FLUTTER

Marvin gently adjusted his left cufflink, rotating his sleeve slightly. His shirt pulled snug under his wool jacket and he frowned as he thought about how Edna would have disapproved of his regalia. She would have told him the suit was too small, too formal, and too hot to wear on a summer day. But he had always loved it. The pattern was a light grey tartan that reminded him of the way gentlemen used to dress, back in the forties and fifties. The days of drive-ins and community dances, days that he missed dearly; so that morning, he had ignored her voice which he imagined nagging in his head and carefully dressed himself, making sure to iron the shirt and socks the way she always had, even placing a folded handkerchief in his pocket. That, at least, Edna would have approved of.

The local RSL club opened at ten o’clock every morning, and once a week, every Thursday, Marvin arrived at eleven to have a little flutter, as he liked to call it, even though it was a usually fruitless exercise; a waste of time and money, as Edna would have called it.

‘You never win on those wretched things!’ She used to say.

However, other than his regular supermarket trip, and the occasional doctor’s appointment or errand, the weekly visit to the club was the extent of Marvin’s interaction with the outside world. A world which was increasingly foreign and unfamiliar every year and had become grey and sad since Edna had passed.

Wincing as he eased himself onto the cushioned seat in front of his favourite poker machine, Marvin’s belly pressed tightly against the shirt buttons, his back searing with the pain of stretching muscles that were rarely used these days. Yvette, the head gaming attendant, saw him struggling and immediately put down the glasses she was taking back to the bar, rushing across the gaming room to help him.

‘You right there, Marv?’

She put a hand on his back and gently helped him onto the seat. Marvin grunted gratefully as he righted himself.

‘Not as strong as I used to be,’ he wheezed. He smiled at Yvette and waved her away. She put a hand on her hip and tutted at him.

‘No, you’re not,’ she agreed. ‘So, when you want to get up, you yell out to me and I’ll come help you.’ Marvin waved at her again, shooing her away. As he fished his note clip from his breast pocket, he could not help but smile. Yvette was his favourite; she would bring him free drinks and chat to him when the room was not busy. The other staff were friendly, but much younger and spend most of their free time playing around with their cell phones. Yvette was in her sixties, with kids the same age as most of the other staff. Marvin liked it when he could hear her scalding them like they were her own children. Edna would have liked Yvette, Marvin decided.

The machine in front of him sang an electronic musical scale, ringing merrily as he fed it a crisp fifty dollar note. It greedily sucked the paper into its innards and the screen began to glow.

Place your bets, gentlemen. Marvin thought to himself. When he played the pokies, as they are unglamorously called nowadays, he liked to pretend he was in a real casino, somewhere far away, like Las Vegas or Monte Carlo. He pictured roulette and blackjack tables, with well-dressed men and women all laughing and smiling. In his mind, he could see his darling Edna in a glittering gown, young and beautiful. She had the most stunning dark brown eyes and hair when they were younger. He imagined her hanging on his arm and kissing his cheek as he prepared to throw a pair of dice.

Instead, he was interrupted by the hacking cough of a woman a few seats down from him who slapped the “SPIN” button on her machine with ferocity, as if taking her anger out on it would make it give her back the money that she had clearly just lost. She was wearing ripped tracksuit pants that were covered with indiscernible stains and a black singlet top with no bra, her sagging, tattooed chest threatening to pull the neckline down much too far. Marvin flinched as she let out another hacking cough and glared at him.

‘Whaddaya lookin’ at?’ she hissed at him through a mouth full of half-decayed teeth. He shook his head and looked back at his own machine. For a moment, he had considered being a gentleman and offering her the handkerchief from his pocket, but as he listened to her uttering curse words so vile, he knew even well-mannered Edna would have told him to put the handkerchief back and mind his own business.

Turning his attention back to his own machine, he pressed a few buttons, careful to make sure he only bet one cent per line. He did not care about how much or how little he might win or lose, he only came to be around other people, to simply exist in this world that was so lonely now. He lost himself in the multicoloured neon lights and the cheerful beeps and buzzes the machine made every so often. Smiling a little when it lied and said he had won, whilst in reality, spurring him on to press the button once again.

Yvette wandered over and placed a warm cup of tea and a biscuit next to his machine.

‘On the house,’ she said with a wink. A familiar joke, as both the biscuit and the tea came from a small counter in the corner of the gaming room that was fully stocked for patrons who might forget to otherwise eat or drink something if they were “on a roll”. Marvin sipped his drink, wondering to himself at what age did people stop assuming you only ever wanted to drink tea. He had never been particularly fond of it, but he was old now and did not want to make a fuss, and knew that his inner-Edna would scold him if he ordered brandy before the clock had struck PM.

Suddenly, the machine blared loudly and startled Marvin’s drink from his hand. Lights flashing as the volume seemed to increase to a squeal.

‘Holy fuck, old man!’ Tracksuit Pants exclaimed.

Her toothless mouth was full of complimentary biscuits that sprayed all over the floor and Marvin’s suit.

‘You’ve won the fuckin’ jackpot!’

Yvette rushed around the bar and across the room, putting her hand on Marvin’s shoulder.

‘Marv, oh my goodness! You’ve won over twenty grand!’ The words seemed to fade in and out, Marvin felt his heart pounding in his chest. He watched the roulette wheels on the screen spinning round and around … and around …

He barely felt himself fall to the floor, and was hardly conscious at all when the paddles were placed on his chest.

All he could hear was the happy jingling sound from the machine.

All he could see were the blinking multicoloured lights and then …

‘Edna,’ he smiled. ‘Edna, we won.’