He is up on one elbow saying, ‘What is it?’ in a voice which, though she may be imagining it, seems on the edge of being annoyed.
‘Do you feel the same way?’ she says, her hand over her eyes. ‘Do you?’
He strokes her arm.
‘I’ve been so fucking lonely,’ she says in a guttural wail which feels good for about half a second and then feels very, very bad because he says nothing and has lain back on his grey linen pillow, staring up at the ceiling.
Tuesday
Miriam
Twenty-three days missing and she has come so easily to this – to the door of a psychic she has found through solveyourmystery.com. Miriam Hind, née Davenport: once a scientist, always a rationalist, standing at the front door waiting for Julie, the palm reader.
Hers is a 1930s semi in suburban Hendon, its windows so clean they flash what there is of the January brightness. The doorbell a singsongy chime. When Miriam telephoned yesterday, it was in a flush of impulse – she never imagined she’d be booked in the very next day. Julie’s diary was evidently not chock-a-block.
The remainder of yesterday, however, and the ensuing night had cooled Miriam’s enthusiasm for palmistry; she’d seen how silly she was being. She is here on sufferance, because she has made the arrangement, and arrangements cannot be broken. They must be extricated from politely or adhered to (Englishness again). And yet she hadn’t phoned, or texted or sent an email to the ‘Contact Me’ address on the website. So many ways, these days, of extricating yourself in silence.
I’ll explain it’s not for me, Miriam tells herself as the door opens.
‘Come through,’ the woman says, and Miriam steps into a light, mirrored hall with new cream carpet. The heating is on luxuriantly high.
‘Should I take my shoes off?’ she asks, hoping the answer will be no, because bending is not as easy as it used to be.
‘Please,’ she says. ‘I’ll wait for you in the lounge.’
Her manner, the ash-blonde highlights, the taupe cardigan with sequins glinting, has all the suburban fastidiousness of a beauty therapist. Miriam follows her through to a lounge with broad doors giving out to a lawn. It smells of new carpet in here also, and there is a capacious cream leather armchair for Miriam to sink into. Communing with the spirit world is not a bad way to make a living, it would seem, even with an appointments diary as spacious as Julie’s.
‘So,’ she says.
‘So,’ says Miriam, reserve bristling.
‘I’m sensing great sadness, great pain,’ Julie says, her head tilted. ‘I’m seeing everything out of alignment.’
Miriam nods. It is preposterous that she is here. She must find an appropriate hiatus in which to make her excuses. What would Ian think?
‘I’m feeling that you have lost hope, lost your way in this world. The pain is too much. You are confused and unhappy.’
Oh, spare me, Miriam thinks.
‘You want to know what lies ahead. How it will all turn out. You want an end to the uncertainty – the miasma, as I like to call it. I can do tarot, palm or aura; which would you prefer?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘A general reading, perhaps. You can pay with a cheque. I don’t take cards. Or you could set up a direct debit. I recommend this to my clients – there is a reduction for three visits or more.’
‘Shall I?’ Miriam asks, reaching for her handbag. ‘Now?’
She nods. Miriam writes a cheque, a flat fee of ￡80 for a one-off reading. No way is she falling for that direct debit baloney.
‘May I?’ Julie says, taking Miriam’s hand slowly in hers, as if it were a priceless ornament, and rotating it palm-up. Miriam notices her burgundy manicure, like blood-dipped talons. ‘I am seeing someone you love very deeply. Someone lost to you …’
You are reading my age, Miriam thinks. I am of an age for grief.
‘A daughter, a beloved daughter, whose safety is in jeopardy.’
You’ve read the tabloids. You’ve seen me on the news.
‘You want to know what has happened to your daughter,’ she says, looking Miriam in the eye, and Miriam’s heart begins to race. They both feel her hand quiver.
‘Yes,’ says Miriam.
‘You love your daughter and you are in great pain,’ she says. ‘You are tormented by thoughts of what might have happened to her. You are in an agony of uncertainty. You cannot grieve, but you dare not hope.’
‘Yes,’ says Miriam, and it comes out in a gasp, dirty with need. ‘Please, I …’ Miriam is now holding the woman’s hand, squeezing it.
‘Your daughter is alive,’ she says.
Miriam stares at her.
‘Your daughter is alive,’ she says again in an exhalation, as if she too is in pain, has taken Miriam’s pain into herself.
‘When will she come back?’ Miriam asks. ‘Has she been taken?’
Julie closes her eyes, stroking and holding Miriam’s hand between the two of hers. She breathes in through her nose, her eyes closed. She shakes her head.
‘It’s gone,’ she says. ‘Sometimes it’s too powerful. Sometimes it cannot be held.’
‘When will you get it back?’
‘You will need to come again.’
D avy