Chapter 2: Mose's South Sea Island

In a flash they were sitting in canvas chairs on a blindingly white sandy beach, at a round table under an enormous umbrella; behind them a thick green jungle backdrop, in front the vista of a deep blue lagoon, beyond which foaming waves crashing into a reef protecting the beach from the ocean beyond. The sky was red in the west, a glorious sunset in the offing. Beside them was a blazing fire made from a cairn of dry driftwood, giving off little if any smoke.

“Wow!” Ty’s currently favourite word forming almost silently on his lips.

“Yes, lovely, isn’t it? I think we have about thirty to forty-five minutes of daylight left before we think about leaving. I come here a couple of times a week, usually first thing in the morning back home. I generally wake up about 5am, which is early afternoon here. I only come here for a couple of hours, soak up some vital vitamin D, it does me a world of good. The council health and welfare sends round a helper, actually one of several carers, to help me clean my house at about 9am three days a week, usually one of a team of three, and they get my grocery shopping, and meals on wheels comes only on a Friday because they do a nice fish and chips which I can heat up with that just fresh-out-of-the-fryer crispness by a little fingertip magic. The rest of my meals I can sort out from the ingredients I buy. My favourite spot on this tropical paradise of over half a century ago was just around that headland to the right, but twenty years ago the owners built a resort there. I had explored this area years earlier when I was younger and fitter, and this was my second favourite —”

“So the other place was even prettier than this?”

“Much better. It’s basically a tourist trap now, but in the day back then it was perfect. My wife and I came here all the time, not just through magic, but we physically lived there in a little house I built myself from driftwood and coconut leaves for a few weeks’ vacation every year. I didn’t even pay rent, just put on a show for the chief of the island and his family once in a while. I just hadn’t realised until it was too late that to protect this place from being spoiled I needed to own it, and the magic shows and the tv series just didn’t earn me enough to buy it.”

“Your wife? So you married again?”

“I did, Mavis was the love of my life.”

“How did you meet this Mavis?”

“She was my assistant, ‘Marissa Monroe’, she called herself, but she was really Miss Mavis Elly Potter from Pinner. She was long-legged, blond and busty, but with soft brown eyes and a really sweet nature. I fell for her like a ton of bricks of course and didn’t even think to use any magic on her. I was still in the magic business, but only made a couple of guest appearances each year on the tv. I mostly did one night only cabaret in small venues like church halls and provincial theatres here in the UK, but occasional higher profile places like Monte Carlo, Atlantic City and Las Vegas, not the top spots but good venues in those places. Then, through my booking agent one day I got invited to do a cruise again. I hadn’t done one for several years, almost a decade, and last time I only did individual table tricks with cards, rather like you do, but to high rollers all done up to the nines, big tippers.”

“And more high class wives looking for romance?”

“Yes. But not for me the second time around. I did more than enough of that first time around to be sick of it. Once we got away from that drowned island, I quit the booze but still hadn’t taken fully taken stock of my life. One of the wealthy ladies, who was about my age, had already sampled what I had to offer and moved on to one of the more professional ballroom dancers. She had a young daughter with her, an innocent girl, who didn’t realise how truly beautiful she was. So I clicked my fingers and she was my plaything for the rest of the week.”

“What did her mum think of that?”

“She was pissed off, said she was a major shareholder of the shipping line and threatened to get me sacked. So I waved my hand and the old trout forgot I existed. Her daughter developed a crush and was quite distraught when we parted, so I got her to forget about me and she instantly treated me with the same disdain as before. That set a pattern for the next four months of cruising. Now, I had the pick of the crop of young ladies, I suppose I convinced myself that I was irresistible thanks to the magic, and that I posed no threat to husbands, boyfriends or the girls themselves. I was also greedy, so once I had the girl I wanted, I made her forget me while I pursued the next. All these beautiful daughters of the upper classes being seduced by one of the hoi polloi was a big part of the thrill for me, the sex itself was just sex, enjoyable recreation on a low level, so low that it became meaningless.”

“So you used the power of magic to have a great time? I guess if I was single I’d’ve done something similar.”

“You married Ty, right?”

“Yeah, to my sweetheart Jenny-Clare, we’ve been together since we were at school. We’ve got two lovely girls.”

“Well, bring them round one morning, at the weekend and we can come here and you can let them splash in the lagoon.”

“Jessie’s only 3 and Mikey’s 9 months —”

“Perfect time to learn to swim in a warm shallow lagoon, Ty. No shivering, no dipping toes tentatively, just the joy of cool water on a hot day.”

“Tempting, I might take you up on that.”

“25 Wellington Terrace, just off Brunswick Street,” Moses said, “You’ll have to come early, or contact me any time and book the next time I go.”

“Thank you, that’s very kind of you.”

“I’ve a lot to make up for,” Moses muttered, his lined face looking sad, “I was cruel on that cruise and that’s when I stopped using the mind wipe. The last girl I seduced using magic was very beautiful, skin like peaches and cream, and was a sweet and lovely girl who looked like butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth. Her beauty was eternal, the bone structure of her face, her shape, all great genes, she was a youthful vision of her glorious mother. Now, her mother was a multiple married movie star, in her late 40s, who I had bedded on the very first night of her cruise. I didn’t need to use magic on the Mum, I just oozed confidence and she wanted me, she was very famous and she looked very good. I got her to forget me the next morning as there was a Brazilian wife of a nasty Argentinian polo club owner and millionaire who took my fancy. However, I later overheard the actress was disparaging me among her sycophants that I was a terrible lay.”

“Your mind wipe didn’t work?”

“No, not on her apparently, or maybe I only got her to forget the many orgasms she enjoyed so vocally the previous night. I was so pissed that I did the one thing since the drowned island that was absolutely unforgivable ... I dropped the Brazilian woman I had targeted and went for the actress’s innocent daughter.”

“This sounds ominous, Moses, are you sure you want to unload this, now, to me, someone you hardly know?”