Wasted (16 page)

“Bugger,” says Farantella. “I knew that was going to happen.”

Laughter explodes from Jack's nose and Jess gulps. Hysteria is rising in her. Farantella reaches in a drawer, finds a new battery and inserts it into a slot beneath the ball, all with the net curtain still on her head. The ball lights up again and continues its moaning. The smoky incense dries the air and Farantella inhales deeply.

She closes her eyes. “Close your eyes,” she snaps. They do. “Breathe deeply and relax – otherwise how can I read your fortunes?” They try. Farantella tries not to think of her next cigarette – because she knows she's going to have one, just one, as soon as these kids have gone. But she's taken money from them, so she'd better give them something or they'll probably have trading standards on to her and it wouldn't be the first visit she's had from the men with clipboards.
Calm yourself, Doreen
. (Doreen is her real name but Doreen the Fortune-teller does not have the same ring.) But her mind has gone blank. She should have had that tea and a biscuit before expecting the muse to be with her. “Give me a hand, both of you.” Perhaps she will get some inspiration from touching them. And she holds out her own, soon feeling Jack and Jess put a hand in each of hers.

Still nothing. “Hmm, strange. I must be tired. I'm getting nothing.” She doesn't think it's strange, just annoying. Where is her inspiration, her creativity, when she needs it? She doesn't expect to see the future, not really, but a few visionary vibes wouldn't go amiss. It's not much to ask, is it, for a fortune-teller of her experience?

“What do you mean, nothing?”

“No vibes, love. Dead, your hands are.”

“That's creepy. What are you saying?”

Farantella grins and waves her hands at them, making childish ghostly noises. “Woooooooooo!” And then she laughs. “No, I'm being silly – I just mean I haven't tuned in yet. Tuning in's hard, you know. I have to be in the right mood.”

“Look, maybe you can just give us our money back,” says Jack. “It's fine, we understand.”

“It's a shame though,” says Jess. “I was looking forward to that.”

“Yeah, well,” says Jack. “It's all a bit of a joke really, though, isn't it?”

“Excuse me, mate,” says Fantastic Farantella. “Who're you calling a joke? I was telling fortunes while you were still dribbling milk and I have had some spectacular successes. Spectacular. Not my fault if you've put up a psychic barrier and it's a little harder for me to get through to the other side, is it? OK, right, I've got an idea. Give me something that's close to you.”

“But we've already given you money.”

“No, stupid, I'm not going to keep it. I need to hold something, from each of you, together. Something that you keep close to you, that has your heart in it, bit of your soul. I need to hold a bit of your soul in my hand.” And she grins.

“I've got this necklace,” says Jess. And she takes a thin silver chain from her neck.

“Just the ticket. And you?”

Jack brings the coin, the lucky coin, from his pocket.

“That's not very impressive,” says Farantella. “You need emotional attachment, you know.”

“This is a special coin,” says Jack, and he spins it into the air, catching it in a way that makes it seem drawn to his hand.

“If you say so,” says Farantella, thinking of the cigarette she craves more and more. “Anyway, give it here.” And she takes the necklace and winds it round the coin and then encloses them in her hands.

Jess and Jack watch carefully, thinking she may have a secret talent for disappearing tricks even if she's rubbish at telling fortunes.

For a few long moments the scene goes still. We can look down on them and see the dark red room with the tacky glowing crystal ball moaning away on its new battery. There's the incense swirling, the mug of tea, Farantella with her net curtain. The distant sounds of the fairground are still outside and we have no idea where Simon and Joe are but we don't have to worry about them just now. There's a Post-it note reminding Farantella that she has a dentist's appointment tomorrow.

And into this unlikely setting, a sinister spirit enters. If we believe in such things. Or if we don't, then something else we can't rightly explain. Jess shivers. Jack finds her hand. For some reason, they do not feel like laughing now. Both of them stare at Farantella. Her eyes are screwed shut but suddenly across her face flies something that clutches at her, twisting the muscles of her mouth. She bends forward quickly, her shoulders hunching.

A small noise slips from her mouth. Or the noise could come from somewhere else – it is hard to say. It is the noise a spirit would make. If such things existed. It is the noise that the future would make, if it squeezed through a gap in the skin of time.

JACK
and Jess. Struggling in their minds. Clawing reality back. Their heads tell them that this is fake, or has an ordinary explanation – perhaps that Farantella is ill or messing around with them. She is a charlatan – how could she be anything else, with her plastic ball, dud battery, mug of tea, grubby veil from some old granny's suburban bungalow window? Besides, no one really believes this stuff.

And yet. And yet. There are things beyond explanation. Science cannot tell us everything. Perhaps something beyond the natural world has indeed entered this caravan and this fortune-teller's mind.

Otherwise, why would Jack and Jess have shivered so soon after laughing? Why both of them? For they both feel it: that there is something heavy in the caravan, something thickening the air, a chill breath of strangeness.

Farantella's eyes are still closed. She is gripping the crystal ball as though trying to crush it. And she is shaking her head.

This is, surely, an act. It is absurd. Jack and Jess should be laughing. This is like some ancient music-hall act, or a scene from a very bad horror film.

But Jess and Jack are right not to laugh. For this is not, in fact, an act. Farantella is not making this up. This is real. Though it has nothing to do with the plastic ball or what she may or may not see in it while her eyes are shut.

Farantella has a severe pain in her guts. That's all. Maybe it was something she ate – she should get health and safety on to that dodgy burger guy who never washes his hands. Maybe it's been too much strong tea and desperately needing a fag and it's all just turned her bowels to water. Whichever, Farantella doesn't need to be a fortune-teller to know she needs these kids to go. Quickly.

There is always the possibility, of course, that there really is a spirit in the room and that this has turned her insides to liquid. Maybe that's why she says what she does.

The words just come from her mouth. She feels them coming, senses them make their way towards her lips, but she does not know where they come from. It's times like this when she has had her spectacular successes in the past – something in the air simply enters her. She's never tried to explain it. Actually, we should be a bit scientific about this – there have been other times when she's been moved by what
felt
like a spirit, just like this, and yet she's got it totally wrong, but Farantella conveniently forgets these times. After all, what would it do to her confidence if she thought she was wrong as often as right? And confidence is important when you're selling the future.

Anyway, for whatever reason, words slip from her mouth.

“Red, I see red. Red things. Red for danger. And boats. I think they're boats. Maybe not, could be something else in the water. Big things. Sharks? Whales? Something beginning with ‘w'. Wings. Yes, I see wings. Are you flying somewhere? Going on a journey? Beware of wings. And water. And whales, or something in the water. Soon.”

Farantella pushes her chair back. She needs them to go now. What she's said has startled her. But she cares very little, is really hardly thinking about it. She just needs them to go. That pain in her guts: it's taking her breath away.

“That's it. You've had your time. Close the curtain behind you.” She hands back the coin and necklace.

Her forehead is creased, her skin grey, her eyes dull. She bustles around, switching off the plastic ball, stubbing out the incense sticks. Jack and Jess stand up. They feel cold.

Farantella is obviously not going to say anything else, so they leave, mumbling hasty thanks, though they have no idea what for. It doesn't seem like a very good way to spend eight pounds. And yet, they got what they came for: refuge from Simon, and a pretty good act by a weird fortune-teller. What did they expect? Truth?

Outside, they hurry away, looking around carefully for any sign of Simon and co. Nothing. They slip through the glitter of the fairground, enveloping themselves in the noise and light. But there is nothing more for them here and they make their way home, Jack accompanying Jess to hers first.

It is very dark as they walk towards her house. The sky is moonless, starless. A thin wind chills the sweat on their skin and they hold each other tight as they walk, their bodies fitting together as though designed to do so.

Ghosts follow them, traces of the fear and strangeness they had felt in that caravan. They must shrug the spirits away or they may be taken over by them. And so they laugh, at first with difficulty but then more loudly.
Red things! Big things! Wings or whales or something beginning with “w”! Weather? What if it rains – wooooo, beware the wind, Jack! Oh and walls, dangerous things: walls. Especially when in water. Witches, obviously. Werewolves. Wine. Windows. Walnuts – well, you could be allergic, or choke on one. Warlocks and wizards. Weasels. Wine gums. Worms. Wardrobes. Watering cans.

And by the time Jack and Jess kiss at Jess's garden gate, they have forgotten that there was anything to fear.

Soon, but not very soon, disentangled but still with the blush of him hot on her skin, Jess goes into her house and smiles goodbye to Jack standing there watching her.

Sylvia is in the kitchen. She is trying to clear up broken glass with kitchen paper. There is blood on the kitchen paper. And on the floor. Not much – this is not a medical emergency – but there is no doubt that if Sylvia was sober she would have been using something sensible to sweep up the broken glass. And, in fact, the glass would not have been broken.

“What are you doing, Mum?”

“What does it look like I'm doing?”

“How did that happen?”

“Your father phoned again.”

“And you broke a glass.”

“Accident.”

“What did he say?”

“You didn't email him. You said you would. If you'd emailed when you said, he wouldn't have phoned and then I wouldn't have broken the glass.”

“I haven't had time.” Though Jess knows she has. She just hasn't thought about it. But it's unreasonable for her mum to blame the broken glass on her when she wasn't even there.

Sylvia is not being effective with the kitchen paper. Normally – previously – Jess would have taken over, helped her. But she can still taste Jack on her lips and she wants to keep that with her rather than being jerked into the ugly reality of a mother wiping gin from the kitchen floor and blaming an absent father rather than her own weakness.

Jess is, in short, irritated.

And for this small spiteful reason she will not email her father that night either. She will wait till the morning. Just because. Now, she will go up to her room and think of Jack and music and dreams of freedom.

Her mother can sort herself out. Jess hands her the dustpan and brush and goes up the stairs, blocking it all out. It is a moment when the crack between them widens. And yet that is necessary and right in many ways.

The trouble is: sending the email the next morning instead of now may turn out to be very important, or it may not. Jess will never know. But we will, because we can see more. We can see glimpses of worlds that do not happen as well as those that do.

For we have reached one of those knife-edge
what if
moments again. Where lives will go one way or another spinning on a tiny difference. Here are two possibilities. Only one will actually happen. We will look at them both and then play Jack's Game and let the coin decide.

NOTE:
Only one of the next two chapters will happen. A coin will spin and the story will follow whichever event the coin “decides”.

JESS'S
father is driving a bright-red hired car. Fast. He probably shouldn't be driving, as he's still somewhat jet-lagged from his late flight the night before. A restless night in an airport hotel and now he's heading towards London, where he'll be staying in a decent establishment, courtesy of the university, which has sent him on an extended trip across the Atlantic. Then a week of meetings and lectures before he'll travel to see his daughter. Still hasn't had an email from her, which is annoying, and that phone call with Sylvia set his teeth on edge. She sounded even more fragile than ever.

Funny, he'd loved her for that once, but fragility can become very boring. She'd only been twenty-one when they'd married and twenty-three when Jessica had been born, but by the time she was thirty he'd really wanted to tell her,
Grow up, for crying out loud
. Let's face it: they were too different. And he'd partly fallen for her to annoy his own family, who wanted him to marry a good Italian Catholic girl. That was unfair of him; but he'd been young too. He'd stayed with her till Jessica was ten and then the big academic job in Chicago had been a good excuse. He'd gone, and had never once regretted it. Best thing for Sylvia too, probably. And his second wife is nothing like her: strong, career-minded, icicle-focused, but with Italian passion. Perfect. Or as perfect as you could hope for.