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Authors: Graham Greene

Loser Takes All

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Contents
LOSER TAKES ALL
Graham Greene was born in 1904. On coming down from Balliol College, Oxford, he worked for four years as sub-editor on
The Times.
He established his reputation with his fourth novel,
Stamboul Train.
In 1935 he made a journey across Liberia, described in
Journey Without Maps
, and on his return was appointed film critic of the
Spectator.
In 1926 he had been received into the Roman Catholic Church and visited Mexico in 1938 to report on the religious persecution there. As a result he wrote
The Lawless Roads
and, later, his famous novel
The Power and the Glory. Brighton Rock
was published in 1938 and in 1940 he became literary editor of the
Spectator.
The next year he undertook work for the Foreign Office and was stationed in Sierra Leone from 1941 to 1943. This later produced the novel,
The Heart of the Matter
, set in West Africa.
As well as his many novels, Graham Greene wrote several collections of short stories, four travel books, six plays, three books of autobiography –
A Sort of Life, Ways of Escape
and
A World of My Own
(published posthumously) – two of biography and four books for children. He also contributed hundreds of essays, and film and book reviews, some of which appear in the collections
Reflections
and
Mornings in the Dark.
Many of his novels and short stories have been filmed and
The Third Man
was written as a film treatment. Graham Greene was a member of the Order of Merit and a Companion of Honour. Graham Greene died in April 1991.
ALSO BY GRAHAM GREENE
Novels
The Man Within
It's a Battlefield
A Gun for Sale
The Confidential Agent
The Ministry of Fear
The Third Man
The End of the Affair
The Quiet American
A Burnt-Out Case
Travels with my Aunt
Dr Fischer of Geneva
or
The Bomb Party
The Tenth Man
Stamboul Train
England Made Me
Brighton Rock
The Power and the Glory
The Heart of the Matter
The Fallen Idol
Our Man in Havana
The Comedians
The Human Factor
Monsignor Quixote
The Honorary Consul
The Captain and the Enemy
Short Stories
Collected Stories
The Last Word and Other Stories
May We Borrow Your Husband?
Travel
Journey Without Maps
The Lawless Roads
In Search of a Character
Getting to Know the General
Essays
Collected Essays
Yours etc.
Reflections
Mornings in the Dark
Plays
Collected Plays
Autobiography
A Sort of Life
Ways of Escape
Fragments of an Autobiography
A World of my Own
Biography
Lord Rochester's Monkey
An Impossible Woman
Children's Books
The Little Train
The Little Horse-Bus
The Little Steamroller
The Little Fire Engine

GRAHAM GREENE

Loser Takes All

VINTAGE BOOKS
London

This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.
Epub ISBN: 9781409040392
Version 1.0
  
Published by Vintage 2001
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Copyright © Graham Greene 1954, 1955
A serial version of this book appeared in
the United States of America in
Harper's Magazine
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
First published in Great Britain by
William Heinemann 1955
Vintage
Random House, 20 Vauxhall Bridge Road,
London SW1V 2SA
Random House Australia (Pty) Limited
20 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney
New South Wales 2061, Australia
Random House New Zealand Limited
18 Poland Road, Glenfield,
Auckland 10, New Zealand
Random House (Pty) Limited
Endulini, 5A Jubilee Road, Parktown 2193,
South Africa
The Random House Group Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN 0 09 928622 X
Dear Frere,
As we have been associated in business and friendship for a quarter of a century I am dedicating this frivolity without permission to you. Unlike some of my Catholic critics, you, I know, when reading this little story, will not mistake me for ‘I', nor do I need to explain to you that this tale has not been written for the purposes of encouraging adultery, the use of pyjama tops, or registry office marriages. Nor is it meant to discourage gambling.
Affectionately and gratefully,
Graham Greene
PART ONE
1
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.
2
T
HAT
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.'
‘I know too much about figures. I live with them all day.'
‘You won't be bored at Bournemouth?'
‘No. I won't be bored.'
‘I wish it wasn't your second honeymoon. Was the first very exciting – in Paris?'
‘We could only afford a week-end,' I said guardedly.
‘Did you love her a terrible lot?'
‘Listen,' I said, ‘it was more than fifteen years ago. You hadn't started school. I couldn't have waited all that time for you.'
‘But did you?'
‘The night after she left me I took Ramage out to dinner and stood him the best champagne I could get. Then I went home and slept for nine hours right across the bed. She was one of those people who kick at night and then say you are taking up too much room.'
‘Perhaps I'll kick.'
‘That would feel quite different. I hope you'll kick. Then I'll know you are there. Do you realize the terrible amount of time we'll waste asleep, not knowing a thing? A quarter of our life.'
It took her a long time to calculate that. She wasn't good at figures as I was. ‘More,' she said, ‘much more. I like ten hours.'
‘That's even worse,' I said. ‘And eight hours at the office without you. And food – this awful business of having meals.'
‘I'll try to kick,' she said.
That was at lunch-time the day when our so-called luck started. We used to meet as often as we could for a snack at the Volunteer which was just round the corner from my office – Cary drank cider and had an unquenchable appetite for cold sausages. I've seen her eat five and then finish off with a hardboiled egg.
‘If we were rich,' I said, ‘you wouldn't have to waste time cooking.'
‘But think how much more time we'd waste eating. These sausages – look, I'm through already. We shouldn't even have finished the caviare.'
‘And then the
sole meunière
,' I said.
‘A little fried spring chicken with new peas.'
‘A
soufflé Rothschild
.'
‘Oh, don't be rich, please,' she said. ‘We mightn't like each other if we were rich. Like me growing fat and my hair falling out . . .'
‘That wouldn't make any difference.'
‘Oh yes, it would,' she said. ‘You know it would,' and the talk suddenly faded out. She was not too young to be wise, but she was too young to know that wisdom shouldn't be spoken aloud when you are happy.
I went back to the huge office block with its glass, glass, glass, and its dazzling marble floor and its pieces of modern carving in alcoves and niches like statues in a Catholic church. I was the assistant accountant (an ageing assistant accountant) and the very vastness of the place made promotion seem next to impossible. To be raised from the ground floor I would have to be a piece of sculpture myself.
In little uncomfortable offices in the city people die and people move on: old gentlemen look up from steel boxes and take a Dickensian interest in younger men. Here, in the great operational room with the computers ticking and the tape machines clicking and the soundless typewriters padding, you felt there was no chance for a man who hadn't passed staff college. I hadn't time to sit down before a loudspeaker said, ‘Mr Bertram wanted in Room 10.' (That was me.)
‘Who lives in Room 10?' I asked.
Nobody knew. Somebody said, ‘It must be on the eighth floor.' (He spoke with awe as though he were referring to the peak of Everest – the eighth floor was as far as the London County Council regulations in those days allowed us to build towards Heaven.)
‘Who lives in Room 10?' I asked the liftman again.
‘Don't you know?' he said sourly. ‘How long have you been here?'
‘Five years.'
We began to mount. He said, ‘You ought to know who lives in Room 10.'
‘But I don't.'
‘Five years and you don't know that.'
‘Be a good chap and tell me.'
‘Here you are. Eighth floor, turn left.' As I got out, he said gloomily, ‘Not know Room 10!' He relented as he shut the gates. ‘Who do you think? The Gom, of course.'
Then I began to walk very slowly indeed.
I have no belief in luck. I am not superstitious, but it is impossible, when you have reached forty and are conspicuously unsuccessful, not sometimes to half-believe in a malign providence. I had never met the Gom: I had only seen him twice; there was no reason so far as I could tell why I should ever see him again. He was elderly; he would die first, I would contribute grudgingly to a memorial. But to be summoned from the ground floor to the eighth shook me. I wondered what terrible mistake could justify a reprimand in Room 10; it seemed to be quite possible that our wedding now would never take place at St Luke's, nor our fortnight at Bournemouth. In a way I was right.
BOOK: Loser Takes All
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