The cleaning woman lowered her voice. “Shouldn’t really be doing this-against the law, but no one’s looking. If you give me some scrip, say a hundred, I’ll buy you some tea and sandwiches on my own card. You can spend the night in the waiting-room. I’ll see as you ain’t bothered.”

  “’Underd fer some bloody bread,” muttered the boy. “’Alf the cost of this whole effing station.”

  “Beggars can’t be choosers,” observed our benefactress. “Who wants to own stations? The rent’s so low. I’ll bet you no more than five hundred people own this one.”

  “Whadyamean? Five ’undred?”

  “How do you suppose everyone can own property?”

  “That’s crazy,” said Sara. “Hundreds of different people can buy the same property?”

  “Thousands can-and do. Course, there’s an upper limit to ownership. Bank ensures that.”

  “What a mad set-up-when there’s a whole parallel existence of real work, real life, and that credit money! Why do people play the bank’s games?”

  “You’re weird,” the woman said. “I’m not sure I ought to buy you any supper. Course it ain’t crazy! If you don’t play every day of your grown-up life, rain or shine, the bank explodes you. Same as going bankrupt.”

  “Ker-ist!” Albertini fished out one of the hundreds and pressed it on the woman. “A’d like chicken sand’ich, or mebbe goat.”

  “Goat? We don’t sell goat sandwiches here.”

  We spent an uncomfortable night on benches in the waiting-room. In the morning we used our final hundred to bribe a porter who had just come on duty. He bought us breakfasts of greasy sausages, fried bread, and beans. We washed and brushed up, for free. We watched the early morning trains sigh to a halt and disgorge the same commuters who had left the evening before. By nine o’clock we were outside a branch of the Bank of Monopolis in Central Station Square, waiting for the glass doors to open.

  The cleaning woman had neglected to mention that banks opened half an hour later than most other places; so we had ample time to watch the world go by. The square was surrounded by great glossy towers of metal and glass. Concrete thoroughfares which led from the square were likewise lined by towers. Plastic chariots with no visible source of power purred along rapidly on rubber wheels.

  Once the branch opened we headed for a section of the counter marked “Valuables & Securities”. We explained our predicament to a grey-clad, sad young lady. She put our diamond into a machine called a lapidometer which valued it. Before long a credit card was issued in our joint names. (There was some dispute about including a child, but our title-deed to Central Station proved to be sufficient precedent.)

  Albertini clung to the edge of the counter. “Er, miss?”

  “How can I help you?” our clerk asked brightly. Unlike our diamond she lacked any real sparkle. She had asked exactly the same question in an identical tone five minutes earlier.

  “Where’s yer bank’s headquarters?”

  “That’s on Arrow-go Avenue, sir.”

  “How far’s zat? Which way?”

  “Ten minutes by taxi, sir. You can buy a map at any newsvendor.”

  “Why did you ask her that?”

  “Tha’s where yer bosses gotta hang out, Sara. Them as make these nutty rules. As can explode folk. Saw a sign in there, said ‘Manager’. Headquarters hasta have a head manager. We oughta go ’n’ level with ’im.”

  “I get the impression that the bank is its own manager. Why should any head manager want to see us?”

  “Mebbe he’s curious ’bout who made the rules ’riginally; an’ how. Yer Bishops Veck an’ Lovats were curious.”

  “The bank manager mightn’t be curious,” I said. “He might send people to jail for curiosity.”

  Sara gesticulated at the shining towers flanking the square. “Aren’t these buildings overwhelming! Dominating! Diminishing of a person. I think I’m feeling homesick. For Chorny, for Bellogard-for either town! Don’t you pine, Pedino, my darling?”

  “Yes; but both towns were destroyed.”

  My darling. She had called me darling. Yet after four whole years we had still only kissed each other. Absurdly it seemed that we had skipped forgetfully over something like half a decade of love and of love-making, short-cutting the early amorous years entirely, and already we had our offspring with us. Albertini. As if by magic.

  “Look, Sara,” I said, “this Monopolis world doesn’t strike me as very likely to get itself destroyed. Not soon. Maybe not ever! How could one person possibly become monopolist? And own the bank too? I mean to say, when thousands of people own the same places! This world’s different from our world- and from Albertini’s. Then, only a few principal magical personalities were involved in a struggle. But not here. Everyone’s in on the game, apart from a few thousand bank employees. Nostalgia or not, I

  think we ought to consider living out our lives here. I’m sure we could adapt. You probably have more chance of being knocked over by one of these chariots than of going bankrupt and exploding. Let’s do nothing rash. We mightn’t be wise to go aiming for the top, start taking on the bank.”

  A sleek carriage slid to a halt by the kerb. Mounted on its roof a plaque announced: Taxi-Cab. The rear door sprang open of its own accord.

  The driver leaned out of his window. “You flagged me, lady. Where to?”

  “To Arrow-go Avenue, fella.” Albertini swiftly scrambled in.

  “You two coming?” the driver asked impatiently.

  “Only to look,” I cautioned.

  “Okay, Pud, wor’ll only peep.”

  Sara and I followed our “son” into the back of the taxi and the door shut itself. A string serenade wafted in perfect synchrony from two musical boxes which I assumed the driver must wind up before each trip.

  After a speedy journey past yet more towering offices and shops, hotels and restaurants and whatever, the driver deposited us in an avenue, one whole side of which was occupied by a single glass and metal behemoth twenty stories tall. Repeated several times along its faqade in tubular letters a storey high: Central Bank of Monopolis. Albertini’s idea of marching inside and being ushered to the manager evaporated. Thanks be! Instead we bought a map and a daily newspaper and retired to a coffee bar opposite where we ordered slabs of chocolate gateau and cups of cappuccino.

  While Albertini was wolfing his cake Sara and I examined the map together. One side showed in tiny printing the thousands of actual streets of Monopolis. The other side had a circuit of eighty numbered squares commencing and ending at one marked GO! These were the ports of call which your daily numbers landed you on.

  “Lez see!”

  Sara explained the map to our illiterate son. She read off names of avenues, tax traps, penalties and rewards while he dabbed a chocolaty finger at a query mark with the legend “Chance”, at a light-tube labelled “Electric Company”. I unfolded the Monopolis Market Mirror.

  All news whatever seemed to be entirely concerned with the “invisible” Monopolis, the Monopolis of property purchase and loss. The stories related who had bought what yesterday, who had gone to jail, who had won a lucky chance, in one instance who had exploded. Remarkably realistic engravings of properties and buyers-composed of tiny dots-illustrated the pages. Tucked halfway down a back column I found our own composite name listed as new joint purchasers of the Central Station.

  The headline stories concerned the thirty or so biggest property owners. A study of their “portfolios” suggested that I was right in my earlier surmise: no one individual could ever possibly own the whole shebang.

  I pointed this out to Sara. “Let’s just enjoy ourselves today,” I recommended. “Let’s see the sights.” Which is exactly what we did.

  We visited spacious shops boasting moving stairways. Paying by credit card yet again, we bought Albertini some soft shoes and looser clothing. I obtained a cord suit, Sara a denim one. (Whereupon she reclaimed her knife.) Our previous outfits were bundled up. Later we passed a costumier’s where we succeeded in selling the ball-gown, pantaloons and so forth for their oddity value, receiving some credit on our card.

  We viewed the “electricity” factory by the river, with its fat concave towers thirty stories high venting lazy clouds of steam. We toured the Museum of Modern Architecture. We visited Monopolis Art Gallery which was wholly devoted to paintings of properties: houses, streets, stations, public edifices executed in a variety of styles gallery by gallery: “Primitive”, “Impressionist”, “Abstract”, “Constructivist”, “Structuralist”.

  We crossed a public park where privet had been topiaried into the shapes of houses, arrows, numbers, and question marks. In the middle of the park was a hedge-maze based on the streets of the city, but we passed up the option of getting lost in it. We lunched on steak and chips in a crowded cafe.

  Afterwards we passed several auction rooms where properties were being bid for. These private sales were registered with the bank by “phone”, another kind of slot-box which took in title-deeds and spat them out again.

  All the while we kept our ears open. Most conversations we overheard seemed to have some bearing on the subject-matter of the Mirror, being larded with names of properties, owners, and prices, spiced with supposition, scandal, and slander.

  Everywhere-on walls and utility poles, in foyers and arcades, even on trees in the park-were magic red boxes. The commonest sight in Monopolis was of men and women of all ages and degree plunging their hands into these boxes, to depart in despondency or delight.

  As evening drew near we rented rooms at the “three-star” Palazzo Hotel. A single one for Albertini, a double for Sara and myself. Albertini would rather have crowded into the same room as us two but I put my foot emphatically down. I had to give the boy our credit card for safe-keeping, rather as a dog owner tosses a rag that smells of master into his hound’s kennel before going on a long journey.

  Once we had obtained our room keys (and had declined the services of a porter to carry our nonexistent luggage) I was in favour of an early dinner in the hotel restaurant, followed by bed. My feet were sore from all the tramping; a different part of me was aching from proximity to Sara. She thought we ought to use the magic box first. The hotel had several, housed in plastic booths.

  The glass panel lit. We scored a double and were rewarded with 400 units of scrip. Our second turn landed us another station, which we bought. That turn also had been a double. Our apprehensions of jail were groundless: we landed on another reward, receiving 150 “from sale of stock”. I wondered how the bank could pretend we owned a herd of cattle, but no matter.

  HOLD ON, the screen instructed. TRIPLE PLAYER RECEIVES TRIPLE TURNS.

  “Ohboyohboy!” gurgled Albertini.

  “We’ve hexed the bank, Sara!”

  Property began to flow our way.

  Later, with a fine meal in our bellies, the proud possessors of a bundle of scrip and a good few title- deeds, we retired upstairs. I scooted Albertini into his single room and shut the door firmly. In our own room, for the first time in four years and two worlds, Sara and I made love. Very satisfactorily. And slept, and made love, and slept.

  The three of us were sitting at breakfast in the dining-room next morning scoffing scrambled eggs with devilled kidneys, when we received a visitor. He was a wiry, urgent fellow in a charcoal suit. Stuck in the hatband of his trilby, a printed card lettered MMM.

  The intruder laid the morning’s copy of the Mirror on the table-cloth, folded to a story about “the unprecedented mystery triple-player, Pedinoalbertinisara” and our overnight acquisitions.

  “I’m the Mirror’s social-diary reporter, folks. Name of Max Jonson”

  “How did you know we were staying here, Mr Jonson?” asked Sara.

  “Credit card info, natch. You haven’t too much. What are your plans? Are you three people, or one with three bodies? How do you pull that trick? Are you the fulfilment of the prophecy?”

  “What prophecy, Mr Jonson?”

  “That the world will end soon after the Three-in-One appears. The Antibanker. Never heard of the Antibanker? Who you kidding?”

  I butted in. “How do you mean, ‘we haven’t too much’? Too much what?”

  “Too much credit. Approx two weeks’ worth, if you’re aiming to stay here.”

  Albertini hastily speared the remaining kidneys; his cheeks inflated like a squirrel’s.

  “Reckon you can break the bank in a fortnight? What’re your plans? Who are you? Why d’you have one name between the three of you? Where did you get that fancy gown and the pantaloons and the kid’s velvet suit?”

  “How ever did you...? Don’t tell me,” sighed Sara. “Credit info.”

  “Ran checks. Hustled a few people out of bed. News warrant! Been here earlier, otherwise.”

  “Our plans are to settle in Monopolis,” I said. “We’ll own a few select properties. Be good citizens.” Sara raised an eyebrow at me.

  Jonson raised a higher eyebrow. “Own a few? Who you kidding, Mr Pedinoalbertinisara? Are you the Antibanker?” From out of his pocket Jonson pulled a flat plastic box with two eyes, one of which flashed in our faces, half-blinding us.

  Images danced. Albertini started up, jabbing his fork at the reporter.

  “Cool, kid, cool. Took your pics for tomorrow’s paper. Big honour, your pic in Triple-Em. ‘Are these the Antibanker?’ Max Jonson’s byline.”

  We got rid of the reporter with difficulty, without telling him any tales of Bellogard or of magic snakes and ladders.

  By the end of that week we had amassed quite a lot of property and scrip; rent and salary were accumulating. We had won rewards and fallen foul of no penalties whatever. Albertini, now master of the map-though he couldn’t actually read it-was buying extra property at auction through a broker who visited to volunteer his firm’s services.

  The boy ignored my words of caution. Unsurprisingly so, since Sara encouraged him. She had no desire to settle in a Monopolis where we had to hide indoors. Our pictures had been published and our affairs were main headline news from one day to the next. Little crowds were forever collecting outside the Palazzo hoping to catch a glimpse of us. The hotel hired more commissionaires. If we left our rooms we were pestered politely by waiters and chambermaids. We took to ordering all our meals from room service, only opening the door after the porter had departed. We made our own beds. We raced downstairs to use one of the magic boxes and raced back up to our rooms again.

  Really, life was becoming intolerable. Though the nights were neat. Mostly. A honeymoon, mostly. We spent the days reading the Mirror aloud, eating, drinking, peering cautiously out of the window, telling each other stories, arguing now and then. Albertini’s stories were the liveliest. I tried to keep a low profile in arguments. At night Sara and I exhausted each other with love, so that we could go to sleep.

  If the outside pressure kept up, how much more of this could we abide? Pressure only increased as our portfolio expanded. When our credit ran out, how would we get a job? The problem of ordinary funds melted away when a letter was slipped under our door, offering a large sum of non-scrip credit if we would license a book based on interviews with ourselves. Now the frustrating prospect loomed of being able to hide in our burrow for many weeks longer.

  “We should accept,” said Sara. “That’ll buy us time. We’ll become monopolist.”

  “We’ll own the effing world,” crowed Albertini.

  “Provided our luck doesn’t crash,” I said. It seemed to me we would be a lot happier if our fortunes did suffer a set-back and we reverted to being typical middling speculators. I was still nursing the idea of settling in Monopolis. The idea needed nursing; by now it was seriously ill.

  “Luck?” asked Sara. “What luck? This isn’t luck, Pedino, it’s magic. It’s moneymagic, legalmagic. Our magic has changed, don’t you see? Magic isn’t something that we do any longer, with a sword or a painted pane. The whole magic fabric of the world responds to us. It arranges events for us. Shall I tell you why?”

  “Please do.”

  “I’d say this world is trying to get rid of us as quickly as possible. We’re a splinter in its skin, a lump of grit in its eye. We’re intruders, with othermagic. Albertini’s world reacted similarly, don’t you think? Remember, when we were at that soiree, how you said, ‘we don’t belong’? Well, we didn’t then, and we don’t now. There’s only one way a world can expel us. That’s by making us win-thus finishing off the present cycle of struggle as soon as can be.”

  “If this world wants rid of us, why can’t it put us permanently in jail? Why can’t it explode us?”

  “Maybe killing us magically while we’re in a world of foreign magic would violate some fundamental law, destroy some sort of symmetry. Maybe that would unbalance the logic of everything. The intrusion has to be purged by the smoothest route.”

  “Yer didn’t havta leave the slum,” Albertini pointed out. “Yer coulda stayed put.”

  “But once we did make a move, those ladders rushed us away to the happy isle in three quick climbs.” “We cud still ge’ killed, ord’nary. Tha’ mob out there cud clobber us.”

  This made sense to me. “Perhaps that’s what the bank wants. Speculators could tear us to pieces for lucky souvenirs, or out of jealousy or greed, or from terror of the mythical Antibanker. We should backpedal if possible.”

  “We are fast becoming the Antibanker!” cried Sara. “Let’s face it! Oh it makes me sick to contemplate destroying a whole world of people, even if their ways do seem weird. That’s hardly their fault! Question of upbringing. We don’t seem to have a choice. Only if we refuse to use the magic box could we be exploded legitimately, I suppose. Monopolis could carry on.”

  “You aren’t suggesting we don’t use the box?”

  “Moral dilemma, my darling?”

  “A’m not bein’ exploded,” announced Albertini. “Nuts to tha’. Nuthin’ doin’. So much fer yer dilemma.”

  I tried not to look too relieved. I said placatingly, “It’s the cosmos that’s guilty, Sara, not us. If conditions were different, life might not even be possible.”