I open my eyes and Ruth is looking at me. Heat creeps up my neck and into my face. I rub the shawl between my fingers, determined to make it give up its secrets. Clothes often hold recent events, but important things – moments of profound pain or joy, our deepest hopes and fears, are stained into the material. I know from touching the shawl before that it contains great sorrow, so why can’t I read it now? I focus hard and glimpse the man again. This time I tug at the memory . . . and the strand snaps. There is no emotion, no image. Nothing.
‘So?’ Ruth smiles kindly but I shake my head. My gift has never failed me before. Not once since it started six months ago, after I fell from the tree in my grandma’s garden and lost my sight in one eye. I stare at the shawl in disbelief. For months I wanted it to stop. I hated being overwhelmed by impressions from people’s clothes, and now . . .
Ruth is waiting. I have to tell her something. I don’t know who the man is, or if he had anything to do with the baby. Not wanting to get it wrong, I say, ‘Years ago a lady showed you a great kindness. She gave you a place to stay and you’ve never forgotten it.’
I bite my thumbnail then glance at her, worried I might have read her shawl wrong before. Her eyes widen. ‘Yes!’ Emotions play across her face: shock, joy, confusion. She blows out a sigh then laughs. ‘Yes, you’re right. And you got that just from touching my shawl?’
My shoulders drop. I haven’t failed. And then my first worry is replaced by another. Perhaps I shouldn’t let her know the truth. If people realise I can tell their secrets, they might be guarded around me; it could make it harder to find out about Nina. ‘I get hunches sometimes, but mainly it’s just saying things and watching to see people’s reactions.’ Ruth doesn’t look convinced.
‘You have kind eyes,’ I continue. ‘And you were willing to give me a chance, so I guessed that someone must have done the same for you once. The rest just came to me.’
She nods. ‘Yes, tarot is a bit like that. I know the meanings of the cards but a lot of it is intuition. Things just pop into my head, but I read people too.’ She pauses then adds. ‘So, be honest with me now, how much experience do you have with the public?’
I don’t like lying, but I have to get the job. I hold her gaze and say, ‘I’ve done five or six psychic events with Mum.’
‘And you saw clients of your own?’
‘Yes.’
‘Grand. I will introduce you to the new manager, Oskar. I can offer you a place to stay but it won’t be anything fancy.’
I nod and she stands up. ‘Just to warn you, Oskar can be . . . Well, you’ll see.’
Ruth leads me to a caravan that’s bigger and newer-looking than the rest then tells me to wait outside. I turn my back, not wanting it to seem as if I’m spying on her and Oskar through the window. She speaks quietly and I can only make out a few words, but I can tell she’s persuading him to let me stay on site. He sounds young and speaks with only a slight Norwegian accent.
After a few minutes Ruth opens the caravan door and I climb the metal steps. Oskar is sitting at a table, head bent over a laptop. He’s in his late twenties, with spiky blond hair, and wears square-rimmed glasses that are too big for his face. He holds a banana with one hand and taps at the keyboard with the other. He doesn’t look up, though he must have heard me enter.
Ruth smiles awkwardly. ‘Oskar, this is Martha, who I was telling you about just now.’
He looks me up and down. ‘Wow, what happened to you?’
‘Excuse me?’
He swallows and then jabs what remains of the banana in my direction.
Shocked, I glance at Ruth. She gives me a pained smile, like a mother embarrassed by a toddler but powerless to do anything about it. I’m used to people asking about my eye, but they aren’t usually this blunt. I breathe in slowly and straighten my shoulders. ‘I fell from a tree last summer. The fall severed my ocular nerve.’
‘Climb a lot of trees, do you?’
A tiny huff escapes me. ‘No.’
‘Well, that’s something.’
I think about telling him how the surgeon considered operating, so that my left eye would at least face forward instead of up and to the left, but decided it would be too risky. And then I come to my senses. I don’t have to explain myself to anyone.
‘So you’re psychic, are you?’ He grins, and something tells me that whatever I say will be met with ridicule. Before I can reply, Ruth interrupts. ‘Like I say, I’ve tried her out and she’s good.’
Oskar finishes eating and tosses the skin at a bin. It misses and lands on the floor, where it sprawls out like a malformed starfish.
‘Are you going to put her in a veil or something?’ he asks.
My fingers ball into fists. How dare he talk about me like I’m not here?
I raise my voice. ‘Why? Is my face a problem?’
Ruth glares at him and then gives me an apologetic smile. ‘I always wear a costume. Visitors like that kind of thing. I’m sure Oskar didn’t mean anything by it.’
I ignore her and keep my gaze fixed on the idiot in front of me. ‘You haven’t answered my question.’
Oskar pushes his glasses up his nose and peers at me, as if mildly surprised by my audacity. ‘No problem, quite the opposite in fact. The eye thing could play to your advantage. I’m sure Ruth can come up with a good story for the customers.’
He holds my gaze as if daring me to answer, and the words come out before I can stop them. ‘Actually, my blind eye has nothing to do with me being psychic, but it can see the dead.’
He gives me a wary look then laughs. ‘So you have a sense of humour.’
Ruth grabs my arm. ‘Grand. A week’s trial it is.’
She leads me to the door and I jump down the steps, relieved to get away. Once we’re outside, she whispers, ‘Sorry about that. When God was giving out charm that fecker was last in line. I’d give him a slap but the eejit pays my wages. And don’t worry – I’ll see that he pays you. I’m not having you work for free.’
I smile, filled with a sudden fondness for her that surprises me. I hadn’t realised how alone and in need of a friend I was; her kindness means more to me than she knows.
Just then Karl, the old man I saw talking to Ruth earlier, comes limping in our direction. He hurries straight past us without saying a word then climbs the steps to Oskar’s caravan and yells in Norwegian.
We watch through the window as Oskar jumps up and closes his laptop. ‘Please. We speak English here, it’s so much fairer on our international staff.’
‘Staff? They are not staff. They are artists!’ Karl’s voice is clotted with rage, his accent thicker than ever. ‘The seamstress must not make that costume.’ He waves a black book in the air. ‘I told you before we only do the myths in here; never anything else!’
Ruth rolls her eyes as if she’s heard it all before. I want to stay and listen, intrigued by the mention of myths and determined to learn as much about this place as I can, but she drags me away. ‘Come on. I’ll show you to your caravan. It’s near the forest; I hope you like trees.’