Imelda Burova checked her appearance in the bedroom mirror and was satisfied. So was Rod Stewart. ‘You wear it well’, he sang, his voice rasping out from the small radio sitting on her dressing table. The dress, a green velvet midi with a fitted bodice and balloon sleeves, was Biba and had been bought especially for today on her last trip to London with her mother, Shunty-Mae. Today was Imelda’s first day as proprietress of the family’s dukkering booth on the promenade. Shunty-Mae had taken it over from her own mother, and it was there that she had taught Imelda to read palms and tarot cards, and to fathom the past and future from the depths of a crystal ball. Various Romany aunts and cousins had helped out for a summer season here and there, but the booth belonged to Shunty-Mae and now she was handing it over to her only daughter. Today, Imelda became Madame Burova – Tarot Reader, Palmist and Clairvoyant. She drew back the curtains to let the early-morning sunlight stream in. Shunty-Mae was in the back garden by the open door of her caravan, smoking a cigarette and cursing. Now in her early seventies, she was still an extraordinarily striking woman with sea-green eyes and only whispers of silver in her long black hair. She had left her travelling life behind when she married Imelda’s father, Alexei, but had flatly refused to give up her traditional gypsy vardo and insisted on keeping it in the garden. Whenever she and Alexei rowed, she stormed off to the vardo and often slept there.

Imelda could hear the clatter of pots and pans, and her father whistling in the kitchen downstairs as he prepared to cook breakfast. He had a fiery temper that was easily a match for Shunty-Mae’s passionate outbursts, but whereas his anger was quickly spent and soon forgotten, his wife’s could sometimes smoulder like hot coals and flare again at the slightest provocation. Alexei was a successful tailor with his own shop, but a gorger, a non-Romany, and Shunty-Mae’s family had objected vehemently and vocally when their courtship was discovered. The pair had eventually eloped, and faced with a fait accompli the Romany relatives grudgingly accepted the marriage. Their love for one another was immutable, but their life together a volatile alliance of disparate cultures and traditions.

There was a groan from beneath the rumpled covers of Imelda’s bed and a long, pointed nose appeared.

‘Get up, you lazy hound!’

Two soulful brown eyes and a pair of furry, floppy ears emerged, followed by a wriggling body on gangly legs with a crazily wagging tail. Imelda had found the puppy a few weeks ago, scavenging in the bins along the promenade. He was painfully thin, and his feet were sore and bleeding. But his sorrowful gaze was irresistible, and Imelda was instantly smitten. She took him home. Shunty-Mae had not been happy, but Alexei had been delighted.