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Suspicious?

Suspicious?
!

‘Got dumped by your
lady
friend, did you, Adie?’

‘Running a little short of money, eh?’

‘Thrown in the towel at your job again, then?’

‘Still living with that immigrant?’

‘Got yourself the effing
clap
?’

‘Finally planning to tell your poor mum and me that you take it up the
arse
, for
pleasure?
That you’re a dirty (tick one or
all
of the below:) transexual/bisexual/pansexual/disgusting bloody
fag?
!’

(Look, for the
thousandth
time, Dad, I’m
not
a homosexual. It’s just the way I wear my hair- I mean if TV’s Vernon Kay can do it
and
marry a beautiful woman
and
sustain a successful career…)

Jesus
, that illusionist has got a lot to answer for.

And the fact is…(to get down to the facts again)…
Hmmn
, how to put this into actual
words?

The
fact
is (to reiterate) that blood is marginally thinner than an iced vodka slammer (and not
half
so digestible) and I’ve been using…

No
.

I’ve been employing…

No.

I’ve been deriving…

Score!

…
a
certain amount of…

Uh
…

…real…

Scratch

…serious…

Scratch

…active…well,
pleasure
, in getting my own back. On magicians.
Per se
. And on
Blaine
, specifically.

And it isn’t (no it
isn’t
) just opportunism. It’s so much more than that. It’s a moral crusade. It’s righting the wrong. It’s fighting the good fight–
sniff
!–for my trusty old
dad
.

Ahhhh
.

(NB.
Please
don’t hate me, sensitive Girl Readers. Just try and understand–if you possibly
can
–that vengeance is never a pretty thing. But it still has to be done. I mean where would your girl-philosophy of ‘kiss ’n make up’ have left Shakespeare? Or
Scorsese?
Or Bridget fucking
Jones. Eh?)

So I’ve been (
uh
…let’s put it
this
way) purposefully (and cheerfully)
avenging
Douglas Sinclair MacKenny (and
myself
, I guess, on
him,
in some strange, messed-up angry-only-son kind of way) in the most uninhibitedly
primal
manner, by cunningly employing the boxed-up Illusionist as my…

Now
what’s
the word I’m searching for here…?

‘Pimp.’

Pardon me?

‘Pimp.’

A woman–average height, average build, average looks–is suddenly standing before me, grimacing, clutching her forehead, and pushing a plastic bag brimming with Tupperware on to my lap.

Eh?

I refuse to take the bag, rapidly yanking my headphones from my ears. What
is
this?

‘Pimp,’ she repeats. ‘You’ve been using that poor, starving
bastard
to pimp all the women around here.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ I say.

‘
You’re
ridiculous,’ she says. Then she drops her Tupperware, groans, slithers down to the tiles, and lies slumped against the wall.

I jump down myself, alarmed. But before I can ask, she waves her hand dismissively, and murmurs, ‘Migraine. Mild autumn. The
dust
.’

She’s clutching her forehead with her other hand and rocking slightly. I give her the once-over.
Hmmn
. Strangely familiar. I’ve
definitely
seen her around. I gather up her Tupperware (about twenty small boxes, like the kind you can get at good Thai restaurants to take home your leftovers. Neat. Reusable. Microwave friendly) while I try to remember
where
, exactly…

Nope
.

‘Can I get you a glass of water, maybe?’ I ask. ‘I actually work in this building.’ I point. She has her eyes shut. She is deathly pale.

‘Did
you
ever get migraines?’ she asks vengefully.

‘No.’

‘I thought as much.’

‘I often get headaches, though,’ I squeak, defensively, ‘from the glare off my computer.’

She snorts.

I inspect my watch. Lunch is almost over.

‘Is there anything I can do?’ I ask.

She waves her hand again, ‘I’m fine.’

I lean forward, preparing to put her bag down next to her (and then scarper).

‘
Open me a box
!’ she suddenly yells.

‘Pardon?’

‘A
box
.’

She lunges for the plastic bag. She grabs a box. She rips off the lid. Then she leans over (quite gracefully) and vomits straight into it. The vomit is thick and glutinous. Instead of detaching itself from her mouth and filling the box neatly, it stretches, in a silvery spider web, from her mouth to the Tupperware.

My God
.

She spits and detaches it.

We both stare, blinking, into the container. She sniffs, matter of factly, then reaffixes the lid.

She hands the box back over.

‘In the bag,’ she orders, feeling around inside her pocket for a tissue. The puke still hangs in fangs down her chin.

A middle-aged man stops, proffering a handkerchief. The be-fanged one takes it.

‘Thanks,’ she mutters.

‘Migraine,’ I explain to the Samaritan.

‘I know.’ The man smiles and squats down in front of her.

‘Is it a bad one, Aphra?’ he asks.

Aphra?

‘Pretty bad,’ Aphra murmurs.

‘I thought when I saw you leaving,’ he says, ‘that something was up.’

‘The
dust
,’ she says, and waves her hand regally towards the magician.

He nods.

I find myself taking a slow step back. I am thinking, ‘This is great. They know each other. I’m off the hook. I’m
out
of here.’

The Samaritan turns and peers up at me, ‘I work at the hospital,’ he says (as if this might prove meaningful), ‘Guys. I’m a porter there.’

‘Ah.’ I nod my head. I’m still holding the bag of Tupperware.

‘You’ll need to take her home,’ he says. He turns to the woman. ‘It’s not too far, is it?’ he asks.

She shakes her head, then winces.

‘Shad,’ she says, ‘just straight down…’

She indicates beyond Blaine, beyond the bridge, to one of the best parts of town.

‘Let’s get her up,’ the porter says.

We slowly manoeuvre her into a standing position (strike what I said before about ‘average build’. This girl ain’t exactly thistledown).

Once she’s up, the porter moves her arm around my neck, and
my
free arm around her waist.

He steps back, appraising his work.

‘Good,’ he says, smiling. ‘Now just take it
nice
and slow, yeah?’

Then he turns and addresses me, exclusively, ‘When you get her in, close all the curtains, don’t try and give her anything to eat or drink (well, maybe just pour her a glass of water), then gently lay her down and place a moist,
cold
flannel across her forehead…’

I scowl. I open my mouth. I close my mouth. I swallow. I adjust the Tupperware…

Aw, bollocks, man!

I fucking
nod
.

Pimp?

Pimp?
!

Okay.
Okay
. So just
hold
your fire. I’m throwing down my weapon,
see?
And I’m coming out–
very
slowly–with my hands in the air.

I’m
co-operating
.

Now can we please,
please
just try to get this whole thing back into proportion? I mean come
on
. Don’t take it all so seriously. This is fun. Just
fun
.

And
another
thing (while we’re at it) let’s bin
Above the Below
already (cheesy, cheesy,
cheesy
). I’ve got my own little carry-on a
much
better moniker. I’m calling it ‘Above the
Pil
low’, and my current strike rate is five (
five
!) and counting (Yup. It’s an Adair Graham MacKenny International Shag-a-thon down here, baby).

Maybe I exaggerate, slightly. Four. Well, three and a half (in one instance I didn’t quite get to come. There’s been a couple of ‘hitches’, in other words. But
heck
, who’s complaining?). It’s early doors (Day
Nine
for Christ-sake), and I’m still–
ahem
–‘feeling my way’–
insert Frankie Howerd-style exclamation of your choice
–around here.

There are several approaches (if you must know. And if you mustn’t, then I’m still determined to tell you), but the important thing to bear in mind (morally–
urgh, yawn
–speaking) is that I’m happy–more than happy–to take each and every one of them:

Approach (A) The Girls who Love Blaine

There’s nothing more attractive to a sensitive, beautiful, highly-strung girl (who still attends college, believes in Karma and dresses like Nelly Furtado) than an attractive (well,
quite
attractive–if I’ve cleaned my nails and applied my hair gel), sensitive, highly-strung boy who’s ready, willing and
able
to empathise with them over the many complexities of Blaine’s tragic predicament.

Girl steps back (temporarily overwhelmed) from the dramatic spectacle of the ‘angelic’ Blaine. She is shaking her head, bemusedly.

‘I mean
why
would people want to throw eggs at him?’ she asks poignantly. ‘Haven’t they got anything better to do? He’s not
hurting
anyone, is he?’

Adair Graham MacKenny (doctor on call) shrugs his shoulders, resignedly, ‘Nope. Only himself. And that’s
absolutely
his prerogative, if you ask me.’

Girl turns to look at A. G. MacKenny, immediately digesting the fact that A. G. MacK. is (like her hero) dressed principally in black.

‘Exactly.’ She smiles, shyly. ‘I mean I think people are threatened by him. By the
statement
he’s making.’

A. G. MacK. nods, ‘Yeah. And I definitely think people are
confused
by him, and that’s half the trouble.’

Girl considers this for a moment, ‘You’re
right
,’ she says, ‘I think they are.’

‘And sometimes,’ A. G. MacK. continues (as if he’d only just thought of it), ‘when people are
confused
, they lash out. They do stupid things.’

Girl turns, impressed, the dark pupils in her blue eyes dilating. ‘That’s sad, but it’s so
true
.’

Insert invisible brackets here
: I think I might want to make love with you–so long as I’m

(a) not on the rag;


(b) don’t have a last-minute history essay to write on the Mau Mau for a bastard tutorial this afternoon and;


(c) my Halls of Residence/your London pad isn’t/aren’t too far from here.

Oh
yeah
.

Approach (B) The Girls who Hate Blaine

‘What a
twat
. What a stupid, self-indulgent, idiotic fucking
twat
.’

A. G. MacK. (on hearing this seductive mating call), rips off his neat, black pullover to reveal his lairy Gunners colours underneath. He commences a conversation with a remarkably pretty–if slightly loopy–girl about the possibility that David Blaine’s transparent box might actually be made of glucose (when he thinks nobody’s looking, can’t you
see
the bastard licking?), and puts forward the additional hypothesis that when the autumn weather
really
kicks in–when it
rains
–the box will gradually dissolve, and that attention-craving American fraud will take the
mother
of all tumbles.

Hah!

Approach (C) The Girls who Have Yet to Make Up their Minds

‘I mean what’s he
do
up there all day?’