The Gilded Madonna by Garrick Jones (ebook reader for comics TXT) 📕

the rent and our food, with some left over to keep me happy when I go shopping. We make most of our money from the second-hand books and the bric-a-brac we have for sale. However, as I’m sure you know, Mr. Smith, it’s illegal to charge for telling fortunes in this State. I give advice—good advice—even though most people don’t want to hear it.” She glanced at the sampler I’d translated.

“Then you’re more of a psychiatrist than a—”

“I’m what people want me to be. If they want to know if they’ll win on the races or whether their child is going to be a boy or a girl, I don’t give them a direct answer. The more timid ones ask for tea leaves, the ones who’ve had more experience ask for a Tarot reading—the interpretation is everything. But there’s one thing I never do.”

“And what’s that?”

“Promise anything, Mr. Smith, or give desperate people hope that’s unrealistic. People who promise to tell you where you’ll find your lost wedding ring, child, or husband are frauds.”

“And you’ve always had this gift? Of being able to read cards and tea leaves … the Tarot?”

“No. It’s something you learn and it’s not a gift; not like my brother’s. You start young, learning to read signs and using playing cards—regular decks of diamonds, spades, hearts, and clubs. They have some recognised meanings, unlike Tarot cards, which are very specific but far too ‘foreign’ for most Australians who are scared of the unfamiliar or the arcane. No matter whether it’s a regular deck or a Tarot set, it’s the giveaway signs of the person wanting the reading that tell you everything you need to know. You learn to judge desperation, hope, love, sadness, all of those things in the merest movement of an eye, the curl at the corner of a mouth, or the way people move their hands and fingers. If I was asked to do it in the dark, I wouldn’t be able to say anything.”

“Ah, at least I hear some truth in that.”

“Why should I lie, Mr. Smith? I have nothing to hide, I’m not extorting people, I’m just helping them, like a priest or a counsellor would, but I use items to help me in that endeavour. Many people who come here prefer to think there’s a spirit world guiding their actions rather than take responsibility for their own lives.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to be insulting, or to demean your—”

She laughed loudly. “I’ve had a lot worse, haven’t we, Luka?”

He nodded and then offered us both a cigarette. I didn’t really want one, but I’d heard one should never refuse the offer of anything from a Romany person. My mother used to say it was because they’d curse you if you refused, but I’d seen and heard enough about the persecution of the gypsies during the war to understand their closed society only allowed them to extend courtesies of the type Luka had just done, in the form of offering a cigarette, if they trusted or liked you.

“And did you learn your gift in the same way as your sister?”

It was hard not to escape his direct look. I put it down to the piercing blue of his eyes. He shook his head. “I’ve always had it.”

“It’s very rare, Mr. Smith,” Gălbenele said. “Here, I know you don’t believe. But just give my brother your shoe for a moment. Take it off—”

“No,” the young man said. “Just the shoelace.”

I laughed. It was ludicrous, but I bent down and untied my lace, pulled it out through the shoelace holes, and passed it to him. He didn’t look at it, he merely kept staring at me. So, mindful of what his sister had just told me about body clues, I kept my face as neutral as possible and my hands clasped in my lap, while he worked the lace between his fingers.

“This isn’t your shoe, Clyde. This is someone else’s. Someone who wears the same size—it’s an eleven isn’t it?”

I flinched, despite my attempt to remain sitting passively. Harry and I had the same shoe size, and he’d left the pair I was wearing in my wardrobe when he’d gone home this morning. They were almost brand new and still pinched his feet, so I’d decided to put them on, to wear them in for him a little. It was stupid, but I did it anyway … practical or just juvenile and romantic, who knew? But it had been nice having something of his close to me during the day. Our weekend together had been perfect.

“Give me your tiepin,” he said, placing the coiled shoestring on the table in front of us. I released it from my tie and slid it across the table, and then I relaced my shoe.

“Everything about you is new, Clyde,” he said, fingering the tiepin while still looking at me. Some things, like your shirt, which I noticed the moment you walked in the door, is very new. Everything else about you is not much more than ten years old … except for this.” He held the pin up in the air between us, so that it interrupted our eye contact.

“The shoes you normally wear were made for you with a great deal of love and care. You’ve had those for longer than ten years. Despite your feet being much wider now than they were when you were first measured for them, you continue to wear them because of who made them for you. Oh, I’m sorry …”

I wiped my eyes quickly with the back of my hand. My father had made all my shoes before I went away to war, and apart from new modern pairs for casual wear, I continued to wear those that he’d crafted and stitched for me. Like my mother had done with my cardigans and jumpers, every movement of the needle had been accompanied by a tiny bit of love.

I was about to protest, to cry out that he couldn’t possibly have