she murmurs.
‘What is?’ I ask.
‘Article in the Guardian,’ Punk’s Not says, ‘about Blaine.’
He proffers me the article. I take it and give it the once-over. ‘Oh yes,’ I say, recalling having read it a few days earlier (Wednesday? Thursday?), ‘I remember this…’
In the article, a slightly sour pussy called Catherine Bennett holds scathingly forth about what a ridiculous ass the magician is, and how unspeakably proud she’s been rendered by our unstoppable British urge to ridicule and debunk him – our cocky, cockney lawlessness, our innate willingness to lampoon and pillory.
Yip yip!
I mean, that’s our Great fookin’ British Democratic right, to rip the damn piss, innit?
Maybe Blaine (to paraphrase) might’ve got away with his pretentious pseudo-art rubbish in the US of A, but not here. Oh no. Not in good old Blighty, where we stands up proud and tall and we speaks our minds and we calls a spade a spade (then breaks it, in half, across our workmanlike knees).
‘Jew-hater,’ Punk’s Not opines, taking the article back off me and folding it up, carefully.
‘You think so?’ I ask (neatly maintained brows trimming my beautiful fringe in a fetching display of polite middle class alarm).
‘But of course,’ Punk’s Not scoffs, ‘what else?’
I glance over briefly towards the Illusionist. He’s got the little window in his box open (did I mention the window before? A tiny, hinged square, cut into the plastic, which he can easily unlatch if he feels the sudden, overwhelming urge to shout something down to his disciples below). He’s currently up on his knees (looking unusually vital), gazing down and out of it at a small huddle of people in brightly coloured, semi-transparent costumes who suddenly strike up (gypsy-style) on five violins and play something cheerfully mundane, which would – by any kind of standard – render ‘lift music’ scintillating.
‘Catherine Bennett…,’ Punk’s Not quips, ‘if I’m not very much mistaken, being the famous heroine of Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice”.’
(Note the dramatic emphasis.)
Man. This kid’s good.
‘But it’s not Catherine, it’s Elizabeth.’
Aphra – coincidentally – is paying no heed to our literary jousting. She is standing up and staring – in sheer wonderment – at the musical Didakais. The magician (meanwhile) has collapsed back down (at the start of their second number) and is looking a little wan again (maybe the music’s reminding him of all those lousy meals he’s had in poor quality Spanish restaurants over the years).
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