heel but there did appear to be a large wad of banknotes in his hand. This was in fact a chunk of toilet paper cleverly disguised as money. In those days, toilet paper wasn’t nice and soft and absorbent but crinkly and hard and shiny like real paper. (There was a cheap brand called Izal which was like wiping your bottom with your homework. I don’t want to go into it. It was most unpleasant. I don’t think they make it any more.) So Phil didn’t have any real money and only had the fiver because he’d nicked it out of Mrs Docherty’s till. The game began, and for the first time in his life, Phil won. He kept winning. The next game and the next and the one after that until he was sitting behind a huge pile of chips worth thousands of pounds. Of course they’d let him win. That’s what they do. They let you win and win and then they grab it all back at the end with whatever you’re wearing thrown in. But Phil didn’t know that. He just thought he was the best gambler in the world and that finally the world had found out.
Then another amazing thing happened. For the first time in his life, Phil decided to be sensible. He decided to gather up all his chips and cash them in. They were worth enough – enough to buy him that sky-blue Bentley and drive it about the place until he was sick of it. As he turned from the table, his pockets bulging, he came face to face with a very large woman in a print frock. This, of course, was Mrs Biggles.
‘Hello, Mr Green,’ she said, smiling at him with enormous and maternal warmth. ‘What good luck you’ve been having!’
Oh, she was smiling and smiling. Phil preened and winked and kissed Mrs Biggles’s hand. Then he made to get by her and head for the cashier’s desk.
‘Where are you going, Mr Green?’ said Mrs Biggles, sounding sad.
‘Just to cash in my chips,’ said Phil.
‘Why don’t you have one last throw?’ said Mrs Biggles encouragingly. And she smiled and smiled. Phil, ignoring the tiny note of alarm that had started to go off in his head, thought that he might as well oblige, since she was being so charming and smiling at him so sweetly. Accordingly, and with many winks and grimaces intended to convey his mystery and appeal, he returned to the table and set down a couple of the smaller chips on number nine.
Mrs Biggles’s voice cut in from behind.
‘Put all Mr Green’s chips on number twenty-one, Gervaise.’
Very suddenly, his pockets were roughly emptied and Phil saw the whole evening’s winnings being placed on number twenty-one.
‘But –’ He whirled back to face her. She was still smiling, but somehow Phil knew that she wasn’t smiling on the inside. He realised that outright refusal was not an option. So he attempted a compromise:
‘It’s just that twenty-one isn’t my lucky number, that’s all,’ he said.
‘Never mind, Phil,’ said Mrs Biggles. ‘It’s mine.’
Gervaise spun the wheel, the ball landed on number nine and all Phil’s winnings were swept away.
‘There, there, Phil,’ said Mrs Biggles. ‘You’re a rich man – have another go.’
Phil was about to explain that he had a bit of a headache and didn’t want another go, when more chips were brought over and Mrs Biggles handed them to him.
‘I know your word is good, Phil. You don’t have to show me your money,’ she said sweetly. ‘Just put all this on number twenty-one.’
And thus it was that Phil was forced to gamble away money he didn’t have. And thus it was that he pledged the family farm to Mrs Biggles and returned to the village with horror in his heart and death at his heels.
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The Diary 11
Goodness only knows what day it is, but I must just tell you about the shenanigans on set. We are dealing with the truncated hours that the children are allowed to work as well as a prosthetic pig diving into the pond and a diver in full scuba gear under the water moving the pig along so that visual effects can fiddle with the image later, a camera on a Luna crane, water that you can’t see in so the diver keeps going in the wrong direction and three children on the bank trying to react to something that isn’t there. The whole thing is a nightmare for Martin. I’ve offered