Graeme’s Misses

In a casino that I attend a few times a year and which shall renamed unnamed, I would often see a man named Graeme on the roulette wheel. It wouldn’t matter if it was weeks or months since I’d last been there, just like clockwork Graeme would always be present and accounted for. Sometimes he’d be winning, sometimes losing (mostly losing tbh) but he was a, or the, regular fixture.

Graeme wasn’t alone though…  Graeme’s wife was always by his side, and always drinking a cup of steaming hot tea. I could not ascertain whether it was flavoured as I couldn’t get close enough to inhale the aroma without drawing undue attention to my fascination with Graeme and his other half. Of course the tea was free anyway so maybe she’s the real winner here, but I never quite understood her role in what was unfolding.

Was she the browbeaten wife with no option but to tag along, was she the mastermind behind a betting system that she forced Graeme to carry out over a period of many months, was she bored and just fancied seeing Graeme’s finances fly off the rails? We never did get to the bottom of it and one day Graeme stopped showing up so we had nothing more to go on. My ideal post  Graeme scenario would be for his wife to have continued to sit at the roulette table drinking tea (but not gambling), so sadly that didn’t happen either, and so on this occasion it looks like we all lost out.