in the mood she wanted. I could stop myself no longer. I said, ‘Who the hell is this Philippe Chantier?'

‘The hungry young man, of course.'

‘Are you going to dine on coffee and rolls?'

‘I'm paying for the dinner. He's very proud, but I insisted. He's taking me somewhere very cheap and quiet and simple – a sort of students' place.'

‘That's lucky,' I said, ‘because I'm dining out too. Someone I met tonight at the Casino.'

‘Who?'

‘A Madame Dupont.'

‘There's no such name.'

‘I couldn't tell you the right one. I'm careful of a woman's honour.'

‘Who is she?'

‘She was winning a lot tonight at baccarat and we got into conversation. Her husband died recently, she was very fond of him, and she's sort of drowning her sorrows. I expect she'll soon find comfort, because she's young and beautiful and intelligent and rich.'

‘Where are you having dinner?'

‘Well, I don't want to bring her here – there might be talk. And she's too well known at the
Salle Privée
. She suggested driving to Cannes where nobody would know us.'

‘Well, don't bother to come back early. I shall be late.'

‘Exactly what I was going to say to you, dear.'

It was that sort of night. As I lay awake – and was aware of her wakefulness a few feet away – I thought it's the Gom's doing, he's even ruining our marriage now. I said, ‘Dear, if you'll give up your dinner, I'll give up mine.'

She said, ‘I don't even believe in yours. You invented it.'

‘I swear to you – word of honour – that I'm giving a woman dinner tomorrow night.'

She said, ‘I can't let Philippe down.' I thought gloomily: now I've got to do it, and where the hell can I find a woman?

2

W
E
were very polite to each other at breakfast and at lunch. Cary even came into the Casino with me in the early evening, but I think her sole motive was to spot my woman. As it happened a young woman of great beauty was sitting at one of the tables, and Cary obviously drew the incorrect conclusion. She tried to see whether we exchanged glances and at last she could restrain her curiosity no longer. She said to me, ‘Aren't you going to speak to her?'