I
I work for English magic now. There’s no way to sugar-coat it. Please, dinnae judge me like the horsehair-wigged folks who ply their lawyering trade on Chambers Street. It was a tough decision, true Scot that I am. But sometimes you gotta say fuck the flag, just show me the money. Can I get an amen? No? Whatever … Things are looking up since Lord Sashvindu Samarasinghe, England’s Sorcerer Royal and head honcho at the Royal Society of Sorcery and the Advancement of the Mystic Arts, took a shine to me and became my patron. Forget that malarkey they always tell you about pulling up bootstraps; the only way up in the magicking game is who you know.
And so I currently find myself ensconced in the lush, velvet-upholstered interior of the Sorcerer Royal’s coach. A cool white light brightens the interior, though there’s no source of illumination for it. The clippity-clop of the horses on the tarmac outside is mixed in with the evening sounds of the city. Hawkers shouting out their wares, desperate for a sale before they head home; hustlers on the corners, enticing folks to shoot craps off their loaded dice – the general madness of the Edinburgh I love. Lord Samarasinghe has a perfumed handkerchief covering his snout. He hates the howling aroma, which hits you stronger than a teenager’s oxters. And the smell’s worse on days like this, when the haar drifts over from the sea, and the air’s thick with that misty moisture. I don’t mind it at all; it’s an acquired taste.
‘Out of the way, you wazzocks,’ Briggs the coachman yells, cracking his whip.
Probably folks on the road, out of their heads on gear they take to numb whatever flames this tenth circle of hell throws their way. I wouldn’t know, though. I’m sat with my back to the direction of travel, and I daren’t stick my noggin out the window. It’s much better being here, on the lush inside.
Lord Samarasinghe does look out, and grimaces.
‘Peasants,’ he exclaims. ‘Keep them weak, makes them meek.’
‘Is that what you think of me? A peasant?’
‘I would be sorely disappointed if I’d given you the impression I thought otherwise,’ he replies.
I frown, but bite my tongue. What an arrogant knob. Makes me miss my old gaffer Sir Ian Callander for a second or two. Bollocks, don’t be silly, Ropa. He’d never have scored you a gig like the one Lord S has just set up for you today. Barely made a shilling when I was doing stuff for my previous boss. Still, I don’t like people taking the piss, and I’m about to say something when Samarasinghe beats me to it.
‘Don’t be boring, Ropa. You can be anything with me except that.’
‘I’ll show you boring.’
‘Thank goodness we’re past those dreadful odours. I nearly brought up my supper.’
‘I take it London smells of roses then?’
He grins. ‘That’s more like it, lassie.’ He puts on an annoying fake Scottish accent. I swear he’s only given me this gig so he can enjoy winding me up.
There’s a naughty twinkle in Lord Samarasinghe’s eyes. They are bright and intelligent, set beneath his impressive mono-brow. He’s dressed in a scarlet English court uniform with lavish gold embroidery across the torso, starting from the waist and broadening out towards the shoulders. There’s gold detailing on his collar and the bottoms of his sleeves too. And the black trousers he’s wearing have a red stripe running down the side seam. The only odd thing is his choice of military peaked cap, when you might have expected some kind of cocked hat from back in the day.
In lieu of a sword, the Sorcerer Royal has his cane, with the silver tiger’s head on it. I’ve come to understand this sort of thing is the fashion for English magicians, who prefer wands for their accoutrements.
He looks into my eyes for an uncomfortable length of time and I’m loath to drop my gaze. Hanging out with the Sorcerer Royal is like walking on nine-inch rusted nails. You come out with stigmata or, in the best-case scenario, a dose of tetanus. I finally turn away and focus my attention on what’s happening outside, as Nicolson Street gives way to Clerk Street, cutting through Newington. Even this late at night there’s desperate folks lining the way, clutching cardboard signs.
‘WILL WERK FOR FUD’
It’s Beggars’ Row out here, everyone crammed in ’cause the fuzz are kicking up a fuss and evicting them from the New Town. The Old Town’s more the scene for down and outs anyway. Mingling amongst the tramps and vagrants are angry-looking men with plastic thistles pinned to the lapels of their coats, handing out leaflets of some sort. It’s a powder keg out there.
‘Tell me about your parents,’ Lord Samarasinghe says.
I’ve been moving with him for a couple of weeks now, but this is the first time he’s shown any sort of interest in my background. I’m not sure why he’d be bringing it up now. Hmm.
‘I live with my nan and my little sister. But she’s away at boarding school,’ I reply, still looking outside.
‘That’s not what I asked you.’
I bite my lower lip and taste my black lipstick. Then I involuntarily grab a lock of my silver-dyed dreadlocks and tug it. I stop myself, but it’s too late, I’ve given the game away. If the Sorcerer Royal had an ounce of decency, he’d apologize for asking about them and change the subject. Instead, he waits for a reply. Ironic, since he lied to me about his own upbringing when I first met him in the autumn, at the biennial conference of the Society of Sceptical Enquirers at Dunvegan Castle. Made out like he’d had a hard start in life, when in reality he’s a rich kid from Edgbaston in Birmingham.
‘Can we talk about something else?’
‘No, we may not.’
I grit my teeth, but my obvious annoyance doesn’t move Lord Samarasinghe one bit. He’s a proper roaster, and now he’s making me all nervous. Gotta be careful I don’t have a wobble. Don’t wanna embarrass myself any more than I have to. The coach rattles and shakes as we hit a particularly bad patch of road. My parents aren’t something I like thinking about. Keep all that shut away in a vault at the back of my mind. What I have left of them anyways. I don’t like folks feeling sorry for me, and I certainly don’t need no one’s charity. My name ain’t Oliver Twist. I get by.
‘They died when I was young and I’ve got gaps in my memory.’
‘Go on,’ he says patiently, in the demeanour of a rogue therapist. I would know, I’m seeing one at Our Lady of Mysterious Ailments, who my mate Priya linked me up with for my anxiety attacks and PTSD. You go in and, after gentle prompts, bare your soul, bleeding out onto her rug. Then you leave feeling lighter somehow.
‘My father’s name was Makomborero Moyo and my mother was Cora—’ Frog in my throat. I can’t …
‘It’s okay. Take your time,’ Lord S says gently.
I shake my head. He’s pushing me to talk about stuff I don’t want to. Worse still, being in his forties, Lord Samarasinghe is round about what my father’s age would’ve been had he lived.
‘Cora is such a beautiful name,’ he muses. ‘I believe, and I might be wrong here, that it’s derived from a Greek word which means maiden or heart.’
Sniffles. I want to cry, but I’m not going to. Not in front of Lord Samarasinghe. Keep it together, Ropa. It takes everything within me, every ounce of will to pull myself together. I don’t much like thinking about my dead folks. Other dead people, no problem.
‘My father was an academic. Gran told me he was the smartest person she knew. She also said he was bold, brash, and a wee bit arrogant, a regular know-it-all, who took himself too seriously. He loved my mother deeply. The two of them were inseparable.’ I reach into my pocket to take out my phone, which has a picture Gran sent me ages ago of my parents together in the Meadows. But then I decide I don’t want to show it after all and pull my hand back. Their faces are faded in my memory. Sometimes I fail to conjure them up altogether.
‘And what did your mother do? She must have been a patient woman to put up with a man like your father,’ he replies, leaning forward as though thoroughly engaged.
‘She was a seamstress. The yang to his yin, my grandmother told me. If his head was in the clouds, she kept her feet firmly planted on the ground.’
‘A perfect combination. Intellectuals sometimes become so caught up in their own abstractions they forget what’s real. I’ve often had to teach young magicians that you can imbibe all the theory you want, but reality is far messier.’ His tone is that of a mentor now. It kinda reminds me of Callander. ‘In life, young lady, intelligence is overrated. Of course, it helps, and you can create or do amazing things with it, but if one isn’t careful, it has a tendency to turn in on itself. I’ve seen many ruined by this. Those who go the furthest are not the ones with a high IQ, but a good EQ – emotional intelligence, the ability to have mastery over one’s own self and to relate to others. But I interrupt and pontificate. You were saying?’
My own memories are so vague. I was young when they died. Thank Allah I have Gran to help fill in the gaps. Even then, the story I have of my parents is one dominated by the details of their passing. It’s as if they were an old book, covers frayed, barely holding together, pages water damaged, sun bleached and faded. Only a few letters, perhaps the odd word, remains, and somehow the final chapter is the only thing left. All I have is the sound of my father’s laughter, me flying into the blue sky, then falling until he catches me on the way back down, his strong hands gripping my armpits, before launching me back up again. My mother combing my hair, singing a song whose words are lost to me, but I remember the rise and fall of its melody clearly. Her gentle voice. I have memories of sinking into her bosom, listening to her heartbeat. Watching her crochet at night while my father was in his study. Glimpses. Little bits and pieces punctuated by blankness. What did my father’s cologne smell like? Did he have a favourite food? Which of them gave me my sweet tooth? I remember bedtime stories read to me, but I can’t recall which one of them read which story. Nuggets is all I have. But as much as I try to hold onto them, they burn like a bitch.
‘My mother was the first to go. She died during childbirth, when my sister was born,’ I say. ‘She bled to death.’
‘Oh dear. I am so sorry,’ Lord Samarasinghe replies. He looks down at his lap as though searching for something to say. ‘Womanhood—’ He stops and shakes his head. ‘These things are rather difficult.’
Which is why me and Gran haven’t told my little sister Izwi what happened yet. She’s too young to be able to handle that kind of weight. Whenever she asks, Gran just tells her mam fell sick and died. It’s a half-truth. Back when I was ghostalkering, delivering messages between the living and the dead, it was always hard whenever I had a message to pass onto a child who’d been young when their parent died. I’d try to channel the whole equanimity shit each time, but it was tough dealing with that.
The funny thing is, through all my years of dealing with the dead, my parents have never come back to see me. They must have moved on already, beyond the everyThere. That gruesome realm, the first stop for the dead, which is glued to our world. I’ve hoped in the past I’d be able to speak with one of them, but it’s never happened. I tried searching the infinite realms of the astral plane, until Gran had a quiet word and bade me stop. But every time I delivered a message from someone’s loved one, I felt a tinge of envy it was for them, not me.
Yes, I was jealous, but happy for my customers too. I’m glad I do that less now, though, and am on my way to becoming a proper magician, thanks to Lord Samarasinghe. When he takes us to England, I’ll have my pick of magic schools from the best in the world.
‘How did your father cope with her death? It must have been quite a blow. Two children, all on his own. Never mind, I’m being silly, you were too young to know.’
‘Gran said he was never the same after she was gone. Locked himself away in his study to grieve.’
‘Who looked after you?’
‘There was help. Childminders who came in when my father was working.’ I suddenly remember that I didn’t call him dad or papa or any of that. He was ‘baba’ to me. Gran told me it means father in Shona. It also has the same meaning in Swahili, Chinese, Urdu, Greek and a dozen other languages. But to me, it’s a special word. Something personal, ’cause I’ve never heard no one else use it.
‘But for as long as I can recall, I’ve been looking after Izwi, with my Gran. I kinda miss it now she’s away.’
‘These things are never easy,’ Lord Samarasinghe says quietly. ‘I want you to know, you’ll always have an ally in me. I can’t replace what you’ve lost, but I hope that’s something, at least.’
I’m stunned. Is he actually being sincere? Don’t even know how to say thank you. But it seems there could be something kind underneath the Sorcerer Royal’s prickly exterior, after all. So I find myself opening up even more, and telling him the rest of it.
‘Gran doesn’t say it like this, but I’ve picked up bits and pieces. I think my father lost his mind after she died.’
‘Grief does strange and horrible things to us.’
Lord Samarasinghe reaches out, maybe to touch my hand, but balls his fingers into a fist in the empty space between us. He pumps his hand up and down once or twice, then retracts it.
‘He died in a car crash,’ I say. ‘Drove himself right over the cliff on the A1 to Berwick-upon-Tweed. Maybe he took his own—’
‘No, don’t say that,’ Samarasinghe says urgently. He frowns. ‘I know it’s tempting, in the absence of fact, to speculate and fill things in. But that won’t do you any good. Accidents happen. You can’t know what was in his mind. And I’m sure he loved you girls very much and wouldn’t have done such a dreadful thing.’
‘Now you’re the one speculating,’ I reply, half in jest.
We can’t help searching for answers. That’s why ghostalkers, mediums, clairvoyants, priests and anyone with a hand in the extranatural will never run out of work. Samarasinghe is right, though. There’s no use turning this over in my mind when there ain’t no one else who can give me those answers.
The funny thing is I never told my old mentor Callander any of this. He didn’t seem too interested in who I was as a person, or where I came from originally. We just stuck to work and not much else. I guess it’s the dour Scots thing. Still, it’s something to be able to tell my new patron all this. They’re very different men. When I first met Lord Samarasinghe at Dunvegan Castle, I didn’t much like him. But here in this carriage, I glimpse he has a beating heart and blood that runs red like the rest of us. Unless he’s lying to me again …
‘Ah, now we’ve left the ghastly odours of Auld Reekie behind, I believe it’s safe for us to have a cup of Ceylon tea, wouldn’t you agree?’ Lord Samarasinghe says, mercifully changing the subject at last.
I grunt and remove my backpack, which is sat atop the picnic basket on my left. It’s early days yet and I’m still studying the new boss man. Occasionally he gives a command dressed up as a throwaway remark or suggestion, and I need to be wise to it. Samarasinghe is a man of mercurial moods but I’m really starting to think I can work with him. Call it taming the tiger.
I reach into the basket and retrieve the cup and saucer, which are wrapped carefully in towels to prevent them cracking with each judder of the coach as it hits a pothole. This is expensive stuff, of the finest quality – bone china with a twenty-two-carat gold finish. It has decorated borders, finely detailed with roses, myrtle, rosemary and oak leaves. On the side of the cup is a fancy cypher with a crown atop it, surrounded by national emblems of the old United Kingdom – roses, shamrocks, thistles and daffodils. Reminds me that being with Lord S, I’m two degrees of separation from the king himself. Ain’t that something to write home about?
There’s a golden thermos, similarly engraved, inside the basket. I swear these rich folks flaunt it in your face. But no time to think like a bloody commie. I’m too busy balancing the cup and saucer in one hand, and pouring the Sorcerer Royal’s tea with the other. It’s a mission, given how juddery the inside of the carriage is. Once that’s done, and I’ve sealed the thermos, I grab the small bottle of milk.
Lord Samarasinghe’s face lights up. He’s positively beaming.
‘You’ve passed your first proper test.’ He claps his hands with a childish delight. ‘I was thinking, if she’s one of those heathens who pours the milk in first I shall have to dispose of her in a shallow grave somewhere.’
‘Phew,’ I reply, unable to mask my sarcasm.
‘Ah, don’t get too cocky now. Your second test of the night awaits, and I for one am rather looking forward to it.’
Copyright © 2024 by Tendai Huchu
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