Jocasta's Reading

Jocasta turns a card. The thirty seconds hovering - and havering, as Nanny McIndoe would undoubtedly have said – trying to decide which card to turn over are not really wasted. Sooner? Later? The magic is in the moment. Her mother taught her that, at least. The silk scarf she uses to keep the cards safe from damp, and other influences, is around her head. Mother read to Jocasta from The Devil’s Picture Book until she died. The silk scarf is one of Jocasta’s mother’s: she wore it to visit the town until she could not visit. It is old, but it is beautiful. Jocasta knows, now, that you can be one or the other, unless you are a piece of silk rumoured to have passed through Marco Polo’s hands.

 

Jocasta has thought about the question. For a reading will answer only one. The major arcana is not for foolishness, though one card is named The Fool. The scented candle on the table is guttering. It is the last Jocasta will ever buy. Whatever the cards say, this will be the last time she lays them in the six-card cross.

 

1. It’s the fool,

ill-dignified,

this happens

sometimes:

Jocasta is

impulsive,

she knows that.

 

 

The second card lies athwart:

 

 

2. The Empress is reversed: so

obvious. Maternal love not

given, not sought? Domestic

life in turmoil. Indeed. HA!

 

The third position is above the first

 

 

3.The death card:

Jocasta read

this literally

once. Not

now. There is

change coming.

No kidding.

 

Position four lies to the left of the first

 

 

4. The Moon is

upright, thank

goodness. The

book will be

published.

Jocasta has

written it, see?

 

Position five is below the first.

 

 

5. The Devil dances

on his head. Lust

and obsession

play no part in

Jocasta’s question.

To flee slow

torture, or not?

 

 

 

Position six is at the right hand of the first.

 

 

6. Judgement comes

ill-dignified too.

So many inverted

cards. Jocasta

will pre-empt

malignant death

before it comes.

 

Jocasta removes the scarf, catches sight of the bare skin and the candle-light reflecting off it in the gilded mirror. She takes one of her Turkish cigarettes from the teak box with its filigreed catch and lights it. She inhales deeply, then releases two gouts of smoke through her nostrils. The scarf, pooled on the cards like a rainbow-ed puddle, catches fire as soon as she touches the cigarette tip to its fraying edge.

 

 

Footnote:

 

I did go out with a girl called Jocasta once: I read her tarot after too much wine, when I was 19 and believed in such things.