LITMIR.BIZ

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of fake breasts, stink bombs, and plastic spirals of dog shit. Business was good, but Brian resented being little more than a glorified joke shop, and this did little to improve his temper.

      ‘Dean!’ Brian shouted.

      There was the sound of heavy footsteps approaching. Finally a short, rather fat man with red hair appeared from the back of the shop. He wore a T-shirt with a dragon on it and a dirty pair of jeans. ‘Yeah?’ said Dean.

      ‘Evel Knievel here has buggered up his hand,’ explained Brian, pointing at Simon, ‘so you and me are going to have to work extra hard today.’

      Dean shrugged. ‘OK,’ he said.

      ‘And the next day,’ added Brian.

      ‘OK.’ Dean looked at Brian and Simon affably. There was a pause. Brian snorted in irritation. Dean annoyed Brian hugely. He meandered through life without worrying about other people very much. He lived in his own world, which, as far as Simon could tell, consisted principally of thrash heavy metal bands and billiard balls. Dean could perform acts of dexterity with his podgy hands that defied belief. He was a prodigiously gifted manipulator, a talent born through hard graft and the unshakeable belief that he never wanted to do anything else. Dean’s favourite items to manipulate were billiard balls. Once he had shyly shown Simon his collection. Some were made of wood, some of marble, some of ivory. Simon remembered staring at this extraordinary array, lost for words. It stood as testimony to the all-embracing intensity of Dean’s obsession. Ever since, Simon had felt an affinity with him: here was another man with a fixation which left him dislocated and detached from the ordinariness of modern life. Simon sought sanctuary in his jazz records, Dean in his beloved red balls. It was essentially the same escape route.

      Dean’s ability to make things appear and vanish with his bare hands did not, unfortunately for him, correspond with his ability to interact socially with other people. His astonishing manipulative gifts were balanced by an apparently complete absence of charisma, personality, or luck, and this was why he was working in a magic shop near Victoria Station rather than playing to glittering audiences in Las Vegas, which was what his extraordinary talent probably deserved.

      Dean had accepted his lot without rancour. He got on with his own life without bothering others too much, and he expected others to do the same to him. Brian, however, was reluctant to do this. Jealous of Dean’s ability, Brian tormented him mercilessly. The more Dean failed to respond, the harder Brian tried to provoke a reaction.

      Brian was now in full flow.

      ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Sure you don’t mind working on the shop floor all day while Hop-Along here dosses about doing nothing?’

      ‘Nah,’ said Dean equably. ‘S’all right.’

      ‘Well I bloody mind,’ said Brian.

      ‘I won’t be doing nothing,’ protested Simon. ‘I’ll do all the accounts and stuff.’

      ‘Heaven preserve us,’ muttered Brian.

      ‘Look,’ said Simon, ‘if you prefer, I’ll stay out front. I’d rather. I just won’t be able to actually perform any tricks. But Dean’s better at that sort of thing anyway.’

      ‘All right,’ said Brian. ‘You do that.’ Simon breathed a sigh of relief. The three of them had established a precarious means of working together harmoniously, the central tenet of which was that Simon and Dean kept as far away from Brian for as long as possible.

      At half past nine they opened the doors and immediately the shop was invaded by a scrum of chattering teenagers. They crowded around the counter demanding to be shown fake cigarettes and pepper sweets. Brian quickly disappeared behind the velvet curtain at the back of the shop, muttering darkly to himself.

      Later that morning, as Simon and Dean sipped mugs of tea in companionable silence, the bell over the front door rang. Both men turned to face the new customer, a young woman in jeans and a white shirt, dark glasses thrust up into her hair and a heavy-looking bag slung over her shoulder. She glanced an unseeing smile towards the counter and then began to inspect the display cabinets with interest. While she did so, both Simon and Dean watched her curiously. It was unusual to see women in the shop unless they were wives or mothers patiently indulging their husbands or sons. Magic seemed to be a largely male hobby. Simon had always supposed this was because the magician alone knows the secret of the trick he is performing. On the basis that knowledge is power, the magician is therefore more powerful than his audience. Power, of course, is an aphrodisiac, so the logical conclusion was that men did tricks because it made them horny.

      The woman, though, seemed to be too interested in the contents of the display cases to be shopping for somebody else. Simon hid behind his mug of tea, eyeing her appraisingly over its brim. As she looked, her button nose wiggled slightly. Simon noted with approval how her bottom fitted snugly into her jeans. Her hair was blonde and cut just above shoulder length in what Simon guessed was a deliberately messy way. Her face was delicately put together, and was pretty, rather than beautiful.

      Finally the woman completed her tour of the shop and approached the counter with a pleasant smile. ‘So,’ she said, ‘have you guys finished staring at my butt yet?’

      Simon almost choked on his tea. ‘I, er, what?’ he spluttered. Dean wisely said nothing, although he continued to stare.

      The woman cocked her head to one side. ‘Come on. I saw you. You were checking me out.’ She spoke with an American accent.

      Dean still stood, immobile, his mouth hanging slightly open, and so Simon felt obliged to answer. He realized that something urbane and sophisticated was needed to defuse the situation, make the customer feel more relaxed.

      ‘No we weren’t,’ he said.

      ‘Yes you were,’ said the woman in a matter-of-fact way. ‘So.’ She slapped her behind like a cow-girl. ‘What do you think?’ Simon realized that so far he had not had the best of the exchange. He decided to ignore the question.

      ‘Look,’ he said. ‘Sorry if you thought we were, er, doing that. We weren’t, obviously. It’s just that it’s quite unusual for us to have lady customers.’

      ‘Well,’ replied the woman, ‘here I am, a lady customer. Are you going to be able to serve me, now that you’ve got over the shock of seeing me in your shop?’

      Simon nodded dumbly.

      ‘Good.’ The woman put her bag down on the counter. ‘My name is Alex Petrie,’ she said. ‘I’m working at a restaurant near here for a few weeks.’ She vaguely waved a hand behind her. ‘They’re doing a series of close-up magic promotions. You know the sort of thing – I wander around the tables cutting up people’s credit cards, pulling coins out of the soup, that sort of thing.’

      ‘Right,’ said Simon, surprised. She was a professional.

      ‘I’ve come over from New York especially for this gig,’ she said. ‘And I want some new stuff.’

      Simon and Dean beamed.

      

      Half an hour later, Alex Petrie had spent a lot of money.

      As Dean rang up the purchases on the till, Alex Petrie smiled at Simon. ‘I must say,’ she said, ‘you two do a good sales routine.’

      ‘Thanks,’ said Simon.

      ‘I like the way you do the talking and the little guy actually does the tricks.’

      Simon raised his bandaged hand. ‘Talking is about all I can do at the moment.’

      ‘You do it pretty well.’ She looked at Simon. ‘Look,’ she said, ‘this might seem forward of me, but this is the first time I’ve been to London, and I don’t know anybody here. I gather that there’s some good stuff to see. So I was wondering, if you’re free, if you wouldn’t mind taking some time to show me around a little.’

      Simon stared back at her, speechless.

      Dean

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