Shamanka (6 page)

She's made a scary model of Aunt Candy from sticky putty scraped out of the window. For the spell to work, the book says she must incorporate her enemy's nails or hair into the doll. Aunt Candy's nails are false but she's unwillingly donated some hair. Sam unwinds it from her blazer button and uses it to make a topknot which she pins to the doll's head. To stop Aunt Candy following her, she follows the instructions to the letter and binds the doll's ankles together with cotton. Then she sits the doll on the sill and packs her rucksack.

Before packing the goatskin pouch, Sam takes out the locket and smiles at the photo of the woman carrying the baby boy on her hip. If the boy is the Dark Prince, she must be his mother – which means she's Sam's grandmother. She ties the locket around her neck and says a final goodbye to her home in St Peter's Square. There's nothing to keep her here, but even so it's a wrench – it's all she's ever known. Sometimes, no matter how bad things are, we stick with what we know because it's less frightening than what we don't. But there's no hope for her or Lola if she stays.

She puts on the ringmaster's hat and gathers a few tricks. If she needs money, she can always perform illusions on a street corner somewhere. People will pay to see magic. Then she opens her bedroom window and climbs out. As she runs across the roof, some of the tiles clatter and smash on the pavement below. Aunt Candy tries to go after Sam, but she can't move her feet; her ankles appear to be glued together and she falls face down on the rug.

Is her temporary paralysis the effect of the witch doctor's doll or is it the first symptoms of a frozen cartilage, something many contortionists suffer from in their later years? It is not for me to say, but by the time it wears off – if it wears off – it will be too late for her to follow Sam. She has lost her and she is too insane, too drunk, to try and find her.

Aunt Candy bursts into tears; it wasn't meant to be like this. If only Sam had been her child, she could have loved her, would have loved her. She did have a heart once.

By now, Sam is at Stamford Brook tube station. She's dumped Aunt Candy's bike and she's looking at the map, trying to figure out how to get to St Pancras so that she can catch the overground train to St Albans. Why does she want to go there? To visit a certain Mrs Reafy.

Sam has never met Mrs Reafy, but while she was locked in her room, she studied the witch doctor's list again, wondering idly if any of the people on it could help her find Lola or her father. The more she studied it, the more Mrs Reafy's name leapt off the page. As Sam touched it, her hand was thrown aside. It gave her an electric shock and when, for some reason, the room filled with the smell of boiling jam, she felt certain the witch doctor was trying to tell her something and found herself talking to him out loud.

“So, Grandpa, I take it I should visit this lady? I wish your handwriting was clearer. Does she live in St Aubins or St Albans? Oh, well, I'll just have to look her up in a phone book.”

Returning to his list, she'd noticed a portrait next to Mrs Reafy's name, depicting a wild-haired woman swinging a potato – or possibly a pendulum – over a diamond buried in the sand. From this drawing, Sam guessed that Mrs Reafy was skilled at locating missing objects, in which case she might be able to find lost apes and absent fathers. It was a long shot, but as she didn't have a shorter one, she planned to go and see her.

Back to now. Sam is on the tube and she's been passing the time by practising coin tricks, making them appear and disappear. Now she must change onto the Piccadilly Line which she does with no trouble at all. She's travelling without a ticket but it's easy to fool the inspector with an old one she found on the floor; she's been taught sleight of hand by a gifted orang-utan after all.

Sam sits on the only seat available in the carriage, opposite an old lady who keeps staring at her hat. Sam smiles briefly then averts her eyes, hoping to be left alone; but the old lady pokes her with a walking stick and pipes up.

“Don't I know you, dear? You look so familiar.”

Sam doesn't know the woman but she recognizes her walking stick. Where had she seen it before? The handle has a monkey's head carved into it.

“It was my grandfather's,” says the old lady. “Monkeys aren't to everybody's taste, but I've always had a soft spot for our close relatives.”

“Me too,” says Sam. “I had a pet orang-utan. She was like a mother to me.”

The old lady purses her lips. “Really? You don't look like you were brought up by an orang-utan. You have quite nice manners for a child.”

“Lola had perfect manners,” says Sam, wistfully.

The old lady puts her head on one side. “Had? Don't you have her any more? What happened, did she pass away?”

Who knows why it's so easy to pour out your life story to strangers on trains, but it is. In less time than it takes to write down, Sam tells the woman that she's run away from home to look for Lola and that she's off to St Albans to see if Mrs Reafy can find her.

“You won't get to St Albans today,” says the old lady. “No trains until tomorrow. There's a strike.” She suggests that Sam goes home to her parents. Sam tells her that's out of the question.

“My mother's dead and my father's done a disappearing act; he's a magician, you know.”

“A
magician
?” The old lady rolls the word around in her mouth like a humbug. “I thought your father might have been a ringmaster, judging by your hat. There again, only a fool would judge a person by their hat. It's what goes on
under
it that's important.” She prods Sam's seat with her stick.

“I sat opposite a magician once on this train, in this same compartment. I'll never forget him. His magician's outfit was far too big, but he was so fit and young and handsome, he took my breath away; either that or I was allergic to his rabbit.”

“He had a rabbit?”

The old lady shrugs. “Rabbits, doves…? I'm guessing. Whatever he had in his trunk, it was alive and fidgeting.” She sighs deeply. “He spoke to me, my magician. He had a voice like melting chocolate. All the men on the train hated him; he made their shoulders look narrow and their hair look thin.”

“Did he mention his name?” asks Sam.

“No, dear. He just said it was his first time in London and asked if I knew a good place for a penniless magician to perform. I suggested Covent Garden.”

“Why?”

“Have you never been? There are fire-eaters, mime artists, all manner of entertainers; it's famous for them. He took my advice and went there. I often wonder what happened to him.”

Covent Garden is the next stop. Given that there's no chance of making it to Mrs Reafy's today, Sam decides to get out. Maybe one of the street performers knows her father. The old lady nods and smiles. “Even if no one's heard of him, you'll while away a pleasant afternoon.”

Sam shakes her hand. “Thanks, Mrs…? I'm sorry, I don't know your name.”

“That's because I didn't tell it to you, Sam. But since you ask, it's Effie Ray. Quickly or you'll miss your stop.”

Sam waves goodbye. It's only when she's in the lift that she realizes Effie Ray knew her name – but how? She's sure she didn't tell her. But it's so easy to forget exactly what we've said to complete strangers.

The masked magician asks a volunteer to pick a number between 1 and 10 and write it on a sugar cube.
The cube is dropped into a glass of water and the volunteer's hand is held over it.
When the volunteer's hand is turned over – hey presto – the number is written on it. How?

THE SECRET

You need: a pencil, a sugar cube and a glass of water

1. Ask the volunteer to pick a number. Write it onto the sugar cube. (Press hard!)

2. Hold the cube between your thumb and finger and say, “Now I will put the cube in the glass!”

3. Press the cube as hard as possible so the number transfers onto your thumb.

4. Drop the cube into the water and hold the volunteer's hand above it, making sure your thumb is in their palm so the number from your finger transfers onto their hand.

C
ovent Garden isn't disappointing. It has a market, interesting shops and a large, cobbled square. There's a man selling jumping beans from a suitcase, a Chinese girl on a unicycle, and a fire-eater. As a ribbon of roaring flames shoots from his mouth, there is loud applause, and he hands his hat around.

Sam has run away with no money. She watches the fire-eater as he juggles three flaming torches for a fresh audience. She daren't interrupt him to ask if he's ever met the Dark Prince of Tabuh in case he burns himself; she'll wait for him to finish. Meanwhile, she will try to earn some cash of her own.

Normally, she's self-conscious about her clothes but in Covent Garden the combination of sparkly red jacket, shiny green flares and a ringmaster's hat doesn't look out of place at all. Everyone simply assumes that Sam is another street entertainer, so when she pulls out a pack of cards and shuffles them in a flying arc, several tourists wander over to see what she is up to.

“Ladies and gentlemen, there is nothing up my sleeves … except my arms!”

She performs several basic tricks – the kind she mastered when she was six – but the tourists are genuinely amazed when she finds the Queen of Hearts whilst blindfolded. They're confounded when she produces the missing Ace of Spades from inside a small boy's wellington boot, and delighted when she turns a grey pigeon into a white one. They drop money into her hat. Some are pennies, but most are pounds. Perhaps the tourists are being generous because she's so young. Whatever the reason, she makes eight pounds in as many minutes; it's the richest she's ever been.

Sam is hungry for more. She hasn't eaten since she left home, so she puts her hat back on and pulls out her cards again. She's about to shuffle them when she hears an angry voice.