33
“Thank you Mr Enchantment, that was excellent”, said Mrs Cassian, handing him a £20 note over the garden gate. He had given her a reading, and like most of the others, she did not question, simply took everything he said to be absolute and true. Curio thought that of himself also, so both existed in a state of blissful ignorance of the reservations that could be levelled against its validity. Doubt was a stranger in the believer’s mind.
“Can you give me another reading sometime?” she said. “Next week, perhaps”. Curio was about to say that that would prove to be fruitless, because the prophecies he had told her would be the same. When they came to pass, then another reading may be justified, but he would be telling her the same predictions and information, but, he thought, if she wants to pay for the same facts, just worded differently, then what was wrong with that? “Okay,” he said, “give me a ring”. She gave him a wide, satisfied grin, and waved him farewell.
As he passed by Greenoaks shopping centre, two teenage girls walked past him with big wide grins on their reddened faces.
“Hi, Curio,” one of them said, giving him a brief wave. They were obviously too embarrassed to stop, so quickly walked on, glancing back slightly before walking across the main road. Curio couldn’t help but smile. Fans, he thought. They recognised me. He walked into a newsagent’s and bought a loaf of bread and a newspaper. It was hard to not smile, even walking all the way up the flights of stairs to his abode.
He was soon relaxing in front of a blank television, reading the newspaper, the only sound that of the pages turning. Perhaps the story that piqued his interest more than anything else was filed away in a side column on page nine. ‘Charity worker suicide’. He read how a Miss Isabel Clemence had been talking to a volunteer in a charity shop with which she was associated. She had been on a lunch break, the volunteer standing at the till. It is reported that midway through a normal conversation, Isabel had pulled out a knife, taken out her tongue, sliced it across, and put her hand tightly over her mouth to stop any blood coming out. The volunteer had been frozen to the spot while Isabel choked to death.
After a few minutes, he was standing at the telephone. There was one message. He played it:
“Curio..please help”. The woman sounded upset, as though the very act of talking was difficult for her.
“I’ve lost Fingal, my Cockatiel…he’s...he’s been missin’ now…for about six hours…please ..could you find him for me..?” She clicked off, and Curio shook his head at the telephone. Try the parks, try the roofs. Speak to a few cats that are not hungry, he thought. Turning to walk into the kitchen, the contraption rang, and he hurriedly snatched it up.
“Hi, Curio Enchantment speaking”.
“Hello, Mr Enchantment, I work for a magazine called: ‘Lazy days’. It’s a weekly real-life experiences publication with a national circulation. I wish to do a feature on you”. Curio smiled, a rush of pleasure firing through him.
After a few minutes, he put the telephone down. He was still happy. They wanted to do a double-page spread article on him, and take a few pictures of him in his home. They were due in three days time. He checked his diary. Two readings that day would have to be rescheduled. Today, he had to be at Mr Glendon’s house for a reading at 2pm. He made himself a cup of tea and then sat at the computer, starting it up.
National circulation, he thought. This could be it, recognition nationwide. It would be a showcase for him to prove to the rest of the world that he had a genuine gift. The journalist wanted to focus on his psychic detection. Curio was to discuss his technique and the implications of it, but as that was an aspect of his endowment, he knew he would ask the journalist to include his other attributes. Should the person simply want to focus on his success at detection, then that would be fine, he thought.
He didn’t want to give the person any reason to not go through with the article. It was to be one of those features that gave £200 for a ‘true story’. It was the type of magazine that featured what seemed to be ex-tabloid journalists who simply couldn’t let go of their urges to create exaggerated tales geared towards sensationalism rather than truth. To attach the words: ‘true story’ to it, seemed to be rather fanciful. They featured such headlines as: ‘I killed and ate my Father’. ‘Why I adore my trans-sexual convict lover’, and ‘I married my son’. Curio wondered what his would be: ‘Master of detection strikes a fifth’. ‘The North-west Psyking finds five in a row’. Yes, he thought, nodding, that’ll do nicely. £200, plus it was a bigger platform for appreciation. He checked his email, and saw that there was nothing of any interest.
There was nothing from Ribbet, or Abe. There was nothing of any significance on the ‘Uncanny kingdoms’ message-board either. Well, Abe, he thought. Scared to face me? Sitting there in a bad mood because you’ve been proven wrong? Nevermind. He shut down the computer, stood up and walked across to the window. The car-park was empty, and he stood there, looking out until it was time for his appointment.