The Bone Clocks

She’s still smiling. “I have you at a disadvantage, don’t I?”

Am I blushing? “You have to forgive me, I—I’m …”

“I’m Immaculйe Constantin, a friend of Holly’s.”

“Oh,” I bluster, “Immaculйe—yes, of course!” Do I half-know that name from somewhere? I shake her hand and perform an awkward cheek-to-cheek kiss. Her skin’s as smooth as marble but cooler than sun-warmed skin. “Forgive me, I … I just got back from Iraq yesterday and my brain’s frazzled.”

“There’s nothing to forgive,” says Immaculйe Constantin, whoever the hell she is. “So many faces, so many faces. One must lose a few old ones to make space for the new. I knew Holly as a girl in Gravesend, although I left town when she was eight years old. It’s curious how the two of us keep bumping into each other, every now and then. As if the universe long ago decided we’re connected. And thisyoung lady,” she gets down on one knee to look eye-to-eye at my daughter, “must be Aoife. Am I correct?”

Wide-eyed Aoife nods. Dora the Explorer sways and turns.

“And how old are you now, Aoife Brubeck? Seven? Eight?”

“I’m six,” says Aoife. “My birthday’s on December the first.”

“How grown up you look! December the first? My, my.” Immaculйe Constantin recites in a secretive, musical voice: “ ‘A cold coming we had of it, just the worst time of the year for a journey, and such a journey: the ways deep and the weather sharp, the very dead of winter.’ ”

Holidaymakers pass us by like they’re ghosts, or we are.

Aoife says, “There’s not a cloud in the sky today.”

Immaculйe Constantin stares at her. “How right you are, Aoife Brubeck. Tell me. Do you take after your mummy most, do you think, or your daddy?”

Aoife sucks in her lip and looks up at me.

Waves slap and echo below us and a Dire Straits song snakes over from the arcade. “Tunnel of Love” it’s called; I loved it when I was a kid. “Well, I like purple best,” says Aoife, “and Mummy likes purple. But Daddy reads magazines all the time, whenever he’s home, and I read a lot too. Specially I Love Animals. If you could be any animal, what would you be?”

“A phoenix,” murmurs Immaculйe Constantin. “Or thephoenix, in truth. How about an invisible eye, Aoife Brubeck? Do you have one of those? Would you let me check?”

“Mummy has blue eyes,” says Aoife, “but Daddy’s are chestnut brown and mine are chestnut brown, too.”

“Oh, not thoseeyes”—now the woman removes her strange blue sunglasses. “I mean your special, invisible eye, just … here.” She rests her fingers on Aoife’s right temple and strokes her forehead with her thumb, and deep in my liver or somewhere I know something’s weird, something’s wrong, but it’s drowned out when Immaculйe Constantin smiles up at me with her heart-walloping beauty. She studies a space above my eyes, then turns back to Aoife’s, and frowns. “No,” she says, and purses her painterly lips. “A pity. Your uncle’s invisible eye was magnificent, and your mother’s was enchanting, too, before it was sealed shut by a wicked magician.”

“What’s an invisible eye?” asks Aoife.

“Oh, that hardly matters.” She stands up.

I ask, “Are you here for Sharon’s wedding?”

She replaces her sunglasses. “I’m finished here.”

“But … You’re a friend of Holly’s, right? Aren’t you even going to …” But as I look at her, I forget whatever it was I meant to ask.

“Have a heavenly day.” She walks towards the arcade.

Aoife and I watch her shrink as she moves further away.

My daughter asks, “Who was that lady, Daddy?”

SO I ASK my daughter, “Who was what lady, darling?”

Aoife blinks up at me. “What lady, Daddy?”

We look at each other, and I’ve forgotten something.

Wallet, phone; Aoife; Sharon’s wedding; Brighton Pier.

Nope. I haven’t forgotten anything. We walk on.

A boy and girl are snogging, like the rest of the world doesn’t exist. “That’s gross!” declares Aoife, and they hear, and glance down, before resuming their tonsil-tickling. Yeah, I tell the boy telepathically, enjoy the cherries and cream because twenty years on from now nothing tastes as good. He ignores me. Up ahead, a picture spray-painted on a rolled-down metal shutter captures Aoife’s attention: a Merlinesque face with a white beard and spiral eyes in a halo of Tarot cards, crystals, and stardust. Aoife reads the name: “D-wiggert?”

“Dwight.”

“ ‘Dwight … Silverwind. For-tune … Teller.’ What’s that?”

“Someone who claims to be able to read the future.”

“ Class!Let’s go inside and see him, Daddy.”

“Why would you want to see a fortune-teller?”

“To know if I’ll open my animal-rescue center.”

“What happened to being a dancer like Angelina Ballerina?”

“That was agesago, Daddy, when I was little.”

“Oh. Well, no. We won’t be visiting Mr. Silverwind.”

One, two, three—and here’s the Sykes scowl: “Why not?”

“First, he’s closed. Second, I’m sorry to say that fortune-tellers can’t really tell the future. They just fib about it. They—”