‘How much is this nonsense?’ I enquire.
‘It’s free, but Madame L’Oracle, the Psychic Queen, guarantees she’ll be uncannily specific.’ There’s a picture of Madame Oracle on the app. Sam shows me. She’s in pink fur and pearls, her hair bigger than RuPaul’s.
‘Just give me a second…’ says Sam. I wait as she taps away at her phone. ‘Right. Now we wait two minutes. Accurate predictions take time, it says.’ I poke her playfully in the ribs and try not to roll my eyes as I focus on the screen. It’s all pink and white. On a jacquard background a picture of a crystal ball is oscillating whilst white cloudy stuff swirls in it, and an old-fashioned clock counts down the minutes. What laughable hocus pocus. Still, Sam’s one of my best friends; I’m going with it because I always do.
One of the Japanese tourist peers over Sam’s shoulder.
‘Oi, nosey! Bog off! Right. Here we are. Ooh, okay, this is mine: You have an eighty percent chance of heat bringing you love.’
‘That’s it?’
‘Yes! Heat will bring me love! Simples!’
‘But that could mean anything! I thought it was supposed to be specific! That’s totally vague and really random,’ I laugh.
‘It could be specific. I just have to focus. Heat, heat…what could it mean? Should I book another trip to Lanzarote?’ She pulls her wool coat more tightly round her. It’s really cold for the end of October and the skies are darkening already. Rain is due in about an hour, I know. ‘Right, your turn.’
‘If I must.’
‘You must.’
We both stare at the phone again. Finally the shifting white fog in the crystal ball shifts and a pink heart flashes up. Inside, in black scroll-y writing, are the words, ‘You have a 99% chance of falling in love by Friday.’ Sam raises her eyebrows at me and grins. I burst out laughing.
‘How exciting!’ she exclaims.
Now I do roll my eyes. ‘Ooh, Friday,’ I say. ‘I think I’m busy that day. Let me check my diary…’ Actually, I am busy that day. It’s Freya’s graduation. Jeff and I are both going. It’ll be okay… I hope. We’ll be a civilized divorced couple… I hope.
Sam grabs my arm and looks all bog-eyed. Her dark hair is whipping all over her face in the wind. ‘Daryl, it might happen!’
‘Nah,’ I say. ‘And I don’t want it to. Love is for mugs. From now on I’m all about friends and a bit of flirting. That’s it.’
‘You say that,’ she says, ‘but if love came along…’
‘It won’t come along!’ I insist. ‘Look, it’s a giggle, all this stuff, but it’s a load of old guff. Let’s go and get another drink.’
‘Don’t mock,’ pouts Sam. ‘And you’d better be careful. What if this means you’re going to fall in love with the first man you see, or something…?’
‘Yeah right,’ I say. We look ahead of us and both catch sight of a skinny man in a cycle helmet and bicycle clips, with no bicycle in sight, walking past us wearing an ‘I’m With Stupid’ sweatshirt. ‘There you go, there’s the first man I’ve seen. What’s the probability of me getting it on with him?’ We start giggling.
‘Whatever,’ insists Sam, ‘you can’t leave these things completely to chance. I would suggest a date a night until Friday, just to keep your options open.’
‘A date a night? Who the hell with?’
‘I dunno. People.’
‘People. And where would I find these people?’ This was the part of my four-point plan I hadn’t really grappled with yet. Where the hell to find men to date. Everyone seemed to meet people via online dating these days, but it wasn’t for me. The whole thing terrified me. And as for Tinder, I couldn’t bear the thought of it. All those predatory men swiping left, over and over again…
‘Who knows! Just look around you, my friend.’
We look around us. Five hundred tourists and a man selling hot dogs, but not a hottie amongst them. We shrug at each other and grin, then I looked up at the clouds which are ominously black and in the mood for rain.
‘Come on,’ I say. ‘We’ve got more celebrating to do. Let’s hit another bar.’
Monday
Oh god. I was on the ground again, wasn’t I? A very cold ground, that was also very wet and quite stony. A ground that was far too close to my face. And I wasn’t sitting on my bottom this time. No, that would have been respectable and acceptable, especially if I’d still been in Trafalgar Square. People often sit around the tourist bits of London, eating stuff, chatting and taking photos; it’s expected, they do it all the time. What nobody does is lie on their fronts, with their coat twisted all round them like a straitjacket and one boot off, face down on the drive they share with their next door neighbour in a quiet residential street in Wimbledon. In the middle of the night.
Yes, the hunky neighbour. Yes, the neighbour who’d given me my divorce papers yesterday morning. Yes, the neighbour who was currently standing over me and looking concerned.
Oh god. My mind flashed through how I got here. London. Trafalgar Square. Drinking cocktails with Sam. Dancing on the table in that Vietnamese restaurant which inexplicably turned into a disco at ten o’clock. Squealing home on the District Line. Inviting Sam in for vodka and cranberry and one hopeless, spilt-all-over-the-kitchen-worktop coffee – a vain attempt to sober us up before I sent her home in a taxi. Trotting out to put a bulging black sack in the bin – mostly full of empty bottles I couldn’t be bothered to recycle – and tripping coming back up the drive… Oh bloody god. I grimaced, as far as I could grimace with my face planted on the drive… Giggling and thinking it was really funny and that I’d just lie here for a while and have a little sleep…
‘Are you all right down there?’
‘Yes, thank you, I’m okay.’ I was a hundred percent sure I was not a pretty sight, but I wasn’t hurt – booze and my curves meant I had bounced, probably, like a baby, before landing in my prone and highly compromising position. ‘I’ve been up to London,’ I said, like a female, inebriated Dick Whittington. ‘I’ve had a few too many. Sorry. I’m on your half of the drive.’
‘That’s okay. Do you need a hand up?’
‘Yes, please. That would be really kind.’ Oh, the English politeness. It never fails, even at moments of extreme humiliation. Will held out his arms and heaved me up; no mean feat, considering I was carrying approximately four litres of booze and a Burger King Whopper meal about my person. When he was assured I could stand without collapsing to the ground again, he bent down and retrieved the lost half of my footwear.
‘Your boot,’ he said, holding it out.
‘Right. Thanks.’
He stood smiling at me; I stood, trying not to fall over.
‘Have you got work in the morning? Rather, this morning?
‘Yes. Yes, I have.’
‘And have you got your keys?’
‘I think so.’ My keys had been in the pocket of my thick, padded coat, out for duty early this year as it had been a very chilly October. I rummaged in both pockets. When my left hand (without wedding ring – it felt weird) located them, on their fluffy pink, feathery, glittery key-chain