Chapter 8
When I finally fall asleep, I spend the night tossing and turning, having dreams about being pickled to death.
The next morning I wake up with my heart hammering in my chest, like when you remember you drank an entire bottle of tequila the night before and accidentally agreed to do karaoke and someone filmed it.
I feel exposed and panicked. I cleared out half my bank account booking one-way flights to a country I’ve never been to, where I don’t speak the language, where I know no one.
I wrote deranged deathbed confessions to all my friends and family.
I remind myself that I’ll be dead soon, so it’s all OK, as I heave my massive suitcase out from the attic.
Earlier, I pretended to go to work so Mum wouldn’t get suspicious, then I snuck back into the house.
All morning, I wash clothes, sort out admin, and decide what to take.
As I’m in between packing a tie-dye bikini and a purse in the shape of a turtle, my phone buzzes.
Hey babe, I’m doing a play in a couple of weeks. It’s about our bond with dogs and how they fulfil a deep, innate need that other humans can’t because of our superior but ultimately connection-hampering intelligence. There’s singing! Want a ticket?? Sara x
I reply:
I would have loved to but I’ll probably be dead. x
Sara types back immediately.
WHAT?! What are you talking about?
Spellbound Sue said in my reading
That’s . . . not a thing!
It definitely is a thing. I got the Death card.
No babe! The Death card isn’t literal, I promise. I think you might have misinterpreted what Sue was saying?
I stop cold, clutching the turtle purse tightly. No. No. Sue definitely said I was going to die. There was no ambiguity. No room for interpretation. But a question starts flickering in my mind: What if I don’t die now? What would I do then? I type:
SHE DEFINITELY SAID IT. x
I start going back over the conversation.
I try to replay it but the memories are already a little hazy.
Sue said I was going to die when the card came up .
. . or did she? No. I think Sue didn’t actually say anything when the card came up.
I assumed the Death card meant Death because, well, obviously?
! And then I asked Sue if I was going to die and she .
. . she asked me what I would do differently if I thought I was going to die and .
. . then she said, Then . . . yes. I’m afraid so.
My whole body goes cold as I realize that, thinking back, it’s not quite as clear-cut as I remember it seeming initially. It was mostly my assumption and then Sue not correcting me. Oh my God. Oh my God. I send Sara a text relaying the whole interaction.
Lol . . . Yeah, that sounds like classic Sue. She likes to have a little fun with people. Babe, you’re not dying. x
This cannot be. This is categorically not an option now. I have to die. I’ve been honest about my feelings! Everyone knows all self-respecting British people would much rather die an agonizing death than look people in the eye after that!!
Panic starts rising. My chest tightens. I have to know. I google the number for Spellbound and dial in a frantic haze.
“Spellbound, how is your spirit in need today?” I recognize Sue’s voice immediately.
“Sue,” I rasp. “Hi. I was there last night for a reading. The one you said was going to die? I just need to know . . . this is definite, in your opinion, yeah? I mean, how long do you think I have left?”
“Well.” There’s a silence. She clears her throat. “Look, dear, we’re all going to die someday, aren’t we?”
My heart sinks. My mouth goes dry and a bead of sweat snakes down my back.
“You said it like . . . like . . . I was going to die soon,” I protest.
“I didn’t, actually,” Sue corrects. “You said it.”
“I . . . I . . .”
“Look, dear, something in your life clearly needs to change. I thought letting you believe it might give you a nudge in the right direction. But no harm, no foul, OK?”
No harm, no foul?!
“I . . . I’ve blown up everything,” I whisper.
“It’s the next day,” she breezes. “How much damage can you have done?”
I hang up the phone.
How much damage can you have done?
I scream “FUUUUUUCK!” very, very loudly.
I can’t believe this. Did I really destroy my entire life on the word of a woman who has a tattoo of a nude woman pole dancing with a broomstick on her left bicep?!
I google “does the Death card definitely mean death?” To which google replies:
The Death card rarely ever—as is commonly misinterpreted—means physical death. Rather it implies an impactful ending of sorts: the death of a relationship, a friendship, an identity, an era, in order that new life can take root.
I scream “FUUUUUCK!” again.
WHAT HAVE I DONE?
Six stamps. Six envelopes. Six letters. Words are bizarre things, aren’t they? Individually meaningless. But depending on how you put them together, possibly life-changing, earth-shattering, the window into another human being.
That’s what I’ve done. I’ve given six people—the most important six people in my life—a look at my naked brain. And I’m going to LIVE?
Of course I’m not going to die. That’s ridiculous. Laughable. I can’t believe a middle-aged woman who thinks she’s a witch giving me a card with a giant skull on it had me flying out to the ocean to die like a seagull.
OK. Plan. Plan. Plan. I need a plan. Thank GOD my temporary insanity from last night has passed. I just need to get those letters back, flush them down the loo, rebury all my emotions and desires like a normal person, and move on with my life.
I run outside to the postbox. It’s possible the letters haven’t been collected yet.
I try to stuff my arm through the gap but my DAMNED WRIST IS TOO FAT.
I go back inside for a screwdriver, a hairpin, and various other items to shove into the little keyhole.
Nothing works. It turns out picking a lock is NOT as easy as TV shows would make you think.
In desperation I kick it, yelp from the pain, and sit back down on the ground weeping.
I try to think straight. Think of a new plan. OK, it’s OK, all is not lost. It’s 2 p.m. Collection time is between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. They might not have gone yet. I just need to be here when the postal worker turns up and beg them to let me reclaim my letters.
That’s three whole hours in which this could all still be saved.
Three p.m. comes. Still nothing. It’s fine. It’s fine.
Four p.m. comes and goes.
And four thirty. There is a slim, slim possibility the postal worker didn’t come during the morning. That these letters could still be stopped within the next half an hour.
I sit. I wait. Praying to anything out there that will hear me.
Several people pass me, sitting on the ground by the postbox tending my bruised knee, and look at me like I might leap up and bite them. Fifteen minutes go by. Then twenty.
Did I really send a letter to Angie telling her that her boyfriend makes me want to wax off my own eyebrows?
Did I really tell Damilola I don’t like the workaholic person she’s become?
Did I really tell Max, who has just agreed to move in with his girlfriend, that I love him?
Did I make myself homeless and quit my job?
Did I just contact my father for the first time in twenty years?
My head is spinning. If the Death card never really had it in for me—which, obviously, it didn’t—I’m now going to have to throw myself in front of a bus anyway.
At five to five I’ve basically lost all hope. It’s getting dark. I’m shivering. I don’t even know if it’s from cold or nerves anymore.
Five comes. It’s over.
Strangely, I feel more relief than anything else. It’s out of my hands now. My fate has been decided. There is literally nothing else to do but pack and bolt. I might not be dying but I can still flee the country.
I spend the rest of the evening shoving things into a suitcase and rationalizing my decision. This is a good thing. A good thing. I wanted change and, well . . . now I have it.
So I quit my job. I don’t like my job. I’ve been wanting to leave since the moment I started. Right? And so Max knows I would eat my own hand to be with him. I mean, he had to find out at some point . . . didn’t he?
And so I’m moving out of Mum’s a bit suddenly.
I mean, it had to happen someday. I wasn’t going to live here forever.
It’s better to rip off the Band-Aid. And it’s probably better that Damilola knows how much work has taken over her personality.
Maybe she’ll find herself again as a result of my words.
And Angie . . . OK, so it’s a blunt delivery, but isn’t it better that she knows how I really feel about Jacob?
I mean, she’s been loving him blindly and I have been helping her pull the wool over her eyes.
People might be shocked, mad, upset . . .
at first. But we’ll have had enough distance between us that it won’t be as awkward when I come home.
At least six months’ distance. Eight thousand miles worth of distance.
Everything will have improved by the time I get back.
I will finally have changed things for the better.
Ultimately, I feel confident this is all for the best.
Eventually I go to bed, but I don’t sleep a wink. All I can do is picture the letters being sorted by Royal Mail, landing on doormats, and being torn open by all my loved ones. When morning comes I’m still lying wide awake, having tossed and turned and sweated all night.