by Giles Ekins
Suddenly it strikes him.
‘That’s her, int’it, she’s that Comtesse, Marie Josephine de what’s-her- name, reincarnated, or whatever you call it down your way?’
Tchort looked amused. ‘Reincarnated? Now that’s an interesting concept, Charlie, it depends I suppose on whether she, the Comtesse, was ever dead in the first place.’
‘That’s no answer, is she, reincarnated, I mean?
‘Perhaps, or it could be that the Comtesse is a reincarnation of Selene, the possibilities are endless.’
‘Yeah, yeah, but that’s just Mephistophelesical bullshit. I know an obfuscating answer when I hear it. Hey, bet you thought I didn’t know big words like that, obfuscating, did you? So, how does she?’ nodding towards Selene and the guillotine, ‘how does…how do you…you know?’
‘That is a question you must never ask,’ Tchort says quietly, but with a hard crust of menace to his voice, ‘neither must you ever try to find out. Once you have …raised her head to show the audience, you must leave, never looking back. Remember Lot’s wife, Charlie, she was turned into a pillar of salt because she looked back at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, you would not suffer such an easy fate should you defy me on this. I hope you understand, there are…matters which you can never be privy to.’
‘Yeah, sure, not so sure I want to know, anyhow,’ but Charlie could still feel the icy fingers of fear down his back, Tchort’s softly menacing words’ you would not suffer such an easy fate should you defy me on this,’ echoing around in his head. ’Anyway, I’ve been thinking, thinking to have a series of folding screens, lightweight shoji screens, you know, those Japanese paper screens, suitably decorated, so we keep the guillotine screened for the entire performance until the very last minute, maybe a split second glance every now and again, you know, subliminal, to build up the tension, so I can screen the guillotine again as soon as Selene…well you know.’
‘Excellent Charlie, excellent,’ Tchort enthused, putting his arm around Charlie’s shoulders and leading him away. ‘We must leave you now, but be here tomorrow. To begin to work on the act, I have great faith in you Charlie, do not disappoint me, will you?’
‘No, you can be sure of that…er, listen Mr. Mo, could I have a bit of an advance…on, you know, the advance, only I’ve got nowhere to stay, Doreen won’t have me back again, what with Dennis due back, and I need to find a room… .and,‘ he shrugged, ‘no money.’
‘My dear chap, why did you not say so before? Here, take this,’ and Tchort pulled a wad of notes, mostly £50 notes, from an inside pocket of his jacket.
‘Great, thanks, but I don’t need this much,’ and he tried to hand about half back to Tchort.’
‘Keep it Charlie; keep it, what need have I for money anyway?’
Yeah, sure, Charlie thought, and you’ve got somewhere nice and warm to go to, you can roast a few damned souls to keep the home fires burning. ‘Yeah, thanks. I’d best be off as well, get my bags from Dor’s place, find a B&B somewhere until I can get something better sorted out.’
‘There’s no need for that, there’s an apartment upstairs, Michaelmas won’t be needing it again.’
‘I can’t, it’s like dead man’s shoes.’
‘Does a dead man need shoes, I think not. In any case, I must insist.’
‘Insist? You can’t make me stay here, unless I want to,’ Charlie responded petulantly.
‘I do not appreciate defiance, Charlie. I am giving you everything you desire, why would you wish to defy me on such a minor issue as to where you stay?’ Tchort’s voice was entirely reasonable in tone, but the hidden menace, the crocodile lurking beneath the surface of the calm waters could not be ignored, and the icy fingers down his spine did nothing to dispel his sudden fear and Tchort’s words,’ you would not suffer such an easy fate should you defy me on this’ were never far from his thoughts. ‘I require you to stay here,’ Tchort continued, evenly, ‘to be close on hand.’
‘Well, yeah, since you put like that, I just didn’t feel comfortable, you know, what with …Michaelmas…not long…’
‘I can understand your reticence. However, here are the keys. Move in tonight.’
‘The keys…but how did you know…I was…needing? Yeah, forget it; you know everything, anticipate everything, the omnipotent Mr. Tchort. Hey, I like that, ‘The Omnipotent Mr. Tchort,’ sounds like a title for a book. Maybe I’ll write it one day, how about that.’
‘That might not be a good idea.’
‘No. no, p’raps not. Anyhow, about the apartment, and the store, what do I say when Michaelmas‘s family come round, they find a total stranger in his flat?’
‘Michaelmas has no… surviving family. As to officialdom, all the requisite documentation has been taken care of.’
‘There must be something, someone, a landlord, a lease?’ He had an assistant I remember, Jack, helped in the shop here, did the hard work, welding and lifting and that.’
‘Michaelmas made sound investments and he owned this workshop, the store and the apartment above outright, together with the premises on either side, so there are no leases, no landlord. And as for matters such as council tax, water, electricity, these have all been taken care of. As for the assistant, Jack Yates, he has been …handsomely paid off and is seeking employment elsewhere.
I don’t think I want to know where he’s gone to look for a job,’ thought Charlie. ‘There doesn’t seem to be much else to say, does there?’ he said, with a resigned shrug.
‘Indeed not, so sleep tight, I assure you, there are no ghosts of Michaelmas either here or in the apartment.’
‘Aye, well, that’s good to know.’
‘Goodnight Charlie,’ Selene called from the other side of the workshop where she had been studying the Zig-Zag Girl box.
‘Goodnight Selene,’ Charlie answered, turning towards her but she was gone, he turned back to Tchort, but he too had vanished, with not a puff of smoke to be seen anywhere and the sense of latent, lurking dread came over him again. ‘Just what the fuck have I got myself into?’ he asked, and not for the first time.
That sense of dread did not abate as he locked up the workshop and then the shop itself, stepping out into Commercial Street and looking up at Michaelmas’ sign above the door, O’DALY’S MAGIC LANTERN. Magic Tricks, Illusions and Conjuring Tricks, ‘Sorry, Michaelmas’; he whispered, ‘no way did I want you to get mixed up in all this shit. It just got out of hand. As they say, be careful what you ask for ‘cos look at all the fallout when you get it,’ and then made his way back to Doreen’s flat on the Hartshorn Estate, stopping off the buy a bottle of Macallan on the way.
‘So you see, Dor, it’s all above board,’ Charlie told her, trying to allay her suspicions, trying to convince her, or was he was trying to convince himself that everything was in order, ‘a proper contract and all that, signed and sealed, in my blood, deferred teams. ‘Live now pay later, Mr. Short calls it, I’ve got a slot on telly, BBC’s ‘Wonderful World of Magic’ it’s really going to take off girl. Really take off.’
‘That’s good Charlie, I’m pleased, very pleased for you. Just don’t screw it up again, will you?’
‘No fear, I shudder to think what the consequences might be if I cock it all up again.’ Dire, diabolically dire, you would not suffer such an easy fate should you defy me on this.’ Well, Dor, I’d best be off, ‘draining his scotch and getting to his feet, ‘Got a lot to do.’ The Devil of a lot to do.
Doreen followed Charlie to the front door where his suitcase stood waiting, ’Bye, then pet,’ he said, giving her a chaste peck on the lips and gentle hug. ’Gan canny, pet. Be seeing you.’
‘Charlie?’
‘Yeah?’
‘Don’t come back. Don’t ever come back again.’ She shut the door firmly after him, leaned against the wall and wiped away the tears running down her cheeks.
‘Hello, Doreen love, have you missed me?’ Dennis asked as she let him in.
‘Course, I always do, I hat
e it when you have to go away. ‘Lord, he is short, I don’t think I’ve ever really noticed it much it before but now Charlie’s made such a thing of it, yeah, he is short,’ Doreen thought as Dennis stood on tiptoe to kiss her. ’in fact he seems even shorter than I remember, diminished somehow. Not a dwarf but no giant either.
‘Anything happened, any excitement I’ve missed’ Dennis asked predictably, it was his standard question whenever he had been away.
‘No nothing, nothing at all.’ Not unless you count my husband, from whom I’ve been separated for years, turning up out of the blue on our doorstep, getting me drunk, taking me to bed and giving me the best sex I’ve had in many a month, then invoking the Devil, smashing the bathroom mirror, generally being scared shitless and the bastard churning up all sorts of feelings for him that I thought I had long since buried. ‘It’s been dead boring. So, how was the conference?’
‘It was incredibly interesting. We’ve got this new concept for liability insurance, it’s really quite exciting. Let’s have a drink and I’ll tell you all about it.’
‘I’m all ears,’ Doreen responded, with a sinking feeling, whenever Dennis got talking about insurance he could go on for hours.
‘That’s strange, I don’t remember that we had this much scotch left in the bottle.’
EIGHTEEN
Clarrie’s hometown, a few days later
‘Whatever, but you can tell that bastard I’m not talking to him. Tell him I’ve emigrated and you have no means of contacting me.’
‘CLARISSA,’ HER MOTHER CALLS, ‘it’s Frank again.’
Clarrie was lying down again, her period had just started, she had stomach cramps, a nagging headache and the last thing she wanted was to talk to her cheating bastard of a husband. He had been calling her every day since she had stormed out of the house. At first he had been calling on her mobile, but she now kept it switched off. ‘Tell him to and fuck himself she thought, but then, he’s already done that. ‘Mum, I told you, don’t answer the ‘phone.’
‘Don’t be silly, I have to answer it, it might be Hester calling.’
‘Unlikely, since she hasn’t called once in all the time I’ve been home, I doubt Hester Bishop, sorry Hester Rhodes-Bishop, has called anytime in the past two years. ‘Switch the answer phone on, that’s why I bought it. So we can monitor who calls.’
‘I don’t like it, that machine, it’s so ill-mannered to have a machine answer a call, I hate talking to a machine when I call someone, it’s equally annoying for someone to call us and have to talk to a machine. I won’t do it.’
‘Whatever, but you can tell that bastard I’m not talking to him. Tell him I’ve emigrated and you have no means of contacting me.’
‘Don’t be so ridiculous Clarissa, of course you have to talk to him and get the matter resolved, one way or another. I mean, what am I supposed to tell the neighbours, or Hester when she calls.’
‘Tell them what you like, I don’t give a toss.’
Clarrie’s anger was a living breathing, seething thing, it was not so much that Frank was having sex with that woman, whoever she was, bad enough as that was, it was the betrayal that hurt and angered her the most Clarrie knew she had to face up to the situation eventually, to come to a decision, get the matter resolved one way or another. But not just right now. Not just right now.
‘He won’t go away, Clarissa, he’s getting very irate, asks why won’t you talk to him, he says he sorry and that he really needs to talk to you.’
I’ll make him sorry, all right, I’ll rip his balls off, give me the chance. Clarrie sighed, ‘Tell him I’m not well, and tell him to stop ringing, tell him I’ll give him a call in a week or two when I’ve had a chance to think things over. And tell the bastard that if that bitch is still in my bed, he can forget about ever seeing me again except in court, when I’ll take him for every penny he’s got and more.’ her anger rising to the top again.
‘Clarissa, I can’t hold these conversations like this, shouting up and down the stairs all the time If you’ve got something to tell him, tell him yourself.’
‘Tell him I’ll call him next week.’ Let him stew for a bit, the lying cheating bastard.
‘He says thank you, and that he’s sorry again.’
‘Whatever.’
NINETEEN
The following February, Studio 4 Granada Studios, Manchester
No, the old Charlie, my Charlie, still lurks inside and it will be the old Charlie that will let you down. And then you are mine and the fiery pits await you.
‘IT’S CHARLIE, ISN’T IT? I’M GERIKO, Geriko Vorpalstone, the floor manager, I sort of run things around here’ he said, holding out his hand. ’ And this is Poppy, my assistant. She’s from Liverpool,’ he added, as if that was of great significance and then proceeded to ignore her. Geriko Vorpalstone was a thin, harassed looking man in his early thirties, prematurely balding, wearing artfully faded jeans, tan loafers without socks and an open neck flowered shirt worn over his jeans and sported a thick gold chain around his neck and another around his wrist.
Poppy from Liverpool was a moon faced, long necked, slightly plump girl in a shapeless flowery pattern blue dress that did nothing for her but nonetheless, she was still pretty and she hung wide eyed onto every word coming out of Geriko’s mouth as if they were immense pearls of wisdom, her clipboard clutched tightly to her ample chest. She was obviously infatuated by him, wet for him; it shone out from her face like a full moon on a clear summer’s night.
‘You’re wasting your time, darling,’ Charlie thought, ‘your boss is queer, as gay as a Chinese fireworks display, a shirt lifter, pooftah, bum boy, an iron, turd burglar, whatever ever you want to call it but he has about as much interest in you and your body as he does for that chair. Now that blonde electrician over there, setting up that lighting rig, he is far more to Geriko’s fancy. Charlie had no issue with gays, of either sex, there are a lot of them in the business and he could mostly recognise the type straight off, even the quiet non-flamboyant gays and he got on with them as well as anyone else, he either liked someone or didn’t and in this case he didn’t like and it had nothing to do with Vorpalstone’s sexuality, What a person did with their private parts behind closed doors was entirely up to him or her so far as Charlie was concerned. ‘Whatever flies your kite. Whatever spins your wheels.
But so far as Geriko Vorpalstone was concerned, Charlie took an instant dislike to him, he couldn’t say why exactly, just that he immediately had him down as a tosser, a pretentious twat, arrogant and over-bearing. And that after only 10 seconds of acquaintance.
Charlie and Selene were at the BBC for the recording of their act which would be broadcast later in the year; to be exact they were in Studio 8 at Granada Studios, Quay Street in Manchester.
‘Aye, Charlie Chilton, and this is Selene, my assistant,’ And you really don’t want to know where she comes from, not if you value your sanity.’
‘Great, great,’ Geriko said as they shook hands all round.
‘Vorpalstone?’ Charlie queried, ‘unusual name that, I don’t think I’ve ever heard that one before?’
‘No, you won’t have. It’s unique, thought it up myself; you see in this business, you’ve got to get yourself noticed, and a name like Gerald Smyth, even spelt with a Y, that just isn’t going to get it done. So Geriko, G–E-R- I-K-O, with a soft G, like George or…German, not a hard G like…’
‘Gay? Charlie offered, all innocence, Geriko gave Charlie a slantwise look but Charlie kept his face straight, not a hint of sarcasm or mockery.
‘Yeah, OK, gay, if you like, I was going to say Gordon.’
‘Ah yes, the Gay Gordon’s,’ Charlie said, ‘love that dance,’ unable to resist it and doing a little highland fling, taking Selene’s arm and twirling her around. Selene gave Vorpalstone a look of embarrassment, as if to say ‘look what I have to put up with all the time.
‘Charlie, behave!’ she admonished, as if to a naughty boy.
‘Yeah. Sor
ry, Geriko, you were saying? About your name, your unusual name?’ ’Unusual? Fucking stupid name, you ask me.’
‘Yes. So Geriko, with a G and a K and Vorpalstone, that just came to me, like that,’ snapping his fingers, ‘ I changed my name by deed poll and so now I have a unique name, to match my character’ he simpered.
‘Aye, stupid.’
‘A name that will get me noticed in the business.’
‘Why aye man, it’ll do that all right, no mistake’ as in that tosser with the stupid name and there was me thinking it was talent as got you noticed. Else buggering the producer, mind, that you probably do already,
Geriko looked at his watch, obviously deciding to move on, ‘Well here we are,’ spreading his arms out to encompass the studio.’ This is Studio 8, there have been some great shows produced here over the years, let me tell you. University Challenge, for one, Mastermind, Krypton Factor, It’s not the largest studio we have, that’s studio 12 but it’s a good size, 400 plus square metres, something like that, seating for 240, good sound stage and most producers think it the best studio there is and it’s just right for a show like ‘Wonderful World of Magic’
Charlie and Selene made the appropriate responses and gestures, ‘As I said, I’m the floor manager for this production and I pretty much run everything.’
‘No you don’t Charlie thought,’ he had been in a TV studio before and knew that the floor manager did not run things, it was the director in the production control box who ran the show and he in turn reported to the producer. Once, a long time ago, as a sixteen year from a terraced house in a run-down Durham suburb, without any real thoughts about doing magic except for his own amusement he was spotted doing a show (unpaid) at the local working men’s club and was subsequently invited to appear on Tyne Tees TV’s regional news programme ‘North East Tonight’.
There was not much local news that night, so they gave him a five minute slot, he did close up tricks for the two presenters, card tricks such as randomly inserting 4 aces into the pack, shuffling them face up and face down and then asking one of the presenters to turn over the top cards, which, of course were the 4 aces. He also did the ‘Interloper’ , Blind Faith; and the ‘Moving Finger’ card tricks, levitated a glass of water, palmed coins and finally ‘vanished’ the lady presenter’s watch which mysteriously re-appeared in her handbag. Good solid stuff, not great but pretty damn good for a nervous sixteen year old, he had good sleight of hand, quick hands, a time when his hands were still steady and not whisky tremoured. That was the moment his career kicked off. When it fell off the rails is another matter.