Here and There: A Memoir.
Imagine two small children clambering behind their mother up a steep staircase carpeted with ragged red and gold dragons. They’ve come by train from a Derbyshire village near Buxton, so this visit feels like an adventure already and it’s starting to snow outside. They hope it will stick. Inside the air feels damp and thick. At the top of the stairs, there is a gleaming gilt sign pointing to a door on the left. Naturally, they are relieved to have found the place on time and so they arrive in a waiting room where people sit separately on hard chairs, skimming magazines, united by their silent desire to discover their destiny before it hijacks them away somewhere unspeakable.
The children have come prepared. One takes out a book about pirates and treasure, the other brings out a toy corgi car. They do not share.
Legend has it that Robena never advertises her very special skills. She never needs to stoop so low. For all day long, Manchester’s faithful followers flock to her consulting room above an Arcade near Oxford Street, hoping for better things; for conclusive signs of the life to come.
After seeing our mother for thirty minutes, Robena emerges from her dark, private room and approaches my brother Duncan and me: for we do have names there and with her gifts, surely she must know who we are?
She asks us to tell her our names. We both find it hard to speak but we manage. Her eyes are intense cornflower blue and she is tiny and tough, like this city.
I suspect she is wearing amber- nature’s time-capsule. I know this because my hero is Dr Who. Robena reminds me of a feisty wren in my garden. ‘I don’t normally like or bother with children,’ she says ‘yet today, for some reason, I’ve come to say hello. ’ She shrugs her pointy shoulders and holds our gaze for a long moment. She doesn’t smile. ‘ Nil desperandum,’ she whispers, then walks away.
