Astrology Annie came on. She was meant to talk about horoscopes in Ancient Egypt but all she could go on about was the footage and surely that woman in the wheelchair was… but it couldn’t be… but it was… Marlene Dietrich.
At the end of it all, when we were finally allowed to leave, we were called taxis and ushered out of a side door, as if we had done something wrong.
I took charge. Come hell or high water we were going out to dinner. I shouted my instructions and we ended up with almost twenty people coming with us, to an upstairs room of a restaurant in Greek Street that Astrology Annie suggested. When we walked in we caused a stir. The place had been quiet until we turned up.
After the main course, which had arrived past midnight because there were so many finicky eaters in their number, Wendy went to the loo and decided to phone Kilburn from the payphone on the stairs.
“Wendy! Where are you?” It was Serena.
“We’re having dinner. Did you see it?”
“My dear, I saw something… What is going on?”
“No fucking idea! Is Aunty Anne there?”
“She’s furious.”
“Why?”
“She thinks you’ll be a laughing stock.”
“She always thinks that.”
“Was it a fake?”
“How could it be?”
“But it was so… ridiculous.”
“Did you see them?” Wendy was laughing. “Did you see the visitors?”
“I saw some people. They looked like pensioners.”
“What did Aunty Anne say?”
“That she wants absolutely nothing more to do with the pair of them.”
Wendy was down the other end of the table from Timon and Belinda, who were being toasted and feted by a gaggle of production staff, audience members and apparently scientific experts. Belinda looked beatific, carefully answering their questions, and Timon seemed wary, eating very little of the banquet that was paraded before them. Wendy hadn’t been able to ask them anything yet. She found herself sitting with the Unicorn woman, Astrology Annie and another woman, with lank brown hair, who she didn’t know, and who kept disappearing into the toilet. Wendy tried to make conversation that had nothing to do with UFOs.
“You brought my uncle luck, you know,” she told Astrology Annie.
“Did I? Where is he?”
“He’s dead now.”
“Not that much luck, then.”
“I mean, he won the lottery in a Rollover week. He died a millionaire. And you predicted it. You said that week it would be someone just like him.”
Astrology Annie sighed. “I wish people would write in and tell me when that happens. I might get a rise. Everyone thinks I’m a joke.” Then she went off to refresh her bilberry-blue lipstick. It took a lot of concentration, because she had to invoke her spirit guide to help her get it on straight. “I’m slightly wall-eyed, you see,” she said, staring past Wendy. Wendy had already noticed and said something pleasantly about that giving Astrology Annie a special psychic look. “Hmm,” sighed Astrology Annie.
“I don’t know what my church will make of this?” said the Unicorn woman, from over the dessert menu. “Strictly, I don’t think we believe in extraterrestrials of any kind? This might be banned?” She looked gloomy. “I might be guilty of blasphemy even now, just by being here?”
Wendy asked, “So what do you believe in?”
She looked at Wendy. “Horses with horns on their heads?”
“Everyone!” called the produced of Strange Matter. “I give you a toast. To our intrepid souls here. Tonight we have seen something that might prove to be a landmark in the history of the unknown. I give you… Timon and Belinda!”
We all applauded and shouted raucously. The Unicorn woman whooped.
Timon was called upon to make a speech. He smiled shyly and, I’m sure, won the hearts of everyone there. He said, “Something new, coming true.”
We all applauded again.
Timon coughed and said on more thing. “I’ve… um… written a little book about…” He was besieged by cries and quickly disappeared behind the backs of those who had risen from their chairs to talk with him. People were getting up from other tables, no doubt earwigging on it all. Some of them had actually seen the show. The next morning I learned Timon had been offered six contracts of varying generosity before he got to his peach melba sorbet.
Astrology Annie came back from the toilet. “Oh, is something happening?” She sat down and nodded at the unknown woman’s vacant seat. “I found her in the Ladies’. I thought she was throwing up. All this green business in the sink.”
The Unicorn woman shook her head. “That’s my friend, Lizzie. And it’s not sick? It’s ectoplasm?” She looked disgusted with Astrology Annie. “You should know all about that?”
Serena checked the house. No one, surely, knew that Timon and Belinda were staying here. Still she peered out into Plympton Road and tried to make out shapes hiding in her garden. She knew the press would be round like a shot. But there was nothing.
Annie had flown to her room some time ago and hadn’t returned. Serena was too dazed, thinking too fast about all sorts of things to wonder why her friend seemed so upset.
Switching off lights, turning off the oven, checking doors were locked, slipping into shoes sensible enough for the cold night. She stopped and thought hard for a moment. Then she picked up her mobile and called for a cab.
The book was in a knife drawer. She took it out.
Serena checked to the final page and it seemed complete. The pages were numbered, even. It felt warm in her hands, as if Timon had only just set it down, newly-done.
The taxi honked once discreetly at her kerb, like a cough. Serena slipped out and clicked the lock after her.
“Greenwich, please,” she told the cabbie and gave him Joshua’s exact address.
By the time they tumbled out into Charing Cross Road it was the early hours. Timon had pockets filled with scraps of phone numbers. The producer slapped his back and said he’d phone tomorrow. Belinda was shivering, pulling Timon’s jacket over her backless dress. We
