The Fortune Teller

It had been raining in Blackpool since breakfast, the kind of thin, stubborn rain that the north of England seems to produce on purpose. The pier was almost empty. The arcades were flashing and beeping for nobody, and the seagulls had given up and gone to sit on the roofs.

At the end of the pier stood a small wooden booth painted purple and gold. A sign above the door said MADAME GLORIA: YOUR FUTURE REVEALED. Inside, Gloria herself was doing a crossword and drinking tea from a flask. She had been reading palms on the pier for thirty-one years, and she could usually tell what a customer wanted to hear before they had sat down.

The young man who pushed the curtain aside that afternoon was soaking wet and clearly nervous. He was tall and thin, with glasses that kept slipping down his nose. "I'm not sure I believe in this sort of thing," he said, which was what most people said. "Then you're about to have a very interesting afternoon," Gloria replied, which was what she always said.

His name was Owen, and he was from Leeds. He had come to Blackpool for a job interview at the new aquarium, and he had arrived three hours early because he was terrified of being late. Gloria took his hand and studied it for a long time. She saw bitten fingernails and a small scar on his thumb. She also saw, in the way he kept looking at the clock, a person who expected things to go wrong.

"You're going to meet someone important," she announced, "before the sun sets today." Owen laughed nervously. "The person who's interviewing me, probably." Gloria shook her head slowly. "No. Someone else. Someone who will change the way you see things. It's bound to happen. You'll know them when you see them."

Owen paid his five pounds and left, looking more confused than when he had arrived. Gloria went back to her crossword, but for some reason she couldn't concentrate. She had made that prediction a thousand times before; it was the easiest one in the business, because everybody meets somebody. This time, though, she had a strange feeling that she had said something true.

An hour later, a shout came from outside. Gloria put her head out of the booth and saw a small crowd at the railing. A little boy had dropped his football over the side, and his father, trying to reach it, had slipped on the wet boards. He was hanging on to the bottom of the railing, his legs dangling above the gray sea. Before anyone else could move, a tall young man in glasses threw himself flat on the boards and grabbed the father by the wrist.

It was Owen. With the help of two fishermen, he pulled the man back onto the pier. The father sat on the ground, shaking and thanking everyone at once. Owen's trousers were torn, his glasses were bent, and his interview, Gloria realized, was due to start in ten minutes on the other side of town.

"You'll never make it now," she said, helping him to his feet. "I'm likely to be late anyway," he said, trying to straighten his glasses. Then the rescued man stood up, looked at Owen properly and frowned. "Hang on," he said. "Aren't you Owen Price? I've got your CV on my desk. I'm the director of the aquarium. I was just about to drive back for your interview."

The interview took place there and then, in Gloria's booth, because it was the only dry place on the pier. Gloria made them both a cup of tea from her flask and pretended not to listen. By the time the director left, Owen had a new job and a story he would be telling for the rest of his life.

As the sun went down behind the clouds, Owen came back to the booth. "You were right," he said. "I did meet someone important." Gloria smiled and shook her head. "Not him, love," she said. "You met someone who jumps in when other people stand still. You just didn't know him very well until today."