The Big Blind, page 8
‘What?’ she began to say. ‘What?’
It was only when she turned around that she saw it: Danny Boy, standing over the table, mouth slightly open; the dealer, with a bemused look, and the tournament director, smiling, and the cameras flashing, and people running past the barriers to find her, to hold her, screaming her name, and the nuns descending down like a flock of ravens, and her mother, crying and laughing, and only then, even as she saw it, it didn’t register:
The river was a seven of hearts.
She’d finished with a four-of-a-kind, sevens full.
‘What. A. Hand! Mike!’
‘One could say it was the Hand of God, Don.’
‘That’s terrible, Mike.’
‘I’m sorry, Don.’
‘Seriously. Terrible.’
‘I know, Don. That’s what they pay me for.’
‘You mean we get paid for this?’
‘I don’t know about you, Don…’
Then she was surrounded, and Sister Bertha was holding her up in a bear hug, and Sister Mary’s face was flushed with smiling, and her mother was crying, and even the Mother Superior was there.
When it had calmed down, she went and shook Danny Boy’s hand. He smiled, and said, ‘Congratulations.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I hope I get to play against you again.’
‘I don’t think that’s very likely,’ Claire said.
‘That’s probably for the best,’ he said, laughing. ‘Congratulations, again.’
‘Thank you. It was… It was something.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes, it was.’
He vanished into the crowd. The cameras were on her then, and the tournament director materialised with the trophy.
‘No, thank you,’ she said. ‘I don’t need it.’
‘You don’t – what?’
She laughed. ‘I don’t need it,’ she said. ‘Thank you.’
She put her hands on the felt, palms down. It was the only moment that she felt a twinge of regret. The chips were still in the middle, a puddle of chips strewn this way and that. The cards were still where they’d been left. A seven-deuce, she thought. Well, that was poker for you.
A microphone, pressed on her.
‘How did you do it?’ the interviewer said.
The camera was on her. Claire smiled through tears.
‘You just need to have a little faith,’ she said.
29
‘Will you come back with us?’ the Mother Superior said.
Claire looked down.
‘I didn’t think—’
‘You can’t be both,’ the Mother Superior said, but gently. ‘But you get to choose what you want to be in your life.’
‘When I left, I’d resigned myself… I didn’t think I was coming back.’
‘And now?’
‘I don’t know.’
* * *
A cold wind blew through the cemetery, and clumps of fog clung to the branches of an oak. Somewhere in the distance she could hear a priest chanting. The ground was muddy. There were wilting flowers on the nearby graves but none by her father’s tombstone.
She knelt there, by the grave. She didn’t speak aloud, and her thoughts were private. She lit a candle by the grave, and the small flame struggled vainly against the wind. She cupped it in her hands and watched it strengthen, until it burned true.
* * *
By the cemetery gates stood her mother and beside her stood Sister Bertha. Claire hugged her mother.
‘I know,’ her mother said, stroking her hair. ‘I know.’
Claire took a deep breath, and then she smiled.
‘Ready?’ said Sister Bertha.
‘I’m ready,’ Claire said.
* * *
No flowers on the grave, but in their stead she’d left her father a single poker chip from the casino. He would have liked that, she thought.
30
‘Is it liver?’ Bill Hanlon said hopefully. ‘I hope it’s liver.’
‘It’s Tuesday,’ Claire said. ‘Tuesday’s fish and chips.’
‘Fish and chips!’ Bill Hanlon said. ‘I love me some fish and chips, Sister.’
‘I know you do, Bill,’ Claire said. She looked at Bill’s new leg. It was a good leg, and he moved with increasing confidence on it.
‘You know my nephew,’ he said. Behind him, coming through the door, was Mikey. He looked much the same as she’d last seen him in London the year before. His hair was cut more expensively, maybe. But the grin was much the same.
‘Hi, Mikey.’
‘Hello, Sister.’
‘No-good layabout,’ Bill Hanlon said; but he said it kindly.
When Bill sat down, Claire brought him a plate of fish and chips and mushy peas, and a mug of tea, and Bill thanked her. His attention turned to the food. She had never seen a man eat so whole-heartedly.
Mikey leaned on the counter.
‘What brings you round to these parts?’ she said.
‘Come to say goodbye.’
‘Oh? Are you leaving?’
‘Sort of.’ He smiled. ‘I’m going to America.’
‘You’re going to enter the World Series,’ she said.
‘Yes. I have to, don’t I.’
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You do.’
It was warm in the room, and filled with the smell of fish, the clink of cutlery, the chatter of voices from the television.
‘You could come with me,’ he said with sudden urgency. ‘You could make it, you know. You could make it all the way.’
She only smiled, and then she began to fill up another plate, for Mrs Flynn who’d just come in.
‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I know.’
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lavie Tidhar is author of Osama, The Violent Century, A Man Lies Dreaming, Central Station, and Unholy Land, as well as the Bookman Histories trilogy. His latest novels are By Force Alone, children’s book The Candy Mafia and comics mini-series Adler. His awards include the World Fantasy Award, the British Fantasy Award, the John W. Campbell Award, the Neukom Prize and the Jerwood Fiction Uncovered Prize.
ALSO BY LAVIE TIDHAR
NOVELS
The Tel Aviv Dossier*
Osama*
The Violent Century
A Man Lies Dreaming*
Unholy Land
By Force Alone
The Candy Mafia
THE BOOKMAN HISTORIES
The Bookman
Camera Obscura
The Great Game
also available in omnibus form as The Bookman Histories
NOVELLAS
The Big Blind*
New Atlantis*
The Vanishing Kind*
Cloud Permutations*
Jesus & the Eightfold Path*
Gorel & the Pot-Bellied God*
COLLECTIONS
The Lunacy Commission*
Black Gods Kiss*
HebrewPunk
The Apex Book of World SF (as editor)
The Apex Book of World SF 2 (as editor)
The Apex Book of World SF 3 (as editor)
*available as a JABberwocky ebook
THANK YOU FOR READING
This ebook has been brought to you by JABberwocky Literary Agency, Inc.
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Lavie Tidhar, The Big Blind
