“Why?” My voice is loud in the barren room.
“There were several unique items here. Some, we are lucky enough to still have.” He steps closer to the case. “This, for example, is a rare, early Tarot deck. Tarot started life as a game in France, did you know that? The Brits thought of the Europeans as more . . . mystical, shall we say.”
I edge forward reluctantly, whereas Jess almost pushes me out of the way in her excitement.
“Sorry.” She grins.
I study the upturned card, careworn and soft, balancing on the rest of the deck. Beside it is a threadbare velvet case. The card is horribly beautiful, there’s no doubt about it. It is mostly black, clearly hand painted, and there are traces of gold leaf clinging on to the central figures. The image on the card is of two skeletons, intertwined, locked in an eternal embrace. I glance at the lettering at the bottom, faded and cracked.L’Amoureux.
“The Lovers,” Jess whispers.
“Now, over here we used to have something very special.” Geoffrey is standing by the central case. “It was said to be Madame Josephine’s grimoire. We only have a photograph of it now.”
“Grimoire?” I repeat.
Geoffrey unlocks the cabinet and slides the photo out, holding its edges delicately before handing it to me. I raise it to the dim light and Jess comes closer, her loose hair tickling my neck.
The picture is of an old book, its cover brown and dog-eared. Crude markings are carved into the ancient leather, some kind of stars from what I can make out.
“What’s a grimoire?” I ask again.
“A book of magic, right?” Jess says.
“Very good.” Geoffrey’s voice is gravelly. “This was a very rare example indeed. Grimoires such as this were not found in Britain until the late nineteenth century and this,” he taps the photograph with a manicured fingernail, “this was a French original, possibly passed down through generations. Until Madame Josephine brought it to London with her, that is, sometime in the 1820s.” He looks at me, and his gaze becomes unfocussed. “They say, young Jane, that there was even a spell to resurrect a lost love – if one had the right items. . .” He pauses, smile flickering from wolfish to grandfatherly in a split second, so fast I’m not sure it really happened. I laugh nervously, placing the photo back in the cabinet.
“Good job I’m not Jane, then, isn’t it?” I choke out, his slip with the name unnerving me. The clatter of feet in the museum behind us announces the arrival of the next tour group and Geoffrey is immediately distracted.
“Please excuse me, ladies.” He tips his hat to Jess, who doesn’t seem to notice anything wrong. “Niamh, could you return in one hour? You can continue to watch the tours for the afternoon session.”
“Yeah, sure. Thanks.” I try to shake off the uneasiness and focus on something else. Like the fact that I’m still starving. I turn to Jess. “Know anywhere cheap for lunch?”
She is still frowning at the shelf where the grimoire should be. She raises her voice and calls after Geoffrey. “What was the jewellery in the other cabinet like, Geoffrey?”
I sigh dramatically, pointing to my wrist and feigning dying from hunger to hide my nerves. He pauses in the doorway, his tall figure blocking out the light. “A keen mind, indeed, young Jess. It was more of the usual, I’m afraid. Miniature portraits, initialled rings – oh, and those bracelets and brooches common to that era. The ones made of braided human hair.”
I stab the last chip with my tiny fork, its splintering wood piercing the soft, soggy flesh. It’s stuck right at the bottom and I have to drag it up the side, scoring noisy white lines into the polystyrene cone as I bring it closer to my mouth. I pull it to the top in triumph, swollen with vinegar, just how I like it. The acid burns my tongue and I lick my lips, all coated in salt. Perfection.
“That was a good chipper.” I swing my legs down from the riverside wall and hold out a hand for Jess’s rubbish.
“Chipper?” Her eyebrows knit behind her glasses. “You mean chippy?”
“Do I?” I dump our cones into the nearest overflowing bin and wipe greasy fingers on my jeans. “We call it the chipper at home.”
Jess shrugs. “Same-same, I guess. I might steal your word, though, it sounds so cool in your accent.” Ah, here it comes: the moment I’ve been dreading. “Chipper, chipper, chip. . .”
“Stop.” I clasp both hands over my ears, mock offended at Jess’s butchering of the Irish tongue. “Please, stop! I can’t take it!” We grin at each other, on the verge of laughter, ready to launch off the precipice, just not quite there. Jess’s face softens.
“Wanna talk about it?”
I let out a deep belly sigh as I lever myself back up on the wall, palms grazing lightly across fragments of stone and seashells. I pick at the clear varnish on one fingernail. It’s already chipping, so it peels off easily, in one sheet. I roll it between my fingers.
“It might help, you know.”
“I know.”
“Or,” she says, reading my thoughts in the same eerie way her mum did earlier, “we could talk about something else?”
I lift my head to meet her eyes and force a smile. “That sounds better.”
