Maureen Johnson - The Madness Underneath

It felt like cheating, but Jane didn’t know about Stephen. I still had secrets to keep, even now, as my life collapsed around me and re-formed into something new and very unfamiliar.

And strangely, for the first time in what seemed like a very long time, I felt like I knew what the hell was going on.

NEW DAWN PSYCHIC PARLOR,

EAST LONDON

DECEMBER 9

11:47 P.M.

PAUL WAS A CHEATING BASTARD. HE WAS THE KING OF cheating bastards. He should wear a crown.

Oh, everyone had warned her. Her sister. Her friends. Her horoscope. Everyone said Paul was trouble, but Lydia had believed him. She had believed the stories of his weekends away with his mates, his overtime at Boots doing stock inventory. She believed him when his car didn’t start and when he had a toothache. She was a trusting person, and everyone had warned her, and now it had come to this. The voice mail. The voice mail from some random slag that she heard when she accidentally but kind of on purpose got into his voice mail.

Okay, mostly on purpose. Paul was such an idiot. Only one password for everything. She’d seen him key it in dozens of times. All she had to do was ring the voice mail externally and put in the numbers, and there it was, the message from someone who just sounded orange. She was giggling away on his voice mail like a Big Brother reject.

Lydia wobbled on her heels as she hurried. It was hard to speed walk and cry. Bastard! Dawn would fix it. Dawn would tell her what to do. Dawn always knew what to do.

Dawn operated out of a third-story flat, which served as both home and office. She was there day and night. All you had to do was buzz up. It didn’t matter what time. Dawn dozed between clients. And even at this hour, there could sometimes be a wait—people would sit on the floor of the hallway by the door. Everyone who went to Dawn knew she was good. But there was no one else there tonight, and Lydia was able to go right in. Dawn was sitting in her easy chair, dressed in a pair of jogging bottoms, a red jumper, slippers, and a dressing gown. Lydia carefully made her way over, her heels catching in the thick salmon-colored carpet.

“Hello, my love,” Dawn said, setting down her magazine. “Come to see Dawn? Problems? I see all kinds of problems. Your aura is very dark, not like normal.”

Lydia took a seat at the small card table Dawn used for business. Dawn got up from her easy chair and took a seat on the folding chair on the opposite side.

“I think my boyfriend is cheating,” Lydia said tearfully. “What do I do?”

“Cheating? Well, we’ll ask the cards, love. They never lie. We’ll ask the cards and see what they say.”

Dawn reached over and took a small blue velvet drawstring sack from the windowsill and pulled it open, exposing the tarot deck. She held the deck for a moment in both hands and closed her eyes. This part always calmed Lydia—you could almost feel Dawn reaching out, pulling energy closer. Dawn opened her eyes very slowly and, without another word, began laying the initial spread. When the spread was complete, she leaned back and examined it like a surgeon evaluating a complex injury.

“All right, all right. Let us see. I’m looking back now, here’s your past. And right away, I’m seeing trouble with love. It’s right there.”

She pointed at the cards, and Lydia nodded.

“Present is the same. But the past…you’re an honest person. That’s what these cards are saying to me. You always try to tell the truth.”

“That’s true,” Lydia said, nodding.

“But not everyone does. Because honest people, sometimes they are taken in by liars. And I’m seeing that here, even in the past. I don’t think there was a lot of truth here.”

Lydia started crying again.

“So he is cheating,” she said.

“The cards say someone has not been telling you the truth for a long time.”

“Do they say who he’s cheating with ?”

“Cards don’t talk like that, my love. Cards speak bigger truths.”

Dawn rocked to the side to adjust her dressing gown and continued.

“All right, my love. The cards are going to tell us what to do. The cards don’t lie. Let’s look and see what the future holds, yeah? Let’s see.”

Dawn laid down the remainder of the spread, topping it off with one final card. She placed the Tower down on the table and rocked back in her chair a bit.

“The cards are clear today,” she said, her voice grim. “Tower always mean big change is coming. Look.”

She pointed at the image of a tall stone tower being struck by lightning, causing it to explode and crumble.

“Always,” she said. “Look at the people falling. Everything falls apart with the tower. Everything has to change.”

“So, I have to…break up?”

“Something going to happen, love, something big. And I see lies. Someone was lying, and now everything going to change.”

“So you’re saying I should break up with him?”

“The cards say what they say. Somebody lying. Something is about to happen, something big.”

Lydia paid Dawn her twenty pounds and thanked her profusely. Everything was always clearer after she talked to Dawn. She took the phone from her pocket and walked down the street, her steps firm and full of purpose. Paul was going to answer some questions. Paul was going to feel her wrath right now. He didn’t pick up the first time she called, so she paused when she was almost at the corner and dialed again. And again. It took four tries before he answered.

“You cheating bastard,” she began. “I know…. Yes, I know. I heard the message…. What do you mean, what message? Her voice mail. Yes, I listened to your voice mail…. Well, if you didn’t do anything, then what’s the problem with me listening, yeah?”

“No! No!”

Someone was screaming—it sounded like Dawn. Lydia spun around just in time to see Dawn leaning out of her window much, much too far. And then in the next, unreal moment, she tumbled from the open window, headfirst, toward the pavement.

THE

FALLING

WOMAN

In a motion of night they massed nearer my post.

I hummed a short blues. When the stars went out

I studied my weapons system.

—John Berryman,

Dream Song 50,

“In a Motion of Night”

20

ACTUALLY, I HAD RUN AWAY ONCE BEFORE.

I must have been nine or so, and my parents wouldn’t take me to some event at the mall or something, and I got mad. I ran out of the house and went to Kroger. Our family friend Miss Gina, the one my uncle Bick has been “courting” for the last nineteen years or so, is the manager. I had this idea that she might let me live in the office or something. She let me sit in there and gave me some juice and carrot sticks. After about two hours, I got bored and went home. My parents must have known—Miss Gina probably called them the minute I showed up. She walked me home, and I went inside, right up to my room. I kept expecting my parents to come to the door and start yelling, but they never said one word to me about it.

My parents are clever like that. They knew I would do a better job of berating myself for being an idiot than they ever could and that waiting for the punishment was much worse than the actual punishment. The tick tick tick is much worse than the boom .

I thought about this when I woke up in the guest room at Jane’s and heard the tick tick tick of the bedside clock. Well, I thought about it after I figured out where the hell I was. It took me a few minutes to sort out which things in my head were reality and which were fantasy. The wallpaper, for example. In this room, it was a series of bronze circles that nested in each other. It was the kind of wallpaper that looked exciting and dramatic in the dark, because all you saw was the gold. In the morning, it was strange. And it was even on the ceiling. I had to stare at it for a while before I decided it went into the “real” column. I spent another few minutes considering the black lacquer bureau and the slightly gold-tinted mirror that rested on top of it. Also real.