‘It’s the same! The two cups are identical and I think I might know why,’ said Kathleen. They all knew better than to ask. It was not a question and they wouldn’t usually interrupt without being invited to do so. Kathleen was a seer. The dead used her to commune with the living via the medium of a nice strong cup of tea with two sugars. It was Annie O’Prey who broke the silence.

‘Anything about Frank the Skank moving in among us?’ she whispered, almost too afraid to speak. They all knew that her question was rooted in good sense. Jimmy would not last at home for five minutes with Frank the Skank as his neighbour.

Mary shivered as she ran her hands up and down her arms. Next was Biddy’s turn and this time Kathleen gasped and banged Biddy’s cup onto the saucer. ‘It’s just the same! Never in all my years have I ever picked up two cups that were the same, never mind three of them, and that’s the message. It’s the steps, dark, deep water and trouble. Mary, pass me yours; it’s your first time and surely to God the spirits won’t make your cup a dark one for your first.’

Kathleen slipped a glance towards Kitty and Bernadette; they were both still there and she could tell there was no objection to reading Mary’s cup, but the sense of urgency was building: they were letting her know she had to go.

Mary wasn’t remotely nervous handing her cup over, she was excited.

‘Ah, ’tis a long and happy life you have ahead of you, Mary, and big change is coming. See there,’ she tipped the cup up, ‘you are going to be a woman of means and love is around the corner and with it, not because of it, I see success, business and independence and lovely hair.’

Deirdre laughed. ‘Kathleen, that’s our Mary’s cup, not Elizabeth Taylor’s.’

They all laughed as Mary blushed, but nothing could dampen the girl’s pleasure at Kathleen’s words.

When she’d finished the last cup, and all the rest of them telling the same story, Katheen was as white as the sheets Deirdre and Shelagh had just placed on Maura’s bed. She put both of her hands down on the table and pushed herself upright with all the energy she had left.