Alex George - Before Your Very Eyes

Simon stuck his fork into the steaming pile of food. He absent-mindedly swallowed his first mouthful, wondering how to make Delphine realize within the next couple of hours that she really ought to get to know him better.

Such thoughts were abandoned seconds later, as the back of Simon’s throat erupted. He gasped as the chilli began its descent to his stomach, charring his tonsils and scalding his epiglottis on the way down. His eyes brimmed with tears. He grabbed his drink and swallowed half of it in one go. He then struggled to restrain the coughing fit that the potent margarita mix provoked.

After a few moments, Simon recovered his poise. Nobody seemed to have noticed his discomfort. On the other side of the table, Fergus and Heather were arguing. Heather looked as if she were about to cry too, although it was not clear whether this was due to the chilli or what Fergus had been saying to her.

‘Let me get you another drink,’ said Fergus to Simon, abruptly turning away from Heather as she was hissing in his ear. He returned moments later with a large jug and topped up Simon’s glass.

‘Oh, thanks,’ said Simon, wondering if it would be awfully rude to ask for some water. He looked at the hill of rice and chilli on his plate, and the full glass of margarita in front of him. His head had started to buzz gently. Tentatively, he picked up his fork and scooped up a small mound of chilli. He switched the fork to his left hand, and picked up his glass with his right. Almost in one movement, he deposited the chilli in his mouth, swallowed, and then slugged back a mouthful of margarita. The effect was interesting. His mouth went numb, and the chilli’s passage southwards was marked by no more than a slight tingling sensation. After a few moments he felt the chilli sitting malignantly in his stomach, sloshing about in a sea of margarita mix. Encouraged, Simon began to address the rest of his plate in the same way.

By the time he had finished his helping, Simon was yabberingly drunk. His mouth seemed only vaguely connected with the rest of his body. When he moved his jaw he felt nothing, as if he’d been given a mammoth local anaesthetic. Now that he had eaten the food, his primary job, he remembered, was to persuade Delphine to marry him.

Simon carefully put his fork down on his empty plate, and surveyed the rest of the table. He noticed that most people had hardly touched their food. Delphine’s back was still turned to him.

The discussion was about jobs. Angus, Simon was able to deduce with what was left of his alcohol-decimated cerebral cortex, was an estate agent. He was telling a story about a woman who, he claimed, had tried to seduce him when he went around to value her flat.

‘So what did you do?’ asked Stella, who was sitting next to Angus, smoking a cigarette.

‘Well, what could I do? I shagged her, of course,’ boomed Angus.

Stella stiffened. ‘I see,’ she said.

Angus carried on. ‘She wasn’t much good, to be honest. Bit saggy, really. Desperate, you know. Quite sweet, but desperate.’ He turned to Stella, who was now puffing so hard on her cigarette that she was momentarily obscured by a wall of billowing smoke. ‘Nowhere near as good as you, my pet,’ he said to her.

Stella ground her cigarette into the ashtray in front of her with a ferocity which suggested that she would rather be grinding it into Angus’s forehead. She got up and left the table.

‘Oh, for Christ’s sake,’ complained Angus. ‘What’s the matter with her?’

From the other end of the table, Fergus raised his eyebrows and drew a suggestive finger across his neck. Next to him Heather stared silently at her plate, saying nothing.

There was an awkward pause, before Fergus said to Simon, ‘So, er, what do you do? Get propositioned by desperate women in your line of work?’

Simon shook his head, more to clear it than to indicate a negative response. He tried his mouth. It seemed to work. He was aware that Delphine had now turned towards him again, but rather than risking another look at her face, he looked at Fergus instead, and said, ‘Not often, no. I work in a magic shop.’

This was met with a gratifying reaction of disbelief and laughter. Stella came and sat down again at the table. Angus ignored her.

‘So you’re a magician?’ said Delphine.

‘Sort of,’ said Simon. ‘I do tricks. But I sell them rather than perform them.’ His head had begun to spin alarmingly with the effort of producing entire sentences.

‘Gosh,’ said Delphine. ‘I’m impressed.’ She smiled at him. Simon was momentarily pole-axed, and grinned back at her stupidly.

‘Thanks,’ he dribbled.

‘Show us a trick, then,’ demanded Stella sourly. There was a murmur of assent from around the table.

The words echoed around Simon’s head until finally he managed to decipher them. ‘Oh no, couldn’t,’ he mumbled.

‘Why not?’ demanded Fergus.

‘Just…couldn’t,’ said Simon. ‘Too pissed,’ he whispered as an afterthought.

‘Go on,’ said Heather.

Simon shook his head. ‘Sorry.’

‘Spoilsport,’ complained Angus. ‘Go on.’

‘Absolutely not,’ said Simon.

‘ Please ,’ said Delphine.

‘OK,’ said Simon.

Delphine clapped her hands in delight.

‘Have you got a fag?’ Simon asked the table in general.

‘Here’s one.’ Stella flung a box of cigarettes at him.

Simon took a cigarette out of the packet and held it up in front of him. There was an expectant silence. ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Watch closely.’ He turned towards Delphine and beamed at her.

Simon clenched his left hand into a fist and held it up level with his face. Then he slowly inserted Stella’s cigarette into his fist and pushed it in until it was completely concealed. He opened his hand to show the cigarette.

‘Now,’ said Simon, ‘watch again.’

He performed the same movement. This time, however, before opening his fist he waved it in the air a few times. Then he lowered his hand and opened his fingers one by one, palm upwards, over the table.

The cigarette had vanished.

‘Wow,’ said Delphine. ‘That’s amazing .’

Simon’s heart thumped.

‘All right,’ said Stella, ‘now bring it back.’

‘Can’t, I’m afraid,’ mumbled Simon. ‘It’s gone.’

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Stella. ‘What sort of a trick is that? Where is it?’

‘It’s vanished,’ explained Simon.

‘Of course it hasn’t vanished,’ replied Stella sarcastically. ‘Where is it? I want it back. Give me my fag back. Thief.’

Simon squirmed in his chair. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘Honest. Sorry.’ (The cigarette now lay, out of reach, beneath Simon’s chair, where he had surreptitiously dropped it.)

‘Well if you were a proper magician you could make it come back again,’ said Stella sulkily.

‘Don’t worry, babe,’ said Angus. ‘You can have one of mine.’

‘Oh, sod off, Angus,’ replied Stella.

Simon took another long drink of margarita. He had stopped feeling the drink’s corrosive effect on his larynx some time earlier.

‘I suppose, being a magician, you’ve heard the story about the boy and the magic coin he found,’ said a man on the other side of the table, who up until then had hardly said a word.

There was a collective groan from around the table.

‘God, Joe, not again, please,’ said Heather.

‘I thought Simon might like to hear it if he hasn’t before,’ said Joe.

Simon shrugged. ‘If nobody else minds.’

‘No, I suppose we don’t mind,’ said Angus.

‘Right,’ said Joe. He addressed himself to Simon. ‘There was this young boy called Timmy. He’s walking down the street one day when he spots something gleaming in the gutter. So he goes over and discovers that it’s a foreign-looking coin, one he’s never seen before. So he picks it up and takes it home.’