The girl in question was wrapped up in a long coat that she wore whenever she wanted to feel European and banished. She had taken to smoking secretly whilst her school friends were busy supervising clubs and helping teachers control the younger pupils, who found being outside once October arrived an insult to their body temperature, even if they were meant to be chasing a ball to keep them warm. The girl who had once found the sixth form unnecessarily organised. Rules governed every moment of the day. Who cares she would say, who cares?
‘We care’ said the Pastoral Head with her attempt at benevolence. ‘And so should you, Irene.’
But why? The walls of the school were blighted with team pictures with dark clouds overhead. Apparently, this was a source of great pride. But where was the animation- the life?
Irene had joined Sixth Form late. Her parents were now temporarily in a country she couldn’t be bothered to pronounce. Always away. The Army needed them apparently. The Officers’ mess was no place for children. So there was Irene deposited like a beer bottle in this school in Lancashire with her own bedroom overlooking her grandmother ‘Why not let him do his worst?’ she would say to her grandmother. For some reason, she called the heron Vinnie. Or was it because of Caesar’s Veni Vidi Vici ’In any case, wasn’t that typical of her anyway? She knew nothing about what was expected. And her commitment to the school’s ideals was weak.
Someone with a vocation had bought the building because their cards had compelled them. An abundance of pentacles and then the Star. Irresistible apparently.
The long mirror in the window did Irene few favours. She turned her collar up. Did her profile resemble a bird of prey with that nose? Was she even or ever pretty? Her eyes worked hard for her though. Her mouth was full and cynical. When she breached silence the distracted listened. As if they had been waiting for something to wake them up, her voice delivered what they lacked or had been missing.’ I am off guard today’ she said to a pigeon, inhaling smoke. What could be better than the freedom of a day without the scrutiny of fitting in? Glad to have a day to herself or so she thought. Hands deep in her gaberdine pocket smoking and imagining the fair was a train station in some European City. But her presence at the empty fairground was no accident at all. Irene liked to pretend she was being spontaneous, but inside she knew better. She
The curtain needed a wash and granted very little privacy to clients. Maybe that was the idea. Aggie had never been straightforward in her thinking. She was always shuffling her cards, turning them slowly, remarking on their gifts and their capacity to surprise. ‘I listen to their stories’ she said and leaned over the cards for yet another shuffle.
Aggie valued illusion. The emotional sleight of hand. Aggie claimed it was her lineage. Sometimes she might share a story, a chink through the curtain she said of her personal ancient whose clairvoyance began in a faraway village, in a country that no longer existed. Over a sherry, Aggie would converse( her words sometimes felt awkward which added to her authenticity) whose practitioners fled for their own safety because their abilities had them persecuted. Hence her calling.
I look at the world differently, she declared but not in a loud voice. Instead in a voice that reached under your skin and settled there like a lonely cat coming in from the cold. Her voice made even the most cynical shiver. Irene O Hara claimed to be curious that was all. And maybe less assured than she liked to appear. Masks were her forte and she inhabited them without fuss. She knew their power. But Aggie’s special powers were something else. Something both tawdry and extraordinary at the same time. So Irene circulated the fair like an undernourished panther close to a town. She knew Aggie only delivered her skills once rules had been met. This irked her. She loved her mask and resented any attempt at unveiling her self-protection.
The ten-pound note sat deep in her gaberdine pocket, waiting to see what decision Irene dare to make.
Outside was a mess of abandoned tools. Irene imagined that some ghostly cleaner lingered about the place, leaving old buckets and mops and things too rotted to identify. Maybe the cleaner felt reluctant to abandon their final round.
Irene debated what to do. Every now and then, the water sprayed off the frosted glass and made a mist that shrouded the office and intensified the building’s aura of secrecy. Who would call by unless they really felt they must?
Irene opened the door and stood her umbrella to attention before her. The room smelt of old vinegar and wet gaberdine. Irene wrinkled her nose. All the particles of air sluggishly waltzed around the unlikely chandelier light fitting, fitted no doubt when someone had built this office to house the fair’s administration. It reminded Irene of a conservatory without plants.
Yet the dark red lino had been scraped by thousands of heels: the residual inscription of the needy and the desperate.
On the table one black and gold sign advised visitors to ring for attention. Another advised the same clients to wait their turn.
Wait my turn? In such a crowd she most surely would wait.
