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Red Hotel on the Strand

Page 2 of 5

extortionate rents and become the richest player. At midnight, when they agreed to stop, Celia would count up their earnings and he could claim to have won.

"That ring will get scratched," he said to Monique, "if it isn't already."

Gary added up his throw of the dice, lifted the pewter dog and made it walk. Front feet down first, then back, then front feet, then back, clomping like a horse newly come from the blacksmith. Celia shut her eyes throughout.

Gary bought railways and utilities. Monique landed on Marylebone Station shortly after he'd paid for it. "All aboard," Gary said, "tickets are £200. Where can I take you, madam?"

Where indeed. Monique's mind filled with clouds of steam. She was in the thick of that fog, leaning against a wrought iron pillar with a red rose in her hatband. She heard the whistle of the 10:18. It was always the 10:18; where it went she never decided. The train wasn't the thing, or the sepia people who milled on the platform, or the porter who carried her bags. Gary alone mattered, wearing his trench coat with the collar turned up and his fedora with the brim pulled down to keep his face from public scrutiny.

"If you're going to hang about, can I take my turn?" Neil asked.

Silly man, Monique thought, always in the wrong game. Celia took care of it; she said, "I'd go ahead, Neil."

Yes Neil - go ahead. Don't wait for us. Monique had not built the necessary dramatic tension; she and Gary had not been jostled by passers-by, interrupted by the final call for passengers. She had not pulled away while still holding his hand. Her eyes had not shone with tears; she had not rushed forward to give him one last, impulsive kiss.

Neil threw eleven and landed on Mayfair.

"Yes!" he cried, and punched the air. Celia sighed, and flipped through the property cards to find the deed.

Monique, meanwhile, had boarded the train. "Wait for me," she said to Gary through the window. "Wait for me and I won't let you down. Someday I'll return, and we'll never have to be apart again. I'll find a place where we can be together. always!" She waved her handkerchief as the 10:18 pulled away.

She paid Gary £200 for the pleasure and her next throw took her to the Strand.

Regardless of what anyone else thought they knew, Monique's Strand was not a theatre street in west London. It was a quiet backwater, an exclusive boulevard circling Regents Park, though Regents Park was not what anyone else thought either. It was smaller. It had more flowers. It had a duck pond with a red Japanese bridge and New England maples that dropped their flaming autumn leaves in the water.

Celia accepted payment for the land but took so long flipping through the property cards that Neil asked if he could take his turn. So while the racing car belted down Old Kent Road toward Kings Cross, Monique was handed two deeds carefully pressed together to look like one, along with a meaningful look from the banker. She only needed Fleet Street now.