The Rules of Play Read Online Free

good, much better than throwing balled-up socks. He could go on for ever. It doesn’t matter now whether he’s chasing anyone or not, and the money doesn’t matter either.
    The boy follows the man across a street, not bothering to look out for traffic. Then one more corner, a short road between closed garages and warehouses, and suddenly the boy is out in the open, at the edge of a wide road with busy traffic, two lanes on each side and low metal barriers on a strip of dirty grass in the middle. The man runs across the first two lanes, just in front of a row of cars that are picking up speed after being stopped at a red light, and skips over the barrier. By the time the boy crosses the cars are travelling fast, a horn sounds loudly and far too close and a car brakes and swerves.
    At the barrier the boy stops. His head is buzzing, his whole body trembling. The man has disappeared. He could have gone either left or right. He could have doubled back at the traffic lights. More likely he’s somewhere in the rough ground on the other side of the road with tough, spiky bushes and a row of parked trucks against a wall. By now it’s too dark to see. The boy has been running for hours.
    He grips the metal barrier as trucks thunder past, just inches away, blowing waves of dust and hot exhaust fumes in his face. He feels that he’s been shuffled and lost, and has been lost for some time now, much longer than tonight. He thinks it’s probably a natural condition, which the rules of the family game are there to disguise, and now he’ll have to get used to it. But if it involves running, it will be okay. He has expended a huge amount of energy and has passed over into somewhere new. He has the feeling that he’s just run a race, and because there’s no one in front of him he must have won. He deserves a prize, a medal with a ribbon at the very least, even if he doesn’t have a bedroom wall to hang it on.
    THIS IS THE story I tell my lover. I’m lying down, again, which is why it goes on a bit. This is the story I tell the loss-adjuster, for that is his job, and I hope to God he’s good at it.
    ‘Where did the three-card man come from?’ he asks.
    ‘I passed one on the way here. Round the corner from the Tube station.’
    ‘He’s a gypsy, I suppose?’
    ‘I imagine so.’
    ‘You imagine. Could be a lot worse.’
    ‘I don’t want to go there.’
    ‘Don’t.’
    ‘He’s stayed out one night. He’s done this before, he was staying over at a friend’s, he’s probably fine. I can still choose.’
    ‘Good choice.’
    ‘Mmm?’
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘What’s the score?’
    ‘You really want to know?’
    ‘I couldn’t give a fuck.’
    ‘180 for 2. India were all out for 198. Have you done anything? Called the police?’
    ‘Alan called them this morning. I made him.’
    ‘Because you think if it comes from a man, they take it more—’
    ‘But they do, don’t they?’
    I LIE WITH this loss-adjuster not making love. It’s a thing that lovers are for.
    And then we do, because it’s another thing they’re for, and I want to. I can still choose.
    Afterwards, which is in fact a lot later, I sit with my knees up looking out of the window. The loss-adjuster, I think, has an inkling to turn on the TV, but I’m not going to tell him he can. I’m busy.
    ‘What are you doing?’ he asks.
    ‘I’m training my eyes.’
    ‘How do you train your eyes?’
    ‘By counting the bricks in that wall.’
    ‘How many?’
    ‘I get up to nineteen and then I lose track, so I start again. But the next time I only get up to twelve, and the time after that it’s down to three. It’s not going well.’
    If I turn to him he will see that I’m crying. When I turn to him. When he makes me turn to him.
    IT ’ S RAINING . THE players are off the field. They don’t want to get their white trousers muddy. Alan will have seen the forecast, will have taken an umbrella, will be holding it over Agnieszka who actually likes the rain and would