‘Only you can figure that one out,’ he said. ‘As Nietzsche once wrote: “No one can construct for you the bridge upon which precisely you must cross the stream of life, no one but you yourself alone.” ’

Brilliant. Thanks, Nietzsche. You’re about as much help as the cat.

Thursday May 10th

Mrs Nostradamus

It began like this:

I knew you were going to say that

he’d snapped,

after I told him to shift his arse

and look lively with the laundry.

I could see him cogitating

as he separated the whites.

Then, slowly: There will be rain.

And he was right, there was.

Three days later.

At first, he played it safe.

Kept it small. Local.

There will be a wedding before the year is out.

M. Bouchoir will rear a prize pig.

Crystal Balls, they called him.

He was clever, though.

Thought about the future.

Figured there was profit

to be had from prophecy.

He went for it big time.

Plagues and earthquakes.

Famines and floods. Wars.

The kings and queens

and their courtesans and courtiers

couldn’t get enough of it.

By that time, I’d had enough

and run off with M. Bouchard and his pig.

The end of the world it was, to him.

Poor Crystal Balls.

He didn’t see that coming.

She turned each card over slowly, only pausing between them to open her eyes wider, and let her jaw drop further. The Lovers. The Hermit. Judgement, and then, finally . . . David Beckham.

‘Death. He represents Death,’ said Mrs McNulty quickly. ‘I can’t find the original one so I used one of Kenny’s old football cards.’ Kenny is Mrs McNulty’s son and visits her rarely.

‘But what does it all mean?’ Dave asked, looking up from his phone. His cards had been read, too. Among them were The Emperor (wisdom) and Temperance (moderation) – so I knew it was all baloney. He’d also had The Hierophant but Mrs McNulty had passed over that one quickly. I don’t think she knows what a hierophant is.

‘We must remember that the tarot do not predict the future; they only show us the pathways that the future may take, and can be interpreted in many ways,’ she declared enigmatically. ‘But no matter how you read them, this doesn’t look good. This doesn’t look good at all.’

She patted my hand and did her best to give me an encouraging smile, promising to stay in touch should I ever find myself on the other side.

Friday May 11th

I have received confirmation about my redundancy money. £15,000 is a tidy sum for someone whose finances have always been historically messy. But I must learn to be prudent; it may be a while until I begin to earn substantial money from my poetry.