Student accommodation. Northern England. Gas heater on full blast. Mugs of tea. Small plates of toast on every surface.
Crammed into the tiny space were five women and me.
It was my birthday. Somewhere in my mid twenties. The room smelt only the way a room full of young women in their dressing gowns can. We had all been smiling a lot. There were two gifts remaining to be shared.
Producing an item from beneath the chair on which they both sat (it really was a tiny space) it appeared that their gift was a joint one.
It was neatly wrapped. Brown paper following the contours of what appeared to be a waste paper bin.
I gave them a look as if to say, ‘Ah, you’ve wrapped a waste paper basket to look like a waste paper basket?’
They both looked back at me as if to say, ‘Perhaps we have.’
I received the gift with every ounce of congeniality I could muster, thanked them with a confident ‘Well I can’t guess what this is’ look, and opened it. Squeezing out as much gratitude as I could I revealed… a waste paper basket.
In all fairness it was a very nice waste paper basket.
They new me as a writer, so the gift was both appropriate and thoughtful, if a little uninspired.
“Thank You.” I said, because politeness costs nothing.
They paused, smirking.
“Look again.” Said one.
I looked at the basket again.
“It really is very nice.” I said, wondering if I was missing some detail about the quads of the baskets manufacturer.
“On the inside.” Said the other.
Tucked into the side weave, just out of view, was a card. A yellow card. I pulled it out. The girls were smiling gleefully.
Reading it out loud I said. “LEON. Clairvoyant and Tarot Card Reader. Appointment Card.’ Then followed by the date and time.
I looked at them with one of those, ‘You got me, I genuinely thought that you had only got me a waste paper basket, which although thoughtful did seem a little uninspired’ looks.
To which they responded with a look of, ‘We know.’
A week later I arrived at my appointment with Leon.
I’m not going to go into details, what I will say is that the location was bizarre – it was a tiny port-a-cabin on the edge of an industrial estate. Leon’s choice of outfit was unusual too – not what I was expecting from the appointment card at all. In fact everything surrounding the experience was both strange and incongruous, with the possible exception of the experience itself, which was largely predictable, but that is clairvoyance I suppose. He didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know, not really.
Before I left though he shared something with me, and it wasn’t the words he used as such but rather the way in which he spoke them. As if it came from a different part of him, a somewhere that was further back, a place that wasn’t trying – to be fair he didn’t seem to be trying very much at all during the reading, possibly he was a little too un-trying for my tastes.
Given all of the features that surrounded the event, from the presentation of the gift in the waste paper basket – to the nature of the location, to Leon’s choice of attire, to what occurred in the six months that followed, his words wove everything together in a sort of uncannily rational way.
“Expect the unexpected.” He said.
There are time, on reflection, that I have wondered if his words had formed a suggestion for what was to come next.
After thanking him, because, as you know, politeness costs nothing, I put on my rucksack and made my way to the art gallery to console myself with Waterhouse’s Hylas and the Nymphs.
The rest as they say, is history.
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