‘Will you read my palm, or the cards, or see what the crystal ball has in store for me?’

Imelda took a seat opposite her and placed both palms flat on the table. She pushed them forwards over the velvet cover and pulled them back towards her, feeling the soft nap of the fabric change direction under her touch. It had been inevitable that Billie would ask.

‘I’m sorry, but there’s no point. I made a promise and I can’t tell you some of the things I’m sure would be revealed.’

Imelda felt strange and unbearably sad being back in the booth. Billie had been very keen to come, and that was, of course, completely understandable. But Imelda still couldn’t quite accept that she had retired, that she had given up the vocation that she loved. It had never been what she did – it had always been who she was. It was her identity and without it she was afraid she would become a nonentity, a hologram of herself with no substance or purpose. Perhaps retirement had been a fatal mistake.

‘It’s fine.’ Billie reached across and placed her hand over Imelda’s. ‘I shouldn’t have asked.’

They sat in silence for a moment and Imelda let her mind drift away like a balloon released from the grasp of a child. The secrets she had been trusted to keep, the confessions she had heard, the pasts she had revealed and the futures she had foretold returned, not so much as memories, but rather they seeped from the dark, draped walls of the booth and swirled around her and through her like ghosts. They were a part of her that she could never fully escape.

‘Perhaps I could rent the booth from you.’

Billie’s words startled Imelda back into presence with both their sound and content.

‘What in heaven’s name would you do with it?’

Billie grinned and shrugged her shoulders in a pantomime gesture that made Imelda smile. ‘I’m not sure. But I love it. And it would be rather fitting, wouldn’t it, considering it was where I was found?’

‘But you’d have to move to Brighton if you were going to run it yourself.’

‘Why not? I can afford to now, and I don’t have any ties at home save for my friends. I’m sure they would be more than happy to visit me here.’

Billie appeared to be warming to her idea with every word she spoke.

‘What do you think?’ she asked.

Imelda had no idea. Did she really want this? Billie moving to Brighton? Billie in her booth? She could hear Shunty-Mae whispering in her ear, ‘Be careful what you wish for . . .’