IT'S JUST A TRICK..... ISN'T IT? ............... Written by Vic Davey

 

My husband and I are Mind Readers. Well, that's not strictly true, I'm the mind reader, he is the prompter, if you know what I mean.

No, of course you don't.... let me start again. Michael and I have a Stage Act, Mentalism, Thought Transference, Mind Reading. I have to say, we are pretty good.....ok, not Royal Variety Show good, but we do ok. Summer Seasons in Blackpool, Skeggie, Holiday parks, Butlins.

That is where we met actually, Butlins in Minehead. Michael had a  Magic act, not your David Copperfield lions and tigers stuff, but card tricks and clever illusions. I was a singer and did a few impressions, Celine Dion, Streisand etc. Anyway, we worked the Summer together and somehow clicked and at the end of the 6 weeks, we were an "item".

But, we had a big problem in that our work would take us to different parts of the Country and we'd never get to see each other. So, we took the plunge, rented a flat in the Midlands and decided to form a double act. We wrote and rehearsed, rehearsed and wrote, day after day, week after week during the off season, until, after much hard graft, it was perfected.

Bookings were slow to come in at first but as Word got around, the trickle turned to a flow.

The way it worked was that we would go on stage and Michael would explain to the audience what was about to happen, that I was a Mind Reader and would be blindfolded throughout, having first got a member of the audience to check the blindfold was real.

Then he would descend into the auditorium, “Twilight Zone” type music playing in the background and pick out people who would stand and then hold up a personal object in their possession telling them to concentrate hard on it and I would describe what it was. Usually it was ordinary things like car keys, watches, wallets or rings, although one evening, one guy held up a packet of condoms, much to the amusement of the audience and the annoyance of the lady he was with. I did get it though.

Of course, there was no mind reading involved. We had worked out an elaborate system of codes....word association and phrases, voice inflections which Michael would convey to me. If you didn't know how it was done, it was quite impressive.

At the end of each performance, he would pick the last item I had already guessed and bring it up on stage for me to hold and then, still blindfolded, try to describe the person it came from.

Anyway, we were doing really well, did a couple of Panto’s and were beginning to come to the notice of a couple of big Agencies. Everything was good, until one evening when our world tilted and things were never the same again.....

We were appearing at the Winter Gardens, Great Yarmouth. We were the last but one act on and going down well. We reached the final part of our routine, I had guessed a lady's purse and Michael bought it up on stage as usual for me to hold. But when he handed it to me, I felt a jolt go up my arm, like a mild electric shock and a tingling sensation in my hand and I felt, just for a moment, a little nauseous. Michael could sense something was wrong and handed me a bottle of water which we kept on stage. I took a couple of mouthfuls and felt a little better.

I began to speak. "This belongs to a rather short lady, late 20s I would say. She has very long black hair, dark eyes and she is wearing a Sari....she is Indian". With that, there was an audible gasp from the audience and then a thunderous round of applause. I took off my blindfold and there she was, still standing, a few rows from the front and was exactly as I had described.

We made our way off stage with the applause ringing in our ears and made our way to our dressing room. I was still feeling a little wobbly and sat heavily in the chair at the dressing table.

"What the hell happened back there!" said Michael in a loud voice.

" What do you mean?" I replied, surprised by his tone.

" You described her perfectly. But I never prompted you....never said a word!"

Oh...I..I don't know. I just saw her in my mind's eye, standing there. And there's something else" I continued. "Something I didn't say, couldn't say.....She's pregnant...but only just."

The next day was our day off. We tried to relax, tried to talk it through, calmly, rationally, but neither of us could come up with a sane explanation of what had happened.

Neither of us was looking forward to our next show which was a Matinee the following day.....a little scared of a repeat performance.

We had almost decided to drop the final part of our act but it had proved to be the most popular part so, we had to see how the rest went. 

We did not need to be at the theatre until 1.30 for the 2.30 Matinee so tried to have a stress free morning. Michael popped out of the hotel to a nearby Newsagents to pick up a couple of papers and a couple of coffees. 

He returned and slumped into an armchair to scan the sports pages while I sat up on the bed and picked up a copy of the local “Rag”, the Yarmouth Echo. I glanced at the front page and my stomach lurched and I gasped when I saw the main article. 

“Michael!” I cried, “come look at this! “ 

“Mmm ….what?” he said, tearing his eyes away from his paper. 

I couldn’t  breathe, I just pointed at a photo…. 

“Isn’t that your Indian lady from the other night? “ he said.

I nodded. “ Look what it says….. .” I whispered. 

A young Indian lady on holiday was fatally injured on Saturday night in a suspected hit and run incident on the seafront. Her husband was also involved and was rushed to hospital but did not suffer life changing injuries. “We had just come out of the theatre,” he told our reporter. “ We were crossing the road and this car just came out of nowhere and Sunita was hit. And we had just found out she was expecting a baby………”