The stallholder stared blankly at Cabal.
Cabal tried again, but the stallholder just cocked his head on one side and looked at him with an expression of deep bewilderment. Cabal tried a different soul-stealing gesture, and then another.
With a sudden mild breeze, Horst was standing beside him. Horst took a look at Ted. “Oh, you found him, then. Well done.”
Cabal ignored his brother and carried on trying to semaphore his intentions to the shooting gallery.
“Johannes,” said Horst after some moments of watching him, “what are you doing?”
“Gesturing,” said Cabal, continuing to gesture.
“Gesturing, is it?” This apparently impressed Horst. “It’s very good.”
Cabal ignored him. Horst followed the line of gesticulation to the shooting gallery, where the stallholder was just handing out the next fistful of.22 slugs to Ted while keeping one curious eye on Cabal.
“What exactly is it that you’re trying to communicate with this … ummm …”
“Gesturing.”
“Quite. This gesturing?”
Cabal ceased gesturing, partially because it didn’t seem to be working and partially because he was developing cramp.
“I’m trying to get that idiot on the shooting gallery to do something diabolical so I can get a contract signed. It doesn’t seem to work.”
“No manual, I take it?”
“None.”
“Actually, brother mine, that was along the lines of a snipe at your lack of comprehension and imagination.” As Cabal turned his attention from Ted to glare at Horst, so Horst turned his own attention from his brother and to Ted. “He’s a very good shot, isn’t he? I think he’s going to get one of the top prizes. Wait here a mo’.”
Another breeze, and Cabal was alone. Another breeze, and Horst was back, with company. In his hand he held one of the top prizes, a doll of a precocious young woman with a disproportionately large head that, in comparison, made her disproportionately large bust and bottom look properly to scale with the rest of the body. The doll, its head made from celluloid and its body from cloth, had a coquettish expression on its face. Horst angled the whole doll back and forth, and Cabal noticed one eye winked. The overall effect was of a repulsive intimacy. He was very unwilling to take it when Horst proffered it to him.
“What do you expect me to do with this?” said Cabal, as he finally took it, carefully, between forefinger and thumb.
In answer, Horst waggled his fingers at it and adopted a significant expression.
“Are you gesturing?” demanded Cabal.
Horst sighed. “You’ve still got a good quantity of diabolical influence to call on, haven’t you?” He nodded at the doll. “Stick a jigger in there.”
“Stick a …? Have you lost your senses? Look at him!” He nodded at Ted. “The man must shave with a lawnmower!”
Horst looked at the proposed victim. “He certainly has his hair cut by one,” he conceded.
“What possible use is a doll, demoniacally influenced or otherwise, when you’re dealing with a man like that?”
“Have you any interest in psychology?” asked Horst.
“Certainly not,” replied Cabal. “I’m a scientist.”
“Oh, so dismissive. Put the ’fluence on Trixie here and then allow me to demonstrate.”
“Trixie?” said Cabal, not sure he’d heard correctly.
Horst grunted with impatience. “Just do it, will you? He’s almost got his five tokens!”
Cabal saw it was true, and also saw that he had no better ideas himself. He held the doll at arm’s length and muttered, “I invoke thee,” under his breath. He felt the vague sense of evil being directed through him — a sensation somewhere between grief and toothache, with which he had grown familiar during the carnival’s creation but never even faintly inured to — and then it was done. He quickly handed the doll back to Horst before it grew fangs and attacked him, but it did nothing at all.
“Good” was all Horst said, and then he blurred into not-thereness.
Cabal saw him suddenly snap back into visibility at the side of the shooting gallery. He no longer had the doll; it had been returned to the middle of the top row of shelves.
Horst’s timing was perfect — Ted had just won his fifth token. He looked along the prizes, but his gaze did not linger on the doll.
“The doll’s pretty,” said Rachel. Ted slid her a look of corrosive disdain.
“It’s my prize,” he said. “I choose.”
“That’s lucky,” said Horst, who had suddenly appeared farther along the gallery’s counter. “I quite fancy getting that doll, and it seems to be the only one they have.”
Ted turned to look past Rachel at Horst. “It’s a girl’s doll,” he said in a tone that implied that he had made deductions as to Horst’s sexual preferences, that he found them contemptible and disgusting, and that by association, he found Horst contemptible and disgusting, too.
“Quite,” said Horst, paying for five games. “It’s for my girl. What’s the point of doing well on something like this if you can’t have bragging rights?” He loaded his rifle. “I win that doll, give it to her, tell her how difficult it was to win, how good I am.” He aimed. “Then she’s all mine.” He fired. A tin man took the slug square between the eyes and flipped backwards. He lowered the rifle and grinned at Ted. “That’s psychology.”
Ted didn’t care about psychology, not even when it so obviously lacked logic. He cared a lot about ownership, though.
“I’ll have the doll,” he said to the stallholder.
“Oh!” said Horst in convincing disappointment, as Ted received the doll and then thrust it into Rachel’s arms with scarcely a glance. He walked off, Rachel clutching the doll to her chest.
Horst was watching them vanish into the crowd as Cabal joined him. “And that’s psychology?” said Cabal.
“Yes. Not what I told him, but certainly what I did to him.” He looked sideways at his brother. “You do know what went on there?”
“I’m not a complete dolt. I know spitefulness when I see it. There is something I don’t understand, however.”
“Oh?”
“Why exactly are you helping me in such an overt manner? You made no bones about how little you like what is going on here, and insisted you wanted no direct involvement in the carnival’s … core business, shall we say? Why the change in heart?”
Horst looked thoughtful. “Well, Johannes, it’s …”
When the silence drew out, Cabal turned to ask for the rest of the sentence. Horst had gone. Cabal swore, an ancient expletive involving sexual congress between an extinct tribe and an extinct species.
Now what? His inclination was to shadow Ted and his miserable girlfriend; he couldn’t help but admit that he was very curious to know how the doll was supposed to make a man sell his soul away. With great reluctance, however, he decided trailing them around would probably be counterproductive. Horst and he had taken a direct interest, they had burnt up a little more of Satan’s blood; if they needed to get more involved still, then that would do for next time, and Ted could be considered a failed experiment.
Cabal went back to the House of Medical Monstrosity to recover his straw boater from a small boy.
* * *
Rachel was outwardly as happy as she could be while associated with Ted, but inside she was wrought with conflicting thoughts. On the one hand, it was very kind of Ted to have won the doll for her, even if she had a suspicion that he had done so purely to spite that nice-looking man at the shooting gallery. The fact that it was only a suspicion and not a definite fact in her mind was evidence of the filter of delusion she had woven about her.
In her honest opinion, Ted was a nice, decent man. Yes, he had his little foibles — the uninhibited way his fists tended to travel about, his perfectly reasonable desire to get drunk four times a week, his manly tendency to see insults and slights all about, at which point his fists would again become uninhibited �
�� indeed, positively libertine — in their desire to conjoin with chins and eye-sockets — but what man didn’t?
Most of them, as it happened, but it was too late. For now Ted was her metric for men, and she had, therefore, an instinctive knowledge of the truth of her belief, a gut feeling. She had faith that this was about as good as it got: not perfect, but she was sure that, by the power of her love, she could change him for the better.
But this is no longer faith; this is desperation. It is no accident that the same women who say, “You have to love a bastard,” with a twinkle in their eye, are the same women who — later, when it transpires that the bastards that they loved and let into their lives are, indeed, utter bastards — then complain, “All men are bastards.” Given the skewed sample of their survey, it’s hardly a surprising or reliable conclusion.
Weighing against this uncritical appreciation of any small kindness he might show her — such as not hitting her, not spitting on her, or not groping her best friend while in her sight — was the distinct sense that there was something not right about the doll itself. It had seemed fine while it was on the shelf at the shooting gallery, even though, now that she thought back, she couldn’t remember why it had seemed so appealing that she had asked for it. Now, however, the only thing that was preventing her from foisting it onto some passing child or even dumping it in a bin was the sure knowledge of Ted’s wrath. The doll felt wrong in her hand, actually felt “undoll-like” in an ill-defined, equivocal manner whose very vagueness was upsetting in itself.
Suddenly Rachel made a tight, frightened little cry and dropped the doll. It fell on its bottom and sat there on the trammelled grass of the carnival field as neatly as if it had been posed. Ted whirled — he had been three steps ahead, of course — and glared at her, then at the doll. “What’s the matter with you?” he demanded, snatching the doll up.
“It…” She paused, realising how stupid it would seem if she said what she thought. “There’s something sharp in it,” she said instead. “It stuck into me.” She looked at her finger. A small crescent of red dots was coalescing into a single drop of blood. She sucked her finger and looked warily at the doll dangling in Ted’s hand. She was sure it hadn’t been smiling like that before. Smiling, yes, but not like that. Not showing its teeth.
Ted scowled at Rachel as if it was just typical of her to be injured by a toy. He looked at the doll. It was of a shapely young woman, with black hair in spit curls, wearing a short red dress. He guessed it was a cartoon or comic-strip character, but he didn’t recognise her. Something sharp in it, was there? It would be because it was just some cheap tawdry tat, made in a sweatshop somewhere, he was certain. He squeezed the doll, almost wishing that the sharp bit of metal that was surely in it somewhere would prod out and stab him, maybe even draw blood. He hoped so. That would give him the excuse to go back to the shooting gallery and hit the stallholder.
He squeezed, but nothing stuck into his hand. Quite the opposite; the doll seemed soft and pliant in his fist, satisfyingly so. He squeezed it again, firmly, not violently. The doll, lolling in his grip, winked lazily at him. He gazed at it, and it seemed to gaze back, the moment drawing out like wire. Rachel watched him, nervous at first that he would suddenly be hurt and blame her, then more nervous still when he wasn’t. He just stood there, staring at the doll.
The doll felt warm in his hand. He could feel the curves of its body, of her body, beneath the red dress. She felt good. Like a woman should feel. Soft and warm and curved.
Rachel quailed as he looked up and shot her a hostile glance that was somehow different from the hostile glances she had grown accustomed to. He looked down again, studying the doll. She could see his thick, powerful fingers slowly working around it, and she felt both an unexpected jealousy and an unfamiliar flavour of fear.
Ted wished he had come to the carnival by himself. Now he had to put up with Rachel following him around like a sheet of misery. He never had any fun. If he had a girl like the doll, things would be different. She looked good, she dressed good, she felt good. He could almost imagine finding a woman like that, here, at the carnival. He would chat her up, make small talk, ask her what her name was.
I’m Trixie.
Trixie, he thought, that’s a pretty name.
Thank you. What’s your name, hun?
“Ted,” said Ted.
“What?” asked Rachel.
He shot her another dirty look, turned on his heel, and walked on. Rachel waited for a moment, unsure if she had done anything wrong or not. Then she followed.
Ted strode onwards, the crowd opening and closing around him, flowing. He barely knew where he was going. He barely cared.
She doesn’t love you.
He had always known that. Of course, he had always known that. He couldn’t imagine why anyone would want to love anyone. Loyalty, that was one thing, but love …
She doesn’t even like you.
It hadn’t really occurred to him that Rachel might have opinions. He paused in the shadow of the Helter-Skelter, the delighted screams of children rolling over him as they swept around and down the slide. He had a half-formed impression of the screams carrying on beneath ground level, and seeming much less delighted. The night air was cool, but he was sweating, feverish. In his hand, something writhed.
I like you, Ted.
He was looking at the bright light bulbs running down the side of the Helter-Skelter, the light flowing in primary torrents. He could barely hear himself think over the music and the chatter and the laughter and the screaming. He certainly didn’t hear himself say, “I like you, too, Trixie.”
With time, maybe I could even love you.
Loyalty, that was one thing, but love …
“Ted? Are you all right?” He whirled drunkenly. Some woman with too much make-up was looking at him. “You look terrible! You look ill, Ted!” He didn’t look terrible. She looked terrible. Her head was too small. She wasn’t wearing a red dress. “You’ve got to get home, you’re coming down with something!”
He said something that was supposed to be “Get away from me,” but the syllables just fell out of his mouth like rotting potatoes. Frustrated and too dizzy to find his anger, he turned his back on the woman and stormed away. The crowd, full of faces with wide eyes and wide smiles, looked through him, but parted like loud ghosts.
The woman was right about one thing, thought Ted: he had to get home. He had to get home with Trixie. He clutched the doll to his chest and half walked, half ran to find the exit.
Beyond the archway, the air would be cool. He would be able to think again. He would be happy. He would be loved. Trixie felt good against his chest, as good as a real woman, better than a real woman. That woman (Did he know her? Rachel? That sounded familiar) was a real woman, but there was so much wrong with her. She would never be right. She had life and wants, and now it turned out she even had opinions. He remembered how Trixie had felt when he had first squeezed her, when he had been expecting some wire to stab him. Now he imagined squeezing Rachel, squeezing any “real woman” like that, imagined all the sharp wires of their lives and history, of their desires and thoughts, unwanted, unnecessary, stabbing into his hands as he squeezed, the blood coming from his wounds, staining their dresses red. All that pain, and all that frustration; he would never be happy.
He could feel Trixie against him, held tight. Love and happiness. He passed under the archway.
And it all went away.
He stopped dead in his tracks, a grown man clutching a doll. He took her in both hands and looked at her, shock and a terrible longing growing in him for something he hadn’t even known he had wanted until a few minutes ago. He squeezed her, he squeezed it, but it was just a doll. He shook it, but that only made her winking eye clatter spastically open and shut tikatikatika.
He turned and looked up at the archway. Walking through it had been like flicking a switch. Inside/outside: Trixie/doll. He made to re-enter, but the turnstile wouldn’t move. He shoved inef
fectually against the steel arms, until he noticed the man in the booth smiling darkly and tapping a sign that read No Re-Admittance on Cancelled Tickets.
Ted thrust his hand into his trouser pocket and threw all his change onto the small metal counter. He didn’t know how much he’d given, nor did he care. Neither did the man in the booth. Without even checking how much was there, he worked the machine, and a ticket, as red as ripe pomegranate seeds, clacked from the slot in the counter. Ted took it like a drowning man clutching at a straw and threw himself against the turnstile again. The man in the shadowed booth let him beat against it for a full five seconds until, still smiling darkly, he released it, and Ted staggered back into the carnival ground.
Instantly, Trixie was Trixie. He stood clutching her, ecstatic yet terrified by the knowledge that, when the carnival moved on, so would his happiness. Perhaps he could hide here, somewhere behind the scenes, make the few days last, hide in a dark corner, holding Trixie. He ran blindly in an agony of fear at the uncertain future, for longer than he knew.
When he paused, he found himself away from the carnival proper, down near the railway, near the train. There was a man standing there. Ted recognised the man who had blundered into him, the man who had given him the free games at the shooting gallery. Like a dream, the man seemed to be expecting him; and, like a dream, this seemed perfectly rational and proper to Ted.
Ted walked forward, taking his hat off and crushing it in his free hand. The other held Trixie, tender and close, in its crook. “Mister,” he stumbled out, “sir …”
“The Cabal Brothers Carnival thanks you for your interest,” said the man, speaking with a faint German accent, “but we have no vacancies at this time.”
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