“I was a seam-up bowler,” Dad says, which is the thing he says whenever a game or a sport is mentioned. Cricket is the main reason why most of Dad’s teeth are dentures.

“I don’t know how to play blackjack,” I say.

“It’s easy,” Iris says, grabbing her sticks. “Follow me.”

I lift the drinks off the counter. It’s not wise to leave them unattended. Someone might spike them. I’m always telling the girls to be careful when they go to a pub or a club. You can’t be too careful, I tell them.

The blackjack table is manned by a boy. He can’t be much more than eighteen years old. He high-fives Dad, grins at me, and winks at Iris, who throws a fifty-pound note on the table. “You feeling lucky?” the boy says, leaning towards her with his glittery almost-black eyes taking her in, in an overly familiar way.

“Set ’em up,” says Iris, hooking her sticks on the back of her chair. I settle Dad into the seat between us. The boy deals us two cards each.

“What are we supposed to do?” I ask, looking at my cards.

“You don’t have to do anything, you’ve got an ace and a king. That’s a blackjack,” says Iris.

“Oh, it’s twenty-one?” I used to play that with the girls, when they were learning addition and subtraction at school.

“Hit me,” Iris says to the boy, and he flips over the card at the top of the deck, slides it towards her.

“I’m bust,” she says. “Mr. Keogh, what do you think?”

“I’m not sure,” Dad says.

“I’d tell him to hit you if I were you,” Iris says.

“I hit a man once,” Dad says. “I broke his nose.”

This is news to me. “What man?” I say.

Dad’s face creases in concentration.

“Do you want another card?” the boy asks.

Dad puts his hands on his head, rubs at his temples as if trying to massage the memory out.

“Don’t worry, Dad, it’ll come back to you,” I tell him.

“What will?” he asks.

“Deal him another card,” Iris says to the boy. He does, and now Dad is bust. The dealer has a king of spades. He looks at me and I nod and he flips his second card over.

Bust.

I win the hand.

I never win anything. And God knows, I’ve bought enough raffle tickets over the years, with the various school and community fund-raisers.

“Let’s play again,” I say.

The dealer deals and Iris and Dad and the dealer go bust and I win the hand.

I keep winning.

“Beginner’s luck,” I say to the boy when I catch him looking at me suspiciously, as if I’m counting cards.

What do they do to people who count cards? Call the police? Or just throw them out? And which one would I prefer? Being thrown out, I suppose. At least then, I wouldn’t have a criminal record.

Which I wouldn’t anyway, because I’m not counting cards. But how does one go about proving that?