I told you, she was a new experience, disarming me from one moment to the next. However, her real talent, like all women, was for emotion, and I sometimes pitied Henry Chester who had not been able to use and appreciate the reserves of passion in his poor little Effie.

The change came the day I decided to take her to the travelling fair which had camped on the Islington road. All women like fairs, with the little knick-knacks on sale, the Tunnel of Love and the fortune-tellers predicting dark handsome men and large families. For myself, I had heard that there would be on display a large collection of human grotesques, something which, since my earliest childhood, I have scarce been able to resist. They have always been a subject of fascination for me, these poor wretches, playthings of an uncaring God. In China, apparently, such shows are so lucrative that natural occurrences are not thought common enough, and parents of large families often sell young babies to fairs at birth to be used as freak attractions. The babies-usually the despised girls-are deliberately deformed by being kept in a small cage, in which their limbs are not allowed freedom to grow. The result, after some years of this treatment, is the comically atrophied creature so much loved by young children, the dwarf.

I told this story to Effie as we set off for the fair and it was a full fifteen minutes before I could stop her tears. How could they, she was crying, how could they be so cruel, so inhuman? To deliberately create something like that! Could I imagine the inconceivable hatred which such a creature would feel…Here she broke down hysterically and the coachman glared accusingly at me through the glass. It took all of my arguments to persude her that none of the freaks in this fair were so obtained; they were all of them honest errors of Nature, doing well for themselves in their chosen trade. Besides, there would be other things to occupy her mind: I would buy her some ribbons from the pedlar, and maybe some hot gingerbread if she wanted it. Inwardly I grimaced and made a mental note not to tell her any more stories about China.

At the fair, Effie’s despondency lifted, and she began to take an interest in what was going on around her. Pedlars with brightly coloured wares; an old man with a barrel-organ and a dancing monkey in a scarlet coat; some jugglers and acrobats; a fire-eater; and some gypsy girls dancing to pipes and tambourine.

She lingered for some time in front of the dancers, her eyes fixed especially upon one girl of about her own age, but with the dark skin and loose blue-black hair of the gypsy race, her feet bare and her ankles-nicely turned ankles, I noticed-ringed about with jangling bracelets. She was wearing a gold-embroidered skirt, scarlet petticoats, and a multitude of necklaces. Effie was enchanted.

‘Mose,’ she whispered to me as the girl ceased her dance, ‘I think she must be the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.’

‘Not as beautiful as you,’ I said to reassure her, taking her hand.

She scowled and shook her head irritably. ‘Don’t be silly,’ she said. ‘I mean it.’

Women! Sometimes there’s no pleasing them.

I was ready to move on; the freak-show had begun, and I could hear a crier extolling the marvels of ‘Adolphus, the Human Torso’, but Effie was still watching the gypsy. She had moved towards a faded blue-and-gold tent by the side of the path, and a crier now began to announce that ‘Scheherazade, Princess of the Mystic East’ would tell fortunes using the ‘Magickal Tarot and the Crystal Ball’. I saw Effie’s eyes light up, and resigned myself to the inevitable. Summoning up a smile, I said: ‘I suppose you want to know your fortune?’

She nodded, her face vivid with eagerness. ‘Do you think she’s really a princess?’

‘Almost certainly,’ I said with great seriousness and Effie sighed with rapture. ‘She has probably been cursed by a wicked witch and is reduced to living in poverty,’ I continued. ‘She has lost her memory and disguises her magical powers as fairground charlatanry. But at night she turns into a silver swan and flies in her dreams to places no-one but she has ever travelled to.’

‘Now you’re laughing at me,’ she protested.

‘Not at all.’

But she was hardly paying attention. ‘Do you know, I’ve never had anyone tell my fortune? Henry says that kind of thing is witchcraft in disguise. He says that in the Middle Ages they would have been hanged for it, and a good thing too.’

‘Pious Henry,’ I sneered.

‘Well, I don’t care what Henry says,’ said Effie with determination. ‘Would you stay out here and wait for me? I won’t be long.’

Anything to keep the lady happy. I sat down on a stump and waited.

It was hot inside the tent and what light there was came from a small red lamp on the table in front of me. The gypsy was sitting on a stool, shuffling her pack of cards, and she smiled as I came in, beckoning me to sit down. For a moment I hung back; surprised that she was not the woman who had danced, but an older woman, a scarf drawn over her hair and a thick layer of kohl outlining her tawny eyes. Something covered in black cloth stood on the table beside the lamp and as my eyes lingered upon it, trying to decide what it was, ‘Scheherazade’ indicated it with one strong, still-beautiful hand.

‘The crystal ball,’ she explained. Her voice was light and pleasant but accented. ‘I have to keep it covered or it loses its power. Please cut the cards.’

‘I…Where is the girl who danced?’ I asked hesitantly. ‘I thought that she would be telling the fortunes.’

‘My daughter,’ said the gypsy curtly. ‘She and I work together. Please cut the cards.’

She handed me the pack of cards and I held them for a moment. They were heavy and looked very old, with a shine to them born not from grime but from much respectful handling. I gave them back with reluctance, for I would have liked to look at them more closely, and she began to spread them in a spiral pattern around the table.

‘The Hermit,’ began Scheherazade. ‘And the Ten of Wands. Oppression. This man speaks of virtue, but he has a shameful secret. The Seven of Cups: debauch. And the Nine of Swords: cruelty and murder. I play the Lovers, but they are covered by the Knave of Coins. He will bring you joy and despair, for in his hands he bears the Two of Cups and the Tower. But who is here, riding atop the Chariot? The High Priestess, bearing the Ten of Swords, which spells ruin, and the Ace of Cups, great fortune. You will trust her and she will save you, but the cup she offers is filled with bitterness. Her chariot is driven by a Knave and a Fool, and beneath her wheels lie the Ace of Wands and the Hanged Man. In her hands she brings Justice and the Two of Cups which spells Love, but hidden inside the cups are Change and Death.’ She paused, as if she had forgotten that I was there, and spoke softly to herself in Romany.

‘Is there more?’ I asked after a time, as she seemed lost in thought.

Scheherazade hesitated, then nodded. She looked at me for some time with an unreadable expression, then she stepped towards me, kissed me quickly on the forehead and made a sign with three fingers of her left hand.

‘You have a strange and magical destiny, ma dordi,’ she said. ‘Better to look for yourself.’ And she carefully unwrapped the crystal ball from its black covering and pushed it towards me.

For a moment I was unsure of where I was; the ball reflected the light so that I had the illusion of being out of my own body looking downwards. The scene was familiar, stylized like the figures on the Tarot: a girl sitting at a table where a gypsy watches over a hand of cards. Suddenly I was light-headed, almost dizzy, overflowing with unreasoning laughter, but feeling dislocated somehow, as if struggling with lost memories.