He used to be bigger, she tells herself. Suffered, this one. You can see it in his neck, too. That loose skin. The collar of his shirt’s a little frayed, as if it used to rub against stubble. Been through something. There’s so much pain in him it’s like he’s full. Like he’s been a sponge and now he’s saturated. Like pain is spilling out a tear at a time …

‘The militaria,’ she muses, examining the pretty, colourful card. ‘One of my favourites. Very encouraging. Not a soldier, by any means, but somebody with purpose. A mission. Perhaps a belligerence, a devotion to a duty. Am I getting warm? Stop me if I’m getting ahead of myself …’

She glances up at his face. He’s barely spoken since he arrived. Hasn’t responded to much of her chatter. She finds it a little rude, if she’s honest. She hasn’t got much enthusiasm for idle prattle, but most of her clients expect it, the same way they expect a little gossip at the hairdresser’s or some borderline racist invective during a cab ride. She counts it as part of the service. With this one, she may as well have said nothing at all. Just lit the candle, wafted the incense, and got right down to business. Not much of a one for foreplay, she decides. Probably hasn’t played the field. Married young, and for life.

She makes a theatrical display of examining the cards. She doesn’t need them. Can read this man just from the way he looks; the way he smells; the catch in his voice as he said he was desperate, that he would pay twice her normal rate. The money had been enough of an incentive to overlook her own protocols. She doesn’t like walk-ins. Likes to be suitably prepared. Some of the cynics suggest she only accepts advanced bookings so she’s got a chance to Google the shit out of each new client, acquainting herself with every aspect of their character. She doesn’t rise to such suggestions. She knows she’s the real deal. Always has. Can read a person like a pop-up book. The cards just give her something to look at while she’s letting an innate empathy draw a picture of whoever is sitting in the chair. The crystal ball; the palm, the tea leaves, they’re all mostly props. She could tell this man’s future just by looking at him, and none of it rings with promise.

‘Now that’s interesting,’ she says, peering at a colourful picture card, soft yellows and gleaming red. ‘This is a feeling card: a state of being, you might say. Amore, that’s love. And love means love. It doesn’t take much explaining. You feel it, or you’ve known it, or will again. That’s where this esperanza card comes in – a sense of hope. And I can see the power there, how you long for something. There’s a sadness in you, something beyond gloom. If I were to describe a kind of wistful, delicious melancholy, a nostalgia for something fondly remembered, would that mean something to you?’