Fiction: 'The Betting Slips' by Roddy Doyle
Mick had forgotten why he was in the taxi, where he’d been coming from, or why he hadn’t been on the bus or driving his own car. He didn’t think there’d been drink involved and he clearly recalled that this — what the taxi driver had said and done — had all occurred in daylight, on a Saturday or a Sunday afternoon. Because there’d been football going on and Mick had taken his phone out of his pocket to check on the latest scores. He was nearly certain they were stopped at the lights in Fairview when he brought the phone up to his eyes so he could see the screen properly. And maybe because the car wasn’t moving, the driver spoke for the first time since he’d asked Mick where he wanted to go, back wherever they’d been when Mick had climbed into the car.
—D’you have the live score?
—Sorry — the wha’?
The lights had changed. They were moving.
—The live score, said the driver.
—No, said Mick. —What’s that?
They’d turned left, onto the Howth Road.
The driver glanced at Mick as he spoke.
—That’s the BBC you have there, yeah?
—Yeah.
—It’s shite.
—I like it — what’s wrong with it?
—It’s too slow, said the driver. —The live score’s way quicker.
—It’s called the live score?
—Live score. Download it there — go to the App Store. You’ll have it in a minute.
—Is it free?
—Yeah, yeah — no messing.
The BBC had delivered the scores while they were talking. Mick didn’t know where he’d been before he got into the taxi but he could remember that Chelsea were beating Aston Villa three-one on his way home. He mentioned that to the people he was telling the story to, now. They burst out laughing — all of them.
—He can name the Chelsea team that won the FA Cup in 1971.
—1970, Mick corrected his wife.
—Michael, said Carol. —I apologise. He can name the whole team, jersey numbers an’ all, despite his advancing years —
—Ah, feck off now, love.
—But he has to think before he can name his own grandchildren.
—That’s not true.
—Go on, so, said Carol. —How many have we?
—Five.
—That’s a start, an’anyways.
The other people in the room — Marcella, Marie and John —knew there was no edge to any of this. They knew it wasn’t the continuation of a fight that Mick and Carol had been having before they’d walked up the path and rung the bell. They’d grown up with this — they’d known one another since they were teenagers. They’d been there when Mick and Carol had met. They’d been there half an hour later, when Mick and Carol had their first row. They’d been in the church when Carol answered the priest’s query as to whether she’d take Michael as her lawfully wedded husband with, “I suppose so.” They knew that Mick had married Carol’s sense of humour.
—Abby, he started. —Noah, Michael. How’s many’s that?
—Three.
—Grace — and Emma.
—Hannah.
—Is it not Emma? Jaysis — all these years I’ve been calling her Emma.
—She was only born last month, yeh chancer.
—Go on, Mick, said John, when they’d stopped laughing and Carol had shown Marcella and Marie — and John had a quick gawk at it too — the latest photo of Baby Hannah.
—I downloaded it, said Mick. —LiveScore — big L, big S.
—I have it, said John. —It’s very good, in fairness.
—It’s brilliant, said Mick. But —
Carol put her phone on the table, Baby Hannah facing the tablecloth.
—What?
—He stops the car, said Mick.
He nodded at the window.
—Outside. And he takes the phone off me.
—You let him?
—Yeah, said Mick. —He wasn’t running off with it. It was his taxi, remember.
—What about all your data?
—Was he Irish? Marie asked.
—Don’t even start, Marie, said Carol.
—It’s just — yeh hear things.
Carol picked up her phone and held it out — the photo of Baby Hannah — across the table, in front of Marie.
—Is she Irish?
—Ah, Carol —
—Is she?
—’Course she is — she’s gorgeous.
—Should I hide me phone when she comes into the house, d’you think, when she’s a bit older, like — ’cos her other grandparents are Africans? Or put me purse out of reach, just to be on the safe side? Wha’ d’yeh think?
—Sorry, said Marie. —Sorry.
There was that too: Carol had always been the leader. First through the classroom door, first to declare she was staying in school for the Leaving Cert, first to smoke, first to try rum and black, second to get sick on it, first to go with a fella for more than a couple of days. The one who decided where they’d go, what they’d listen to, who they’d talk to. Mick had fallen in love with that, too. He’d married that. It was why they were all in Mick and Carol’s kitchen: it had been her idea.
—I’m not a racist, Car, said Marie.
It wasn’t a declaration; it sounded more like a confession. And John, her husband, burst out laughing — a short, strangled explosion. It was nerves, anger; wanting to walk out; wanting the night to get back on track; wanting to support Marie; not knowing what to do.
—Yeah, said Carol. —I know.
—He scrolled down the page, said Mick.
It was clear — for a second: none of them had a clue what he was on about.
—The taxi driver, he said.
—The Irish taxi driver, said Carol.
Marie was sitting upright, deciding whether to stay or leave, waiting for John to look her way.
Marcella was looking from Marie to Carol. She was divorced since a month before the pandemic but she’d been seeing a man who had opinions about immigrants, went to some of the protests, and she was glad now she hadn’t brought him to meet them, and she more or less decided to ditch him as she sat there.
Mick looked at Carol, made sure she was looking at him. He smiled, then quickly looked at all of them in turn.
—He’s scrolling away, he said.
He held an imaginary phone in his right hand and dragged the index finger of the left up across the palm, three or four times. He was the only one of the five who didn’t have his phone with him at the table; he’d been trying to ignore it, so he’d left it upstairs on the bed.
—Have you any idea how many games of football are being played at any one time in a day? he said.
—In Ireland?
—The world.
—Ah Jesus — hundreds.
—Thousands, said Mick. —Which when you think about it makes sense. It’s the most popular game in the world and there’s the women playing now as well. But it’s when you see it —
He dragged the finger up over the palm again.
—It goes on forever, he said. —But come here.
John looked across to Marie. Her expression told him: she’d stay. His face asked: you sure? She shrugged without moving her shoulders. He understood: for now; the cow; she’s a fuckin’ bully.
Marcella looked at the other four and wondered would she have recognised them if this had been the first time they’d met since they’d left school, more than 40 years ago.
They were all looking at Mick, waiting.
—He starts telling me about the betting, he said.
—What betting?
—On the app.
—Was this on your phone, Michael?
—Yeah — don’t worry but, listen. He’s yapping away.
He changed his voice slightly, brought it up a bit, to become the taxi driver. “There’s always a match on somewhere — even at four in the morning.”
Mick stopped being the taxi driver and became himself again.
—He gives me back the phone. “You take that,” he says, and he takes out his own. “Look it,” he says. He scrolls down — his own LiveScore — and he stops and he shows me a country.
—Which?
—Rwanda, said Mick. —The Rwandan League.
He became the taxi driver again. “This crowd here, yeah? AS Kigali. I’m sticking a fiver on them. Like this, look it.”
Mick tapped his palm like a seagull breaking into a plastic bag.
—He does it whenever he doesn’t have a fare — bets on some
random team somewhere. And I think he expected me to follow his example. Bet on a match — yeh know.
—Did you? Marie asked him.
—No, I didn’t, he said
He smiled across at Marie.
—I’d be old school — down to the bookies, if I’m betting at all. Once or twice a year.
As he spoke, he remembered something — so vividly, he thought he heard his father speak.
—Maybe he was on a commission, said Carol.
—Sorry, love, said Mick. —What d’you mean?
—Like Revolut, said Carol. —They keep sending me emails to get me to make a friend join up and they’ll pay me 50 euro or something — I never read it properly.
—I don’t think so, said Mick. —I think he was a gambling addict and he wanted to make it look normal. Nice enough fella, though — once he started talking.
—It might’ve been a scam, said Marcella.
—The LiveScore? said Mick.
—My cousin got caught up in one of them — a scam, like. Paid a bill that wasn’t really a bill and got cleaned out.
—That’s desperate.
—They said it was a customs payment for a package from England and me cousin filled in all the bank details — thought it was from An Post.
—What was it?
—A scam — I told you.
—The package.
—Well, there, said Marcella. —Me cousin hadn’t ordered anything from England.
—She was an eejit, so, said John.
—He.
—He was an eejit.
—He thought it might have been a present.
—A bigger eejit.
—Not really, said Marcella. —Just lonely.
Normally, if they’d been in the pub there’d have been more tales of scams and sadness; they’d have gone on all night. But their local — the pub they’d met in once a month for the last 40 years — hadn’t opened again after the pandemic and this was only the second time they’d been together since things had got back to normal.
Mick looked at the faces and thought they all probably felt the same way: they’d forgotten how to be together. They were thinking to themselves, I don’t know these people. That was the pandemic and the lockdowns: they’d become strangers. He saw John look at his watch, then across at Marie.
Marie was trying to think of something to say, something that would allow her to smile across at Carol, then get up with John and go home. Jesus, she was angry. Forty years after she’d met them, since John brought her to a party in someone’s house, they still hadn’t let her into the gang. She’d always be the outsider — even to Marcella, the wagon; she hadn’t looked at Marie since Carol had said what she’d said.
Marcella looked at Freenow on her phone. If she pressed the “confirm” button she’d have to leave; she’d be telling the taxi to come and get her. She wanted to go — and she didn’t. She didn’t want to leave — not just go — leave. For good. Be driven away. Never be asked back. She looked at the phone, at the map of the road outside, and the circle that was her, throbbing in the house beside the road. She was the only circle. Alone on the map.
John was angry: at Carol; at Marie; at himself. He was weak. Marie was thinking the same thing: he was sure of it. He should have stood up. Just that; not get into an argument or avoid an argument; refuse the argument. He’d have held Marie’s hand as they walked home — it was no distance. He shouldn’t have been sitting there: numb, frightened; of getting up, of leaving; walking into pitch dark: nothing. He had the kids, his grandkids, Marie. But he saw nothing ahead. The grandkids were in Australia and Jersey. He didn’t want to go there, or anywhere. His passport had expired; he hadn’t told Marie.
Carol didn’t know if she cared about the people around the table. She was angry. She was entitled to be, right to be. But she didn’t know. The silence was agony but she wasn’t going to break it. She wasn’t going to admit anything, apologise for anything. She’d been defending her daughter and her granddaughter — and herself. God, though, she was lonely: sometimes.
Mick started to talk.
—I remember my father, he said. —Going to the bookies.
He looked around the table at all of them.
—It was a secret, he said. —Between us, like. But I never really knew why.
They all sat up, as if someone behind Mick had silently instructed them to: a director.
—Every Saturday, he said. —He’d bring me with him. Only me — as far as I know. I’m only thinking of that now, but. Maybe the others got their turn as well — I don’t know, I don’t think so. We never spoke about it.
Mick had three brothers and two sisters and all of them were still alive.
—He brought you to the bookies?
—The pub, said Mick. —The pub beside the bookies. A different pub each week. We always drove.
—You never went to The Horse?
Mick shook his head. The Horse and Jockey was the pub his parents had gone to on Saturday nights.
—Never, said Mick. —We always drove.
—What age were you, Michael?
—Seven — eight, a bit older, he said. —Young enough to be happy to be with my father, anyways. But yeah — we never went to the same pub. I mean, sometimes we went back — there’s only so many pubs he could have brought us to. But never two Saturdays in a row — there’d be months in between. And — this is true, I swear to God — all the pubs I went to later, when I was older — a man, like — some of them fuckin’ miles away — even just a few years ago, long after he died — I’d think to myself, “I’ve been here before.”
—Because you had been.
—Yeah, said Mick. —Every pub with a bookies beside it. I was in every one of them. Including some that aren’t even in Dublin. We were at a funeral once — oh, years ago — in Naas, Carol, d’you remember?
—Navan, said Carol.
—Was it Navan?
—Yeah, said Carol. —My cousin, Hughie.
—Navan, said Mick. —County Meath.
—Only an hour from Dublin, said Marcella.
She was quoting a line from an old radio ad. They remembered the line but not the ad.
—We went into a pub there, said Mick. —In the town, after the funeral — the family, like. And — I swear to God — I knew I’d been there. I went out and checked, and — yeah — there was a bookies right beside it.
—A long way to go just to back a horse, said Carol.
It was her cousin they’d buried that day, not his. But he’d never mentioned anything about having been there before, or about his father. She didn’t know how she felt, listening to him now with the others. She resented it — she thought. But it was kind of thrilling too, finding out there was something she hadn’t known about him. Something a bit hilarious too. And sad. And she knew: he was doing this to keep them there, to delay the decision, to let them stay. She loved him for that.
She stood as he talked and went to the fridge. She took out the bottle of white and two cans of Guinness.
—I loved it, like, said Mick. —Having my da to myself. He’d give me a bottle of Coke and a packet of crisps and he’d park me at a table and he’d tell me to mind his pint. “That’s your job,” he said, every time — and he’d leave me there till he went next door to
the bookies.
Carol put the cans in front of Mick and Marcella, then topped up John’s glass and Marie’s — they were all on the white; Marie patted her arm as she did it — then she sat down and topped up her own.
—Then he’d come back in and he’d shout at the telly, at the racing — with all the other men. Not for the whole day, mind — only for the one race. He never went back into the bookies.
—Did he ever win?
—He must have, said Mick. —It went on for years — he must’ve.
—Did he ever give you anything?
—Money?
—Yeah.
—No. But I don’t remember if he ever won. But I’ll tell yis — I don’t think I ever saw him looking disappointed. The floor of the pub, though — it’d be covered in the betting slips. I’d be watching the other men crumpling up their dockets and it’d be “fuck this” and “fuck that fuckin’ donkey of a fuckin’ horse.” I didn’t understand it at first — why the men were cursing the horses and flinging the bits of paper on the ground. Because my father didn’t do it. Never even once — I never seen him crumple up a docket and throw it on the floor. He always gave it to me. And he said, “Don’t let your mother see that.” Always.
Mick stopped talking. He looked at them — Marcella, to Marie, to John, to Carol. He smiled at her. He thought he’d been going to cry — that was why he’d stopped talking. He was okay now, though: he’d go on.
—I took him seriously, he said.
—What d’you mean?
—I kept them, he said. —All of them. For years. I hid them in a Lego box, in under the Lego, like, and I stopped playing with the Lego. Because I was afraid the box — the cardboard — would split or burst. I didn’t hide the box, though — I was clever. I was never able to hide anything from my mother — never managed it.
—Same here.
—But, like — I worried about it all the time. All the time. That she’d find the dockets and I’d be letting my da down, yeh know. I sellotaped one end of the box. But every new docket I put in, I expected the box to burst and the dockets — the evidence — would, like, drift to the floor. All the money that had been wasted. Squandered.
—My mother’s favourite word.
—I could see it, said Mick. —Exactly what would happen. I’d be trying to catch the dockets but they’d keep getting away from me and they’d glide along the floor and they’d stop at my mother’s feet. And she’d bend down and pick one of them up, and another, and another. It fuckin’ terrified me.
—That’s terrible, really — isn’t it?
Heads nodded.
—Sad.
—Very sad.
Carol rubbed Mick’s arm.
—It was okay at the start, said Mick. —When I was smaller. I didn’t see the harm in it. But when I began to understand. Or to imagine. Cos, actually, it was harmless, putting a bet on a horse once a week. Always a fiver.
—A lot of money back then.
—Yeah, but not a fortune. But then, all the fivers put together, all the dockets — it was a fuckin’ fortune. I’d have been happier if he’d been bringing me to meet a girlfriend or — or — prostitutes. I’d have had no problem keeping them secret.
—You wouldn’t have been hiding them in a Lego box.
They laughed — all of them, Mick included.
—Well, there you go, he said. —I definitely wouldn’t have been as anxious.
—It wouldn’t exactly have been great, though, would it?
—No, Mick agreed. —No, it wouldn’t. But come here — I just thought my mother was going to pick up the box some day. Like, she was always giving away our stuff to the cousins. She was a terrible woman that way — very generous with our fuckin’ toys. She’d give the box a shake to see if there were many blocks left in it and next of all she’d be covered in dockets, hundreds of them. Years of them. Going back to when I was seven or eight. Thousands of pounds.
—Poor Mick.
—Well, said Mick. —It’s not a good memory — no.
—No.
—Every Saturday I waited in the kitchen while my father read the paper. He skipped the racing pages. He took no interest in them, not even on Grand National day. I waited for him to stand up, take the car keys from his pocket and lob them over to me. And he’d always sing — I fuckin’ hated it. Are you right there, Michael, are you right? But anyway — we’d go.
—How long did it go on for, Mick?
—I’ll tell yeh, said Mick. —I’m not sure exactly what age I was. But something happened — something clicked. I grew up — I think that’s it. Simple as. I walked out of the house one Saturday while he was reading the paper. I took the Lego with me. It was embarrassing carrying a box of Lego down the road. So I was probably — wha’? — 12? Even 13 — I’m not certain. But I brought it to the building site, where they were building the boys’ school. And — Jesus — I’ve just thought of something else.
—What?
—You were with me, Johnny, said Mick. —D’you remember?
—I do now, said John. —I think.
He looked across at Marie. He shrugged — he smiled.
—Go on, Mick.
—Well, said Mick. —Like, I emptied the Lego onto the muck.
—I remember that, said John.
He nodded.
—It was a bit mad — I remember.
—Well, it was, Mick agreed. —But not at the time. I was dead serious — it was like a religious ceremony or something — to me. Some of the dockets fell out with the Lego but I put them back in the box. And I set fire to them — I’d brought a box of matches with me.
—D’you remember that bit? Marie asked John.
—Sure Jesus — listen, said John. —We were always setting fire to stuff.
—We were veterans, said Mick. —Anyway. I remember the flame eating the colours on the box and the cardboard curling and lifting into the air and all of the dockets as well. None of them escaped.
—It sounds nearly cruel, said Marcella. —The poor dockets. Would you not have kept one of them, even?
Mick shook his head.
—I wanted rid of them, he said.
—Come here, Mick, said John. —Did we put the Lego into people’s letterboxes?
—Yeah.
Mick nodded.
—Fuckin’ mad, really, he said. —We put one bit of Lego into every letterbox on the way home, till we ran out of them.
—It’s so sad, though — isn’t it? Your poor father.
—And his ma — don’t forget.
—Yeah — I’m not forgetting.
—Well, there, said Mick. —Listen to this.
He looked at them all: they were waiting for him.
—The next Saturday, right? My da asks me if I want to go with him and I say, “No, I’m playing a match.” He looks a bit sad but he smiles and, “Alright, son,” he says and he goes.
—Ahh —
—And then, said Mick. —And then. This is true as well — I swear to God. My mother sits down at the kitchen table and she opens the paper on the racing pages.
—My God —
—No way, Mick.
It wasn’t true: he was making that part up. He was shaking the sadness off himself. He’d never thought about what his mother did when himself and his father went off on Saturdays. He’d never thought much about what they were like when he wasn’t there watching them.
—And then she stood up and got her coat and her bag and she said she was going to the shops.
—Was she going to the bookies, though?
—Don’t know, said Mick. —I didn’t follow her.
—She must’ve been. I’d say.
—She probably was.
—Good woman — fair play to her.
—That’s mad — that’s brilliant.
They were leaning into the table, bringing their faces closer together. They were giddy, grinning — happy to be there. Mick was happy too. He’d saved the day. He felt a bit heroic. And he liked the version of his mother he’d just given them — and himself.
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