Rust and Dust 3

The Tink fell into step beside her. Something in her stirred and unsettled him. And it wasn’t just her beauty or her overpowering perfume. He’d allowed for that too. But not enough. Much of her rich world seemed unreal to him. Fads and the fashions. Running after things that didn’t matter. The endless, grasping chase.

He knew his machines so well. Their worn cogs and gears rubbing along together and fixed back into place with a bit of oil and grease—the daily routine of keeping things running—he worked like an automaton, with a smattering of food and some sleep thrown in. She was his boss now. But it hadn’t really changed anything.

Waves of visitors to the pier from the tenements stairs and closes, in their best clothes, with their high hopes and crude jokes, rushing from one thing to another in an endless play of trying to fit everything in a day  — washed over him.

He was seen and unseen. Apart from the blinking boy. He’d seen him.

End of season stuff. He’d just spread a damp sheet over the gypsy fortune-telling machine. Crouched before the mundane figure with her painted glass face clouded with dust and old incense.  The long front edge already oily. The salt air cold and sharp enough to sting. Cut through with the familiar tang of machinery.

He’d a heavy cold that felt like bronchitis and the threat of TB. Every hacking breath carried the stink of seaweed drying on the pier pilings, tar from the boards, and a faint sweet whiff of roasted chestnuts drifting from a cart down the promenade, which didn’t do much trade. He’d felt sorry for the trader, an Eastern European Jew from Lithuania, who had an Italian boss that took much of his small pickings. He spoke Yiddish and only a few words of heavily accented English and relied on his son—the blinking boy—to translate.  

The wooden planks beneath him moaned in sympathy with the tide. The calliope from the fairground wound its thin song on the tongues of the mist.

The hinges offered a tired squeal as he opened the cabinet. Inside was a familiar world of gears, belts, and brass contacts. Breathing in grease and burnt dust.

He’d forgotten his rubber torch. A marvel of British engineering a drunken day-tripper had left behind. He felt for the polished brass lighter in his pocket. The flickering flame snapped and hissing, as he leaned in. The warmth brought out the acrid reek of paraffin and singed wiring.

As he tightened a bolt, a voice box hidden in the automaton gave a sudden sigh.

A wet, broken whisper, ‘What are you doin?’

The pier groaned like something shifting in its long sleep. His head jerked away from the machine as if shocked by static.

He told himself it was nothing. A misfire. Cracked diaphragm catching salty air where it shouldn’t have been. But his hands shook as he adjusted the pulley. Copper—raw, metallic, somehow bloody—seeped out where a wire had burned through its sheath.

A metallic clack. The fortune tray snapped open.

He reached for the slip of card inside. It smelled faintly of printer’s ink, old and sour as his overalls. He lifted the dry card. Turned it over twice. Squinted at the hammy message he expected to read. But the paper was blank.

A gull screeched overhead. In a battle with something much bigger. Then it grew silent. The machine’s innards rattled with purpose. A soft clinking, like loose coins shaken in a pocket. He hadn’t fixed it yet, or turned it on.

‘What are you doin?’ the son of the chestnut-stall holder asked.

The Tink had only seen him from a distance. The cold mist had pushed in and settled against his hunched shoulders. He put his hands to his cupped mouth to warm them. He blinked a lot with long black eyelashes that would have been the envy of most girls.

‘I’m fixing the machine.’

The blinking boy pushed closer with a rattle and thump of his foot to get a better look. He’d high hunched shoulders, which suggested some spinal deformity. An iron frame was attached to the sole of his boot. Rickets was common. He was part machine himself. He looked at the world with wide grey eyes.

The Tink shuffled to the side to let him get a better look. ‘It’s the latest model with all the latest gizmos. All the way fae America.’ He rubbed Madame Zia’s head with the cloth. Rattled her flashing lights. Tapped on the pulleys and bellows. ‘She can even speak tae yeh.’

‘What does she say?’ The blinking boy leaned into the Tink and almost fell. The Tink grabbed wrist to keep him upright. But he didn’t seem to notice. ‘Has she got an American accent? How does she know the future?’

The questions poured out.

The Tink felt warmed by his presence and took his time answering them. Pointing and letting the blinking boy peer in and tug the pulleys and feel the wiring. Spin the drum where the cards were kept.  

His quiet, enquiring voice went silent. Then he piped up. ‘I wish I could make it work. I think Madame Zita likes me.’       

‘Aye, I’m sure she does.’ He ruffled the boy’s hair. ‘I think we can arrange something.’ He wiped his hand on the rag and dug into his pocket and pulled out a Palestinian penny and showed it to him.

The blinking boy’s sunken chin moved up a fraction and he smiled. ‘What’s that?’

‘It’s a penny.’ He leaned down and turned the machine on. ‘A very special penny, I’ve made it.’ He ran a finger over the drilled edge, checking its smoothness before handing it to the boy and guiding his hand to the slot. ‘You put it intae this slot and push.’

Madame Zia lit up, and they both laughed. He watched the boy’s face as it went through its usual spiel.

When the card popped out, he squealed in delight. ‘Can I read it?’

‘Don’t see why no?’

Madame Zia lit up again and he knew he’d have to do something with the wiring.

The blinking boy clutched the card to his chest. ‘How does it know?’

‘How does it know, whit?’

He read the card the blinking boy handed him.

      “A journey by water beckons.”
Though the tides may seem uncertain, your steps shall be guided. Pack lightly, for heavy burdens slow the soul.

The Tink shrugged. ‘I don’t really get it. It doesnae really mean anything. I showed yeh how the drum works. It spins around and spit out any kind of shite.’

‘I don’t want to go,’ the blinking boy wailed.

‘Go where?’

‘Home.’ He swiped at his snottery nose. ‘I’ve ne’er been there. But Da wrote to the authorities and asked if we could return and they said “Yes.” There’s lots of jobs and free accommodation.’

The Tink didn’t know what to say. ‘It might no be that bad.’ He took the penny from the machine and pressed it into the blinking boy’s hand. ‘You keep it.’ He winked. ‘Use it in any of oor machines and you’ll get yer money back, but don’t let on tae anybody.’ He tapped the side of Madame Zia’s head.  ‘Make yersel a new future. Go on…put it in the slot.’

‘No, thank you.’ He put the coin in his pocket. Thumped and clanged into the mist. ‘Madame Zia said I wasn’t to trust you and should come back later.’