Chapter 14: Funny Thing Love

Chapter 14: Funny Thing Love 
What a funny thing love is when it can make fifty-thousand pounds suddenly appear wholly, utterly and absolutely worthless. The chief arbiter informed Barry of what to him was some baffling news. ‘Mr Broomfield, it looks like you’ve won without having to lift a finger today—’ ‘What?’ answered a perplexed Barry. ‘—Miss Daft has had to forfeit,’ continued the arbiter. ‘She’s informed us she feels too ill to play. If you ask me she probably thought that she didn’t stand a chance; you haven’t dropped a game all tournament have you? I think that’s a first in this competition’s history.’ Not listening to the little shrew before him, Barry was trying to think why Jenny hadn’t showed. ‘We did have that seafood last night…Maybe some of it was a bit dodgy… Although I had it and I’m fine…’ He continued to deliberate over what else could have gone wrong but couldn’t come up with anything better. ‘Maybe she just had a bad oyster and I got lucky.’ Barry was a national champion, an achievement nobody could’ve foreseen for everyone had written him off him as a tragic and pathetic loser from his earliest memories. Now though, he supposed he’d established himself as someone important, the star of the British chess community with a cheque for fifty grand sitting in his pocket. Here was conclusive, incontrovertible proof that his many doubters had been wrong about him. But the feeling of redemption you might have expected him to be experiencing was clouded by his feelings of disappointment for Jenny. Barry didn’t
197 smile for the photographs, and as the light bulbs flashed they illuminated an absentminded, faraway expression. Leaving the smiling faces behind after they’d informed him about the upcoming World Championships and how he was now going to be the UK’s representative, Barry walked solemnly back up to Jenny’s room. He rapped gently on her door. ‘Jenny, are you in there? Are you okay?’ There was no reply, the only sound came from the roar of a fast-approaching vacuum cleaner. Despising that sound, Barry retreated to his own room and sat on the beautiful bed inside the beautiful suite. He would have to leave this palace tomorrow morning and go back to his disgusting little hovel. It would be a crime he thought if he didn’t enjoy his last night here, especially when he now had a large amount of money to make things a bit more exciting. Confident he’d be able to catch up with Jenny later to split the winnings, he left to go and have some fun. Armed with twenty-five grand, the rest belonged to Jenny, Barry hailed a taxi outside the Empire; it was going to be a wild night. Having not had the expenses to truly enjoy himself in a very long time, he planned on having a ruthless night of debauchery, alcoholism, drug abuse and a couple of Cuban cigars. Not the way you would expect a newly-crowned chess champion to act but Barry had always been a unique specimen, and as already stated he’d not been able to enjoy himself in a very long time. The first port of call on Barry’s retail therapy list, after visiting the bank, was an upmarket tailor to buy a suit, due to the onerous circumstance that wearing his current set of clothes he’d have found himself turned away from his own funeral.
198 ‘I don’t think this place is for someone of your financial stature Sir,’ said the tailor of a Saville Row establishment upon glancing at his customer’s unkempt appearance. ‘On the contrary, I think it is,’ replied Barry, pulling out a large roll of crisp banknotes. ‘That’s made from some of the finest Italian silk Sir. Oh yes—Sir does have exquisite taste, those are hand-stitched crepe-soled shoes straight from our connection in Paris.’ Looking in the mirror, Barry liked the reflection he saw and was already realising what a wonderful medicine retail therapy is. Leaving Saville Row behind decked out in Europe’s finest designer wear, Barry searched for a barber to take a chainsaw to his gigantic wire-wool beard and shaggy mane. As many people will be well aware, long hair on a balding man is truly repugnant. And it was this repugnant look that Barry was currently sporting because he’d previously not been able to afford haircuts, and also the fact that he was currently balding didn’t help. It didn’t take long for him to locate a suitable hair salon, although at first he didn’t want to go in because it looked like a high-class place that would only accept women and ladyboys. It wasn’t until he saw through the window another man inside that his fears about the hair salon’s clientele were quashed. These fears only remained quashed for a short time however, because once inside Barry recognised the man: it was Ali Alzanki, the person he’d competed against in the second round.