Emma Jane Davies

If You Believe In Me

Contemporary fantasy. This is a story that I have had lying around for years, which I recently gave a heavy revision for publication in Hub Magazine. I sucked the blood out of it a while back, and a much altered form appears as a scene in my novel. Words: 1804.

In the midst of the jangling funfair, I found Danny glued to a noisy game of space-invaders. I leaned back against the side of the rumbling machine and folded my arms. He glanced up at me and grinned. “Hey Lou,” he said, gaze returning quickly to the screen. Pixelated explosions reflected in his pupils. I watched him play, his brows knitted in concentration, though after a while I rolled my eyes and turned my back on him.

Like rats in a sewer, the penny arcade seethed with kids. They ran up and down the aisles and flocked around the juddering games machines. Coins cascaded, LEDs flashed, and one-armed bandits dinged a discordant melody. Honky-tonk piano tinkled from somewhere out in the fair. At the back of the hall, a woman yelled as she scored a full house on the bingo. The trailing scream of a ghost train echoed through the fairground like a lost banshee.

“You know they’ve got a Barnum and Bailey sideshow out there?” I said. “They’ve got a load of pickled foetuses and two-headed mutants in jars. It’s fantastic.”

Danny was still busy shooting down Cylons or Tie-fighters or something. He swore inventively and banged the side of the machine.

“What on earth are you doing?” I asked.

“Losing,” he told me. Then he groped around in his pocket for some more change and fed it into the coin slot.

I groaned. “All right, Commander Skywalker, I’ll wait outside.” I made to leave.

“No, don’t go,” he said, starting away from the machine to catch my arm. He pulled me back and set about continuing his game.

“You know these things are addictive…” I began.

“Keep your buns on, Princess Leia,” he replied snarkily. “It won’t take me a minute to finish this.”

I waited patiently. I reminded myself that I was lucky to get a holiday at all, even though we had spent most of it inside arcades due to an overabundance of typical British coastline weather. Danny’s mum had rented a chalet and had asked me along. Danny had no brothers or sisters, and Danny’s mum was liberal-minded about his girlfriend staying over. She was a free spirit, a hippy who decorated her house with patchwork blankets and burned patchouli incense whenever guests called by.

The game took more than a minute. It took several. Danny’s expression was hawk-like. He had his long black hair pulled back into a loose ponytail. He wore dark jeans, and his ubiquitous velvet jacket. He seemed utterly out of place in this shabby seaside arcade hall, as if a film editor had transposed him here, cut from a green screen, a piece of make-believe made real. Danny is not a boyfriend I will be giving up any time ever. Even though I tease him and act cool with him, he is mine, and he is staying that way. Danny is special.

I bent close to his ear. “Once upon a time,” I began, “A young chancer spent all of his money on arcade games, and then his mother wouldn’t give him any more, so he had to go without fags and booze…”

He looked up at me, half amused, half annoyed, and he sighed. Then his ship exploded, and he cuffed me gently on the arm, and gave up. “I don’t need mum’s money,” he said smartly, hopping out from the seat. “I can support her if I want, and you too when we get married.”

“I shall hold you to that,” I said, heart aflutter though I refused to show it. I followed him down an aisle of one-armed bandits. I would not let him support me, but he had just said the M word, as casually as if he was talking about making tea or going to the shops.

“You should believe in me,” he said. “I want you to.”

I gestured towards the open maw of the arcade, the canvas sky hanging over the funfair, the rides flashing and clattering through a soft muslin of misty grey rain. “I had my tarot read. Gypsy Rose says I’ll marry a man who spins on the wheel of destiny, and I’ll have three kids, and we’ll all travel the world and make our fortune. So what do you think of that?”

Danny raised an eyebrow evilly. “I’ll show you how I’ll do it if you want.”

“What?” I asked, playing stupid.

“How I’ll make my fortune.”

I laughed, but inside I felt that familiar nervy pang. We had both just finished our A-levels, and we were still waiting for the results. The summer had been one long nail-biting insanity-generating torment. Neither of us knew if we would get into university yet. “You? Make your fortune? Tell me another one. What’s your plan? You’re not going to get an actual job are you?”

“Nooo…” he said, “as if I would lower myself to an honest trade, really Lou.” He searched around in his pockets for something. “Lend me ten pee, will you.”

I laughed again. “That’s a very good way of making money, but no, I won’t, because you’ll just spend it.”

“No I won’t,” he shook his head innocently. “I promise. Just have faith in me. That’s all I need.”

I smirked and dug into my pocket. “Here you are then. I bet you will spend it.”

He led me down the aisle and past the penny falls to the ten-penny cascade, and fed my money into the machine.

“I thought you weren’t going to spend it.” I teased.

He glanced at me. It was not a sarcastic glance or an irritated glance. It was just a glance. “Now watch this,” he said.

I knew what he was going to do even before he did it. I have known for a while now that Danny is not like other boys. Danny is something else. Danny is extraordinary.

He knelt down in front of the machine and stared at the ten pence, still reverberating on the moving top platform. It had landed half-on half-off a second coin, but abruptly it began to slide off. I smiled. Jerkily at first, then quite smoothly, it slid itself down flat against the metal shelf.

“Oh, I don’t believe you…”

“Shush, don’t say that. I have to concentrate.”

“Yes sir!” Silenced, I watched. He pulled the coin towards him on the invisible thread of his mind. The motion of the top step caused the coin to push against others, to knock them down onto the lower tray. They pushed up into the pile, nothing more. I began to chuckle at him.

He looked up at me. Danny has this look, sometimes, as though devil has climbed inside him and is peering out through his eyes. “Tell me I can do it,” he said.

“Of course you can do it,” I replied, perplexed.

Danny shrugged and flexed his mind. I felt him do it, like a pressure wave. Smash! He was just a big kid, no subtlety whatsoever. The entire overhanging step of coins fell down and rattled out of the winnings tray onto the floor.

I burst out laughing. “You’re getting stronger!” I exclaimed, clapping my hands together gleefully.

“Told you I could use it for good,” Danny said, one eyebrow hiked in irony. He hastily began to pick up the fallen coins. “Lou, can you pass me your bag?” he asked, trying to fend off the curious kids gathering around to help. I passed him my bag and carried on laughing, because it was his mess, and funnier to watch him try to clear it up than it was to help.

Amongst the coins were a few toys and prizes. He picked up a cheap ring with a big fake diamond on it. Grinning up at me wickedly, he slipped the ring into his top pocket with a meaningful look.

“Twenty four carat plastic,” I mocked, even though my heart soared like a gull. “I’m a very lucky girl.”

Danny took his ten pence coins to the cashier to change them. He had made nearly twelve pounds, but he had not finished yet. He took out a pound coin from his winnings and guided me towards the bandits.

He turned to me unexpectedly, and took me by the waist, pulling me close. “Do you think I can do it?” he asked. His hands felt warm through my t-shirt. I liked it when he touched me without thinking about it.

“You’re no phony,” I replied, temporarily transfixed by him. He could be so intense. I tingled with a little thread of excitement. “Of course I do. I have complete confidence in you.”

Danny bit his bottom lip, deep in thought, his sharp teeth visible. He slipped the coin into the slot.

“I shall have to take you to Vegas.” I said, as I imagined him reading playing cards face down in the deck. “You’ll be rich.”

“Love to,” was the reply as the drum jumped around past the BAR to the cherries, and pound coins came clattering into the tray. “Guess we might travel the world, eh? I’m getting good with machines.” His hungry hands poured money into the pockets of his velvet jacket.

He tugged one of my plaits. “Told you I could make money,” he said, and he gave me back my ten pence. “A little faith goes a long way.”

I glanced towards the sideshow trailers out in the fairground. “You know Danny, you want to stay away from these kinds of places,” I teased. “Or someday they might put you in a freak show.”

Danny smiled a smart little smile and held out his hand for me to catch. He led me out of the arcade and into the damp misty early evening, into the smell of sea salt and the sound of the gulls. A paper moon sailed over the cardboard sea, grey upon grey.

“Want to go and get some fish and chips?” I asked.

“Yes boss. Donuts for afters?”

We walked along the seafront together, down the steps and onto the soft sand, happy just to be out in the fresh air, listening to the waves crash against the shore. I trailed my gaze along the promenade.

“Looking for something?” he asked.

“A cash machine,” I said.

“Cash machine? We’re loaded, we don’t need one.”

“Well…” I said, unable to stop myself from smiling as the idea slowly coalesced in my head, “I’ve suddenly been struck by the belief that you won’t need a debit card.”

That familiar wicked grin spreading across Danny’s face gave me all the reply I needed. Then he laughed, and I laughed along with him as we walked onwards, my hand in his. The sounds of the arcade faded slowly behind us, lost in the roar of the surf, and the cries of the gulls.