Part 29 (2/2)

'My friend,' Kemal appeared over my shoulder, 'it is time. I'm glad to see you have not been wiped out. Let us go to the upstairs lobby. Did you enjoy yourself?'

I swallowed hard. 'It's so important to play only for the pleasure of it.'

I knew I hadn't beaten Gibreel, but I had 400, over the 300 I had borrowed. I discounted the 150 stake, since that had never really been mine. So. A modest profit of 100. The leather jacket, 30. Probably enough to pacify Digger, if I promise to manicure his mastiffs for a week. My drums were back. Then there was The Music of Chance gig at Brixton Academy next weekend, which should tide me over until the end of the month. We always got cash on the nail there because I'd s.h.a.gged the Student's Union events organiser a few times last year.

Gibreel was looking sheepish in the upstairs lobby. 'Sorry,' he said to Cousin. 'The dealer must have known how to neutralise my system.'

'My friend!' Kemal rotated two or three times for joy. I kept a blank face, but inwardly somersaulted. Yes! 100 plus 300 equals 400 profit for me and now now we are talking! we are talking!

Cousin reluctantly produced a beige envelope, which Kemal s.n.a.t.c.hed. 'Thank you my friend.'

Gibreel frowned and pointed at me. 'Not so fast! Marco cheated! He got some more money out!' My ex-friend looked at me. 'Deny it!'

Weird stuff, money. 'You didn't say I couldn't.'

Cousin and Gibreel advanced towards Kemal, and tried to take the envelope back. Kemal swung back, Cousin grabbed the envelope, Kemal grabbed Cousin and they both fell onto a plant-stand, felling a ma.s.sive umbrella plant and upsetting a gong which gonged down the stairs, one gong per step. Gibreel picked up the envelope, Kemal writhed out from under the umbrella plant with surprising alacrity and headb.u.t.ted Gibreel, who staggered back, spitting out a tooth. Cousin rugby tackled Kemal from behind, and I heard a zipping rip of material. This all seemed ch.o.r.eographed. Kemal tumbled, reached into his jacket as he fell and suddenly a grin-shaped knife was flas.h.i.+ng through the air. I guess they weren't such good friends after all.

Trouble was shouting around the corner. The only possible way out for me would be for this peculiar triangular door to be open, and for me to crawl into it before the bouncers arrived, and for these three to not notice me, and for n.o.body to think of looking in here. What kind of odds were these? It was an ostrich-brained escape plan, but sometimes the ostrich strategy is your last, indeed only, line of defence. I turned the doork.n.o.b.

And b.u.g.g.e.r me if it wasn't open! I cramped myself in, and pulled the door to behind me. I b.u.mped my head, stuck my foot in a bucket and smelt detergent. My priest hole was a cleaning cupboard.

I heard the bouncers come, a whole load of shouting and protesting. I felt oddly calm. As usual, my fate was in the hands of chance. If I was caught, I was caught. I waited for the door to be tugged open.

The noises were escorted away.

What a day. Am I really hiding in a casino's cleaning cupboard? Yes, I really am. How in heaven and h.e.l.l did I get here? A humming switched itself off, and I was left alone in the silence that I hadn't noticed hadn't been there.

There is Truth, and then there is Being Truthful.

Being Truthful is just one more human activity, along with chatting up women, ghostwriting, selling drugs, running a country, designing radiotelescopes, parenting, drumming, and shoplifting. All are susceptible to adverbs. You can be truthful well or badly, frankly or slyly, and you can choose to do it or not to do it.

Truth holds no truck with any of this. A comet doesn't care if humans notice its millennial lap, and Truth doesn't care less what humans are writing about it this week. Truth's indifference is immutable. More Mercurial than Jovian. Sometimes you turn your head and you see it: in a fountain, in the parabola of a flung frisbee, or the darkness of a cleaning cupboard. Causes and effects politely stand up and identify themselves. At such times I understand the futility of worrying. I shut up and I see the b.u.mbling goodness behind the b.i.t.c.hing and insecurity. Tying my future to Poppy's and India's if they would have me would be the greatest, never-ending, Richter-busting plunge I could ever take.

And then Truth is suddenly gone, and you're back to anxiety about bills.

I yawned so wide that my jaw clicked. The adrenalin from the fight and the coffee from the lounge were wearing off. Truth is tiring stuff. It was time to crawl out of my cleaning cupboard.

I cashed in my chips, praying to get the money in my sticky hand before being recognised. Were all cas.h.i.+ers this slow?

At long last I was free. I went and reclaimed my jacket. Still n.o.body recognised me.

There was a telephone in the corner of the reception hall. As I was fis.h.i.+ng for change Samuel Beckett came strolling over. 'Your friends were persuaded to continue their frank exchange of views elsewhere. Minus the knives.'

'Who?'

The telephone was one of the old dial types. All these circles and wheels spinning separately together. I rolled in my coin.

'Poppy! This is me.'

'Well. Look what the cat didn't drag back last night.' Wry. Tired?

'I told you about the private view. A kid in a sweetshop. How's the little trilobite?'

'She fell asleep in a sulk because she wanted her bedtime story from you.'

'It's been a long day.'

'Oh, poor Marco.'

'I've been having paradigm s.h.i.+fts. Poppy...'

'Do you have to do your paradigm s.h.i.+fts in the middle of the night?'

'Sorry, this can't wait... look, financially, you know I'm not John Paul Getty here, but... look, seriously, I've been wondering if you'd like to merge our estates, both in a financial, and maybe existential sense too, of course that would just be the tip of the, erm, commitment iceberg, and if you'd like to do the same, then maybe-'

'Marco. What on earth are you talking about?'

Say it. 'Would you like to get married?' Oh, lordy lord.

'With whom?'

She wasn't going to make this easy. 'With me.'

'Well. This is out of the blue. Let me think about it.'

'How long do you need?'

'A couple of decades?'

'You hussy! I bought you a T-s.h.i.+rt with a pig on it...'

'You're hoping to win my hand in holy matrimony, and in return you're offering a pig. Is this east Putney or east Bangladesh?'

'Poppy, I'm serious. I want to be your, your, I want you to be my...' Husband. Wife. Jesus wept. 'I can't quite say it yet. But I will. I'm not drunk, I'm not stoned, I'm serious.'

The few moments that pa.s.sed had more ma.s.s than ordinary time, because a possible lifetime was compressed into them. I started to say something at the same time as Poppy. Poppy carried on. 'Look. If you use the word ”serious” just once more I'll start believing you. Then if I find out you're not serious, our friends.h.i.+p stroke relations.h.i.+p stroke whatever is destroyed. This is your point of no return. Are you serious?'

'I'm serious.'

Poppy whistled softly. 'Marco. I'm taken aback that you can still take me aback.'

'I'm coming over now. Is that okay?'

The longest wait of all.

'Yes, under the circ.u.mstances, I guess that's okay.'

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