Colette cried until two red tracks were scored into her cheeks, and she got hiccoughs. She began to feel ashamed. Every lurch of her diaphragm added to her indignity. She was afraid that Alison, after her deafness, might now choose to hear.
Downstairs, Al had her tarot pack fanned out before her. The cards were face down, and when Colette appeared in the doorway she was idly sliding them in a rightward direction, over the pristine surface of their new dining table.
“What are you doing? You’re cheating.”
“Mm? It’s not a game.”
“But you’re fixing it, you’re shoving them back into the pack! With your finger! You are!”
“It’s called Washing the Cards,” Al said. “Have you been crying?”
Colette sat down in front of her. “Do me a reading.”
“Oh, you have been crying. You have so.”
Colette said nothing.
“What can I do to help?”
“I’d rather not talk about it.”
“So I should make general conversation?”
“If you like.”
“I can’t. You start.”
“Did you have any more thoughts about the garden?”
“Yes. I like it as it is.”
“What, just turf?”
“For the moment.”
“I thought we could have a pond.”
“No, the children. The neighbours’ children.”
“What about them?”
“Cut the pack.”
Colette did it.
“Children can drown in two inches of water.”
“Aren’t they ingenious?”
“Cut again. Left hand.”
“I could get some quotes for landscaping.”
“Don’t you like grass?”
“It needs cutting.”
“Can’t you do it?”
“Not with my back.”
“Your back? You never mentioned it.”
“You never gave me the chance.”
“Cut again. Left hand, Colette, left hand. Well, I can’t do it. I’ve got a bad back too.”
“Really? Where did that originate?”
“When I was a child.” I was dragged, Alison thought, over the rough ground.
“I’d have thought it would have been better.”
“Why?”
“I thought time was a great healer.”
“Not of backs.”
Colette’s hand hovered.
“Choose one,” Al said. “One hand of seven. Seven cards. Hand them to me.” She laid down the cards. “And your back, Colette?”
“What?”
“The problem. Where it began?”
“Brussels.”
“Really?”
“I was carrying fold-up tables.”
“That’s a pity.”
“Why?”
“You’ve spoiled my mental picture. I thought that perhaps Gavin had put you in some unorthodox sexual position.”
“How could you have a picture? You don’t know Gavin.”
“I wasn’t picturing his face.” Alison began to turn the cards. The lucky opals were flashing their green glints. Alison said, “The Chariot, reversed.”
“So what do you want me to do? About the garden?”
“Nine of swords. Oh dear.”
“We could take it in turns to mow it.”
“I’ve never worked a mower.”
“Anyway, with your weight. You might have a stroke.”
“Wheel of Fortune, reversed.”
“When you first met me, in Windsor, you said I was going to meet a man. Through work, you said.”
“I don’t think I committed to a time scheme, did I?”
“But how can I meet a man through work? I don’t have any work except yours. I’m not going out with Raven, or one of those freaks.”
Al fluttered her hand over the cards. “This is heavy on the major Arcana, as you see. The Chariot, reversed. I’m not sure I like to think of wheels turning backward … . Did you send Gavin a change-of-address card?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“As a precaution.”
“Sorry?”
“Something might come for me. For forwarding. A letter. A package.”
“A package? What would be in it?”
Al heard tapping, tapping, at the sliding glass doors of the patio. Fear jolted through her; she thought, Bob Fox. But it was only Morris, trapped in the garden; beyond the glass, she could see his mouth moving.
She lowered her eyes, turned a card. “The Hermit reversed.”
“Bugger,” Colette said. “I think you were reversing them on purpose, when you were messing about. Washing them.”
“What a strange hand! All those swords, blades.” Al looked up. “Unless it’s just about the lawn mower. That would make some sense, wouldn’t it?”
“No use asking me. You’re the expert.”
“Colette … Col … don’t cry now.”
Colette put her elbows on the table, her head on her hands, and howled away. “I ask you to do a reading for me and it’s about bloody garden machinery. I don’t think you have any consideration for me at all. Day in, day out I am doing your VAT. We never go anywhere. We never do anything nice. I don’t think you have any respect for my professional skills whatever, and all I have to listen to is you rabbitting on to dead people I can’t see.”
Alison said gently, “I’m sorry if it seems as if I don’t appreciate you. I do remember, I know what my life was like when I was alone. I do remember, and I value everything you do.”
“Oh, stop it. Burbling like that. Being professional.”
“I’m trying to be nice. I’m just trying—”
“That’s what I mean. Being nice. Being professional. It’s all the same to you. You’re the most insincere person I know. It’s no use pretending to me. I’m too close. I know what goes on. You’re rotten. You’re a horrible person. You’re not even normal.”
There was a silence. Alison picked up the cards, dabbing each one with a damp fingertip. After a time she said, “I don’t expect you to mow the lawn.”
Silence.
“Honest, Col, I don’t.”
Silence.
“Can I be professional for a moment?”
Silence.
“The Hermit, reversed, suggests that your energy could be put to better use.”
Colette sniffed. “So what shall we do?”
“You could ring up a gardening service. Get a quote. For, let’s say, a fortnightly cut through the summer.” She added, smiling, “I expect they’d send a man.”
A thought about the garden had gone through her head: it will be nice for the dogs. Her smile faded. She pushed the thought violently away, seeing in her mind the waste ground behind her mother’s house at Aldershot.
Colette had taken on the task of contacting Al’s regular clients, to let them know about the move. She made a pretty lilac-coloured card, with the new details, which they handed out to contacts at their next big Psychic Fayre. In return they got cards back. “You’ll want a bit of Goddess Power, I expect,” said a nice woman in a ragged pullover, as she unloaded her kit from her beat-up old van. “You’ll want to come into alignment with the Path.” When they saw her next she was wearing a hairpiece and a push-up bra, charging forty pounds and calling herself Siobhan, palms and clairvoyance.
“Shall I come up and do your feng shui?” Mandy Coughlan asked. “It’s nice that you’re nearer to Hove.”
Cara rolled her eyes. “You’re not still offering feng shui? Are you getting any uptake? I’m training as a vastu consultant. It’s five thousand years old. This demon falls to earth, right? And you have to see which way his head comes down and where his feet are pointing. Then you can draw a mandala. Then you know which way the house should go.”