Chapter 44
The Gambler
Vic. I don’t know how much you know about him. Enigmatic is such a horribly overused word. But Vic was an enigma. We were in love with the whole thing. The persona. As we saw it. From the bits we could piece together. The bits we wanted to pick up on. The man born into the wrong age. The guy who hated modern life. The chap who sat around listening to Frank Sinatra. Drinking tea. Reading Raffles. Or Maupassant, Zola and Balzac. Studying the form in the Sporting Life. Putting a few quid on the horses here and there. Making a bit of money maybe. Doing a few odd jobs when needs must. Oh yes, that was for us.
I heard something the other day about how apart from the National and the Derby, and despite betting shops being so bright and homely and open all hours, the numbers of punters betting on horseracing continues to decline steadily while more and more people are putting money on the results of football matches and who’s going to score the first goal and who’ll win whatever reality TV show. Funny old world. Whither the old stereotype of the sporting gent studying the pages of form guides in the papers? Do they even have pages of form guides these days in the papers? I never look, it has to be said. But, oh, we did. Affected an air of sporting gents. Took instruction from our Quiet One’s favourite aunt, who liked a bit of a flutter on the gee-gees. Showed us the ropes she did. A bit of harmless fun, she said. A bit of intellectual exercise for the little grey cells, we thought.
But betting’s not really a game is it? Except perhaps for mugs. Anyway, we never really got the hang of playing the role. Found betting shops too gloomy. Too smokey. Didn’t really have the capital to speculate and accumulate. Didn’t have any racecourses near us. Too expensive to travel far afield. And we got nervous outside of London. So we went to the dogs. Literally. There was a stadium near us. Greyhound racing. And speedway. We got quite into them. Sports for the underdog. Except as far as the greyhounds were concerned there was very little difference. Dubious dealings. Strange goings on. These days you sense the dogs is more about corporate team building nights out. But then? Well, it was more shadowy sorts in sheepskin coats and checked flat caps, seemingly straight out of Minder. And the bar, well the members only bar, could have been straight out of the Winchester Club, or whatever it was called in that show. We found out about some of the goings on from our Quiet One’s kid brother who had a part time job in there collecting glasses. Very diligent young man our Quiet One’s kid brother. Unlike us he was keen to explore every possible avenue to put together some cash for his DJing activities. Very commendable. And very useful.
The kid brother being an unremarkable looking soul, and I mean that in the nicest possible way, had the ability to blend in. So when he was flitting round the members only bar collecting up the empties or emptying ashtrays no one really took much notice. And at first he wasn’t really taking much notice of what was going on around either. Shifty business men in expensive golfing leisure wear were not of much interest to him. Not initially, anyway. Being all but invisible careless tongues were wagging in the kid brother’s presence without worrying if they were overheard. And eventually what they were wittering about did penetrate the kid brother’s sub-conscious and made his ears start standing up and paying attention even if he did still look as though he were absorbed elsewhere in deep concentration.
Ah I bet you’re making up your own punch lines already aren’t you? Now, now. Don’t get carried away. It wasn’t quite like that. It was just that the kid brother became aware that, one way or another, this particular group of sporting types seemed to know which greyhound was going to win which race well ahead of time. And funnily enough some of these choices seemed to be against the flow of common sense and form. The kid brother cottoned on to this. But his dilemma was that he was too young to put any money on at the races. So he was forced to confide in our Quiet One, who at first innocently put a few pounds on for his sibling. But it was soon apparent that the kid brother was unerringly backing the winners, so questions were asked in the house as you might imagine.
The kid brother put us in a bit of a spot. Here there were obviously naughty things going on. Doping? Bribery? Blackmail? Sabotage? Greyhounds getting force fed doughnuts like Tommy Trinder’s mum did in an old film when she thought her son’s prize dog was looking a bit on the thin side? Greyhounds deliberately throwing races? Could well be. But here was a chance to make a few bob for ourselves. And yet we would have to tread cautiously. If we put sizeable amounts on the unfancied winners eyebrows might be raised. And we didn’t want to get the kid brother in bother. Or kill our cash cow. Naturally we could have gone to the authorities, but with our jaundiced view of the authorities we somehow suspected they were in on it in some shape or form. Ah form. Well, we got away with it for so long. Make enough to keep us in old soul and reggae records for so long. All good things come to an end though. And somehow the finger of suspicion got to be pointing at the kid brother, and before he knew it he was no longer collecting empties. And our pockets were empty again. Oh well it was good while it lasted. Still got some of those old reggae LPs too. One on the Pama label had this amazing cover. Some reggae singer singing at a youth club dance. Suedeheads and everything there as cool as you like. Black and white. Suede coats and crombies. A line skirts. Tootal silk scarves tied docker fashion. Beautiful.
©
2008 John Carney
Illustration ©
2008 Alistair Fitchett