Loser Takes All

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I suppose the small greenish statue of a man in a wig on a horse is one of the famous statues of the world. I said to Cary, “Do you see how shiny the right knee is? It’s been touched so often for luck, like St Peter’s foot in Rome.”

She rubbed the knee carefully and tenderly as though she were polishing it. “Are you superstitious?” I said.

“Yes.”

“I’m not.”

“I’m so superstitious I never walk under ladders. I throw salt over my right shoulder. I try not to tread on the cracks in pavements. Darling, you’re marrying the most superstitious woman in the world. Lots of people aren’t happy. We are. I’m not going to risk a thing.”

“You’ve rubbed that knee so much, we ought to have plenty of luck at the tables.”

“I wasn’t asking for luck at the tables,” she said.

That night I thought that our luck had begun in London two weeks before. We were to be married at St Luke’s Church, Maida Hill, and we were going to Bournemouth for the honeymoon. Not, on the face of it, an exhilarating programme, but I thought I didn’t care a damn where we went so long as Cary was there. Le Touquet was within our means, but we thought we could be more alone in Bournemouth—the Ramages and the Truefitts were going to Le Touquet. “Besides, you’d lose all our money at the Casino,” Cary said, “and we’d have to come home.”

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