A natural

This is Green Eyes on the beach in the Summer. I think it is in Essex. Judging by the huge distance the tide has gone out, I reckon it is the mouth of the Estuary.

I have always wanted to do some Mud Larking on the shores of the Thames at low tide. The things that have dropped out of peoples' pockets as they boarded water-taxis over the last few hundred years is amazing. I regret not having bought a 12 inch long, 16th century dagger which was dredged from Thames mud a few years ago, but I resisted the temptation to revert to boyhood avarice. What would I do with it? Just stare at it, that's all.

I once had an anorexic girlfriend whose widowed mother was a soothsayer. Well, she described herself as a Spiritualist, but she went in for soothsaying as far as I understand it.

My girlfriend took great delight in feeding me lavish meals, but I never saw her eat anything larger than a biscuit. She had long, lustrous black hair and a deep suntan - on one side only. She would sunbathe every day by lying on her back, never turning over. This - added to her painfully thin beauty - gave the striking impression that she was two-dimensional, to be viewed from the front only.

The reason I have remembered all this now is because of psychometry. I could use the dagger for a spot of psychometry.

I once visited her mother and she demonstrated the art of psychometry to me by asking me to take off my watch and hand it to her. She held it to her forehead and closed her eyes, then began to talk slowly and hesitantly, searching for all the hidden secrets and emotions which were trapped within the workings of the watch, accumulated during the years it was worn by both me and my father.

She didn't find much. What she said could have applied to any watch or any life over 20 years old, and soon she had exhausted the reservoir of dreams, ambitions and disappointment contained within it.

Then, she insisted, it was my turn. She handed me a man's watch and instructed me in the basics of psychometry. I said that I did not need to hold it to my head or close my eyes, instead I just held it in my hand and looked into hers as I spoke. I knew exactly what to say.

"I see a very unsympathetic man".  That was a good start. She gave me the encouragement to carry on describing the doctor, seated at his large desk, informing her about the imminent death of the watch's former owner - her husband. Her eyes filled with tears.

"You are a natural!", she said.

"No I am not, I promise you."