“I’m always getting these things. Feelings about people. Dreams. You see, from you, I get a really strong connection to Shakespeare.”
“Most of us have a strong connection to Shakespeare,” I replied. I had seen a lot of psychics over the years and none of them had said this to me. “Seeing as we studied at least one of his plays at school.”
“No, it’s not that. With you, it’s so strong. It’s got this endless-love thing about it, but it’s nothing to do with Romeo and Juliet. That’d be too obvious. It’s so strong. There’s a connection to the little one as well.” The goddess stared off into space for a moment. “I’m not very good at putting together the feelings I get, I have to admit. That’s why I couldn’t in good faith take money from people. My friends often tell me to start charging, you know, make a living from it, but what if I don’t get anything from someone? How would I live with myself? Twelve!” She pointed at me. “Twelve. You’ve got some connection to twelve.”
“I was twelve once,” I said. Why I was being so uncharitable I didn’t know. Maybe it was because this woman was the genuine article. I had met many people over the years who weren’t; who charged large sums and told me nothing. And this one had a conscience about her gift and wouldn’t charge people because she was scared of not being able to tell them anything.
“Twelve? Twelfth? Maybe it’s twelfth. Hey, are you an actress?” Her eyes lit up.
And it was going so well. “No,” I said.
“Oh, how come I keep hearing ‘Old Vic’?”
My whole body went cold, the fingers that had been stroking Leo’s stomach froze.
“Old Vic. You’ve got a really strong connection to the Old Vic. So has your Shakespeare thing. Maybe it’s not the place. Maybe it’s a man? Old Vic … He visits you. No, but that’s silly. And you’re all starry. I keep seeing you in the stars. That’s why I thought you might be an actress. Famous. You know, the Old Vic, Shakespeare, stars … Gawd, if I had a brain, I’d be dangerous!” she laughed. Threw her head back and laughed.
“Can you imagine me telling my accountant I hired someone because I had a dream about them? I don’t even know if you can waitress or make coffee!” She laughed again. “Or telling my dad! ‘Oh, Dad, you know that café you bought me and I’ve run into the ground? I’ve added to my financial worries by hiring some woman from my dream. Never mind the fact I dream about her because she’s my most loyal customer.’ I can just see his face now!” She carried on laughing, clutching her sides, tears rolling down her face.
You can see people, who they truly are, if you try hard enough. You listen to how your body responds to them. It may be a quiet little prod; it might be a huge red flag being waved that lights up the nerves in your body. It might be a look that you see passing across their face. It might be a note you hear in their voice. It might be them laughing at themselves in an unabashed manner.
She was an angel. This goddess was an angel. She was suddenly bathed in white and gold light, right before my eyes. She was so incredibly beautiful, she shone. I would never tell anyone that—not even her—because it did sound crazy. My friends had called me crazy, Cordy called me crazy, Mal said everything like that was bollocks.
“Oh, gawd,” said the laughing angel in front of me, wiping away her tears. “That’s really tickled me. I haven’t been so tickled since I told a customer about how I’d once had a crush on that singer from Dollar and how I knew he lived in the Brighton area but I’d never seen him before. Ten minutes later in he walks. Large as life. He’d never been in before, nor since. The customer actually spat her coffee across the table. And I could hardly serve him because I was laughing so much. Probably why he never came back.”
“Would you sell me your café?” I asked her.
There were decisions I made in my life that I knew without a doubt were the right ones: not going traveling with Mal; studying for my Ph.D.; moving to Hove; buying a café.
I could see it clearly. How I would change it. How I could turn it around. How this would free the angel from a cage she had never wanted to be in but her inability to say no to her family had kept her hostage. This was my future. I could do it and still be near my son.
The “airy-fairy” side of me might have made this decision, but the business side of me, the one that had realized at a very early point that being the restaurant manager meant not only more pay but less physical grind so I could fit it around my college work, knew this would work. This was my future.
“I’ll have to ask my dad,” she said cautiously.
“I’ll give you a fair price for it. And I want you to stay working here if you could stand it.”
From her trouser pocket she pulled out a tiny mobile phone. How she had got it in there was a mystery. She flipped it open, pressed a couple of buttons. “Hey, Dad,” she said when he answered. “I’m about to make your day. OK, OK …” She grinned at me across the table, rolled her eyes and began talking in Japanese.
Two months later, I owned a café. Leo was impressed when I showed him the keys: he burped and grinned. Cordy thought it was wonderful, until I told her about my plan to convert the upper floors into rooms for people to have tarot readings, horoscope charts done, reiki, crystal healing and massages. Then she said, “I suppose there are as many other crazy people out there as you.” Mum and Dad had been less impressed and suggested I put under the new name of the café PROPRIETOR: DR. NOVA KUMALISI so everyone would know that their daughter was a doctor, even if she was throwing away her hard-earned degree. Aunt Mer thought the same—I could tell when she came to the launch party—but didn’t say anything.
Amy, the angel who used to own the café, was extremely happy that she didn’t have to be in charge of anything anymore.
When I opened the door that first day it became mine officially, and sat alone with Leo in the café, I felt for the first time I was back in control of my life. I was doing something I had chosen to do, not going along with something because it had happened and I was reacting to it. For the first time in a while, I knew I had a future. Obviously I had done the right thing, because that was when Leo decided to start acting like a baby again.
Baking is exactly what I needed. I stand in the middle of the kitchen and survey all my labors. Every surface is covered in unbaked cakes, muffins, banana bread, pies, cookies, biscuits and hot cross buns waiting to rise.
I’ve probably made too much, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. Being able to focus on something I could do well, and do it, had been what I needed to feel a little in control of myself again. I’ll freeze some stuff and leave Amy a note to bake what is in the fridge tomorrow.
I can just imagine her face when she walks in and sees it all in the morning.
She won’t instantly think that I’ve come in and done this—she’ll think it’s angels come to help her in her time of need, or those little pixie creatures from that fairy tale about the shoemaker who woke up each morning to find all his work done. Then she’d think it might have possibly been me. She is so gorgeous on the inside and outside, and so very often on a different plane of existence. I often wonder how her partner, Trudy, who is down to earth and practical—and as regular a proponent of the It’s All Bollocks school of thought as Keith—puts up with her. I’m pretty levelheaded about such things even though I’m a fervent believer, and it still drives Keith round the twist, so imagine having to live with Amy. I threaten Keith with that sometimes. When he’s being annoying or “difficult,” I tell him I’ll either sell him on eBay or get Amy to move in.
I free my hair from its net and untie my apron. What I need now is a hot shower and maybe a couple of hours’ sleep before I go back and take over from Keith. He sent me a text earlier saying all was well and no change and that he loved me.
After locking up Starstruck, I start walking home. It’s only three streets away. The café has been incredibly successful in the past few years. We gave it a complete refit, and took full advantage of being the only café around in the area with home baking and by mak
ing it child friendly. The psychic/crystal/tarot/alternative therapy side of things has also been very successful because it’s part of normal everyday things. We haven’t painted anything black or blood red, we haven’t made it a niche thing. I don’t dress in black, I don’t call myself a Wicca (witch) because I’m not, and I don’t believe someone is psychic just because they tell me they are. I’m constantly testing psychics, and if there’s ever any sign that someone is losing their touch, then I terminate their contract. I’ve seen far too many fakes over the years—people who charge the earth but tell you nothing, people who read your reactions to their guesses and tell you what you want to hear—to allow anyone to do that to my customers.
I know there’s more to life than we can see. I’ve known since I was eight years, eleven months, and twenty-one days old.
Mal, Cordy, Victoria and I were meant to stay in the garden, to play outside while all the adults were inside, talking quietly and seriously and drinking tea.
I needed to use the toilet, and now we had an inside toilet and a new bathroom, I didn’t want to use the one outside anymore. Mum said our new bathroom color was called avocado, like the thing she and Dad ate.
I finished, wiped, stood up, pulled up my panties and pushed the handle on the toilet. I was still fascinated that pushing the handle on this one did the same thing as pulling the chain on the outside loo, and watched the water swirl around the bowl and disappear for a few seconds. After I watched fresh water fill the bottom of the bowl, I turned to leave, but stopped suddenly and stared.
Standing in front of the door was Uncle Victor, Mal’s dad. It was unusual that he was in the bathroom whilst I was there, but even more so because I—along with everyone else who knew him—had watched his coffin being lowered into the ground a few hours earlier. I had been sure he was in it at the time.
I stared at him.
He stared at me.
I closed my eyes, wondering if I was imagining things. Like Mal said when sometimes a fish finger would disappear from my plate, then come back again when I wasn’t looking.
In those moments I’d stared at him before closing my eyes, he had looked real. Just like I did. He was wearing a black suit, with a white shirt and black tie. His hair was slicked and combed down with a side parting on the left; his skin was as pale and yellowy as it had been the last time I’d seen him before he died. Which hadn’t been for a while. He’d been “away” for most of the time since Mal and I had been born, then came back for a year or so when we were five, had stuck around to see Victoria born, then had gone away again. This time only coming back every six months or so for anything between a few days and a few weeks.
I opened my eyes and he was still there. He was leaning against the door, his arms crossed over his chest. I’d seen him in his coffin by accident. I had gone into Mal and Victoria’s front room where the body was, so I knew he was dead. I had run out again and hid in Mal’s room, scared of what I’d seen. Scared because I’d never seen Uncle Victor looking so still. Even when he fell asleep in his chair beside the fire after dinner. But I knew he was dead. And yet, he was standing in front of me. He was probably a ghost.
“I never liked your name,” he stated. His voice still rolled with his accent—Mum said it came from Yorkie-shire.
I stared at him.
“So violent. Imagine naming your child after a star that is dying—exploding,” he said. “It could be argued that the earth started with the big bang, an exploding star that started all life as we know it, but I don’t see it that way. Stupid thing to name a child.”
I wasn’t scared. It was Uncle Victor, after all.
“But then, not as stupid as ‘Malvolio,’ ” he went on. He raised a thin finger, wagged it at me. “She did it for me. Imagine, a Yorkshire man going back to his roots and telling everyone that his son is called Malvolio. I might as well tell them I was … you know,” he said, jerking his head to one side. I didn’t know, but I was fascinated. What might he as well have told the Yorkie-shire people he was? “It was the first play I took her to see when we were courting. I said I felt sorry for that poor lad, Malvolio, he got a rough deal. So she names me bloomin’ son after him.
“But at least he can shorten his name. Mal. Not so bad. You, on the other hand, have no such luck. You know your name is ‘Avon’ spelled backwards? You’ll probably end up selling the stuff.” I stared at Uncle Victor, wondering why he climbed out of his place in the cool, wet earth that he’d been lowered into earlier that day to be nasty to me about my name. Is that what happened after you did this thing called being dead? You came back to tell someone exactly what you thought of their name? “That would serve your parents right if all you ever amounted to was selling Avon.”
His eyes raked over me, from my two neat cornrows tied at the ends with yellow ribbon, to the shiny black shoes with white socks Mum had made me wear. “Well, lass, say something,” he said.
My heart leapt in my chest. He wanted me to talk to him. Up until this moment, it wasn’t necessary for me to say anything to ghost Uncle Victor. Even though he was a ghost and he wasn’t being very nice to me, he was still a grown-up, in other words, one who must be obeyed. Say something. Say something. “Our bath’s green,” I said.
His face creased up with a deep, slightly frightening frown. “Your bath is green,” he said. “Your. Bath. Is. Green.”
I nodded.
He shook his head. “I didn’t want you,” he said, with that tone of voice Mum used when she’d tried to make do when baking a cake without some ingredient and the cake turned out to be only fit for the bin. I, clearly to Uncle Victor, was a cake fit for the bin. “I’ve been trying to talk to Hope and to Frank, but no, I get you. And your green bath.”
I started to bite on the inner lining of my cheek, while drawing small circles on the brown lino with the toe of my right shoe. I wondered if anyone would think it odd I was being told off by my Uncle Victor who everyone had thought was dead. When dead meant you were never going to wake up. Ever again.
“Stop fidgeting,” he said. “Did you always fidget this much?”
I stopped drawing circles and stood up straight, stopped biting on my cheek and thought about his question. Did I always fidget that much? I knew what fidgeting was, of course, but did I do it more than anyone else? I didn’t know. I had a feeling that if I said that to Uncle Victor, it might make him crosser than he already was.
“I suppose you aren’t so bad. You’re the only one who noticed me, after all,” he said, looking me up and down again. “Very skinny though. You need to eat more.”
I could do that. I nodded. If it meant he’d be nicer to me, I could eat more.
“What are you, eight? Nine?”
I nodded.
“Well, which one is it, lass, eight or nine?”
“I’m nine in ten days. So is Malvolio. He’s nine in eight days.”
“Oh. Yes. Well, I knew that.” I thought Uncle Victor wasn’t being very honest about that. I guessed he didn’t know that at all. Especially since he had never once, not ever, given Mal a birthday card or a present. Not ever. Even though Aunt Mer pretended they were from his dad, we knew they weren’t.
“You’re a bit young, but I suppose you can see me for a reason, so it must be all right. Now, I want you to do something for me.”
It seemed a funny way to ask someone to do something for you, say you don’t like their name, say they’re too skinny and tell them to stop fidgeting. But I was all ears, eager and willing to do anything I could because I knew grown-ups were odd creatures. They could say one thing and mean something completely different and then didn’t seem to notice that they had done that.
“You’re to take care of Malvolio, you hear?”
Take care of Malvolio. Take care of Malvolio? Mum was always taking care of Aunt Mer when she was sick. And when Mal had measles and all of us got chicken pox, Mum took care of us then. “Is he ill?” I asked.
Uncle Victor’s eyes widened for a moment, then he s
hook his head again, as though I was that cake only fit for the bin but he’d dropped it on the way to the bin, meaning his workload had been doubled by something that was disappointing in the first place. “No, lass. I want you to take care of him from now until he doesn’t need taking care of anymore,” he said. “And even then, you’re to look out for him. That means making sure he’s all right. That he’s happy.” I must have looked confused, because he said, “As you get older you’ll understand what I mean. But right now, just remember that I want you to take care of Malvolio. I didn’t do a very good job of it.”
“But that’s because you were never here,” I said to reassure him. To let him know I was more grown up than he thought because I knew that if he was around, he would take care of Mal. And Victoria. And Aunt Mer.
“Aye, thank you, lass, I know.” He didn’t sound very reassured. He sounded, if anything, crosser. “He’s a good lad—yes, I know that, even though I was never here—and he’s going to need someone to take care of him.”
“What about Victoria? Won’t she need someone to take care of her?”
“She’s a girl, someone will always take care of her.”
How did he know someone would always take care of her? No one had really taken care of Aunt Mer until she moved into our street, as far as I knew from what Mum said. She was a girl.
My thoughts must have shown on my face, because he added, “OK, lass, take care of them both. You’re just making life difficult for yourself. I was only going to ask you to take care of Malvolio. Now I want you to take care of Malvolio and Victoria.”
“OK,” I said with a happy shrug. I generally did whatever grown-ups told me to do. It was easier that way.
“ ‘OK’? Is that it? I say something profound and important and all you can say is ‘OK’?”
Oh, have I said something wrong? I wondered. I thought that was what he wanted. “OK, Uncle Victor?” I added.
“I expected some questions about how to do it. Maybe a bit of a fight, but all you can say is ‘OK.’ I should have been given someone older to ask this of, I knew it.”