A Spot Of Bother

71

When Jamie entered the waiting room he saw Ray and Jacob sitting opposite one another at the far end of the green plastic seats. Ray was doing the magic trick with the coin. The one fathers had been doing all over the world since the beginning of time.

Jamie sat down in the seat next to Jacob and said, “Hello, boys.”

Jacob said, “Ray can do magic.”

Ray looked at Jamie and said, “So…?”

For a few seconds Jamie had no idea what Ray might be talking about. Then he remembered. “Oh, yeh. Dad. Sorry. I’ve been in the canteen. He’s fine. Well, actually he’s not fine. I mean, there are other problems, but physically, he’s fine. Mum rang everyone because…” There was no way to explain why Mum rang everyone without giving Jacob nightmares. “I’ll explain later.”

“Is Grandpa dead,” said Jacob.

“He’s very much alive,” said Jamie. “So there’s nothing for you to worry about.”

“Good,” said Ray. “Good.” He breathed out, like someone acting relieved in a play.

Then Jamie remembered the wedding thing and felt uncomfortable not mentioning it. So he said, “How are you?” with a meaningful tone to indicate that this was genuine concern, not just politeness.

And Ray said, “I’m OK,” with a meaningful tone to indicate that he knew exactly what Jamie was talking about.

“Do the magic,” said Jacob. “Magic it. Magic it into my ear.”

“OK.” Ray turned to Jamie and there was the faintest hint of a smile and Jamie allowed himself to consider the possibility that Ray might be a reasonably pleasant human being.

The coin was a twenty pence piece. There was a twenty pence piece in the back pocket of Jamie’s cords. He quietly fished it out and held it secretly in his right hand. “This time,” said Jamie, “Ray is going to magic the coin into my hand.” He held up his right fist.

Ray looked at Jamie, and clearly thought Jamie was trying to arrange some man-on-man touching if his frown was anything to go by. Then it clicked, and he smiled, a proper smile this time, and said, “Let’s give it ago.”

Ray put the coin theatrically between his thumb and forefinger.

“I have to do the sprinkle,” said Jacob, clearly terrified that someone else might do the sprinkle first.

“Go on, then,” said Ray.

Jacob sprinkled invisible magic dust over the coin.

Ray did a little flourish with his free hand, lowered it over the coin like a handkerchief, squeezed it into a fist and whipped it away. The coin had vanished.

“The hand,” said Jacob. “Show me the magic hand.”

Ray opened his fist slowly.

No coin.

Jacob’s eyes were wide with wonder.

“And now,” said Jamie, holding up his fist, “bzzang!”

He was just about to open his hand and reveal the coin when Ray said, “Katie…?” and the look on his face was not good. And Jamie turned round and saw Katie marching toward him, and the look on her face was not good, either.

He said, “Katie. Hi,” and she punched him in the side of the head so that he was knocked off his seat onto the floor and found himself looking, in close-up, at Jacob’s shoes.

He heard a slightly deranged person cheering approvingly from the other side of the room, and Ray saying, “Katie…What the bloody hell…?” and Jacob saying, “You hit Uncle Jamie,” in a puzzled voice, and the sound of footsteps running.

By the time he’d levered himself into a sitting position there was a security guard approaching them saying, “Whoa, whoa, whoa, let’s calm it down a bit here, people.”

Katie said to Jamie, “What the fuck did you tell Mum?”

Jamie said, to the security guard, “It’s OK, she’s my sister.”

Ray said to Jacob, “I think you and I are going to go and see Granny and Grandpa.”

The security guard said, “Any more funny business and I’ll have the lot of you out of here,” but no one was really listening to him.