The Magician

"Mo, I have a number of confessions to make to you," Ty spoke as he drew level with Moses, while Jessica ran ahead towards the larger tent, where a man in the waiter's livery of one of the hotels in the next bay was laying a table with two jugs, one hot one cold. Already in place, Moses could see, were glasses, plates and covered trays of food, breakfast. A lady wearing a sun dress under a large straw hat, to keep the hot sun off her face and bare shoulders, was lying out cutlery.

"Well, this is more convenient than having to magic something up every time, Ty." Moses said. "It's your magic power now, you can do with it as you think fit. I have no objection to what you've done."

"Well, we done a bit more than just tents and breakfast, Mo," Jenny-Clare said as she drew next to him, the child in her arms squirming to be put down on the sand. Once she was put down the baby toddled quite uncertainly up the firm white sand to follow her older sister. Jessica turned back and took her hand and the two girls made their way slowly up the beach.

"Yes, Mo," continued Ty, "as soon as I realised I had the magic power the moment I woke up, I set about building up that manual which should have been passed to you, so I could understand what I could and couldn't do."

"We did a lot of that experimenting here, Mo," Jenny-Clare said, "the kids absolutely love it here."

"Once I was confident in using the magic, I used it to forge a Power of Attorney," Ty said, handing over a piece of legal paperwork, "Here it is, I have no further use for it, but I will tell you exactly what I did with it, OK."

"Ty, you know I've done worse things with the magic, if you've robbed me blindly, well, I guess twelve years ago I robbed a lot of people blind without even realising it."

"Nobody got robbed, Mo, least of all you. I visited the Majestic Hotel, which I found out from Companies House that you own jointly with your wife Mavis as company secretary through a holding company registered in London. And that the various leisure companies are separate companies, wholly or partially owned subsidiaries with partners, some of whom were the chief and leaders of the local community. You bought out the destructive developers and gave shares to your friends who had vested interest in this land. The businesses are all successful and your dividends have been accrued, all taxes paid, in an account for you that your management management company you set up has been investing in even more local projects as well as spreading the investments across a wide range of funds and securities. All of that is untouched and waiting for you to —"

"Ty, you and your family could move here, have a house built here —"

"That's what we were coming around to, Mo," Ty interrupted, "as soon as we got to the Majestic and spoke to the manager, showed him your fake POA, he had the group chairman come meet us. In the meantime they put us up in the penthouse suite, all gratis. When the chairman turned up he told us he was the Old Chief's son and he grew up with your tricks and how generous and kind you and Mavis were to his family. Mo, they love you here, he dug out and showed me the plans of the house you and Mavis were going to build before her illness struck. And he tells me, even though the island belongs to you, the Island Council will approve whatever you plan to do here. He beefed up the security along the fence, because people had been getting in, and he erected these two marquees to use until you are ready to build. Oh, the Island Council will allow driftwood, but the hotel's building contractor will source the materials and construct it. They are already digging channels to bring in utilities connected to the island grid.

"I've seen that YouTube of your guest appearance many times, I grew up with it. You were a class act. You walk on silently wearing an evening dinner suit, top hat, red cummerbund, white silk scarf, white gloves and a cane, carrying a small glass aquarium. When you reach centre stage, your glamorous assistant brings out a small folding table which she unfolds and covers the top and about twelve inches all around in a shiny silk cloth. You smile at her in thanks and place the aquarium on one end of the table and open the hinged lid."

"That aquarium was bloody heavy."

"You carried it on and off well. You place your cane on the table lengthwise in front of you as the assistant walks off. You bow silently to the audience who had clapped you on set and now await your tricks. You remove the hat and place it top side down on the table. You wave a hand over the hat and a pair of white bunny ears appears at the top followed by an inquisitive rabbit face. You pick up the rabbit by the ears and pop him into the aquarium. It is a very white and very active bunny who hops and explores the aquarium while you wave a hand over the hat and pull out another bunny and pop him into the aquarium. Soon you have six crowded rabbits but still waving hands over the hat expecting more but no more come. Your assistant returns with a cardboard box and, as you perform other tricks, like pulling a dozen ping pong balls from your mouth, or packs of playing cards, Rubic cubes, tennis balls, etc, from behind your ear, or an enormous silk bunting ribbon from your top pocket and throwing everything into the hat, your lovely assistant is smiling at the audience and curtsying as she picks up rabbits one by one from the aquarium. The audience don't know where to look, at the girl, the rabbits or you. She waits until you pull a rugby ball from behind your head and place it on the hat; sideways on it won't go in, and you look confused. Then your assistant, balancing the closed cardboard box on one hand, turns the rugby ball until it is pointy end down and pushes it down into the hat as if meeting some resistance. So good. This raises the laugh of the night. Then you peer into the hat, you pick it up, showing the top of your hat before putting it on. Your face registers discomfort, so you take it off again and a seventh rabbit poke his head up, to,laughter from the audience. Your assistant takes the hat, places it and the curious bunny on the cardboard box and exits stage left to loud applause. You pick up the cane, rap it hard on the floor and suddenly you are holding Gerald the Snake by the head and you drop him spitting and snapping into the aquarium and close the lid. You lift up the aquarium, balanced on one hand, pull up the silk tablecloth from the centre and stuff a few inches into your top pocket, thus exposing the cross section of the folding table, containing none of the objects you placed in the hat, then pick up the table, which immediately folds up flat and you walk off to thunderous applause, with viewers wondering how you did it."

"Magic, my dear boy, magic," grinned Moses.

"Indeed, and as it came without a manual, I've been trial'n'erroring this magic for a week and think I've figured it out."

"Really?" Moses asked, lifting his eyebrows, "you mean, I had it all that time and never figured it out but you have in just a week?"

"Mo, this gift, and it is a gift not a curse, was handed to me carefully by you, telling me what you knew and what you thought its limitations were. It was dumped on you, without any explanation, at a point in your life where your marriage was broken, you were drunk, dissolute and depressed. Rather than embrace it, I think you feared it, realising almost immediately how destructive it could be."

"True, it was never a gift for me. I used it, earned a sort of living from it, even obtained all this around us from its power but I never really enjoyed being a magician. Mavis was the one thing that truly was a gift."

"Well, we have a surprise for you," Jenny-Clare said as they approached the breakfast table, where the lady was bending over seating Jessica and pouring her a plastic tumbler of orange juice.

The lady looked up and smiled at Moses.

"Mavis!" Moses exclaimed as the lady replaced the jug and walked towards him, arms outstretched.

"Yes, Mo. It's me," Mavis said, "Ty brought me back, perfectly cured, full of my memories and my love for you."

They embraced, tears flowed. Mavis waved to Ty, Jessica, Jenny-Clare and Mickey the baby, "Group hug, come on, we love you all so much."

"But how are you here? Will you disappear tonight, Mavis?"

"No, honey," she replied, "Ty brought me back three days ago. I've been adjusting, getting my bearings and my memories back, renewing friendships with our old islander friends and preparing for you to come home. Ty will explain."

"I feel such an old fool —"

"No, Mo, you didn't know what was capable, and I have only scratched the surface of the power of this magic. You were tired and on a crowded boat when you realised you had magic power, you stopped a hurricane and almost destroyed an island. No wonder you were frightened by it. I am young and fresh and had a good intro before I took it on. I was able to come here where I couldn't do any damage, putting my electrical sub-contract business on hold. I took time to reflect on what you told me and I think that Gerald was possibly the key to my understanding what happens, well, Gerald and the sugar cube," Ty chuckled.

"Hey guys," Jenny-Clare said, "Let's get out of this hot noonday sun, enjoy our breakfast in the cool shade and Ty can tell you what he's found out, he's not stopped talking about it for days!"

They sat and enjoyed their breakfast, with Mickey entertaining them as she tucked into her breakfast, while Mo and Mavis ate one-handed as they refused to let go of the other's hand.

"So, Ty, what have you discovered?"

"Well, this is only a guess, but I think this magic power was mainly used for parlour tricks, where a magician entertained a sultan every night, rather like the Arabian Knights legend. It appears the magic has a will of its own and assumes, unless told otherwise, that the magic by default is only temporary. So, the sugar cube that was a cockroach, turns back to a sugar cube after the act is over. Gerald was the same, you turned a live animal into the walking cane just before walking on stage and he was only a cane for 5.12 minutes, according to YouTube before you turned him back into a snake. When Gerald died and you turned him into the walking cane, the magic used its intuition to assume this was permanent rather than temporary and thus Gerald became a permanent walking stick."

"So my taking away Mavis' pain was assumed to be temporary? I could've cured her permanently?"

"Yes, but remember Mo, you never felt in control of this power, the magic sensed this and knew you didn't want Mavis to be immortal, so the magic kept doing what you asked as temporary relief. When I asked the magic power to bring Mavis back but permanently cured of the cancer, the magic knew Mavis intimately, of course, and could bring her back exactly as she was in 2007 and permanently cured. Mavis was confused at first, she was like Rip Van Winkle, asleep for 13 years, she needed to reorientate herself and get her thoughts back together before facing the world. Having Jenny-Clare and the girls here helped. She's now their honorary grandmother and you're an honorary grandfather, if you want the job."

"Yes, I do. But what are you going to do?"

Jenny-Clare spoke up at this point, "it has long been Ty's dream of being a full-time magician. By giving him this power he can realise it, and have the best of both worlds. If you agree to let us live here permanently —"

"Absolutely," Moses, interjected, "we have no children, we've outlived all our other family, as far as I am concerned, and Mavis is nodding in her agreement, you're our heirs, what's ours is yours."

"In that case, Ty will tour and build a reputation as an act, a mixture of illusion and some subtle magic, through one night performances until he can find a permanent season in somewhere like Blackpool and in years to come, Las Vegas —"

"I'm sure he'd soon get offers. I know from watching him that he has the basic skills and the stage presence to be a success."

"So do we. So, when he retires to his lodgings every night after the show, he can magically return here and relax with his family, rehearse, work out new acts, magic up the appropriate apparatus and put together a great act."

"And," Mavis said, "we can support him as our protégé, we may be old codgers but we are still legends in magic circles and can open doors to Ty."

"And you still look a million dollars, without all that pain," Moses chuckled, "and your another 13 years younger than me ... I felt like a cradle snatcher 50 years ago, I look even more of a dirty old man now than I ever did!"

"Tosh, we get you a bit more sunshine and fresh air and exercise, Mo," Mavis playfully slapped his shoulder, "and you'll look as though you've only just hung up the top hat and handed your legacy on to Ty, which is in fact what you've just done."

Moses stood and raised a glass of orange juice, his 'family' around him did the same, even Jessica and Mickey held up their beverages, "Here's to a life full of love and magic. To magic everyone."

"To magic!'

The end