Colette was irritated. “That’s no distance.”
“Look, it’s not worth antagonizing him.”
“Morris?”
“Of course, Morris. Colette, you know the tape, you know those men that were coming through?”
“Paramilitaries?”
“No. Forget them. I mean the fiends, the fiends I used to know.”
“Can we please not talk about it? Not while I’m driving.”
The service stations were quiet, winding down after the weekend trade, though it had been an odd sort of weekend, of course, because of Di. The fiends swarmed out of the back of the car, yipping and squeaking. Inside the building, Al wandered around the food court, an anxious expression on her face. She lifted the lid of a mock-rustic tureen and gazed into the soup, and picked up filled rolls and tugged at their wrappings, turning them up to look at them end on. “What’s in this one, do you think?” she said. The film was misty, as if the lettuce had been breathing out.
“For God’s sake sit down,” Colette said. “I’ll bring you some pizza.”
When she came back, edging among the tables with her tray, she saw that Al had taken out her tarot cards.
She was amazed. “Not here!” she said.
“I just have to—”
The card’s scarlet wrappings flowed over the table, and puddled in Colette’s lap as she sat down. Alison drew out one card. She held it for a moment, flipped it over. She didn’t speak, but laid it down on top of the pack.
“What is it?”
It was the Tower. Lightning strikes. The masonry of the tower is blasted away. Flames shoot out of the brickwork. Debris is thrown into space. The occupants hurtle towards earth, their legs scissoring and their arms outflung. The ground rushes up at them.
“Eat your pizza,” Colette said, “before it goes all flabby.”
“I don’t want it.” The Tower, she thought; it’s my least favourite. The death card I can handle. I don’t like the Tower. The Tower means—
Colette saw with alarm that Al’s eyes had slipped out of focus; as if Al were a baby whom she were desperate to placate, whose mouth she was desperate to fill, she grabbed the plastic fork and plunged it into the pizza. “Look, Al. Try a bit of this.”
The fork buckled against the crust; Al snapped back, smiled, took the fork from her hand. “It may not be so bad,” she said. Her voice was small and tight. “Here, Col, let me. When you get the Tower it means your world blows up. Generally. But it can have a—you know, quite a
“Pick it up in your fingers,” Colette advised.
“Wrap my cards up, then.”
Colette shrank; she was afraid to touch them.
“It’s all right. They won’t bite. They know you. They know you’re my partner.”
Hastily, Colette bundled them into their red wrappings.
“That’s right. Just drop them in my bag.”
“What came over you?”
“I don’t know. I just had to see. It gets you that way sometimes.” Al bit into a piece of raw-looking green pepper, and chewed it for a while. “Colette, there’s something you ought to know. About last night.”
“Your baby voice,” Colette said. “Talking to nobody. That made me laugh. But then I thought at one point you were having a heart attack.”
“I don’t think there’s anything wrong with my heart.”
Colette looked meaningfully at her pizza slice.
“Well, yes,” Alison said. “But that’s not going to finish me off. Nobody perishes of a pizza slice. Think of all those millions of Italians, running round quite healthy.”
“It was a horrible weekend.”
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know,” Colette said. “I didn’t have any expectations. That card—what do you mean by a
“It can be a warning that the structure you’re in won’t contain you anymore. Whether it’s your job or your love life or whatever it is, you’ve out-grown it. It’s not safe to stay put. The Tower is a house you know. So it can mean just that. Move on.”
“What, leave Wexham?”
“Why not? It’s a nice little flat but I’ve got no roots there.”
“Where would you like to move?”
“Somewhere clean. Somewhere new. A house that nobody’s lived in before. Could we do that?”
“New-build is a good investment.” Colette put down her coffee cup. “I’ll look into it.”
