Everyone seemed to have a question they wanted answered by her. Catalina was eager to know if she would get pregnant again by the end of the year. Apparently, Magda had predicted her previous two pregnancies, and Catalina’s plan was to have her third (and final) child as soon as possible, even though Agata was only a year old.
‘There was too much of a gap between her and Xavi,’ Catalina explained. ‘We didn’t want that. I hope it will be different this time.’
Carola, who worked in the TV shop, had applied for a job at an IT company in Alicante and wanted to know what her chances were. Esther, a bright and bubbly student in the same year as Rosa, was worried about her grandmother, who’d had a bad fall a few weeks previously. Her gran’s recovery was slow and Esther wanted to know if the older woman would get better soon. When she told me that Sara was sixty, and normally an active, healthy woman, I assured her that she would. But apparently my medical knowledge wasn’t as important as the nod from Magda.
Bridget was anxious about some new programmes the hotel was going to run, and Rosa herself simply wanted to know if there was romance on the horizon. I hoped she meant with someone other than Pep Navarro.
‘And you?’ they asked as we approached the apartment block. ‘What about you?’
‘Oh, I’m just interested in what she has to say.’
‘But you must have a question,’ said Esther. ‘You have to have a question for her.’
Had Brad loved me?
That was my question. No matter how over him I now was, I still needed to know the answer. Had he loved me? Or was I just a notch on his bedpost? Had he loved his wife? Was she pregnant? Why had he cheated on her? Why had he cheated on me? Six questions I wanted to ask. Six questions that nobody, least of all a con artist, could answer.
‘I don’t have a question,’ I said.
Rosa rang the bell in the entrance hall and we were buzzed in. I’d assumed an assistant would let us into the apartment, but as soon as the door was opened everyone greeted the young woman with cries of ‘Magda!’ so I realised that it was the psychic herself. And that was another surprise, because she wasn’t wearing any kind of traditional ‘psychic’ attire; she was dressed in a T-shirt and a pair of shorts. Admittedly, the T-shirt had a picture of the moon on it, but it didn’t look like a very psychic moon. Magda’s dark hair was cropped short, and behind her black-rimmed glasses her blue eyes were warm and cheerful.
The living room, into which we were shown, was simply decorated, with cream walls and pale floor tiles. The colour came from the autumnal shades of the green sofa and russet cushions. It was a comfortable room, and somehow comforting too. I’d expected pictures of pentacles on the walls, and a decor of purple and gold. But even if Magda’s apartment wasn’t a shrine to my prejudices, I still wasn’t about to be suckered in.
There was a large jug of water and six glasses on a small table. We sat down and helped ourselves. Carola was the first to enter the inner sanctum, but not before placing some money in a carved box on the sideboard.
‘Magda doesn’t take the money directly,’ Rosa explained.
Clearly she liked to pretend she wasn’t doing it for the money. But the bottom line was that that was probably what it was all about for her. Easy money too, I reckoned. No having to spend years of your life studying at college. No exams to pass. No technical knowledge to master. No responsibility to get it right. No performance targets to meet. All Magda had to do was make up stuff and feed it to gullible people. I was suddenly feeling stupidly gullible myself. I wished I hadn’t come. This was so not my thing.
The others continued their Spanglish conversation about the things they wanted to find out. I listened without contributing, thinking that they were all strong-minded women and wondering why they felt the need to have someone else tell them what to do.
‘She doesn’t,’ said Rosa, when I eventually couldn’t hold back and said this. ‘She just shows a possible future.’
But couldn’t anyone do that? I wondered, still at a loss to understand.
‘Magda is gifted,’ insisted Esther. ‘You’ll see.’
Carola returned, beaming. Magda had assured her that her future career was on track.
‘But did she say you’ll get the job?’ I asked.
‘She said I’ll get the job I deserve,’ Carola replied.
I refrained from snorting.
As the others returned from their sessions they all spoke positively about the experience. Magda was confident about the future of the hotel, about Esther’s grandmother, about Catalina’s pregnancy (within twelve months, Catalina said, which wasn’t exactly what she’d wanted to know but which seemed to satisfy her all the same) and about Rosa’s love life.
‘In the next few weeks.’ She beamed at me. ‘There’s a man for me. We’re already close. We know each other.’
‘Any idea who that is?’ I asked.
‘Well . . .’ Rosa looked a little anxious. ‘It might be someone I’ve already gone out with.’
I opened my mouth to speak, then closed it again.
A bell tinkled. It was to summon me to Magda’s presence.
She was sitting behind a glass table in an almost spartan room. A roller blind was pulled down over the window so that it was in semi-darkness. A single candle, with a faint scent of lavender, burned on a ledge. It was less ‘spiritual’ than I’d anticipated but she’d still succeeded in creating an other-worldly atmosphere.
‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Welcome.’
Her English was perfect. According to Rosa she also spoke Spanish, German and French. Handy, I supposed, if you were plying your trade near a tourist resort.
‘You are a doubter,’ she said as I sat down in front of her. ‘But that’s OK.’
Her voice was soft and calming.
‘You have a strong aura,’ she said. ‘The aura of a perfectionist. One who likes clarity. Who likes details. But,’ she added, ‘you fear loss. You have experienced it.’
An accurate assessment, I supposed. But anyone could think of themselves as a perfectionist – even a person who clearly wasn’t. All of us have experienced loss. And all of us fear it.
‘You are a healer,’ she said. ‘But you cannot heal yourself.’
I’m not a healer. I find out if people need to be healed. But I don’t heal them. Other people do that.
‘You are a practical person. You like physical things,’ said Magda. ‘I think you would do best with a tarot reading.’
‘Whatever you think.’
It made no difference to me what she chose. I wasn’t going to believe any of it.
She picked up a worn deck of cards and handed them to me. The deck was heavy and the cards themselves had intricate gold-and-silver patterns embossed on the back.
‘Shuffle them,’ she said.
I did.
She fanned them out in front of me.
‘Pick seven.’
I placed seven cards, face down, on the table.
She turned the first one over. It showed eight silver cups on a table.
‘There was sadness,’ she said. ‘And even though it is lifting, it is still the backdrop to your life at the moment.’
She turned over another. This was a picture of a long, narrow tower being hit by lightning. I thought of the storm and the flooded house. But that was the past, not the future. Magda looked at me and then the card again.
‘There has been an unwanted change, a great loss,’ she said.
I kept my eyes fixed on the cards as she turned over the next.
Two rows of five swords, their ends overlapping.
‘There has been treachery. A stab in the back. People you trusted were found wanting.’
The next was another ten. This time the silver cups again.
‘You have a warm and loving family who cherish you. But you feel distant from them, even though they are proud of you.’
And then a King, richly dressed, holding one of those silver cups.
I felt her look a
t me again.
‘A man is coming to you,’ she said. ‘He will travel some distance. He is important. He has a message for you. Something you will want to hear.’
For the first time I looked directly at her. Her eyes, behind her glasses, were regarding me thoughtfully. I frowned. Everything else she’d told me had been generic. Great losses, unhappiness, feeling isolated – nobody came to a psychic because they were feeling great. Nobody came without wanting to be told things were going to get better. So it was reasonable to suggest that there was unhappiness or dissatisfaction in the background. Reasonable to sympathise.
But a man coming to me with a message. That was a definite statement. So was travelling some distance. Although perhaps that was subjective too. Ten kilometres was some distance if you were walking. Nothing if you were in a car. I was allowing myself to be swayed by her gentleness and the rhythmic cadences of her voice. And the fact that, no matter how generic, everything she’d said applied to me. The loss. The treachery. The distant family.
I said nothing.
The next card made her smile. It was the Lovers. She closed her eyes and tilted her head back so that it was facing the ceiling.
‘A new relationship for you,’ she said. ‘A deep, meaningful relationship from an unexpected place.’
It would certainly be unexpected if Pep and I ended up being deep and meaningful, I thought. Especially as I was determined we wouldn’t be. But could she be right? Was it long-term after all? Would I leave my life in Dublin and move to Beniflor? How would that work? What would I do here? Where would I get a job? Given my non-existent Spanish, my options would be very limited. Even as the questions raced through my head, I gave myself a mental kick for trying to make her words fit what was going on in my life.
‘There is a renewal here,’ she continued. ‘But it is not clear to me how. I am sorry.’
She turned over another card.
It doesn’t matter how much total nonsense you believe it is, nobody wants to see Death in a card.
‘I am sorry that there was loss in your life,’ said Magda. ‘But this does not mean loss now. This means something new. The death of the old. A time for change.’
Oh, please! I thought.
‘There will be a transformation,’ she said. ‘You have been in a dark place. You are moving forward. People love you, and you will find love.’
And that was that, I thought, as I came to my senses again. Fortune telling always ends up with the reassurance that you’ll overcome the sadness of your past, or even of your present, and that there’s someone out there for you. That you’ll find love and happiness, probably when you least expect it. Magda hadn’t said a single thing that couldn’t have applied just as much to Cleo or Saoirse. Or Rosa. Or anyone else I knew. It had been complete nonsense, just as I’d expected.
‘Thanks,’ I said.
‘You still have doubts.’
‘Yes.’ There was no point in pretending otherwise.
‘You only believe in things you can see.’
‘More or less.’
‘And yet there is much that we do not see. Even physical things. You must be more open. More receptive.’
I shrugged and thought of my chakras. Obviously, they were sealed shut and totally unbalanced. I intended to keep them that way – no matter how disappointed my mother might be.
Magda picked up the cards and shuffled them. Then she fanned them out again.
‘Choose one.’
I selected one from the middle.
It was the Fool.
I laughed. I couldn’t help myself.
‘You are at a moment of new beginnings,’ said Magda. ‘You must leave much behind you and move forward with optimism. There is a reason to be optimistic. I see it. I feel it. You must take a leap of faith and trust in the universe. You will find what you are looking for.’
I looked at her sceptically.
She took a deep breath, then reached out and put her hands on mine. I flinched but she didn’t move. She stared into my eyes for a moment, then closed her own, keeping her hands on mine.
‘Tetu,’ she said. ‘Can you help?’
Her spirit guide, I remembered. An Egyptian cat. Despite myself I was starting to feel drawn in to her. I felt as though she was in my head, in my mind. I wasn’t going to let that happen. I thought of Banquo. I was pretty sure he’d be a worthy adversary for any Egyptian moggy.
Magda released my hands. She took off her glasses and polished them with a white cloth that had been on the desk. She didn’t replace them but looked directly at me again.
‘You are mourning a man who treated you badly,’ she said calmly. ‘He did not do this out of malice. He regretted his actions. He still has a hold over you. You are not a weak person. You must put him behind you and embrace the new possibilities ahead of you. He wants this for you too.’
She was reading me, not the cards, I told myself. That was what psychics did. They studied your body language. They were experts at it. They did not contact either dead people or dead cats. Nobody did. Nobody could. I had to remember that.
‘When will all this happen?’ I asked. ‘When will I meet this man who’s travelled a distance? When will I find the man I’m supposed to love? When will the man who treated me badly no longer be a part of my life?’
She waited for a moment and then smiled at me.
‘When you choose,’ she said. ‘You are the one with the power over your own life. It is important that you remember this.’
And then the reading was over.
‘You were ages,’ said Rosa when I finally left Magda’s room. ‘What did she tell you?’
‘That I’m going to meet a tall, dark, handsome stranger and fall madly in love,’ I said.
They all looked at each other and I didn’t need to be a psychic to know they were thinking of Pep Navarro.
‘Anything else?’ asked Esther.
‘That was the gist of it,’ I told her. ‘Lots of stuff about getting over myself and moving on. But a man on the horizon. I suppose there’s always men on the horizon.’
‘She foretold my break with Pep,’ said Rosa. ‘She doesn’t always say there’s a man in your future.’
‘My track record in the past hasn’t been too good,’ I said. ‘So quite honestly, I’m not holding out much hope for the future either.’
‘But you’ve been doing well in Beniflor so far,’ said Rosa.
I was afraid for a moment that she was getting at me again. But then she grinned. Clearly the news that there was someone new on the horizon had changed her attitude towards me even more.
There was a general agreement to go to the bar in the town square for tapas and beer and talk about Magda’s predictions, but I honestly couldn’t listen to more mumbo-jumbo, so I told them that I was tired and would prefer to head home.
‘Are you sure?’ asked Rosa. ‘You’re very welcome to join us.’
‘Certain.’ I smiled at her. ‘I have to think about my future, apparently, and I do that best when I’m on my own.’
‘See you soon,’ she said.
I nodded, then we all embraced.
I got into the car and left them to it.
Chapter 22
I didn’t mention to Pep that I’d been to a fortune teller. It wasn’t the sort of thing I’d want to talk to him about, and anyhow, I was too embarrassed to admit I’d gone, even to myself. I put everything Magda had said out of my head and instead considered my actual future. The real-life one that I was going to face for myself. How was I going to move on from here? Should I stay in Spain for the rest of my sabbatical from work, or should I go home and get back to my real life? Did I want to stay or leave? And what influence would Pep have over my decision?
As for Magda’s comments about my future – if she was right (which she wasn’t), how likely was it that I could ever be deep and meaningful with Pep Navarro when, just a year ago, he’d told Rosa Johnson that he was too young for commitment? All the same, the sex was still g
reat and I didn’t want to finish with that. Which presumably meant I was far more shallow than deep and meaningful myself!
I was looking forward to seeing him the next morning, his usual day for cleaning the pool. Often he was already at work when I came downstairs, but this morning there was no sign of him so I assumed he’d been delayed at the finca. I squeezed a couple of oranges for some fresh juice, chopped some of the fruit I’d bought during the week, and took my breakfast to the patio. Banquo joined me, stretching out in the shade of the table, close to my feet.
‘Do you commune with psychic cats?’ I asked him as I rubbed him with my toes. ‘Have you heard of an Egyptian moggy called Tetu?’
Banquo purred.
‘According to him, I’m going to fall madly in love,’ I added. ‘But my fortune teller hasn’t told me when exactly my handsome prince will show up.’
I heard the sound of the gates open and the van drove up to the house. I grinned. Coming by the twisty road from his family’s finca, Pep had to travel a long distance. And one psychic’s deep and meaningful was another person’s good time. I put Magda Burnaia and her predictions out of my mind and went to meet my handsome prince.
But it wasn’t Pep who got out of the van. It was his brother, Luis.
‘Hola,’ he said.
‘Hola.’ I looked at him in surprise. ‘Where’s Pep?’
‘He is in Mallorca, of course,’ said Luis.
‘Mallorca!’ Pep hadn’t said anything about going to Mallorca. ‘Why? When did he go?’
‘This morning,’ said Luis. ‘Early. He has gone to assist my aunt.’
‘Assist your aunt? Doing what?’
‘Tía Almudena has a boat hire business in Soller,’ Luis replied. ‘One of her staff left unexpectedly. Pep has gone to fill the space for a time.’
‘How long a time?’ I asked.
‘A couple of weeks.’
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