Mistification (Angry Robot)

by Kaaron Warren

  Andra wasn't much of a catch, as a supporter, for the pagans. She hated large groups of people so didn't attend any ritual, and she only took what she wanted from the religion.

  The bath was full. Hot and bubbly. Marvo held Andra's hand as she stepped in, then stepped in himself.

  Marvo rose from the bath and went to prepare for the afternoon's performance in the park. They had top billing at a large garden party.

  Andra sat in the bath water, feeling it cool around her.

  They put on a good show in the park. Marvo loved the open air and the audience, while getting it for free, appreciated the magic.

  The birthday girl's older brother was there. Cuts covered his legs and arms. He had been in a motorbike accident. He had been home for weeks; no school, no partying. The effects were showing, and his family were getting tired of feeling sorry for him.

  "This is fucking pathetic," said the teenager. "The rings have got ends; all he has to do is find both and twist."

  The children didn't want the truth about Marvo's magic, or about Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny. They said, "Be quiet."

  "Stupid little kids. He's doing the dumbest tricks ever. He's got a fake thumb with the scarf in it. Look."

  His parents had invited influential people to the party, and the adults had no interest in what the children were doing. They drank pink champagne and swallowed oysters.

  Marvo was displeased with the behaviour of the teenager. He threw a fork of lightning at his feet; the teenager ran to escape and fell into mud.

  "If you run from an illusion you make it real," said Marvo.

  The teenager rose, muddy and embarrassed. He had shown childish fear. He would not speak again until Marvo had gone.

  "Here, have a bath with this," said Marvo. "It's a mild soap for pleasant bubbling."

  The kid took the soap. Later, when he bathed, he stifled shouts of pain. Marvo was not often vicious or vindictive, but he enjoyed the thought of it. The soap was an acidic, lemonbased one, and the teenager's open cuts would be stinging to their very root. That would teach him to destroy the illusions of children.

  Marvo wandered away from the party. He saw a young girl weeping on a park bench and went to her.

  "What is it?" he asked. He was kindly, avuncular, trustworthy.

  "My dog died," she said. "My mother is still at work and my father is away and my doggie died and I don't know what to do."

  "Do you know any stories? Can you tell me a story?" he asked.

  "About a dog?" she asked.

  "About anything," he said.

  The Little Girl Isn't Scared

  This is about a small girl. She was out with her mum, running around the trees, kicking the leaves. She stopped every now and then to check if her mum was still there and she always was. The little girl knew Mum would always be there. Her mum was not close enough to hear her say a rude word but close enough to come quick if the girl needed her.

  The girl decided to scare her mum, for a joke. She hid behind the next big tree and waited and waited. Finally she got sick of waiting, so walked out from the tree.

  "Boo!" yelled her mum.

  She pretended she knew all along. She said, "Let's go home now," and she ran ahead so her mum couldn't see she had been a bit scared but not much.

  Home again, the little girl had to have a bath – hot with soap and toy ships. She stayed in the bath for a long time, splashing and playing. Then her mum said, "Come on, out of there, you'll be wrinkled as a prune soon. Your dad's home. Here he is to say hello."

  The little girl jumped out so quickly she tripped and hit her head on the basin.

  Her dad said, "Oh, you're not crying, are you? You're too grown up to cry. Do you want to wear a little baby's dress?"

  The little girl stopped crying. She went to turn on the television because Lovely Funny was on now. She sat without her clothes right up next to the television, and she was sitting there with her legs crossed and her back round and comfy.

  Her mum said, "Sit back from the TV and straighten up. Do you want to be like a monster, all curved over? And if you sit too close your skin will burn, silly." The little girl knew it wasn't true, about the monster and the burnt skin. But she sat back anyway, sat way back, in a chair, very straight.

  Her mum came in with her nightie to put on.

  "You'll catch your death, running around like that. You don't see your dad running around with no clothes, do you?" And her mum helped her put on her nightie. She wondered how you could catch your death, but was a bit tired to ask. It didn't matter very much.

  Her dad came in and changed the channel to the news.

  "Lovely Funny is on," the little girl said but her dad laughed then.

  She went to play in her room but her dad said, "I think you should watch the news before you go to bed. The news is very beneficial, give you a good background," so the little girl sat down again.

  Her mum bought in the tea and they all sat up and watched the TV.

  Her mum said, "One day we'll eat at the table," and her dad grunted.

  The little girl didn't want to eat her broccoli.

  "You eat every last piece of that broccoli or your hair will turn grey like grandpa's. I've told you before. Broccoli for your hair, pumpkin for your teeth…"

  "Will you shut up? I'm trying to watch the news," said his dad. Her mum never got around to saying, "and spinach for your bones," so the girl said it for her under her breath.

  The news finished, and the little girl knew it was nearly time for bed. Her mum said, "All right, it's time for bed. Chop chop, brush your teeth." Her father said, "I'll come and help you say your prayers." The little girl took a long time to brush her teeth. But she had to stop brushing after a while. Her mum pushed her into her room. Her dad was waiting.

  He said, "On your knees, girl, it's time to have a talk to Big Daddy."

  "Don't teach her to talk like that!" said her mum. Her dad laughed.

  "Hurry up," he said. The little girl went on her knees and began to mumble.

  "Louder, little one," her dad said. The little girl spoke louder.

  "Still can't hear you, don't reckon God can."

  The girl shouted as loud as she could, "GOD BLESS…" and got a smack.

  "Behave, or else you know where you'll be going when you die. God doesn't like little girls who can't say their prayers. He gives them to the Devil who eats them for DINNER!" The little girl tried to laugh. She knew it wasn't true, but still.

  "God bless Daddy," she finished, and dived into bed.

  Her dad said, "Now straight to sleep," and kissed her on the head. Her mum patted her and kissed her on the cheek. Her dad put his arm around her mum and said, "Straight to sleep, before the Sandman comes to steal you away." The little girl shut her eyes tight. There was no such one as the Sandman.

  "Sweet dreams," her mum said. But all she could dream about was her mum behind the tree, and being dressed in a baby's dress for everyone to laugh at. She dreamt what she looked like, a hunchbacked monster with black, burnt skin and grey hair. She dreamt the news with that picture of the blood and the other picture of the girl with her eyes shut. She dreamt the death chasing her, running around and around and around and around the bed. She dreamt about the Devil and the Sandman, how what good friends they were.

  And the little girl was very scared and she never slept again.

  #

  "Little girls must sleep," said Marvo. "They can sleep when they've got someone furry on their bed."

  This was not true, Marvo knew perfectly well. It would make the little girl happy for a while, his lie. And he knew that honesty was not always rewarded.

  There was a bark and the little girl's eyes opened wide. She did not dare to look around. Her new puppy leapt onto her lap, licked and licked her face, and the magician left the happy scene with his new story.

  Andra had finished packing up and was waiting for him, eating fairy floss.

  "That was a great performance!" he said.
<
br />   "I love you on stage. It's like you absorb the magic we exude. But I don't think it was perfect."

  "How was that not perfect?"

  "Too small. I love performing but I hate those small audiences. We need to be seen all at once by hundreds of people."

  "We'd have to travel. You can't get that much time off work."

  "I'll talk to them. See if I can change my hours."

  Her boss at the Body Shop admired her greatly. He admired her for not suing him when her head was burnt bald by a splash of rendered fat. He paid her well, pay rises every month or so and she never made him feel guilty. She also never told him that her bald head had made Marvo admire her.

  Her boss, worried about what Andra wanted to talk to him about, showed up uninvited to their house. Marvo let him in, then ignored him, busy with magic and dinner.

  "Where's Andra?"

  "She'll be home soon. She's sourcing material." Marvo had no idea what this meant but thought it sounded professional.

  By the time Andra got home, the boss had found her jars and was ready with the words, "What the fuck are these?"

  "It's just ash."

  "I know what it is, Andra. Our business works on trust. I thought you knew that. Those people believe their bits are disposed of, yet here they are all mixed together."

  He had tears in his eyes.

  "We can destroy them now. It will be okay. We'll make a sludge and we'll bury it. I'm sorry."

  Marvo had never seen Andra regretful before.

  "No. I'll take them. Help me get them into the car. Not you," he said to Marvo. "Don't you touch them. This was your idea, I bet. She never would have done this before."

  The man was distraught. "I'm going to have to let you go, Andra. I'm going to have to. I can't trust you any more."

  He drove away unsteadily.

  "I'm sorry you lost your job," Marvo said.

  "I'm not. Now we can concentrate on you. On the show." They sat at the kitchen table, a small and grubby piece of furniture. "It will be fun. There's no reason I can't collect hair and fingernails and all the rest of it. You've got plenty for me already. It's not hard."

  Marvo was not sure he would be brave enough. It was one thing to perform in front of a small party of overexcited, overfed children, another in front of a large, demanding, paying audience. However, he did feel stronger in his cape and hat, his cane firmly between his fingers. And their supporting act for the awful illusionist had gone well. It had given him confidence, knowing that his magic was better than the illusionist they supported.

  "If you do all the organising, I'll show up," he said.

  "You'll have to design the show and tell me what to do," Andra said.

  "My glamorous assistant," he said, imagining her in a costume which showed every crease and fold.

  "I'll try."

  "That will be enough."

  Andra and Marvo were so enraptured with each other as they were performing they barely thought about an audience; their rehearsals were so sensuous, so filled with touching and speaking, it seemed to exclude others. They swapped traditional roles; Marvo holding up his wrists and ankles, with Andra doing the tying up, using the rope he had made in the room. They preferred it that way; he could perform well without any movement; his senses could take control.

  Marvo went to see many other magicians as he created his act. He saw the mistakes they made. He realised he had lessons to learn, even from the fakers. He could learn how to perform.

  All the mistakes he embodied into one magician, Mr Nobody, who stood as his anti-example.

  He lost the kids' attention because he wasn't funny, he took too long to do unspectacular tricks, he had boring music which wasn't timed to his behaviour, and he kept messing up a match trick, which the kids didn't find amusing. Kids are not surprised by failure. They find it embarrassing.

  All this Marvo and Andra knew, understood.

  And it began.

  Andra, not interested in money, could see Marvo's future like a balloon. She needed to be the air, to puff him up, give him confidence, and he would take off. She wanted them to move on, become larger. She wanted Marvo Mee's magic to be seen by many.

  "I don't want to be on a big stage. How can I see people's eyes, then?"

  "Let's try it. You can get the people on stage and stare as much as you want, and your magic will be seen by so many more. We could design the stage, we'll have dry ice drifting over them and the smell of flowers."

  "Or of sugar," he said. "That sweet, desirable smell." Marvo loved sweet things, would suck on a spoonful of sugar if nothing else was available.

  So Andra began to look for work in large theatres. Her first choice was on the main street in town, between restaurants and cafés. A lively area full of people who could be seduced into watching magic.

  She arranged a meeting with the manager, taking Marvo with her.

  Marvo was such a quiet man that when people met him they would wonder how he could convince anyone of his powers.

  Then he would blink and their vision would blur; there he was in black, with glittering eyes.

  Andra said to the manager, "We are well known amongst the wealthy and we are greatly loved by children. But we need a home. A place to be free. Having us here will be the making of you."

  The manager laughed. He was a balding man, round-bellied, loud-voiced, used to getting his own way. Used to bribery and begging, used to pleading and approval.

  "I'm already made, sweetheart. D'you have any idea what I've done?"

  The Simple Invention

  I had a very interesting birth. I was born in the hospital, sure, but nobody saw it! I swear. They all blinked and missed it. They said it was like magic. I was born in the wrong era. I know everybody thinks this about themselves, but it's true for me. I was born in the wrong era.

  I belong in the era when simple discoveries were made. When a sudden connection could lead the world in a different direction. Instead, I'm born hundreds of years too late.

  I have an idea, you see. Instead of the spinning jenny, and the other instruments which led to the Industrial Revolution, I had an idea for how to treat people. I would have been a man of power, and trained the people into careers of industry. They would not hold jobs: they would work on their careers.

  #

  The manager was very proud. Marvo learnt a lesson here; people who say they had an interesting birth often didn't. The manager liked to test people this way; he only let the theatre to those who would listen. He had no one in his life interested in him. Marvo and Andra stood in the musty office and listened.

  Marvo looked closely at the man and could see that his clothing belonged to another time. He dressed himself in a black suit with high collars and long tail, a lot of material by today's standards. His shirt was white, and, when Marvo leaned to comfort him, stiff to the touch.

  The gift Marvo gave him was interest in his dull story.

  "You look like a man I used to know," said the manager. He stared at Marvo, wanting Marvo to say, "I am that man."

  "He was a good man," the manager said.

  The Cleaner

  He was a good friend to me, loyal and kind, because I showed him loyalty and kindness. He came to me for work, a starving and filthy man. I needed someone to clean the seats and the floor, pick up the cups and wrappers, condoms and mistakes, trash and treasures. He picked them up with such care, he treated his job as if his career depended on it. We understood each other. Gradually we started to talk, after he had finished. We would have some dark coffee from the machine, dark warm coffee because the machine would be turned off to save electricity. He drank his coffee in deep gulps, then watched thirstily as I sipped mine.

  "Have another," I'd say. The coffee cost me next to nothing. It was rubbish and cold.

  He asked me questions about my life and my dreams, listened to me complain about my wife, my job, my employees. "Present company excepted," I'd always say, and the two of us would laugh. After his first pay check, he r
eturned the next day clean, his clothes clean, his hair trimmed. Then I was comfortable with him. I felt we were equals. It's hard not to feel superior to a man who stinks.

  I never liked to ask him about himself. Truth be known, I enjoy holding the stage. I've spent so long putting others into the limelight, I missed out myself. Not that performers appreciate the work you do for them. Ungrateful and resentful, most of them. Present company excepted, of course.