A Wet Umbrella and a Tarot Deck Share Table Nine on the Long Pier
Madame Ozerova has again told a critic exactly the wrong thing. Adaeze Nwosu-Prior, who is wrong at a similar rate, took notes.
The umbrella was already dripping on table nine when I sat down. Madame Ozerova had the Sun card face up beside it. She had just told Teodor Brandvold, restaurant critic, that he would stay dry all week.
It had rained from 8.40 that morning. Brandvold said nothing. He looked at his shoes, then at the umbrella, then at the Sun. She charged him 25 for the reading and he paid.
I keep a tally of her readings for critics. This is the tenth. She has told a film critic he would never again be bored. She has told a fashion writer that someone close to her would soon be honest. None of it has landed. I admire the consistency. Most forecasters have at least one good week.
I should not be smug. In March I told this magazine that oatmeal would be the colour of the autumn. It was my thirteenth miss. The colour of the autumn turned out to be a green so loud it was banned from two waiting rooms. I have worn oatmeal every day since, out of loyalty. Today it is a knitted vest. It is damp.
Ozerova gathered the cards and squared them against the table. She did not look at the sky. She looked at me, and I felt the old thrill of a prediction forming.
'You,' she said, 'will be right soon.'
I wrote it down. Then I crossed it out, because I know what that sentence is worth coming from either of us.
