fingernail. Even scratching at the glass doesn't budge it, however. It isn't a twig or an insect. It's a minus sign.
THIRTY-ONE - IT SMILES
My guts seem to shrink like an image on a television that has had its plug pulled. As I stare at the screen in the desperate hope that it will reveal I'm somehow mistaken, the men behind me start to murmur and then laugh. I stare until I'm unable to judge whether the flickering is on the screen or in my eyes or both. I stare until the nearest man enquires 'Are you just going to look at it, mate? It's like he said, it's not a telly.'
He's a Londoner. By the sound of their supportive mutters, so are his friends. I feel pathetically reassured, but less so once I turn to them. They might be undertakers and triplets too: heavy black overcoats, white faces almost round enough to be artificial, oily black hair with partings – left side for the foremost man, middle for the middle, right for the rear guard – that expose their pallid scalps. Nevertheless I appeal to them. 'I've been robbed.'
'There's a lot of it about, they told us.'
'You want to keep an eye out.'
'Don't let us stop you getting your dosh.'
I haven't time to be disconcerted by their speaking in the order that they're queuing. 'I mean I've been robbed on here,' I protest, whirling around to confront the screen, but I haven't taken it unawares. It still wonders if I need another service, which gives me an idea I have to hope isn't hopeless. I jab the button to call up my balance again in case there was an error in transmission and do my best to ignore the murmurs at my back. Are they really saying 'Mean old bean' and 'Must have been' and 'Not a bean'? I struggle against fancying that the last comment has affected the onscreen display, where the minus sign looks blacker than ever, a monochrome film's rendering of red. 'They could do it again, whoever did,' I realise wildly. 'I need to contact the bank.'
'Can he do it on here?'
The speaker is the man with the central parting. As he leans his palms on either side of the screen, auras of moisture swell around his plump hands on the metal. 'He can't,' he announces, straightening up.
'I didn't think he could.'
'I knew he couldn't.'
I could imagine that a single actor is dubbing their voices. The onscreen digits seem to stir as if they're eager to multiply, and I haven't convinced myself that it's merely my vision when the nearest man says 'So let's have a turn.'
He's now the character with hair parted on the right. Do they keep switching places or wigs while I'm not looking? I can't be sure whether his coiffure is slightly askew. I peer at it until the man behind him, his mirror image in terms of hair, says 'You were wanting to phone your bank.'
'Or email them,' says the fellow at the rear.
They're reminding me that I can't pay to do either. I left my mobile at Natalie's because it wouldn't have worked in America. I stand aside to let the leader of the queue use the machine, and then I take a deep breath. 'This is horribly embarrassing, but could you lend me a little money? You've got my word I'll pay you back. Give me your address and I'll give you mine.'
He orders a hundred euros and covers the delivery slot with a hand as he turns to his companions. 'Too much like home, this, don't you reckon?'
All at once I'm surrounded. 'We've got beggars hanging round cashpoints too,' one of them informs me.
'So you Dutchmen hadn't better try it on with us,' says the man with a parting that resembles a glistening slit on top of his head.
A wild grin tugs my lips wide. 'I'm not Dutch. I'm one of you.'
'Smells Dutch to me,' says the man at the screen.
'Fuggy,' says his opposite, waving away the air between us.
'Druggy,' their companion expounds. 'Double Dutch.'
I feel as if the place into which I've strayed is trying to claim me for its own. 'I'm not bloody Dutch,' I insist. 'You saw my balance. It's in pounds.'
The man at the wall snatches his cash and stuffs it in an inside pocket. As he makes way for the man crowned with a slit he says 'You mean you've got some money after all.'
'Unless it was someone else's he was thieving,' says the man who has taken his place.
His friends bring their pugnacious faces close to mine as if they're challenging me to spot the difference, and then they find some cue to step back. 'If you're going to beg, do it proper,' says the man with the left-hand split.
'Have a bit of dignity,' his reversal says.
I don't know whether that's a contradiction or an additional direction. Are they urging me to put on some kind of performance for them? I should be searching for a way to contact the bank. I dodge between the men and tramp alongside the canal.
I'd forgotten the street was so busy. For the last few minutes, which felt as prolonged as a dream, I was aware only of my interrogators. When I glance back they aren't at the machine, and I can't locate them in the crowd. Where am I dashing to? How can I get some money? I feel as if my panic has seized control of my body, driving it helplessly onwards with no goal beyond escape – and then I stagger to a halt and laugh out loud. I mustn't take the men's words as a joke. They've told me the solution.
I'm nearly at a bridge across the jittery water. Several bicycles are chained to the railings that border the canal. How would Tubby play the scene? I don a wide fixed big-eyed grin and prance back and forth in front of the bicycle closest to the bridge. As soon as a few people stop to watch I mime trying to ride. I make several attempts to mount the bicycle, only to tumble each time on the flagstones. I pedal away on the air instead and look back, wondering why I'm not on the machine. I pretend to sit on an inventively rickety seat until I impale myself on it. By now my face is aching with my frozen grin, which I maintain as I strive to pump up a pair of invisible tyres that keep growing unequal and finally burst like Tubby's balloon head. That's my finale, or at any rate all I can invent. I go for a bow without rising to my feet and sprawl face down in front of my audience.
I've been hearing laughter, however muted, and now it's followed by a ripple of applause, unless that's the canal. Were my efforts useless? I haven't provided a container for donations. I seem unable to stop grinning at my idiocy as I turn my left hand over on its back and stretch it out. In a moment a cold object lands in my palm, followed by another. Others clink on the pavement, and one trundles against the edge of my hand.
I don't dare look until my benefactors have moved on, leaving me to count my bruises and my takings. I've earned eleven euros, no, twelve – more. 'Thank you,' I call, which only attracts stares from passers-by who seem to think I have no reason. I drop the coins into my trousers pocket as I wobble to my feet. I have more than enough money to pay my bill at the Pot of Gold, and I mean to retrieve my card. For all I know, the man behind the counter can deduce my number from the way I typed it in.
Once through the alley was enough. I take the cross-street that leads from the bridge. People give me an unexpected amount of room until I realise that it's time to finish grinning. I find it hard to suppress my laughter at that, even when I think of the hole that's my account – a hole in more than the wall. I pinch my cheeks to force my mouth shut, and succeed in achieving silence as I turn left alongside the first canal.
Glittering ripples snag my concentration as I head for the nearest bridge. I didn't realise I had strayed so far from the hotel. I can't see it or the Pot of Gold ahead for the nagging of the ripples, but my destination certainly isn't behind me; it's on this side of the street and past the bridge. I wish there weren't so many people; their toothy silhouettes interfere with my vision whenever I peer ahead. When I reach the bridge I hurry to the middle, and the railing seems to grow soft and clammy in my grasp. Though I can see both ways for at least half a mile, there's no sign of the Pot of Gold or the Dwaas Hotel.
It isn't possible. I didn't cross water to reach the other street. The thick lurid ripples pester my vision, and I'm irresistibly reminded of the optical effect that used to signal a shift of time and space in films. The buildings appear to pinch thinner as if they're about to change before my eyes. How many of them contain sex shops? Are the naked figures on the covers of the videos in the windows really so fat or so young or both? 'You're there,' I assure my destination, and an Oriental couple veers across the bridge to keep out of my way. 'Excuse me,' I blurt, though
