Imelda sighed. The Page was followed by the Queen of Wands and the Two of Cups.

‘I don’t think he’s the one for you,’ she explained, trying to be tactful.

‘Why not?’ Debbie peered at the cards, narrowing her eyes. ‘What do they say?’

Imelda was hot and tired, and her temples throbbed, threatening a headache.

‘That Janet and this boy are together. If not already, then they soon will be.’

Debbie scowled. ‘Bloody cow! She knows I like him. And I saw him first! Some bloody friend she is. She’s ruined my holiday now. I might as well go home.’ Tears glistened in her hazel eyes and threatened to spill through mascara-clumped lashes, running black rivulets through her mask of Maybelline foundation. Imelda wanted to shake her. Why did so many of these girls sell themselves short? They had barely discovered who they were as individuals when they became fixated on affixing themselves to someone else, as though they could only be whole as one half of a couple. When Imelda heard that Debbie was already writing off her holiday over a boy she’d only just met, the absurdity of it infuriated her.

‘There’s more to life than boys,’ she heard herself saying, sounding scarily like her own mother. ‘Don’t you want to ask anything about you and your future?’

Debbie sniffed. ‘What, you mean who I’ll marry and how many kids we’ll have?’

Imelda wondered why she was bothering, but having started she wasn’t going to give up yet. ‘No, Debbie. I mean about you! What do you want to make of your life? What would your dream job be, for example?’

Debbie looked as though she was sitting an exam in a subject that she hadn’t studied as she frowned and inspected her pearly pink nails.

‘I dunno. I work in a clothes shop. Well, it’s a boutique really, that’s what the boss calls it.’

‘And do you like it?’

‘It’s all right. I get staff discount.’

‘Wouldn’t you like to be the manager one day?’

Judging by the expression of astonishment on her face, such an outlandish idea had clearly never occurred to Debbie before.

‘I did once think about trying to get my own market stall.’

‘Well, what’s to stop you?’

Debbie shrugged. Imelda could have ended the reading right there. She was sorely tempted, but for some reason she couldn’t let it go.

‘Let’s ask the cards if your market stall would be a success.’