Bruno Crane
The Friend
Everything is fine and dandy. All of my problems have vanished with a lucky hand.
I have just won five thousand-odd pounds at the vingt-et-un table – yes me, the dunce, the dolt, the idiot!
– and the Casino of St Celeste is the most beautiful place I have ever been.
The colourful spin of the roulette wheels, the bright stacks of chips, the gold fixtures gleaming.
Look at me … five thousand pounds and I’m a poet!
I remember as a boy pressing my face against the Christmas windows of Fortnum & Mason and everything inside gleaming festively and wishing I could fly through the pane and alight in that glorious Neverland. I am there now. I have made it.
I’m not usually a gambler. I have always known I wasn’t born with any luck. But it was worth a try tonight. A last-chance attempt at freeing myself from this place. And I’ve pulled it off!
Now I can tell him I won’t do it. That he can’t make me. That he no longer has any hold upon me and if he wants it then he can go whistle. The thought … like feeling the weight of someone’s boot lifting off my neck.
The people here are beautiful too, the gathering of faces about the table like a heavenly host. The good looks of the prematurely grey-haired fellow beside me don’t annoy me like they normally would.
The ruby and diamond necklace of the woman sitting opposite me seems like a dazzling smile.
I am surrounded by a warm golden light, as though nothing I can do can possibly turn bad.
I feel godlike. I can walk away from this place and never look back.
I can tell Narracott that I don’t want it, don’t need it.
I never have to return to the darkness, the hidden place, the blood and horror and shame—
Don’t even think of it. Stay here with the warmth, the perfumed bodies – feel the champagne fizzing through my veins. Maybe just a little more? To really see off the darkness …
‘Champagne!’ I call. ‘Champagne for the whole table. You, yes, you, man … what’s the best you have?
Three bottles of that.’ They all cheer, all these beautiful people.
They are looking at me like they love me.
It has been a long time since I have been looked at like that by another human being – it feels as though the last time I felt it I must have been a small boy, with my mother. Has anyone ever really loved me since?
Look at me, turning maudlin! Of all the nights to succumb to melancholy this is not it.
This is the turning point. I always knew my moment would come.
And nothing that has come before this, nothing I have done – days and acts of despair and violence – none of that matters now.
I am ready to step into this glittering golden future.
I sweep up the teetering pile of chips, so many it is difficult to gather them together, so many that I can hardly hold them all at once and some Casino lackey runs forward with a velvet tray for me to use to carry them.
I will take them to the cashier, exchange them for a sheaf of real banknotes. I can see him there, sitting in his cage. I wonder how many lives have been changed in here with a click and whirr of his till.
There’s a young fellow across the table who catches my eye. Hang on. I’ve seen him somewhere before. Did he follow me here …
No, for God’s sake, Crane. You’re being paranoid.
I glance down at the velvet tray. Funny thing, the pile of chips doesn’t look …
well, quite so impressive, if I’m honest. Yes, if I shake them out the layer doesn’t even cover the surface.
There are large gaps, the velvet showing through.
Other people have won even bigger hands this evening.
Perhaps even much bigger hands. Yes … I pass the roulette and there’s some chap sitting there with almost double the number.
No, I remind myself. Five thousand pounds is a great deal of money. A life-changing amount. When did I last have my hands on that kind of money? Imagine how that’ll feel, having the notes snug in my wallet. I can breathe a little easier just thinking about it.
Although … just a little more would be nice.
Just a little more would really solve all my problems. Is five thousand really as life-changing as all that?
Because when all is said and done, when I’ve paid off my debts …
it would keep the wolf from the door, that’s certainly true.
But does it banish the wolf entirely? If I had a little more, I would be truly secure.
More than that, I could call myself a wealthy man.
I hear the whir of the roulette wheel. And I think: I could sit down there and in a matter of minutes I could double my fortune. Double it! Ten thousand pounds. Just imagine that. That would be a real number.
This third bottle of champagne is doing its work. If I don’t think about the possibilities of losing … if I don’t glance at the darkness, I will be all right. To think of losing is to lose faith, so just don’t think …
Besides … I don’t know that I believe in God these days, if I ever did, but someone is smiling upon me tonight.
It would be almost churlish to go to the cashier now.
To step out into the dark and cold, when all of life is in here, in all its warmth and zest and beauty.
It would be like giving up. Like volunteering for an early grave.
That thought brings with it thoughts of the frozen earth, of the things that lie beneath—
Apparently, my feet have already decided for me, because I am nearly at the roulette table, and just like that there is a space for me.
It’s meant to be! The croupier glances up at me expectantly and smiles.
They never smile, these people! It is a sign.
In his smile I read a promise. He’s with me too.
He is my friend. All will be well. I will make sure of it.
I push all of my chips forward on the baize.
Then I glance up and realise the croupier isn’t smiling now. He has the bland if slightly sorrowful expression of an undertaker, of Death himself, and I’m filled with dread. But it’s too late.
The wheel spins.