Christmas Magic. Cathy Kelly

      Which made it seem like fate when Stanley, who turned absent-mindedness into an art form, had opened the safe to put the morning’s cash in and had left one wad of notes on his desk.

      He’d gone out to lunch then and Selena had picked up the money to give it to him later but somehow, once her fingers touched the cool, sleek notes, she’d known that this could solve all her problems.

      Only it hadn’t. Guilt burned her soul like the fires of hell and she hadn’t had a decent night’s sleep since.

      ‘I know you don’t believe in fortune telling,’ said Gwen, who looked utterly delighted with herself since she’d called off the wedding, ‘but Madame Lucia is different. She knows things. And she doesn’t tell you bad things; only good news.’

      What if you didn’t have good news to tell? Selena thought miserably.

      There was a lull in the office at eleven and Gwen urged Selena again.

      ‘Go on, I bet you won’t believe what she’ll tell you. Look at me and Brian and how it’s all worked out for the best.’

      Selena kept her glasses on. She only needed them for the computer, but she thought that if she had a protective layer of glass between her eyes and the piercing gaze of Madame Lucia, the fortune teller mightn’t see the guilt and the misery behind them.

      ‘There’s no need to be nervous,’ said Madame Lucia pleasantly when Selena sat down, clasping and unclasping her hands anxiously.

      Easier said than done, Selena thought. She tried to breathe deeply, but all that came out was a shaky, shuddering breath.

      ‘It’s not the end of the world, you know,’ Madame Lucia remarked, staring into her crystal ball. ‘Life tests us all every day: little temptations to see what kind of people we are. And you know what sort of person you are, after all. A good one.’

      Selena’s eyes brimmed. She wasn’t a good person, she wasn’t. If she had been, she’d never have been tempted by the money.

      ‘You should talk to someone about a possible debt plan,’ Madame Lucia continued. ‘Pay off a little a week, that sort of thing. The banks are happy once you’re paying something.’

      Selena realised the fortune teller was talking about the credit card bill. She didn’t know about the other money.

      ‘Spring cleaning,’ added Madame Lucia.

      Mystified, Selena looked at her.

      ‘The office hasn’t had a good clean for ages. You’d be amazed at how things can fall down into drawers and filing cabinets and get lost. A good spring clean will soon restore everything to its rightful place.’

      Her words sent a little jolt of excitement through Selena. Of course. It had been months since the office had been given a good sorting out. The back office was always cluttered with boxes and Stanley’s desk had a paper mountain as big as Everest on the floor behind it.

      A wad of money could easily have got lost in the mess. A wad of money that nobody would ever suspect had been hidden in Selena’s drawer for a month.

      ‘You’ll talk to the bank, won’t you?’

      Madame Lucia stared at her and Selena saw in that instant that the woman knew about the other money. But there was absolutely no judgement in Madame Lucia’s eyes. She was offering a way out, a solution.

      Selena beamed at Madame Lucia. ‘Yes, I’ll talk to the bank. And thank you, for everything.’

      She bounced down the stairs, her mind racing. A proper spring clean was definitely a good idea. Just because they’d all been busy lately didn’t mean that standards should slip.

      Carmel’s asthma flared up halfway through Selena’s office spring clean.

      ‘There might’ve been money behind Stanley’s desk, but there’s nothing but dust in that corner,’ she wheezed as Selena cleaned like a woman possessed.

      Selena had already filled two bin bags and had come up with a new office code of conduct for dealing with duplicates of documents already on the computer system.

      ‘If we back up the files on the hard drive, we needn’t keep any paper copies,’ Selena announced.

      ‘I’m going out for some fresh air,’ Carmel said.

      Outside, she looked at the door that led to the upstairs office. Why not? she decided. She had a few minutes to spare.

      She didn’t waste time staring at the crystal ball. She eyeballed Madame Lucia, who gazed back with a quiet intensity. Then, Madame Lucia took Carmel’s hand and gently turned it palm up.

      Her unmanicured hand was cool and firm and Carmel felt some of the tension leave her.

      ‘The ball tells the future, the palm tells the past,’ the fortune teller said.

      Carmel waited, not believing.

      ‘You’re carrying someone else’s pain,’ Madame Lucia said matter-of-factly. ‘It’s not your burden. You have to let it go before you can live your own life.’

      Carmel held her breath. This was unexpected.

      ‘There are two good men in your life. One is far away but he’s never forgotten you. He prays for you.’

      ‘He can’t,’ said Carmel, shocked, but knowing exactly who Madame Lucia was talking about. ‘My father’s gone, he left years ago. He’s never written; he doesn’t care.’

      ‘He does and he has,’ insisted Madame Lucia calmly. ‘The other man cares deeply for you too, but there is this –’ she paused, considering, ‘this guard around your heart that keeps him away. It’s the pain you’re carrying, the other person’s burden. You have to let it go.’

      Carmel was still trying to take in the first bit of information. ‘What do you mean, “he has”?’ she asked slowly.

      ‘He has written to you,’ Madame Lucia replied.

      She squeezed Carmel’s hand, this time in comfort.

      ‘This is good news for you,’ she said. ‘This is a new beginning and you are in charge of it. You, not anybody else – not someone who is angry with the whole world.’

      It was such a good description of her mother that Carmel smiled wryly.

      ‘What should I do?’

      Madame Lucia’s mouth relaxed into a smile. ‘That’s up to you. The future is always up to you.’

      Carmel’s mother was polishing the brass on the door when Carmel walked up the path. Everything in No. 9 The Crescent was polished to within an inch of its life. Phil used to say it was because that waster hadn’t left her much and she had to look after it. Carmel tried to imagine what it must have been like for her mother all those years ago. Alone with a small child and little money. Had that hard shell been her only defence?

      ‘What brings you here?’ demanded Phil, as if Carmel never visited rather than coming home at least twice a week.

      ‘I wanted to talk about my father,’ Carmel said evenly. She never called him Dad. Dad was for a person who had been there.

      ‘What about him?’ Her mother kept grimly polishing.

      ‘About the letters.’

      The old yellow duster stopped moving.

      ‘How did you know?’

      ‘That doesn’t matter. I want to see them.’

      Carmel waited outside until her mother emerged with a large manila folder crammed full of envelopes, some open, most untouched.

      ‘I didn’t want him in our lives any more,’ her mother said in a small voice, handing the folder over.

      Carmel said nothing: she’d become