I feel sick. She’s found a chink in my armour. ‘Doodle is not your dog, is he?’ she continues. ‘I was speaking to your colleague earlier who runs a site where owners make money out of their pets by offering them to temporary, untrained and unvetted strangers. She told me you were in the process of buying him.’ She is ticking off my indiscretions on her bitten fingers now. ‘Which means all the time you wrote that column you never owned the rights to the intellectual property.’
What?
For crying out loud, she thinks Doodle typed out his advice on a laptop?
‘Your surname is Dunblane. Do you use a different one so no one can hold you accountable? Daisy Blane is suspiciously close to a famous magician’s name, isn’t it? And I’d say your sleight of hand is practised and deliberate.’
Why did I invite a woman onto my panel whose USP is exposing fraudsters? I need to call a halt to this and get out of here. But she isn’t finished.
‘It’s charlatans like you who convinced me I could fight my cancer. Take it into my own hands and beat it with a stick. So, I ignored conventional medicine and was brave and tackled it “naturally”,’ Aurora continues. ‘Well, I can tell you there’s nothing natural about cancer. I only survived because I came to my senses. And I am determined to stop people like you convincing us that our health is mind over matter. Clean eating cannot cure a disease, and neither can flushing yourself out with saline solution or unlocking your energy fields. There is nothing you can put in a hot water bottle or pipette that will stop a terminal disease or a divorce in its tracks. Happiness, and its inverse emotion, desperation, are not something you can fix with a catchy hashtag.’
Oh, I don’t know, some things can be captured in a hashtag. Like #overblownTedTalk. The room falls silent. Even Doodle is quiet. Vince is looking at us entranced, like he’s been watching a tennis match with two of the greatest players on earth.
From the back, Eva gives me a thumbs up. I am now the proud owner of a dog that looks like a panda, have no savings left in the bank and have been finally and publicly shamed.
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
Then, from the back of the room, a high-pitched scream. ‘A snake!’
Chaos ensues, and Sapphire crawls under the seats in search of her pet. ‘How responsible is it to ever recommend people “cuddle” animals?’ says Aurora smugly.
‘I didn’t recommend anyone hug a snake. And he’s a common household pet. He’s not going to do anyone any harm,’ I reply.
‘And there we have your philosophy in a sentence. Just because no one dies it doesn’t mean there’s no harm done.’
‘Excuse me, I need to go sort this out.’
In the commotion Doodle has started haring round the room, adding to the sense of confusion. ‘Keep calm everyone, this snake is not dangerous, we will—’
‘I have him!’ says Sapphire, holding her pet high above her head, which makes the people around her jump back.
Out of the corner of my eye I see Aurora hand Vince her phone and he types something quickly into it. They’re swapping numbers? So she can dig more dirt on me?
Eva and I are the last ones left in the hall. I push the broom around while she finishes cleaning the kitchen area. Joe is due to collect me after his shift selling coffee to ice skaters in Wembley but I put him off. Eva makes us a drink and dunks three digestives into her muddy tea, one after the other. ‘Tarot life coach could not predict escape of snake? How can she be confident to predict marriage to man of dreams or pregnancy?’
‘I need cheering up. What shall we have for dinner?’
She looks apologetic. ‘Eating takeaway with Kai. Daisy, need to tell you good news and bad news.’ Without asking which I’d like, she ploughs on. ‘You own dog by midnight if transfer silly money to woman with stupid name. On plus side you can rent him out at ridiculous price on my site.’
‘If Aurora doesn’t get you shut down first. Was that the good news?’ I notice her hand as she strokes Doodle’s head. ‘Why are you still wearing that wedding ring?’ I suddenly have a flashback to Kai, wearing an identical band that day in the hotel. ‘Eva … Kai was wearing a ring … you haven’t … not to him, surely?’
‘Kai work hard.’
‘Pffff!’
‘New hotel going to be smash success.’
‘I’m sure it will, as long as he can find enough zero hours workers to run it for him. Has he installed you in the spa yet? The emoji label on your door will probably be a mug.’
‘Kai was young. Thought life was nightclub. Changed now.’
‘His life is a bloody nightclub! You reckon he’s grown up suddenly? OMG, the wedding ring … the pregnancy prediction …?’
She shakes her head and lifts up her jumper to reveal a smooth stomach and a double-decker bra. ‘Tarot wrong.’
‘But you are married?’ She doesn’t deny it. ‘Did you do it for your family back in Berat? Or is it a visa issue? We can get you an extension. You don’t have to pimp yourself out like this … not to pondweed like him.’
If Eva’s skin wasn’t so pale, I’d swear she’d turned white. She asks me to repeat what I said and even to my ears it sounds harsh. I fall silent. She observes me through naturally long lashes coated thickly in mascara.
