Wizard for Hire

I pulled up outside it.

66 Fox Close, London.

The area, Canning Town, was what you would call ‘run down’, and for London, that was saying something. The houses were council built: big ugly, concrete brutalist blocks in an estate spanning a mile or so. The house I had agreed to let and already paid the deposit on, was a maisonette. This meant that it was a house on top of a house, in a terraced block of ten. To say it was grotty was being kind. Downright ready for knocking down was slightly harsh. Somewhere in between was fair.

I felt that familiar wave of sadness crash through me as I took up my two holdall bags from the back seat of my car. A Honda Civic 2007 silver, if you wondered. Ample space for my sales kit. But diesel, which is, as you will know, a mistake if driving in London. I call it Chris, I give all my cars names — that’s normal right? I slung both bags over my shoulder and locked Chris. It looked like the sort of place that you had to lock the door.

I pressed for number 6 on the intercom, to let me through the double security doors, a necessity in a place like this I would have thought.

“Come up,” said Ms McCall, the landlady, in a gravelled, lifetime smokers voice.

Ms McCall greeted me at the front door. A walking stereotype of a no-shit-taking landlady if ever I saw one: hair curlers, cigarette, pink fluffy slippers and nightdress, which was brave for this January weather. She put out the cigarette on the wall and ushered me inside. Turning on me in the hallway before I had even rubbed my shoes down.

“This is my house, so no funny business goes on under my roof. Got it? I live in that room at the end,” she pointed a long bony finger to a door with a sign on: Landlady.

“If there’s a problem you knock for me. Rent is £390 every month paid the first day of the month and it includes bills, unless you go crazy with the electric.”

She turned to the stairs and asked me to follow. The upstairs landing held three doors and a small flight of stairs.

“Oh, this is a three story house is it?” I said pointing at the stairs.

“No,” said Ms McCall blankly, before pushing a door straight ahead open and ushering me inside.

A single bed in the corner, a desk and a wardrobe. Upon closer inspection the floor, dark oak, looked like it was splintering. The bed looked like it had come straight from a whore house, the magnolia paint was peeling in several corners, the wardrobe looked ancient and sagging and the window was thick with a layer of crusted dirt which dampened the light, but in all, for the price, not bad.

“There you are Bill, I’ll leave you to get settled in.”

I didn’t bother correcting her, simply giving my thanks and closing the door, wanting to be alone. It was sparse and cold, my footsteps echoed like they do in an empty unfilled room. Still, it was cheap. I put my suitcase and rucksack on the desk. All my worldly possessions. Twenty-nine years on earth and all I owned in the world, fitted neatly inside a suitcase and a holdall.

I sat on edge of the bed, my gaze caught by a nasty looking brown stain on the wall opposite next to the fireplace. God knows what that was.

And then I cried.

*

It wasn’t long, before my life would change completely with the chance meeting with another man that lived in the house.

I didn’t think much on the fact that this two story house had an extra flight of stairs. There was no space for a third floor. Perhaps it led to the roof, I thought, justifying this anomaly.

After feeling sorry for myself a while longer, I deepened my woe by getting my iPhone out and following my habitual routine. Telling myself not to didn’t work, like a child sat opposite a bowl of sweets. I just had to.

First: Facebook, type Ginny’s name into the search bar to see what she was up to. I knew she was back in England now and back working as normal. I scanned her pictures and updates, nothing new. No pictures with the new man.

Second: Instagram. No new pictures.

Third: Find Friends. This one was naughty. It was an app that showed me her location. We had it set up for each other when going out. Location: Oxford Circus, that’s where she worked.

I had to stop this, it was bordering on the obsessive, but I couldn’t bring myself to admitting it was over. To make a statement of intent to myself, I charged across the room and chucked the phone into one of the desk drawers. Never again would I check it. Yeah right.

Attempting to take my mind off her, I set about to unpack my things. The wardrobe creaked ominously as I hung it’s new inhabitants. I wondered how long it would last. The radiator, the only source of heat to the room unless I lit a fire, I was convinced had perished. However, after some fiddling it came to life, with no clear method. Care, I did not, heat is a primal thing that makes a cold person happy. Indeed my spirits did lift as I set about the room, placing my laptop on the desk and flicked the lamp on. In one of the desk draws was a page of old newspaper, so I crunched it up, pulled open the window and rubbed it down. Canary Wharf and the big glass buildings were just in view across the way, and in my foreground, the brutalist concrete blocks. What a juxtaposition.

After changing the bed sheets to my own, I settled in bed as best you can in a new place, waiting for sleep to alleviate the days stresses. I set the alarm on my phone for work, a little earlier than usual anticipating my new route would take time to work out. I tried for sleep.

It was as I was dozing, that a sharp bang, like a dropped mug echoed on the ceiling above. Jolting awake fully, I strained my ears. Did that bang just come from above? But above this was only rooftops? Perhaps it was a seagull, or a fallen television ariel, I mused, rolling over.

But not ten minutes later, I heard something else. This noise was not unlike a firework, but it wasn’t loud. Like one of those catherine wheels, which makes a screeching, whizzing noise before a bang. It occurred three more times, a screeching, a whizzing… and then a bang! Some person must be on the roof, letting off fireworks, and on a Thursday evening? This area was worse than I thought.

I sat up and checked my phone: 1:13am. Christ! I had to be up in six hours. If I did not get my full quota of sleep, my days work would not be good, and I was already being monitored for poor performance.

Wrapping in my dressing gown and slippers, I set foot into the dark, quiet, landing. The noise set off again in the exact same fashion. How had no one else heard this, no less do something about it?

The staircase up was covered in darkness and fumble around for a light switch I tried, to no avail. Not one for confrontation, I took a breath and ventured upwards. At the top was a door.

Screech, whizz, bang!

Went the noise again, louder, so as to jolt me back into the wall. But the way the noise went, made it sound as though it was not coming from outside at all. But inside. Then I heard movement and muttering. A shuffling of heavy boots and a falling of books.

Ms McCall was quite mistaken, she did have a third floor and someone seemed to occupy it. I wrapped my hand on the door and waited. All noise stopped for a second, as whoever was inside seemed to stop dead.

The door, all at once, flew open.

A man stood looking down at me, three steps below, with an interrupted expression. “Yes?” he said in an expectant tone. Past the man, I could see the room he occupied — an attic room, by all accounts, littered and full to the brim. This made the mystery of the fireworks even more of a curiosity. “Can I help you?” he said growing in annoyance.

“Well yes, my name is Will Norton, I moved into the room below earlier today.”

I was hoping he would fill in the blanks for me, like a good housemate, and promise to keep the noise down. Instead, he was flat out rude.

“So? Why should I care?”

“I was hoping you would, perhaps, keep the noise to a minimum at this late hour?”

“Why you talking like you’re from victorian times?”

That threw me. I stammered some. “I was trying to be courteous to my new housemate. And I hoped you would do the same. Until we get to know each other.”

The man mumbled ‘get to know each other?’ under his breath and laughed at little. However, he pushed the door aside and stepped away.

“So Will Norton, you are new here huh?” he said as I passed into this most strangest of rooms. “You must be desperate, or just unlucky.” He said shutting the door.

It was a bedroom like mine, with sloped roof and a skylight, but so full of stuff that my eyes had an attack. It was like a laboratory, which whirring instruments and things moving of their own accord. I would say it was ‘organised messy’. A bookshelf in the corner was spilling over with so many books the shelves were sagging. A big pot I can only describe as a cauldron, perched atop a chest of drawers, was being stirred by a wooden spoon of its own accord. There was heat being produced by something else too, that made the room feel warmer than a sauna.

“I am confused,” I said. “How can this room possibly be here? I saw the building from the outside. There is two floors only to this house.”

In a flash, this man put a his hand straight up to my face. “Sleep!” he said.

I looked past his hand. “… That would be nice I’ve got work early.”

The man, looking confused, held his calloused hand a few seconds longer. Then, apparently changing tack, clicked his fingers. Some strange rhythmic music began to play from a nearby record player and he started muttering at me. “You will forget this ever happened. Forget this ever happened. You will not hear anything from my room again. Nothing from my room. These stairs will not appear to you, they are invisible to you from now on. I do not exist. Do not exist…”

I stood in quiet amazement as he seemingly finished what he was saying. He opened the door. “You may go now. Go now.”

“What was that?” I said. He was either a complete nutcase, or a failed hypnotist. Either way, I was tempted to take for the door, but had to get some guarantee the noises ceased, my job depended on it.

The man looked perplexed and stunned. “You mean, it didn’t work?”

“What didn’t?”

“Never mind,” he looked utterly put out and began muttering things about that never happening before and his powers a waning.

“It didn’t work on you. That’s strange.”

His tone changed towards me with this new revelation. “Usually I hypnotise new people who come into the house, to make sure I am not disturbed. I am very busy. But you must have a natural aversion to it. Very rare, very rare…” he muttered.

A huge desk sat at the end of his bed three times the size of mine. What struck me was how every available surface was covered by open books. With three open notebooks in the middle and a well used pen and ink. Did people still use pen and ink? Obviously they did. I scanned the room for some clues of the strange whizzing noises, but apart from odd metallic devices, a large, ornate mirror, a carved, foot-long wooden stick on a velvet lined box, there were no fireworks. It was perhaps the oddest room I had ever seen.

“So you live here too?” I said, he replied impatiently that he did, still holding the door open. “In an attic that doesn’t exist?”

He shut the door and resigned himself to pleasantries.

“Felix Freeman is the name. Wizardry is the game.”

He stuck out a hand without making eye contact. I shook it. “A wizard? You mean like a stage magician?”

Felix gave me the dirtiest stare. “I certainly do not. I am a real wizard and a bloody good one at that.”

Perhaps he was crazy. Just my luck, move into a house with a noisy nut-job upstairs. They don’t tell you that on the advert.

Felix said in the most un-interested voice: “So what do you do?”

“I work in sales,” I said to a glazed expression. “But I want to be an author.”

Felix’s eyes suddenly lit up, like a fire that burst to life with the addition of petrol. “Do you really? Well that is interesting.” He stood up from his book. “Would you care for a cup of tea?”

“Er, it’s bit late.”

He ignored me, pulling the stick out of its velvet lined box and pointed it towards a tea pot sitting on a gas ring. A few seconds later steam arose from the spout. “I’ve seen them,” I said, pointing to his stick. “You can buy them most places now. They control the TV but they’re shaped like a wand. But I didn’t know they could work kettles to?”

Felix fixed me with a long stare. “You really do have a tiny mind don’t you Norton?” Felix sat down on the edge of his bed. “Please, have a seat in my chesterfield.”

I don’t think it was a chesterfield, but didn’t want to split hairs. Then, I watched as a quite incredible thing happened — the teapot poured itself in mid-air. Yes, you heard me correctly and no I was not dreaming, I know the flipping difference. It poured itself into two cups nearby then sat itself back down, as if being poured by an invisible hand.

“Milk?” said Felix.

“Please,” I said dreamily.

A small jug, lifted into the air and dropped a splash into each mug which then lifted into the air and sailed across the room, one straight into my outstretched hand, the other to Felix.

I looked at contents, it was definitely tea. Hot, milky, brown tea. Felix was watching me expectantly. “How the fu—”

“I told you. I am a wizard.”

“But they don’t exist?”

Felix made a bored face, like he had heard this a protestation a thousand times. “You’ve just seen proof with your own eyes. You saw that tea make itself. True or false?”

“True. But it could have been a trick.”

Felix sat down on the edge of his bed facing me. His looks were as idiosyncratic as his so called profession. His face, staring at me intently, had the eyes of a fox, untrustworthy, cunning, unpredictable. His nose was narrow and hooked like a hawks beak. Brown auburn hair fell just above his shoulders, folded behind the ears, I suspected out of laziness to get it cut. Age was hard to guess, but if you made me, I would say early thirties. So skinny did he look you could be forgiven for thinking he had an eating disorder.

He dressed well, with a fine pressed, white collarless shirt, buttoned to the throat. Over this a fur lined undertakers coat, skinny black jeans and Dr Marten boots, well worn. Now, what you make of those details is up to you, my powers of cold-reading are limited.

He continued to stare at me with his foxy eyes. To say I felt comfortable in his presence would be a lie — I would have a cup of tea, be friendly and endeavour to get him to agree to make less noise, before leaving.

A cone shaped device in the corner that was dripping hot water into a container, all of a sudden, stopped whirring. I looked closer, recognising the instrument.

“Is that a water distiller?” Felix nodded. “But why do you need one of those, unless for scientific experiments?”

“You expect me to use tap water for my potions?” He jumped up, cup of tea floating in the air waiting for him, before he grabbed the two litre glass flask of water, corked it, and put it away on a shelf. “So…” he said. “Why have you moved here?”

I took a deep breath. “I er…” but before I could start.

“Ah so you’ve split up with your long term girlfriend.”

“Yes, how did you…”

“People always take a deep breath before they say something psychologically painful. Added to that you hold yourself in a dejected manner means you’ve recently been rejected. Let me guess, you look to be around twenty-eight. You were together what, seven years?”

I felt one of those smiles hit my face, that only a magician can do when they show you a trick and you don’t understand how they did. “You looked me up on Facebook, that’s all you did. Ms McCall told you my name and you searched me.”

“Sure I did tiny-mind,” he said refilling the water distiller at a small sink. “Now you feel lost and lonely, but you’re also, deep down a little bit glad because you weren’t sure if she was right for you anyway, and she was ruling the roost so to speak and taking over your life.”

“How the fuc—”

“Your aura is easier to read than a child’s,” he waved, then under his breath. “You wanted me to read it, you want sympathy.”

“Bollocks!” I laughed incredulous that this stranger knew more about me and how I thought than my closest friends. “How do you know all that?”

“It matters not how I know, only that I do. Can you pass me that jug next to the chair.” I did so. He pressed a button and the distiller whirred to life. “So tell me more about wanting to be an author…”

That was my first meeting with the man that boldly called himself a real wizard, in public life. Were it not for my own eyes, I would have regarded the meeting with this man the same as I would with any nutter in an institution —very little. However, the third floor of a two story house, the tea that poured itself and the way the wizard seemed to know more about me than I did, all made for a rather fascinating entry into the world of the magical. I went to bed that night, thinking not of my ex-girlfriend, but of Felix the wizard, who lived upstairs.

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