Is This Yours? (Two)

The interior of any betting shop contains more alien life forms than any series of Star Trek. They mimic the human form, and in many cases possess the usual number of limbs and assorted accessories, but that’s where the comparison ends.
They can be seen waiting for the premises to open and wear the same drab overcoat every day whether or not the climate required it. They’d had them so long that the coats had stopped doing two things; aging and staining. In fact in most cases the dirt alone was probably more responsible for holding them together than the original stitching. These sub-human forms would be carrying a plastic bag baring either a Co-op or Aldi logo and the bag would be as beaten up as its owner. It would contain a dented flask containing weak or stewed tea, a home made cheese and tomato sandwich with frayed edges, a cheap chocolate biscuit that had melted and then been stuck into the freezer to re-set and a pristine daily newspaper. All would be laid out militarily onto their table immediately after entering the shop. They marked their territory like dogs.
The only sight worse than the unveiling of their provisions, was the peeling off of their outer garments. If one could be imprisoned for offences against style and good taste, betting shop inhabitants would spend most of their time in another type of British institution.
There were tank-tops coloured so loudly one rushed to cover one’s ears and cardigans and jumpers so ludicrous that even Noel Edmonds would refuse to wear them. Summers were worse. As the day warmed up they began to discard their awful sweaters to reveal new and more grisly horrors – their shirts. These wafer-like creatures would hang like coffin palls from the skinnier clientele or roll up like yellowed paper across the bloated stomachs of the obese fraternity. There were candy stripes that had longed lost their sweetness; Ben Sherman and Brutus shirts that spoke of a teenage rebelliousness and angst they never actually experienced and shirts of dark chocolate or black illuminated only by food and drink smudges that they either couldn’t shift or couldn’t be arsed to clean, and which seemed to continue at some point down their ramshackle pantaloons in between the decaying urine stains. It was like entering a strip club where all the performers were incontinent old men.
Jim liked to bet, when he had the money. He very rarely won a great deal, and that was the problem. As a teenager he had visited a Bookmaker with his father, albeit illegally. He was tall and mature looking but to be truthful the proprietor’s income depended on his under-age clients. His creed mirrored that of a tobacco company; hook ‘em in while they’re young.
He couldn’t recall the horse or horses his Dad backed. But he could see him vividly, to this day, studying the walls which were festooned with strange lists of names and coloured shirts. After ten minutes he returned to the table he’d left Jim sitting at and wrote out his bet. He fished a fiver out of the breast pocket of the only jacket Jim ever saw him in and sauntered over to the counter.
The clerk took his money and gave him what looked like a till receipt and then he turned back to his son: “Let’s go” he ordered and walked toward the door. Jim was overwhelmed by a sense of anticlimax. Why doesn’t he watch it run? It was like buying a pair of shoes and leaving the shop wearing the same sandals you walked in with.
They did return but later after Jim had been dragged around town in and out of several bars where the belligerence in the air could have been cut by a knife, literately by any of its drinkers. His father told him to wait outside this time, but he snuck in moments later and hovered in a corner. His father produced his little slip of paper and handed it back to the cashier. Then something amazing happened; the clerk began to count out a series of five and ten pound notes and pushed them toward his father who scooped up the bundle and stuck it safe into his inside pocket. It was more money than Jim had seen in his short life and it was the bite that set off his skin itching despite being beaten on the way home, not because he’d disobeyed his Dad’s orders but because his father would now have to share his fortune with his wife and son rather than on the piss-up with his mates he had originally planned.
Looking around him he knew that without Cassie he probably would have ended up here with a filthy overcoat and unrealistic dreams of landing that perfect Yankee, like his Dad had done 15 years ago. Then the gratitude was supplanted by irritation. I’m not really me anymore am I? I’m the bloody wife – me.
Later that morning he’d been speaking with her on the phone, trying to get some money.
“What’s it for?” Cassie asked; unreasonably he felt, and bit his lip. His blunt teeth drew blood.
“A present” He lied.
“I don’t want a present silly” she admonished him gently as though he were a cat that had brought a dead bird home.
“I never said who it was for did I?”
“Who else would you be buying presents for?”
“Myself, maybe”
“Oh sweetheart, of course you can. Forgive me. Come round to the school at 12:30 when I’m on break”
“Can’t you meet me?”
“Impossible. I’m down two staff now. I’ll only manage half an hour as it is”
“Aw” he groaned aloud.
“It’s not that bad is it?”
“They don’t like me – you know that”
“That’s just paranoia”
She was right in a way. He didn’t like most of her staff, certainly the ones that frequented the dinner/dances at Christmas or the occasional dinner party. Their obvious intellectual superiority didn’t faze him, he wasn’t stupid. Cassie was into arts and culture and some of it had rubbed off on him. There were countless arias and symphonic themes he’d overheard and rather liked. He’d seen the odd stage play and visited art galleries in the metropolis but drew the line at ballet. But he just couldn’t abide people exploring the minutiae of it all. It was all structure and form. “Oh that’s borrowed from Mozart” or “Of course it’s really only Chaucer in modern dress”. Why they couldn’t like something for its own sake he could never understand.
When he wanted to discuss the merits of a horse like Best Mate they would look at him appalled that he could consider horse racing on any other level than that of drug or alcohol addiction. Nevertheless he was never comfortable inside any betting shop. “I could have been one of them without Cassie” he thought, and then, as quickly as it rose, the sense of gratitude was supplanted by bitterness. “I’m the wife” he said aloud, again unthinking, and blushed. He needn’t have worried the fraternity that surrounded him had long since forgotten the use of that human sense beyond the call for the next race or the latest odds.
In fact the other four senses were also dedicated solely in the same misdirection. Their sight scanned the papers or the screens for prices and runners; their touch for the writing out of bets and the placing of the ante and the rare collection of a winning wager; their taste limited to stewed cold tea and rancid sandwiches and finally their reason, which they had abandoned years before.
When Jim used to bet regularly he always worked it out at home or at work, when employed, beforehand. The less time spent inside the Bookies the better, like his old man. And like his old man he didn’t like to share the occasional spoils. “Why should I? Wins were a rarity and she can toddle off to the old man if she’s short. But she never is” the acridity ebbed up and down like the tide but never left him.
He met her outside the school gates and she gave him fifty quid. “Is it clothes?” she asked.
“It’s a treat – can’t I have any secrets?” he replied indignantly.
“It’s not for a…” ignoring his apparent hurt
“For a bet – go on, I know that’s what you’re thinking” he interrupted vociferously and some children and a dinner lady looked across from the playground as if they’d witnessed the aftermath of a car crash.
“Okay” she conceded, “I’ll see you tonight. What would you like?”
“To go before some more of your colleagues turn up to scrutinize me”
“For dinner”
“Oh – sorry – anything – really, no, wait – I’ll get us a Chinese with all the trimmings”
“Out of the fifty?”
Jim coloured. “No” he lied spontaneously, “that’s for something else. I have money for the food”
“Okay love. I have to go”
He pecked her cheek and left her. All he could see on the way back into town was that condescending stare.
On the bus he looked again at the text message. “Whoever lost the phone must’ve been paying for one of those tipster services” but the thought was tinged with guilt because he was benefitting at someone else’s expense. Yet he knew, like the cliché stated, that there was no such thing as a dead cert.
Inside the Bookies he checked for the latest prices. It took a while for the screen to flick onto the 3:50 Sandown. He searched up and down the list from the favourite to the rank outsiders. No Snake Charmer. “It’s the wrong fucking race” he cried, just as the screen clicked over again to display page two. It only had the one horse’s name on it – Snake Charmer 150 -1!