My aunt casts me a bewildered look. ‘If I were you, I would be making money out of it. I see all those celebrity psychic mediums on TV, and I always think, Nelly could do a better job.’
‘I can’t do that,’ I mumble. I silently vow to carry on looking for a way to live curse-free.
‘I have something to show you,’ she says and takes a red leather photo album from her bag and places it on the table. ‘Look what I’ve found.’
‘Where did you get that?’
I watch her open the album. ‘In a box in my cupboard upstairs. I don’t think I got round to unpacking it when I moved here.’
The first pages show photos of Mum and Dad’s wedding day, including one with them gazing into each other’s eyes and another with guests. Seeing my parents in photos feels strange, as if they are from another world.
Dad used to say Mum and I were like two peas from the same pod with our red hair, blue eyes and scattering of freckles. We both loved to swim. Mum said water was her friend – strange to me then, but I was young. She said she felt free, like a bird.
I was good at swimming and joined the local club at the sports centre. For some reason, the chlorine didn’t irritate the skin condition on my hands. However, once I came out of the pool, Mum whipped my gloves on. Aunt Polly liberated my hands. This is something I will always be grateful for, as other children always laughed at my gloves.
After the car crash, the mere thought of swimming made me think of Mum, and I would get upset. So, I gave it up and vowed never to swim again.
I gulp back a wave of emotion.
‘Is this too much for you, Nelly?’
I shake my head. Aunt Polly turns the page to find a photo from my tenth birthday party. It was a turning point for me in so many ways. I didn’t win the dance competition Aunt Polly had organised, and that sent me into a mood. I made the mistake of telling Helen and Olivia from school that I see things in my head when I touch people. Helen told me that I was weird, Olivia giggled, and I spiralled.
Aunt Polly smiles and turns a page in the album. There’s a photo of me at fifteen with a golden-haired boy, Luke, hugging his skateboard, and I have books under my arm. I think of the boy on the train and how similar he looked. Aunt Polly starts to turn the page, but I stop her.
I remember Luke’s soft lips and his dad’s aftershave, which he put on before seeing me. Luke’s family moved from California for his father’s job. I fell in love with him at first sight, captivated by his obsession with skateboarding. He practised non-stop, and I was consumed by teenage love, spying on him from my bedroom.
We became friends, but I kept my distance, wary of my curse. We eventually touched, and the vision was so excruciatingly painful that it made me sick. Luke would die in a skateboarding accident on the way to meet me.
I hated my curse and back then, I was confident that I could change its fate. I convinced Luke to leave his skateboard at home whenever we had a date, and I felt free and happy for three weeks. But I knew my curse was watching and mocking me. One day, I had stomach pains; the nurse suspected appendicitis, and Aunt Polly took me to the hospital. Luke, hearing I was there, was on his way to see me but decided to jump a flight of steps on his skateboard, crashed, and hit his head.
After his funeral, I wouldn’t come out of my bedroom for weeks.
Outsmarting my curse has never worked.
‘Are you okay?’ Aunt Polly asks me.
I blink away the tears in my eyes.
‘Let’s leave the past alone,’ she says, reaching over to rub my shoulder.
We both sip our tea. Aunt Polly tells me about her chemo and what she will endure. Her voice crackles. I can sense she’s feeling emotional and overwhelmed by the journey ahead of her.
A woman enters the café who reminds me of Hilary. She’s tall with brown bobbed hair; not a strand is out of place.
‘Do you ever think about getting back in touch with Hilary?’ I ask.
Aunt Polly shakes her head. ‘Let’s not talk about Hilary.’
‘I was thinking she might be a good?—’
‘Nelly,’ says Aunt Polly, her voice edged with firmness. ‘I said let’s not talk about her.’
8
Tonight, I am interviewing three potential flatmates. I haven’t told Miranda, as she will question me about why I’m not interviewing Oliver James. Hopefully, by the end of the day, I will have found the perfect candidate, which will allow me to tell Miranda that Oliver James can walk around someone else’s flat in just his underpants, thinking about his next idea for a book.
Eva is on my mind. Like me, she’s a passionate reader, and we met through a book club Miranda used to run. She worked in the clothes shop on the high street and would always make us all laugh by saying things like ‘The real issue in this book is that nobody owns a decent coat,’ and ‘If the protagonist had worn a pretty dress with pockets, she would have better handled that emotional climax.’ When we shared a flat, she would review books on social media in her free time. She was known for her dramatic live book reviews and once loved a book so much that she burst into tears while talking about it, which I found impressive. She was warm and funny, and we got on immediately.
