The Houdini Effect (13 page)

‘
Harry keeps telling me I
should do my project on Houdini,’ I said. ‘That’s his hero. But
there’s screeds written about him already. Everyone

knows about Houdini.’

‘
But it would be easier
wouldn’t it?’ May said. ‘To pick someone famous.’

‘
I guess. But a bit boring
as well. I don’t know. Maybe I will.’

‘
I thought your brother
seemed very focused,’

May said. ‘Quite an intense young man.’

That was very observant of her, I thought,
especially considering she’d met him even more briefly than me.

‘
He mentioned he had to go
and practise his tricks,’ she went on.

‘
That’s right. He’s forever
practising. He’s entered a talent quest,’ I explained. ‘He’s mainly
done magic tricks and stuff for fun but now he thinks he’s going to
win big bucks. The thing is, he hasn’t even got through the
preliminary audition yet and that’s the hardest nut to crack. He
could easily be eliminated right from the word go. And

the act he was planning to
do hasn’t turned out to be the thing he can do very well. At
all
, actually. He’s got
to start all over again.’

‘
Starting from scratch
isn’t easy,’ said May. ‘But I have a feeling he’ll find a solution.
He struck me as that kind of person. Resilient. You as well,’ she
said.

Well, I guess she’d recognise someone
resilient when she saw one. She only had to look in the mirror.

‘
I guess he is,’ I said,
not commenting on myself. Did I have the same sort of staying power
as Harry? The fact was, he had almost given up until I’d pushed him
along a little. Perhaps I was equally as resilient as Harry, even
more maybe. I felt a little cheered. For a resilient person there
just

had to be a way of solving the mystery of
the mirrors.

‘
Wish Harry luck from me,’
said May. ‘He reminds me a little of my brother at the same age. He
knew exactly what he wanted to do and he

went ahead and did it. Didn’t matter what
other

people thought.’

‘
What was your brother’s
obsession?’ I asked.

‘
Jazz,’ said May. ‘His
trumpet drove me mad.’

‘
Did he grow out of
it?’

‘
Heavens no,’ said May. ‘He
formed a jazz band when he was twenty-three and they’re all still
together, touring the world. I hardly ever see him these days. He’s
always sending me postcards from exotic locations. Just goes to
show, doesn’t it?’

Of course I started to wonder if May had
ever had any grand ambitions. More importantly (at least as far as
I was concerned) I felt nervous that she would ask me about mine. I
didn’t think I had any, except to become a writer, and I felt a jab
of jealousy to think that Harry’s fixation could turn out to be his
fortune. He was younger than me but he’d leave me far behind if I
wasn’t careful. My dream of writing seemed a lot more airy-fairy,
arty-farty and illusory than his magical ambitions even though
Harry was the one who dealt in actual illusions. Harry had real
skills, ones he’d proven to us, his own family. And here he was,
about to try out for a major talent quest. That was really putting
your neck on the line.

What had I done except read books and fallen
in love with words? How many, out of all the people like me who
wanted to become writers, actually ended up famous? Not many.

I think it was then I realised I should
start writing down the stuff that was happening to me. I mean, what
a story it was! I just wished I knew how it was going to end.

May and I made a bit more small talk and
then I

thanked her and said goodbye.

‘
Come round anytime,’ she
said. ‘I’m usually at home. And good luck with whatever you decide
to write about.’

That last sentence seemed like a kind of
omen.

‘
Thanks,’ I said a second
time. ‘I’ve really appreciated your help. And,’ I added, before May
closed the door on herself, ‘I’m sure you’ll work out what to do,
too.’

Help

As it turned out Harry was waiting
impatiently for me when I got back. It rattled me somewhat, his
impatience following on from May’s revelations.

‘
Where’ve you been?’ he
asked.

‘
Charming,’ I replied.
‘I’ve been next door, not that it’s any of your
business.’

‘
Next door? What for?’
Harry didn’t wait for an answer. ‘I’ve been looking for
you.’

‘
There’s a first time for
everything. It’s usually the other way round. Now you’ve found me,
what do you want?’

‘
I’ve been thinking,’ he
said.

‘
What did you do that
with?’ I asked.

‘
Look, cut the crap,’ Harry
said. ‘It’s only because of what you said before. I wouldn’t waste
my time otherwise.’

‘
You wouldn’t waste your
time talking to me,

or thinking?’ (You can see
from this exchange how devoted a brother and sister we were.)
‘What
did
I say?’
I asked him. ‘Remind me? Let’s see if you’ve got your facts
straight.’

‘
You said two things. One,
that I should find

another escape routine and, two, that you’d
help me if I did.’

‘
The first is true. The
second - well, I’m not sure I said that exactly. But I suppose it
was close enough. (What had I let myself in for?) Tell me what
you’ve come up with in the short time I’ve been away,’ I asked
him.

‘
I’m sure I can do
something even better than the straitjacket escape,’ Harry
said.

His earlier dogged enthusiasm seemed to have
returned with a raggle-taggle collection of puppies in tow.
Unfortunately for him I found it hard to empathize. Mirror images,
missed appointments, disconcerting discussions with next-door
neighbours . . . today had been full-on enough already.

‘
But I can’t do it on my
own,’ Harry continued.

‘
That’s radical,’ I
said.

Harry was actually admitting something he’d
never admitted before. Despite my diversity of distractions I was
starting to get worried, suspicious and curious about what this cry
for ‘help’ was going to entail.

‘
Yes,’ Harry agreed. ‘I
need help.’

It was still my cue to be kind but I’d
already overdosed on kindness. ‘So you’ve said. And that’s not
something I can argue with. Before the men in white coats come to
cart you away you mean?’

‘
Will you stop being so
clever-bloody-sarcastic

all the time!’ he snapped and that almost
shut me up. When on earth did he discover the word ‘sarcasm’?

‘
I need you to be my
assistant.’

‘
What!’ My worst worries
and suspicions had

come true, my curiosity
more than satisfied. ‘Your
assistant
?’

Harry watched me calculatingly.

‘
Do you mean what I think
you mean?’ I eventually managed to ask. ‘Assistant as in on
stage.’

Harry nodded. ‘I wouldn’t ask you unless it
was

important.’

‘
Unless you were
desperate!’

‘
Whatever. Well, will
you?’

‘
I’m sure my offer of help
never extended as far as that,’ I said.

‘
Come on,’ he said using
his wheedling tone, very rare these days. I hadn’t heard it for a
few years. ‘I really could do with some help.’

‘
I couldn’t tie you up or
anything like that. People would be suspicious.’

‘
But you’ll do it? Be my
assistant?’

‘
Hang on, I didn’t say
that. I was just speculating.’

‘
Anyway, it’s nothing as
obvious as tying me up,’ said Harry. ‘Of course the audience would
smell a rat.’

‘
Then what am I be supposed
to be doing? If I do it.’

‘
Be glamorous,’ Harry said.
‘And diverting.’

‘
Glamorous?
Diverting?’

He nodded. ‘You’ve got it. See, a lot of
magicians have a glamorous assistant. It’s not as if they need
someone to make the trick work but

diversionary tactics can sometimes be really
useful.’

‘
Let me ask you two
things,’ I said, slowly. ‘Are you saying you need me just to be a
‘diversionary tactic’? And, assuming I’d let myself

be used like that, what exactly do you
consider to be a ‘glamorous’ look?’

He answered the second question first, but
maybe because it answered the first one as well.

‘
Well, you’re not exactly
the sort of glamorous I’d want but if you wore your togs . . . ’ he
said.

‘
My
what
?’

‘
It doesn’t have to be your
bikini,’ he said quickly.

‘
Doesn’t it?’

‘
I thought you could dress
in your one-piece thingy and perhaps put something frilly around it
and throw on some glitter and stuff. That’d be enough.’

I could hardly believe
what I was hearing. ‘You must be crazy to even
think
that I’d parade around on
stage in next to nothing,’ I said, ‘just to make your act look
good.’

‘
Why not?’ he
asked.

‘
It’s sexist.’

‘
What is?’

‘
The whole glamorous
assistant thing of course. ‘Why don’t you dress in your
togs?’

‘
I’d planned to for the
straitjacket escape, if I’d been able to do it.’

‘
Why on earth would you
have done that?’

‘
I would have had to, you
see. Escapology is all about being transparent. The audience would
have had to be convinced that I didn’t have knives or scissors or
keys or other aids and devices to help

me escape. But this new routine’s going to
be completely different.’

‘
You bet it is. No way am I
doing what you’re asking.’

Much to my surprise (and shock I have to
say)

Harry suddenly gave up on me and turned
annoyed and spiteful. ‘You’ll never be glamorous,’ he said,
‘especially not in your swimsuit and even more especially not in
your bikini. You’d only ever look good if you threw a bin bag over
your head. I was only being kind, asking you in the first place.
I’ll find someone else. Selfish bra-stuffer.’

Bra-stuffer! How the hell did he know about
that?

‘
Not in a million years,’ I
said as Harry stomped off to his room and I stomped off to mine.
‘Fossip!’ I hurled after him.

Very satisfying.

A list of DEEP THOUGHTS

(Lists are generally helpful but not always.
This one wasn’t.)

Why did I feel so down after the encounter
with Harry? Several likely reasons (not necessarily in priority
order):

guilt about turning down’s Harry request

anger at Harry’s insults (and his
insights)

the sad tales of Iris and Laurie, May and
Barry, me and Troy (the last of those over before it’d ever
begun)

wondering what Mum and Dad
really thought of each other

knowing that when we all eventually get
older

and time passes, after a while there will be
some things that can’t ever be changed and damages that can’t be
repaired

and it goes without saying, of course, that
there were the mirrors. I was the one who needed help

with those, but who could help me?

Whatever the reason, or
reasons, I felt compelled to go after Harry and make things right
before it was too late. (At the same time I was sure there was a
major flaw – many flaws, major and minor - in this plan but I
deliberately didn’t stop to con-sider what those might
be.)

The new routine

‘Oh just piss off,’ Harry
called when I knocked on his door, which made me think he’d decoded
what I’d said at our last encounter. Probably just coincidence
though.

‘
Look,’ I said, not wasting
any time, getting right to the point, ‘if you drop the bikini idea
. . . ‘

‘
It was a one-piece swim
suit, not bikini, if you remember,’ he snarled at me.

‘
Okay, one-piece swimsuit
then, whatever. If you can forget about me wearing that or anything
like it and as long as it’s not just about being glamorous then
I’ll . . .’ (what on earth was I letting myself in for?) ‘ . . .
then I’ll be your stage assistant.’

I heard Harry pattering to the door.

‘
For real?’ he said,
opening it.

‘
Yes, for real. Really. But
only for the first audition to begin with,’ I added quickly. ‘I’ll
have

to see how things progress from there. Not
that

you’re likely to get any further than the
auditions.’

‘
You wanna bet?’ he
said.

‘
I’m not the betting kind
of girl,’ I said.

‘
We’ll see,’ said Harry.
‘But your help would be great. Thanks. And it won’t be just glam
for the

sake of glam. The distraction is serious
stuff.’

Tell me about it, I thought. That’s exactly
how I

feel right now, seriously distracted. But I
breathed a silent sigh of relief. Not everything was lost between
Harry and me, after all.