Smoke and Mirrors

four-footed, sure-footed, down the white road.

What if the hunters come?

What if they come?

Be bold, I whisper once, before I die. But not too bold . . .

And then my tale is done.

QUEEN OF KNIVES

The reappearance of the lady is a matter of individual taste.

— WILL GOLDSTON, TRICKS AND ILLUSIONS

When I was a boy, from time to time,

I stayed with my grandparents

(old people: I knew they were old—

chocolates in their house

remained uneaten until I came to stay,

this, then, was aging).

My grandfather always made breakfast at sunup:

a pot of tea, for her and him and me,

some toast and marmalade

(the Silver Shred and the Gold). Lunch and dinner,

those were my grandmother’s to make, the kitchen

was again her domain, all the pans and spoons,

the mincer, all the whisks and knives, her loyal subjects.

She would prepare the food with them, singing her little songs:

Daisy, Daisy, give me your answer do,

or sometimes,

You made me love you, I didn’t want to do it,

I didn’t want to do it.

She had no voice, not one to speak of.

Business was very slow.

My grandfather spent his days at the top of the house,

in his tiny darkroom where I was not permitted to go,

bringing out paper faces from the darkness,

the cheerless smiles of other people’s holidays.

My grandmother would take me for gray walks along the promenade.

Mostly I would explore

the small wet grassy space behind the house,

the blackberry brambles, and the garden shed.

It was a hard week for my grandparents

forced to entertain a wide-eyed boy-child, so

one night they took me to the King’s Theatre. The King’s . . .

Variety!

The lights went down, red curtains rose.

A popular comedian of the day

came on, stammered out his name (his catchphrase),

pulled out a sheet of glass, and stood half-behind it,

raising the arm and leg that we could see;

reflected,

he seemed to fly—it was his trademark,

so we all laughed and cheered. He told a joke or two,

quite badly. His haplessness, his awkwardness,

these were what we had come to see.

Bemused and balding and bespectacled,

he reminded me a little of my grandfather. And then the comedian was done.

Some ladies danced all legs across the stage.

A singer sang a song I didn’t know.

The audience were old people,

like my grandparents, tired and retired,

all of them laughing and applauding.

In the interval my grandfather

queued for a choc ice and a couple of tubs.

We ate our ices as the lights went down.

The SAFETY CURTAIN rose, and then the real curtain.

The ladies danced across the stage again,

and then the thunder rolled, the smoke went puff,

a conjurer appeared and bowed. We clapped.

The lady walked on, smiling from the wings:

glittered. Shimmered. Smiled.

We looked at her, and in that moment flowers grew,

and silks and pennants tumbled from his fingertips.

The flags of all nations, said my grandfather, nudging me.

They were up his sleeve.

Since he was a young man

(I could not imagine him as a child),

my grandfather had been, by his own admission,

one of the people who knew how things worked.

He had built his own television,

my grandmother told me, when they were first married;

it was enormous, though the screen was small.

This was in the days before television programs;

they watched it, though,

unsure whether it was people or ghosts they were seeing.

He had a patent, too, for something he invented,

but it was never manufactured.

Stood for the local council, but he came in third.

He could repair a shaver or a wireless,

develop your film, or build a house for dolls.

(The doll’s house was my mother’s. We still had it at my house;

shabby and old, it sat out in the grass, all rained-on and forgot.)

The glitter lady wheeled on a box.

The box was tall: grown-up-person-sized and black.

She opened up the front.

They turned it round and banged upon the back.

The lady stepped inside, still smiling.

The magician closed the door on her.

When it was opened, she had gone.

He bowed.

Mirrors, explained my grandfather. She’s really still inside.

At a gesture, the box collapsed to matchwood.

A trapdoor, assured my grandfather;

Grandma hissed him silent.

The magician smiled, his teeth were small and crowded;

he walked, slowly, out into the audience.

He pointed to my grandmother, he bowed.

a Middle European bow,

and invited her to join him on the stage.

The other people clapped and cheered.

My grandmother demurred. I was so close

to the magician that I could smell his aftershave

and whispered “Me, oh, me . . .” But still,

he reached his long fingers for my grandmother.

Pearl, go on up, said my grandfather. Go with the man.

My grandmother must have been, what? Sixty, then?

She had just stopped smoking,

was trying to lose some weight. She was proudest

of her teeth, which, though tobacco-stained, were all her own.

My grandfather had lost his, as a youth,

riding his bicycle; he had the bright idea

to hold on to a bus to pick up speed.

The bus had turned,

and Grandpa kissed the road.

She chewed hard licorice, watching TV at night,

or sucked hard caramels, perhaps to make him wrong.

She stood up, then, a little slowly.

Put down the paper tub half-full of ice cream,

the little wooden spoon—

went down the aisle, and up the steps.

And on the stage.

The conjurer applauded her once more—

A good sport. That was what she was. A sport.

Another glittering woman came from the wings,

bringing another box—

This one was red.

That’s her, nodded my grandfather, the one

who vanished off before. You see? That’s her.

Perhaps it was. All I could see

was a woman who sparkled, standing next to my grandmother

(who fiddled with her pearls and looked embarrassed).

The lady smiled and faced us, then she froze,

a statue, or a window mannequin.

The magician pulled the box,

with ease,

down to the front of stage, where my grandmother waited.

A moment or so of chitchat:

where she was from, her name, that kind of thing.

They’d never met before? She shook her head.