‘More head-hunters in looking for you,’ Morrit says. ‘Asians again, I think, or maybe Middle East: Dubai and that.’
The old man manages to make it sound like he’s a lonely room-mate passing on phone messages from numerous girlfriends. There’s an aridity and affected grumpiness about him that can make anything he says sound like a complaint. Took Zal a while to understand that it presented no reliable indicator upon Morrit’s state of mind: it was, as Lizzie had helpfully explained, merely symptomatic of his being from Yorkshire. He takes a singular satisfaction in sounding pissed off even when inside he is whistling. Today, though, his weary tone reflects a frustrated sense of futility about the information he is conveying. No matter how enticing the potential engagement sounds, there is no point in Morrit pondering the prospect, he believes, because Zal will inevitably reject it.
It would be inaccurate to say that it has become a growing source of tension between them, but it has definitely been leading to an increasing sense of puzzlement and confusion on the old man’s part, and Zal is aware it will soon have to be addressed. They are coming to the end of another contract, and they both know it’s time for a change. The confusion part stems from Zal having concealed that he concurs, thus Morrit is wondering if Zal is planning to just stay on this ship forever.
Their first contract was for six months. Six months had turned into four years and Morrit couldn’t understand why Zal didn’t appear to have itchy feet. Given that Morrit referred to him as ‘Mac’ and believed his name to be Innes McMillan, it would be fair to say that Zal had never entirely levelled with him.
Lizzie had left about a year and a half back, to get married. There weren’t a lot of single males on these trips – not ones under sixty, at least – but she had met this guy who was a senior executive for the cruise line. Morrit and Zal both knew she hadn’t intended to be extending her career as a magician’s assistant: she had stuck with her dad when he needed her, knowing he would be forced to retire from the game soon enough. But then Zal had come along and changed everything, and she found herself still climbing in and out of boxes as her thirties trickled away. They were both sorry to lose her, but Morrit took a deep satisfaction not just from her happiness, but from no longer worrying that she had sacrificed too much of herself just to look after him. Unfortunately, this left him free to channel all his paternal concerns, as well as his guilt-stained gratitude, towards the overall welfare of Zal instead.
Morrit’s arthritis had slowly but inexorably worsened, to the extent that he eventually had to accept that he would no longer be able to usefully grip a saw, never mind anything more precise. Over the same time, however, he had been teaching Zal the very skills he was losing, and so was able to direct his apprentice’s hands in realising the props and apparatus that they had collaborated to design. He was a living encyclopaedia of both hardware and technique, which, allied to Zal’s stagecraft, made for a very successful collaboration. In the absence of Lizzie, they had put their efforts into designing new tricks for Zal to perform alone, rather than into looking for a replacement. They liked the way they could spark ideas off each other and liked the challenge of reshaping the show, but another unspoken factor was that they weren’t ready to let an outsider anywhere close to their professional partnership.
Morrit was so grateful for this Indian summer to his career in magic that he tended to forget how invaluable he was to Zal, and that was what fuelled the recurring thought in his white-maned head that the younger man ought to be spreading his wings.
‘You shouldn’t be stuck on this old tub at your time in life, lad,’ he had said a few months back. ‘You’re too good for this.’
‘I like it here,’ Zal replied, neglecting to elaborate by way of indicating that he didn’t wish to discuss why.
‘I like it too, but I’m an old man. You’ve got too much more you could achieve. Your name should be in lights somewhere. You could pack ’em in wherever you went: London, New York, Vegas, anywhere.’
‘I’m content to just be for a while, Dan,’ he told him.
Morrit nodded and frowned, understanding that Zal was alluding to things he wouldn’t talk about: ‘Never ask me and I’ll never need to lie to you,’ had been how Zal once closed the subject, way back on the night they conspired to dispose of Fleet.
‘Aye,’ Morrit said, sighing, ‘but remember a ship is just a means of transport. It’s only supposed to take you somewhere else. In mythology, a ship usually symbolises a journey between the worlds of the living and the dead. I don’t know what it was happened to you once upon a time, lad – I’ve learned not to ask – but I know you’re not in a hurry to rejoin the land of the living, and I’m just saying: you want to watch you don’t end up lost in transit.’
Zal couldn’t entirely put this down to Morrit merely transferring the way he used to worry that he was holding back his daughter, as the old man had stated his readiness to follow Zal wherever opportunity might take them. Despite pushing seventy, he had no reluctance about the prospect of, for instance, relocating their show to some air-conditioned oasis in Dubai.
‘There’s no retirement for the likes of me. Wife long since passed, Lizzie moved on. Got a few bob put away now, thankfully, but when you retire, it’s supposed to be to do what you like. This is what I like, what I love. It’s all I know. I’ll do it until I die, and if I die doing it, I’ll die happy.’
Representatives were booking on to single legs of the Spirit of Athene’s route just to watch ‘Maximilian’ perform, and sound him out about future engagements: cruise ships from the Caribbean to the South Pacific, hotels from Dubai to Tokyo. Four years of non-stop work under the tutelage of Daniel Morrit had turned Zal into an excellent magician, and given the money they were offering, those Asian and Arabic reps clearly shared the old man’s belief that he could pack them in wherever he chose to go. Zal reckoned the ‘name in lights’ part of Morrit’s prediction was on the money too, and that had been the problem. He had grown used to the security of alias and anonymity. He had created a small world for himself that he could guard and control. The mere prospect of publicity reawakened old fears. It had been a long time since he saw off Albert Fleet, but if his face ended up in a magazine, a brochure, some TV promo spot, then it increased the risk that his past would once again catch up with him.
Tonight, though, Morrit’s weariness of tone is misplaced. Zal doesn’t tell him, but he is ready to audition for the Arabs, the Asians or whoever has been asking for him. He’s been ready for a while. He’d enjoyed a rehabilitative period in the comfort zone, and had spent his time both profitably and wisely, but he’d always known he couldn’t remain in permanent stasis. The old man was right: it was time for something more.
He had first set sail on the cruise ship in order to spare Angelique, but found himself developing an invaluable relationship with Morrit: that was who he now feared they’d go through, like they went through Parnell, his prison-time mentor, like they went through Karl, and like they went through his dad. As long as you cared for somebody, you were vulnerable: if they always hurt who you loved, then either you couldn’t afford to love, or you couldn’t afford to let the world hear your name.
But who the hell wants to live like that?
He thinks of Fleet, thinks of the Estobals, thinks of Bud Hannigan. They had all taken him on and lost, then taken him on again and lost more heavily second time around. The bounty hunter still knew where to find him, and yet nobody had come calling in four years. Perhaps the penny had finally fucking dropped. Perhaps the ghosts of his past had more to fear from him than the other way around.
The houselights go down and he takes the stage. He’s buzzing, sensing that tingle in his fingers as he touches the cards. He feels supreme, determined to give his best performance but not remotely nervous about the stakes. Four years of this, of learning, practising, improving. He is at absolutely the top of his game, exhilaratingly so, and nothing, nothing whatsoever, could faze Zal Innez right now.
Apart from seeing Angelique de Xavia sitting in the front row.
The magician’s hands suddenly spasm as he grips the pack. The cards explode from the collapsing cradle of his fingers, spraying, spinning, fluttering about the stage like crisp autumn leaves stirred from the gutter by a sudden gust. It is not a flourish but a fumble, a moment of startlement. A trick derailed, an unscripted incompetence. Some members of the audience gasp, others fail to stifle giggles. The muted laughter is horrible: a cringing combination of being embarrassed on the faltering magician’s behalf and being embarrassed by being present at such a tawdry spectacle. But can he recover, that’s the question? Does he have an out?