Last Line Competition - Winner

Later – much later – Annie would try to explain the peculiar pull of Madame Gisella’s tent that day. How it called to her across the sludge and slop of the muddied fairground, its mouth a dark yawn of promise. Come, my dear, it seemed to say. Let me show you your future. Or maybe it was Madame Gisella herself, with her black eyes and jangling wrists, summoning Annie to meet her waiting fortune. Come, my dear. Either way, Annie’s feet had carried her there, away from the clatter and brightness of that innocent Saturday afternoon to the shadowed secrets lurking within. And somehow her last coin was already in her hand before she knew it, clutched between finger and thumb like a talisman. For luck. Yes, it was high time Annie had some of that.
‘Come and sit yourself down,’ called a low voice. ‘I’ve been expecting you.’
When Annie’s eyes adjusted to the gloom she found she was already seated – how had that happened? – her coin already planted in the fortune teller’s outstretched palm.
‘So then, Annie…’
It was strange. There’d been no introductions and yet her name fitted neatly on the fortune teller’s tongue as if they were old friends. No, not friends, that wasn’t right—acquaintances, maybe. ‘Friends’ suggested an equal balance of power between the two women, which wasn’t the case at all. Annie felt oddly childlike, perched on her little stool, shrinking under the intensity of Madame Gisella’s dark-eyed gaze.
The fortune teller paused for a moment, her smile flickering yellow-green above the gas lantern. ‘You wish to learn your future?’
‘Yes,’ Annie agreed. And it was true, she did, although she couldn’t remember how she’d arrived at that point. After all, she wasn’t foolish enough to believe in fortunes and palm readings. She knew it was all tricks and flattery; a matter of telling punters what they wanted to hear. And yet…
‘Yes,’ she said again. What future did she want though? That was the question. No tall, dark strangers for her, thank you very much. Not after the last one. Even the thought of him – of his rough hands pawing at her clothes; of his beer-soaked breath hot and heavy against her neck as he pinned her to the privy wall – was enough to send her stomach curling in on itself. Anything but that.
She glanced around the tent for the fortune teller’s props, for her heavy glass ball and painted tarot cards. But there was nothing. Just the flickering lamp and the bare table between them. And the long shadows dancing across the canvass walls.
‘Don’t you need one of them round glass things to peer into?’ she asked.
Madame Gisella laughed – a low, rasping laugh like the bark of the blind man’s dog outside Annie’s lodgings. ‘I’ve no need of a scrying ball,’ she said. ‘The fame of your progeny precedes you.’
Annie sat up straighter in her seat at that. Not that she knew what ‘scrying’ meant, exactly, let alone what a progeny was. But the words sounded fancy and important, and ‘fame’ was pure music to her tavern singer’s ears. Maybe her music hall dreams were finally within her grasp.
‘I can let the cards show you, however, if you wish,’ the fortune teller offered, gesturing towards the box in the centre of the table. It was the size of a large cigarette case, with ivory snakes knotted across the inlaid lid. Funny, Annie could have sworn the table was empty before, but her eyes must have been playing tricks on her, because there it was, as clear as the black mole on the fortune teller’s cheek. She stretched out a finger, to be certain, and the lid sprang open at her touch, a cry of surprise catching in her throat. Her finger tingled and burned as if she’d been stung.
‘Hush now, patience,’ said Madame Gisella, although it seemed to Annie as if she were addressing the cards themselves, rather than her. Scolding them. Annie swallowed down her own eagerness nevertheless, tucking her hands back under the table, squeezing them between her skirted legs to ease the throbbing in her fingertip. Patience.
At first glance it looked like a normal deck of cards, fanned across the table and then concertinaed back in on itself by the fortune teller’s deft fingers. But on closer inspection Annie saw that the hearts were mottled and misshapen, like the fat-ribboned ones the butcher’s boy brought to the tavern kitchen. The diamonds looked more like tears than jewels, and the spades… they were all wrong as well: too long, too sharp. Like knives.
Madame Gisella shuffled the deck and fanned it out a second time, face down now.
‘Choose a card,’ she said. ‘Any card.’
Annie studied the ornately patterned backs, hoping to find the one that signified ‘fame’. The card that meant her very own song at Wilton’s Music Hall, with cheering crowds calling her name, begging her for another verse. She could do The Darkest Frown of London Town – the punters always liked that one, when they could hear it over the drunken roar. Or Paint Me Like a Rose, My Love. That was quite the crowd-pleaser too.
What about that card there? Was that the one? The tingling in her finger had subsided now, replaced by an itch – an itch for that particular card above all its identical neighbours. She slid it out, flipping it over, to reveal the Queen of Hearts: a grinning, red-haired queen, like Annie herself, with matching green eyes and a pale blue dress that looked uncannily like hers. Exactly like hers, in fact, save for the round curve of the queen’s belly. The sight sent a shiver snaking down Annie’s spine, her hands dropping back to the corseted tightness of her own waistline.
‘How… how did you do that?’ she stammered. ‘She looks like me.’
Madame Gisella nodded. ‘She is you, my dear. The first card is for your present, the second for your future.’
‘But she’s…’ Annie could hardly bring herself to say it out loud. When had she last bled? It must have been weeks now. Weeks and weeks. ‘But she’s with child.’
‘Yes,’ agreed the fortune teller, bringing every one of Annie’s hopes crashing down around her with a single word. What kind of fame could she have as an unmarried mother with a miserable brat to feed? His miserable brat. Just the thought of it made her feel queasy, but then she’d been feeling queasy rather a lot lately. Every morning, in fact.
Annie clung to the table for support as the dark shadows came crowding in on her, peeling themselves off the flickering walls and burrowing into her brain. Regret. Hopelessness. Despair. They were all there, clamouring for her attention, chiding her for her foolish fancies. A music hall singer? She’d be lucky if she kept her old job at this rate. What would the landlord say when she started to show? Maybe there was another way though. She remembered the quart of gin sitting by her bed. Would that be enough, with a hot bath and some Beecham’s Pills? A knitting needle too, if need be. Yes, there was always a choice, however dangerous and unpleasant it might be.
‘And now for your future,’ said Madame Gisella, gesturing to the waiting deck.
It was fear guiding Annie’s hand towards her chosen card this time. Diamonds, she guessed, for tears, her eyes already welling at the thought of all that blood. All that pain. But it was the Jack of Spades – the Jack of Knives, rather – with a top hat in place of the customary crown, and a smart collared cape pulled high around his neck like a proper gentleman. Annie touched her finger to his face – drawn to the image in a way she couldn’t quite explain—the despair of a moment before all but vanished away.
‘Your son,’ said the fortune teller. ‘He’s your future now, my dear.’
‘My son?’ Annie’s thoughts turned, in an instant, from hot baths and gin bottles to dimpled cheeks and fat little limbs cradled against her chest. As if she wanted the child. As if she’d always wanted it.
‘My son,’ she said again, the sick feeling in her stomach easing to a warm glow of hope. ‘Jack.’ Yes, that was a fine name for a boy – for an up-and-coming gentleman. ‘And his future?’ she asked, her fingers already reaching for a third card.
‘As you wish.’ Madame Gisella nodded her agreement.
It was the king this time. The King of Knives. Annie felt a rush of maternal pride, her own ambitions forgotten in the light of this new, glittering future for her child. Perhaps the fame the fortune teller had spoken of was his.
‘Yes,’ said Madame Gisella, as if she’d read her mind. ‘Fame like no other. His name on every tongue. In every history book. Should you choose to keep him…’
But the choice was already made. Annie owed it to herself as much as her unborn child. Why, she owed it to the entire country, it seemed. To the world!
‘Thank you,’ she said, leaning forward to grasp the fortune teller’s hands in hers, grateful for whatever strange force it was that had led her there. To think she could have drunk him away, without ever knowing his greatness. Boiled and prodded him out of her like a bloodied ball of shame. ‘Thank you,’ she said again. ‘I shan’t forget this.’
     
* * * * *

Later – much, much later, when she read about those poor girls, throats ripped and innards all scooped out – Annie would still remember, even if she couldn’t explain. She would try, and fail, to put into gin-blurred thoughts the peculiar pull of Madame Gisella’s tent that day. How it called to her across the dull sludge of her existence, its mouth a dark yawn of deception and trickery. If only I’d known, she told herself, ordering up another glass as the newspaper boys shouted about the latest Ripper victim. If only I’d known.