“A likely story.”
They walk down a side street to the café, away from the smart restaurants. This is where the market traders eat. Although the pies are frozen and there’s margarine on the white, ready-sliced bread, Sam has never tasted anything better. She almost kids herself that she’s happy but, of course, how can she be when Lola is trapped in a cage somewhere.
Bart, who has made a career out of watching people watching him, watches her. He sees the sadness floating across her eyes in a beautiful pea-green boat.
“What’s up, Bo? Lost your sheep?”
She puts her fork down. “Bart, there’s something I need to ask you.”
“Go on, then. But you’ll have to speak up coz I’m stone deaf. Stone deaf!” He snorts at his own joke but it doesn’t raise a smile. Sam isn’t in the mood.
“Bart, did you ever come across a magician called the Dark Prince of Tabuh?”
Bart almost chokes on his gristle. “Blimey … the Dark Prince? I haven’t heard that name in a while.”
Yes, Bart had met him. Years ago, mind. He’d met him right here, in Covent Garden. The Dark Prince had just come over from abroad. He’d been working on an ocean liner – one of those cruise ships – but had to leave in a hurry because … well, he never said why. He was a good-lookin’ lad, only he was wearing a magician’s outfit that looked like it belonged to a fat bloke. His name wasn’t really the Dark Prince, of course. No, that was just his stage name.
“Did he tell you his real name?”
Bart hits himself on the head with his pudding spoon to jog his memory.
“Let me see. Was it Tommy Tucker? No! It was a regular, English name. Was it Bobby Shaftoe? Only he’d been to sea and he was bonny. No, no, his real name was John. John Tabuh – that was it! Why do you ask, d’you know him?”
Sam touches the locket around her neck. “He’s my dad. I’m trying to find him. He left when I was a baby.”
Bart blinks slowly. Fake stone-dust floats off his eyelashes and lands in his pastry. “I’ll tell you what,” he says. “Fathers don’t just say ‘Bye, Baby Bunting’ and leave for no reason. Maybe he just went hunting to fetch you a rabbit skin.”
“No, if that was the case, he’d be back by now. Aunt Candy told me he was an explorer but I found his photo and his magician notes and … I dream about him.”
“I’ve never had a dream,” says Bart. “Not when I’m asleep, anyway. Not even when I was a little boy under a haystack. When I’m sleeping, it’s as if the curtains fall and the show’s over. There’s no encore of events that happened in my life. I only ever have dreams in the day when my eyes are open, when I’m standing still. Maybe I’m dreaming now.” He freezes in his chair; his fork halfway to his lips, his mouth fixed in mid-chew. One second he is a man of flesh, the next he is stone. Sam taps his bowl with her fork.
“Bart … Bart!”
He shakes his head like a dog with wet fur and becomes human again. “Where was I? Has the clock struck one? Has the mouse run down?”
Bart gathers his thoughts and picks up the invisible thread that might lead to John Tabuh. The last time he saw him he was performing tricks where the Jumping Bean Man now stands. Good tricks they were, like he’d been doing them for far longer than his years. John couldn’t have been much older than … what, eighteen?
How did he come to be there? Well, he never said much, but he did mention he’d met an old lady on the Piccadilly Line who’d told him to get out at Covent Garden. Sam’s mouth drops open.
“That’s what happened to me! An old lady on the train told me to come here too. I wonder if it was the same person? That would be too much of a coincidence, surely? Unless it’s some kind of magic?”
Bart shakes his head. “Not magic, just maths. Coincidences are one a penny, two a penny. It’s a small world and a very repetitive one. A very repetitive one. I bet your old lady sits in the same seat on the same train every day and has done for donkey’s years. The odds are that ninety-five per cent of old ladies talk to strangers on trains, rising to ninety-nine per cent if the stranger is handsome. If he happens to be a magician, Covent Garden is bound to crop up in conversation, so, statistically, the chances of the same lady talking to you and your dad are much higher than you think.”
Sam would have preferred a magical answer to a mathematical one. She toys with a sugar cube and takes out a pencil. “So, Mr Statistics, what are the odds of me finding my father? Give me a number between one and ten.”
“Three.”
Sam writes it on the sugar cube, drops it in her glass of water and holds Bart’s hand over it. “Only three? Are you sure?”
He nods and squeezes her hand. She turns it over. There’s a number three written on his palm but he never put it there.
“How did that get…?”
“Magic, Bart. If only you’d said five. A three in ten chance of finding him is not good.”
He wipes crumbs off his lips. “If you want my advice, leave him alone and he’ll come home, wagging his tail behind him. On the other hand, if you go after him it might speed things up a bit.”
Two schools of thought then, but Sam doubts her father will ever come home of his own accord.
“Have you any idea where he went, Bart?”
“The Old Bill moved him on coz he didn’t have a licence for his monkey. So feeling sorry for the bloke, I ran after him and—”
“His monkey? Are you sure it wasn’t an ape?”
“Am I a zoo keeper? Monkey, ape? I dunno. It was hairy and ginger and shuffling cards with its toes. Anyway, as I said, I ran after The Dark Prince and—”
“But that was Lola!” interrupts Sam, “My orang-utan!”
So now we know how Lola learnt to do magic. She helped John Tabuh with his act. If Sam’s dreams are to be trusted, they’d left their home in the rainforest together to find the answer to three questions and somehow they ended up here. They didn’t travel all that way in a mwa sawah; they’d been on a cruise ship. But why? And where did John learn to perform magic?
“I think you should find out,” says Bart.
Sam pushes her plate to one side. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
First, though, she has to find Lola; it’s a matter of life and death. Mrs Reafy might be able to help her, but she can’t get there until tomorrow because of the porters’ strike. If only she could find her father, he’d know what to do.
Bart orders pudding, but Sam can’t eat hers. Not because it’s too hot or too cold or because it’s nine days old. She’s lost her father, her orang-utan and her appetite. Perhaps all is not lost, however…
“’Course, John had nowhere to stay, so I gave him the address of a warehouse he could doss in,” says Bart. “My mate Kitty lived there at the time. She did a lot of wood carvings. Liked to keep herself to herself. What was her surname … Fisher? No, not Fisher. It was Bastet.”
Fortified by this new piece of information, Sam picks up her spoon and shovels a large helping of rice pudding into her mouth.
“Mad as a hatter, poor old Kitty,” mutters Bart.
“Why mad?”
According to the living statue – who considered himself to be normal in every way – Kitty Bastet was mad because she claimed to be the reincarnation of an Egyptian priestess and worshipped cats; mad because she believed the ancient spirits communicated with her through automatic writing. Sam thinks she sounds wonderful.
“Don’t you believe in spirits, Bart?”
“I once met a ghost eating toast – halfway up a lamppost. What’s up, why the face?”
Sam looks at him rather strictly. “It’s not kind to call your friend mad, Bart.”
“She wasn’t a close friend.”
Kitty had what they call a split personality. Bart reckoned the “spirits” who spoke to her were the voices in her own head.
“Do you think Kitty would talk to me?” asks Sam. “Even if my father has moved out, she might know where he went. Does she still live at the wareh
ouse?”
Bart has no idea. We’re talking years ago, but Sam could always go and see. The warehouse is near Docklands. She’d need to get to West India Quay. He pulls out a piece of paper and draws her a map. She thanks him for everything, especially the pudding and pie, and he walks her to the station. He seems sorry to see her go.
“I won’t kiss you goodbye,” he says. “Georgie Porgie did that and made the girls cry. I don’t want to see you cry. Anyone would think I was made of stone.” And he gets down on one knee, clutching his hand to his heart. A tear rolls down his dusty cheek and sets like concrete. In a split second, Bart morphs from emotional to motionless.
Sam doesn’t look back. She has a quick look at Bart’s map but she’s in such a hurry, she fails to notice it’s drawn on ancient, hand-pulped paper. Mind you, the light is fading.
She changes trains several times. The warehouse is a long walk from West India Quay and by the time she arrives, it is dark. She’s not at all sure this is where she should be. There’s no warehouse – just scorched earth, scrubby wasteland and rubble.
Hang on … maybe this is the right place. There could have been a warehouse; she can make out where the old foundations used to be – but why isn’t it here any more? The wasteland is deserted. There’s an ominous chill rising from the wharf. Sam shivers; this is a warehouse grave. Kitty is no longer here, there’s no point in staying. She decides to retrace her steps back to West India Quay, catch a night train and sleep at St Pancras station. She’ll catch the first train to Mrs Reafy’s in the morning.
It’s late and dark, and she has a long way to go, so she begins to run. But something in the soil doesn’t want her to leave; it trips her up. She falls, grazes both hands and cuts her knee open on sharp metal. As she crouches down to examine her wound, a hunched figure slips out of the shadows and moves quietly about its business.
It’s coming towards her.
HOW TO TEAR A COIN IN HALF
You need: A large coin, tin foil, an envelope
1. Cut the corner off an envelope so you have a square pouch.
2. Cover the coin in tin foil and press so the coin is imprinted on the foil.
3. Open the foil, take out the coin, then refold the foil so it looks like a solid coin.
4. Show the fake coin to the audience, put it in the pouch and rip it up – they’ll think you’ve torn the real one.
RUTH ABAFEY
Sam stands as still as Bart Hayfue to make herself invisible to the warehouse ghost. She sighs with relief as it brushes past her: this is no spectre; it’s a tiny woman, scratching in the dirt like a shy night creature. A Moon Lady. She hasn’t noticed Sam and talks softly to herself.
“Ah, milkweed! Milkweed in full bloom and it’s a full moon.”
She pulls the herb up by the roots, blows the soil off and places it in a woven basket. Sam wants to ask her about the warehouse, but if she speaks suddenly, it might scare her away. She decides to sing a lullaby; a lullaby is never threatening – unless it’s sung by Aunt Candy.
In order not to frighten the Moon Lady, Sam sings airily, so that the words sound like night breeze or the patter of moth’s wings. “Rock a bye baby, on the tree top, when the—”
The woman cocks an ear and mutters softly to herself. “Hark! Is that the call of the Torresian crow? Or is it the wind? No, it is a girl’s voice!” She straightens up like a rabbit trying to guess where the vixen is lurking. “Girl? Show yourself! Come out of the shadows and show yourself.”
Sam waves her hand slowly. “Here I am… I hope I didn’t scare you.”
“No, no. Not scared – just wary until I get the measure of you.” She shuffles closer. She’s so short and hairy, Sam wonders if she’s stumbled across a goblin. The woman looks her up and down. “Stay standing still, just like that. Then I can get on with it.”
“Get on with what?”
“Measuring you, of course! Name, name, name?”
“Sam – Sam Khaan. What are you going to do with that?”
The Moon Lady has pulled a length of red cord from her pocket. Is Sam about to be strangled? She steps back, but the woman reaches out to her.
“Don’t panic, Sam Khaan. I wouldn’t hurt a fly. Do harm to none – that is the Wiccan Creed, the rules by which witches must abide.” She smiles brightly.
Sam has got the measure of her too; she has nothing to fear. “Is that what you are? A witch?”
Yes, indeed. Her name is Ruth Abafey and she’s a solitary hedgewitch. She has nothing to do with the devil, nor is she prone to dancing naked round a cauldron; she’s a white witch.
She takes her red cord, measures Sam’s right arm from shoulder to wrist then measures the left arm. She ties knots in the cord and asks Sam to remove her ringmaster’s hat.
“Why?”
“To measure your skull, what else?” She climbs onto a pile of broken bricks to reach Sam’s head and as she starts to measure, she notices the curious blonde streak in her hair.
“Hmmm,” she says. “Well … that’s hereditary.”
To mark the circumference of Sam’s head, she ties two knots in the cord, then she holds the knots together. “Big, but not big enough,” she exclaims.
“Not big enough for my hat?”
“Not big enough to be a witch. Never mind, you’ll grow.”
Sam has no intention of becoming a witch, but then she remembers the putty doll she made and with great enthusiasm she tells Ruth Abafey how she bound the ankles together to stop Aunt Candy chasing after her.
“I ran away from home. She was very cruel. She got rid of my—”
The witch throws up her hands in horror and warns her about the dangers of playing with such dolls. “Beware of using a fith-fath against anyone, Sam Khaan! Whatever you wish for others, it will visit you three times over.”
“I’m not sure the doll worked,” Sam insists. “I just copied the idea from an old book.”
“Books can be very dangerous things – especially old ones,” tuts Ruth. “If your fith-fath was a good one, your aunt might have tripped and broken her neck.”
The idea that she could have killed Aunt Candy never crossed Sam’s mind.
“Think on!” says the witch. “If you wished to break her neck, that wish will revisit you three times over. You’ll be looking at life in a wheelchair at the very least.” Ruth replaces the ringmaster’s hat back on Sam’s head. “What are you thinking, dear?”
“Do you really think I’ve killed Aunt Candy? I hate her, but I wouldn’t want to kill her. I’d never kill anybody.”
The witch pats her hand. “Listen, Sam Khaan. The good news and the bad news is that your aunt is still alive. I’ll prove it if you like. You fell, didn’t you? Show me your hands and knees.”
Sam rolls up her trouser legs and holds out her palms. The witch examines her wounds.
“Ah, yes. Two little cuts and a graze. Three minor injuries – that’s payback for temporarily paralyzing your aunt’s ankles. I imagine she tripped, laddered her tights and possibly broke a nail. If you’d killed her, your head would have fallen off by now. Now lift your arms. Lift … lift!”
Sam lets Ruth pass the cord around her chest, all the while thinking how odd it is to be standing here in the dark allowing a tubby little witch to measure her.
“Am I dreaming, Ruth?”
“Who knows, dear? It is not for me to say.” She hands Sam the knotted cord. “For you. Keep it with you at all times. It represents the umbilical cord that connects you to your mother and the Mother of Everything.”
“I haven’t got a mother,” says Sam flatly. “She’s dead.”
Ruth Abafey invites Sam to stay the night. She lives just over there – a short walk. It’s far too dangerous for a girl to sleep in St Pancras station, she says. There are thieves and murderers, tricksters and junkies, legless beggars and merciless muggers. Even worse, the police might send her back to Aunt Candy.
It has to be safer to stay with Ruth. Tonight, Sam will ask if s
he knew anyone who lived in the warehouse. Tomorrow, hopefully armed with more clues, she’ll go to Mrs Reafy’s.
They walk the length of a disused railway line until it parts at the end like a giant zip. The witch takes such small steps that Sam has to walk in ridiculous slow motion to stay by her side. Suddenly, a ghostly reflection in the water catches her eye. She stops.
“Why do you stare?” asks the witch.
“Look at the moon!”
It’s floating, face-up and mouth open, beneath the black surface of the wharf.
“It looks just like the face of the drowned woman I see in my dreams,” says Sam. “I’ve had the same dream many times. It begins with a feeling that I’m falling, but I don’t know who the woman is.”
Ruth squats down and fishes for the moon with her fingers. “The moon is in the sky, yet it is in the water. It’s an illusion, Sam Khaan. But the drowning woman in your dream was really in this wharf. I pulled her out myself. She was washed up against the reeds, where the moon is floating now.”
It happened during the Summer Solstice – was it twelve years ago? Ruth was cutting bulrushes when she noticed the woman’s body. She’d waded in up to her neck and dragged her onto the bank.
Was she dead? She had no pulse. Both nostrils were plugged with mud. Ruth had turned her over to drain the water out of her lungs but still she wouldn’t breathe, so she gave her the kiss of life. Full of witch’s breath, the woman spluttered and opened her eyes.
Not only was she half-drowned, this woman, she’d been badly burnt. In places her long brown hair had been singed to the scalp. She couldn’t remember who she was or what had happened. She was in such shock, she’d lost her power of speech; she couldn’t say where she’d come from.
“She must have jumped into the wharf from the top window of the burning warehouse, hit her head and floated downstream,” says Ruth.
“The burning warehouse!” exclaims Sam. “How did the fire start?”
Ruth doesn’t know. She’d smelled smoke and gone to investigate. No one else had noticed it; there were no houses nearby. The warehouse hadn’t been used for storage since just after the war; it had been left to rot in the wasteland. There was no power supply, so the fire couldn’t have been caused by an electrical fault.
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