I looked around the small suite, with its closed shutter doors that I presumed led to a bedroom. The room was tastefully decorated in traditional style with cream walls, a red velvet sofa and chaise longue with gold cushions, a navy blue Persian rug on the floor and an antique-looking painting on the one wall showing a maharaja riding an elephant. This must have cost a packet, I thought. Gypsy Rose Ji must be doing well out of the psychic business.

Moments later, the door opened, and I stood as a small Indian lady in a white sari came in. She exuded warmth and came over and greeted me like a long-lost friend.

‘My dear Bea, I am so pleased to see you,’ she said as she clasped my hands in hers and I noticed the soft scent of roses and sandalwood. I couldn’t help being charmed by her manner and found myself smiling back at her. ‘Please, sit, sit. Would you like tea? They have mint here, made with fresh mint, no teabags. It’s very refreshing.’ She spoke with a perfect English accent and I found myself wanting to know more about her. I resolved to google her as soon as I got back to my hotel.

‘Yes, that sounds wonderful.’

She picked up the phone and ordered tea then turned back. ‘So my dear, how can I help?’

‘Help? Oh no. I don’t need help, no, my friend Marcia, the lady you saw earlier, she bought a session with you for me as a birthday gift.’

Saranya Ji regarded me in a manner I found a little uncomfortable. It wasn’t that she looked at me unkindly, more that she stared right into me and I felt exposed in some way. I felt myself blush. After a few moments, she nodded and smiled. ‘OK, a gift. So what would like to know?’

‘I … I thought you were going to tell my fortune.’

‘Ah. Fortune. I don’t exactly tell fortunes. Is that what you want? Someone to tell you your future?’

She’s fishing, I thought. ‘No. Not that.’

‘Good,’ she said. ‘The past has gone, the future is yet to be written; only the present is real.’

‘True,’ I said as there was a knock at the door and a waiter brought in a silver tray with tea.

After he’d gone, Saranya Ji poured and handed me a cup, then we sat in silence for a while which I found awkward. I didn’t know where to look, so I stared at the carpet. I am not going to give anything away, I told myself.

Finally Saranya Ji began to speak. ‘I feel sadness in you, Bea, and resistance. I feel scepticism, but this will change.’

Doubt it, I thought, and as for appearing sad or resistant, that could apply to most of the population. Who hasn’t got to the age of fifty without a few knocks?