Champagne Charlie and the Amazing Gladys

Chapter One Fretting – a delivery – a stern lecture – a great artiste prepares for work – magic Gladys Dunchurch paced up and down her little dressing room, though pacing did precious little to relieve her irritation. There was barely enough room in the tiny space for dressing, let alone satisfactory pacing. Small to begin with, the room was crammed to bursting with dressing tables, costumes, props, and cages full of small animals. Had it been fuller, Gladys would have been reduced to spinning on the spot, but as it stood, she had about two steps in which to pace without bumping into something. Where was Gruffydd, that great i***t? Their act didn’t go on until just before intermission, but that still didn’t give him much time to get ready. If he got them fired again, she would not forgive him. Not this time. Gladys wished she was back in Sydney. She’d been respected there! Recognised by one and all as the best singer in town—perhaps the whole colony. London had seemed the obvious next step. But, she thought, an obvious step is not necessarily the same as a good step. “You never know when you’re well off,” her Aunt Madge had always said. The old girl had a knack for unhelpful sayings that happened to be true. A knock at the door roused her from her thoughts. “I’ve a delivery for ye,” a muffled Scottish voice said. Gladys opened the door on the limp figure of her employer, Gruffydd Pritchard. He was supported by a slender young man with sandy hair and full lips, who struggled under Gruffydd’s weight. “Do you no have a chair?” the young man asked. Gladys was already sliding a wicker stool beneath Gruffydd’s rump. The young man set down his portly, bearded burden with obvious relief. Gladys slapped Gruffydd’s bleary face, producing nothing but a faint groan. “He said if I brought him home safe, there’d be a shilling in it,” the youth said. “You ain’t been at this long,” Gladys said. The youth blushed. “At what?” “At… helping old gentlemen on their way.” His blush deepened. “What’s your name?” Gladys asked. “Michael.” “Well, Michael, here are two shillings. Go across the street and get a cup of coffee from the vendor. You can keep the change.” Michael ran off, clutching the offered coin. “He won’t be back, then,” Gruffydd murmured. “You’re a fine one to be casting judgement, Gruffydd Pritchard. Besides, the lad’s new at this. Ain’t got that hard look most of your boys have.” “Well, now, he’s hard enough where it matters.” Gruffydd smirked. Gladys was only twenty-four, but this last year of working for Gruffydd had made her feel far older. Gruffydd had never admitted to his age, but Gladys thought him at least twice as old as her. “Remember what Mr Sminkins said? If you go on drunk again—” “My dear girl, aren’t you from Australia? I thought your whole continent ran on beer.” “You’re supposed to be a Turk!” Gladys said. “Remember? ‘The Great Abu ben Abdulla and the Amazing Gladys.’ You get away with your Welsh accent because no one knows nothing about Mahometans, except one thing: they… do… not… drink.” Gruffydd’s response was interrupted by the return of Michael, carrying a huge tin mug of coffee. “The coster with the coffee-cart said that this would serve,” he said. “He did no want to let me take the cup away, but I told him it was for ye, and he said you’d bring it back.” “Ta, pet,” Gladys said. “Do you see, Gruffydd? Some people understand responsibility.” Responding with a grunt, Gruffydd sniffed at his coffee. “What’s a nice young man like you doing with the likes of him?” Gladys asked Michael. “Well, miss… I suppose I am the likes of him, miss,” Michael said, avoiding her eyes. “I’d best be leaving,” he added, backing out. Gruffydd winced at the coffee. “Too strong!” “Not strong enough, I reckon,” Gladys said. “How much did you have to drink today?” “The usual.” “On a full stomach?” Silence answered as clearly as words. “Then that coffee ain’t going to serve,” Gladys said, fetching a little green bottle from her handbag. The stained label proclaimed it ‘Dr Whittaker’s Patent Electro-Vitalised Elixir and Tonic’ and listed, in tiny print, the ailments it was supposed to cure. “Oh, not that!” Gladys poured a teaspoonful into Gruffydd’s coffee. She glowered at him while she swirled it around. “I ain’t having you sawing me in half while drunk,” she said. “We don’t do a sawing-in-half bit,” Gruffydd whined. Gladys ended the argument with a glare. Sighing, Gruffydd held his nose and gulped down the remainder of the coffee. In spite of her unfortunate choice of employer, Gladys loved the Imperial Music Hall, with its maze of passages at the back. She had heard that the theatre had originally been two shops. When Mr Sminkins had combined them into a theatre, they said he’d skimped on rebuilding the parts the audience could not see. It certainly explained why she had to traverse so many stairs, both up and down, on her way to the stage. Gruffydd—in his role as the “Great Abu ben Abdullah”—wore a turban and a brightly coloured robe that would probably have made him the object of mockery anywhere from Kashmir to Cairo. Gladys dressed in a similar sort of style—the London stage’s idea of a harem girl, with a tight silk top and billowy pants that gathered at the ankles. Her blonde hair, which she usually wore up, fell down over her shoulders when in costume. Gladys was quite beautiful. She knew it, but chose to think of it in a professional way. She was proud almost to vanity of her singing voice, but viewed her looks as little more than a convenient advertisement for her singing. It was her beauty that had won her a role as Gruffydd’s assistant. Conjuring requires misdirection, and few things distract the eye more easily than beauty. At last they reached the stage. The audience was fairly respectable by music hall standards, consisting of shopkeepers and small tradesmen. They burst into polite applause at Gruffydd’s appearance, and clapped rather more enthusiastically when Gladys took the stage. “The Great Abu” spoke in an accent of his own devising. His patter was peppered with archaic thees and thous and flowery poetry, and included a number of words he’d picked up during his service in India. Gladys did not know what the words meant, but a couple of Laksar sailors in the pit clearly did, and couldn’t keep themselves from sniggering. With a smile, Gladys passed Abu the seemingly empty boxes from which doves appeared, the cards that baffled and delighted, the scarves that changed their colour, and the knives that passed harmlessly through ripe melons. She also fed him lines, reminded him through gestures of the correct order of his illusions and physically propped him up when he seemed likely to stumble. She was not concerned that an observant member of the audience might have noticed. Audiences at magic shows try not to be too observant, lest they be disappointed. Other than a chimney sweep who stared hard through grimy lids, there were no keen eyes in the hall. The act was perfectly competent, though Gladys had to admit it fell well short of greatness. It did, however, have a great finale, a trick for which the Great Abu ben Abdullah and the Amazing Gladys were rightly famed across the London stage. It was an apport—a transference across space. Most magicians performed this sort of trick with the assistant moving between closed boxes by means of trapdoors in the stage, while the magician pattered to fill the time. Abu and Gladys were different. Their apport took place in plain view. Gladys stood at one side of the stage in her spangly pants, smiling at the audience. The Great Abu produced a wand, which looked like the broken handle of a spanner that had been polished to a shine. “At my command,” Gruffydd said, “the djinn will transport my charming assistant right across the stage faster than the mortal eye can see! Yea, faster even than the mortal mind can comprehend! Are you ready, O rose of England? Sim salabim!” There were no squibs or smoke, or anything that might have hidden an exit. Gruffydd waved his wand and Gladys was simply no longer in the theatre. She floated gently in the formless void beyond space. She had been here many times before, and her initial terror had faded into boredom. It felt to her as if she remained there for a minute or more, though she knew from experience that less than a second would pass before she returned. As her time drew near, she yawned and stretched and adopted a triumphant pose, a huge grin plastered across her face. In less than an eye-blink, there she was again in the commonplace world, standing on the other side of the stage, exactly eight yards, three and one quarter inches from where she had stood before. The little band played a triumphant chord, while she smiled and curtseyed. Regular audience members clapped, while the rest merely goggled with amazement. Abu held the moment for all that it was worth, then with a wave of his wand cried “Sim salabim!” again. Gladys went back through the void. This time when she returned, the whole audience exploded. Wild cheering filled the little hall and drowned out the band altogether. The Great Abu ben Abdulla bowed and the Amazing Gladys curtsied. The apport was the highlight of their act, the one thing that had kept them both employed in spite of Gruffydd’s many failings. Gladys accepted that fact, though she did not enjoy it. She had no idea where Gruffydd had found the wand, or how it worked, or why it might only move a person eight yards and three and one quarter inches in the direction of its broken end. All she knew was that being outside of the world tended to give her a headache.