You hear what I’m saying?”
Marcus blinked nervously. The boy leaned into him and exhaled a dense fume of smoke. Marcus spluttered and backed away, clenching his fists in readiness.
Suddenly the other boy broke into a laugh.
“Just teasin’ ya!” he roared, throwing his words back at him. “Take a joke!”
Marcus glared fiercely for a moment. Then he pushed past to collect his toiletries bag and a towel from his case. In stony silence he stomped downstairs to the shower. On the way he heard Spencer chuckling. He’d remember that.
On the mezzanine the smoker returned to his bed and stretched out on it luxuriously. “Lee Jules Sherlon Charles,” he congratulated himself. “You is the last of your kind.”
It wasn’t too long before the drum was beaten again outside and everyone was summoned from the cabins.
Alasdair emerged feeling hungry and was glad to see serving maids weaving through the crowd, bearing trays of food from the stalls. He grabbed a large slice of ham and chicken pie and a ceramic goblet of ale and made short work of both. At least the food was good here and one thing he did admire about the world of Dancing Jax was the quantity of booze the characters got through. They drank ale in place of tea, coffee or soft drinks and the nobles were always quaffing wine. If that’s what life was really like in the olden days, they must have been perpetually off their faces.
“Is there a vegetarian option?” Jody asked one of the wenches. “That’s just a lump of death wrapped in a murder parcel that is.”
At her side, now washed and in clean, dry clothes, little Christina absorbed her words and shrank away from the proffered tray.
“There is cheese and bread, Mistress,” the serving maid told them helpfully.
“I like cheese,” Christina declared brightly. Her very empty tummy was growling.
“It’ll have been made with the chopped-up insides of a baby cow’s stomach,” Jody informed her.
Christina wrinkled her nose and shook her head with disgust.
“We’ll just have the bread,” Jody said. “Though that’ll be packed full of additives and made with chlorine-bleached flour.”
She took several slices of a rustic-looking loaf and sniffed them. “You wouldn’t believe what they put in this rubbish,” she grumbled. “There’s a list of E-numbers long as your arm, trans-fats, preservatives, traces of pesticide.”
Christina was too busy devouring her second slice to comment.
“Don’t suppose you’ve got a banana?” Jody called after the departing serving maid.
A snigger sounded behind them. Jody turned to see Marcus shaking his head in disbelief at her.
“Don’t you worry,” he laughed. “They’re going to roast a wild tofu for you veggies later.”
Chuckling, he continued on his way. He was carrying two goblets of ale and was on a mission. Jody watched him push to the front. She recognised his type, and marked him down as not worth talking to.
The Ismus had returned with the Jacks and they were sitting in places of honour around a raised stage area. Cameras were snapping away and Jody saw that American TV reporter among the other news crews.
“So much for Julie bloody Andrews,” the girl muttered. “Didn’t take her long to get Von Trapped.”
Charm and her mother had stationed themselves right by the stage. Charm had changed into a short skirt and scraped her hair into a ponytail. They were waiting for the performance to commence, or for a lens to stray in their direction. A large pair of Gucci sunglasses shielded her eyes from the afternoon sun, but she would have worn them whatever the weather.
“This has got to be the glam corner!” Marcus declared, blinking in feigned surprise as he came bowling up to them. “No one told me there was going to be a Mooncaster’s Next Top Model contest going on here today. Would either of you two lovely ladies like a drink? It’s not bubbly, but it’s the best they’re offering; the mead smells like a wino’s emptied himself in it, so we’ll have to make do with this. Now rev up your fun glands, the party starts here!”
Mrs Benedict pursed her lips and viewed him suspiciously as she took one of the goblets.
“I don’t like your manner, young man,” she said. “It’s overly familiar and flippant and we don’t know you.”
“Call me Marcus!”
“Why? What’s your real name?”
“That is my real name. I’m just being friendly. I saw you two beautiful damsels over here, on your lonesome, and thought I have got to go over and say hello.”
He held out the other drink. Charm regarded him and the ale through her shades.
“There’s more’n four hundred calories in a pint of that stuff,” she said.
Marcus looked shocked. “You don’t need to think about things like that!” he cried. “Not a stunner like you.”
“She’s been on some sort of faddy diet ever since she was nine,” her mother informed him. “She won’t allow so much as a Jaffa cake in the house. She’ll be so much happier in the castle – there’s none of that silliness there. You don’t need to count calories when you’re laced into a good strong bodice with a panel of wood tucked down the front.”
“Well, whatever made her beautiful, I’m glad of it,” Marcus said, raising the goblet and drinking a toast to them. “You’re the hottest babes here.”
Mrs Benedict tutted, but she was always ready to praise her daughter.
“She is most fair, isn’t she?” she said proudly. “Two years ago that was the face of Lancashire Pickles. You couldn’t eat an onion in a Bootle chippy without seeing her smile on the jar. ‘Only our vinegar is sour’ the slogan said.”
Marcus smacked his forehead. “I knew you had to be a model!” he exclaimed. “I said so, didn’t I?”
The girl’s mother nodded. “Oh, yes, she’s a true professional. Been doing it since she was ten, haven’t you, child? This was going to be a big year for her. We had The Plan all worked out, didn’t we? Still, what a prize she’ll be when she finally awakens to the real world.”
“Maybe we’ll know each other there!” Marcus suggested hopefully. “That would rock, knowing you here and there as well. So what is your name, beautiful?”
“Charm,” she answered in a voice of lead.
“It couldn’t be anything else!” he said with a grin. “I’m charmed to meet you.”
The girl said nothing and those sunglasses made it impossible for him to read her expression. He tried one of his trademark winks. They had a pretty good success rate. The girl turned back to the stage and he thought he caught what sounded like a bored sigh.
It was time for the performance to begin. First there was a display of courtly dancing, in which the Jacks and Jills took part. Then there was a re-enactment of an episode from the book, when the Jill of Hearts was kidnapped by a Punchinello Guard, who carried her off to a cave under one of the thirteen hills. The short, hideous creature was realised by a dwarf actor wearing an ingenious costume with built-up shoulders and a large, false head jutting from his chest. The head was suitably repulsive, with swivelling eyes and, when it menaced the captured girl, the younger children in the audience covered their own. But the Jack of Clubs came to the rescue just in time. He sliced his sword straight through the creature’s neck and the head went rolling across the stage.
“Oh, them fings is well vile,” Charm said to her mother. “I fink I’d scream if I saw ’em.”
“When you see them,” Mrs Benedict corrected. “But don’t you worry, child.