up.
“What’s that?” she mouthed, pointing. It was difficult to make yourself heard; the roar of prediction rose into the air and bounced around in the rafters.
“My spirit guide,” the man said. “Well, a model of him.”
“Can I touch it?”
“If you must, dear.”
She ran her fingers over the thing. It wasn’t skin but leather, a sort of leather mask bound to a wooden skull. Its brow was encircled by a cord into which were stuck the stumps of quills. “Oh, I get it,” she said. “He’s a Red Indian.”
“Native American,” the man corrected. “The actual model is a hundred years old. It was passed on to me by my teacher, who got it from his teacher. Blue Eagle has guided three generations of psychics and healers.”
“It must be hard if you’re a bloke. To know what to put on your table. That doesn’t look too poncey.”
“Look, do you want a reading, or not?”
“I don’t think so,” Colette said. To hear a psychic at all, you would almost have to be cheek to cheek, and she didn’t fancy such intimacy with Blue Eagle’s mate. “It’s a bit sordid,” she said. “This head. Off-putting. Why don’t you chuck it and get a new model?” She straightened up. She looked around the room. “Excuse me,” she said, shouting over a client’s head to a wizened old bat in a shawl, “excuse me, but where’s the one who did the dem last night? Alison?”
The old woman jerked her thumb. “Three down. In the corner there. Mind, she knows how to charge. If you hang on till I’m finished here, I can do you psychometry, cards, and palms, thirty quid all in.”
“How very unprofessional,” Colette said coldly.
Then she spotted her. A client, beaming, rose from the red leatherette chair, and the queue parted to let her through. Colette saw Alison, very briefly, put her face in her hands: before raising it, smiling, to the next applicant for her services.
Even Sundays bring their ebb and flow: periods of quiet and almost peace, when sleep threatens in the overheated rooms, and then times of such confusion—the sunlight strikes in, sudden and scouring, lighting up the gewgaws on the velvet cloth—and within the space of two heartbeats, the anxiety is palpable, a baby crying, the incense choking, the music whining, more fortune-seekers pressing in at the door and backing up those inside against the tables. There is a clatter as a few Egyptian perfume bottles go flying; Mrs. Etchells, three tables down, is jawing on about the joys of motherhood; Irina is calming a sobbing adolescent with a broken engagement; the baby, wound up with colic, twisting in the arms of an unseen mother, is preying on her attention as if he were entangled in her gut.
Alison looked up and saw a woman of her own age, meagrely built, with thin fair hair lying flat against her skull. Her features were minimal, her figure that of an orphan in a storm. A question jumped into Al’s head: how would this play if you were a Victorian, if you were one of those Victorian cheats? She knew all about it; after all, Mrs. Etchells, who had trained her, almost went back to those days. In those days the dead manifested in the form of muslin, stained and smelly from the psychic’s body cavities. The dead were packed within you, so you coughed or vomited them, or drew them out of your generative organs. They blew trumpets and played portable organs; they moved the furniture; they rapped on walls; they sang hymns. They offered bouquets to the living, spirit roses bound by scented hands. Sometimes they proffered inconveniently large objects, like a horse. Sometimes they stood at your shoulder, a glowing column made flesh by the eyes of faith. She could see it easily, a picture from the past: herself in a darkened parlour, her superb shoulders rising white out of crimson velvet, and this straight flat creature at her elbow, standing in the half-light: her eyes empty as water, impersonating a spirit form.
“Would you like to come and
“What’s that?” she mouthed, pointing. It was difficult to make yourself heard; the roar of prediction rose into the air and bounced around in the rafters.
“My spirit guide,” the man said. “Well, a model of him.”
“Can I touch it?”
“If you must, dear.”
She ran her fingers over the thing. It wasn’t skin but leather, a sort of leather mask bound to a wooden skull. Its brow was encircled by a cord into which were stuck the stumps of quills. “Oh, I get it,” she said. “He’s a Red Indian.”
“Native American,” the man corrected. “The actual model is a hundred years old. It was passed on to me by my teacher, who got it from his teacher. Blue Eagle has guided three generations of psychics and healers.”
“It must be hard if you’re a bloke. To know what to put on your table. That doesn’t look too poncey.”
“Look, do you want a reading, or not?”
“I don’t think so,” Colette said. To hear a psychic at all, you would almost have to be cheek to cheek, and she didn’t fancy such intimacy with Blue Eagle’s mate. “It’s a bit sordid,” she said. “This head. Off-putting. Why don’t you chuck it and get a new model?” She straightened up. She looked around the room. “Excuse me,” she said, shouting over a client’s head to a wizened old bat in a shawl, “excuse me, but where’s the one who did the dem last night? Alison?”
The old woman jerked her thumb. “Three down. In the corner there. Mind, she knows how to charge. If you hang on till I’m finished here, I can do you psychometry, cards, and palms, thirty quid all in.”
“How very unprofessional,” Colette said coldly.
Then she spotted her. A client, beaming, rose from the red leatherette chair, and the queue parted to let her through. Colette saw Alison, very briefly, put her face in her hands: before raising it, smiling, to the next applicant for her services.
Even Sundays bring their ebb and flow: periods of quiet and almost peace, when sleep threatens in the overheated rooms, and then times of such confusion—the sunlight strikes in, sudden and scouring, lighting up the gewgaws on the velvet cloth—and within the space of two heartbeats, the anxiety is palpable, a baby crying, the incense choking, the music whining, more fortune-seekers pressing in at the door and backing up those inside against the tables. There is a clatter as a few Egyptian perfume bottles go flying; Mrs. Etchells, three tables down, is jawing on about the joys of motherhood; Irina is calming a sobbing adolescent with a broken engagement; the baby, wound up with colic, twisting in the arms of an unseen mother, is preying on her attention as if he were entangled in her gut.
Alison looked up and saw a woman of her own age, meagrely built, with thin fair hair lying flat against her skull. Her features were minimal, her figure that of an orphan in a storm. A question jumped into Al’s head: how would this play if you were a Victorian, if you were one of those Victorian cheats? She knew all about it; after all, Mrs. Etchells, who had trained her, almost went back to those days. In those days the dead manifested in the form of muslin, stained and smelly from the psychic’s body cavities. The dead were packed within you, so you coughed or vomited them, or drew them out of your generative organs. They blew trumpets and played portable organs; they moved the furniture; they rapped on walls; they sang hymns. They offered bouquets to the living, spirit roses bound by scented hands. Sometimes they proffered inconveniently large objects, like a horse. Sometimes they stood at your shoulder, a glowing column made flesh by the eyes of faith. She could see it easily, a picture from the past: herself in a darkened parlour, her superb shoulders rising white out of crimson velvet, and this straight flat creature at her elbow, standing in the half-light: her eyes empty as water, impersonating a spirit form.
“Would you like to come and
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