by Julian Fuller
Lean in a bit closer can you, son? I can’t turn my head to find you, and these rheumy eyes see you much better in close-up. Put that mobile phone aside for a minute, and listen to me. And squeeze my hand when you get what I’m trying to say. That’s it, squeeze – thank you.
My mind still whirs along, you know, even though my heart’s packing up, my speech has gone awol for good, and my right side’s useless. I couldn’t shuffle a pack of Jokers now if my life depended on it. I know you don’t think I’m making much of an effort, lying here like a sad sack, scanning your eyes for flickers of comprehension. But believe me, I’m shouting for all I’m worth.
It’s a bit late to get through to you, isn’t it? We should have had a proper conversation long before this. Face it, I’m rounding the bend into the home straight now. I’ve got this spartan bedroom ceiling for company, a blank canvas onto which I can project whatever I still recollect of my life. I sift and distil the memories, gift-wrap them and tidy them away. So my affairs are pretty much in order, do you hear? Do you hear, Jonathan? Squeeze if you… No, I’m not sure that you do hear.
You keep pressing me about what to do with Laughing Uncle Bob’s gear, as if that were the matter of prime importance! Don’t be mawkish, Jon. My props were the tools of a simple magician’s trade, and it was just a pastime after all, never a profession. My act was a parlour affair – up close and personal. I worked with snug-in-the-hand stuff – cups, coins, cards. Dice, wands, handkerchiefs. The whole kit and kaboodle, including the collapsible top hat, fitted into a modest suitcase (unless there was a special request for Bernardo the Rabbit or Bernice the Dove to put in an appearance). Anyway, it’s sentimental value only. Why not just pass my case along to some young local apprentice keen to carry on the tradition? Laughing Uncle Bob Junior! There’s still quite a call for decent entertainers at children’s parties, you know.
Once I realised what real magic was, I no longer saw the point of big stage acts – all those gaudy illusions with their diversions, misdirections and clever mechanics. And who needs razzamatazz and glamorous assistants? (that meant divvying the fee!) No, I stuck to small-scale solo trickery, and became devoted to my young audiences – dozens upon dozens of noisy wide-eyed Saturday afternoon kids who taught me over the years what impresses most. I loved the raucous to-ing and fro-ing with them, the swell and swoop of their excitement as they put me through my paces.
The proper magic I’m talking about is rarer than you think. When I’d do simple tricks – like levitating a pencil, or passing a cup through a table – most youngsters got animated, and best of all, curious. They already knew in their bones it was a subterfuge, but they’d be thwarted because they couldn’t see how it was done. “Do it again, Uncle Bob!” they’d yell, crowding around, trying to clamber up behind me and crane over my shoulders. They’d squeal, jerk around and grimace. Of course, as soon as the trick was revealed, or they worked it out, the magic evaporated just like that, Poof! They’d be deflated, and groan and clamour for the next trick. But watch carefully, and once in a while you could spot a special child hanging back a bit from the huddle. The still, enthralled one. From a certain angle, and in a certain light you might just catch a particular shine, as from a fine slick of glycerine, radiating from their eyes. I think they had reached around the trickery, gone beyond and connected with some deeper, awesome possibility.
It resonated with me whenever that happened. It always took me back to my dear Dad’s passing – that afternoon when his frail bedridden body arched and he took his final deep shuddering in-breath. His expression widened, and in those few seconds his eyes glistened in that special way too. I think he was gifting, to anyone open to it, the accumulated magic of his life, its mysteries and its graces. His passing was like…a transcendence – but also a transmission. Those are the nearest words I can find.
Your Reece has the magic in him. You know that, don’t you? I remember watching him many years ago on his sixth birthday, when he unwrapped the kaleidoscope I’d given him. Stephanie showed him how to hold it to his eye, tilt it towards the light and rotate the tube. Remember how he was completely lost to the room? When he eventually put it down he sidled over to thank me. “Is that alright, then?” I asked. “Was that what you wanted?”. “It is, Grandad”, he said, pecking me on the cheek, his eyes flickering as though his soul had absorbed a myriad of dancing colours and patterns and stored them for later use.
Something special took root in him that day…which perfectly primed him as a teenager for his first astronomical telescope. It was the very best one you could afford for him at the time. He was jittery with excitement; couldn’t wait for nightfall to set it up on the patio and point it at the heavens, aching to see for himself what was out there in the farthest reaches of the darkness. I don’t know which planet or constellation or galaxy he homed in on, but it held him spellbound, until cramp forced him to stand back up for a break. He had that very same look, Jon. The lad found the magic again that night, I’m in no doubt. I know you and Steph have big ambitions for him. Well I tell you, he will make a truly fine explorer. His intelligence and vision will take him far now. In time he will discover much, and he will do it for the betterment of all living things.
Alice as well, I promise you. She may be younger than Reece, but it happened to her too, one midsummer’s day two years ago while I was staying with you, convalescing after the second bypass op. I was resting in the shade, under your hornbeam tree, watching her play. As she skipped around the garden she must have spotted something floating in an old galvanised pail brimming with rainwater. She stopped, crouched down to take a closer look, then fished something out, brackish liquid sluicing down her wrist and trickling off her elbow. “Grandad!” she called, and hurried towards me. I sat up in the deckchair as best I could. “What is it?”. She proffered a dripping finger for inspection. Perched on it was what looked like a large dark fruit seed, encased in a blob of water. “It’s drowned”. Her face started to crumple. “Alice,” I said, “here, put it onto your other hand and let me have a better look”. She eased it off her finger onto her left palm. I smiled. “Ah! It’s a ladybird, darling”. “But it’s drowned, Grandad, it must have fell in and it’s not moving any more…” She teared up. “Alice sweetie, maybe we could try a little magic trick?” She frowned at me, her lower lip quivering.
“I’ll show you what to do. First, hold it out in front of you for a minute, nice and still”. She stood there sniffling, her arm outstretched in the fierce morning sunlight. “Now bring it in close, so you can breathe on it. That’s good – nice slow, warm breaths – one… and two…and three…”. The inert ladybird was pinned by surface tension. “And try blowing”, I said, “but very softly”. She puffed out her cheeks, blew silently, and the watery margin around the upturned insect shrunk by degrees. “Now hold it up and let it feel the breeze.”
“Is anything happening?” I asked after a while. Alice tilted her chin as we both peered at the tiny creature lying on its back. Suddenly there was a twitching of a leg. Two legs, then six legs stirred. “It’s not drowned anymore Grandad, it’s alive!” “OK, now turn it upright and breathe on it some more – that’s good”. The ladybird began dragging itself across the cup of her upturned palm, leaving a thin trail of moisture. The breeze rustled and lifted a damp wing. “Now show it the sun, Alice”. Alice planted her feet apart and stretched out a stiff arm, supporting her elbow with her free hand. “Now watch. And wish”, I whispered. The ladybird found the base of her middle finger, crept up it and faced into some small air current it could detect. It waited, stretched and retracted its spotted wings, waited some more, then abruptly launched itself, a minute red and black whir of life that wavered towards the fence, then climbed for the sky.
Alice stood motionless long after it had disappeared. “Well,” I said, breaking the spell as gently as I dared, “I think Ladybird Ladybird flew away home, don’t you?” And as she turned to me I saw the glistening in her dark eyes, not from tears, but from wonderment. “Come here, little girl, and give me a cuddle”. In the warmth of that hug I felt her stillness, enraptured by the mysteries of a resurrection.
So that is how I’m sure that Alice is acquainted with real magic too. She will carry its possibilities forward as she blossoms. She is so bright, her life choices are legion, and her soul will insist on wandering wide and away. She will spread compassion and kindness as she goes.
Squeeze my hand if you get that, Jon. For the love of God, squeeze! Oh, my signal is weak, son, like a lousy network that keeps dropping out. You’re peering at me, but I don’t think you have an inkling. You’re itching to get back to your mobile phone screen to hide yourself and while away more time, aren’t you? Well, you’re right to be bored – bedside vigils can be interminable. Especially when you suspect there might be a few days left in me yet.
In years to come, I expect you’ll reminisce about your “special Dad”. You’ll recount all the devilish tricks I used to perform. You’ll say to your friends “He was my wizardy superhero”, and mean it sincerely. But the father you’ll remember was just a proficient deceiver, Jon, someone who mastered sleight-of-hand. Why, I could make the Queen of Spades dance in and out of a pack of cards like a crafty cormorant on the river, diving down here, popping up there. And then, just before your puzzlement threatened to blow a fuse, I’d double down and entice a threepenny piece from the shell of your ear. Ha, prestidigitation! Maybe I was too knowing and world-weary ever to attain real magic myself. Perhaps my talent was discerning it in others? But who can ever know for sure?
* * *
Come back into my eyeline, Jon, find my hand. Truly, I’m not sentimental about endings. But when the moment arrives, gather Steph and the kids around, if you can prevail on them. For I’m dumb now, but I still mean to pass something on if I’m able. Tell them to sit quietly, and watch my eyes. Open yourselves to possibilities. And son, if…if it happens – you might bear witness to some real wonders before the curtain drops. And it won’t just be a trick of the light.
After his teacher opined that his stonking whodunnit debut was “not very original” Julian decided, at the tender age of eight, that creative writing was strictly for the birds. 64 years on, and facing the mental desert of pandemic lockdown, he finally picked up his pen again. The signs are propitious that he may yet rediscover his childhood mojo.
