Читать книгу When Your Eyes Close: A psychological thriller unlike anything you’ve read before! - Tanya Farrelly - Страница 14

Michelle pulled off the road and parked beside the low wall outside the cottage. A dog barked ferociously, and she strained to see where it was, but among the caravans and general chaos of the garden she couldn’t spot it. The lock was not on the gate, which meant the old woman was available. She stepped from the car and hovered outside, looking at the door and the window, checking again to see whether there was any possibility that the dog was loose, but the rest of the garden was fenced off from the footpath, so she took her chance.

As soon as she tapped on the door, a cacophony of barking erupted from the house. The unseen hound started up again in tandem. She heard the old woman telling the dog to stop and a few minutes later the door opened and she was beckoned inside.

Nothing had changed since she’d last been here. The old woman led her into a room filled with old newspapers, religious relics and an array of paraphernalia that must have gathered over decades. In contrast a wide-screen television was mounted above the fireplace, the sound now muted. Michelle sat on the sofa that was covered by an old quilt and tried to ignore the stench of urine and something else, something rotten that she couldn’t identify, as the small dog eyed her warily from behind the old woman’s legs.

‘Life is good?’ the woman said.

Michelle attempted a smile. ‘Not bad,’ she said. She always tried to tell the woman as little as possible: she didn’t want to lead her in any way; although, if the woman was still as good as she’d been before, the strain in her voice would be enough to alert her that something was the matter. Nick, in his scepticism, was accurate about that. Michelle knew there were any number of charlatans out there. She remembered the time she and her friend, Anna, had gone to see your man off the television – the one who told horoscopes. They’d gone in one after the other, and afterwards when they’d consulted, they’d realized that he’d been too lazy to even invent different stories. They were both about to meet a man with a tan briefcase. They’d laughed about it after, pockets lighter by forty euros. Anna had sworn never to visit a psychic again. But Michelle knew that the old woman was good. Hadn’t she told her about her mother’s illness? A sickness of the blood and the bones, she’d said. There was no more accurate description of the cancer that had attacked her mother’s bone marrow. Within five years she was gone, leaving Michelle and her sister devastated.

The old woman took Michelle’s hand and rubbed it gently, watching her face all the time. ‘You work in a place with a lot of people,’ she said. Michelle only slightly inclined her head in affirmation. ‘A lot of women, dancing.’

Michelle smiled. ‘That’s right.’ The old woman hadn’t lost it.

‘You’re good at your job. You’ll have your own business maybe in the next year or so.’ Again, the psychic was right. At least that was the plan. She’d already looked into starting her own Zumba and Pilates classes. She’d spoken to a friend to find out what it would entail, setting herself up as a business, taking out personal insurance. She was saving some money before she quit her job to set out on her own. It was her goal, and she knew she’d do it.

‘Things haven’t been so good in love,’ the old woman said.

‘No.’

‘How long were you together?’

‘Almost eight months.’

‘And everything was going well before. You were thinking of moving in together?’

They hadn’t talked about that, but Michelle had thought that it hadn’t been too far off. She spent three or four nights a week at Nick’s place anyway. He said he hated it when she wasn’t there. She did too. She’d loved living alone before. She liked the freedom, the not having to answer to anybody. Before, she’d lived with a man for almost three years, and it had stifled her. Everywhere she went, he’d asked questions. The thing he’d claimed to love most about her, her free spirit, was what tore them apart in the end. And then a year later, Nick had come along.

‘Things went bad – just like that.’ The old woman clicked her fingers with her free hand, then rested it on top of Michelle’s.

Despite herself, she could feel the tears coming. Nick would surely laugh at her for that – a flashing neon sign for the psychic to interpret. Damn him anyway.

‘No explanation.’

‘No, he just … disappeared.’

‘He’s torn,’ the woman said. ‘Wants you in his life and doesn’t.’ She was silent for a moment. ‘Is he well?’ she asked then.

‘You mean healthy?’ Michelle shrugged. ‘I think so.’

The woman looked confused. ‘A drinker maybe?’

Nick drank a few beers, but he didn’t drink too much, did he? She’d never seen him particularly drunk, no more so than a lot of their friends.

The old woman sighed. ‘I’m not sure this is a good situation for you, lovey. This man, he has a good heart, but he’s not willing to commit. There’s a reason, but it’s not clear to me. There isn’t another woman?’

‘No. I mean, he was married before, but that’s finished.’

‘A child?’

‘No.’

‘Funny, I see a child. A dark-haired little girl and a woman.’

Strange. There was no child – unless he hadn’t told her. He wouldn’t have kept something like that a secret – not after eight months, would he?

‘How old is this child?’

‘Four, maybe five, and Johnny …’

‘Johnny?’

The old woman looked sharply at her. ‘You said his name was Johnny?’

‘No. No, it’s Nick.’

‘Nick?’ The woman looked confused. She let go of Michelle’s hand, ran her palm across her forehead. ‘I’m sorry, dear. Ignore that. It’s … I don’t know, I’ve given you a wrong reading, I think.’

‘You think it’s someone else?’

‘No, not someone else. Sometimes things get confused. I don’t know. Maybe you could come back tomorrow, dear. We could try again.’

Michelle took out her purse, but the old woman waved her hand and told her to put it away. ‘No money,’ she said. ‘Not for today.’

Michelle left, disappointed. She thought of the woman’s reading. Johnny. She didn’t know anyone called Johnny. She hoped the old lady hadn’t had some premonition about the future. A woman and a dark-haired child. It didn’t make any sense, but then the other things did. She’d known that she taught dance to a lot of women. That she planned to start her own business. Maybe she had good days and bad, the old lady. Michelle contemplated how old she might be. She’d first visited her ten years before, and she’d thought she was ancient then. Maybe her powers were going as the years advanced, her visions becoming blurry. Powers. She heard Nick mock her. You don’t really believe in all that nonsense, do you? Maybe he was right. Maybe it was all nonsense, and she ought to just get on with her life.