But Ronnie, beforehand, had given her no warning, he’d said nothing.
It wasn’t a white dove that flew out from under the rainbow and landed on the empty tumbler. It was something that looked at first almost like some broken-off whirring piece of the rainbow itself. It had feathers of all colours, blue and red and yellow, but mainly a vivid brilliant green.
It was a parrot.
Drum crash, darkness. More gasps. Cries even. Then the lights came back on again, for their bow, their final bow. A thundering of applause, and both of them looking this time a little dizzy and dazed, as if they’d astonished even themselves. And an extra touch, an extra twist, or mystery. Perched on Ronnie’s lifted hand, on his knuckles, even as he took his bow, was the parrot.
So—they had really seen it. As they’d really seen the rainbow. With his other hand he held hers, in traditional chivalrous bow-taking style, but now, as the applause roared on, he moved towards her, lifting her clutched wrist, and kissed it. Oh Ronnie could dance, their whole act was a dance. The parrot, which she’d never seen before, was still raised up on his other hand. Then he released hers and took the parrot and launched it out towards the audience like some bouquet that was theirs to catch. But it was gone. Gone.
As was Ronnie.
When did it happen? How did it happen? It was their last bow, but there was still Jack’s goodnight routine to come. Though how could you follow such a thing?
It was the last show and it couldn’t end without Jack Robinson’s last farewell. There’d been talk too of some general final curtain call. So they should remain in costume just in case. For that reason she’d stayed with the rest of them in the wings, even as Jack came on. He brushed past her and said quickly in her ear, ‘Jesus Christ, Evie—a fucking parrot!’ Then when she looked round Ronnie was gone. Back to the dressing room, she supposed, to take a breather.
But no, he would never be seen again in the dressing room either.
She stayed in the wings to watch Jack, thinking Ronnie would rejoin her. On stage, Jack was giving his own last number a bit of extra whirl too, a bit of extra zing and punch. He was getting them all to join in. Even in the wings they were singing along (the voice of Doris Lane piercing through everyone else’s).
Wake up, wake up, you sleepy head!
He was giving it his all.
Get up, get up, get out of bed!
But Ronnie was gone. Really gone.
He might have been sitting, exhausted, in the dressing room, wiping off his make-up. He’d given it his all too, hadn’t he? Taken his final bow. And, yes—follow that. And he was the Great Pablo, wasn’t he?
But no. He was nowhere to be found.
• • •
Everyone looked, of course they did. The whole theatre looked, the whole pier looked. The Brighton police began to look. In time it seemed that half of Brighton was looking. Enquiries were extended to London. His flat was broken into and searched, likewise his late mother’s house. Jack, while Evie had to remain, went up to town to do some sombre searching of his own, taking with him a list of theatres, headed by the Belmont.
But nothing. Ronnie Deane had not been seen and was nowhere to be found. The most puzzling thing, for some, was that nor was his outfit—the red-lined cape, the white gloves and so on—nor were his personal magical bits and bobs, his actual bag of tricks. It was an ordinary brown-leather holdall, but contained such things as a wand, a string of special handkerchiefs, a large shiny key. And a white rope?
None of these things was found, nor the holdall itself. Nor any doves. Nor a parrot.
The police wanted to know—and naturally she came in for the closest questioning—about the parrot. They had not been at the show themselves and were inclined to disbelieve it all. A parrot? A rainbow? Being the police, they were professionally inclined to disbelieve anything they couldn’t see, so to speak, with their own eyes. On the other hand, they had to deal with what they were told.
A parrot? But it was usually a dove? So where did he keep them then, the parrots and the doves? Where were they now? Perhaps because they had so little other evidence, they seemed to become quite compelled by this line of questioning, as if, despite themselves, their inquiry had shifted to one into the nature of magic—or rather into the exposure of its fraudulence. Magic, in fact, might be the culprit they were looking for. And Evie had found herself coming in for the kind of interrogation that she’d only previously envisaged in some dark recess of her mind.
Was this then her punishment? Punishment or test?
So how did he do all these things, they had said. How were they done? When she said she really didn’t know, it seemed only to place her under increasing suspicion. Didn’t know, or was just trying to hide something? They looked at the ring on her finger. They looked, it seemed, into her deepest motivations. For a while at least, it seemed that the police suspected they might be being elaborately fooled. Or tricked.
But there’s a point where a trick ceases to be a mere trick. It was all a gift, of course, for the local, then even the national press. ‘Magician Vanishes’. ‘Seaside Sorcerer’s Mystery Disappearing Act’. But it was not a matter for cheap humour. And there was the inevitable if distressing and unwanted thought: The sea. The sea itself. The end of the pier? He’d jumped?
Jack had once jokingly said, when the show opened, ‘And if things get really bad, playmates, we can always all take a running jump. You can’t do that at the fucking Hackney Empire either.’
They searched. There were police boats, divers. The seaside generally and not just
