“Don’t lose any sleep over it. You’ve got worse to bother you by the looks.’”
Is that a joke? I feel as if it’s my fault that I can’t tell. “Seriously, I didn’t harm your image too much, did I? I mean, you aren’t going anywhere.’”
“Nobody else would have me.” I’m about to assure him that he couldn’t be replaced when he says “When are they putting you back on your show?”
“When I can afford to buy the station. Meanwhile I’ll just have to keep my eye out for another job.”
This earns a visible wince. “You’d think they could make allowances,” Benny mutters. “It’s not as if folk can see you on the radio.”
“I’m not after any allowances, Benny. Leave them for the disabled.” When he looks uncomfortable I say “You don’t mind talking to me, do you? It isn’t as if you’re up to your eyeballs just now.”
“If that’s what you need, Mr W.”
“I’d better have something to eat as well. How about a rib-eye steak with black-eyed peas?”
‘Just the basic menu.”
“Better than a poke in the eye. I’ll have a burger. Make it a big one and that can go for the wine as well.”
Benny keys my order at the till and takes the slip into the wings. As he brings me another glass he leans across the bar to murmur “Stay and talk if you like, but you’d better keep your voice down.”
I glance around to find the problem. One booth is occupied by young businessmen, and a table is surrounded by girls at lunch. While nobody is looking at me, I have the impression that more than one just was. I duck towards Benny to mutter “Is there somebody we need to keep an eye on?”
Though I wasn’t intending to make a joke, Benny’s frown suggests I was. “Just the customers.”
“Mustn’t upset them, must we? Can’t expect to see eye to eye with everybody all the time. Don’t worry, I won’t lose you any. Customers, I mean, not eyes.”
I’m speaking lower still, but he hasn’t finished frowning. “I hope not, Mr W.”
“Trust me, your job’s safe with me. I know what it’s like to lose one.”
I straighten up and swivel on the stool as the volume of street noise is turned up. A middle-aged couple—a woman in a perilously low-cut summer dress and a man in a shirt just as floral, hanging outside capacious shorts—have come into the pub. A flood of sunlight catches the glass on Frank Jasper’s poster, which dazzles me like a hint of having no eyes at all. As his face loses its illumination I grope for the bar to swing the stool around, hearing Benny murmur “Are you all right, Mr W?”
“I’m as fine as I’ll ever be, Benny. You look after your customers.”
While he serves the couple my vision seeps back, though I could fancy it’s flatter than ever. Its return makes me all the more aware of the hole where the rest of it should be. The newcomers, at least one of whom smells as flowered as they look, stay at the bar while I sip and then rather more than sip my drink. Benny lingers with them to chat about, I would say, almost less than nothing in particular. I could easily conclude he prefers their company, but he has to acknowledge me when I drain my glass and plant it on the bar and push it in his direction. “Same again?” he can’t very well avoid saying.
“As long as that’s what I’m known for.” I can still see Jasper’s face spotlit by the sun and looking convinced it’s no more than his due; it feels as if the image has lodged behind my eye-patch, challenging me to scratch it out. When Benny brings my drink I’m provoked to say “So the all-seeing eye’s still with us.”
“What’s that, Mr W?” Benny says, not quite as if he wants to know.
“My old pal Frankie Jasper. I thought the boys from out of town wanted you to get rid of anybody local.”
“They’ve let me keep some of the posters up that were.”
“I should have given you my photo while I had the chance, shouldn’t I? I expect they must be pretty rare by now. Maybe they’re even desirable after everything that’s been mixed up with them. Somebody with an eye to the market could make a profit out of them. There must be people who’d pay for that kind of souvenir.”
Benny nods his head, apparently regretfully. He has been shaking it too, no doubt in order not to speak, and he can’t hide all his relief at the sound of a bell. He vanishes into the kitchen and reappears with my burger in a bun with chips. “All right,” I tell him, “that’s shut me up for a while.”
I’ve taken a mouthful of burger and speared a chip with my fork when the woman at the bar turns to me, sending a floral scent to invade the taste in my mouth. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help overhearing. Are you in the theatre as well?”
“As well as what?” With less in my mouth I add “Don’t tell me you’re a listener. Don’t worry, Benny, I’m not accusing anyone of anything.”
“Mr W used to be on the radio,” Benny’s anxious to explain.
“Is that how you got into the theatre?” the woman’s companion asks.
“‘I’m not in any theatre. I haven’t been since I went to see the worst show of my life,” I say and take a bite to quiet myself.
“We thought you must be,” says the woman.
“Why, because of this?” To make up for my indistinctness I jab the fork at my eye-patch, but only Benny winces. “I’m not in costume,” I say more clearly once I can. “I’m not trying to catch anyone’s eye.”
“Mr W was attacked by a gang,” Benny makes haste to say, “and one of them did that to him.”
“Caught my eye, do you mean, Benny?” This time all three of them grimace. “There was quite a crowd watching,” I feel driven to add. “Some of them seemed to think it was a show, and some just turned a blind eye.”
The man looks offended, perhaps not merely by my choice of words. “That isn’t why we thought you might be on the stage, what you have to wear.”
“I’m glad to hear I don’t look fake. Nobody wants me to take a test, then. Not an eye test, the lie kind.” When he and his companion only seem perplexed I say “So what did make you think I was a performer?”
“‘You said you were friends with one.”
“That was a joke. I’m full of those, you may have noticed.”
With more respect than I find appropriate the woman says “Did you get to meet people like him because you were on the radio?”
“I didn’t need to be on there to meet his sort. Just put your money where your brains should be and you can meet him too.”
The woman frowns, but sympathetically. “You sound jealous.”
‘Jealous of a fake like him? I may not be much, but if I didn’t think I was better than him I wouldn’t show my face in public.”
“You said he was your friend.”
“That was the joke.” I can’t believe the woman sounds reproachful. “He was at my school,” I tell her. “He just wanted to impress people and didn’t much care how. He isn’t even American. He’s from up the road.”
“Do you resent him for bettering himself?” the man has the cheek to ask.
“He’s bettered nothing, not himself or the world around him. He’s just played on what he always was. People like him pretend to see ghosts and the future and the rest of it, and it’s all a trick. They see less than I can with one eye.’”
“A psychic lady put our friend in touch with her mother.”
I see Benny dreading my reaction, and that’s enough to calm me down. “It’s all right, Benny, I’m saying nothing.”
“Haven’t you got an answer to that?” the woman insists on establishing.
“I would have once. I’d have had plenty, but it isn’t my job any more. I can’t see my way to it now.”
“I don’t think you know what to think. Maybe you should go and see your friend.”
I’m not sure what effect Benny hopes to have by informing everyone “He’s back across the road next week.”
“He’ll be a sight for sore eyes, do you think?” I won’t be distracted from talking to the couple. “Are you sa
ying I should be an eye witness? I could have used a few of those when I got this. Or are you hoping he’ll open my eyes? I’m afraid that’s all my eye. He’s not a patch on some of the shows I’ve been involved with.”
They’re staring at me as if I’m not just a bad comedian but an offensive one. I hardly need to hear the man say “Do you think everything’s a joke?”
“Believe me, you wouldn’t like to see the alternative.” I take the last mouthful of burger and stand up, staying by the bar until I’m able to speak again. “Thanks for the hospitality, Benny,” I say, “and thank you both for showing me what to do.” I’m no longer joking, but I’ve no time to explain. Perhaps I haven’t quite run out of rage, not when it still may be some use. “Let’s see what I can see this time,” I mutter as I hurry out to buy a ticket at the Palace.
35: A New Ghost
I haven’t let myself take the long way round. Well before I’m alongside Christine’s building I can see her apartment is dark. Women are pedalling at various speeds in the window of Corporate Sana, and Christine is winning the race. I don’t think she has seen me, and I’m not going to dodge out of sight. In any case she seems intent on the race and her iPod, if that’s what she has in her hand. I turn away to hide my face, especially the eye-patch, and hurry to the Palace.
A crowd much larger than the one that watched my departure in the ambulance is converging on the theatre. Across the road is the entrance to the steps I nearly reached. I did climb them eventually with help, while every pace I ventured upwards threatened to disturb the throbbing lump of blindness that was embedded in my head. Now people are trooping past the location as though it’s meaningless, and anyone who looks in my direction glances past me at the posters for Frank Jasper. That doesn’t trouble me, or rather I don’t mind that they reawaken my rage. I’ll be storing it up for him.
Suppose he’s greeting his audience as they enter the theatre? While he didn’t last time, I wouldn’t put any kind of self-promotion past him. I survey the foyer as best I can with just an eye, but only the theatre staff seem to be dealing with the faithful. As one examines my ticket I have the impression that she’s concentrating on it so as to avoid looking at my face. It infuriates me to wonder if anybody thinks I’m here in the hope of being healed, although surely even Jasper wouldn’t claim he’s able to perform that trick.
Around me the crowd looks more solid than cut-outs, but not much. The lack of depth seems to aggravate the congestion and the evening heat, and a trickle of sweat nearly seeps behind my eye-patch. I’m hoping a seat at the back of the stalls will let me remain unobtrusive while I want to be. In case I need extra concealment I buy a programme as well, even though Jasper’s on the cover.
Entering the auditorium doesn’t give me much more sense of space, but I’m almost used to that—almost resigned to the loss of everything that would never have been stolen from me if it weren’t for Jasper. I sidle along a row of flattened pop-up people and sit on the sinking seat and gaze at the curtains that veil the stage like, I’m enraged to think, the entrance to some kind of shrine. They seem only dimly lit despite the footlights and not nearly distant enough. I’m opening the programme, not least to put Jasper’s relentlessly watchful photograph out of my sight, when the woman who last stood up for me murmurs “Are you wanting to see about someone?”
“You could say that.”
“Ah.” This is more than an acknowledgment, since she multiplies the vowel. “Well,” she says, “I hope you hear from them.”
Some if not all of her sympathy must be prompted by my state, and I can’t pretend I welcome it when it involves Jasper. “I believe I’ll get what I’m here for,” I tell her and leaf through the glossy programme, turning up picture after picture of Frank Jasper. In one he’s looking chummy, in the next he’s concerned for anyone who wants to think he is. I do my best to avoid his eyes, both of them, by reading what we’re allowed to know about him. “Originally from Manchester, he now makes his home in California but will travel wherever he’s needed.” I have to mask my snigger with a hand, so hastily that I almost dislodge the eye-patch. “He has been involved with the police”—which brings my hidden grin closer to a snarl—“and has advised them in a number of successful investigations”—which is worded as craftily as the claims he makes onstage. I’m dangerously close to pointing out the trick to the woman who spoke to me, but the dim page is growing darker. I think my anger is reducing the eyesight I still have until I realise the show is about to begin.
The babble of the audience sinks to a mumble and yields to a silence strewn with a few coughs as the curtains part to let out a man in an evening suit. He waits for a shrill hacking bout to subside and pats a small cough of his own before saying “Ladies and gentlemen, we are privileged to have with us tonight the return to Manchester of one of the world’s leading psychics. Last time we were lucky enough to be graced with his much sought-after performance he had so many messages he didn’t have time to deliver them all. Tonight he hopes to make amends if anyone was disappointed. Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for the man who’s always sensitive on your behalf—Frank Jasper.”
I have to join in, both as a reason to unclench my fists and so as not to seem different from everyone around me. The applause, though not mine, swells as the curtains glide all the way open to reveal Jasper, who’s spotlit from above as though heaven is beaming on him. He’s as bronzed as ever, which has to betray a few sessions under a lamp, and dressed in white, even his shoes. At that distance I can’t tell whether his collarless shirt bears a slogan. As he advances to the edge of the bare stage he draws the spotlight with him. “Welcome, all my friends,” he says. “All of you I’ve met and all the ones I’ve still to meet. All the ones I’m seeing now and all of them I will.”
He’s worse than ever. My nails scrape his slippery face as I grip the programme with both hands so as not to clench my fists too visibly. For once in a theatre I’m glad to be sitting behind someone broad and tall, a woman whose extravagantly wide coiffure adds to her usefulness. I’m able to hide most of my face except for my right eye from Jasper as he says “I guess I can predict a full evening for us. There are a whole lot of people here you can’t see. There are people who’ve come back because they need to speak to us.”
I just manage not to grin—to bare my teeth, rather. He’s telling the truth for once, and that’s conclusive. I’ve come back to raise my voice, but I mustn’t be too quick; I need to wait for whatever moment will let me expose his tricks so thoroughly that no one can be fooled by them in future. I clamp my jaws shut, sending an ache up my left cheek to the eye-sized hole, while Jasper declares “I’m hearing from somebody, only maybe who they’re here for won’t want to believe they are.”
That’s devious even for him, and I’d call it offensive as well. As I stare at the smooth cartoon he seems to have become he says “I’m getting they’ve only recently passed. Whoever knew them thinks they went too soon.”
How can his trickery fail to be obvious to everyone? Because they want to be deceived and would never admit it—that’s his guarantee of success. I’m dismayed to glimpse movements in the auditorium, people nodding their heads in agreement with Jasper or in the hope that he means them. “I’m hearing C,” he says, and when nobody lays claim to it “No, it’s more like a T. When they were in this world they liked to help people.”
I’ve begun to wonder how blatant he intends to be. Has he developed such a contempt for his victims that he’s no longer bothering with any kind of subtlety? I’m tempted to set my trap at once—to say he’s in touch with someone I recognise. I’ve practiced altering my voice, and I’m sure he won’t know me until it’s too late. I want to see through more of his performance first, and I succeed in keeping silent while training my eye on the unnaturally lit artificially coloured cartoon of him. As he’s answered by a murmur that he either can’t locate or finds insufficient Jasper says “Wait, I’m hearing more. They were involved with a lot of p
eople, not just the ones they knew. Was that their job?”
Can anybody really think he’s after confirmation rather than a clue? His gaze ranges about the audience and, before I’m ready for it, passes over me. I can’t help holding my breath as an aid to sitting absolutely still. By the time his attention drifts back to the front stalls, my jaws and the left side of my face have begun to throb. That gives me more rage to save up, but I manage to relax my jaw a fraction as Jasper says “It’s not an unusual name, is it? I’m sure I’m hearing a t or a c if I’m not getting both.”
“Tanya Cristobel.” I have to grind my teeth so as not to shout this while Jasper sends his eager gaze around the auditorium. When it fails to prompt any response he says “They don’t want you to be shy. Maybe they always wanted to help people to express themselves. They couldn’t be a teacher.”
His tone is just ambiguous enough to let this be taken as a question. It has no more depth than the way he looks to my eye, and I’m struggling not to be provoked to speak when someone near the middle of the theatre says almost inaudibly “They couldn’t, no.”
“Lady in the green dress. I’m sorry, I don’t have your name.”
Now she’s got her voice out she tries to raise it. “Charmaine.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if Jasper claimed this was the name he was reaching for, but he says “Didn’t they call you Charming Charmaine?”
He’ll be ready with a ruse if that proves to be untrue, but Charmaine rewards him with an embarrassed giggle. “She did sometimes.”
He’s learned the gender of the dead at last. “Okay, I’m hearing she passed before she had a chance to teach.”
“She did. She’d passed her exams and everything as well,” Charmaine says and, overcome by emotion, turns to her neighbour to mumble a name.
“I guess I’m hearing clearer now. Charity, is that what I’ve been getting?”
Ghosts Know Page 23
