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Paige shook her head.

Jasmina frowned. “It’s someone…older, I think. A relative, maybe?”

Paige was still confused.

“She’s stepping back now, but she’s not going away. There’s someone else here….You have a friend…except she or he is not a friend. You should beware of this person. I’m getting the letter
J.
Is this making any sense to you?”

Certain she must be talking about Julie Morris, Paige said, “I think so. There’s this girl who’s contacted me online….”

Jasmina considered it. “There’s good and bad with the letter
J,
” she decided. “A false friend, perhaps, and…What else does this letter mean to you?”

Only able to think of her parents and Josh, Paige told her their names.

Jasmina quietly absorbed the information. “Jenna is your mother,” she repeated carefully. “I sense that she is very worried at the moment.”

“She’s always worried.”

Jasmina smiled. “Like most mothers, mm? Her worry is very prominent here, but so is the
J
who means you harm….Actually, I’m getting the letter
O.
”

Paige’s heart skipped a beat. “Oliver?” she whispered.

Jasmina’s eyes closed again as she focused. “Who is this person?” she asked.

“He’s just…someone I know.”

“Have you had a falling-out with him? I can see a falling-out.”

“But we haven’t even…Oh, maybe it’s Owen,” she said flatly.

Jasmina neither confirmed nor denied it.

Paige waited, willing her to see Oliver. Surely he was there too—another
O
that had to be him.

“I’m getting this
M
back again,” Jasmina eventually said. “She’s quite forcefully pushing her way through. There is tension here. A lot of tension.”

Paige could only look at her.

“Your mother is very upset about something….It could be you. I’m sure it’s you, but there’s more. Something to do with this
M…
Ah, the
O
is back. You said it was Owen? Is he a boyfriend you’ve broken up with?”

“No. He’s…Owen’s gay.”

Jasmina showed no response to that. “I see the false friend again. I can’t tell if it’s him, but it is clear that you shouldn’t trust this person. She, or he, is telling you things you want to hear, but they aren’t necessarily true.”

Deciding to break all contact with Julie from now on, Paige said anxiously, “Am I ever going to have a boyfriend?”

Jasmina broke into a smile. “I think there is someone you like,” she replied kindly. “Yes, there is. He’s very handsome, a little older than you, I think, and he likes music?”

Paige’s heart was on fire. “Is he going to be my boyfriend?” she whispered shyly.

“I’m not sure. He’s certainly there, but…Does his name begin with
O
?”

“Yes, it does.”

“Mm, then I would ask you to tread carefully, because there is certainly some negativity surrounding the letter
O.
”

Paige’s eyes stung. This wasn’t what she wanted to hear. Why did Owen keep coming through and spoiling things?

More quiet minutes passed as Jasmina held Paige’s hands steadily and murmured to herself. It wasn’t possible to make out what she was saying, until finally the words became clearer. “There is someone here—your grandfather, he says. He wants you to know he’s watching over you.”

A tear dropped onto Paige’s cheek. She couldn’t bear that her grandfather was here but she couldn’t see him.

“He’s saying that you must trust your mother.”

“I do,” Paige whispered.

“Your grandmother too.”

Paige didn’t understand why he was saying that, because she definitely trusted them both.

Jasmina shook her head slowly. “The situation at school,” she went on, “he’s saying you must not let it get out of hand.” Her eyes opened and came to rest on Paige’s, so tenderly and with such intensity that Paige had to look away. “Can I ask what is troubling you at school?” she said softly.

Paige swallowed. “It’s just girls. They’re being mean to me, that’s all.”

Jasmina continued to regard her. “If it’s worrying you, you need to tell someone. That is what your grandfather is saying.”

Paige’s eyes went down as her throat tightened. “It’s all right,” she mumbled. “I can handle it.”

Closing her hands around Paige’s, Jasmina said, “I think that’s all for today, but if you want to talk again, at any time, you know where I am.”

“Thank you,” Paige murmured, trying not to be unnerved by the offer. What was the clairvoyant seeing that Paige might want to talk about in the future?

“Don’t hide,” Jasmina told her, “and don’t listen to all the advice you get, especially when you know in your heart that it’s wrong.” She waited, as if making sure Paige had taken it in. “And look out for the false friend. She,
he,
is not someone you need in your life.”

Minutes later Paige and Charlotte were walking away from the shop, down Newton Road toward the bay, oblivious to the world around them as they recounted everything they’d been told.

“Mine was awful,” Paige wailed. “She’s really freaked me out about everything, especially Oliver.”

“But it’s not Oliver, it’s Owen you have to watch out for,” Charlotte insisted. “And you knew that already.”

“No I didn’t. I mean, yes, we’ve had a falling-out, but she said there’s some really negative stuff around him.”

“So we just make sure we avoid him. And you’ve definitely got to tell that Julie Morris where to get off. I’ll bet it’s him.”

“I’d think so too if she weren’t being so friendly.”

“Paige, for God’s sake, you can’t stick up for her, not after this.”

“No, I know. I just…Oh God, that woman told me so much, it’s going round and round in my head….I can’t remember it all now.”

They turned onto the seafront, passing Patrick’s, where her parents had taken her for dinner on her fifteenth birthday, and on toward the pier and Verdis, where her dad sometimes took Josh and the twins on Saturdays while she and her mum had special time at a beauty salon or roaming the farmers’ market. She gazed out across the bay toward Swansea in the distance.

“She kept on about my mum being worried,” she said, slowing to a stop, “and this
M
person pushing her way in….” Her face suddenly paled as a terrible thought crashed into her mind. “Oh my God,” she murmured shakily. “I said I didn’t know anyone whose name begins with
M,
but I do.” Her eyes went to Charlotte, wide and scared. “I have to get home,” she said urgently. “I have to speak to my mum.”

Jenna was in the conservatory dining room, staring out at the dense, silvery sea mist rolling across the moor, closing in on the house, making everything disappear before her eyes.

It felt like a metaphor for her life.

Her cheeks were sallow, her eyes heavy with fatigue and pain. She felt drained, bewildered, the way she had after her father’s death, as though she had somehow slipped from the real world and become caught in a place that had no sense or reality. The feeling of loss was overwhelming. She wanted Jack, but she wanted her dad too, so much she could almost cry out for him. He would know what to do, how she should cope with this crisis—and that was all it was, surely, a crisis that would eventually resolve itself, and life would go on as before.

Her mother was sitting at the table with Bena, empty cups of tea and plates of untouched biscuits in front of them. They were watching her and worrying, she could feel it, but she could think of no more to say. The past few hours had been spent talking things over and over, round and round in so many circles. Discussion was fruitless; everything depended on Jack changing his mind.

That wasn’t going to happen.

“There’s no point dragging it out,” he’d said when they’d talked this morning, “it’ll only make it harder. I’ll take some things with me today, after I’ve collected Josh and the twins from school.”

“So you won’t stay for tea?” she’d asked, desperate for him to, while at the same time wanting to tell him to keep the hell away from her children.

“I thought I’d take them to McDonald’s.”

“What about Paige?”

He hadn’t answered that, and she’d seen how anxious he was about breaking his news to his stepdaughter. Paige would know what betrayal was, would see his weakness and his failure to put his family first, would feel her mother’s devastation.

He’d come back first thing this morning, not, as she’d told herself he would, to say he was making a terrible mistake, but to take Josh and the twins to school. Minutes after they’d gone she’d dumped his clothes on the drive and locked all the doors.

She couldn’t remember now how he’d persuaded her to let him in when he’d come back. She’d watched him stuffing his clothes into the car, and then they were in the kitchen, talking, crying, holding each other tightly, as though neither of them could bear what was happening, though obviously he could. There had been bitterness and anger; she’d slapped his face, punched her fists into him, and collapsed on the floor in a hysterical state. He’d picked her up, carried her to the sofa, and brought her some tea.

Her head ached now. Her eyes were raw, and her stomach kept crying out for food she knew she couldn’t eat. He’d told Bena and her mother himself when they’d turned up at their usual times. Bena’s sadness and disappointment that Jenna’s suspicions had proved right had brought yet more tears to Jenna’s eyes.

“I’m going to be here for you,” Bena had promised, in front of Jack. “I want you to know that no matter what,
I
won’t let you down.”

Whether Jack had caught the barb Jenna had no idea. He’d shown no sign of it and had only thanked Bena as though she were doing him the favor, not Jenna.

Her mother, who found it almost impossible to alter her schedule at any time, never mind at the last minute, had called the retirement home where she volunteered twice a week to tell them she wouldn’t be in today. Because she didn’t cry or shout or scream like other people, the terrible realization of what this was going to mean for her daughter and grandchildren was bottled up inside her. Watching her trying to cope was breaking Jenna’s heart all over again. She might show little emotion on the surface, but she had feelings like anyone else, and Jack’s betrayal, his desertion, was hurting her almost as much as it was Jenna.

“You’re a married man,” she’d told Jack with her typical frankness, “and the father of four, which means you have responsibilities. I don’t understand how anything or anyone can be more important than that.”

“Nothing is more important than them,” he’d assured her. “That’s why I’m doing this, because living a lie wouldn’t be right.”

“That’s funny,” Jenna had shot back acidly, “you seem to have managed it without any trouble for the past year—and please spare me the line that you’re doing the right thing for us. What you’re doing is for
you
and her. We don’t matter anymore; you’re making that perfectly clear even if you’re too cowardly to admit it.”

Had he responded to that? If he had, she’d forgotten now what he’d said. She only remembered how beaten and sorry he’d managed to look throughout much of the day—though whether sorry for himself or for what he was doing, she guessed only he knew. Probably both. She’d told him to go, several times, but he hadn’t listened, although the clothes she’d tossed into the drive remained in his car.

She watched the magpies and gulls, oystercatchers and curlews, weaving in and out of the mist, and felt exhausted by so many surges of emotion: anger, panic, utter despair. Each outburst was leaving her more depleted than the last, and yet there still seemed energy for more. She was aware that she wasn’t handling things well, but she didn’t know how else to be, and did she really care? Even the thought of the children was sapping her now. How was she going to cope when they raced through the door demanding food, drinks, her attention, her love? She was sure that if there were a way to avoid them, she’d take it—then she’d despise herself for being so weak. She’d despise Jack more, but how was that going to help anything?

“This is what hurts the most,” she said, breaking the silence, “the fact that he’s rejecting the children. I know he’s choosing not to see it like that, but I can’t see it any other way. He’s going to shatter their world. They’ll bear the scars of this for the rest of their lives, and I just don’t know how he can do it.”

Bena said, “Maybe he won’t in the end. Maybe when what he’s doing really starts to sink in he’ll come to his senses.”

Jenna wanted to believe it, so much that she could already feel herself clinging to it. When Jack came back during the next hour he was going to say that of course it was her he loved, and this had been no more than some sort of midlife confusion.

“Is that Paige?” her mother said, getting up.

Jenna turned round as Paige threw open the kitchen door and dropped her school bag on the floor. Waffle instantly went to her, but she stood staring at her mother, her eyes too bright, her face too pale. Surely to God Jack hadn’t already told her? If he had, he’d have done so on the phone, and that would be something Jenna would never forgive him for.