My help in Hatshepsut’s Pavilion soon amounted to much more than minding the shop occasionally while Alicia nipped out. She rang, or came into the bookshop, several times a day to ask about local advertising or wanting an opinion on potential new items of stock. Once she showed me a couple of parchment scrolls, one illuminated with Egyptian hieroglyphics, and the other with the early Germanic script known as runes. They cost about a pound each wholesale, and she thought they might sell for double that – a one hundred per cent profit!
Deciding which of thousands of items on the market might be profitable, from aromatherapy candles to complex psychometric charts, must have been perplexing. As she always put up with my teasing about crystal ball gazing being akin to navel gazing, or that reading tea leaves could have no advantage over reading coffee grouts or the scum someone left behind in a bath, now that she had asked a sensible question I said, ‘Maybe the hieroglyphics are worth two pounds as they’re so attractive and colourful, but the runes are are not that striking, are they? They’re basically a series of black lines that sometimes cross one another.’
‘Runes are supposed to be psychographic,’ she said, using a word that was obviously psychobabble. ‘Still, you may be right. Perhaps I’ll put them in at one-fifty and see how they do. Ah!’ she sighed, ‘The sales rep was a very attractive and persuasive woman.’
When I told Jeremy about the parchments, he remembered an old black and white film, Night of the Demon, in which the villain contrived to plant a runic script carrying a curse on his victims. At nightfall a monstrous fiend would appear and savage them. The only chance of salvation was to pass the runes on. Whoever held them as daylight faded would then become the fiend’s prey.
At home after work I found a runes parchment in my bag that Alicia must somehow have planted there. I showed them to Dale. ‘Guess where these came from!’
‘Alicia? What are they?’
‘Runes. Here,’ I said, trying to pass them on to him.
‘Prunes? No, I’m fine in that department at the moment, thanks all the same.’
‘I said runes, not prunes. They’re an old Teutonic script. Did you ever see that film…’
‘Oh yes, ages ago on TV, it’s coming back to me now. The villain passed them on to his victims, who would see them waft away on a sudden breeze, before being attacked by a monster. So you’re trying to bring me to a horrible violent death are you?’
‘Only to save myself. I wouldn’t inflict anything like that on you unless it was in a really good cause.’
‘That’s your excuse, is it? Fine boyfriend you are.’
In the evening, we took the runes with us to the Give and Take. A terrific hunk stood at the bar wearing a denim shirt and a pair of low-cut jeans. As a little prank, Dale asked me for the runes, and casually meandered up to him. I followed. Pulling the parchment from his pocket, Dale said to me, ‘What do you make of this. Any idea what it could be?’
‘Some of your fan mail?’
‘Ha-ha.’ He caught the eye of the Adonis in denim and asked him. ‘Have you ever seen anything like these?’ The guy smiled and took the scroll from him. After he made a few wild guesses, we explained about the old horror film and the curse of the runes. Smiles half heard what we were saying and came over.
‘Well, that isn’t like any sort of music I’ve ever seen.’
‘What makes you think they’re a kind of music?’
‘You were talking about tunes.’
‘Not tunes, runes.’ Soon a little group of us at the bar were passing the runes to one another, slipping them down each other’s shirt fronts, and pretending to be terrified of being left holding them when the bar closed. After a while the conversation moved on, and I forgot about them until, getting into bed, I saw the parchment sticking out from under my pillow.
Dale, who had been watching me, said ‘Did you think you’d got away with trying to pass the curse on to me? And what you don’t know is that actually I am the demon from the film, and I’m taking vengeance on you right now.’ He grabbed me, pushed me down and sat on my chest. It was not too difficult to topple him over sideways. We wrestled for a while, the bedding and the two of us sliding down to the floor, until we tired of the struggle, relaxed our grip on each other, caressed and made love.
The following afternoon I went to serve in Hatshepsut’s Pavilion so that Alicia could go to her Egyptology meeting. ‘I wonder,’ she said, taking off her Cleopatra headdress, ‘what this would look like on you.’
‘Wonder all you like, it’s not going to happen, especially now you’ve given the cobra’s head those green glass eyes.’
‘Spoilsport. Where’s your sense of fun? I spent hours renovating that wig. It was a moth-eaten old thing I found in a theatrical costumier’s store. You have to admit it does make an impression on customers in the shop.’
‘You’re right about that,’ I said, not saying what kind of impression I thought it made.
‘Oh… nice of you to say so, Ben. Must admit I did wonder if the beady green eyes were going a bit too far. Well, see you later.’
I was trying to decide how to amuse myself during my solitary hours in her shop, when a friend from the Give and Take came in.
‘Oh, hi Ben, got any of those runes?’
‘Well, yes, in that box over on your left. They gave us a good laugh last night, didn’t they.’
‘One-fifty each, okay,’ he said, picking up three parchments. ‘They were fantastic at breaking the ice with that new guy, you know, the dream in denim. Starting up a conversation for the first time with someone you really fancy is always tough going. Everyone uses the same tacky old chat-up lines. How many times have you heard “I thought it was totally dead in here until you came in?” The runes were a great opener. A couple of the other lads want to have a go, too.’
During the next few days a stream of customers for runes came in. Learning how well the parchments were selling, Jeremy put in an urgent order for some for the bookshop. He had not had them on display for long when, of all people, Toby appeared.
‘Been a long time,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry, it’s only your runes I’m after. How are you doing?’
‘They’re one pound fifty.’
‘Everyone is larking around with them in the club. I’ll take a couple. You’re looking good.’
I took his money but said nothing.
‘Not still pissed off with me, are you?’
‘Sometimes it’s best to move on. I have.’ I handed him the runes. ‘Watch out for the demon.’
‘Demon, what d’you mean?’
I wanted to keep our conversation brief and said, ‘Oh… nothing.’
‘If that’s how you feel,’ he said tersely, and left.
For a short while, in trendy pubs and clubs, going up to people and trying to pass runes on to them became a craze. I asked Alicia why, with so many parchments being passed around, no attacks by the fiend had been in the news.
She countered by asking, ‘Did you think there would be?’
‘No, but, I suppose the whole thing started with runes being passed on to you by a sales rep. What this means is that one bit of the occult has been proved to be nonsense. You are still here, not assailed by the fiend, despite having dozens of runes parchments in your possession at nightfall, and none of your customers has been attacked either.’
‘But they’re only fake runes. You don’t think I would risk creating mayhem by selling genuine runes to anyone who happens to walk into the shop, do you?’
‘What? Have you got genuine runes in a box under the counter for special customers? Someone should report you to Trading Standards, selling fake runes.’
‘Don’t be so mean. Actually, you and Dale might be interested in a new line that’s coming in on Monday. Little polished pebbles in sets of six, each with a rune inscribed on it. According to the leaflet, you can tell people’s fortunes by the order in which they come out of the bag. You can also slip them into someone’s pocket to summon the demon, or throw them all up into the air and try to catch them. You could take a set, show them around, see if they catch on.’
‘Thanks for the offer, but maybe we have had enough runes for now.’
My view of the paranormal was as sceptical as ever, but Hatshepsut’s Pavilion had provided more entertainment and hilarity in the weeks since it opened than all my months of work in the bookshop. The next little adventure started with the sale of a tin of biscuits, Nefertiti’s Nubian Assortment. Each nibble was in its own paper wrapper, and had a message on the inside saying that the omens for love were very strong, or that good fortune lay ahead, or giving some other groundless prediction. A smartly dressed woman who grinned all the time approached the till carrying one of the tins, evidently wanting to impress with her constant display of teeth. She must have been very fond of snacks, for I saw a few crumbs from an earlier treat on the lapel of her coat.
When she had gone I noticed some flyers for Alicia’s so-called personal astrology service on the shelf under the counter. At the bottom of the page were the words Ask Alicia or Ben for your personal consultation. She had included my name without asking me. I tackled her about the leaflets when she returned from her meeting.
‘I thought you’d be pleased,’ she said. ‘A male customer might be happier to talk to another man, especially if he is hoping for the more personal subjects to be included. He might tell you a few juicy bits about himself.’
‘I’m not interested in some weirdo’s juicy bits. People will think I’m setting myself up as a fortune teller. If anyone at the Give and Take sees one of these I’ll be a laughing stock.’
‘You’re so difficult sometimes.’ She sighed and put on her Cleopatra headdress, now even more ridiculous as she had replaced the green-eyed cobra’s head with a grotesque plastic spider. My irritation evaporated as I suppressed the urge to laugh. She said, ‘I put your name in as an acknowledgement of all the help you’re giving me in the shop. Actually, since you’ve raised the subject, I do sometimes sense that you might be gifted. Now don’t pull a face. I always envy the gifted. I’m not myself, you see, except that I think maybe I’m good at spotting those who are.’
‘Alicia, please tell me you won’t invite people to contact me to arrange horoscopes, fortune telling, or anything else of that kind?’
‘All right, if you must be so fussy. At least your boyfriend doesn’t have a closed mind. He’s agreed to come in on Thursday to help me add some new material to the reports on the astrology system.’
Dale did not believe in the stars any more than I did. He had probably agreed to help because he found it hard to say no. I went back to the bookshop to see if any orders had come in via the internet. Half an hour later she burst in, clearly overwrought. She was still wearing the Cleopatra headdress, the eyes of the plastic tarantula now glowing intermittently, presumably battery powered.
‘Ben, you haven’t sold any of the crystal scarab beetles lately, have you?’
They were probably the most expensive items not to be locked away in a glass case. ‘No. The rune parchments were still going well, but nobody bought scarab beetles.’
‘Three or four of them are missing.’
‘My only sale, other than the runes, was one tin of Nefertiti’s Nubian Assortment.’
‘The last time I checked the beetles was a week ago. My fault. We can’t watch everyone a hundred per cent of the time. It would be easy for anyone to slip a couple into a bag or their pocket.’
Unable to think of any comforting words, I offered to make her a cup of tea.
‘Thanks, but I’d better go back and open up again.’
‘Jeremy’s gone out, but I could come round a bit later when he’s back, maybe in half an hour?’
When I went round she was sitting behind the screen at the back, looking forlorn. I sat opposite her. ‘You could put the scarab beetles in the lockable display case.’
‘Yes, but it’s what the theft says about people in general. You begin to lose faith.’
‘Not everyone is trying to steal, are they? We’ll just have to keep an eye out for anything suspicious. In a shop you have to accept some losses.’
She said, ‘You did once suggest putting in security cameras, didn’t you? Things have not got as bad as that yet. Let’s talk about something else. You’re good with words, aren’t you. Ever thought about ghost writing?’
‘Don’t you have to be dead first?’
‘Very funny. You’re determined never to take anything I say seriously.’
‘I take shoplifting seriously. You see the funny side of some of this stuff yourself sometimes.’
‘Well, some of it… plastic vampire bats and spiders are just for amusement… people mainly buy them to give to their kids. The fascination, though, is in trying to get some insight into the unknown, or unexplained. There is uncertainty all around us. Even with ancient Egypt, despite all the artefacts and records we have, that world is mysterious to us. For instance, we don’t know why the pyramids at Giza were built to the particular size that they are, or why they are in the configuration of the stars in Orion’s belt, or why pyramid building was abandoned for underground tombs. All the unknowns in our world are worrying in one sense, but they also give us hope.’
In order to help with Alicia’s astrology system, Dale took off a few more of the hours that the hospital owed him. Her idea was to add some optional paragraphs to the standard reports for people who were trying to lose weight. This extra guidance was to slot in with all the usual guff about Jupiter coming into your birth-house and Mercury going into retrograde. He had been with her for nearly an hour when she rang to ask me to go over.
Dale had found, in the software package, a way of doing what she wanted, but having adapted a couple of sentences from a booklet on dieting, they were stuck for ideas. All they had put in was: Planetary alignments may make comfort foods particularly tempting, but remember, efforts to lose weight can so easily be undone. Be firm of purpose. The second was: Your ruling planet is in your birth sign. This may help with concerns about weight. You may find a gradual reduction in calorie intake over a longer period more successful than a short drastic diet.
‘People write whole books about dieting. I thought this would be easy,’ Alicia moaned. ‘Most of the hospital’s booklet is too clinical, too medical. The wording is wrong for a horoscope. You’re never lost for words. Any ideas?’
‘Well, let me see. How about: Cut down on sugary drinks while Saturn is in Uranus.’‘Is that dietary advice, or lewdness?’
‘Bit of both. How about: The influence of the moon makes this a good month for round continental cheeses; or you could say: as Taurus is your star sign avoid beef sausages; and for Pisces, Shellfish may help stimulate new interests.’
‘Oh for heaven’s sake, why can’t you be serious?’ she said.
‘That was just a bit of mental limbering up. I thought it might help free up our creative side. Dale calls it brainstorming.’
As we were talking, I noticed that the woman who had bought a tin of Nefertiti’s Nubian Assortment from me a few days before had come in again, and was browsing the stock intently. She decided on another tin of biscuits and walked over to the till. Alicia got up to serve her. Something, maybe the woman’s stance, maybe her forced grin, or the memory of the crumbs on her coat, made me suspicious. I ran across, and insisting on making sure the contents were complete, grabbed the tin and removed the lid. The inner transparent wrapper had been opened, two of the biscuits were missing, and in their place were four scarab beetles.
Alicia’s face became fierce with hurt and anger. The spider’s eyes of her headdress glowed intensely red. She took the scarab beetles from the box and held them out on her palm in front of the now terrified customer. ‘Well, we could make this a matter for the police. Otherwise, these four crystal scarabs will cost you twenty-five pounds each, on top of the price of the biscuits. Will you be paying in cash or by credit card?’ Her tone would have frightened off the runes demon.
The woman paid by credit card, her hands shaking, and hurried from the shop. Alicia turned to me. ‘See, I told you,’ she said.
Surely, I thought, she was not about to say she had suspected the woman of stealing all along. ‘Told me what?’
‘You know very well! Exactly what made you go and open the biscuit tin?’
‘Oh, I’m not sure, there was something about the woman, the way she…’
‘You knew, didn’t you, you just knew. I was right. You are gifted!’ she said, wagging her finger at me.
I shook my head. Dale came over and stood beside me, smiling mischievously. ‘You must admit she has a point. You definitely are gifted,’ he said, touching me in a very private place, the shop’s counter preventing Alicia from seeing what he was doing.
Perhaps the most curious line Alicia decided to stock was bio-thaumaturgical hats. She came bustling into the bookshop one day, her face flushed under the Cleopatra headdress, the spider’s eyes red but not glowing. ‘Tell me what you think of these hats,’ she asked. In the brochure of the Natural Clairvoyance Company she showed me pictures of three wide-brimmed hats decorated with plants. Attractive female models tilted their heads coquettishly under luxurious flowers and leaves.
The blurb claimed amazing benefits. One hat was said to have magical herbs to bring healing qualities, another to have a selection of meadow flowers that would help the wearer regain contact with nature; and the third was a ‘miracle of germination’ special that would awaken psychic powers or boost fertility. Alicia obviously wanted me to say they were wonderful. To avoid her question I said, ‘I’m afraid, Alicia, they wouldn’t suit me at all.’
‘Isis give me patience. It’s all right for you. You know that you’re gifted. You may deny it, but you don’t fool me. Try to imagine how I feel, being in the business but completely bereft of any sort of psychic ability. Anyway, let’s not get into that. What I’m asking you is – do you think the hats would be a good line for the shop?’
This notion that I was in some unspecified way gifted, based on me twigging who had stolen her scarab beetles, was an embarrassment. She had begun whispering to customers in Hatshepsut’s Pavilion, ‘That’s Ben; by the way, he’s gifted, you know.’ She ignored my denials because, she insisted, my actions had given me away. She said she understood my reluctance to talk about my powers, because psychics tend to be distracted a lot of the time, a weakness easily exploited by the unscrupulous. Thinking this to be another of her harmless fancies, I did not make a fuss about it. Only a few days earlier she had given Dale and me necklaces with a long central bead enamelled in rainbow colours – a discreet and attractive way of letting people know we were gay. Now she smiled at me, hoping for an encouraging comment about the Natural Clairvoyance Company’s bio-thaumaturgical hats.
‘You could order one of each, they should look impressive in the window at least. Why not? See if they sell.’
She smiled. ‘Do you really think I should, Ben? You’re not just saying so?’
‘Yes. You’ll try them on as well, won’t you, to see if they suit you?’
Obviously pleased to be told what she wanted to hear, she said: ‘Now you’re in a sensible mood, please give a bit more thought to the ghost writing; I’ve asked you about it before. Now don’t just dismiss it offhand like you did last time. Tell me you’ll think about it.’
I smiled but did not answer, hoping that shortly some other notion would displace the subject from her mind. Later that day I met Dale in the Give and Take and mentioned to him that Alicia had spoken of ghost writing again, thinking she wanted me to attempt spiritual contact with someone like Oscar Wilde. He said, ‘You’re confusing ghost writing with spirit writing.’
‘What?’
‘People who think the spirit of Charles Dickens is using them as a human agent to write a new novel. That’s spirit writing. Or you sometimes hear of automatic writing, though I’m not sure exactly what that’s supposed to be. Ghost writing is where a book, usually an autobiography, comes out in a celebrity’s name, but it was really been written by someone else who isn’t mentioned.’
‘Is it? Of course, now you’ve said that… yes, you’re right… how stupid of me.’
‘Could turn out to be interesting. Maybe she wants you to write her family history.’
‘I’m not sure if I want to get to know her as well as all that.’
Soon after this, Toby appeared at the bar, the first time I had seen him since he came into the bookshop to buy runes. He must have spotted us, but avoided looking our way. Smiles stayed at the other end of the bar, deliberately making him wait. A few minutes later two strangers came in, clearly there to meet Toby. Smiles beamed at us to get our attention, stuck his tongue out and moved his index finger from side to side under his chin in a throat-cutting gesture, then relented and went to serve them. The group did not stay long, perhaps ten minutes, and after they left Smiles picked something up from the floor near where they had been standing. He brought it over to us. ‘Your ex said he was just back from Amsterdam. He dropped this. It’s a packet of cannabis seeds.’ He left them on our table, and we carried on talking. When we left, for no real reason, I took them with me.
When the bio-thaumaturgical hats, decorated with artificial flowers and leaves, arrived, Alicia cleared everything else out of her shop window. Displayed on porcelain phrenology heads they were certainly eye-catching. According to the instruction sheet from the Natural Clairvoyance Company, for them to be fully effective the imitation herbage supplied had to be replaced with living plants. She asked me to help set up the ‘miracle of germination’ model, which came with a tubular propagation unit that fitted all the way around the wide brim, rather like a miniature rainwater gutter with a transparent plastic cover. The special growing medium was ready-sown with ‘inspirational’ seeds, including wood anemone to attract spirits of the forest with their psychic powers, enchanter’s nightshade to help with spells and charms, and red clover to improve fertility.
Toby’s cannabis seeds were still in my pocket, and when she was distracted briefly by a phone call I opened the envelope and dropped several into the compost. She turned her head suddenly and almost saw me. To engage her mind on something else I suggested we plant the other two hats with mustard and cress so that, should the psychic benefits prove elusive, at least we would have something green to put in our sandwiches.
‘Why can’t you ever be serious?’
‘Well, I seriously mind the shop while you go off to Egyptology meetings.’
‘Yes. But then you always make silly remarks if I mention ghost writing, and now you’re doing the
same about the hats, even though you said earlier that they were worth getting.’
‘Okay, what was it you had in mind about ghost writing? I’ll be serious.’
‘Are you really going to listen at long last? This concerns someone very famous, very much in the
‘If you want me to listen you’ll have to tell me what this is all about. What kind of person are we talking about, a politician, a TV personality?’
‘Promise me you won’t let this go any further? All right, he’s a rock and roll star, one of the biggest: Rick Schwagger of The Rocking Boulders. A long time ago when he was going through a particularly difficult time, he came to me for advice. We are still in touch… a couple of times a year at least.’
Could it really be that Alicia, who was about to remove her Cleopatra headdress and put on a newly planted miracle of germination bio-thaumaturgical hat, was in contact with such a world-renowned star of rock and roll? ‘You’re telling me you know Rick Schwagger?’
‘Shh. Keep your voice down. Years ago he needed guidance on dealing with a sect claiming to be a revival of an old Egyptian religion. The Oracles of Aten, they called themselves. In the nineteen-sixties strange hippie cults were springing up everywhere. You probably remember seeing some copies of a book called Oracles of Aten among the stock you took down to Jeremy’s basement. Their leader was hoping to lure Schwagger’s group in the same way as that bogus maharishi got his hooks into the Beatles. They claimed their beliefs harked back to the period when Nefertiti’s husband, the pharaoh Akhenaten, turned away from the religion of Isis and the other traditional gods, and set up a new capital city for himself in the Nile delta. The modern sect lasted only a year or so.
‘Rick Schwagger has been trying to find someone to help him write his autobiography for years. Part of the problem is, he blows hot and cold about it. Everything would depend on whether he took to you or not. Are you interested enough for me to mention your name?’
Simply to meet Rick Schwagger would be fantastic, maybe the most significant event in my whole life. Putting cannabis seeds into the brim of Alicia’s new hat now seemed a very silly thing to have done. What if she found out, and the prank made her think me too unreliable? Still, I could hardly go digging around in the brim in the hope of finding them again. And they would probably not come up.