Woman with tarot card and flower design

You'll think I've gone soft if I tell you I've started listening to Mrs Abara's cards again, so I won't tell you. It's past two and the last tram has gone up Fargate, and the rain has the cobbles shining like wet slate. She sits behind the curtain at the back of the tea rooms with the lamp turned low, and every night she lays the same card face down on the table before anyone is let in: the Queen of Cups, crowned, holding her cup as if it might spill on her. Mrs Abara says the queen is the one who keeps the secrets nobody has asked her for.

Last Thursday a man came in with his collar up and asked whether his brother was lying to him about the money. She didn't answer. She lifted the queen card to her lips, held it there like a bolt across a door, and looked at him over the top of it. He paid and left without a word. I've thought about that all week, Tom, how much easier it is to say nothing when the answer is already sitting in your mouth.

The camellias she keeps in a jar came from the market, and this morning I found their petals scattered by the back step, pale as the card's border. The light from the brass lamp fell across them in dotted lines, like someone had drawn a plan for the night and left it lying there.

I'm writing because I'm going to tell her tomorrow that I want to read the cards myself. Don't tell Mum. Send me your address when you've got it sorted, tell me how the job in Hull is going, and don't lie to me about it.

Love, Nell