Page 32 of The Love Game

At just after five, someone tapped the door again, and this time Vi was relieved to see Linda’s silk turban and dark glasses appear.

‘Darling, I have five spare minutes for you,’ she said, beckoning Violet by curling her index finger in a mildly disturbing come-hither way.

Vi resisted the urge to glance behind her in the hope that Linda was talking to someone else.

‘I could really do with putting another hour in,’ Vi said, nodding regretfully towards her sewing machine.

Linda waved her concerns away with a flap of her jewelled hand.

‘It’s time. Come now.’ And then she turned and walked away on a waft of jangling bracelets and fluttering harem pants, leaving Violet with the option of being rude or doing as she was told. Sighing, she laid her work down carefully and headed over to Linda and Melvin’s consulting room.

‘Come in,’ Linda said, throaty, when Vi tapped lightly.

Stepping inside, Vi found that she was being treated to the full works.

Linda and Melvin had brought in Chinese wooden screens to block out a lot of the natural sunlight, and fat, creamy candles filled a shallow bowl on the low table in the centre of the room.

Incense was burning somewhere and low chime music emanated from a hidden speaker; it really was quite relaxing after the stress of the last few days.

Linda bowed slightly, then indicated that Vi should lie on the couch with a flourish of her arm.

When Vi started to object, Linda lowered her dark glasses and gave her the eyeballs until she caved in and did as she was told.

In truth, the room was inviting and she was knackered, so she didn’t fight all that hard.

‘There there,’ Linda said, taking a seat in her counsellor’s recliner on the other side of the coffee table. It seemed a strange thing to say, as if she was soothing a child, but Violet breathed in deep and closed her eyes.

‘I see you’re struggling, Violet,’ Linda said, quiet and still, completely at odds with her usual effervescence.

Vi opened her eyes and stared at Linda, who had now taken off her dark glasses, probably because she wouldn’t have been able to see a thing if she kept them on in there.

In response, Linda indicated that Vi should close her eyes again by drawing her fingertips down over her own closed lids. After taking a second to look in wonder at Linda’s extraordinarily long red fingernails, Vi did as she was told and closed her eyes again.

‘Violet darling, I sense romantic turmoil seething in you. It’s rolling off you in bigger waves than the beach at high tide.’

This time Vi didn’t open her eyes, because she knew she wouldn’t be able to hide the fact that Linda was spot on.

‘I’m just stressed with all of the changes in my life this summer, Linda.’

‘Of course you are,’ Linda said. ‘You’ve had a lot to contend with. Take three deep breaths for me, Violet. Peace in, aggravation out. Peace in, aggravation out.’

‘Peace in, aggravation out,’ Vi repeated, filling her chest with air. ‘Peace in, aggravation out.’ She blew out a long, slow breath. ‘Aggravation in, peace out.’

Linda coughed, and Violet sat up and huffed, her head in her hands.

‘I can’t help it, Linda,’ she said. ‘I’m so bloody aggravated by that woman that I want to fold her long arms and legs up into a long box and post her back to America on a slow service. She’s like a bloody praying mantis.’

‘Ah, now we’re getting somewhere,’ Linda said. ‘Let it all out. This is your safe place.’

Violet found that, once she started, she couldn’t stop. ‘I didn’t come to Swallow Beach looking for romance, Linda. I came here to find out about my grandmother, and to find myself, I suppose, in a non-hippy-clap-trap kind of way.’ She bit her lip. ‘No offence.’

‘None taken,’ Linda said smoothly, twisting her long pearls.

‘I look at you Violet, with your blue-tipped hair and your eclectic style – no offence,’ Linda added, and Violet opened one eye to glance down at herself.

She’d made her short blue and green sundress from some left-over fabric she’d bought once for a commission of peacock corsets, and her nail polish was bright green, and her feet were bare because she preferred it for working.

Was it the tiny black cat tattoo sitting on her anklebone that gave Linda the impression that she was eclectic?

‘None taken,’ she said.

Linda nodded. ‘I look at you and I see a woman in love.’

Violet opened her eyes and stared. ‘I’m not in love. I haven’t known him long enough to love him, Linda, but I do feel something for him, and now it’s over because the woman he loves has come home like a bad penny.’

‘You love him.’

‘Will you stop saying that?’ Vi said, exasperated.

‘You have to acknowledge your heart or you’ll damage your valves,’ Linda said, enigmatically. Violet frowned – she was fairly sure that Linda was on dodgy medical ground there.

‘Trust me, I know,’ Linda said. ‘Melvin was in a long-term relationship with his colleague at a travel agents in Brighton when we first met. I was in the market for two weeks in the Canaries at the time. He took one look at me and gave up his lifetime twenty-percent cruise discount like it was nothing.’ Linda nodded slowly, clearly of the view that that was the kind of sacrifice people made when they were in love.

‘When you know, you know, and I think you know.’

‘You should be a politician,’ Violet grumbled.

‘I don’t know that I love him , for the record.

I thought I loved my ex-boyfriend up to a few months ago, and then he proposed and I realised that actually I probably didn’t.

And then I’ve come here and Cal is all gorgeous and handsome and luring me into the sea for sex, and now I don’t know if I love him, or I lust him, or if in fact I’m just on the rebound and don’t anything him at all really. ’

Linda’s eyes bulged. ‘You had sex in the sea with Calvin?’ She picked up a booklet off the table and fanned herself.

Vi dropped her head into her hands. ‘Don’t tell a soul I told you that,’ she said. ‘It was before Ursula was a real person, obviously.’

Linda clicked her tongue. ‘We need to send Ursula packing.’

‘Is that your therapeutic advice?’ Violet said. ‘Because it doesn’t sound very scientific.’

Linda fluttered her hands in the air. ‘Love isn’t a science. It’s here in the air. Love particles.’ She leaned forwards over the table, presumably for confidentiality purposes. ‘The air around you is practically crimson, Violet.’

Vi frowned, because Linda seemed to be talking in riddles. But, more pressingly, she was in imminent danger of going up in smoke. Vi leaned forwards to bat Linda’s chiffon scarf away from the candles, but she was a second too late and the fringes started to singe.

‘Linda, you’re on fire.’

Linda nodded, taking the compliment in her stride, unaware of the danger. ‘Thank you. I just understand the mechanics of the heart, Violet. It’s my gift.’

‘No, Linda, you’re on actual fire,’ Vi said, louder, and in a panic she reached for a glass of water on the table and threw it over Linda, who gasped as if she might actually dissolve. The candles and incense spluttered out too, throwing the room into deep grey shade.

‘I’m so sorry – your scarf was on fire,’ Vi said by way of explanation, gesticulating at the charred tassels.

Linda’s mascara slid down her cheeks, making her look like a Pierrot clown.

‘It’s a sign,’ she whispered. ‘There’s a force here on this pier, Violet. I felt it the moment I first stepped on the boards, and I feel it right this very minute.’

Vi stood up, shaking droplets of water from her dress. ‘I don’t think I know what you mean.’

‘I think you do,’ Linda said, so low it was practically a growl.

‘I genuinely don’t,’ Vi said.

Linda unwound her ruined scarf from around her neck. ‘Love is like water, Violet. It finds its way through the cracks and ravines. It doesn’t give up. It’s just there.’

Thoroughly confused, Violet backed towards the door.

‘Well, thanks for that,’ she said, disjointed. ‘And I’m sorry about your, er, your scarf.’

Linda lowered her glasses over her ruined eye makeup. ‘Just doing my job, Violet. My hand is guided by the unseen.’

Closing Linda’s door, Violet wondered if Linda’s hand was guided by the unseen bottle of rum she kept stashed in her handbag.

Vi drove along the graceful sweeping road of tall, red-brick villas in Darley Terrace, squinting to make out the numbers on the doors until she spotted number twenty-four.

Easing the Traveller to a stop by the kerb, she looked up at Hortensia Deville’s gothic home, mildly perturbed by the intricate gargoyles peering down at her from the eaves.

It wasn’t the most welcoming of houses from the outside; Vi only hoped that Hortensia would be more welcoming of her unexpected visitor than her stone guardians.

The door opened as Vi walked up the garden path.

‘I expected you’d come,’ Hortensia said, leaning heavily on her walking stick.

Vi stepped sideways to avoid a nettle bush invading the paving stones. Hortensia’s garden wasn’t exactly a jungle, but it definitely erred on the side of unkempt.

‘You did?’

‘Crazy old lady turns up and mutters bizarre warning,’ Hortensia said, walking away slowly down her hallway. ‘You wouldn’t be Monica Spencer’s granddaughter if that didn’t bring you running. Come in.’

Vi stepped inside, flicking her eyes around the mahogany-clad hallway. It was pleasant enough, in a horror-movie kind of way. Gloomy. Yesteryear. Hortensia used the end of her stick to push open a door, and seconds later they were in a small back living room lined with bookcases.

‘I take it you’ve come for a sitting.’

Vi frowned. ‘Well, no,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to talk to you.’

Hortensia sighed, leading Vi over to a small round table under the window.

‘Come. Take a seat.’