The Banker's Niece 4: The interview

To Jane's surprise the train journey from London Paddington to Exeter St David’s is an exhilarating three hours, zooming through lush countryside, listening to announcements made in a broad West Country accent. It's so quaint, she feels as if she's travelling back in time.

    She exits St David’s Station in a mixture of sun and showers. Behind the station is a range of green hills. Seagulls screech. There’s a smell of wet grass.

    Cathedral Green has a holiday atmosphere. It’s thronged with people, strolling, sitting on a low wall eating sandwiches, perched at café tables around the edge. A group of homeless men and women and their dogs have set up camp with blankets and bottles under a spreading beech tree. No one seems to mind them.

    Jane's pleased about that. She buys at least one Big Issue every week and always stops to talk to the vendor. She's had her addictions and her psychological problems. It's a miracle she's not in the same position.

    A wave of darkness sweeps through her and she has to stop walking and close her eyes for a few moments. These waves have started to become more frequent. They take her breath away. She doesn't know what they mean.

    When she opens her eyes again she sees the cathedral, honey coloured and low: a gentle giant protecting the city.

    As instructed, the other side of the Green she crosses a cobbled street to a row of uneven red-stone cottages with wattle and daub gables. They look medieval. She’s done her research and learnt that Exeter was flattened by bombs in World War II, with only the cathedral and its immediate surroundings spared. Once the city had a beauty to rival Bath. She can well believe it.

‘It’s probably best if we meet at my club in Exeter,’ said Henry Courtney. ‘I don’t expect you to find your way to the wilds of Exmoor straight away. Haw, haw, haw.’

    For several reasons Henry’s utterance made Jane cringe. Firstly there was the speed with which he rang her after she emailed her application. Then there was his accent, the staccato consonants and strange vowels that only Jane’s parents (sorry, mother) and their (her) friends and the most hidebound of Jane’s generation used. Thirdly there was his manner. So far he had dominated the conversation, speaking fast and without breaks as if he wasn’t interested in what Jane had to say at all. A lot of men did that, especially those with power. Fourthly she didn’t like the sound of meeting this unknown man in a club, or the wilds of Exmoor, or the laugh that accompanied their mention. Finally, he spoke as if she already had the job, which didn’t bode well.

    ‘Then, later – if you get the job of course, haw, haw, haw – I can show you round Moreton Courtney, our village, and Courtney Manor, our hice, and the stables where Courtney Press chews the bit. Haw, haw, haw.’

    That was an awful lot of strange horsey noises and an awful lot of Courtneys. Was he nervous or did he always speak like that? Was this a foretaste of rural life? How did such a buffoon run a successful publishing company?

    If she had managed to get a word in she might have declined his invitation to an interview but as it was she found herself organised to meet him at 2pm in three days’ time. He told her what train to catch, what route to walk from the station and what to do when she found the building, a private library on Cathedral Green.

    Is this what it feels like when the universe is on your side, or rather when you're on the side of the universe? It's more like being run over by a bin lorry.

Inside the library it’s shadowy, the walls covered with rows of books old and new. On the lower rows are leather-bound tomes the size of broadsheets. A balustraded gallery leads to more rows of books, which fade into the darkness above. It’s like being in My Fair Lady but without Rex Harrison. Jane tingles. Books are magical. You never know what you’ll find in them.

    Around a fireplace in sagging armchairs sit grey people reading newspapers. They look up when Jane enters and frown. She's flattered. They obviously don’t see her as a kindred spirit even though her own hair is on the side of grey – albeit with blonde highlights and sleek, she hopes, rather than Ancient Mariner bushy.

    A tall blond man in a pink cashmere jumper leaps from a side door and waves to Jane, before pointing back at the door from which he’s appeared and putting his finger to his lips.

    Trying not to giggle, Jane follows him.

   

‘Sorry about the cloak and dagger stuff,’ says the blond man, closing the door behind them. ‘It’s such a convenient place. So central. So useful for research, or used to be, before the days of the internet. Haw, haw, haw. Jane I presume. I’m Henry.’

    He holds out his hand and as Jane meets his eye she realises that he’s a lot more intelligent than she imagined. The waffle is a disguise, designed to fool you into underestimating him. She finds herself backing away and knocking into a chair. Suddenly, she really wants this job.

    ‘Sit down,’ says Henry. ‘Good journey? Find the place all right? Now tell me why you’ve applied. Fill in the gaps in your application. Why Devon? Why Courtney Press? Why publishing? What sort of books do you like to read? Any questions you’d like to ask me?’

    She feels as if a parliament of crows is pecking at her brain. She needs to stand up to this man but she’s not sure how to do it. She should have come better prepared. She should have a sheaf of her own questions.

    ‘I, er, wondered why it’s a new post,’ she stammers, sliding on to the chair she knocked.

    They are in a small room furnished only with a square table and the upright wooden chairs that she remembers from her schooldays with seats shaped to accommodate bottoms. There’s no sign of any tea or coffee but perhaps that’s too complicated – involving a single gas ring in a cupboard or something.

    ‘Ah, good question,’ says Henry, slowing down slightly. ‘Used to do all the commissioning myself but have decided to step back a little – for the sake of the family. Plus volume of work of course. So I’m taking on two of you. You would be doing the non-fiction, and I’ve taken on Sam to do the fiction. You’ll like her.’

    Jane already hates her. It's jealousy, she knows. She's always wanted to do fiction herself.

    She remembers her first publishing interview back in the late 1970s. ‘All you girls want to work in fiction,’ said the fat man in the striped shirt. ‘Why not start in non-fiction and then transfer?’ But of course you couldn’t. It was a con just like the secretarial con: you started as a secretary and ‘worked your way up’. Except you didn’t – unless you were sleeping with the boss.

    ‘I see,’ she says. ‘So I would have free rein to bring in new authors?’

    It's the sort of question you're supposed to ask. It shows how dynamic and self-motivating you are and suggests you have a list of interesting people to bring into the business. She doesn't really and the question just popped into her mind. Why is she being such an amateur at this?

    ‘Indeed,' says Henry. 'Subject of course to my approval.'

    Jane doesn’t like the sound of that, especially as Henry looks a little uncomfortable. Something has shifted in the atmosphere however and she realises that for some reason Henry needs her. Is she the only applicant? Perhaps the ‘wilds of Exmoor’ aren’t to everyone’s taste.

    And why is he so keen to divest himself of some of the work? Is it really family pressure and/or success as he says? Or is the business expanding too fast and getting out of hand? Is he thinking of selling it?

    What a lot of questions, but does she really care?

    She’s done her research about Courtney Press too. She has all the facts she needs.

    The Press exists. It was started by Henry twenty years ago, It employs about twelve people. It has a reputation for quality commercial fiction and non-fiction with an edge (‘Controversial Knowledge’ as they categorise it at her current employers). It’s based, as Henry said, in the converted stables of his family seat, which looks gorgeous in the pictures. His wife runs the house as a posh B & B and wedding venue.

    They chat some more about the job and why Jane wants to move out of London - she invents some guff about wanting to retrace her student days - but it’s only a formality. Both of them, she thinks, have already made their decision.

    The one thing she did expect to be asked about - her age - Henry doesn't mention but then he would have to be in his fifties himself even if he doesn't look it.

   

Jane scuttles back to the station. She hates interviews almost as much as she hates 'cosy chats', and Henry didn’t make her at all comfortable. She doesn’t trust him a jot.

    He offered her the job as she left and she said she would ring him first thing in the morning. She has no doubt as to what she will say.

Click here for Chapter 5

The Banker's Niece 3: New flat, new band

Autumn 1978

Ridge Farm was five miles from Exeter, which seemed a terrifyingly long way to Jane, who’d spent all three of her years at the University of Devon living in the city, but nothing to Rick who when they first got together in January had been renting a farm cottage ten miles from Exeter and two miles from the nearest village.

    In any case they didn’t have a choice. Mrs Bell was the only landlady who didn’t put the phone down on Jane when discovering that she and Rick weren’t married. She hadn’t even asked.

     

They drove out on Saturday in Rick’s blue wood-trimmed Mini - the Mini Clubman he called it with his technician's precision - to take a look at the place. They found the turning – eventually - but as they lurched up the rutted dirt track Jane could see Rick frowning.

    ‘This’ll play hell with the suspension,’ he said.

   She didn’t know what would happen to them if Rick didn’t like the place.

    They’d moved Rick out of his cottage at the beginning of March as his housemates had all gone for one reason or another and he was paying four people’s rent. He’d then camped at Jane’s student house which wasn’t ideal for lots of reasons, the main one being that she’d had a sort of thing with Gordon, one of the other residents.

    The tenancy of that house finished in June at the end of the university term and after that, for the last three months, they’d squatted in the box-room of a house rented by Wendy with whom Rick had had a short romance. So that wasn’t ideal either.

    Most of their belongings and Rick’s cat, Cat, were distributed around the houses of friends.

    This was the point at which she could have asked her father for help. There was probably enough money floating around – whether in her name or not (he never told her) - for her and Rick to put down at least the deposit on a house and get a mortgage. Not that her father held with mortgages (they were for the poor, like hire purchase) and not that she’d ever asked him for money or ever would now, least of all for a project that involved Rick.   

    Rick brightened however as they reached the top of the track and turned into a cobbled farmyard with stone barns in varying states of disrepair. Jane could see him already eyeing up a semi-enclosed space in the lower half of one of them. She knew what he was thinking. Garage. Workshop. Somewhere to store Stuff. He’d missed that since moving out of his cottage, which like this place had been surrounded by near-derelict farm buildings.

    Mrs Bell came out of the farmhouse to greet them and Jane warmed to her at once. Youngish with untidy blonde hair and a harassed expression, she was wearing muddy wellies and a navy woollen jumper full of holes.

    ‘This way,’ she said, leading them up some wooden steps on the outside of the barn Rick had noticed. Jane glanced at him hoping they could exchange a thumbs-up or something but he seemed to be deliberately looking away. 

    The flat was on one floor with windows in two directions. Jane could see the farmyard on one side and a field of sheep the other. Painted white, and open plan except for the bathroom and two curtained-off bedrooms, it was furnished in a mixture of modern pine and antique mahogany. It was more space than either of them had ever rented.

    ‘I think we like it,’ said Jane, looking at Rick for reassurance.

    He gave a shrug.

    Was that all he could say?

    

As usual Jane was on her own, because Rick as usual had retired to the smaller of the curtained-off bedrooms – the Music Room as it was now called. She could hear him singing and playing the guitar.

    She put down her fountain pen and pulled the wheeled calor-gas heater closer to her legs. As they’d discovered soon after they moved in and the weather turned, the flat was freezing. The one heater was all they had but luckily Rick didn’t seem to notice the cold so Jane could trawl it around with her like a dog.

    She was sitting at their mahogany dining-table writing to all the publishers listed in the local Yellow Pages. She hadn’t known where to start looking for a job but she liked reading and she now - by some fluke - had an arts degree (French and Spanish), and she had all that secretarial experience from those two years she worked in London (a time best forgotten, in her opinion) so maybe she and publishing would be mutually compatible. She didn’t have a vocation. She never had. That was the trouble.

    She would much rather be spending the evening curled up on the sofa with Rick but time was short as the waitressing job that had kept her going over the summer was coming to an end and anyway Rick didn’t seem to want to curl up on the sofa with her any more.

    Apart from the snatches of music, all she could hear was the rumble of the fire and the baaing of the sheep outside. Even though she’d been brought up in the country, in Kent, she didn’t remember it ever being as quiet and lonely as this.

    She could have gone to see Rick in the Music Room but she didn’t because, firstly, there was no space. Rick had filled it with his equipment and Jane would know all about that because she’d helped him hump it up the stairs.

    One radio (‘an AM/FM tuner’ in Rick-speak). Six wooden boxes of assorted sizes (‘speakers’). An ordinary guitar (a 'twelve-string acoustic’). An electric guitar (made by Rick in his teens from an article in Practical Electronics magazine). One small black box (an 'amp’, also made by Rick). Two record players (‘decks’). One tape recorder (a 'tape deck’). One cassette player. Two hundred records.

    The second reason she didn’t go into the Music Room was because whenever she did Rick would stop what he was doing and look guilty, which made her feel even worse. When did they start having secrets from each other? Why couldn’t he tell her what was going on?

    The first thing he’d shared with her was his music. He used to put on record after record and ask her what she thought of it. Luckily their tastes were pretty similar. Both liked rock, blues and some classical. Neither liked jazz, Elvis or the Rolling Stones. Rick liked folk whereas Jane preferred country but that didn’t matter – they were happy to learn from each other. The only real sticking point was Rick’s three absolute favourites, Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, all three of which Jane thought were way over the top. ‘It’s the only thing wrong with you,’ he used to joke. Or perhaps it wasn’t a joke.

The curtains drew back with a rattle that made Jane jump and Rick appeared. In spite of the cold, he was wearing a short-sleeved t-shirt, black with a red dragon on the front. His wavy brown hair was getting longer, she noticed. It was shoulder-length when she met him. Now it had reached his chest and hung in curtains around his face, and for a moment she didn’t recognise him.

    He stood facing her, legs apart.

    ‘I’ve been thinking,’ he said.

    Jane nodded. She couldn’t speak. Her throat had locked. Whatever he wanted she would go along with it. Of course she would. Why did he have to look so defiant?

    ‘I bumped into Dougie in Exeter a few days ago,’ he said cautiously, as if softening whatever blow was about to fall.

    Jane nodded again.

    She knew about Dougie even though she’d never met him as he now worked in Bristol. He and Rick had been best friends at South Molton grammar school. They’d formed a duo and called themselves the Devonians and played folk-rock all over the county, with Rick as singer and guitarist and Dougie on drums.

    ‘He’s back from Bristol and working as a car salesman,’ Rick continued. ‘Hates it.’

    Rick wasn’t too keen on his job either. He was an electronics technician in a science department at the university. It wasn’t the work itself that got him down; it was the hierarchy and the stupid rules and the stuffy academics who (like Jane’s parents) thought that people who worked with their hands were inferior to people who worked with their heads. As if technicians didn’t use their heads as well as their hands. Which, if anything as far as Jane could work out, made them superior.

    ‘And we were thinking,’ said Rick, ‘why didn’t we start a band again? Get some others to join us, take it seriously. Really try and make a go of it this time.’

    So that was it. It wasn’t so bad after all.

    Was it?

    Maybe now things could go back to the way they’d been before the summer.

For Chapter 4, click here

A magical late-summer walk on the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal in Somerset

I just had to stop and post this picture I took yesterday of the Bridgwater and Taunton Canal. We stole a day out from The Bathroom and The Builders and had a magical walk.

    Ellie, who normally can’t get enough fuss from people, met her match: a fearless little girl who pursued her for a good half mile, patting her on the head whenever she could reach. We could see Ellie was embarrassed but far too polite to shake her off. We weren’t sure why she held back but it could have been because she understood that the little girl was like a puppy, with which Ellie is surprisingly patient.

    ‘You’re very good with dogs,’ I said to the little girl. ‘Have you got one of your own?’

    ‘No,’ said the little girl giving a skip, ‘but me and my dad want to get one.’

    There’s a story there, I thought.

The Banker's Niece 2: The advertisement

Jane strides along the pavement in the spring sunshine. All those people jammed into tubes and buses don’t know what they’re missing. She’s never walked to Sharon’s before, but she can’t think why not as Clerkenwell to Stoke Newington isn’t that far and by taking the smaller roads she can escape most of the traffic fumes. She must do it more often.

    ‘Ring me any time,’ Sharon said when they parted after Jane’s ‘taster’ session nearly two months ago, handing her a card. ‘If there’s anything you’re worried about or want to discuss, just get in touch.’

    Jane was surprised. That was kind, and professional. But of course she wouldn’t. Her visit to the fair was an aberration and the tarot reading an accident. Then she spent the whole night awake and rang Sharon the next morning, even though it was Sunday. They made an appointment for Monday evening, and on Monday for the following Saturday, and then for every Saturday after that. She supposes she keeps going to see Sharon because she hasn’t anything else. Her time there is the only part of her life where she feels almost normal.

    A delicious smell of pastries and coffee wafts out of a café that appears on her right. Through its window she glimpses dark wood, mirrors and several empty tables. Judging by the signs, it’s independently owned and not part of a chain. She looks at her watch. Yes, she has time. She’s never been to this place before but she likes the look of it. She pushes in.

    ‘Can I help you madam?’ says a handsome Mediterranean-looking man behind the tall counter.

    Better and better. She is a big fan of all things Mediterranean, especially the men and especially when they’re polite and keep their distance. She can then admire from afar and not risk breaking her millennial resolution to have no more meaningless relationships.

    She orders a double espresso and makes her way to a table at the back, next to a rack of newspapers. How civilised. She hasn’t read a newspaper for years. She pulls one down and turns to the jobs pages. It never does any harm to check that you’re being paid enough. There’s even a section for media and arts.

    A small boxed ad at the bottom of one of the pages catches her eye.

Exciting opportunity

Expansion due to success

COMMISSIONING EDITOR WANTED

New post in small but prestigious

family-owned book publisher

in glorious Devon countryside

She looks up and sees the man behind the counter watching her. That means she can’t tear the ad out and will have to engage with him. Bother. Trying not to blush, she takes the paper to the counter and points to the ad.

    ‘Could I possibly take this away with me?’

    ‘But of course, madam,’ he says, pulling a pair of scissors from under the counter.

    Unfortunately she stumbles over a chair on the way back to her table to pick up her bag and coat, otherwise she might have congratulated herself on how well she handled the situation.

As always she gets lost when negotiating the maze of walkways that lead to Sharon’s flat. When she does eventually arrive, she thinks of Mole stumbling across Badger's house in the middle of the Wild Wood.
    She loves that book The Wind in the Willows - more now probably than she did as a child. It's funny how you revisit children's books increasingly as you age. Whether that's a good sign, she's not sure.

   The reminders continue when she enters the flat as Sharon keeps the curtains half-drawn and the place is gloomy and mysterious like Badger's rambling underground lair. She doubts however whether Badger would have incense sticks burning, as Sharon does.

    They sit opposite each other at a small table as they did at the fair. Jane likes this; it makes their meetings impersonal. She can't bear 'cosy chats', especially with women. Women always want to draw the soul out of you so that they can use it against you at a later date. There's nothing cosy about Sharon, and she's not particularly interested in Jane's past except as it relates to present choices. Which is a relief.
    ‘What d’you think?’ Jane says excitedly, handing the clipping to her mentor. 

    Sharon glances quickly at the ad and then says, ‘Why are you asking me?’
    Jane grits her teeth. Why does Sharon have to be so difficult all the time? Wasn't Jane moving the first thing Sharon said back in February when they first met? And now here she is ready to do something about it. She thought Sharon would be pleased.

    ‘Well, because there are so many reasons why I shouldn’t apply for the job,’ she says.

    ‘Name one,’ says Sharon.

    Jane raises her hands and counts off the reasons on fingers. ‘One, it’s not a promotion, it’s a sideways step. Two, I’ve never heard of this publisher before. Three, as well as leaving my flat, I’d have to move to the other side of the country and abandon my friends and family. Four, what do I know about rural Devon? Five, I’ve only just got time to apply before the deadline runs out so it would be a rush.’ She swaps hands and takes a couple of breaths. ‘Six, I’m not even sure I want to continue working in publishing. Seven –’

    ‘Stop, stop, stop,’ interrupts Sharon.

    ‘What?’ says Jane, pausing with her hands in the air.

    ‘What have I been teaching you all these weeks?’

    Jane’s mind goes blank. They’ve done so much it’s all a bit of a blur. Every week Sharon surprises her with something new and that’s probably another of the reasons she keeps coming back.

    ‘Er, lots of things,’ she says.

    ‘In-tu-ition,’ says Sharon, tapping the table with a forefinger.

    ‘Ah, yes,’ says Jane.

    Now she remembers. That faculty which reminds her of dipping her toe in the water in order to test how cold it is before plunging. One of the first exercises Sharon set her involved recognising and testing intuitive hunches.   

     ‘And what have I told you about intuition?’ continues Sharon.

     ‘I –I don’t know,’ says Jane. She feels as if she’s back at school, struggling to find the right answer and not give away the fact that her mind drifts.

    ‘It’s a clue,’ says Sharon, sounding exasperated.

    ‘A clue to what?’ Jane mumbles. She’s a bit cross now. Why can’t Sharon just tell her whether or not to apply for the job?

    ‘To our life-plan. The one based on our karmic needs. The one the universe helps us with if we follow it but which brings us nothing but misery if we don’t.’

    All these words, all these ideas. She’s heard them before of course, but she’s never taken them seriously because they’re so far from everything she was taught at grammar school and by the Church of England or learnt from the example of her parents. Sharon on the other hand takes them as a given. It’s disorientating, to say the least, but interesting.

    ‘So are you saying that the universe led me to the job ad?’ she asks grumpily. ‘That’s stupid. It was a series of accidents.’

    Sharon sighs heavily. ‘OK. Put it another way. How do you buy your clothes?’

    Jane flinches. How does Sharon know about her secret addiction?

    ‘Well, mostly these days I just wander around until something jumps out at me,’ she answers, thinking of those happy days lost in a dream of fabrics and colours.

    ‘And why do you do it like that? Why don’t you go looking for something specific?’

    ‘Well I used to,’ says Jane, warming to her subject, ‘but then I could never find anything. And I realised that the clothes that jumped out at me were the ones I really loved. They were different from what I had before, whereas if I went with a preconceived idea of what I wanted then I’d be buying something similar to what I already had and that was boring.’

    ‘Ex-actly,’ says Sharon, looking smug.

    ‘Exactly what?’ says Jane, grumpily, although she’s beginning to see what Sharon means.

    ‘You should run your life like you buy your clothes,’ replies Sharon.

    ‘On whims, you mean,’ snorts Jane, not yet ready to concede.

    ‘No,’ says Sharon slowly and deliberately, as if talking to an idiot. ‘Taking risks. Having more confidence in yourself and your instincts.’

Click here for Chapter 3

The Banker's Niece 1: The tarot reading

Mind Body Spirit Fair

Free taster sessions

Therapists * Psychics

Crystals * Books * Clothes

Café

Jane stands outside the Old Market studying the board propped up on the pavement, her stomach knotted. Wishy-washy music and sickly-sweet incense waft from the hall, clashing with the roar and stench of the traffic behind her.

    What in God’s name is she doing here? Why did she even look at the flyer when it dropped through her letterbox? She hates large gatherings and she's far too old to be dabbling in such nonsense. What would her friends say? What would they say at work? She’s a living cliché: ageing spinster in dire straits turns to the occult.

    A pair of fake bay-trees in metal pots flank the hall’s green double doors. For Jane, they do nothing to make the place more welcoming.

    Clenching her fists, she walks in.

A babble of voices assaults her like a foul wind. Movements and shapes zig-zag across her vision. Battalions of middle-aged women in flat shoes and no make-up shoulder through tight rows of stalls. A sprinkling of bearded men slalom around the women apologetically.

    Her head tightens as it does before a migraine. A weight settles on her. Is this her world now? Is this all she can expect?

    She hurries into a side aisle, hoping to find somewhere less upsetting, but the stallholders watch her as she goes by and she has to keep moving in case they try to talk to her and interest her in their wares. For the umpteenth time she regrets her height. Why did she have to end up a 5-foot 10-inch freak? She can never be inconspicuous.

    She leans against a stone pillar. It’s cool and smooth with a musty smell that reminds her of church. To her horror, tears threaten.

    For the first year after her father’s death she felt nothing but relief. She was almost euphoric. Then last year something changed. She became a stranger to herself. She said goodbye to the disciplined book editor, the predictable 59-year-old. She’s been like a teenager again. Angry. Restless. She can’t concentrate. She paces the streets. She screams into her pillow.

    And she doesn’t know what to do to make herself feel better.

    ‘Can I help you?’ says a soft voice.

    She jumps.

    ‘Have a seat,’ says the voice and something bumps into the back of her legs.

    She turns. A young woman is pushing a chair at her. She has a heart-shaped face and dyed blond hair with dark roots showing.

    ‘I, er, I’m in a bit of a hurry actually,’ mumbles Jane, wiping her eyes with the back of a hand. ‘I’m, er, looking for someone.’

    Ironically, that’s the truth she realises, almost with relief. She is looking for someone – anyone – who can help her. That’s why she’s here.

    But she doesn’t think this woman is that person. She’s not impressive enough. If she hadn’t spoken, Jane would never have noticed her.

    ‘Sit,’ says the woman.

    Jane sits with a bump.

    The woman takes a chair the other side of a small table and fans a pack of outsize cards face down on to it. The card-backs are black with geometric designs in turquoise-blue. They look slightly evil.

    ‘Pick a card,’ says the woman.

    ‘Sorry,’ says Jane. ‘I don’t know who you are or what you do.’

    She needs to assert herself quickly, before she gets drawn in.

    ‘I’m Sharon,’ said the woman, ‘and I’m offering you a tarot reading. A free taster session. I thought that was what you wanted. I thought that was why you came here today.’

    Jane feels a prickle of fear. The woman is right. Something like a tarot reading, some sort of guidance about her future, is exactly what she wants, even if she hadn’t formulated it as such. Not only is the woman a mind-reader, but she knows more about Jane than Jane does herself. What else will Sharon say and does Jane really want to know? She’s not sure about this at all.

    ‘Go on,’ says Sharon. ‘Take a deep breath.’

    Jane’s head tightens again. She’s not a child. She doesn’t have to be coaxed. She’s here of her own free will and will do exactly as she wants.

    Trying to look unconcerned, she waves a hand over the fan and points at one of the cards.

    Sharon takes it and places it in front of herself, still face down.

    ‘Two more,’ she says.

    Jane obeys.

    Sharon flips over the first card. It shows a man standing on one leg. Swords lie on the ground in a circle, their points towards the toes he’s standing on. Jane reads the card’s name upside-down: Six of Swords

    ‘You have to move,’ says Sharon, index finger on the card.

    ‘What!’ says Jane. ‘How can I move? I’ve lived in London for thirty-five years. I have a beautiful flat, a good job, friends, family.’

    She notices that she hasn’t asked the obvious question. How does Sharon know this from a card?

    Sharon shrugs. ‘I just say what I see. You don’t have to believe me.’

    She flips over card number two.

    Jane shivers. The card has an ominous name: The Tower. It shows a tower on fire and people hurtling to their death. She’s almost there, in the picture, hearing the crackles and the screams.

    ‘Listen to me.’ says Sharon, looking Jane in the face. ‘You have to do something. The longer you leave it, the worse it will be.’

    Jane pretends to snort.

    ‘I mean it,’ says Sharon.

    She flips over the third card. ‘Ah,’ she smiles as if the card has confirmed her suspicions.

    The card is called Prince of Wands. It shows a young man with long wavy brown hair, a dimpled chin, a generous mouth and serious eyes.

    Jane’s breathing becomes shallow.

    Sharon taps the card with a forefinger. ‘And he’s behind it all. He’s an artist of some kind. Fiery, creative.’

    Jane stares at her.

    ‘D’you know who I’m talking about?’ asks Sharon impatiently.
    Jane dips her head a fraction of an inch.

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