11 The Teashop on the Corner (7 page)

She sat happily passing some vibes to her ball, zoning out in the process. Trying to empty her mind was impossible. She gave it her best shot, though it would have been easier to build a
life-size model of the Taj Mahal in matchsticks. Blindfold. She closed her eyes and let the mellow sound of the clock on the wall fill her head.
Tick-tick, tick-tock, tick-tock.
She
hadn’t slept properly since Martin had died and found herself being lulled by the rhythm and drifting onto another plane.

The minutes passed and Carla was shaken out of a light doze by the sound of a door opening and voices outside.

A nasal Leeds accent. ‘Now you remember what I said, lovey. Positive thinking.’

‘Yes, thank you. Thank you so much.’ A timid, relieved voice. A comforted one. That boded well. Carla couldn’t wait to get started.

Pat Morrison entered the room and beckoned Carla towards her.

‘Come on, lovey. We’ll get started. Bring your ball and your object of choice.’

Carla picked up her French Fanny lippy and squeezed some last minute vibes into her ball as she followed Pat down the hallway into a larger sitting room with a huge dusty pink sofa and thick
pile pink carpet. There were a lot of lit pink candles around the room – strawberry scented. Pat invited her to sit, and Carla obeyed. Pat dropped into a huge armchair opposite, also pink, a
bank of cushions in various shades of pink at her back propping her forwards.

‘Your object lovey, please.’ Pat held out her hand. She had huge curved talons painted pink, surprisingly enough. Carla handed over the lipstick.

Pat nodded sagely. ‘The lipstick. Your femininity is very important to you, isn’t it, lovey?’

‘Erm, yes, I suppose so,’ said Carla. She had no desire to start drinking pints or wearing Brut anyway.

‘You were drawn to this object because it signifies your womanhood,’ Pat told her in no uncertain terms. ‘You feel the need to accentuate your femininity because it has been
threatened.’

Pat Morrison noticed Carla’s back straighten to attention and she smiled. Yep, she had this one sussed. Not that she didn’t have some psychic ability, but how much exactly she was
unsure because she was a great expert at reading people – so much so that this talent alone would have made her appear like a mystic. Her dad had been a notorious conman, Velvet Vernon, a
genius charmer with a line in patter as smooth as whipped cream. He could have a woman’s wage from her purse and her knickers round her ankles after a minute in his presence. She had been her
father’s daughter, though she had never used her skills in the illicit way he did.

She was quite content to parade herself publicly as a professional psychic; it was easy, lucrative and legal. Most people who came to see her wanted someone quickly on hand because they were in
crisis. And that made them utterly transparent. Most of the time they did her work for her –
Can you see my mother in spirit, she’s got white hair and a limp? Is she sending me her
love? Has she met up with my dad and the dog?
Not that Pat wanted to exploit anyone mercilessly, like her father had done. Pat saw herself as an excellent giver of service and bringer of
smiles. The people who came to see her didn’t want an hour’s intense forecast of the rest of their lives, they wanted a quick fix, a fifteen-minute injection of hope that would get them
through the next few weeks. She had fitted thirty clients in on one day last week. At forty pounds a pop – cash mostly – Velvet Vernon would have been proud.

Pat could see that she was spot on with her lipstick deduction so she carried on down that path. It wasn’t hard to figure out what had knocked this woman’s confidence in herself.

‘A man has made you feel less than worthy.’ She sighed sympathetically as if she heard this so many times, which she had. Ninety per cent of the women who came to see her had a bloke
in the background who had stamped all over their hearts wearing pit boots. ‘But all is not lost,’ Pat went on. ‘The fact that you picked this item means you haven’t given
up. You are clinging on to your woman power.’

She said this with such gusto that Carla believed her for a split second before she remembered that she had absolutely no power at all – womanly or otherwise.

‘Trust in pink. It’s a lucky colour for you,’ said Pat, tapping the side of her nose with a long talon, pierced with a small four-leafed clover charm, then she held out the
same hand for the crystal ball. Receiving it, she closed her eyes and tilted her head backwards in concentration whilst taking in a slow deep breath.

‘Oooh interesting,’ she said, tantalisingly.

What, what?
thought Carla.

‘I can see a cat. A big black cat.’

Carla felt the anti-climax right down to her shoes.

‘Have you got a cat, lovey?’ Pat asked.

‘No,’ said Carla.

‘Not
yet.
’ Pat wagged her finger. ‘You must look out for this lucky black cat. It will bring you luck.’

What else would a lucky black cat bring but luck?
thought Carla, disappointed by that prediction. Fleas, perhaps – or dead mice. She didn’t have a cat, never had had a cat
and wouldn’t be getting one, either.

‘I sense a man,’ said Pat. ‘Deception. Past the point of no return.’

Carla’s eyes widened.

‘I see him clearly. You have to forget him and move on. He won’t come back to you and if he does, you must say no, lovey.’

Pat noticed the small twitch Carla’s head made. She’d cocked up slightly saying that. How? She slid into repair mode.

‘I mean he may try to contact you and ask for forgiveness. Not necessarily in person.’

Carla gave a slow heavy nod. Ah, thought Pat. That struck a chord. He’s dead.

‘He has passed. You are full of questions that he cannot answer. You must let him go, lovey. The answers would only hurt you.’

Carla burst into tears.

‘There is great loss here,’ said Pat with her best nasal sympathetic voice. ‘Far more than just the man. There are material things. You must let them all go. Start
again.’

Carla was nodding like the Churchill dog. Pat had struck gold.

‘Think of the lipstick. You have yourself and your woman power and that will carry you forward, lovey. You need fresh things. Leave the memories. They aren’t good.’

Pat handed Carla a box of pink tissues from which Carla ripped two, blowing her nose on one, and wiping her eyes with the other.

‘You think I should let it all go?’ asked Carla.

‘Yes, I do,’ said Pat. ‘I can feel no positivity in hanging on to your past life. I feel very strongly that you must go forwards. Even if you do feel as if you’re going
backwards for a while, getting away from your past life is most definitely moving forwards. Trust in pink, lovey. And look out for the lucky black cat.’

A black cat was always a good thing to say, Pat thought. Who didn’t see a black cat occasionally? And when this poor cow saw the black cat, she would perk up and the positive energy would
propel her up and on. What was wrong about telling someone that good things were around the corner – it was as good as magic, even if it was bollocks? She held out her hand for her forty
pounds. Her client was wet-eyed but smiling.
Ker-ching.
Another satisfied customer.

Will Linton opened the door to two men who looked as if they had just swaggered out of
Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
. One, small and squat in a black leather
jacket and a gold medallion around his neck that would have had Mr T turning green with envy; the other thin, haggard and hard-faced, with skin that told of cigarettes and too much alcohol,
possibly a lasting legacy of drugs from his earlier days. It was the latter who spoke, in a surprisingly genteel voice.

‘Mr Linton. Mr Will Linton?’

Parked on the road outside their house was a long truck. Will closed his eyes and shook his head slowly from side to side.
This couldn’t be happening. Everything was moving too
fast.
It was only a week and a half ago that Cecilia Williams had told him that the bank was giving up on him.

Mr T was holding a clipboard and a pen. He could tell from Will’s expression that he knew why they were there.

‘I’m here for your car sir, unless you can give me a cash amount of . . .’ he referred to his paperwork ‘. . . two thousand, eight hundred and sixty two pounds
exactly.’

Will sighed and moved his head slowly from side to side.

‘I only wish I could.’

‘Or I could put the car in our pound and you have twenty-four hours to claim it back.’

Will looked over at his pride and joy Jaguar sitting on the drive. He would be so sorry to see it go. But go it must.

Across the road in the seven-bedroomed detached with the stone lion sentries, he saw the lounge curtain twitch. Then Mr Roy ‘Koi-Carp-Pond’ Wright next door emerged from his house,
briefcase in hand, just in time to witness some more of Will’s humiliation.

‘If not, could I have your car key, sir,’ the man said with a
look, I feel for you mate so let’s make this as simple and pain-free as we can
tone to his voice.

Will foraged in his pocket and took out the car key. He hadn’t thought it would be repossessed quite so soon, but now the moment was here and he had no fight left to contest it.

Roy Wright was taking an age to get into his car. Will could see him over their adjoining low hedge, pretending to look through his briefcase but really eavesdropping on his poor unfortunate
business-failure of a neighbour.

‘Do you need anything out of the car, sir?’

‘No thanks,’ said Will. They could keep the windscreen sponge and the wine gums in the glove box.

‘Do you have spare keys, sir?’

‘Yeah, course.’ Will stepped back inside the house and took the two spare car keys from the hook behind the door. They were still on a Linton Roofing promotional keyring. He handed
them over with the MOT certificate and the service book.

‘Thank you, sir.’

Nicole was sitting silently on the stairs, her head in her perfectly manicured hands and hostile vibes missiling out from her every pore. After he had finished his business with the repossession
men, Will shut the door and hurried to comfort his wife. As soon as his arm fell around her shoulder, she erupted like a volcano. She pushed him violently away, lashing out at him, then jumped up,
her forehead as creased with fury as the Botox would allow.

‘Don’t fucking touch me,’ she said.

‘It’s just a car, love. A lump of metal . . .’

‘I have never been so ashamed. The neighbours watching—’

‘Sod them,’ said Will. ‘It doesn’t matter. There are greater men than me who have found themselves in this position. I don’t care what a few nosey neighbours think
. . .’

‘Well I do,’ screamed Nicole, thumping herself in her three-thousand-pound boob job with her fist. ‘I fucking do.’

‘Nicole . . . darling,’ he took one step towards her and she took a longer one back.

‘It’s the last straw, Will,’ she said. ‘The shame, the humiliation. I can’t live with it any more.’

He caught her arm as she turned up the stairs. ‘You can’t live with the humiliation or you can’t live with me?’

Her head swivelled slowly on a smooth arc to face him. He had the funniest feeling that if she had wanted to, she could have turned it through three hundred and sixty degrees. Like an owl. Or
the possessed kid from
The Exorcist
.

‘Okay then: you,’ she said, fixing him with her cold eyes. ‘You and the humiliation are one and the same. You’re a failure, Will Linton. And I don’t do
failures.’

‘For richer or poorer, remember those words?’ he reminded her, calmly, although his heart was thumping inside. She couldn’t abandon him as well. His life as he knew it was
landsliding away from him. ‘You married me, not my money, Nicole. Six years ago, you said your vows to William Benjamin Brian Linton, didn’t you? Not William’s bleedin’ bank
account.’

She didn’t answer; and then he knew. He didn’t want to let himself believe it because it would really hurt. She had never known him poor. He had owned a business, a big house and a
flash car when they met. Being married to Will Linton was not the main attraction of being Mrs William Linton.

‘I’m not made for being poor and struggling,’ she said, removing his hand from her arm with careful pincered fingers, as if it were diseased.

‘Nicole. I love you,’ he said, unable to fully comprehend he was hearing this. She was going to turn around in a minute and say, ‘ha ha, not really.’ But in the seven
years he had known her, he suddenly realised, he had never heard her once make a joke.

‘You’ll get over it,’ she said in her elocution-lessoned voice. ‘Don’t try and stop me leaving. I’m going home to my parents. If you follow me, Dad will set
the dogs on you; and when they’ve finished with you, if there is anything left to arrest, he’ll call the police. My solicitor will be in touch. Let’s make it quick and painless,
shall we? It’s over, Will. You can go down with your ship but don’t expect me not to catch a lifeboat.’

He didn’t follow her. He poured himself a scotch and sank onto the huge cream leather sofa, imagining her moving about, packing her suitcase, taking her jewellery out of her safe. There
was no point in fighting for her. She wasn’t doing this for effect, so that he would bounce upstairs and seduce her into staying. He knew her too well. Nicole’s idea of roughing it was
there being no lobster option on a business-class flight menu. She didn’t even bother to say goodbye an hour later when he was half-wrecked on single malt, tears cutting down his cheeks. She
just climbed into the sports car that daddy had bought her last year instead of an Easter egg and drove off, viciously spitting gravel in his direction.

By some miracle the
Barnsley Chronicle
had not reported what had happened at Martin’s funeral. There had been some armed robberies in the off-licence chain The
Booze Brothers, which had grabbed the headlines for two weeks. The first report covered the actual robbery, the second the arrest of the culprits after one of the thieves had pasted his own
Crimestoppers
photo on Facebook, adding the caption ‘Fame at Last’. Carla was only glad to know there were idiots like that in the world to keep what potential press interest
there might have been in her fully occupied. By an even bigger miracle, it had also bypassed the
Daily Trumpet
, the sensationalist South Yorkshire newspaper and the most inept publication
in the history of mankind. Carla had checked it every day for a week and a half after the debacle, by which time she would have qualified as being ‘old news’ and unworthy of column
inches. Most of the
Daily Trumpet
was taken up with apologies for stories it had wrongly reported in the past few days. By rights, it shouldn’t have made any money, but it had
acquired a certain cult status with its readers who purchased it merely for the errors and pushed the privately-owned business into decent profit.