Chapter 5 Bottling It
Nobody had been hurt in the tram crash. It was incredible. The damage was enormous, the entire front of the shop had caved in and much of the one one next door was smashed too. There was talk of the building being condemned, the upper floors were dangerously unstable with nothing substantial beneath them to support them. We were evacuated extremely quickly as was everybody from the surrounding buildings and the whole area was cordoned off. After all our details were taken and when the paramedics were satisfied that we were unharmed we were allowed to go. Everyone was saying what a terrible accident it was. We weren't.
'Are you suggesting that somebody caused that crash to deliberately injure you?' With his shop in ruins Dan had somehow ended up tagging along with us.
'Injure us!' I don't know why but I remember feeling more angry than shocked. 'They were trying to kill us! That thing didn't just come off the rails. It carried on half way down the street and then picked out the shop that we were in.'
Dan nodded thoughtfully. 'Yeah, that does seem a bit odd.'
Amber gave a one of her odd snorting laughs at that. She was giving off that slightly-bored-with-everything air that was her default attitude but it did seem a bit more forced than usual. Her eyes looked a bit uncertain, a bit afraid. I wondered if I should say something but then she made her position clear by saying something dumb to me first.
'You are so going to eat your words when you meet Miss Booty.'
We were wandering through town in a dazed fashion in no particular direction. Unconsciously, I think we were trying to get as far away from the devastation of the tram crash as possible. There was a sense that someone in the group must know where we were going and so we were all sort of following each other. I quickly came out of my daze when I realised that it was Amber who'd been steering us. We were on Oldham Street. I threw my head back in despair.
'Argh! We are not going to get our palms read! There is no situation in the world, certainly not the one we're in right now, where handing over money so someone can check out our “lifelines” (I'm sorry to say that, yes, I did make the air quotes sign at that point) will help. I know what's in our future: More things trying to crash into us, more running around with very little idea what we're supposed to do and family Christmasses round at the cone-heads house.'
'Have you figured out which way round that arrow thingy works yet?'
'No, I haven't had time to -'
'No? Right, shut up then. Miss Booty it is.'
I looked over to Dan for support. He was nodding thoughtfully as if considering all the pros and cons. He said, 'I think it was Sherlock Holmes who said that when you can't come up with anything else, whatever's left, no matter how rubbish it is, must be the solution.' He pushed his glasses back up his nose and fixed me with a grave stare. 'Sherlock Holmes was a clever bloke. We've got nothing else to try. Might as well give it a go.'
At the time I thought that was the most useless argument I'd ever heard, but looking back it must have been good because we went to this Miss Booty's.
There was a narrow alley off the main road, surprisingly busy for such a small street. Signs protruded from the walls on either side. There was an old record shop, a hairdresser's, a martial arts studio ('that'd be more use,' I suggested), a couple of shops selling items of dubious moral character and at the end, in the shape of a giant hand, a sign for a fortune teller.
The door to this emporium of wonders was covered in dirty flaking pink paint. At first I thought it might have been abandoned, but through the dirty glass a small sign declared the place was 'OPEN'. The door frame was surrounded on either side by windows that were filled up with faded photographs of a young woman dressed in various versions of the same outfit: long pink robes with a small cape that was fastened with a brooch in the shape of a crescent moon. In each she was pictured smiling next to what I presume was a celebrity. I didn't recognise any of them – from the clothes I supposed it must have been in the 70s or 80s. I don't know. I like old telly, but I wasn't really into Light Entertainment and I'm no fashion expert. Each had an autographed dedication but again I didn't recognise any of the names: “Thanks again, Nina. You're a Doll! Love, Jimmy xx” or “Nina – Bless you, darling! All my love, Lenny X” There were messages from Marti, Larry and Les too, all of which seemed to impress Dan but I was none the wiser.
'Are we going in then?' asked Amber.
'It was your idea, you go first.'
'You are such a child!' said Amber, undermining her point somewhat by sticking out her tongue.
The opening door was accompanied by an old-fashioned shop bell announcing our presence. We descended a small flight of steps into what looked like a small pink version of a doctor's waiting room. There were two short benches against opposite walls – I couldn't ever imagine there being a queue of people that long in this dingy little place – and more of the signed photographs over every wall. There were also charts showing the names of each of the various lines on the palm of the hand. All bobbins, of course, but I was interested to find out that another name for palm reading is 'chiromancy'. I do like discovering new words, even bogus ones.
There was door opposite the front door and it was slightly open. I thought about peeking through it but was stopped by a voice coming from behind it.
'Be with you in a minute.' It was a man's voice – I wasn't expecting that.
'Who's that?' I mouthed to Amber.
'I don't know,' she said in a stage whisper. 'There was only Miss Booty here last time.'
The door opened and the owner of the voice was revealed – a tall, thin man in his early thirties wearing a white shirt, pink Pringle tank top, plaid trousers and a flat cap. He approached Dan.
'Do you know what Mark Twain said about golf?' he asked him.
'Yes,' replied Dan.
The pink golfer looked disappointed at that. 'Oh,' he said and sat on a bench. 'Are you here to see Nina?'
'Miss Booty? Yes. Is she in?' asked Amber.
Sounds of an argument in another room got closer and closer. The pink golfer theatrically cocked an ear in the direction of the open door.
'Yes, I think she is.'
The words of the argument became louder and clearer. There seemed to be three voices.
'Don't you dare ever show up drunk here again! In fact don't you dare ever show up here!'
' M'sorry, Nina. I didn't know who to turn to. He won't listen to me. He never listens to me.'
'That's because I've gone deaf from the constant noise! You never shut up! Day and night – can't you be quiet for just five minutes?'
'No-one listens! No-one ever listens to me!'
'Go on, get out! Get out the pair of you.'
The argument entered the room. Two of the participants shared one body. I know troll can be a bit of a catch-all term for anything big and horrid but I'm pretty sure that's what it was. A seven-foot two-headed troll, crying and shouting at itself wearing nothing but an oversize raincoat.
'And get some clothes on! You're lucky that ogre left his coat here.' Shooing them along was the young woman from the photographs, dressed in pink pyjamas decorated with a cloud pattern. Her long blonde hair was in curlers and she was wearing her cape as a sort of dressing gown. 'Go and do something nice together. Go and find some trees to smash or something.'
Both heads of the troll perked up at this. 'Smashing!' they said together. Then, 'Jinx!' That made them both laugh and they left the shop in a much better mood, even chuckling at the tinkling of the bell as they opened the door.
'Bye, Nina! Sorry about the hassle, Horatio!' The pink golfer gave a half-hearted wave at the mention of his name.
It's fair to say the three of us had stood there with our mouths wide open during all this. Dan in particular was shocked at the casual way a giant beast had been let loose on the streets of Manchester.
'You're not just going to let that thing run wild, are you?' he demanded of Nina.
She held her hands up and shrugged. 'Not my problem any more.'
'It never is, is it?' Horatio the golfer wasn't impressed.
Nina snapped. 'Shut up, Horatio! I'm sorry I interrupted your precious pitch and putt. But you know talking down a twin-headed troll's a two-person job. There wasn't anybody else I could call on a Sunday.'
Horatio sighed. 'No, I suppose there wasn't'
'Thank you,' said Nina awkwardly.
'Sorry,' announced Dan, holding up his mobile phone. 'I'm having trouble getting a signal down here. Just going to pop outside for a second to text my mum, tell her what's going on.'
He skipped up the stairs and into the alley outside. Everybody else was left there in the waiting room. There was a slight pause while the mood of the moment changed gears and then Nina clapped her hands and rubbed them together in eager expectation.
'Right then, what's all this about a Lodestone?'
More soonliest
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