Page 1 of The Life She Could Have Lived
Anna finished the wine in her glass and gestured for Nia to pour her another. ‘I just don’t understand…’ she started to say.
‘I know,’ Nia cut in. ‘You don’t understand why he didn’t call.’
‘It was perfect, Nia. It was so perfect.’
‘And that’s why we’re going to see Magda! We’re going to get some answers.’
‘I don’t know… about Magda.’
Magda was Nia’s next-door neighbour. She read tarot cards in her conservatory and had successfully predicted Nia’s driving test fails (three) and her subsequent pass, Nia’s dad’s recovery from prostate cancer and Nia’s appearance on a local radio quiz show.
Nia believed that Magda could predict anything.
Four weeks and three days ago, Anna had met a man called James on the bus after accidentally poking him in the knee with the end of her umbrella, and they had got chatting, got off the bus together at Trafalgar Square and gone on a long walk that had led to coffee and then dinner and then a moonlit walk along the Thames.
It had been the most romantic day of Anna’s life.
When James had kissed her, Anna had felt all those things you read about in books, the fireworks and the fizzing and the rush of pure joy.
He’d taken her number and promised to call the next day, and it hadn’t crossed her mind even once that he wouldn’t.
But he hadn’t. Not the next day, or the one after that.
Not for four weeks and three days. Hence Magda.
Nia knew that Anna was a sceptic. She’d lured Anna over to her house with the promise of wine and a video showing of Point Break (Keanu for Anna, Patrick for Nia), and then after a couple of glasses, she’d mentioned Magda.
That she’d already made the booking. That it was in half an hour.
‘Come on,’ Nia said. ‘I mean, what have you got to lose? We’ll ask her to tell us about the loves of our lives, and then you can see whether it sounds like James is the one, in which case we need to find him, or whether you’ve just dodged a bullet.’
‘I don’t believe in “the one”,’ Anna said. ‘And I don’t believe in psychics, either.’
‘But what if you’re wrong?’
Anna let that thought settle. What if she was wrong? What if this woman next door, with her tarot cards and tea leaves and whatever the hell else these people used, could really see into Anna’s future? She took another big gulp of wine, as if it might drown her doubts.
‘Okay,’ she said, smiling as Nia started to clap her hands and do a little victory dance. ‘Okay, let’s do it. But when we get back, we watch Point Break . Promise?’