My neighbor, Gladys and I were sitting quietly in my kitchen having coffee and biscuits and our bi-weekly chat about our children, the weather and the various repairs to our respective houses that seem never to get done. Suddenly there was a sharp knock on the front door. I opened the door and saw a woman standing outside. It was a bitterly cold, windy, early winter day and she looked frozen. She was about 45 years old with a short, square build. She had long, straight, dark hair, rather uncombed-looking, a swarthy complexion and crooked teeth. She wore a heavy, dark blue cardigan with big holes in it over her dark, patterned skirt and blouse, both well worn and faded. Her hands and her head were bare. I felt chilly thinking how cold she must be.

"Buy something from a gypsy?" she whined in a tone which showed me that she clearly expected me to say no. I nearly did so too, and was about to shut the door again when I thought that we were short of clothes pegs, and so I asked her what she was selling. "Lace," she said, "homemade lace. I made it myself."

"I could do with some pink lace," I said, thinking of the trim for my seven year old daughter's Christmas dress.

"No pink," she said, abruptly, almost rudely. "This lace." She took from her large bag a roll of cream-coloured lace, delicately made and about two inches in width. "I made this," she repeated.

"My neighbor, Gladys, who had come up beside me to the door now said, "I need some tiny white lace for baby clothes. Don't you have any white?"

"No," the gypsy said again, although we could see some white narrower lace clearly visible underneath the cream lace that she had shown us.

Suddenly her whole manner changed and ignoring me completely, she concentrated with great intensity and started listing things she was "seeing" about my neighbor. "You will live to be an old age  - one year less than a hundred," she droned. Gladys giggled. "You will not die in a hospital. You will not have an accident." Her voice came out dull and expressionless, but in a coarse, uneducated accent and I had to strain to make out what she was actually saying. "You have pain in your legs and your back," she continued, staring fixedly at my neighbor. "You are often tired. You work very hard and people don't appreciate you. You should have been a teacher or a nurse. You didn't have a chance."

We were both amused that  the things the gypsy had said could be true of nearly anyone of Gladys' age which was about sixty. Yet despite our skepticism, we were fascinated. The gypsy seemed to be ignoring me completely and I wished she'd "see" in my direc­tion for awhile. We were still standing in the doorway and as we wondered what to do or say next, she continued, "You have a son," she said to Gladys.

"Two, actually," Gladys replied.

"One of them is very good to you and one of them causes you lots of troubles. You worry a good deal." This all was basically true and I could see that Gladys was becoming more interested now.

Suddenly she threw a tidbit in my direction. "I see you cross the sea seven times." I half nodded. Having an American accent, she might easily have guessed that I'd crossed the sea several times. Also in our neighborhood, many families go abroad for their holidays so it must have been a fairly safe guess for anyone. But then I quickly added up mentally the times I had been across the sea. I'd been back to America visiting my relatives five times, once to New Zealand and of course the first trip to England from America and back again on our honeymoon. That made seven trips, but that didn't include the one-way trip when we moved to England eleven years before. It also didn't include three trips we had taken to the Channel Islands. I wasn't quite sure whether that would count as crossing the sea anyway. Still, she was certainly close.
 
She went on in her boring, yet insistent voice, as if she were willing us to believe her and be impressed by her knowledge. "Do you have two babies?" she asked me. Ah, here's a mistake she's made, I thought to myself, as I answered her.

"Three actually, and they aren't babies anymore."

"You won't have any more," she said, not in the least squashed by my apparently having caught her out. "You do not like men," she added in an undertone. I wasn't quite sure if she meant the two things to be related. I didn't like men, therefore, I wouldn't be having any more babies. I didn't comment, but I certainly did wonder what made her think that about me.  Perhaps she felt that if I liked men I'd have tried to make more of myself - tried harder to look nice. Gladys in contrast was impeccably dressed and groomed as always in a pretty blue wool dress with a matching sweater over it. She had lipstick and makeup on and even earrings. I was wearing baggy jeans, an old sloppy sweater, no lipstick and my hair was probably rather untidy. I wondered if the fact that the gypsy concentrated more on Gladys was because she looked less hard-up and she thought she'd get more money out of her.

While I was still speculating on why she should think that I disliked men, she said, "I can see an older man, or perhaps a younger man, who thinks of you a lot. He is far away." Oh good, I thought. She says that men like me even if I don't like them. That seemed a bit better.

Then she changed the subject. "You worry about your children. You don't need to worry," she added. "They are good children. They will do well." Then she motioned towards Gladys. "You are good friends to each other," she said. We nodded agreement and smiled at each other. "But I see a lot of jealousy. I see it in your auras." Then she turned to me and said, "I see problems with in-laws for you. Perhaps it is the mother-in-law for you, and the daughter-in-law for her," and we both laughed for in both cases it might well be considered true.

"Did someone close to you die recently from cancer or heart disease?" she asked me.

"Yes," I replied. Two months before, my favourite aunt had died of cancer, and I had been very close to her.

"Someone close to you has died. recently too,' she told Gladys. Gladys' mother had died two years previously but Gladys had been upset about it for a long time afterwards. As far as I knew, she hadn't had any other close relatives die any more recently.

Finally I realized how rude I was leaving the gypsy standing in the cold, and it also occurred to me that our centrally heated air was all going out the door too. I decided I'd buy some of her lace, and then perhaps she'd tell me more about me. I wasn't convinced about her special powers, but I was fascinated by her and I wanted to see what else she would say and do.

"Come in," I invited her, "and sit down," pointing to a chair at the kitchen table. The gypsy lumbered in and seemed very relieved to have a seat in the warm. Gladys and I sat down again too, but I thought Gladys looked some­what alarmed at having the gypsy at such close quarters.

"I am a real true Romany gypsy," she said. "I am not a witch and I am not the devil." I didn't for a moment doubt the genuineness of her gypsy status. She had this dull voice and faraway look when she was seeing things, and I was almost afraid she would drop into a trance.

She said., "You worry about your children," including both of us in this statement. "I know about worries about children. I have twelve children myself." Then turning to Gladys she said, "You don t care about money." Gladys said, "I suppose that is true." The gypsy riveted all her attention on my neighbor again, ignoring me as if I hadn't been in the room at all, just like she'd done at the beginning. "You will have some lace," she demanded of Gladys. "A lady down the road has had four yards of lace from me. £3 a yard." I was taken aback by the price as no doubt Gladys was. I had decided before that I would buy some lace but I had expected to pay less than a pound in total. "You will have four yards of this lace, lady," she badgered Gladys. Gladys looked somewhat uneasy.

"I'll buy some lace," I volunteered, but she ignored me.

Gladys asked her to repeat the price and when she had Gladys said, "I can't afford that much." The gypsy gave her a disgusted. look and then quite abruptly the revelations started up again. "I can see more than one marriage for you," she said to Gladys.

"Yes," agreed. Gladys, "I've been married before." That rather impressed me because I couldn't  think of any other person in our immediate neighborhood of whom that could be said, so the chances of it being a lucky guess on the part of the gypsy were less than average. Her first marriage wasn't common knowledge to the other neighbors either.

"You made a bad mistake with your first marriage,'" the gypsy continued. Gladys seemed embarrassed about this business of talking of her previous marriage, almost as if she was worried by what the gypsy might say next about her ex-husband.

"I can see that you moved from a place and never went back again," the gypsy said to Gladys who had been born and lived her childhood years in Egypt. Gladys laughed, "I've moved a lot."

"No," shouted the gypsy, "this was a special time. Think back."  She was so powerfully insistent that I suddenly felt a shiver of fright. She didn't like being contradicted.

"Well, yes, you are right,' agreed Gladys. I wondered. if she, like me, had come to the conclusion that it would be wiser to agree with the gypsy whether it was the truth or not.

"There will be no more marriages for you," the gypsy told Gladys.

"I should hope not. I'm too old to go through all that again," said Gladys, chuckling slightly, nervously. As suddenly as before the subject reverted again back to the lace. "You will have four yards of my lace for good luck," she coaxed Gladys.

Gladys was somewhat upset by her pushiness and determination. She looked at me and half smiled, as if to say, what do I do now?  "I'll. buy some lace," I added again, but was again ignored.

"You will buy two yards of this lace," the woman demanded of Gladys.

"No," Gladys was firm now, ‘If you'd had white lace for baby clothes, I'd have bought some, but  I have no use for this. Besides," she added bravely "you can buy some just like it on the market for fifty pence a yard."

The gypsy was really annoyed now. "This lace is according to the crystal," she shouted. "It will bring you luck. It is to put on pillow cases and curtains for luck. You can buy two yards."

Politely Gladys said, "No, I'm sorry but I can't afford three pounds a yard for that."

"You CAN afford it,"  the gypsy reiterated angrily. Gladys looked beseech­ingly at me. The whole thing had gone too far. "Don't look at her. You're grown up. You don't need her advice."  I felt terrible with all this hectoring going on at my guest but I didn't know what to say. Gladys decided that the best thing to do was for her to leave.  "I must go now," she said. "My husband will be ringing up soon."   I got up to show her to the door.

"Where do you live? Next door? I'll come to see you later," the gypsy threatened.

"No, a few doors away," lied Gladys, who in fact did live next door.

"What number?" demanded the gypsy.

"I'm not going to say," said Gladys stoutly and I tried to get her to the door. Suddenly Gladys surprised me by approaching the woman and putting her arm on her shoulder. "You don't mind that I won't buy your lace, do you?" she asked hopefully. The gypsy dismissed her with a toss of the head. Gladys turned to me as she was going out the door. "You'll be all right?" she asked softly.

"Oh, yes," I said smiling brightly, but feeling somewhat uneasy all the same. For a few seconds after I returned to the table neither of us spoke. I was quite sure that the gypsy was smoldering at the lack of success with Gladys. She turned to me.

"She is not a good friend," she said, just the opposite of what she'd said earlier when Gladys was still a prospective customer. "Beware of her. I see a lot of' jealousy. I see it in her aura. She is very jealous of you." Not likely, I thought, but decided not to defend her out loud because I didn't want the gypsy to get annoyed with me too.

"I'd like two yards of that lace," I said again, to change the subject. I'd already taken £6 from my purse during the time when she was talking to Gladys.

"Get some scissors," she said. I obediently trotted off to my bedroom to get my sharp dressmaking scissors. She measured out two arm lengths of the lace and cut it. "Here," she said, handing it to me, "and don't cut it, will you?" I didn't  ask her why not, but assumed that the luck was more potent in a bigger piece.

The gypsy lady had blue eyes which rather surprised me as the rest of her appearance was so very dark. Her eyes were penetrating and direct, forceful and almost hypnotizing, yet when she prophesied. or looked into the past she looked not at me but to the side of me at a spot of blank wall just above the cooker.

The lace business completed, her revelations began again. Her voice was so low and
flat-toned that I  found it hard to understand. I asked her to repeat once and she got very annoyed. "You will get some money that you haven't earned early in the new year. " Then she said, "You will get a new car and you will not have an accident in it. "
Then she started talking about men again. "There is an older man who thinks about you a lot. Do you know who I mean?"

"No," I said and quickly went over the older men I knew who I thought might  have some interest in me. But I noted also that while before she hadn't been sure if it had been an older man or a younger man, now she was definite that it was an older one. "Unless you mean my husband," I added. "He's eight years older than me."

"No," she shouted, "not your husband. This is an older man from far away. He thinks of you a great deal." She sure didn't like to be questioned or contra­dicted.
"You worry too much," the gypsy repeated. "Your husband is a good man. He has worries with his work and he doesn't tell you about them because he doesn't want to worry you. He loves you very much but he can't express it very well because he doesn't know how to."

"What do you want to ask me?" was the next question from the gypsy, suddenly being very generous. I didn't know what to ask. I couldn't think of anything. She'd already said so much that my mind was in a. whirl. "Do you have any special worries?" she demanded. "Hurry, don't keep me waiting."

I ventured timidly, "About my son, I worry about my son, but you already told me that my children would all do well."

"Ah, yes," the gypsy went on, "he is very clever, your son. He is gifted. Very intelligent but not so easy for you to understand." She now became friendly, gentle, understanding. "He has the gift, your son. He will work things out. He will succeed. He will be successful at his business by the time he is forty. You don't need to worry about him. You worry too much. Leave him alone more. Don't force him to your ways. All your children will do well and be happy. Your youngest daughter will be a teacher or a nurse." Then she returned to the subject of my son. "He is very like you," she said, "but he has the gift. You should have had the gift but you don't."

She then said, "Let me read your palm."  Noticing my hesitation, she added, "It won't cost you anything." I agreed and she told me to come to the chair closer to her. She took my left hand in hers. Hers were big and blunt-ended, but not rough and dirty as I'd expected them to be. I'd noticed before that her clothes were clean and she didn't smell as I'd half expected her to do, thinking of the sort of life gypsies are supposed to lead. She traced the longest line in my hand. "That is your happiness line," she said and would have gone on, but I interrupted her. "Oh, I thought that one was the lifeline."

"No," she said, and pointed to a. smaller, less distinguishable-looking line, saying, "that is your life line." I expected her to go on then and tell me the usual gypsy line about having a long and happy life, but she abruptly changed the subject.

"I'll give you three wishes," she said. This is silly, I thought. I'm not Cinderella and you certainly aren't my fairy godmother. "But first," she added, "go and get the four biggest denomination bank notes that you have in the house. Not one pound notes," she added.

I felt very uneasy by this new departure. "I haven't any more money in the house," I lied.

"Oh, yes you have," she said menacingly, leaning towards me with a nasty glint in her eye. "You have it hidden away in the cupboard in your bedroom. Go and get it," she shouted.

"But I've only got three £5 notes left,"  I protested, "as I've given you my other money for the lace.""Well, go and get the five pound notes," she said disgustedly and I feebly went off to do as I was told. But suddenly I was really frightened. This woman had such control over me.  I think I would have found it difficult to fight her off if it came to that. She was canny and very alert. I thought she might steal all that she could get into her bag, and call her friends to fill their bags too. I braced myself to reenter the kitchen.    She was standing by the window  -  looking across into Gladys' house. She didn't  say anything and waddled slowly back to the kitchen table and sat down  heavily and wearily. I was once again ready to be putty in her hands. She motioned me back into the chair where I had been sitting previously.

"Now squeeze the notes in your left hand," she said, and  I did it. "Repeat after me. I make these wishes on our Lord. Jesus Christ our Saviour (You never wish on money,)" she added as an extra explanation,"(only on God and. yourself) according to this Roman Catholic Romany gypsy."  I duly repeated every phrase feeling very silly. It went on and on and I can't remember the rest. Then I was to shut my eyes and make my wishes. I couldn't think very clearly but decided that happiness for my three children would count and be easy and couldn't harm anyone. When I had finished and had opened my eyes she said, "You didn't tell me your wishes did you?"

"No," I agreed.

"You've never seen me before, have you?"

"No."
 

"You wished for happiness, didn't you"

"Yes."

"You wished it for your children, didn't you?"

"Yes ."

She seemed very pleased with her success.  I was impressed anyway, which made it shake me even more when her next statement was "Which do you value more, the happiness of your children or the notes in your hand?"

Although I will admit that I think I really was under her spell I was also determined not to be taken in again. I said to her, "That's not fair. You told me that it wouldn't cost me any money when you offered to tell my fortune. I need that money to buy food. It's all the money I have," I said bravely.

"Then," she spit out disgustedly, "put it back in your purse." But somehow I got the impression that she hadn't really expected me to let her have the extra five pound notes. She just felt obliged to try it on. She sort of half-grinned. "Have you got a cigarette?" she asked. I produced the half pack that I'd brought out earlier. "I'll give these to you," I said. "My husband doesn't like me to smoke anyway." I went to get her a light.  When she had it lit, she took a deep satisfying drag on the cigarette, and visibly relaxed.

"Ask me something more," she said coercingly. Perhaps she wanted to show that she didn't harbour any hard feelings over my refusal to pay for my wishes. But my mind was a blank. What did I want to know? What would I believe anyway?

"Will we always live in this house?" I asked.

"I'm glad you finally asked me that," she said giving a wide grin and showing her huge crooked teeth. "I've been waiting for you to ask that. I know it's on your mind a lot. You don't like this house. You don't like living in this house. You won't always live here. You will move in (a pause while she con­sidered) eighteen months."

Then softly, almost affectionately she added, "You had a good mother. You have a family at home that think of you often and care for you."   I agreed. "There was unhappiness at your wedding," she added which was also somewhat true. We were married in America, so Phil's parents couldn't attend, and that upset them. My family were upset because they knew we planned on living in England. Both sets of parents would have preferred that we had picked someone to marry from our own countries.

"You work hard," she said, and. I almost laughed out loud. I'm not well known for industry. "You like to write with pen and paper. You go to bed late." Now the writing was fairly easy to guess, because I'd been writing letters before Gladys came over for coffee and the air letter forms were still in plain view on top of the refrigerator. But I do like to write and do a lot of it, which certainly couldn't be said of everyone. As far as the staying up late, that wasn't really true. I go to bed fairly early by most people's standards, but often don't go to sleep until well after midnight. Maybe she thought 1 looked tired.

"Would you like some coffee?" I asked her, more relaxed now that the fortune telling aspects seemed to be over.
 
"Could you make it for four?" she said. "I have three other friends out­side who'd all like a cup. I'll go out and find them." As she got to the door she looked back and said, "We'll pay for it and drink it outside."

"That's not necessary," I said, rather embarrassed to think she'd consider me the sort of person who'd offer a drink and. then make people pay for it. I put the kettle on and put some more biscuits in the dish on the table. When she came hack she said she couldn't see her friends.

"Have you some clothes from across the sea that you'll not be wanting, for my children?' she asked.

"Well, I have some clothes you can have, but not children's clothes." I went into my room and got out some dresses and shoes of mine that I didn't wear very often. "You can have these," I said. Then thinking the gypsy wouldn't fit into my dresses and I couldn't see her wearing suede high heels, I added, "Perhaps you can sell them."

"No we don't do that," she said firmly. "We look after our own," and she stuffed the clothes into her bag.

"I'll make you a cup of coffee now," I offered, almost reluctant to let her go. Almost I had forgotten that ten minutes earlier I had been considering calling the police to get her out of my house.

"No," she said and started to the door. Then she turned back. "You gave me that money freely, didn't you?"

"Yes, of course," I replied.

"God bless you and. give you good luck. When I go out you won't have any worries anymore."

"Goodbye and thank you." I said.

Gladys rang shortly after she had left. "Are you all right?" she asked.

"Yes,' I said, she's gone."

"I didn't want to go into the kitchen or she'd see me through the window and know where I lived. I thought if I rang you up and you wanted. to get rid of her you could always pretend it was something about the children being hurt at school and you had to rush down there. They're so hard to get rid of sometimes."

"Yes," I agreed. Then I added, ‘I wasn't really scared, but I'm glad now that she's gone." Yet even though I had said I hadn't been scared, as I hung up I realized that my legs were trembling, my hands were shaking, my heart was beating very rapidly. I sat down shakily and thought about all the things the gypsy had told me. My husband would say I had been a fool, I thought. Nothing the gypsy had said was specific enough to make me say that I really believed that she had any special ability to know about me. What she'd said could have applied to many people in our area, and no doubt she was clever at reading my reactions, and added in things accordingly. But somehow I didn't mind that I'd been a fool. I had liked her and I was glad that she had come.

P.S.  I sat down at the typewriter and wrote out every word that she said as soon as she left. That was in 1979.  From time to time, I take out what I wrote to see how much of what she said has come true, or whether she was just a fraud.  Gladys is still alive and living at home, now aged 86. She had no more marriages, and I had no more children.  My children are all well and seem happy enough. My youngest daughter is a teacher, and my son, in the computing business. We did get a new car, and I haven't had a car accident since, although I had had 2 before. And we did move house, the decision being made almost exactly 18 months later  as she had predicted. I hadn't wanted to move, so it hadn't been planned that way by me.  I did get some unearned money just after Christmas, but it was only £20 - not quite what I had hoped for.