Beyond Black: A Novel (12 page)

“I never eat when I’m reading. It’s not professional. Oh, well. Do me no harm to be hungry, will it? I’ll hardly waste away.” She patted her tummy, smiled miserably. “Look, about the travelling, I do travel a lot, and I used to drive, but I don’t anymore. I think if I had a friend with me, I could manage, so we could split it, you see.”

“You need a navigator?”

“It’s not so much that.” What Alison needed, she explained—picking again at the sugar straws, opening them and putting them down—was a warm living body beside her, as she drove from town to town, fayre to fayre, and from one Psychic Extravaganza to another. Otherwise, a spirit would come and sit in the passenger seat, and natter on while she tried to negotiate an unfamiliar one-way system. “Do you know Bracknell? Bracknell’s hell. All those roundabouts.”

“What’s to stop the spirits from climbing in the back seat instead? Or have you got a two-door?”

Alison looked at her for a long moment. Colette thought she was actually going to answer the question. “Look, Colette,” she said softly. She had got four straws lined up now, and she moved them about, delicately, with one finger: changing the pattern, shuffling and reshuffling. “Look, it doesn’t matter if you’re a bit sceptical. I understand. I’d be sceptical myself. All you need to realize is that it doesn’t matter what you think, it doesn’t matter what I think—what happens, happens all the same. The only thing is, I don’t do tests, I don’t do tricks for people to try to prove myself, because I don’t need to prove anything. Do you see?”

Colette nodded.

Alison raised a finger to a girl who was serving and pointed to the cafetière. “A refill for you,” she explained. “I can see you’re bitter. Why shouldn’t you be? Life hasn’t treated you well. You’ve worked hard and had no reward. You’ve lost your home. And you’ve lost a lot of your money, haven’t you?”

Colette’s eyes followed the trail of brown sugar curling across the table; like an initial, trying to form itself. “You seem to know a lot about me.”

“I laid out a spread for you. After you’d gone.”

“A spread?”

“The tarot cards.”

“I know. Which spread?”

“Basic Romany.”

“Why that?”

“I was in a hurry.”

“And what did you see?”

“I saw myself.”

Al got up and headed back towards the main hall, handing a ten-pound note to a girl as she passed, pointing to the table she had just left. That’s far too much, Colette thought, two pots of coffee, ten pounds, what is she thinking? She felt a flare of indignation, as if it were her own cash that had been spent. She drank all the coffee, so as not to be wasteful, tipping the pot so its muddy grounds shifted. She went to the LADIES, and as she washed her hands she watched herself in the mirror. Maybe no mind-reading in it, she thought. No psychic tricks needed, or information from spirit guides. She did look like a woman who had lost her money: lost her lottery ticket in life, lost her dad and lost her home.

That summer they laughed a lot. They acted as if they were in love, planning for each other treats and nice things to eat and surprising each other with thoughtful gifts. Alison gave Colette a voucher for a day spa in Windsor; I won’t come, she said cheerfully, I don’t want some foul-breathed anorexic lecturing me about my cellulite, but you enjoy yourself, Colette. Colette dropped into Caleys and bought a warm throw, soft mohair and the colour of crushed raspberries; lovely, Al said that evening, just what I need, something to cover me up.

Colette took over most of the driving, finding that she didn’t mind at all. “Change the car,” she said to Alison, and they went out to a showroom that very afternoon. They picked one because they liked the colour and the up-holstery; she imagined herself, putting two fingers up to Gavin, and when the salesman tried to talk car sense they just giggled at each other. “The truth is, they’re all the same these days,” she said loudly. “I don’t know much, but I do know that.”

Al wasn’t interested, she just wanted it done with; but when the salesman tried to trap her into a finance deal, she slapped him down smartly. She agreed on a delivery date, wrote a cheque; Colette was impressed by her style. When they got home she rummaged through Al’s wardrobe and threw out the worst bits of Lurex. She tried to smuggle the “silk” out, in a black bin liner, but Al went after the plastic bag and retrieved it, drawing it out and looping it around her arm. “Nice try,” she said to Colette. “But I’m sticking with it, please.”

Colette’s education in the psychic trade was brisk and no-nonsense. Al’s absurd generosity to the waitress in the coffee shop might represent one side of her nature, but she was businesslike in her own way. She wouldn’t be taken for a ride, she knew how to charge out every minute of her time, though her accounts, kept on paper, were a mess. Having been a credulous person so recently, Colette was now cynical and sneery. She wondered how long it would be before Al initiated her into some fraud. She waited and waited. By mid-August she thought, what fraud could there be? Al doesn’t have secret wires tapping into people’s thoughts. There’s no technology in her act. All she does is stand onstage and make weak jokes. You may say Al’s a fake because she has to be, because nobody can do what she claims to do. But there it is; she doesn’t make claims, she demonstrates. And when you come down to it she can deliver the goods. If there is a fraud, it’s a transparent one; so clear that no one can see it.

Al hadn’t even been registered for VAT when Colette had come on board as her business brain. As for income tax, her allowances were all over the place. Colette went to the tax office in person. The official she saw admitted to a complete ignorance of a medium’s trade; she was poised to take advantage of it. “What about her clothes,” she said, “her stage outfits? Her outfits for meeting her clients. She has to look good, it’s a professional obligation.”

“Not one we recognize, I’m afraid,” the young woman said.

“Well, you should! As you ought to know, being the size you are yourself, decent clothes in large sizes don’t come cheap. She can’t get away with the tat you find on the High Street. It’s got to be specialist shops. Even her bras—well, I don’t need to spell it out.”

“I’m afraid it’s all dual purpose,” the woman said. “Underwear, outer-wear, whatever; it’s not just specific to her trade, is it?”

“What? You mean, she could pop to the postbox in it? Do the dusting? In one of her stage outfits?”

“If she liked. I’m trying to envisage—you didn’t bring pictures, did you?”

“I’ll drop some in.”

“That might be a help. So we could work out what sort of class of item we’re dealing with—you see, if it were, well, a barrister’s wig, say, or protective clothing, say, boots with steel toe caps, for example—”

“So are you telling me they’ve made special rules about it? For mediums?”

“Well, no, not specifically for—what you say your partner does. I’m just going by the nearest cases I can envisage. At this stage.” The woman looked restless. “I suppose you might classify it as show business. Look, I’ll pass it up for consideration. Take it under advisement.”

Colette wished—wished very strongly, most sincerely—that she had Al’s powers, just for sixty seconds. So that a whisper, a hiss, a flash, so that something would overtake her, some knowledge, insight, some piece of special information, so that she could lean across the desk and tell the woman at the tax office something about her private life, something embarrassing: or something that would make the hair stand up on the back of her neck. For the moment, they agreed to differ. Colette undertook to keep a complete record of Al’s expenditure on stage outfits. She lost no time, of course, in computerizing their accounts. But the thought nagged at her that a record kept in figures was not quite enough.

Hence her good idea, about writing a book. How hard could it be? Al made tape recordings for her clients, so wasn’t it logical, in the larger world, to tape-record Al? Then all she would need to do would be transcribe, edit, tighten up here and there, make some chapter headings … . Her mind moved ahead, to costings, to a layout, to a photographer. Fleetingly, she thought of the boy in the bookshop, who’d sold her the tarot pack. If I’d been self-employed then, she thought, I could have set those cards against tax. Those days seemed distant now: leaving the boy’s bed-sit at 5 A.M. in the rain. Her life with Gavin had receded; she remembered things he had, like his calculator, and his diver’s watch, but not necessarily the evil things he had done. She remembered her kitchen—the scales, the knives—but not anything she cooked there. She remembered her bed, and her bed linen; but not sex. I can’t keep on losing it, she thought, losing chunks of my life, years at a time. Or who will I be when I’m old? I should write a book for me too. I need a proof of some sort, a record of what goes down.

The tape recorder worked well on the whole, though sometimes it sounded as if Alison had a bag over her head; Colette’s questions, always, were piercingly clear. But when they played the tapes back, they found that, just as Al had foreseen, other items had intruded. Someone speaking, fast and urgent, in what might be Polish. A twittering, like small birds in a wood: nightingales, Alison said unexpectedly.

Once, a woman’s irate voice cut through Alison’s mutter: “Well, you’re in for it now. You’ve started so you may as well finish. It’s no use asking for your money back, sunshine. The trade doesn’t work that way.”

COLETTE: When you were a child, did you ever suffer a severe blow to the skull?

ALISON: Several … Why, didn’t you?

FOUR

COLETTE: It’s Tuesday and I’m just—it’s ten-thirty in the evening and—Al, can you come a bit closer to the mike? I’m just resuming where we left off last night—now, Alison, we’ve sort of addressed the point about the trivia, haven’t we? Still, you might like to put your answer on the tape.

ALISON: I have already explained to you that the reason we get such trivial information from Spirit is—

COLETTE: All right, there’s no need to sound like a metronome. Monotone. Can’t you sound a bit more natural?

ALISON: If the people who’ve passed—is that okay now?

COLETTE: Go on.

ALISON: If the people who’ve passed were to give you messages about angels and, you know, spiritual matters, you’d think it was a bit vague. We wouldn’t have any way of checking on them. But if they give you messages about your kitchen units, you can say if they’re right or wrong.

COLETTE: So what you’re mainly worried about is convincing people?

ALISON: No.

COLETTE: What then?

ALISON: I don’t feel I have to convince anybody, personally. It’s up to them whether they come to see me. Their choice. There’s no compulsion to believe anything they don’t want … . Oh, Colette, what’s that? Can you hear it?

COLETTE: Just carry on.

ALISON: It’s snarling. Somebody’s let the dogs out?

COLETTE: What?

ALISON: I can’t carry on over this racket.

(
click
)

COLETTE: Okay, trying again. It’s eleven o’clock and we’ve had a cup of tea—

ALISON:—and a chocolate chip cookie—

COLETTE:—and we’re resuming. We were talking about the whole issue of proof, and I want to ask you, Alison, have you ever been scientifically tested?

ALISON: I’ve always kept away from that. You see, if you were in a laboratory wired up, it’s as good as saying, we think you’re some sort of confidence trick. Why should people come through from Spirit for other people who don’t believe in them? You see, most people, once they’ve passed, they’re not really interested in talking to this side. The effort’s too much for them. Even if they wanted to do it, they haven’t got the concentration span. You say they give trivial messages, but that’s because they’re trivial people. You don’t get a personality transplant when you’re dead. You don’t suddenly get a degree in philosophy. They’re not interested in helping me out with proof.

COLETTE: On the platform you always say, you’ve had your gift since you were very small.

ALISON: Yes.

COLETTE: (
whispering
) Al, don’t do that to me. I need a proper answer on the tape. Yes, you say it, or yes, it’s true?

ALISON: I don’t generally lie on the platform. Well, only to spare people.

COLETTE: Spare them what? (
pause
) Al?

ALISON: Can you move on?

COLETTE: Okay, so you’ve had this gift—

ALISON: If you call it that.

COLETTE: You’ve had this ability since you were small. Can you tell us about your childhood?

ALISON: I could. When you were little, did you have a front garden? COLETTE: Yes.

ALISON: What did you have in it?

COLETTE: Hydrangeas, I think.

ALISON: We had a bathtub in ours.

When Alison was young she might as well have been a beast in the jungle as a girl growing up outside Aldershot. She and her mum lived in an old terraced house with a lot of banging doors. It faced a busy road, but there was open land at the back. Downstairs there were two rooms, and a lean-to with a flat roof, which was the kitchen. Upstairs were two bedrooms, and a bathroom, which had a bath tub in it so there was no actual need for the one in the garden. Opposite the bathroom was the steep short staircase that led up to the attic.

Downstairs, the front room was the place where men had a party. They came and went with bags inside which bottles rattled and chinked. Sometimes her mum would say, better watch ourselves tonight, Gloria, they’re bringing spirits in. In the back room, her mum sat smoking and muttering. In the lean-to, she sometimes absently opened cans of carrots or butterbeans, or stood staring at the grill pan while something burned on it. The roof leaked, and black mould drew a drippy wavering line down one corner.

The house was a mess. Bits were continually falling off it. You’d get left with the door handle in your hand, and when somebody put his fist through a window one night it got mended with cardboard and stayed like that. The men were never willing to do hammering or operate a screwdriver. “Never do a hand’s turn, Gloria!” her mother complained.