Hot Stew by Fiona Mozley (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

they look gnarled. The soft tissue beneath his eyes droops and tugs his lower lids to reveal a thick line of blood at the base of his eyeballs and when he walks he rolls on the balls of his feet like a strange bipedal spinning top.

Debbie McGee rarely looks at the Archbishop, so hideous is his image. But tonight she gazes at him intently as he riddles and reasons.

“Where did you feel them, my child?” The Archbishop addresses Debbie directly. This was not usual. “Where did you feel the tremors?”

Debbie McGee is a quiet person. She only rarely uses her voice, and sometimes when she opens her mouth and sets her tongue in motion to form words, her breath doesn’t come as it should, and no sound is made. This happens now.

“Speak up!”

“I felt it in the ground when I was sleeping through there.” She gestures to the other side of the large cellar. “And I thought I felt it earlier in the day, when we were out and about.”

“Where?” The Archbishop is insistent. She’s not used to him paying her any attention.

“I, um, felt it over by the cranes. I felt it in the soles of my feet when we were standing there on the pavement.”

The old man turns his attention to Paul Daniels. “Did you feel it too?”

“Nah. I didn’t feel nothing. And I wouldn’t listen to this mad cow, neither.” He’s referring to his lover. “She’s bat-shit crazy, this one.”

“You do not believe.”

“No, I do not believe! I’m not having any of it.”

The Archbishop believes, and others in the group follow his lead. He pulls himself into an upright position, and others get up too. Soon afterwards, they set off to find the epicenter of the mysterious vibrations. The Archbishop leads his flock around his archdiocese and as they walk he tells stories of the past.

“It’s named for the sound the men and the animals made when there was hunting afoot,” the Archbishop states. “A so and a ho from man and beast. A so ho, a so ho. That’s what they shrieked when they got on their horses and chased deer through the forest. Before there were bricks and windows and sewers, there were grasses and roots and trees and deer. Deer deer deer that brought the men out of the city on horses with a so and a ho.”

Paul Daniels initiates his own line of conversation. He pulls on the arm of Debbie McGee’s jumper and whispers into her ear. “We need new tricks,” he says. “That business at the pub this afternoon can’t happen again. These days any old sod with a mobile phone can go on the internet and discover our secrets. I’ve heard there are actually magicians out there who video themselves doing tricks, and then they put them up on the internet and then they explain how they performed the trick! Can you believe it? They give away our secrets! Whatever happened to the Magic Circle? Whatever happened to our code of honor? How can an honest performer make a living if his punters can all look up the routine on the YouTube? No, no. It can’t happen again, my lovely. We need new tricks.”

Debbie McGee makes no response.

“We need to carve out a patch for ourselves, like them in Covent Garden do. They set up an arena with a little rope on the ground and everyone gathers round and they’ve got themselves a captive audience for their whole routine. I’ve seen people put tenners in their pot at the end. Do you hear me? Ten-pound notes! We’ll set up in Soho Square or something and we’ll perform a full routine. We’ll do proper tricks. None of these cards and cups shit for me anymore. I’ll get one of them boxes you can fit a person into. And I’ll put you in it, my lovely. And then. And then, I’ll make you disappear. Bam.”

The woman they call Debbie McGee makes no sign she’s heard anything her companion has been saying.

“What the fuck are you on about now?” says someone from behind. Richard Scarcroft is an army veteran. He joined the Archbishop’s flock reluctantly after falling out with the managers of the local shelter and finding himself in need of somewhere else to sleep. He doesn’t hold with the Archbishop’s nonsense, and still less with the nonsense propelled by this shady man everyone keeps referring to as Paul Daniels.

“Do you know how much skill that kind of thing requires?” says Richard. “I’ve seen the tricks you do, and they’re shite. Absolute shite. As if you could pull off anything on that scale. Not to mention the equipment you’d need. How on earth would you afford all that? With the pennies you make from your cards and cups? What a load of shite.”

“Who asked you? Shut your face.”

Richard Scarcroft turns away. It’s not important enough for him to start an argument. He’s said his piece.

The group follows the Archbishop around a corner and comes to a building site. It’s quiet now, after hours, but for security reasons it’s illuminated from above by powerful floodlights. Long, sharp shadows are cast by heavy machinery. Winches and pulleys hang from cranes and sway in the breeze. There’s a criss-cross of girders and scaffolding; sheets of tarpaulin flap and smack their tethers. Debbie McGee notices the shadows and thinks that if this were the only bit of the scene you could see, like if your vision couldn’t take in light, only shade, you could just about make out a forest in this tangle. She keeps this thought to herself.

A King Among Dogs

Agatha lies in bed waiting for Fedor to come back from his walk. Her best ideas come to her when she’s just settled down for the night. It used to be one of the few times of day she could relax and be herself, by herself. Now she’s alone much of the time, but the habit of spending this window in quiet reflection has