by Jeff Noon
And after she’d told everybody that her father was dead.
This was the only reason she had gained the sponsorship from Max Hackle, because both her mother and father were dead. Orphan money pay-off.
Her mother really was dead, but her father wasn’t. Not yet. He was just ignored, lied about. Too many memories, too many dreams, unappreciated.
Her father had been a great mathematician, if only an amateur, the muse kept hidden. In reality, Jimmy Love was a plumber, but every night he would come home dirty, to work on his numbers alone. Never letting the Daisy in.
Horrible thought, but Daisy was drawn backwards, towards the memories. Back to when she was a young kid, aged seven and a half, playing the dominoes with her father. Her mother already dead.
A child who would hardly speak, her father forced to take up her education. Utilizing the old-style dominoes, a cheap and black plastic set of numbers.
PLAY THE RULES (HISTORY)
7a.
There are twenty-eight pieces in a standard domino set, ranging from the double-blank to the double-six, containing all permutations of the numbers between, paired across a centre line. In total, 168 dots in play.
7b.
In the old game, each player chose five dominoes to begin. The player with the highest double played first. Each player played in turn to match an exposed number, until they could play no more. They would then knock on the table and choose from the draw-pile, which was the pile of dominoes still waiting. They would draw until they found a playable piece. The winner was the first player to get rid of all his pieces.
7c.
Some believe that the ancient Egyptians played a similar game of numbers, carved on human bone. Others believe it a medieval invention, an offshoot of the memento mori fashion accessory, fragments of a portable skull. The game, as described in rule 7b, came to light in the eighteenth century, in Italy. The dominoes were carved from ivory, from which comes the vulgar name.
7d.
The Company may take its imagery and devices from the historical game. The new rules, however, shall be of its own devising, and are herein contained.
7e.
The proper name of the game comes from the Latin: God the father, Christ the son: Dominus. Anno Domini, the year of our Lord. So the game has always had a religious attitude. Or else it refers to the Italian word for master: domino. Which word was shouted aloud by the winner: domino! Meaning, ‘I have won! I am the master!’
7f.
No such outburst by present-day winners shall be permitted, except during the first ten minutes after the result.
Backwards, in time. ‘Domino! I’ve won! Daisy, I’m the master!’ Her father takes a winning swig from his whisky, and Daisy throws her remaining bones onto the living-room floor in a sudden tantrum.
The numbers, the beautiful numbers, a rain of losing dots.
‘Daisy, my love,’ her father says, ‘you are such a bad loser.’
‘Nah, nah, nah!’ cries Daisy.
‘You’ve got to learn how to play to win, my child. Just because you’ve only got half of a brain, that doesn’t mean you—’
‘Nah, nah!’
‘Stop that noise!’
And then her father hits her, right across the face. The young Daisy goes all silent for a frozen moment, until the voice in her head comes calling, ‘Fuck you, Father!’
But all that comes out is, ‘Nah, nah, nah.’
‘That’s OK. That’s fine, my child,’ says her father, stooping down to pick up the fallen bones. ‘I’m sorry for hitting you. Please forgive me. Let’s play again.’
Another swig of whisky. ‘Let’s play to win this time.’
The words came back to Daisy, as she rested, half asleep over her latest assignment. What had she been back then? A brain-dead child with no hope of ever winning anything. Really? The words in her head were superfine, but by the time they got to her lips…
‘Nah, nah, nah.’
The younger Daisy Love was a mental nightmare, a self-absorbed child, living only within her own head. How her father must have hated her feeble mutterings…
‘Nah, nah.’
‘Fucking choose!’
Daisy chooses, rubbing her smarting cheek. She takes her five bones from the pile and then lets her father choose his army. Memories…Her father viciously bangs down his final bone to her weak-brained double-five, with another shout of ‘Domino!’ The master. ‘Do you really think it’s only a game of chance, Daisy? Did your mother die in vain?’ Her father’s words, full of a distant longing, a love of some kind, an urging. ‘You see this, Daisy?’ He’s showing her his necklace again, on the end of which swings an old, old domino, the five-and-the-four, with the centre spot of the five pierced for the leather thong. ‘I won this when I was a kid. Look, this time I’ll play to lose, OK? I’ll play my worst domino every time. There are no winners without losers. Do you follow me?’
Nah fucking nah! An easy game, but still Daisy loses.
‘Won’t you ever shout out “Domino”, my daughter! What’s wrong with you?’
‘Nah, nah, nah!’ Meaning the game isn’t proper.
‘OK, now we play again,’ says her father. ‘But to win, this time. OK? Have you learned your lessons?’
‘Nah, nah.’
But Daisy doesn’t want to play anymore. She sulks her way into her bedroom, there to cry into her pillow, and then, suddenly, never to cry again. She opens her tatty exercise book, jots down a row of numbers, corresponding to the dots on all twenty-eight of the dominoes. Daisy works through all the possibilities of playing. Of playing to win. She can’t speak properly, she can’t communicate her problems to the world, but she can count, can’t she? She can count way beyond all the other children, and all the problems. Daisy lives within her own darkness, since her mother’s death, no words to comfort her, only the secret numbers making any kind of sense. Idiot savant, the doctors have called her. A mathematical, crazy genius, but totally unschoolable.
How the dumbness came.
Daisy had done some research, when she was old enough, into the exact circumstances of her mother’s death.
First, a faulty traffic signal on the road into Manchester. The chances of that, Daisy had worked out, were approximately 1 million to one. Bad chances, causing a free-for-all jam at the junction with Grey Mare Lane, lodged with cars too eager to get somewhere, throwing away the rules.
Secondly, the family Love was going into town to buy a puppy, thinking it would help five-year-old Daisy to make some friends. Average chances, the kind of thing concerned parents did for difficult children.
Thirdly, a lorry driver called Bob Tyler was late for a delivery of the marmalade he was carrying. Bob’s overseer had already called him to task twice that week for tardiness, so he was extra keen to make this appointment. He was speeding. Average chances, two to one, given the job prospects.
Fourthly, some roadworks at the junction had been left undone. More bad chances, according to Daisy’s calculations, but not too high given the council’s lack of funds: approximately fifty to one.
Fifthly, Daisy’s father had been drinking all morning. Odds-on favourite, because he always drank.
Sixthly, now he was drinking and driving. Chances: five to one.
Seventhly, he was swearing at his wife for wanting the puppy, turning his eyes from the road, just as he attempted to cross the obstruction, the roadworks, the traffic jam, against the dead lights. Chances: inevitable, given the drink and the anger and the hopeless love.
Eighthly, Bob Tyler decided he couldn’t wait any longer for his deliverance. Ten to one, maybe less, maybe more.
The chances of this, the chances of that. The chances of all these crazy circumstances coming together, according to Daisy’s constant calculations: ten billion bad chances to one lonely good one. Approximately astronomical. Hopeless chances you would never bet a puny on, never mind a lovely, never mind the old money, but happen they did.
Daisy was in the backs
eat. ‘Jimmy!’ Hearing her mother calling out, suddenly. Last words.
‘Shit!’ Her father calling…
The world exploding. The words going wrong, all so very wrong.
Mummy had gone through the windscreen, taken away by the god of bad chances. A big, bad truck banging into their world, banging their heads. A shower of glass falling over baby Daisy and her father. The Daisy and the father that had survived and the pain hidden behind the numbers.
Falling…falling…still falling…
Her father, reluctantly, took over her education. A learning curve of fire. By the age of six, that surviving baby could fully iterate a global function. Couldn’t speak a single word of English, of course; totally dumbfounded by the crash. Her mind filled with glass and blood and the truck in front. But Daisy was a goddess, a goddess of equations. The bang on the head must have released something fine, a continuous unravelling of the world into its probable causes and the numbers thereof. Something fine, something stilted, something cursed and cold. No friends, but top of her class and always the winner in the various games of chance: ludo, snakes and ladders, dominoes. Except against her father.
She wanted to win; more than anything, Daisy wanted to win, for once, against her father. Those stupid fucking bones…
Remembering…
The young Daisy works out the new chances and challenges her father to a domino match the next day. Her father grins to see her tight smile, sober for a while. ‘That’s my girl. Choose your bones. Choose wisely.’ Daisy chooses her pieces, and her father the same, and then they play. Daisy leads with the double-six; her father answers with the six-and-a-five. Daisy slots in a five-and-blank, her father comes back with the dangerous double-blank. Daisy replies with a blank-and-a-one.
And so the game continues, until most of the bones are extinguished. But all the time Daisy is working out the new mathematics of the game, playing to win this time. Play to fucking win! Until she has only a lonely pair of bones left, and her father a full four.
She bangs down her second-to-last domino, a five-and-a-four, knowing her father can’t possibly have a matching bone. She cries out in delight.
‘Domino!’
Her first word ever spoken, since her mother had died. Domino, meaning master. Meaning she has finally mastered her father.
Except…‘Well spoken, my child,’ says her father. ‘But it’s not over yet.’ He plays a four-and-a-blank bone, causing Daisy to knock the table and make a gasp. She hadn’t worked out that possibility. The chances against him having that confounded lucky number, too much to bear. And having to watch her father play all of his bones out, only watch in despair, and bang her knocking hand on the table, again and again.
‘Daddy Domino!’ screams her father, laughing out loud.
But Daisy had found her voice again.
A building called the House of Chances. A hologram sculpture floating above the forecourt, a tumbling domino, suspended in air, forever changing its spots, dancing, dancing…
This is where they make the bones.
You want to pay a visit? You want to talk to Mr Million?
Go ahead. Make a wish. Why not try?
Security blurbs orbit the building, beaming on you for acceptance. Play to win! Play to win!
OK. Flash your passport, pray the blurbs acknowledge it.
Accepted. Through the satellites.
A pair of big dominoes for a door, forever changing. Show the door your invitation, if you have one. The door might just give you the nod.
Let the door swing open.
Into a vast, empty hall, lined with flowers, wafted with perfume and muzak. Find the desk, if you can, amid all the hidden lights that shine down in dots of roving colours. With the lobby-blurbs that fly in a bombing squad…
‘Play to win!’
Give your name to the receptionist, the one with the gun strapped to her waist. Tell her you’ve got an appointment with Mr Million. Show her your pass, let her check it against the computer’s diary. Tremble as she does so.
OK. Ascend the elevator to the top floor. But first, the lift attendant asks for your day’s credit. Do you have one?
You do! Excellent! Give it to him.
Ascend and play to win.
Step out. Face the guard, the one with the electroknife. Allow him to take a nick out of your forearm. He checks your blood against a DNA database. Your very own double helix, spiralling on a screen.
Genetically cleared, walk towards the operations room. Another guard at the door. There’s a password. It changes every five seconds. If you hesitate or guess, the guards take you away.
Only by doing all of this will you get to see Mr Million. The bones, the bones, forever changing. They say he has 168 faces.
Good luck.
Friday’s midnight turned into Saturday’s first breath, and Jaz Malik spent the time in the Golden Samosa’s kitchen, letting his father hold a raw garlic bulb to the wound on his forehead. The two younger sons were all smug smiles, as their brother suffered, immensely.
‘Father, it’s killing me!’ Jazir cried out.
‘Nonsense, my first son,’ Saeed the father replied, ‘the heat will draw out the poison. You did good this night, my child. Didn’t we show those purity ninnies the door? If only the burgercops hadn’t turned up to save them! I would’ve fried that Zuzeman to cinders, believe me. Now stop you this crying, please.’
‘Sorry, Father. Dreadfully sorry.’
Meanwhile…
Joe Crocus and Sweet Benny lived in the attic flat of Professor Hackle’s house in West Didsbury. They had argued for a while, because Benny wasn’t too keen on Joe getting into fights, especially with roughneck medical students who might dent his masterly good looks. Joe told him to go fuck himself. Benny said he had other ideas.
The two of them made it up in the usual way, bedwards, joined at the hips with love and wounds and blood, all of them spilt in the war against purity and rugby players and bladder-brained medical students and the death of the nation’s soul. This kind of speech was Joe’s idea of foreplay, covered with a condom. Good enough to bring some deep sleep to the partaker, and a restless mind to Benny the sweet receiver. He couldn’t stop thinking about how things were between them, this constant knife-edge. Exciting, sure, but…
Meanwhile, DJ Dopejack was working in his flat in Fallowfield, studying his collection for what he would play that Saturday night at the Snake Lounge club, alongside and behind the great and coolish Frank Scenario. Such an honour it was, to have the sacred Frank come visit. He chose Ella Fitzgerald singing Cole Porter’s ‘Night and Day’, and also Lady Day singing ‘Loverman’. Lady Night and Lady Day, Dopejack mixed them both to a wild drum and bass, and then into his twin-decked memory.
Dopejack’s room was a small lab of home-made equipment, gadgets stolen from the computer rooms at the university, all mixed together into new ways of being. Flickerings of the beat, in numbers dancing upon his computers. Stealing samples as he may, feeding them direct to the groove, his green hair sticking up in fever.
Nobody knew his first name (Donald) or his last (Jacoby) and nobody ever would. Nobody would ever know that the green hair was completely au naturel, a crazy outcome of the genes, the Mama Dope and the Papa Jack of stupid genes. Too much of the drugs in his mummy’s belly, too much of the games from his father’s brain, making the lonely Dopejack what he was.
Ugly as a bad dream. Too lonely. Lost in music.
The mix brought home.
The rain stopped at two in the morning. As Daisy Love lay awake in her bed, unable to sleep now that the constant downpour had turned into mist upon her window. Oh Father, oh Father…
Daisy got up from her bed, put on her clothes and went down the outside stairs. The Wilmslow Road. All along the curryfare the neon signs were dimmed, and the spicy smells were just a wisp of forgotten adverts. A few sad and wet blurbflies still fluttered here and there, singing their messages of desire and loss to only the lonely. Daisy kicked her way t
hrough all the discarded dominoes that were littering the streets, all creamy and still and frozen in their losingness.
Dead bones.
Why had her father called? And after all these years?
As Little Miss Celia lay within her abandoned shop on Swan Street. A former hardware store that had closed down years ago; Celia had made this place her secret own, finding it and breaking in. It was the ruling you see, that no vagabond could claim a legit begging hole unless they were ‘officially homeless’. Celia’s dead bone lay on the pillow beside her head. Another losing session, after all that she had wished for. Pretty soon, Celia was sure that Big Eddie would grow tired of supporting her illegal play.
So she really did have to win, one of these days.
As Jazir Malik, back in his parents’ house, worked late into the morning. Locked tight in his bedroom, he had a half-dozen orders to fill before next Friday. The room was lined with feedbeds and workbenches; feedbeds in which his crop of ultragarlic sprouted; workbenches on which his pseudoblurbs lay scattered in pieces, awaiting his flight path.
Because Jazir was so good at making things happen, he had built a replica out of bits and pieces, stolen from here and there; cellophane for the wings, wire for the structure, papier-mâché for the thorax, a small electric motor to move the wings and make it fly, a disemboweled Walkman to play the message, a couple of batteries, a little chip and motherboard to work the streets.
Trash fly. He sold that first specimen to a drug dealer down in Moss Side. Homie Winston was his name. ‘Homie Winston! He sure do make the trip! Smoke to win!’ Jazir got a full five punies for the sale, all of which he used to fuel another two fly specimens.
In business!
Because Jazir’s bedroom was now an Asian computer, the Spicelab, wired to the world and crazy. Even as he chewed on another slice of the good garlic, even as he glided down the imagined streets of Manchester. The fractal map he had stolen from the council’s motherbase. Jazir loved the fractals, those twisting shapes between the normal dimensions, where an infinitude of knowledge made play. Naanchester, along the burgernet.
