‘It was difficult for you to come here.’ She looked up from her unwrapping to see my smile falter. ‘Let’s not pretend it wasn’t.’

With one deft movement of the wrist, she fanned the cards across the table.

‘I had a crisis of the soul,’ I told her, ‘that’s all. But I have decided now that I am going to believe.’

She nodded – a sign that I was to go on.

It should be an effortless task, I explained – to believe – I was merely out of practice. I needed only to remind myself of the good book and how straightforward it was to put one’s faith in that. This skill was surely transferable. Universal, even. I could apply it to every story I was told. For example, if a man came and sat next to me in the midday quiet of the chapel and said that he knew nothing of the girls’ tattoos until I had asked for those bandages to be removed, or if he swore that he had been teaching them science – only science! – then wasn’t I at liberty to believe him? If the story seemed like a noble one, with love and truth at its heart, I was surely duty-bound to put my trust in it. One decision, no going back, no questions.

Margaritte drew the cards into a pile and signalled for me to cut. She wanted more.

I told her that my love for Ben was stronger than my suspicion; that my lack of confidence in him – in myself – seemed unfathomable now.

‘How could I think that he was capable of such terrible things, think that all of this…’ I gestured to the burning incense and the cards in her hand – here was the apology that was most overdue. ‘That this constituted witchcraft!’ I gave an embarrassed laugh. ‘I was thinking like a child!’

Margaritte shrugged. ‘But we are all still children, deep down,’ she said.

I ploughed on, a preacher of wild conviction, telling her how I was back in my stride in the classroom, feeling stronger than ever. When Miriam Calder had launched into a scissoring attack on Dellie Leven in the staff room, questioning Dellie’s judgement during one of Mr Crane’s absences, I had stepped in.

‘That is none of your business, Miriam,’ I’d told her crisply. ‘You are the school administrator and you work for us, not vice versa.’

Miriam stole away to her office and Ruth French started a round of applause – one that Miriam must have heard.

Margaritte nodded in acknowledgement of my account, a basic receipt in return in for its telling.

‘And did your Knight of Cups applaud too?’ she asked.

‘Sorry?’ I took a large of gulp of wine and let my breath catch up with me. The certainty and the triumph I had talked of were all of a sudden gone, scared away by the passion that I’d used to describe them.