Mean Spirit Part 6

'Marcus, it's me.'

He stiffened. 'Where are you? Have you seen her?' His head burned, his eyes and nose filling up.

'I'd have called earlier,' Underhill said, 'only the car broke down.'

'Piece of b.l.o.o.d.y tin.' Mopping his eyes with a handful of tissue. 'Are you telling me you haven't even got there?'

'Oh, I got here all right.' She sounded unhappy. 'Looks like I'll be spending the night here.'

'With Persephone?'

'Yeah. I feel so privileged I could weep.'

'How-?'

'She's OK. Kind of. I don't know too much yet, and I don't think I want to. You wanna speak to her?'

'What?'

'You want me to bring her to the phone when she-?'

'I ... is she there now? Is she with you?'

'She went to the john, so I took the opportunity to call you. She'll be back in a couple minutes, if you-'

'No,' Marcus said, panicked. 'I don't want to speak to her like this. Tell her you couldn't get through. Tell her the line cut out. Tell her-'

'Marcus, you're really in some kind of awe of this woman, aren't you?'

'Don't be stupid.'

'Listen, I can see the dangers. I'm trying to resist is all. I'll call you tomorrow when I leave. Uh, tape Cindy for me, would you?'

'Oh, for G.o.d's sake-'

'You don't have to watch it, just press the d.a.m.n b.u.t.ton. Eight p.m.'

Marcus snorted and got off the phone, fearful of Persephone returning.

What was the matter with him? Why was he glad that it was Underhill, rather than himself, who was spending the night under the same roof as Persephone? Was it just the flu or was he losing his bottle?

Marcus sat down behind the blank computer. He didn't even know how to turn the thing on.

Malcolm, the bull terrier, waddled over and stood looking up at him, a possible glimmer of pity in his psychotic eyes. How long before it was just the two of them again? Underhill was thirty-one years old and not unattractive. And an American. Had she got a proper work permit or whatever was needed? How long could she be expected to stay in a remote elbow of the Welsh border, where the idea of an eligible batchelor was a man with two tractors?

And when she left within the year, if he was any judge how could Marcus possibly fake the racy prose of Alice and b.l.o.o.d.y Meryl? How could the magazine ever again revert to Question of Telepathy between Budgerigars Posed in Lanarkshire?

'IT'S THE NATIONAL LOTTERY ... LIVE!'

Marcus winced, reached for the remote control.

'AND COULD THOSE BIG-MONEY b.a.l.l.s BE IN SAFER HANDS ... THAN THE BEJEWELLED FINGERS OF THE GLAMOROUS, THE SENSATIONAL ...'

Marcus stabbed in panic at the sound b.u.t.ton, which failed to respond.

'... CINDY ... MARS ...'

Why was it now impossible to buy a b.l.o.o.d.y television set with a row of b.l.o.o.d.y k.n.o.bs on the front?

'... LEWIS?'

Marcus recoiled. The ent.i.ty wore a tight black, angle-length dress glittering with a thousand sequins. Earrings dripping almost to its shoulders. Bangles the size of manacles hanging five to each skeletal wrist.

The studio audience tickets presumably handed out free to anyone who could provide the correct answer to the question: Are you a greedy, moronic p.r.i.c.k? responded to this vision with whoops and whistles and crazed shrieks, and Marcus sank back in his chair, feeling if that were possible slightly more ill.

Half the nation, it seemed, now lived in a drugged dream, from Lottery night to Lottery night, convinced that they deserved to be millionaires.

'How're you, my lovelies?' Mars-Lewis's arms flung wide, bangles jangling. 'All right, is it?'

Marcus growled. The numbers on the video recorder appeared to be turning satisfactorily. He could switch off the television, couldn't he?

'And before we go any further ... no ... stop that now, come on ... just listen, lovelies, let me just tell you that tonight's jackpot winners will share ... are you ready now ...? A grand total of ... SEVEN AND A HALF MILLION POUNDS!'

The audience keeled over with what sounded to Marcus like narcotically enhanced rapture. He shook his head slowly. How the h.e.l.l could b.l.o.o.d.y Lewis have let himself become a.s.sociated with this nauseous exhibition of mob avarice?

Money, of course. Tonight's fee was probably ten times what the man Marcus was almost certain Lewis was a man had earned in an entire summer season of bottom-of-the-bill cabaret on Bournemouth Pier. And about ten thousand times what Marcus had ever paid him for an article in The Vision.

'Now, I must show you this, see ...' The creature looked furtive, producing a fold of paper. The syrupy Welsh Valleys accent became more p.r.o.nounced as it acquired a confidential wheedle.

'Came today, it did. Signed jointly by the Director General of the BBC and the Managing Director of Camelot, organizers of the Lottery. Just listen to this. Dear Ms Mars-Lewis ... Ms! There's progressive.'

The response to this, accompanied by the creature's arched eyebrow, suggested that several hundred people had spontaneously soiled themselves.

'Dear Ms Mars-Lewis. Moderately accepting though we are of your personal manner and general deportment ...' Lewis sniffed and smoothed his dress '... we are bound to express dismay at the att.i.tude of your avian a.s.sociate ...'

Uncertain laughter, as the cretins pondered possible meanings of the word avian.

'We feel the continued and unwarranted cynicism exhibited by the bird is not in the spirit or indeed the best interests of the National Lottery as we see it, and unless there is a radical change we intend to take a hard look at the terms of your contract.'

Lewis lowered the paper and looked glum.

'Oh dear. Well, now, despite what you see, I'm not as young as I was ... And I'm not a rich person.'

This was true enough; the creature apparently wintered in a rusting caravan in Tenby.

'The DG now, he has a terrible long memory. And I have to think of my future, isn't it? Which is why I've come to a decision. I've decided, I have, that from now on I shall have to work ... alone.' Lewis straightened up, nose mock-heroically in the air. 'I shall be ... a solo artiste.'

To which the audience produced a pa.s.sable simulation of a tragic Greek chorus.

'What else can I do?' Lewis shrieked in torment. 'What can I do?'

The camera backed up to reveal a large, pink suitcase splattered with airline stickers. A m.u.f.fled squawk seemed to emanate from within.

'You can start by getting me out of this b.l.o.o.d.y scented boudoir, you old tart!' screeched Kelvyn Kite.

'Definitely not. Your services are no longer required. You can sign on in the morning.'

'You'll regret this, Lewis!'

Marcus sat up. What? 'Hmmph.' He shook his head and poured the last centimetre of Scotch into his gla.s.s.

'Je ne regrette rien!' Mars-Lewis defiantly throwing out his arms. 'My loyalties are to Camelot and to the BBC!'

The audience booed. Marcus sank the whisky and switched off the set.

VI.

LIVE TELEVISION.

The danger. The living in the moment. The being hereness of the whole exercise.

Possibly the ultimate non-shamanic high, and Cindy Mars-Lewis in his element. As though he is two feet above the set and the studio audience and the millions watching at home. His responses coordinated to the second, his movements ch.o.r.eographed from within.

And all the time the buzz growing. The lights flashing out the brash magic of money. The air thickening with the coa.r.s.e energy of l.u.s.t and longing. Let it be me, let it be me. The build up to the tight, breathless moment when lives are changed dramatically for ever but as Kelvyn knows rarely for the better.

The future in the b.a.l.l.s.

'OK, Cindy. To Camera One.' Jo, the producer, in his ear. But he doesn't need the producer any more; his senses are attuned to the pitch of the moment.

He steps out.

'Right, then, lovelies. Now there's still a few individuals ...' meaningful glance at the case containing the bird '... who think the National Lottery's a bit of a swizz. But I can a.s.sure you that n.o.body can control those magic b.a.l.l.s ... not even my next guest, who is ...'

Pause. Widening of eyes. A contriving of awe.

'... the Miracle Mesmerist from Malvern ... the incredible Mr ... KURT CAMPBELL!'

Cindy steps back two paces, watching Camera Three track Kurt down the gla.s.s stairs which lead nowhere. Kurt with his strawberry blond lion's mane, freshly washed and bouncing. Tall, dishy Kurt with his grand-piano smile and his tight trousers.

Oh, the arrogance of youth. Not yet thirty and believes himself the most powerful person in light entertainment. A stage hypnotist with pretensions.

What is hypnotism, though, but another spiritual cul-de-sac? Why, Cindy himself could have been a Kurt Campbell, if he'd wanted to. Well ... perhaps not at twenty-nine. n.o.body was anybody at twenty-nine, back when Cindy was twenty-nine.

'Now then, Kurt ...' Cindy wading into the receding tide of applause, 'I said the Miracle Mesmerist from Malvern, not because you were born up there in Worcestershire, 'cause you're a London boy, as we know, but Malvern ... well, that's where you've just bought yourself ... your very own castle!'

Pause for ooooooooooooh from the audience.

'That's quite true, Cindy,' Kurt says smoothly, in his soft baritone. 'I've wanted to own a castle all my life. This one cost me ... well, an arm and a leg, but...'

'And didn't even get a Lottery grant, poor dab ...'

'... but it's worth it, because, as you know, I've had a lifelong interest in psychic matters and paranormal phenomena, and this castle ... Well, to be honest, it's not really a very ancient castle, not much more than a hundred years old actually ...'

'Oh, thought it was a proper one, I did!'

'... but what's fascinating about it, Cindy, is that this is actually Britain's only purpose-built haunted house.'

'Away with you, Kurt! You can't have a purpose-built haunted house. Got to collect whole centuries of gruesome deaths, you have, and even then you have to take what manifests, isn't it?'

'Well ...' Kurt throws a confidential arm around Cindy's shoulders. 'I'll tell you very briefly, Cindy how this came about. Overcross Castle was built in the nineteenth century by a millionaire industrialist who, like me, had a fascination with spooky things. And that was when spiritualism was becoming very fashionable, and so he invited all the star mediums of the day to come and hold seances in his castle ... and actually attract a few ghosts.'

'And did he succeed, then?'

'That ... is what I'll be finding out. And, hey, everyone else can find out too. Because, you see, Cindy, we're going to turn Overcross Castle without a Lottery grant into a huge exhibition centre for psychic studies and we're going to have all kinds of exciting events ... psychic fairs, the lot. And if this sounds like an advert, it is ... because the proceeds from our opening event are all going to various charities ... including the BBC's very own Comic Relief fund!'

Burst of applause. Cindy nodding emphatically.

'Terrific! Can't miss that, can I? Now, Kurt, I know you're going to start tonight's b.a.l.l.s rolling in a few minutes' time, so ...'

Music starts to swell. Kurt steps out and raises a hand. 'Whoah, whoah, whoah,' he cries, as arranged. 'Cindy, hey, I thought I was going to hypnotize you. It's how they persuaded me to come tonight.'

Cindy backs away. A squawk from Kelvyn in his case.

'Not on your life, boy!' Cindy shrieks.

'Aw, go on, Cindy ...' Kurt appeals to the audience. 'Submit to my magical, mental powers. It'll be a hoot.'

'No way!' Cindy flaps his bangles in terror. 'What if I do something ... indiscreet?'

'Coward! Coward!' shrieks Kelvyn in his case.

'GO OOOOOON, CINDY,' the audience roars, as instructed.

'Ten seconds, Cindy,' Jo says in his ear.

'I'm a terrible subject, anyway,' Cindy protests, arms folded over his foam b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

'GO OOOOOON!'

'Oh, all right, but I bet it doesn't work.'

And it doesn't. Of course it doesn't. Because Cindy studied hypnotism many, many years ago, and he knows what Kurt is looking for, and he knows how to fake it.

But does Kurt know? Is Kurt smart enough?

Cindy's pretty sure that, at rehearsal, Kurt was fully convinced he had Cindy where he wanted him. Kurt's a smart boy, see, well read, plenty of contacts, and he knows about Cindy's shamanic training: the years of weekending at the farmhouse of the Fychans, fourth-and fifth-generation wise men of Dolgellau. Once, ambitious Kurt even tried to contact the dyn hysbys, Emrys Fychan himself, claiming that as a Campbell he was qualified to learn the inner secrets of Celtic shamanism. Canny Emrys saw him off by refusing to speak to him except in Welsh. Well, Cindy can't speak Welsh either, mind, no more than tipyn bach, but he admits the old language has its uses.