Game

There was a board game I loved playing called The Alley Cats. It had lots of plastic pieces shaped like trash cans with removable lids, fish bones, and flat cat shapes that could hide in the bins. No idea now how you played the game but those shapes made me happy. They were substantial in the hand and therefore comforting. Perhaps it was more fascinating to look at the board itself and hold the figures than to actually play; I don’t remember anyone ever playing it with me except my mum once, under duress.

We sat in the sunlight on my bedroom floor. I set up the game then sat back, waiting; I didn’t understand how to play and wanted to be able to pick up the rules by osmosis. Perhaps if I stared hard enough I’d get it. I found this very frustrating and still do. When does the moment of understanding come, the moment of revelation? My mother seemed to have the same problem as she picked up the rules in vexation and started to read. It can’t have been tricky; it was a board game for kids under the age of nine, but still. Following instructions wasn’t a family trait, it seems. We muddled through but I could tell it wasn’t bringing her much joy.

That took the fun out of it. Samantha Jowett with the black front teeth never wanted to play. Kimberley Bream – she of the three kids before the age of 20 – already had other games on her mind. I wouldn’t have even considered asking my brother, being the younger sister and all. Sometimes I’d get the game out, set it up and then try to play against myself but that was foolhardy because I always knew the move I’d just made and the strategy of where I was trying to go. Mostly, that game sat in its box until it was inadvertently sold at a boot-fair by a previous neighbour who was supposed to be storing some things in the garage whilst we moved to the new house.

Nowadays I like card games. I can spend hours at my computer on those Solitaire games. Or the old-skool way, with real playing cards on the rug. Best of all is with friends and a bottle of wine. Once at Janno’s house Magnus accidentally broke a chair in his rush to stand up, dash round the table and slap his trump card down in place. Fingers often got crippled out of action by aggressive enthusiasm over some advanced game of adult Snap or other. And woe! if you thought you’d try a subtle spot of bending the rules. That was out and out cheating and made Magnus in particular so ferociously unforgiving that it simply wasn’t worth the hassle.

Marta and Eelco were also there at Janno’s place one evening and things got ugly. Marta and I thought it was hysterical to watch the lads jockeying over a game of Last Card, all indignation and self-righteousness over rules, tactics and skill. But eventually it got tiresome and none of us wanted to play with Eelco after that. Marta said it was his way of joking, to ‘act’ bothered and vengeful during a game, but she also admitted that it was pretty goddamn draining and not worth the hassle. Magnus wouldn’t let that go for weeks, but then, he’s a sore loser too.

Recently I’ve become fascinated by Mah Jong. There is an Internet version which I play as a diversionary tactic to delay the real work of the day. Magnus also acquired a proper game and we’ve been playing that of an evening. I love the patterns on the tiles and the chink-clink as you set them down upon each other. It can be a ponderous game and I like that. We played after dinner one evening, then again and again and again. Rafael hated it - he thought it boring; he stopped playing after the first round, then just stopped sitting at the table watching. He took his vodka to the other side of the room and tampered with the CD collection as we became increasingly absorbed in collecting sets of tiles.

Magnus had downloaded the rules off the Internet and we set the tiles up according to that. Except steps three and four weren’t very clear so the square shape was always wonky, with one side longer than the other and a tile left over. We’d take turns reading the instructions out, emphasising various parts in the sentences to see if that helped: “Place SEVEN tiles along the west or LEFT side of the square, remove the third tile from the EAST direction AND the seventh from THE SOUTH.” Didn’t work. Still had that wonky side. We played on regardless but ultimately it wasn’t a totally satisfying win.

Those tiles in themselves have a lot to do with the enjoyment. Their weight and coolness to the touch. There is something to be said for being able to hold them in your hand. Dominoes tiles have a similar effect on me but that is one game I never got into, except once in a Yorkshire pub on a rainy day, with a pint of bitter and a packet of crisps. As a kid, though, I never understood how you could play it properly and yet still keep the game within the confines of the table you were playing on. I constantly wanted to take the game off on tangents, adding tiles this way and that until there was a Dominoes splatter fracturing across the floor. Maybe that’s the point; it takes skill to keep the game heading in a general direction.

Elaine likes Scrabble and because she always beats me, I hate it. I don’t see myself as a sore loser, but never winning certainly takes the edge off it. She is gallant in her victory with a “well played” or a “that was lucky” but these sentiments just make it worse. She’s an architect, she shouldn’t be good with words; pictures are her world. I admit though, that when she got the card-game version, things perked up. Now we can spread the game on the floor across the whole flat if we choose to, and that amuses me.