Sepulchre

  In the end, it was Laura who broke the silence.

  ‘Draw again,’ she said. ‘The fifth card, signifying the recent past.’

  Meredith drew the Eight of Pentacles reversed, and pulled a face at Laura’s suggestion that the card could indicate that hard work and skill might not reap the benefits they should.

  The sixth card, associated with the near future, was the Eight of Wands reversed. Meredith felt the short hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. She glanced up at Laura, but she did nothing to give away she was paying special attention to the emerging pattern.

  ‘This is a card of motion, of clear action,’ Laura said. ‘It suggests hard work and projects coming to fruition. Things about to take off. In some ways, it is the most optimistic of the eights.’ She broke off and looked across at Meredith. ‘I assume all these references to work mean something to you?’

  Meredith nodded. ‘I’m in the process of writing a book,’ she said, ‘so yes, it all makes sense.’ She paused. ‘But . . . does the meaning change if the card is upside down? Like here?’

  ‘Reversed it indicates delay,’ said Laura. ‘A disruption of energy as a project remains suspended.’

  Like abandoning Paris for Rennes-les-Bains, for example, Meredith thought. Like putting the personal rather than the professional centre stage.

  ‘That, unfortunately,’ she said with a wry smile, ‘also makes sense. Would you see this as a warning not to get diverted or caught up in other stuff?’

  ‘Probably,’ agreed Laura, ‘although delay is not necessarily bad. It could be that it is the right thing for you to do at this particular time.’

  Meredith felt Laura waiting, watching, until she had finished with that particular card, before inviting her to draw again.

  ‘This represents the environment in which current or future events are to be - or are already being - played out. Place this above card six.’

  Meredith drew the seventh card and laid it down.

  The image showed a tall grey tower under a lowering sky. A single fork of lightning seemed to cut the picture in two. Meredith shivered, feeling an immediate antipathy to the card. And although she was still trying to tell herself it was all nonsense, she wished she had not drawn it.

  ‘La Tour,’ she read. ‘Not a great card?’

  ‘No card is either good or bad,’ Laura replied automatically, although her expression gave a different message. ‘It depends on where it comes in a reading and its relationship to the cards around it.’ She paused. ‘Having said that, the Tower is traditionally interpreted as indicating dramatic change. It can suggest destruction, chaos.’ She glanced up at Meredith, then back to the card. ‘Read positively, it’s a card of liberation - when the edifice of our illusions, limitations, boundaries come crashing down, leaving us free to start afresh. A flash of inspiration, if you like. It’s not necessarily negative.’

  ‘Sure, I get that,’ Meredith said, a little impatient. ‘But what about here? Now. That’s not how you’re interpreting it, right?’

  Laura met her gaze. ‘Conflict,’ she said. ‘That’s how I see it.’

  ‘Between?’ Meredith threw back.

  ‘That’s something only you can know. It could be what you’ve alluded to before - conflict between personal demands and professional ones. Equally, it could be a discrepancy between people’s expectations of you and what you can give leading to some sort of misunderstanding.’

  Meredith said nothing, trying to squash the thought pushing into her conscious mind from where she’d buried it.

  What if I find out something about my background that changes everything?

  ‘Is there something particular that you think this card might be referring to?’ asked Laura softly.

  ‘I . . .’ Meredith started to speak, then stopped again. ‘No,’ she replied, more firmly than she felt. ‘Like you say, it could be so many things.’

  She hesitated, nervous now at what might be following, then drew again.

  The next card, representing the self, was the Eight of Cups.

  ‘You’re kidding,’ she muttered under her breath, drawing the next card quickly. The Eight of Swords.

  She heard Laura catch her breath.

  Another octave.

  ‘All the eights, what are the odds?’

  Laura didn’t immediately answer. ‘It’s unusual, certainly,’ she said eventually.

  Meredith studied the spread. It wasn’t just the octaves linking the cards of the major arcana, or the repetition of the number eight. It was also the notes on the dress of La Justice and the green eyes of the girl in La Force.

  ‘The probability of any card being turned is of course the same for each,’ Laura said, although Meredith could see she was saying what she thought she ought to, not what she was actually thinking. ‘It’s no more or less likely that all four of any number or picture card would turn up in a reading than for any other combination of cards.’

  ‘But have you ever had this happen before?’ Meredith said, unwilling to let her off the hook. ‘Seriously? All of one number coming up like this?’ She cast her eye over the table. ‘And La Tour, card XVI too. That’s a multiple of eight.’

  Reluctantly, Laura shook her head. ‘Not that I can recall.’

  Meredith tapped the card with her finger. ‘What does the Eight of Swords signify?’

  ‘Interference. An indication of something - or someone - holding you back.’

  ‘Like Le Pagad?’

  ‘Maybe, although . . .’ Laura stopped, clearly choosing her words with care. ‘There are parallel stories here. On the one hand, there is the clear evidence of the imminent culmination of a major project, either work or in your personal life, or possibly both.’ She looked up. ‘Yes?’

  Meredith frowned. ‘Go on.’

  ‘Running alongside that, there are hints of a journey or a change of circumstances.’

  ‘OK, let’s say that fits, but—’

  Laura interrupted. ‘I sense there’s something else. It’s not altogether clear, but I feel there is something. This final card . . . something you are about to discover, or uncover.’

  Meredith’s eyes narrowed. All the way through, she’d been telling herself over and over how it was just a bit of harmless fun. How it didn’t mean anything. So why was her heart turning somersaults?

  ‘Remember, Meredith,’ said Laura urgently, ‘the art of divination by means of the drawing and interpretation of cards is not about saying this will happen or will not happen. It’s about investigating possibilities, discovering unconscious motivations and desires that might, or might not, result in any given pattern of behaviour.’

  ‘I know.’

  Just harmless fun.

  But something about Laura’s intensity, the expression of fierce concentration on her face, was making it deathly serious.

  ‘A Tarot reading should increase free will, not diminish it,’ Laura said, ‘for the simple reason that a reading tells us more about ourselves and the issues facing us. You’re free to make your own decisions, better decisions. Decide which path to take.’

  Meredith nodded. ‘I understand.’

  Suddenly, all she wanted to do was get it over with. Draw the last card, hear what Laura had to say, then get out of here.

  ‘So long as you remember that.’

  Meredith heard the very real warning in Laura’s voice. Now she had to fight the urge to get out of the chair right that second.

  ‘This final card, card ten, will complete the reading. It goes at the top, on the right-hand side.’

  For a moment, Meredith’s hand seemed to hover over the Tarot deck. She could almost see the invisible lines connecting her skin to the green and gold and silver of the backs of the cards.

  Then she took the card and turned it over.

  A sound escaped from her lips. On the far side of the table, she was aware of Laura’s hand clenched in a fist.

  ‘Justice,’ Meredith said in a level voice. ‘Your daughter said I looked l
ike her,’ she added, although she’d said it before.

  Laura did not meet her eye. ‘The stone associated with La Justice is opal,’ she said. Meredith thought she sounded as if she was reading the information from the pages of a book. ‘The colours associated with this card are sapphire, topaz. There is also an astrological sign linked to this card. Libra.’

  Meredith gave a hollow laugh.

  ‘I’m Libra,’ she said. ‘My birthday’s October eighth.’

  Still Laura didn’t react, as if she wasn’t surprised by this piece of information either.

  ‘La Justice in the Bousquet Tarot is a powerful card,’ she continued. ‘If you accept the idea of the major arcana being the Fool’s journey from happy ignorance to enlightenment, Justice sits at the midway point.’

  ‘And it means?’

  ‘Usually, when it comes up in a reading, it is an instruction to keep a balanced view. The querent should make sure not to be led astray but to come to a fair and appropriate understanding of the situation.’

  Meredith smiled. ‘But it’s reversed,’ she said. She was amazed at how calm she sounded. ‘That changes things, doesn’t it?’

  For a moment, Laura didn’t answer.

  ‘Doesn’t it?’ Meredith pressed.

  ‘Reversed, the card warns of some injustice. Perhaps prejudice and bias, or a miscarriage of justice in legal terms. It also carries with it a sense of anger at being judged or judged wrongly.’

  ‘And do you think this card represents me?’

  ‘I think it does,’ she said eventually. ‘Not only because it’s come up last in the reading.’ She hesitated. ‘And not only because there is obviously the physical resemblance.’ She stopped again.

  Meredith looked at her. ‘Laura?’

  ‘OK, I believe it represents you, but at the same time, I don’t think it’s indicating an injustice done to you. I’m inclined to think that it’s more that you might find yourself called upon to right some wrong. You as an agent of justice.’ She looked up. ‘Maybe this was what I was sensing earlier. That there is something else - something more - lying behind the explicit stories being indicated in the spread.’

  Meredith cast her eyes over the ten cards lying upon the table. Laura’s words were spinning in her head.

  It’s about investigating possibilities, discovering unconscious motivations and desires.

  The Magician and the Devil, both with ice-blue eyes, the former the double octave of the latter. All the eights, the number of recognition, of achievement.

  Meredith reached forward and took out first the fourth card from the spread and then the last. Strength and Justice.

  Somehow, they seemed to belong together.

  ‘For a moment,’ she said quietly, talking as much to herself as to Laura, ‘I thought I understood. As if, somewhere beneath the surface, it all made sense.’

  ‘And now?’

  Meredith looked up. For a moment, the two women held each other’s gaze.

  ‘Now it’s just pictures. Just patterns and colours.’

  The words hung between them. Then, without warning, Laura’s hands darted forward and she gathered up the cards, as if she didn’t want to leave the spread intact for a moment more.

  ‘You should take them,’ she said. ‘Work things out for yourself.’

  Meredith did a double-take, sure she must have misheard. ‘Excuse me?’

  But Laura was holding out the cards. ‘This deck belongs with you.’

  Realising she hadn’t misunderstood, Meredith started to object.

  ‘I couldn’t possibly . . .’

  But now Laura was reaching under the table. She brought out a large square of black silk and folded the cards up within it. ‘There,’ she said, pushing them across the table. ‘Another Tarot tradition. Many people believe you should never buy a deck of cards for yourself. That you should always wait for the right deck to be given to you as a gift.’

  Meredith shook her head. ‘Laura, I can’t possibly accept them. Besides, I wouldn’t know what to do with them.’

  She stood up and put on her jacket.

  Laura stood too. ‘I believe you need them.’

  For a moment, their eyes met once more.

  ‘But I don’t want them.’

  If I accept them, there’ll be no way back.

  ‘The deck belongs with you.’ Laura paused. ‘And I think, deep down, you know it.’

  Meredith felt the room pressing in on her. The colourful walls, the patterned cloth on the table, the stars and sickle moons and suns, pulsating, growing larger, smaller, shifting shape. And there was something else, a rhythm sounding in her head, almost like music. Or the wind in the trees.

  Enfin. At last.

  Meredith heard the word as clearly as if she’d spoken herself. It was so sharp, so loud, that she turned around, thinking that perhaps a person had come in behind her. There was no one there.

  Things shifting between past and present.

  She wanted nothing to do with the cards, but in the face of Laura’s determination, she felt she’d never get out of the room if she didn’t accept them.

  She took them. Then, without another word, she turned and ran down the stairs.

  CHAPTER 17

  Meredith wandered the Parisian streets with no track of time, holding the cards in her hands and feeling like, at any moment, they might blow up and somehow take her with them. She didn’t want them, yet she understood she wasn’t going to be able to bring herself to get rid of them.

  It was only when she heard the bells of the church of Saint-Gervais striking one o’clock that she realised she was on track to miss her flight to Toulouse.

  Meredith pulled herself together. She flagged down a taxi and, yelling at the driver that there’d be a good tip if he could get her there quickly, they screeched out into the traffic.

  They made it to rue du Temple in ten minutes flat. Meredith threw herself out of the cab and, leaving it on the meter, charged into the lobby, up the stairs and into her room. She tossed the things she’d need into her tote bag, grabbed her laptop and charger, and then raced back down. She checked the stuff she wasn’t taking with the concierge, confirmed she’d be back in Paris at the end of the week for a couple more nights, then jumped into the car and headed across town to Orly airport.

  She made it with just fifteen minutes to spare.

  The whole time, Meredith was on automatic pilot. Her efficient, organised self kicked in, but she was only going through the physical motions while her brain was elsewhere. Half-remembered phrases, ideas grasped, subtleties missed. All the things Laura had said.

  How it made me feel.

  Only when she was going through security did Meredith realise that in her hurry to get out of the tiny room, she’d forgotten to pay Laura for the session. A wave of embarrassment washed over her. Working out that she’d been there for at least an hour - maybe closer to two - she made a mental note to mail the money and extra besides as soon as she got to Rennes-les-Bains.

  Sortilège. The art of seeing the future in the cards.

  As the plane took off, Meredith pulled her notebook from her bag and started to scribble down everything she could remember. A journey. The Magician and the Devil, both with blue eyes, neither to be entirely trusted. Herself as an agent of justice. All the eights.

  As the 737 swept through the blue skies of northern France, over the Massif Central, chasing the sun down to the south, Meredith listened to Debussy’s Suite Bergamasque on her headphones and wrote until her arm ached, filling page after small, lined page with neat notes and sketches. Laura’s words replayed over and over in her head, like they were on some kind of loop, fighting with the music.

  Things slipping between past and present.

  And all the time, like an unwanted guest, the presence of the cards lurking in her bag in the luggage bins above her head.

  The Devil’s Picture Book.

  PART III

  Rennes-les-Bains September 1891

&nbs
p; CHAPTER 18

  PARIS

  THURSDAY 17TH SEPTEMBER 1891

  The decision having been taken to accept Isolde Lascombe’s invitation, Anatole set things in motion for immediate departure.

  As soon as breakfast was finished, he went to send the wire and purchase train tickets for the following day, leaving Marguerite to take Léonie shopping for items she might need during her month in the country. They went first to La Maison Léoty to acquire a set of expensive undergarments, which transformed her silhouette and made Léonie feel quite adult. At La Samaritaine, Marguerite bought her a new tea dress and walking suit appropriate for autumn in the country. Her mother was warm and affectionate, but distant, and Léonie realised that she had something on her mind. She suspected that it was Du Pont’s credit against which Marguerite made their purchases and resigned herself to the fact that they might return to Paris in November and find themselves with a new father.