by Nick Green
‘So is deadly nightshade.’
Mum tutted.
‘I don’t think they’d last long if they sold people deadly nightshade,’ she said. ‘Look, you can buy a first course of four bottles for sixty pounds. That’s no more expensive than some vitamin pills.’
She was already clicking Add to shopping cart.
Dad drummed his fingers on the desk.
‘All right. But we are not getting carried away. We’ve been here before. I shall check with Dr Bijlani, and if he agrees we let Stuart try it for a few weeks. And expect nothing. Are we clear?’
‘Yes, yes. Peter, I need the credit card number.’ Mum clicked and typed and clicked. Her left hand had clenched into a fist.
Tiffany drifted to her room, where she and Rufus read another chapter of Gormenghast before she put herself to bed.
Another Monday, the same old ordeal. Shuffling into the school gymnasium Tiffany took deep breaths. Miss Fuller had set up the apparatus.
‘Heck,’ muttered Avril. She was another girl who tended to get pigeonholed with Tiffany under Weeds, Whiners and Weirdos. ‘If she makes us do another relay race I’m calling in dead next week.’
‘Say I’m dead too,’ Tiffany whispered back. Her nervousness had an edge today. At pashki she had started to feel strong for the first time ever, and it made her wonder. Perhaps in this PE lesson she might turn in a half-decent performance.
However, she was also worried that Mrs Powell’s classes were playing tricks on her imagination. Late on Saturday she’d heard Mum and Dad talking in their bedroom. She never had before. So either they never normally talked, or her hearing had improved. Both explanations seemed unlikely. Then there was last night. Going to the bathroom in the dark, she’d avoided stepping on a drawing pin. It was only afterwards that she realised she couldn’t possibly have seen it with the lights off.
Miss Fuller blew her whistle. The class sorted into four teams—as usual, Tiffany and Avril were amongst the last to be chosen. Her team mates set off one by one and Tiffany tried to memorise the course. Balance beam, wall bars, monkey bars and ropes, then over the gym horse they flew like contenders for Olympic gold, the girls rosy-cheeked and grinning, the boys making out they were marines. It was depressing, it was sickening, it was…whoops, it was her turn.
She crossed the balance beam. That was easy. At the top of the wall bars she looked down and froze. She had never climbed so high. Somehow she got down and reached for the monkey bars. Heaving and whiplashing her way from one rung to the next, she knew, by halfway across, that she wasn’t going to make it. Her arms were paralysed. She dropped to the floor. Staggering to a rope she tried to climb it. Four feet up she lost all feeling in her shoulders and with it, her grip. Down she slithered, the rope burning her palms and the insides of her knees.
She landed on the mat in a heap. A hand pulled her, none too tenderly, to her feet.
‘That was a lame effort, wasn’t it?’ said Miss Fuller. Uneasy laughter rippled through the gym. ‘Chin up, nothing’s broken. Do it again.’
Tiffany could only stand there, trembling, sucking her scorched fingers.
‘What am I going to do with you, Tiffany Maine?’ Miss Fuller looked to heaven. ‘Okay. Go and sit it out. I’m thinking of getting your name engraved on that sicky bench.’
If she cried, she was dead. Dead. It was as simple as that. She trudged to the bench and sat down, hugging her knees, cold and yet boiling hot as if she had a fever.
Miss Fuller whistled and yelled at the class, driving them on round the course. Tiffany sat in the corner and stared at her. Hatred knotted in her stomach.
That was a lame effort, wasn’t it?
‘I should be in that hospital bed,’ she whispered. ‘Not Stuart.’
And now it was impossible not to weep, silently, into her fists.
DEATH RAY
It was a scene he saw every day, in some form or other: three boys crowding a smaller one against the playground fence. As usual Ben paid no attention, more interested in saving the last of his ice lolly from falling off its stick. The bullies whirled and twitched in a mockery of dance moves.
‘Hey, Forrester! Show us some crazy steps.’
‘Make the floor burn, Danny-boy.’
‘Oh, leave off me!’
Ben looked without thinking and saw Daniel from Cat Kin, trying to stop a much bigger boy from snatching his glasses. In the same moment Daniel, hunting desperately for a way out, recognised him. Oops. Ben stood still, torn. Presumably the bullies were only in Year Seven, but they were all Ben’s size. Cowardice fought briefly with shame and lost. He walked towards the group.
‘Hey, Daniel,’ he said. ‘How’s it going?’
‘Not that great.’
The boys stopped their jiving.
‘Ooo,’ said one, ‘is this your dance partner?’ He poked Daniel, who lashed out with his fist. The boy squealed in fake terror and moonwalked away.
‘Hang on,’ said his friend, fingering the studs in his eyebrow. ‘You’re Gallagher, aren’t you? The pinball guy.’
‘The pinhead?’ snorted the third, a boy whose face would have been quite handsome on a toad.
‘Yeah, right,’ grinned Eyebrow-studs. ‘It must be tricky playing with those tiny balls.’
The boys cracked up. Ben tried to make the most of his extra inch of height.
‘Do you know a quicker way to earn easy money?’
That got their attention. ‘What you talking about?’
Ben pointed towards the strip of bare concrete that served as a football pitch. ‘You see that guy playing in goal?’
‘The really big fella?’
‘Yeah. That’s Cannon. I play pinball, he bets on me, he rakes it in. I get a share. It’s simple.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Eyebrow-studs chewed his gum. ‘How much?’
‘He’ll tell you himself,’ said Ben. ‘Go and talk to him. Ask how much money he won on me. He might even let you join the syndicate if you say you’re really good friends of Ben Gallagher.’
As the three boys hurried eagerly towards Cannon, Ben grabbed Daniel by the arm and pulled him away.
‘This is going to be ugly. I don’t think we want to watch.’
On the far side of the school they found a fire escape to sit on. Half-hearted gang warfare was taking place around the burned-out car across the street.
‘So what was that about?’ asked Ben.
‘’S’nothing.’ Daniel flicked a bottle-top, sending it bouncing down the steps. ‘Ed Orlando and his mates trying to wind me up.’
‘Looks like they succeeded.’
‘They tease me for going to Dance class,’ said Daniel.
‘What fun for them. When do you go dancing?’
‘I don’t. I do pashki with you, remember?’
‘Then why…?’
‘I was going to do Dance,’ said Daniel. He took a deep breath. ‘My dad was really off the idea at first. He only caved in so I’d stop bugging him. But there’s no way he’d let me do pashki. He’d say it was New Age tosh. I haven’t told him that’s what I really do.’
‘Have you tried?’
Daniel sucked his teeth in impatience.
‘He’s a builder. If he can’t pile it up or knock it down, it doesn’t exist. Or it does exist but it’s for pansies. Which is worse. He’s happy to let me sit beside him in a JCB or a crane, but if I want to learn swipes and freezes I’m on my own.’
‘Swipes and–?’
‘I mean it is Street Dance, not flippin’ ballet or something. That’s if I did it. Which I don’t. But everyone thinks I…look, it’s complicated, okay?’
Ben nodded vigorously.
‘So how about your dad?’ said Daniel. ‘Does he mind?’
Ben scratched rust off the banister.
‘I haven’t got round to telling him,’ he said.
The pub windows framed a glorious sunny day. Cyclists in dark glasses and string tops freewheeled down Church Street to the sound of bird
song and police sirens.
Two steaming plates descended like UFOs.
‘You don’t get a nicer Sunday roast than in the Rose and Crown,’ said Ben’s dad. ‘Not even my gran did better. Thanks, love.’ He winked at the waitress.
Ben attacked his lamb ravenously. Normally he ate the Yorkshire puddings first, but not today. Dad savoured every mouthful as if he were at the Ritz.
‘So how’s tricks, Ben?’ he asked. ‘Seems like nothing goes on with you lately.’
Ben stuffed a hot potato into his mouth.
‘Did your mother get the fuse box sorted?’
‘Mm-hm.’ Ben had to strain to remember that particular problem.
‘You know I would have done it myself. If she’d let me.’
‘I know.’
Dad was an electrician.
‘Well then…’ Dad glanced guiltily around him and, with a cheeky grin, re-filled Ben’s empty coke glass with some of his own beer. ‘How’s your game? Or shouldn’t I ask?’
‘It’s okay.’ Ben sipped at the beer. He didn’t get the taste at all, but pretending to like it made Dad happy.
‘I suppose I shouldn’t encourage you. Still, everyone needs a hobby. And you don’t get hurt playing pinball.’
Remembering Cannon, Ben could have disagreed. But he knew what Dad meant. Before meeting Ben’s mum, Raymond Gallagher had been a semi-professional boxer on the Hackney circuit. Though he had been, in his own words, an extremely average fighter, with as many losses as wins, he remained proud of his ‘magic jab’, a fast punch that could come out of nowhere to send opponents reeling into the ropes. It was this handy if unreliable weapon that had briefly earned him the nickname Death Ray.
‘Benny? Is something up?’
‘Just tired. School…’ Ben made vague gestures. And then it all came out. He had to say something or never speak another word again. Over the next twenty minutes Ben whispered, stammered and choked out the story of John Stanford. By the time he had finished there was no beer left.
‘And then Mum got this letter yesterday,’ Ben went on. His lunch was cold and he had a splitting headache. ‘Stanford’s taking us to court over breach of something or other. Mum says he’s bluffing but I can tell she’s not sure. I don’t think she knows what to do.’
Dad’s face was stone. He tapped an unlit cigarette on the table.
‘And I told her,’ Ben went on, ‘that she should call you, but she ignores me. I said, if Dad was here he’d knock Stanford’s head off.’
‘What did she say to that?’ Dad asked, after a pause.
‘Nothing. Just gave one of her laughs that make you feel about two inches tall.’
‘I remember them.’ Dad stared for a while out of the window. Then he leaned forward and squeezed Ben’s arm. ‘Ben. She’s had a rough time. And there are some things…’
He didn’t finish. They sat in silence. Dad got another beer for himself and water for Ben. Finally he crushed the unsmoked cigarette into the ash tray.
‘Listen, Benny,’ he said. ‘This prat Stanford, you don’t worry about him. He knows he’s in the wrong, or he’d have got the law involved long ago. He’s all bark and no bite.’
‘But he smashed the door. And he really scared Mum. And,’ Ben glanced out of the window, ‘he’s been creeping around. I saw him near the flat.’
‘Stanford and Associates,’ murmured Dad. ‘I know where they’re based. Islington somewhere.’
He stared into space.
‘Dad?’
‘I’d tell my solicitor to write him a rude letter,’ said Dad. ‘But it’d end up in the bin. No, Stanford’s a bully. Bullies speak one language.’
Ben felt hope and alarm swilling round inside him.
‘You can’t go round there and beat him up. He’d get the police onto you.’
‘Not him. Anyway, I don’t like to hit people outside of boxing rings.’ Dad fell silent and pulled out another cigarette. He grimaced and put it back. ‘Sometimes all these thugs need is the fear of God putting into them. I’ve seen it a hundred times.’
‘What are you going to do?’
Dad ruffled Ben’s hair.
‘Never you mind. You stop worrying. And Lucy can stop worrying too. I might not live there right now, but I bought that flat with your mum and I still have fond memories. And you’re more important still. No-one messes with my family, understand?’ Dad downed his drink and pushed back his chair. ‘No-one.’
Mrs Powell’s ten-minute sequence of stretches usually lasted a year or so. Hunched in a Long Reach, Ben felt his shoulders about to catch fire, and began to wish that he’d stuck with his original plan never to attend a pashki class again. (Why he did keep coming back, he was still not absolutely sure.) After that came more punishing poses, Arch On Guard, Scratching Tree and Falling Twist, until Ben was one of only two left standing. Despite the agony in his calves he wouldn’t let himself wobble. Out of the corner of his eye he was watching Tiffany. He would crack when she did.
At last Mrs Powell showed mercy and let them rest. Ben lay flat on his back, too tired to check if Tiffany was doing the same. Then came a fresh mystery. Cecile and Olly were sent to fetch some paper-wrapped bundles. These turned out to be slabs of grey clay. Ignoring all questions, Mrs Powell handed them out: ‘Press it over your face.’
The clutch of the clay on Ben’s skin was cool and refreshing. It made him feel once again that everything, somehow, would be all right. He eased the clay off to see a perfect mould of his features, eyes closed and calm. After that they had to queue outside Mrs Powell’s bathroom to wash the silt from their pores and eyebrows. When Ben returned to the studio, the clay moulds of their faces were gone.
The class sat before Mrs Powell. Ben knew the routine now: this was her pashki lecture. Last week she had begun to tell them of the ‘Mau body’, which she claimed was the invisible, feline part of one’s self. It was all Greek to Ben (or at least, ancient Egyptian), but in his relaxed state he was happy to listen.
‘In most human beings,’ said Mrs Powell, ‘the Mau body is no more than a cat-shaped spark in the soul. In others, it burns more brightly. With training we can feed it, until it fills our whole being. Turn your heads to the right.’
Mrs Powell pointed to the cork noticeboard. A poster showed two outlined figures: a sitting cat and a human. Down the centre of each ran a line of six coloured dots. Cat eyes.
‘The Mau body springs from six points of power,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Call them catras. Each catra channels a particular kind of energy and appears in a different zone of the body. Balance is Ptep and resides in the head. Agility springs from Ailur, in the base of the spine. Face front and close your eyes.’
Ben did so. A speck of clay was gumming one eyelash.
‘Picture the colour blue. The blue of a clear evening sky.’
She paused. The studio whispered with breathing.
‘Draw the blue together. Squeeze it to a point. It becomes richer, sharper. It is burning blue.’ She waited. ‘A blue fire against the blackness. Stare at it. Stare at it. It is the eye of a cat.’
Relaxed though he was, Ben flinched. As she spoke it appeared like a waking dream: a blue cat’s eye, staring back. Fear came sharp as a bee sting and he had to blink. The first things he saw were Mrs Powell’s eyes, and these too were fixed on him.
‘You saw it?’ she said.
Ben nodded.
‘It scares you?’
‘No,’ Ben lied.
‘Interesting. All right,’ she said to the others, ‘you can open your eyes now. What we have been visualising is the head catra, Ptep.’
‘I got purple splotches,’ confessed Olly.
‘Not all of you will succeed at first,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘But you have learned the principle. We invoke each catra as an eye of a particular colour.’
‘What do they do?’ asked Cecile.
‘They do not do,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘They just are. We try again.’
She made them picture a red eye
, which she called Oshtis. Heat welled in Ben’s stomach. Kelotaukhon, smouldering copper, brought a tingle to his throat. The golden Parda cut through the dark like a sun, filling his chest with light. He found he couldn’t look at any catra for more than a few seconds. Those glowing irises spooked him more than any cat’s gaze.
‘Good,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Some of you are getting there. We will try an experiment. I need a good subject.’ She cast about. ‘Ben. No, sorry Ben. Tiffany, we’ll use you.’
Ben had a sense of being elbowed aside.
‘Now there’s a surprise,’ he whispered to Olly.
‘Hey,’ Olly breathed, ‘as long she doesn’t come near me, I’m happy.’
‘When you’re finished talking,’ said Mrs Powell. She stood before Tiffany. ‘As I explained, Ptep is the head catra, governing balance. The cat’s main senses, such as sight, hearing and smell, reside in the face catra, Mandira, which is green. But what happens when we combine them?’ She knelt. ‘Tiffany, begin. Let it all go black.’
Ben found himself hoping Tiffany would mess up. It was childish, but he couldn’t help it. He’d been enjoying today. Though the catra exercises rattled him, he had started to suspect, to his astonishment, that he liked pashki even more than pinball, and that he might get just as good at it. Yet Tiffany was chosen, as usual. Jim wasn’t the teacher’s only pet.
‘Hold the blue Ptep in your mind, Tiffany,’ she said. ‘Now. Summon your Mandira. Let the green eye appear.’
Tiffany’s eyebrows twitched in concentration.
‘Now, Tiffany,’ said Mrs Powell. ‘Bring the blue eye and the green eye together. Head and face, head and face. Let them merge. Become one. Hold it.’
Mrs Powell raised her hand. Ben craned forward. The hand crept towards Tiffany’s face and came within six inches.
Tiffany opened her eyes. ‘Hey! That tickles!’
Mrs Powell turned to the group.
‘Did you see? Cecile, tell me. Did I touch her?’
‘No.’ Cecile was slack-jawed. ‘She never even touched you, Tiffany!’
Voices chorused in agreement. Mrs Powell made her try it again. This time Tiffany reacted to a single finger passing by her head. To everyone’s amazement, she sneezed. Ben didn’t know what to think. If this was a conjuring trick, it was a clever one.