Wake In Fright by Kenneth Cook Read Free Book Online Page A

with himself for several minutes, pointing out in exact terms why the risk was worth taking, and, in due course, he convinced himself.
    He looked at his face in the mirror. The glitter had gone from his eyes, but the tautness of his skin had increased. Slowly he stood up, put his jacket on, packed the money into neat bundles and slipped them into his pocket, put the cheque back in his wallet, looked once more in the mirror and grinned briefly at his preoccupied face, and went back to the Two-up school.
    They let him in at the gate without query and he went straight through into the betting room. The crowd did not seem to have changed; if anything the room was hotter than before and the smoke heavier.
    Grant felt more or less calm. He was no longer exhilarated by the idea of gambling. He knew that he had an even chance of getting what he wanted, and he was going to take that chance.
    He spent about five minutes working his way back to the ringside, and, as he pushed gently forward, he determined that he would bet on heads this time.
    A space on the bench was vacated by a man who seemed to have won a fortune, and Grant sat down.
    The controller walked over to the player next to Grant and offered him the kip. It was the custom in the Bundan-yabba Game that the pennies should be spun in order of place by betters on the ringside bench.
    The player shook his head, and the controller offered the kip to Grant.
    For the rest of his life he was to remember the impulse that moved him to take it and follow the controller to the centre of the ring.
    Normally he would have been embarrassed at being the centre of activity, but he knew the attention of everyone in the room was on the pennies and not on the spinner.
    ‘How much?’ said the controller.
    Grant had no intention of prolonging his ordeal—a fifty-fifty chance was a fifty-fifty chance, and held as validly for one toss as for several.
    ‘Two hundred,’ he said, and drew the money from his pockets.
    The controller counted it perfunctorily.
    ‘Two hundred,’ he called, and notes came in from around the ring.
    Grant stood slackly with the kip in his hand.
    ‘Centre’s set,’ said the controller, and the side-betting began.
    Grant felt himself surrounded by money, but it all seemed a long way off except for the pile of four hundred pounds that he could touch with the toe of his shoe.
    ‘All set?’ called the controller.
    The voices were quiet.
    ‘Right! Spin ’em!’
    Inexpertly, Grant jerked the coins into the air.
    A moment of spiritual darkness.
    Then the controller called: ‘They’re split!’ and picked up the coins.
    Grant did not know what this meant, and it was not until the controller was settling the coins on the kip again that he realised he had thrown one head and one tail, and that counted for nothing.
    It occurred to him now that his decision to bet on heads had miscarried—as spinner he had to bet on tails. But he had no time to think about that because again the controller was ordering him to spin, and again he jerked the coins.
    Two tails facing upwards from the floor—two tails—four hundred pounds; but like a harsh noise breaking through apleasant dream the controller was saying: ‘No throw! Bets off. No throw! Hold on to your money!’
    The controller picked up the pennies and put them back on the kip in Grant’s shaking hand.
    ‘Throw ’em above your head, mate.’
    Unnerved now, Grant jerked the pennies again. He tried to follow their flight, but lost them against the glare of the electric lamp.
    Where were they?
    There was a scramble at his feet, and the notes, the four hundred pounds had gone, and the controller had called heads and Grant was walking out of the ring and he hadn’t even seen the pennies fall.
    A humming numbness gripped his body and he was afraid that the other gamblers would see his deterioration. The muscles of his face were so taut he felt he must be grimacing wildly, and surely his cheeks were twitching. He leaned