“A phoenix,” murmurs Immaculйe Constantin. “Or thephoenix, in truth. How about an invisible eye, Aoife Brubeck? Do you have one of those? Would you let me check?”
“Mummy has blue eyes,” says Aoife, “but Daddy’s are chestnut brown and mine are chestnut brown, too.”
“Oh, not thoseeyes”—now the woman removes her strange blue sunglasses. “I mean your special, invisible eye, just … here.” She rests her fingers on Aoife’s right temple and strokes her forehead with her thumb, and deep in my liver or somewhere I know something’s weird, something’s wrong, but it’s drowned out when Immaculйe Constantin smiles up at me with her heart-walloping beauty. She studies a space above my eyes, then turns back to Aoife’s, and frowns. “No,” she says, and purses her painterly lips. “A pity. Your uncle’s invisible eye was magnificent, and your mother’s was enchanting, too, before it was sealed shut by a wicked magician.”
“What’s an invisible eye?” asks Aoife.
“Oh, that hardly matters.” She stands up.
I ask, “Are you here for Sharon’s wedding?”
She replaces her sunglasses. “I’m finished here.”
“But … You’re a friend of Holly’s, right? Aren’t you even going to …” But as I look at her, I forget whatever it was I meant to ask.
“Have a heavenly day.” She walks towards the arcade.
Aoife and I watch her shrink as she moves further away.
My daughter asks, “Who was that lady, Daddy?”
SO I ASK my daughter, “Who was what lady, darling?”
Aoife blinks up at me. “What lady, Daddy?”
We look at each other, and I’ve forgotten something.
Wallet, phone; Aoife; Sharon’s wedding; Brighton Pier.
Nope. I haven’t forgotten anything. We walk on.
A boy and girl are snogging, like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. “That’s gross!” declares Aoife, and they hear, and glance down, before resuming their tonsil-tickling. Yeah, I tell the boy telepathically, enjoy the cherries and cream because twenty years on from now nothing tastes as good. He ignores me. Up ahead, a picture spray-painted on a rolled-down metal shutter captures Aoife’s attention: a Merlinesque face with a white beard and spiral eyes in a halo of Tarot cards, crystals, and stardust. Aoife reads the name: “D-wiggert?”
“Dwight.”
“ ‘Dwight … Silverwind. For-tune … Teller.’ What’s that?”
“Someone who claims to be able to read the future.”
“ Class!Let’s go inside and see him, Daddy.”
“Why would you want to see a fortune-teller?”
“To know if I’ll open my animal-rescue center.”
“What happened to being a dancer like Angelina Ballerina?”
“That was agesago, Daddy, when I was little.”
“Oh. Well, no. We won’t be visiting Mr. Silverwind.”
One, two, three—and here’s the Sykes scowclass="underline" “Why not?”
“First, he’s closed. Second, I’m sorry to say that fortune-tellers can’t really tell the future. They just fib about it. They—”
The shutter is rattled up by a less flattering version of the Merlin on the shutter. This Merlin looks shat out by a hippo, and is dressed up in prog-rock chic: a lilac shirt, red jeans, and a waistcoat encrusted with gems as fake as its wearer.
Aoife, however, is awestruck. “Mr. Silverwind?”
He frowns and looks around before looking down. “I am he. And you are who, young lady?”
A Yank. Of bloody course. “Aoife Brubeck,” says Aoife.
“Aoife Brubeck. You’re up and about very early.”
“It’s my aunty Sharon’s wedding today. I’m a bridesmaid.”
“May you have an altogether sublime day. And this gentleman would be your father, I presume?”
“Yes,” says Aoife. “He’s a reporter in Bad Dad.”
“I’m sure Daddy tries to be good, Aoife Brubeck.”
“She means Baghdad,” I tell the joker.
“Then Daddy must be very … brave.” He looks at me. I stare back. I don’t like his way of talking and I don’t like him.
Aoife asks, “Can you reallysee the future, Mr. Silverwind?”
“I wouldn’t be much of a fortune-teller if I couldn’t.”
“Can you tell myfuture? Please?”
Enough of this. “Mr. Silverwind is busy, Aoife.”
“No, he isn’t, Daddy. He hasn’t got one customer even!”
“I usually ask for a donation of ten pounds for a reading,” says the old fraud, “but, off-peak, to specialyoung ladies, five would suffice. Or”—Dwight Silverwind reaches to a shelf behind him and produces a pair of books—“Daddy could purchase one of my books, either The Infinite Tetheror Today Will Happen Only Oncefor the special rate of fifteen pounds each, or twenty pounds for both, and receive a complimentary reading.”
Daddy would like to kick Mr. Silverwind in his crystal balls. “We’ll pass on your generosity,” I tell him. “Thanks.”
“I’m open until sunset, if you change your mind.”
I tug at my daughter’s hand to tell her we’re moving on, but she flares up: “It’s not fair, Daddy! I want to know my future!”
Just bloody great. If I take back a tearful Aoife, Holly’ll be insufferable. “Come on—Aunty Sharon’s hairdresser will be waiting.”
“Oh dear.” Silverwind retreats into his booth. “I foresee trouble.” He shuts a door marked THE SANCTUM behind him.
“ Nobody knows the future, Aoife. These”—I aim this at the Sanctum—“ liarstell you whatever they think you want to hear.”
Aoife turns darker, redder, and shakier. “No!”
My own temper now wakes up. “No what?”
“No no no no no no no no no no.”
“Aoife! Nobody knows the future. That’s why it’s the future!”
My daughter turns red, shaky, and screeches: “Kurde!”
I’m about to flame her for bad language—but did my daughter just call me a Kurd? “What?”
“Aggie says it when she’s cross but Aggie’s a milliontimes nicer than youand at least she’s there! You’re never even home!” She storms off back down the pier on her own. Okay, a mild Polish swearword, a mature dollop of emotional blackmail, picked up perhaps from Holly. I follow. “Aoife! Come back!”
Aoife turns, tugs the balloon string off and threatens to let it go.
“Go ahead.” I know how to handle Aoife. “But be warned, if you let go, I’ll neverbuy you a balloon again.”
Aoife twists her face up into a goblin’s and—to my surprise, and hurt—lets the balloon go. Off it flies, silver against blue, while Aoife dissolves into cascading sobs. “I hateyou—I hateDora the Explorer—I wish you were back—back in Bad Dad—forever and ever! I hateyou I hateyou I hateyou I hate your guts!”
Then Aoife’s eyes shut tight and her six-year-old lungs fill up.
Half of Sussex hears her shaken, sobbing scream.
Get me out of here. Anywhere.
Anywhere’s fine.
NASSER DROPPED ME near the Assassin’s Gate, but not too near; you never know who’s watching who’s giving lifts to foreigners, and the guards at the gate have the jumpiest trigger fingers, the poor bastards. “I’ll call you after the press conference,” I told Nasser, “or if the network’s down, just meet me here at eleven-thirty.”
“Perfect, Ed,” replied my fixer. “I get Aziz. Tell Klimt, all Iraqis love him. Seriously. We build big statue with big fat cock pointing to Washington.” I slapped the roof and Nasser drove off. Then I walked the fifty meters to the gate, past the lumps of concrete placed in a slalom arrangement, past the crater from January’s bomb, still visible; half a ton of plastic explosives, topped with a smattering of artillery shells, killing twenty and maiming sixty. Olive used five of Aziz’s photos, and the Washington Postpaid him a reprint fee.