Chapter 23
Chapter Twenty-Three
‘I did not wish for that to happen!’
Gigi didn’t even look up. He was busy buffing his already pristine fingernails to a mirror shine.
‘Oh, but you did, naughty girl. I heard the words as clear as a bell. “I wish the bar would come to life.”’ He waggled a sequinned finger at her.
Beth folded her arms. ‘Hah! But I said that privately, in my head. Not here. And I thought I actually had to play the pinball machine for wishes to come true.’ She glared at him. Wriggle out of that one, you barrel-bellied buffoon.
Gigi pouted theatrically. ‘As you obviously know, I can tune into your thoughts. I must say, they’re very hurtful.’
‘Sorry,’ she muttered. ‘But it’s not fair. The sign says three wishes, and I’ve only had one.’
So here I am, arguing with a genie about wish regulations, while my almost-ex-husband goes off to hew driftwood into artisanal nonsense and the village descends into dance fever. Just another perfectly ordinary day in Cranley.
‘Hmm. Perhaps the FBI has done an update. Let me check.’ Gigi whipped something out of a pocket Beth hadn’t seen before. A wand-like instrument, emitting a high-pitched beep and flashing like a Christmas tree on steroids.
‘What on earth is that? And what does a US law-enforcement agency have to do with anything?’
‘This,’ Gigi said, waving it about like a conductor’s baton, ‘is a Wish-Instigating Finder Instrument.’ He beamed, ridiculously proud of himself. ‘WIFI for short.’
Beth blinked. ‘Of course it is.’
‘The FBI,’ he continued breezily, ‘isn’t that dreary human lot with badges and bad suits. It’s the Federation of Benign Intelligent Beings. Along with CHUG – the Charter for Harmonious Upstanding Genies – they have ultimate power over our existence. Meaning other genies.’
Beth considered herself intelligent. OK, she might be crap with numbers and foundation colour choices – Trump orange, anyone? – but this was way beyond dodgy counting skills and needing to blend something hideous at the jawline. ‘Explain, please, in layman’s terms. Including how this affects me.’
Gigi fiddled with the wand. ‘Stupid useless WIFI,’ he muttered. ‘Some genies think this is cool to the max, but… Oh, fiddlesticks. It is granting wishes it has no right to grant. Which makes a mockery of my preferred modus operandi.’
Beth had had enough of Gigi’s gibberish. And what did he mean by some genies? ‘Are there others like you?’ she whispered. ‘Here, in Cranley?’
Gigi guffawed. ‘There ain’t nobody like me around here, darlin’. In the past, yeah, but they wriggled back into their lamps and vamoosed. Poof! Gone, just like that.’ The ridiculous crushed-velvet turban on his head rotated, its disco-ball centrepiece flashing incessantly.
‘You said Cranley was dull!’ shrieked Beth. ‘I don’t see anything dull about a village that’s housed a horde of genies.’
Gigi shrugged. ‘Every village has its secrets. It’s a sort of …
hotspot, if you will. Like Ibiza for stag dos, only with less vomit and more metaphysical chaos.
A long time ago, Cranley was designated a Holding Zone.
A waiting room for wayward wish-granters who couldn’t keep their turbans on straight. ’
Beth blinked. ‘A Holding Zone? For genies? You’re telling me this sleepy corner of Scotland is basically a halfway house for magical misfits?’
‘Correctamundo.’ Gigi stroked his stomach with exaggerated elegance. ‘Some villages get Roman artefacts. Cranley gets us.’
‘But why here? Why not somewhere exciting? London, Paris, even Milton bloody Keynes?’
‘Because Cranley is boring, darling.’ Gigi sighed as though the very word induced ennui.
‘The perfect canvas. Genies were never meant to hog the spotlight. Stick us somewhere with glitz and glamour and we’d have punters queuing around the block for free iPhones and eternal youth.
But Cranley? The most thrilling thing that happens here is a Bake Off at the church hall.
You couldn’t get more beige if you spread the whole place on a digestive biscuit.
Ideal for containing magical overflow without causing global panic. ’
Beth chewed her lip. Beige Cranley. Yes, that rang depressingly true. But there was still one shiny, flashing, noisy elephant in the room.
She pointed at the pinball machine. ‘Then why, pray tell, are you stuffed inside this tacky contraption instead of a lamp? Isn’t that genie law? Oil lamps, mysterious smoke, belly dancing at the drop of a fez?’
Gigi puffed out his chest. ‘Tradition is such a bore. Do you know how cramped lamps are? You try folding yourself into a brass teapot for a few centuries. Crippling sciatica, darlin’.
When the Federation of Benign Intelligent Beings offered upgrades, I jumped.
Literally. My options were lava lamp, snow globe or pinball machine.
And I thought, “Hey, who doesn’t love pinball?
” Bright, noisy, addictive. Much like me. ’
‘You chose this?’ Beth squawked. ‘You could’ve been in a lava lamp, swirling about seductively in neon pink, but no – you opted for this infernal bleeping monstrosity? And now I’m stuck wishing for things with the finesse of a toddler on a sugar high?’
‘Oh, don’t be melodramatic,’ said Gigi, though his pout deepened.
‘Pinball is culture. Retro chic. And besides, the Federation insisted I remain in constant proximity to humans. Lamps, snow globes, they get put away. Pinball machines? They live in pubs. Pubs mean chatter, ale, confessions, arguments – plenty of wish-fuel. I feed on intent, darlin’, not just words. ’
‘But you’re not in the pub! You’re in a dusty old basement surrounded by clutter. Or hadn’t you noticed?’
Gigi nodded, his jowls drooping. ‘Which is why I’m so grateful you dropped by. In fact, if you could arrange for me to take centre stage, I’d be made up to the max.’
Not happening. ‘So you’re saying that every daft thought muttered into a pint glass might turn into … into whatever disaster you fancy?’
‘Not quite,’ said Gigi, smoothing his sleeve.
‘I’m selective. Or I used to be. That’s where this blasted WIFI gadget is cocking things up.
It’s leaking wishes without my permission.
Which is why you’ve had one-and-a-half granted already.
Very sloppy business. Makes me look like a budget children’s entertainer. ’
Beth clutched her head. Cranley, soporific little Cranley, a genie Holding Zone. Gigi, self-styled hipster of the magical world, trapped in a pinball machine. And now, dodgy wishes bleeding out and coming true, thanks to some malfunctioning genie tech.
‘I need a drink,’ she muttered.
Later that evening, after a decent number of hungry and thirsty customers, Beth perched on a stool nursing a white-wine spritzer. She caught Angela’s eye and waved her over.
‘You all right, Beth?’ Angela slid onto a stool, wiping her hands on a cloth that had seen better days. Like everyone else, she had no memory of the madness of the previous night. And although Beth itched to tell someone about Gigi, thoughts of Luke kept bubbling to the surface.
‘Not really,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s Luke.’
Angela raised her eyebrows. ‘As in estranged Luke?’
‘The very same. He rang me. Well, he asked me to call him. Apparently, he’s moving to some godforsaken island off the west coast. Wants to carve driftwood into art.’
Angela frowned. ‘Is he a carpenter? Ed can barely carve a Sunday roast without supervision.’
Beth gave a weak smile. ‘It’s his hobby. He’s an architect by profession but he’s always dabbled. He kept talking about salt spray and solitude and “finding his true self”. Like his true self has been hiding in a pile of wet sticks all this time.’
Angela sipped a lemonade and clinked her glass gently against Beth’s. ‘So what’s bothering you more? That he’ll vanish completely? Or that he’ll succeed?’
Beth stared into her fizzing drink. ‘Both. I haven’t told you why we split up, and I’m not ready to. Not yet.’
Angela gave Beth an encouraging smile. ‘You don’t have to. But when you are, I’ll be here.’
That kindness cracked something in Beth. The words came in a rush. Brittle at first, then unstoppable.
‘It was perfect for so long. Or it looked perfect. The house, the plans, the everything. Then it fell apart. I thought if I just stayed strong, maybe one day we’d fix it.
But if he disappears to some island, that’s it.
No more “maybe”. Just driftwood and silence.
And I can’t tell if that’s a relief or a loss. ’
Angela reached out, squeezed her hand. ‘Maybe you’ve carried him long enough. Let him drift, Beth. If he wants to play Robinson Crusoe with a chisel, that’s his business. You deserve something solid. Something that stays.’
Beth let out a fractured laugh. ‘That’s an interesting way of putting it.’
Angela smiled. ‘Trust me. Focus on you. The bar. Your friends. Whatever it is you’ve got going on in that basement.’ Her tone was casual, but her eyes were sharp.
Beth froze, her cheeks warming. ‘What makes you say that?’
Angela just grinned. ‘Call it intuition. Around here, secrets don’t stay buried for long.’
Beth managed a weak smile. Maybe she was right. Maybe Cranley had its own strange rhythm – part gossip, part magic, part madness.
‘I’ll try,’ she whispered.
The bar hummed around them, alive in ways she didn’t fully understand. Gigi was somewhere in the shadows. No doubt preening, plotting and waiting for another careless wish to slip through her lips.
And Luke? Luke was already halfway gone, lost to tides, timber and the ghosts of what they’d been.
Beth raised her glass, the bubbles catching the light.
‘To survival,’ she murmured. ‘And maybe … to something better.’
The faint sound of a pinball flipper echoed from below.
Somewhere, Gigi chuckled.
Careful what you wish for, sweetheart.