had been no bar to its development from vague suspicion to entrenched and ardent belief. Simon was convinced that Michael was a slimy, low-life lothario. In such circumstances, the absence of evidence was irrelevant. Simon didn’t need evidence. He had the courage of his convictions.
Simon had never mentioned his suspicions to his sister. She seemed to have resigned herself to the fact that Michael was never there, and always working. Simon, though, was biding his time, waiting to uncover proof that he had been right all along.
‘So, anyway,’ said Bella, happily unaware of Simon’s dark thoughts. ‘Apart from your escapades playing Twister, what else have you been up to? What’s new in your world?’
Simon thought. ‘Very little to report, really,’ he said.
Bella looked at him thoughtfully. ‘As bad as that?’
Simon shrugged. ‘Afraid so. I actually met a beautiful girl at dinner last night, but got farted at before I had a chance to get her number.’ He thought about Joe’s theory that there was no shame in trying to chat people up at parties. It was an attractive theory, but Simon was not convinced. Even on those rare occasions in the past when he had succeeded in securing a telephone number or a promise of another rendezvous, there had always been another excuse made – the loan of a book, a professed shared interest in a particular playwright, the usual nonsense that gets peddled at parties. The idea of an honest approach – Look, can I see you again? I think you’re gorgeous – filled Simon with apprehension. He respected women, yes, but not to the extent of telling them the truth.
‘Well,’ said Bella. ‘I have a question for you. More of a favour, really.’
‘OK,’ said Simon, trying not to feel put out at the ease with which they had glossed over his romantic difficulties. ‘Fire away.’
‘It’s Sophy’s birthday soon.’
‘I know,’ said Simon. There was a pause. ‘Oh no,’ he said.
‘Please.’ Bella looked at him imploringly.
Simon shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, Bella, but no way.’
‘Go on. Just this once.’
‘But you know I don’t. Ever. No exceptions.’
‘But it would make her day. She definitely wants a magician at the party, and it would be so much better if it were you. She adores you. She’ll never forget it.’
‘Look, I’d love to, really I would.’
Bella sat back in her chair. ‘Then do it.’
Simon’s shoulders slumped. ‘I can’t.’
Simon loved performing magic tricks. He relished the look of bewilderment on the watcher’s face as the miracle was revealed. Unfortunately, however, he turned into a petrified zombie if he had to perform in front of more than three people. Audiences terrified him.
Audience-phobic magicians were, for obvious reasons, unlikely to make much of an impact professionally. Magicians are performers, after all. They cannot operate in a vacuum. Taking the audience out of the equation was rather like being a doctor who hated being around sick people. You became somewhat redundant. This was why Simon worked in a magic shop: it gave him the opportunity to be paid for doing tricks all day without having to undergo the gruesome ordeal of standing up in front of a crowd of strangers.
Bella was asking him to perform in front of perhaps the most demanding audience of all – a crowd of over-excited children at a birthday party. Simon shuddered. He had customers who made a living out of it. They were embittered, ferocious men, whose cheery professional personae hid the fact that the last vestiges of sympathetic character had long ago been eradicated by over-exposure to squealing, fractious children. It was, without question, the hardest job in show business.
‘I’m sorry, Bella,’ said Simon. ‘I can’t. You know it’s not that I don’t want to. I just – can’t.’
‘What if I told you that I’d already told Sophy that you’ll do it?’
‘You’d never do that,’ said Simon sharply.
Bella shrugged. ‘Oops. Sorry.’
Simon sighed. ‘For Christ’s sake, Bella. That is so unworthy of you.’
‘I know,’ agreed Bella, without any apparent remorse.
‘God.’ Just when the weekend couldn’t get any worse, it suddenly did.
There was a pause.
‘So you’ll do it?’ asked Bella.
‘I’ll do it,’ sighed Simon. ‘I don’t see that I have very much choice, do I?’
‘Good boy,’ said Bella, stretching over the kitchen table and planting a kiss on the side of his head.
The oven pinged. Bella got up and went to the kitchen door. She shouted up the stairs, ‘Sophy! Come down, please, once you’ve washed your hands.’ There was an immediate rush of small footsteps, and a few moments later Sophy tore breathlessly into the kitchen.
‘How did the practice go?’ asked Simon, trying to forget about the weaselly trick Bella had just played.
‘Really well,’ said Sophy. ‘I can’t wait to show you.’
‘Well, I can’t wait to see it,’ replied Simon.
Sophy grinned at him. She turned to her mother. ‘Where’s Daddy?’
Arabella was pulling the moussaka out of the oven. ‘He said he was going to be a bit late tonight, darling,’ she said as she carried the dish to the table. ‘He’s very busy at work at the moment.’
‘He’s always busy at work,’ complained Sophy.
‘Well, you’ve got Simon instead,’ said her mother, as she began spooning the food on to plates.
Sophy looked at Simon. ‘Well Simon’s very nice, so that’s good,’ she said kindly. ‘You’re more interested in magic than Daddy, anyway,’ she added.
‘Well, not everyone understands the importance of magic,’ said Simon. ‘It’s a craft.’ As he said this he realized that with his hand in plaster eating was not going to be easy. He picked up his fork in his left hand, and carefully speared a slice of aubergine.
Arabella noticed the problem. ‘Are you going to be all right with that?’ she asked. ‘Do you want me to cut it up for you?’
Sophy giggled. ‘Like a baby,’ she observed.
‘Thank you, Sophy,’ said Arabella.
‘Or a very old person,’ said Sophy.
‘Sophy.’
‘Er, yes please,’ said Simon. ‘That would be great.’
‘Right.’ Arabella briskly took Simon’s plate away and began chopping the
