Fold by Tom Campbell

Author:Tom Campbell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2011-11-15T00:00:00+00:00

Round at Nick’s – July

It had taken him a while, but he had finally realised that he had got the drugs thing all wrong. Or at least the wrong way round. It seemed that the general truth was that drugs fucked you up. There was no use in Nick taking cocaine or opium or heroin or whatever in order to win at cards, but there was the promise of significant rewards if he could get the others, specifically Doug, on to them.

Of course, Doug was never going to take them through choice. He wasn’t that stupid and anyway, what with his sports centres and kids and in-laws, he was probably the type who drank heavily and happily, but had strong views on illegal drugs. No, if this was going to work, then it would all have to be done without Doug ever knowing.

Despite the practical challenges, Nick had few qualms about the enterprise. OK, he would have to acknowledge that if one of the others had spiked him with illegal and possibly dangerous drugs simply in order to beat him at cards then he would probably have gone ape-shit, but that wasn’t necessarily a reason for him not to do it to them. Doug should have thought of it first. And if one really considered it, it wasn’t as if what he was doing didn’t have some noble and significant precedents. Duplicity, secrecy, guile – these could all be admirable qualities too. Weren’t all the great heroes renowned for their cunning as much as for their courage? Not having studied any history or geography since he was sixteen, Nick only had one knowledge source to draw on, and that was Western literature. But surely that was enough? There were the audacious schemes of the Scarlet Pimpernel, the tricks of Brer Rabbit, the mischievous games of Puck, and, of course, Odysseus himself – the first and greatest hero of them all. He hadn’t been a mighty warrior like Ajax or Achilles; he had been wily, a trickster. He had beaten the Trojans with a gift and defeated the Cyclops by getting him drunk first – well, that wasn’t so very different from what Nick was doing to Doug now. Besides, it was sort of fair in a way, given that Nick had been so pissed himself for the last few months.

That had changed now. Now he did nothing but carefully sip his bottle of beer. His experiments with getting drunk had been illuminating but ultimately unsuccessful and probably, he now accepted, a little ill-conceived. He took another mouthful, but only because he was nervous. It was just gone eight o’clock, this was only the third hand of the evening, and he needed to play things very carefully. A lot of thought and hard work had gone into this, but the potential for a catastrophic fuck-up was still enormous.

‘Raise three pounds,’ said Doug.

‘Call,’ said Nick.

But he wasn’t thinking about his hand. He was looking at Doug. How was he feeling? Was this really going to work? Doug was drinking red wine – that was a good sign.

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