'Get lost.'

This was hurting. I wanted out. I bet the last of my money on green. If it won, I'd get... 35 to 1... 700. Maybe Kemal was right. Maybe this gambling lark was a matter of will. 700! Concentrate on that!

The wheel spun, the wheel slowed, and d.a.m.n me if the ball didn't fall into the green zero!

...And fall right out again.

I sat there, stunned. I wanted my foster mum to come and make things right. Well, I wanted any mum. I wasn't fussy.

I watched the lime fizz in my bottle of Sol. A parrot's pancreas pickled in p.i.s.s.

Idiot!

I deserved to lose. I'd just betted haphazardly. If I'd tried to feel more... The future already exists. Prophets can see what is already there. Anyone can predict effects from a given cause. That's a definition of sentient life, from storing food to satellite weather forecasting. Suppose you could do the same, backwards... See the cause from the effect. It wouldn't be an intellectual process. It would be...

Ah, b.o.l.l.o.c.ks. I'm sounding like Nancy Thing from Iannos's cafe.

Three hundred pounds! Just for finishing the evening with more money than Gibreel! Plus whatever I made, on top... Could be quite a few hundred. A thousand even. When would I have an opportunity like this again? I owed more than 3000, quite a lot more, but a few hundred quid would buy me peace of mind and cut me some slack, for weeks.

Thing is, where could I get some more stake money? I couldn't ask Kemal. My bank card had been eaten.

A little demon blew on the back of my neck. My credit card! Three hundred pounds credit-limit extension. Remember?

Getting deeper into debt, to gamble? Are you crazy?

Look, if you're going to have to work some greasy windowless job for the next two years to pay off these debts, then it may as well be four.

d.a.m.n, no, I'd put my credit card in my suit pocket to use at that s.e.xy little Mexican place with Bella last week sometime. G.o.d, had that ever been a stale, pricey evening.

I'm wearing my suit. Dolt.

I tapped my pocket. Plastic tapped back.

No one had said I couldn't get more stake money...

What if this backfired? The credit card people weren't going to be impressed. And how about Poppy? She might be carrying your kid around inside her. It's not just your own future you're gambling away here. It's wrong. Just leave. Leave now. You won't even be able to pay half the abortion cost, if that's what she wants. And what if that isn't what she wants?

I'd nailed my doubts down a pit, but I could hear them hammering at the floorboards. I went back to the original table with 300. The croupier had changed. A young chap whose name was probably something like Nigel. Maybe he was from Kennington. Eleven-thirty. I'd better play for 25 per spin.

Playing for colours may give Samuel Beckett better odds, but it had wiped me out just now. This time I was playing for numbers.

How should you choose numbers? Okay, first, my age. Twenty-nine. Odds.

The ball landed on 20. Evens. Another bad start. Down to 275. Still, next number. Numbers from today. How many eggs in Katy Forbes's omelette?

Four. Evens.

The ball landed on 20, again. Evens! This is better. This is the way to do it. Think of a question with a numerical answer, answer it, and bet. Back up to 300.

How many people had I spoken to today? A quick count. Eighteen, including myself. Even. Listen, G.o.d, I know I haven't been a very loyal member of the fan club, but I swear, get me out of this and I'll even start going to church again. Whenever I can.

The ball landed on 19. G.o.d, the deal's off, you hear? Down to 275.

How many messages on my answerphone? Three. Odds.

The ball landed on 34. Down to 250. Another question. This time my stake would be 50. Time was running out. Had I p.i.s.sed off a gypsy recently?

How many teeth do I have? Twenty-eight. Evens.

The ball landed on 1. Fate, what have I done to deserve this? Would you like me to stop believing in chance? I will if you want. Just let me win now. Fate. I am yours. I am fated to win. Two hundred pounds.

Oh s.h.i.t, this was next week's food money. Gambling was horrible. People actually did this for pleasure?

How many women have I slept with in my life? Forget it, no time.

'If I were you,' said Samuel Beckett, 'I would do something dramatic.'

Odds.

The ball landed on 4. Fate, f.u.c.k you. Chance all the way. One hundred and fifty pounds. Ten to midnight.

How many letters in my name, Marco. Five. Odds.

24. Evens. Down to a hundred pounds.

Jesus, this is tomorrow's rent. I'm going to have to get a job in Burger King at Victoria Station.

'Did you know,' said Samuel Beckett, 'that you can bet on four numbers at once? It's called a Carre. Place your chip on the intersection where they meet. Payment is 8 to 1.'

Where? 'Will you choose it for me?'

'No.'

I put my second-to-last chip on 23/24/26/27.

The ball landed in 28.

'Tough,' said Samuel Beckett. 'Still. One last number to go.'

'Please,' I said, 'give me an intersection.'

'Oh, if you insist: 32/33/35/36.'

I placed the chip. This was my last chance. I realised that I couldn't watch. As there was no sofa to run behind, I hid my eyes as darkness engulfed me.

Nearing the speed of light, time buckled. Sound thickened to the consistency of hair gel. Poverty walked towards me through the crowd, a bed at Summerford Hostel would set me back 12.50. A large pile of chips was being raked at me. And left there. I looked up. The croupier was already looking away. An elderly black gent with hair coming out of his ears was looking at my chips covetously. Two girls in matching shiny dresses were laughing right at me.

Samuel Beckett had gone.

There was 400 worth in chips in front of me. I could keep my credit card.

'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 flashing 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 cashiers 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 fishing 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 shifts. Poppy...'

'Do you have to do your paradigm shifts 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-shirt 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 friendship stroke relationship 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.'