‘But mostly because he helped you, Luke,’ shouted Barry between breaths. ‘Why do you reckon he did that?’
Luke didn’t answer. Why does anyone do anything? He was the last person to ask about people’s motivations.
‘Whoah, Luke, you should sit down or something, man,’ said Jonas. ‘Your face is like white and green.’
‘And black and red,’ said Kitkat.
‘And purple,’ said Barry.
Luke knew that the only reason his shoes hadn’t met his breakfast was because he hadn’t eaten any.
‘I just wish we could get there faster,’ he said.
‘What are we gonna do?’ said Jonas. ‘Zac’s gonna cop it now. You don’t take out one of Holt’s bouncers and then get the whole Disneyland experience in Dwight. You know that, man.’
What Luke did know was that more than anything he wanted to get through the first lap to reach Holt and Zac, but he had no idea why. He knew that Jonas was right; he couldn’t help Zac right now. For some ridiculous reason Zac had hitched his wagon to the very worst star in here – him – and for that, Holt would make him pay. He also didn’t know why this was disturbing to him. He understood why it should be – he’d spent his whole life watching people bend and twist and flat-out breakdance under the influence of emotions like guilt and love and shame and rage. But these emotions were just concepts to him. He knew they were powerful. He’d just never felt their power himself.
Nevertheless, he tried to jog faster.
By the time Luke limped in, finishing his first circuit, the rest of the dorm stood at attention behind Holt. All except Zac, who stood before him, his head bowed.
At least he’s standing, thought Luke.
He shuffled to a stop next to Zac, seeing three of him. He longed to drop to the mud and lie there for a month.
‘What are you doing, Black?’ said Holt.
Luke concentrated on breathing and trying to remain standing.
‘Dorm Four,’ said Holt. ‘Standing before you are the two inmates who have cost you all your television privileges this week.’
Low groans from behind Holt. Luke closed his other eye.
‘And at the rate he’s going,’ Holt continued, ‘Black, here, might just cost you your lunch too, because we are all going to stand here just like this until he finishes his five laps.’
‘Aw, come on,’ mumbled somebody.
‘You are so dead, Black,’ called Toad.
‘Silence!’ said Holt.
Luke opened his eyes; well, as best he could, anyway.
Sighed.
‘Back in a sec,’ he said, and started to jog.
Ten steps in, it began to rain.
Of course.
A camp on the outskirts of Pantelimon, Bucharest, Romania
Without moving her green eyes from the rich woman’s face, Samantha White reached out her left hand and suddenly snapped her fingers closed. The droning of the blowfly stopped instantly.
‘Oh my. How did you do that?’ said the woman, Sam’s client, Mrs Nicolescu.
Tucking a long, caramel-coloured curl behind her ear, Samantha tried not to sigh. The Gaje always asked such silly questions. Not even the youngest child in the gypsy camp would have trouble catching a fly. And here was a woman, at least forty-five, who was so far removed from nature that she screamed and froze when one of the camp dogs sniffed her in greeting as she climbed out of her BMW. Sometimes Samantha wondered how these rich people survived at all.
She reached for another card and the errant curl flopped back into her face. God, it’s boiling in here, she thought. The frangipani incense thickened the still air in the caravan, but Lala insisted it must always be burning. The Gaje pay for the show, my Sam. You must give them the whole dream.
The Gaje woman didn’t seem to notice the heat. Each time Samantha’s hand moved to the well-worn tarot deck the customer would hold her breath, her small, black eyes locked on every move.
Sam turned the card very slowly for effect. She studied her fingers and decided that tonight she’d swap her acid-yellow nail polish for blue. Although the yellow did go well with her new emerald ring, she thought. Her cat-like eyes glinted with an almost-smile. A real emerald this size would buy her a castle in Pantelimon.
Before she flipped it over, she peeked at the card. Hah. That’d be right. She met her client’s eyes, now wide with fear.
‘That’s…’ stuttered the Gaje woman. ‘Is that…?’
‘The Devil,’ said Samantha. ‘Yep.’
Mrs Nicolescu’s hand flew to her throat, each fleshy finger choked in gold rings. She made the sign of the cross. Samantha hoped the woman’s prayer would work. Despite her genuine jewels and posh clothing, Mrs Nicolescu needed help: underneath her expensive make-up the flesh of her face was dimpled and yellow, and the smell of decay and cigarettes on her breath was doing a good job of competing with the cloying incense.
Samantha shifted in her chair. Now was the time she was supposed to ramp up Mrs Nicolescu’s anxiety, warn her that seven generations ago a dying woman had made a powerful deathbed curse against her family. Drawing the Devil card was proof that the curse was about to come into play, causing misery and pain for her and all she loved. Of course – with some rituals and a talisman, created especially for her – there were some surefire methods to counteract the curse.
For a price.
The woman coughed, her voluminous bosom wobbling wildly. The crepe skin of her chest moved at a slightly slower speed, like an oil slick surfing a wave.
‘The devil?’ she said, breathing hard, leaning forward, pink lipstick smearing her jaundiced front teeth. ‘O Doamne! Help me, please.’
Samantha’s snub nose crinkled and she leaned back a smidge.
‘Chill, Mrs Nicolescu,’ she said. ‘The devil card is a warning card, but it’s not as bad as you think.’
Wrong move, Sam, she told herself.
‘Tell me, what does it mean?’
Mrs Nicolescu reached her blood-red tipped fingers towards Samantha’s, but they seemed to reconsider at the last minute. They clutched instead at her wallet. Faux Gucci, Samantha decided. Birthday Jones had stolen one just like it from the market last Sunday. She wondered whether Mrs Nicolescu knew it was a knock-off. And whether she cared.
‘It’s the Temptation card, Mrs Nicolescu,’ said Samantha, dropping the gypsy witch voice. ‘It just means that you’re placing too much emphasis on the material world and its pleasures.’
‘I’m doing what?’
‘You’re eating too much, you smoke too much, and you drink a lot. Your kidneys are about ready to pack themselves a duffle bag and get the hell out.’
Mrs Nicolescu sat back in her chair, her painted eyebrows raised. Her expression told Samantha: this is not what I came here for. Sam had seen the look too often lately.
‘What? What are you talking about? That I eat and drink?’ said Mrs Nicolescu, her voice now shrill.
Samantha tried to wrangle the moment back. They never listen anyway, she thought. I should just stick with the script.
‘You’re disconnected from your spirit, Mrs Nicolescu,’ she intoned, gypsy witch voice back in place.
‘Disconnected from my spirit?’
You’re an alcoholic, said Samantha in her head. An over-fed, under-exercised Gaje woman who won’t make it to fifty; you need to eat salad and ease up on the whisky.
‘Ah, yes, the spirits are speaking now, clamouring for my attention,’ she said instead. ‘Silence!’ She sat bolt upright in her gilded witch’s chair, its golden paint chipped and scratched. ‘Ah, yes, it is just as I thought. A curse, and an ancient and powerful one at that. A mighty spell has been cast, Mrs Nicolescu. You have come to me not a moment too soon.’
Samantha placed her hands flat on her crimson-draped tarot table, eyes boring directly into those of her client’s. They met awe, fear, disgust, blind faith. Liver disease.