I.

Only the broken lines registered. Short white stripes, evenly spaced, snapshots of the asphalt into the horizon tapered. Stamped with his shadow, now a stubby two o’clock silhouette cast across the tarmac. Dark and distorted. Not dissimilar to that density on awakening after too much skunk. Not that he could recall either going to bed or toking a joint. He hadn’t smoked a spliff since university, had he? The memory was as muddled as those nights of drink and desire at the Student Union. Transfused with testosterone and perfume, the dance floor pulsed to the pace of the DJ’s beat. Both predator and prey, plumed with illusions, flickered in the strobe swept fug of dry ice and cigarettes. And the sex and existential arguments at daybreak smoldered. Somewhere. But where was he now? As he scrambled up the grassy embankment, he hadn’t a clue how long he’d been walking. Or why.

Indulgences of youth in freeze frame flashed as he followed the embankment’s contour. Forgotten faces—scraps from the cutting room floor or edited highlights?—played on repeat, with access to the rest of the reel archived, classified and denied. Be they memories of the past or echoes from last night’s dream, the images were as bright as yesterday. When was yesterday?

Resting on the sloped verge, a swift bodily check revealed no cuts, bruises or booze breath. Dressed in chinos, herringbone tweed jacket and Tattersall checked shirt—no blood or mud stains—the outfit suggested a day at the races. At least he was not naked. Or in a police cell. This time.

Alcohol was not the only absent presence. No other scents jostled—diesel, burnt rubber, manure from the fields across the carriageway—nothing. Surveying his surroundings, the distant rumble of traffic, tooting of horns, acceleration of engines, even birdsong, were palpably amiss. Not a splash of oil or remnant of road-kill smeared the motorway. Not a cloud or jet trail smudged the pale blue sky. The review merely corroborated his physical presence. He knew neither where nor, more worryingly, who he was. Apart from four £20 notes he had nothing. No mobile phone, wristwatch, wallet, driving license, bank cards, or photograph of a loved one; he didn’t even find an old train ticket or shop receipt. Given the predicament, there seemed little choice but to carry in the direction that he’d presumably walked all day. The footbridge ahead acted as a marker.

Accompanied only by the conspicuous beat of his heart, harmonized with his footfall on the hard shoulder, autopilot directed his trek. An unknown interval of detachment. The footbridge remained tantalizingly out of reach. Consciousness had shifted, not departed, to a bird’s eye view. He looked and felt smaller, as if the camera-eye of his mind had uncoupled from body and time.

And then the overpass wasn’t there, its place taken by a slip road. Had the bridge transformed, or was it always so, a vision of escape, the intensifying illusion of a dream? There was little to lose by leaving the motorway; a sharp slap to the face changed nothing. He needed a bus stop, a post office, at best a tourist information office. Somewhere with maps. Something to stimulate and shape the fine tracery of lace memory. A pub would be ideal. At the very least, a pub. Just to talk to someone, anyone. He was thirsty.

With £80 in his pocket, he could afford a pint or two. In these circumstances, a café would suffice. So long as he’d secured a discreet quarter bottle of scotch from an off-license or supermarket. Then he’d worry about getting home. If only he could remember where home was. Worst case scenario, he could afford a bed for the night and seek A&E if memory hadn’t recovered by morning. What if he’d suffered a mild stroke or something worse?

Who cares? Why worry about the hereditability of brain hemorrhages or seizures when he couldn’t recall with confidence the last time he spoke with another person, let alone confirm the existence of family? Perhaps he was still at university, with Dougal, Dylan, and Zebedee, tripped out to repeats of The Magic Roundabout, assuming he had been an undergraduate or, indeed, dropped acid? Must have been ketamine; LSD was passé by the late 1990s.

Regardless of whether he was stuck in a K-hole or experiencing some form of nervous breakdown, the traffic roundabout looked and felt real. Nicely landscaped, too. Shame the maintenance was sponsored by Waitrose and not some local outfit to give him some idea of where he was. He was still thirsty.

A low sun and tower blocks dominated the vista of the second exit, emboldening his spirit and pace. Hopefully the estate homed a boozer. His pulse and thirst quickened at the prospect of a drink and a chat with the locals. Counting the seconds, the high rises loomed larger. Purple skirted clouds curtained the crimson air. One elephant. Two elephants. Three elephants. Four…

It could have been three or four thousand before he was shunted from this reverie of numbers. The buildings didn’t appear any closer. But he’d witnessed this delusion before. Green, green grass, like emeralds in their vibrancy. And the woods, chestnut, and oak, with deer grazing and horses. The Copper Horse. Windsor Great Park. Many times had he enjoyed the Long Walk, the straightness of the tree-line avenue diminishing the reality of the distance to the castle. Where his father suffered that fatal heart attack all those years ago. If only he could remember Dad’s face, a shadow of a ghost of a memory. Made flesh in tears. Caustic weeping, like a baby separated from its mother mid-feed. Cataracts of hysteria unseen since childhood.  Not counting that time he discovered his wife’s affair. How could he forget? Not the smile, hair, or eyes. Just her. Her smell. That mix of sweat, scent, and sex. As fresh as the wind carrying the subtle savor of the roses. Was he a good husband, a dutiful son?

Love rekindled—primal, erotic and familial—burned his brain with betrayal. A searing suggestive of divine retribution, karmic debt with interest. Crouching on the pavement, ambushed by anger, he was almost grateful to be alone. The schoolboy sulking solo in the classroom, when all his friends are outside playing. How long did he sit on the ground, hugging his knees, head in hands? He remained thirstier than ever.

Through the trees screening the road, he spotted a pastel patch of pink, peach, and cream roses shimmering in the veils of the setting sun. Through tear-washed eyes, hope glistened, too. For the flowers flashed his ex-wife’s maiden name: Rose. Self-pity cursed and banished, he staggered to his feet triumphant. Don’t they say you can’t smell in a dream?

He remembered meeting…Miss Rose at a plush home counties garden party. An undergraduate affair. What was her name? And the motorway earlier was certainly, no probably, a dual five-lane carriageway. The M25? Surely his formative years must have been spent in the environs of the Surrey-Berkshire border. Both counties were blessed with race courses—Ascot, Epsom, Lingfield, Newbury and Sandown—accounting for his current country attire. Not forgetting Royal Windsor, admittedly a donkey derby but a cracking night out.

Windsor was not the only regal association. The link was Gallic, French Renaissance rather than Norman in inspiration. Not so much a castle but a hilltop folly, grandiose Victorian gothic: the baroque Founder’s Building of Royal Holloway, University of London, in Egham, Surrey. That’s where he went to college. Premier League architecture, second division education. A building charming enough to appear on the telly, too: Antiques Roadshow, Basic Instinct 2, Midsomer Murders and Trinity. Nothing too gory. With the turrets and gargoyles, the redbrick was ripe for a Hammer House of Horror reboot. Just needs spraying with a few tins of fake cobweb. Unlike some kids, he’d never been scared of spiders. He loved that film Arachnophobia. Dad must have been bored shitless reading Charlotte’s Web to him over and over again, sparkling a lifelong love of reading. And what a name, dainty and feminine, fit for a princess. Not only for the daughter of the Duchess of Cambridge, but for her: Charlotte Rose. Charlie Turner. Cheekbones to open the wrists.

Reacquainted with this core element of his past, he continued down the road with a noticeable lightness of step. The towers, clearly residential buildings, assumed a new significance: beacons guiding the Mary Celeste to the safety of the shore. A welcome augmented by the harbor wall of advertising billboards gracing both sides of the highway.

At a first glance, the hoarding offered little orientation. Alexa, BMW, Coca-Cola, Google and Trivago promised deliverance to the good life. Were it not for a seductive Marks and Spencer ladies’ swimwear poster, modelled endearingly by a young lady distinctly out of kilter with this retailer’s loyal customer base, he could have been anywhere in the West, let alone England. She was stunning. Nearly young enough to be his daughter. Did he have a daughter? Hopefully not, given the feelings aroused…certainly not. He and Charlie could have had a daughter. Should have had a child.

Enough tears had been shed. Thoughts of family ramified his life-affirming instinct, prompting further realization. Ever since he turned off the motorway, the physical environment—the tower blocks, the rose garden and the billboards—had electrified his imagination. These manifestations were not so much visual markers but ciphers. As with his teenage attempts at The Times crossword, you had to familiarize yourself with the compiler’s mindset. Learn how the cruciverbalist embeds clues. And you start with the small word entries to break open the grid. Smoldering beneath the grate of consciousness, the embers of memory ignited to blaze his name: Bill Turner.

Running, Bill could see now that the block of flats was one of four buildings forming an estate on the hillside overlooking town. A frontier encampment on the fringe of civilization. Late-fifties concrete sentinels in the style of Le Corbusier, it remained unclear whether these structures were designed to keep people out or in. At least there would be an audience. He had to restrain himself from shouting his name as he entered the housing estate. Determined to shake hands and introduce himself to the first person he met, he exuded the evangelism of a prophet freshly blessed with divine revelation.

A deserted playground greeted Bill’s arrival, the hush heightened by the squeak of the swings swaying softly in the breeze. Perhaps it was later than he thought. But if all the young children were in bed, where were the adolescents smoking joints and swigging alcopops?  The recessed shopping precinct, skirting the high-rise, was also abandoned. Graffitied shutters, wood chip-boarding and smashed windows fronted this parade. Broken beer bottles, bent cigarette stubs, torn crisp packets, fast food wrappings, sauce sachets, stray chips, and pizza rinds overflowed the arcade’s bins. At the entrance to a takeaway, a soiled mattress formed an altar on the porch floor. Spent condoms, scattered syringes, crushed cans of super-strength cider and other sacraments of unrest evidenced recent habitation. Perhaps the estate was one of those blighted postwar social housing settlements scheduled for demolition? A suitable shelter for the homeless begging on the high street. Time to join his friends.

Echoing the first century mystics returning from 40 days and nights in the wilderness, Bill headed down into the valley. Up above, intense coral pinks and blood orange draped the sky delirious. The crescent moon waned dim on high. An infinite silent scream passed through nature. He really needed a drink.

II.

Guided by the church spire, not a soul crossed Bill’s trail into the twilight. Not a car passed him by. No houses abutted the road. Descending in silent solitude, alive only to a head-hissing static, he was surprised to find himself standing in what he assumed to be the high street. With night closing like a fist, the buildings lost their clear geometry. The signage on the shops were visible yet blurred. Similar to reading the bottom line of a chart during an eye test. Had the landscape ever possessed such definition?

But for the locked doors and darkened windows, the scene was almost obscenely normal. A single strip of light—the trademark red and white of Ladbrokes?—glowed in the gloam. Bookies do stay open later than most other businesses. The prospect of a bet almost quenched Bill’s thirst. Drowning in adrenaline, the frisson was not dissimilar to the promise of sex. Illicit or novel. Preferably both.

Once inside, he was almost disappointed that the premises conformed to his expectation of chain store banality. If this was a dream, why the no-smoking signs? Why not the dormitory of a Catholic girls’ school? The sun was shining earlier. Where were the teen twin sisters sharing an ice cream cone? Tipping the velvet. With Keeley Hawes. What was the other actress’s name?

Copies of the Racing Post, stacks of betting slips and stubby blue biros topped the MFC tables, horse and dog race meeting fixtures were posted on the walls, slot machines flirted. Above the silence, the whirr of a ceiling CCTV camera trailed his walk to the serving counter. A warm mug of coffee rested upon the unmanned desk. Such shops are often understaffed, victims of their online success. Perhaps the cashier was taking a shit, watching him via mobile phone? Was a drab suburbia the limit of his impoverished imagination?

“AND IT’S 20 MINUTES TO GO UNTIL THE BIG ONE, 20 MINUTES.”

Bill swiveled to face the voice, the only human sound, the sole external noise that he had heard all day.

“I’M TALKING TO YOU.”

“Me?” Bill addressed the row of shelf-mounted monitors, all exhibiting the same image.

“YES, YOU.” The picture closed in on the face transmitted, a strikingly benign countenance, telegenic yet insipid. Big teeth and beard. A marginally less-camp Rylan Clark-Neal.

“Wh-what?” stammered Bill.

“SO, MORRIS.” The camera zoomed out, showing two middle-aged men chatting in a television studio. “ANY TIPS FOR TONIGHT’S MEET? THE PANOPTIC SOLUTIONS HANDICAP CHASE?”

Bill smiled. For a moment, he thought the screens were speaking to him.

“WELL, ROGER. AS YOU KNOW, THIS IS A UNIQUE RACE. A REAL TRIAL OF STRENGTH.”

Who were these two clowns?

“YES, MORRIS. THE NATIONALS ARE USUALLY SEEN AS THE ULTIMATE TEST OF ENDURANCE, RUNNING AT 4 MILES, 2 FURLONGS AND 74 YARDS. BUT THIS ONE DEMANDS A PUNISHING FIVE MILES.”

The familiarity of the presenters unsettled, though Bill couldn’t recall seeing them on television previously. Still, it beats Clare Balding or John McCririck on the box.

“AND A GRUELLING 21 FENCES TO JUMP, ROGER. SO ON THE ONE HAND, THERE AREN’T THAT MANY ENTRANTS. ON THE OTHER, IT’S AN OPEN RACE?”

Twenty-one jumps over five miles justified the hype, and a punt.

“SO, MORRIS, AS THE PEOPLE’S PUNDIT, WHO DO YOU FORECAST TO HOP THE HURDLES TO THE FINAL FURLONG AND CROSS THE FINISHING LINE FIRST?”

Bill had never met a student journalist. Was a class on cliché compulsory?

“ROGER. YOU SIR, ARE THE RHAPSODIST OF THE RACETRACKS. A TROUBADOUR OF THE TURF.”

“Christ, get on with it,” yelled Bill at the monitors. Placing a bet was not the only vice competing for his attentions.

“STEADY ON, MORRIS, YOU’LL BE HAVING MY JOB NEXT.”

“Why don’t you two just fuck and be done with it?” Banish that thought. “Where’s the scrumptious Francesca Cumani when you need her?” Bill’s blood pressure and thirst quickened enunciating the first syllable of her surname. Like enthusiastic schoolboys during Christmas assembly, singing the chorus to “Oh Come All Ye Faithful” with gusto.

“YOU FLATTER ME. BUT BACK TO BUSINESS. FOR THOSE OF YOU LOOKING FOR A DECENT PRICE BET, I RECOMMEND ANDALUSITE.”

The seeing stone. Did Charlotte still subscribe to that happy-clappy, save-the-squirrel crystal crap? She should have gone into teaching, all that adopt an ostrich mindfulness is nigh on compulsory in the classroom today.

“NOT ONLY IS IT HIS FIRST TIME OUT OF THE STABLES THIS SEASON, HE’S JUST BEEN GELDED. CONNECTIONS HAVE YET TO DECIDE IF HE’S RUNNING IN BLINKERS.”

That was it.

“WHAT’S THE MARKET SAYING, MORRIS?”

He was a schoolteacher.

“HE OPENED AT EIGHTEENS, BUT THERE’S BEEN A FLURRY OF MONEY THIS LAST HOUR. HE’S NOW HOVERING AT AROUND 12-1, WELL WORTH AN EACH-WAY FLUTTER.”

Or rather, he had been. Was that why his wife left?

“YOU HEARD IT FROM THE HORSE’S MOUTH. THANKYOU, MORRIS. THAT’S ANDALUSITE EACH-WAY AT 12-1. NOW REMEMBER, IF YOU CAN’T STOP, STOP. BUT FOR THOSE BETTING IN-STORE, WE’RE OFFERING A BOOSTER, A FAVOURABLE 14-1 FOR THE NEXT FIVE MINUTES. THAT ALL FROM ME, ROGER PENROSE. NOW OVER TO THE DELECTABLE DIANA BACK AT NEWBURY.”

He couldn’t risk the shop attendant taking another five minutes in the toilets. £20 each-way on Andalusite at 14-1 was too good an opportunity to miss. Symbolic of his increased fortune since reaching town. Pocketing his betting slip, he left the shop intent on spending his remaining £40. How long had it been since he had a drink?

***

For all installments of “The Bet,” click here.