'Have you found it yet?'
I shook my head.
'Not yet, but don’t worry.'
Then shoved my hand roughly into the red stuff, seeming to lose first one arm then the other as I delved shoulder deep into her open wound, pulling out latex guts and organs, tutting at her liver, marvelling at the contours of her still beating heart, yohohoing as I hauled her intestines the full length of the stage like a reeling routing sailor tearing down the rigging. The audience laughed, delighted with this Grand Guignol conjuring. I pulled a succession of impossible objects from her slim form, a bottle of champagne, a waxen head I’d found in Costume, a bicycle wheel. Each one received its own slick comment and was welcomed with applause. At last I found the ring. I spat on it then rubbed it clean against the hem of my operating gown and held it triumphantly in the air. On a rig high above the hall the lighting engineer turned a spot to face a glitter ball. Bright diamonds of white light bounced across the stage then glimmered into the beyond, embracing the auditorium, dancing across the faces of the crowd as if the gleam from Sylvie’s ring were dazzling the whole world.
It was as heavy-handed as the ta-da at the end of a poor symphony but at least the audience knew it was time to clap. And they did, there were even a few cheers. I unbuckled Sylvie, helped her to her feet then stood her centre stage, noticing how the bloody dress clung to her curves and the hand that accepted the cheap glass ring trembled. She grinned at me, blood-spattered and beautiful; I smiled back then put my arm against her shoulders and made her take a bow before giving her a quick peck on the cheek and returning her back into the audience.
Alone on stage I ripped off the gown, wiping my face as clean of the stain as I could in one slick move, and stood, arms outstretched in my dinner suit, drinking in the applause, trying to look like James Bond after a violent victory. There was no doubt about it, the trick had gone down well. But no one could mistake it for a clever conjuring.
I cleaned myself up then waited backstage for what felt like an age. Eventually Sylvie burst into the dressing- room breathless with amusement and made to grab me. I threw a towel at her, ruffling her still sticky hair but keeping her at arm’s length.
'Watch the suit.'
She took the towel and rubbed it through her hair still laughing.
'Why’d I bother with makeup and fashion all these years? All I needed to do was throw a bucket of blood over my head and I’d have got all the attention I needed.'
I passed her a packet of facial wipes. I’d had a couple of tilts of the bottle of whisky in the room but I was too thirsty for spirits.
'Bit of a man-magnet were you?'
'You’ve no idea.' Her laugh was loud and buzzed up. 'They loved us didn’t they?'
'I guess so.'
Sylvie smiled, satisfied that I was as pleased as she was, then she turned round and I unzipped her dress. The phoney blood resisted mixing with her sweat, trembling in droplets on her pale back, like tiny worlds caught on a microscope slide. I fought the urge to trail my finger down the damp of her spine.
'D’you fancy going for a pint?'
She laughed.
'A man out there offered me champagne.'
I turned slowly to face the wall, feeling vaguely sleazy as I watched her reflection shrug off the ruined dress in a small shaving mirror above the sink. I took my fags from my pocket and lit one.
'Ten years in this game and no man ever offered me champagne.' I took a long drag.
'You going to take him up on it?'
'No, I think you and me should celebrate together.' She stretched a red hand into my line of vision. 'You got one of those for me?' I gave her the freshly lit cigarette and sparked up another for myself. Sylvie wrapped herself in a soiled robe and drew deep like she was toking a joint. 'Let me catch the next act and I’ll assist you in what I suspect is your favourite trick, making beer disappear.'
I said, 'As long as we can watch from out front.' Thinking about the cold lager they served there in tall chill- sweating steins.
'It’s a deal. Set ’em up and I’ll catch you when I’m decent.'
'That’ll be never then.'
She gave the back of my head a light slap as she ran off to the showers.
It was a poorer house than it’d felt from up on stage and I had no trouble bagging a table towards the middle of the room. For once my nod to the waitress produced swift results and soon I was sitting back with a cool beer and a cigarette. I was beginning to learn that there were some things you couldn’t touch the Germans on. Good beer and a lax smoking policy in public buildings came pretty high on the list.
The twins, Archard and Erhard, were nearing the end of their acrobatic act, a narcissistic man-in-the-mirror excess of preening and vogueing that had a table of buff queens next to me sitting to alert. Each twin was decorated with the inverse of his brother’s tattoos, spiralling green, black and red designs curling out of their tight trousers, across their chests and down their arms, emphasising the swell of their muscles, the sinewy definition of their bodies.
When the twins looked at each other they saw themselves, but I found no difficulty telling them apart. The secret lay not only in the direction of their tats but in the tiny Greek letters, one alpha, the other omega, clumsy home-done jobs, inked into their wrists, telling the world the first and last out of the womb.
I watched as Archard nimbly climbed his brother’s torso, and then did a handstand on his image’s upturned palms, gently disconnecting his right hand, each acrobat slowly moving his free arm until it was at right-angles to his body. They held the pose and my neighbours clapped ecstatically. It was a good effect. I glanced at my watch just as Sylvie slid in beside me smelling clean and citrus.
