Beyond Black

five

It was in the week after Diana’s death that Colette felt she got to know Alison properly. It seems another era now, another world: before the millennium, before the Queen’s Jubilee, before the Twin Towers burned.

Colette had moved into Al’s flat in Wexham, which Alison had described to her as “the nice part of Slough,” though, she added, “most people don’t think Slough has a nice part.”

On the day she moved in, she took a taxi from the station. The driver was young, dark, smiling, and spry. He tried to catch her eye through the rearview mirror, from which dangled a string of prayer beads. Her eyes darted away. She was not prejudiced, but. Inside the cab was an eye-watering reek of air freshener.

They drove out of town, always uphill. He seemed to know where he was going. Once Slough was left behind, it seemed to her they were travelling to nowhere. The houses ran out. She saw fields, put to no particular use. They were not farms, she supposed. There were not, for instance, crops in the fields. Here and there, a pony grazed. There were structures for the pony to jump over; there were hedgerows. She saw the sprawl of buildings from a hospital, Wexham Park. Some squat quaint cottages fronted the road. For a moment, she worried; did Al live in the country? She had not said anything about the country. But before she could really get her worrying under way, the driver swerved into the gravel drive of a small neat seventies-built apartment block, set well back from the road. Its shrubberies were clipped and tame; it looked reassuringly suburban. She stepped out. The driver opened the boot and lugged out her two suitcases. She gazed up at the front of the building. Did Al live here, looking out over the road? Or would she face the back? For a moment she struck herself as a figure of pathos. She was a brave young woman on the threshold of a new life. Why is that sad? she wondered. Her eyes fell on the suitcases. That is why; because I can carry all I own. Or the taxi driver can.

She paid him. She asked for a receipt. Her mind was already moving ahead, to Al’s accounts, her business expenses. The first thing I shall do, she thought, is bump up her prices. Why should people expect a conversation with the dead for the price of a bottle of wine and a family-size pizza?

The driver ripped a blank off the top of his pad, and offered it to her, bowing. “Could you fill it in?” she said. “Signed and dated.”

“Of what amount shall I put?”

“Just the figure on the meter.”

“Home sweet home?”

“I’m visiting a friend.”

He handed back the slip of paper, with an extra blank receipt beneath. Cabman’s flirtation; she handed back the blank.

“These flats, two-bedroom?”

“I think so.”

“En suite? How much you’ve paid for yours?”

Is this what passes for multicultural exchange? she wondered. Not that she was prejudiced. At least it’s to the point. “I told you, I don’t live here.”

He shrugged, smiled. “You have a business card?”

“No.” Has Alison got one? Do psychics have cards? She thought, it will be uphill work, dragging her into the business world.

“I can drive you at any time,” the man said. “Just call this number.”

He passed over his own card. She squinted at it. God, she thought, I’ll need glasses soon. Several numbers were crossed out in blue ink and a mobile number written in. “Cell phone,” he said. “You can just try me day or night.”

He left her at the door, drove away. She glanced up again. I hope there’s room for me, she thought. I shall have to be very neat. But then, I am. Was Alison looking down, watching her arrive? No, she wouldn’t need to look out of the window. If someone arrived she would just know.

Al’s flat was at the back, it turned out. She was ready with the door open. “I thought you’d be waiting,” Colette said.

Alison blushed faintly. “I have very sharp earsight. I mean, hearing—well, the whole package.” Yet there was nothing sharp about her. Soft and smiling, she seemed to have no edges. She reached out for Colette and pulled her resistant frame against her own. “I hope you’ll be happy. Do you think you can be happy? Come in. It’s bigger than you’d think.”

She glanced around the interior. Everything low, squarish, beige. Everything light, safe. “All the kit’s in the hall cupboard,” Al said. “The crystals and whatnots.”

“Is it okay to keep it in there?”

“It’s better in the dark. Tea, coffee?”

Colette asked for herbal tea. No more meat, she thought, or cakes. She wanted to be pure.

While she was unpacking, Al brought in a green soupy beverage in a white china mug. “I didn’t know how you liked it,” she said, “so I left the bag in.” She took the cup carefully, her fingertips touching Al’s. Al smiled. She clicked the door shut, left her to herself.

The bed was made up, a double bed. Big bouncy duvet in a plain cream cover. She turned the duvet back. The sheet was crisply ironed. High standards: good. She’d seen enough squalor. She picked up her wash bag. Found herself in Al’s bathroom—Al hovering and saying, rather guilty, just push up my things and put yours down—shall I leave you to do that? Another tea?

She stared around. Floris, indeed. Is she rich or just in need of a great deal of comfort? It’s better than we had, she thinks, me and Gavin. She thought of their second-floor conversion, with the clanking and erratic central heating, the sudden icy draughts.

“Come through. Make yourself at home.” There were two sofas, square and tweedy; Al flopped onto one, a stack of glossies beside her, and indicated that Colette should join her. “I thought you might like to look at my advert.” She picked up one of the magazines. “Flick through from the back and you’ll see me.”

She turned back, past the horoscopes. For once she didn’t pause to glance at her own. Why keep a dog and bark yourself? Alison’s photograph was a beaming smudge on the page.

Alison, psychic since birth. Private consultations. Professional and caring. Relationships, business, health. Spiritual guidance.

“Are people willing to travel to Slough?”

“Once you explain to them it’s the nice part. I do telephone consultations, if need be, though given a choice I like to look the sitter in the eye.”

“Videophones,” Colette said. “Can’t be long now. It will make all the difference.”

“I can travel to them, if the price is right. I will if I think it’s going to be a long-term arrangement. I rely on my regulars, it’s where most of my income is. Do you think it’s all right, the ad?”

“No. It should be in colour. And bigger. We have to invest.” Above it was a listing for cosmetic surgery, displaying BEFORE and AFTER pictures. There was a woman with a sagging jawline who looked, in the second picture, as if she’d been slapped under the chin by a giant. A woman with skin flaps for breasts had sprouted two vast globules; their nipples stood out like the whistles on a life jacket. Below the pictures—

Alison bounced across the sofa towards her, causing the frame to creak. “Surprisingly sleazy, these journals,” Al said. She laid her long painted nail on an advert for Sex Advice, with a number to call after each item. “Lesbian anal fun. Did you know lesbians had anal fun?”

“No,” Colette said, in a voice as distant as she could manage. Al’s scent washed over her in a great wave of sweetness. “I don’t know, I mean, I’ve never thought. I don’t know anything about it.”

“Neither do I,” Al said. Colette thought, Spicy lesbo chicks. Al patted her shoulder; she froze. “That was not fun,” Al said. “That was reassurance.” She dropped her head and her hair slid forward, hiding her smile. “I just thought we’d get the topic out of the way. So we both know where we stand.”

The room had magnolia walls, corded beige carpet, a coffee table that was simply a low featureless expanse of pale wood. But Al kept her tarot cards in a sea-grass basket, wrapped in a yard of scarlet silk, and when she unwrapped and spilled its length onto the table, it looked as if some bloody incident had occurred.

August. She woke: Al stood in the door of her room. The landing light was on. Colette sat up. “What time is it? Al? What’s the matter, has something happened?”

The light shone through Al’s lawn nightdress, illuminating her huge thighs. “We must get ready,” she said: as if they were catching an early flight. She approached and stood by the bed.

Colette reached up and took her sleeve. It was a pinch of nothingness between her fingers.

“It’s Diana,” Al said. “Dead.”

Always, Colette would say later, she would remember the shiver that ran through her: like a cold electric current, like an eel.

Al gave a snort of jeering laughter. “Or as we say, passed.”

“Suicide?”

“Or accident. She won’t tell me. Teasing to the last,” Al said. “Though probably not quite the last. From our point of view.”

Colette jumped out of bed. She pulled her T-shirt down over her thighs. Then she stood and stared at Alison; she didn’t know what else to do. Al turned and went downstairs, pausing to turn up the central heating. Colette ran after her.

“I’m sure it will be clearer,” Al said, “when it actually happens.”

“What do you mean? You mean it hasn’t happened yet?” Colette ran a hand through her hair, and it stood up, a pale fuzzy halo. “Al, we must do something!”

“Like?”

“Warn somebody! Call the police! Telephone the queen?”

Al raised a hand. “Quiet, please. She’s getting in the car. She’s putting her seat belt—no, no, she isn’t. They’re larking about. Not a care in the world. Why are they going that way? Dear, dear, they’re all over the road!”

Alison tumbled to the sofa, moaning and holding her chest.

“No use waiting around,” she said, breaking off, and speaking in a surprisingly normal voice. “We won’t hear from her again for a while.”

“What can I do?” Colette said.

“You can make me some hot milk, and give me two paracetamol.”

Colette went into the kitchen. The fridge breathed out at her a wet cold breath. She spilled the milk as she poured it in the pan, and the gas ring’s flame sputtered and licked. She carried it through to Al. “Oh, the pills, I forgot the pills!”

“Never mind,” Al said.

“No, wait, sit still, I’ll get them.”

Al looked at her, faintly reproachful. “We’re now waiting for the emergency services. We’re slightly beyond the paracetomol stage.”

Things happen fast, in the lawless country between life and death. Colette wandered up the stairs. She felt de trop. Her feet were everywhere: weaving, bony, aimless. What shall I do? Back in her bedroom, she tugged the cover back over her bed, for tidiness. She pulled a sweatshirt on; she sat down on the bed and pinched her thin white legs, looking for cellulite. There was a muffled cry from below, but she didn’t think she ought to interfere. I suppose this is where people smoke a cigarette, she thought; but she’d been trying to give up. By and by she stabbed her new PC into life. She had it in mind to prepare a series of invoices that would take advantage of the event. Whatever it was.

Only later, when she thought it over, did she realize that she had never doubted Alison’s word. It was true that from Al the news arrived piecemeal, but it was more exciting that way. In time the radio, placed beside her, brought the confirming details. The event, in the real world, had actually taken place; she stopped typing and sat listening: lights, a tunnel, impact, lights, a tunnel, black, and then something beyond it—a hiatus, and one final, blinding light. By dawn, her mood was one of shock and unholy exhilaration, combined with a bubbling self-righteousness. What did she expect, a girl like Diana? There was something so right about it, so meant. It had turned out so beautifully badly.

She dived downstairs to check on Alison, who was now rocking herself and groaning. She asked if she wanted the radio, but Al shook her head without speaking. She ran back to catch the latest details. The computer was humming and whirring, making from time to time its little sighs, as if deep within its operating system the princess was gurgling out her story. Colette laid her palm on it, anxious; she was afraid it was overheating. I’ll do a shut-down, she thought. When she went downstairs Al seemed entranced, her eyes on some unfolding scene Colette could only imagine. Her milk was untouched, standing beside her with a skin on it. It was a mild night, but her bare feet were blue.

“Why don’t you go back to bed, Al? It’s Sunday. Nobody’s going to call yet.”

“Where’s Morris? Still out from last night? Thank God for that.”

You can just imagine the sort of inappropriate joke Morris would be making, at this solemn time. Colette sniggered to herself. She got Alison wrapped up in her dressing gown, and draped over her bulk the raspberry mohair throw. She made a hot-water bottle; she piled a duvet on top of her, but she couldn’t stop Al shivering. Over the next hour her face drained of colour. Her eyes seemed to shrink back in her skull. She pitched and tossed and threatened to roll off the sofa. She seemed to be talking, under her breath, to people Colette couldn’t see.

Colette’s exhilaration turned to fright. She had only known Al a matter of weeks, and now this crisis was thrust upon them. Colette imagined herself trying to heave Al up from the floor, hands under her armpits. It wouldn’t work. She’d have to call for an ambulance. What if she had to resuscitate her? Would they get there in time? “You’d be better off in bed,” she pleaded.

From cold, Al passed into a fever. She pushed off the duvet. The hot-water bottle fell to the carpet with a fat plop. Inside her nightgown, Al shook like a blancmange.

By eight o’clock the phone was ringing. It was the first of Al’s regulars, wanting messages. Eyes still half closed, Al levered herself up off the sofa and took the receiver from Colette’s hand. Colette hissed at her “special rate, special rate.”

No, Al said, no direct communication yet from the princess, not since the event—but I would expect her to make every effort to come through, once she gathers her wits. If you want an appointment next week I can try to squeeze you in. Fine. Will do. She put the phone down, and at once it rang again. “Mandy?” She mouthed at Colette, Mandy Coughlan from Hove. You know: Natasha. Yes, she said, and oh, terrible. Mandy spoke.

Al said, “Well, I think in transition, don’t you? I shouldn’t think at this stage she does, no. Probably not.”

Al paused: Mandy talked. Al talked again, her hand absently smoothing her creased nightdress.

“You know how it is when they go over suddenly, they don’t know what’s happening till somebody puts them right—yes, don’t they, hanging around for days. You think Kensington Palace?” She giggled. “Harvey Nichols, more likely … . No. Okay, so if you hear anything about the funeral, whatever … . A bit sick, you know. Not actually vomiting. Hot and cold. Quite a shock for Colette, I can tell you … . She’s my, you know, my whatsit, my new personal assistant … . Yes, it is good timing, We’ll all have quite a week of it, won’t we? Need all the help I can get. Okay, Mand. Take care. Kiss-kiss. Bye for now.”

She put the phone down. She was sweating. “Oh, sorry, Colette, I said assistant, I should have said partner. I didn’t mean to be—you know—patronizing to you. Mandy reckons she’ll be returning to Kensington Palace, wandering around, you know, confused.” She tried to laugh, but it emerged as a little snarl. She put her fingers to her forehead, and they came away dripping.

Colette whispered, “Al, you smell terrible.”

“I know,” she whispered back. “I’ll get in the bath.”

As Al ran the taps, she heard a whistle through the intercom. It was shrill, like a bird call, like a code. Next thing, Morris crashed in. Usually on a Sunday morning he was tetchy from a hangover, but the news seemed to have bucked him up. He banged on the door, shouting tasteless jokes. “What’s the difference between Princess Di and a roll of carpet? Go on, go on, bet you don’t know, do you? What’s the difference between—”

She slammed the bolt on. She lowered herself into the bath: lavender oil. She wiped away the stench of death, exfoliating herself for good measure. Morris slipped under the door. He stood leering at her. His yellow face mingled with the steam. When she came out of the bathroom she was scored all over with faint pink lines, but the cuts on her thighs flared darkest, as if she had been whipped with wire.

In the following week Colette learned things about sudden death that she’d never suspected. Al said, what you should understand is this: when people go over, they don’t always know they’ve gone. They have a pain, or the memory of one, and there are people in white, and strange faces that loom up and there’s a noise in the background, metal things banging together—as if there were a train wreck going on, but in another country.

Colette said, “And what are they? These noises.”

“Mrs. Etchells says it’s the gates of hell clattering.”

“And do you believe that?”

“There ought to be hell. But I don’t know.”

There are the lights, she said, the noises, the waiting, the loneliness. Everything slips out of focus. They suppose they’re in a queue for attention but nobody attends. Sometimes they think they’re in a room, sometimes they sense air and space and they think they’ve been abandoned in a car park. Sometimes they think they’re in a corridor, lying on a trolley, and nobody comes. They start to cry, but still nobody comes. You see, she said, they’ve actually gone over, but they think it’s just the National Health.

Sometimes, when famous people pass, their fans-in-spirit are waiting for them—their fans and, in the case of someone like Diana, their ancestors too—and often those ancestors have something to say, about the way estates have been subdivided, money frittered, their portraits sold at auction. Also, when famous people pass they attract spirit imposters, just as on this side you have look-alikes and body doubles. This fact, unless kept constantly in mind by a medium, can ruin an evening on the platform, as the tribute bands and the impersonators break through, claiming to be Elvis, Lennon, Glenn Miller. Occasionally some oddball breaks through saying he’s Jesus. But I don’t know, Al said, there’ll be something in his manner—you just know he’s not from ancient Palestine. In Mrs. Etchell’s day, she explained, people still thought they were Napoleon. They were better educated then, she said, they knew dates and battles. Surprisingly, Cleopatra is still popular. “And I don’t like doing Cleopatra, because—”

“Because you don’t do ethnics.”

Al had explained it to her, in delicate language. She didn’t work the inner city or places like downtown Slough. “I’m not a racist, please don’t think that, but it just gets too convoluted.” It wasn’t just the language barrier, she explained, but these people, those races who think they have more than one life. Which means, of course, more than one family. Often several families, and I don’t know, it just gets—She closed her eyes tight, and flapped her fingers at her head, as if trying to beat off mosquitoes. She shivered, at the thought of some bangled wrinkly from the Ganges popping up: and she, flailing in time and space, not able to skewer her to the right millennium.

When Colette looked back, from the end of August 1997 to the early summer, when they had met … .“It’s what you call a steep learning curve,” she said. That the dead can be lonely, that the dead can be confused; all these things were a surprise to Colette, who had only ever spoken to one dead person: who earlier in her life had never given them much thought, except insofar as she had hoped—in some limp sort of way—that the dead were best off where they were. She now understood that Al hadn’t been quite straight with her in those first few weeks. There wasn’t a necessary tie-up between what she said on the platform and the true state of affairs. Uncomfortable truths were smoothed over before Al let them out to the public; when she conveyed soothing messages, Colette saw, they came not from the medium but from the saleswoman, from the part of her that saw the value in pleasing people. She had to admire it, grudgingly; it was a knack she had never acquired.

Until the princess died, Colette had not seen the seamy side of the work. Take Morris out of the equation, and it was much like any other business. Al needed a more modern communications system, a better through-put and process-flow. She needed a spam filter for her brain, to screen out unwanted messages from the dead; and if Colette could not provide this, she could at least control how Al managed those messages. She tried to view Al as a project and herself as project manager. It was lucky she’d got such sound experience as a conference organizer, because of course Al was something like a conference in herself.

When she moved in with Al, Colette had made a pretty smart exit from her early life—a clean break, she told herself. Nevertheless, she expected old workmates to track her down. She practiced in her mind what she’d tell them. I find my new role diverse, rewarding, and challenging, she would say. Above all, I like the independence. The personal relationships are a bonus; I’d describe my boss as caring and professional. Do I miss going to the office every day? You must appreciate I never exactly did that; travel was always part of the brief. Think what I haven’t got: no slander at the water cooler, no interdepartmental tensions, no sexual harassment, no competitive dressing. I have to be smart, of course, because I’m customer-facing, but it’s a real perk to be able to express yourself through your own sense of style. And that encapsulates, more or less, what I feel about my new situation; I’ve a role that I can sculpt to suit my talents, and no two days are the same.

All this rehearsal was wasted, except upon herself. No one, in fact, did track her down, except Gavin, who called one night wanting to boast about his annual bonus. It was as if she’d ceased to exist.

But after that death night at the end of August, she couldn’t fool herself that her position with Al was just a logical part of her career development. And exactly what was her position with Al? Next day, she, Colette, tried to sit her down for a talk, and said, Al, I need you to be straight with me.

Al said, “It’s okay, Col, I’ve been thinking about it. You’re a godsend to me, and I don’t know what I ever did without you. I never thought I’d get someone to agree to live in, and you can see that at a time of crisis, twenty-four-hour care is what I need.” Only a half hour before Al had been bringing up a clear ropey liquid; once again, rank sweat filmed her face. “I think we should agree on new terms. I think you should have a profit share.”

Colette flushed pink up to the roots of her hair. “I didn’t mean money,” she said. “I didn’t mean, be straight with me in that way. I—thank you Al, I mean it’s good to be needed. I know you’re not financially dishonest. I wasn’t saying that. I only mean I think you’re not giving me the full picture about your life. Oh, I know about Morris. Now I know, but when I took on the job you didn’t tell me I’d be working with some foul-mouthed dwarf spook; you let me find that out. I feel as if I don’t want any more nasty shocks. You do see that, surely? I know you mean well. You’re sparing my feelings. Like you do with the trade. But you must realize, I’m not the trade, I’m your friend. I’m your partner.”

Alison said, “What you’re asking me is, how do you do it?”

“Yes, that’s exactly right. That’s what I’m asking you.”

She made Al some ginger tea; and Al talked then about the perfidy of the dead, their partial, penetrative nature, their way of dematerializing and leaving bits of themselves behind, or entangling themselves with your inner organs. She talked about her sharp earsight and voices she heard in the wall. About the deads’ propensity to fib and confabulate. Their selfish, trivial outlook. Their general cluelessness.

Colette was not satisfied. She rubbed her eyes; she rubbed her forehead. She stopped and glared, when she saw Alison smiling at her sympathetically. “Why? Why are you smiling?”

“My friend Cara would say, you’re opening your third eye.”

Colette pointed to the space between her brows. “There is no eye. It’s bone.”

“Brain behind it, I hope.”

Colette said angrily, “It’s not that I don’t believe in you. Well I do. I have to believe in what you do, because I see you doing it, I see and hear you, but how can I believe it, when it’s against the laws of nature?”

“Oh, those,” Al said. “Are you sure we have them anymore? I think it’s a bit of a free-for-all these days.”

They had arranged, on the Saturday of the princess’s funeral, to do an evening event in the Midlands, a major fayre in an area where psychic fayres were just establishing themselves. Mandy Coughlan said on the phone to Al, “It would be a shame to cancel, sweetie. You can take a sick bag in the car if you’re still feeling queasy. Because you know if you pull out they’ll charge you full price for the stall, and some amateur from up the M6 will be straight in there, quicksticks. So if you’re feeling up to it? Good girl. Do you think Mrs. Etchells is going?”

“Oh yes. She loved Diana. She’ll be expecting a contact.”

“Joys of motherhood,” Mandy said. “Of course. Perhaps Di will come through and let her know if she was up the duff. But how will Mrs. Etchells get to Nottingham? Will there be trains, or will they be cancelled out of respect? You’re not far away, maybe you could give her a lift.”

Al dropped her voice. “I’m not being professionally divisive, Mandy, but there are certain issues around Mrs. Etchells—undercutting on tarot readings, slashing prices without prior consultation, trying to lure other people’s clients—Colette heard her doing it.”

“Oh yes. This person Colette. Whoever is she, Al? Where did you find her? Is she psychic?”

“God, no. She’s a client. And before that she was a client of yours.”

“Really? When did we meet?”

“Last year sometime. She came down to Hove with some cuff links. She was trying to find out who her father was.”

“And who was he?”

“Her uncle.”

“Oh, one of those. I can’t put a face to her.” Mandy sounded impatient. “So is she mad with me, or something?”

“No. I don’t think so. Though she is quite sceptical. In patches.”

Al said her polite goodbyes. She put the phone down and stood looking at it. Did I do the right thing, when I took on Colette? Mandy didn’t seem keen. Have I been impulsive, and is it an impulse I will regret? She almost called Mandy back, to seek further advice. Mandy knows what’s what, she’s been through the mill: thrown out a lover at midnight and his whole troop after him, some dead druid who’d moved in after the bloke, and a whole bunch of Celtic spirits more used to life in a cave than life in Hove. Out they go with their bloody cauldrons and their spears, Lug and Trog and Glug; and out goes Psychic Simon with his rotting Y-fronts dropped out of a first-floor window, his Morfesa the Great Teacher statue chucked in the gutter with its wand snapped off, and his last quarter’s invoice file tossed like a Frisbee in the direction of the sea: and several unbanked cheques rendered illegible and useless, speared by Mandy’s stiletto heel.

That was how it usually went, when you were unguarded enough to get into a relationship with a colleague. It wasn’t a question of personal compatibility between the two of you; it was a question of the baggage you trailed, your entourage, whether they’d fight and lay waste to each other, thrashing with their vestigial limbs and snapping with their stumps of teeth. Al’s hand moved to the phone and away again; she didn’t want Colette to overhear, so she talked to Mandy in her mind.

I know it’s bad when you go out with someone in our line, but some people say it’s worse to get into a thing with a punter—

A thing?

Not a thing, not a sex thing. But a relationship, you can’t deny that. If Colette’s going to live with you, it’s a relationship. God knows you need somebody to talk to, but—

But how can you talk to the trade?

Yes, that’s the trouble, isn’t it? How can they understand what you go through? How can they understand anything? You try to explain, but the more you try the less you succeed.

They haven’t got the language, have they? Don’t tell me, sweetheart. They haven’t got the range.

You say something perfectly obvious and they look at you as if you’re mad. You tell them again, but by then it sounds mad to you. You lose your confidence, if you have to keep going over and over it.

And yet you’re paying the rent, mortgage, whatever. It’s fine as long as everything’s humming along sweetly, but the first cross word you have, they start casting it up, throwing it in your face—Oh, you’re taking advantage of me because you’ve got all these people I can’t see, how do you know this stuff about me, you’re opening my mail—I mean, why should you need to open their bloody mail? As if you can’t see straight through to what they are. I tell you, Al, I went out with a punter once. I let him move in and it was murder. I saw within the week he was just trying to use me. Fill in my pools coupon. Pick me something at Plumpton.

Yes, I’ve explained it to Col, I told her straight off, I’m no good for lottery numbers.

And what did she say?

I think she could understand it. I mean, she’s a numerate woman. I think she understands the limitations.

Oh, she says that now. But honestly, when you let them move in, they’re like leeches, they’re like—whatever, whatever it is, that’s at you twenty-four hours a day. Actually my mum said as much. She warned me, well, she tried to warn me, but you don’t take any notice, do you? Did you know I was born the night that Kennedy was shot? Well, that dates me! (Mandy, in Al’s mind, laughed shakily.) No point trying to keep secrets from you, Al! The point is, my mum—you know she was like me, Natasha, Psychic to the Stars, and my grandma was Natasha, Psychic to the Tsars—this man she was with then, when I was born, he said, didn’t you know anything about it, doll? Couldn’t you of—oh, he was ignorant in his speech—couldn’t you of prevented it? My mum said, what do you want me to do, ring up the White House, with my feet up in stirrups and this withered old nun shouting in my ear, Push, Mother, push?

Nun? Alison was surprised. Are you a Catholic, Mandy?

No, Russian Orthodox. But you know what I mean, don’t you? About a relationship with the laity. They expect too much.

I know they do. But Mandy, I need someone, someone with me. A friend.

Of course you do. Mandy’s voice softened. A friend. A live-in friend. I’m not judgemental, God knows. Takes all sorts. Live and let live. Who am I to moralize? Al, you can tell me. We go back, you and me. You want a little love in your life, yes you do, you do.

Mandy, do you know the pleasures of lesbian anal sex? No. Nor me. Nor any other pleasures. With Morris around I really need some sort of fanny guard. You know what they do, don’t you—the guides—while you’re asleep? Creepy-creepy. Creak at the door, then a hand on the duvet, a hairy paw tugging the sheet. I know you thought Lug and Glug tried it on, though you say you had been taking Nytol so were a bit confused at being woken and you suspect it may well have been Simon, judging by the smell. It’s difficult to say, isn’t it? What kind of violation, spirit or not spirit. Especially if your boyfriend has a small one. I am fairly confident that Morris, when it comes down to it, he can’t—not with me, anyway. But what gets to me is all this back-alley masculinity, all this beer and belching and scratching your belly, billiards and darts and minor acts of criminal damage, I get tired of being exposed to it all the time, and it was fine for you, I know you kicked out the druid and Lug and Glug, but they were Psychic Simon’s, and Morris is mine. And somehow I suppose, what it is, with Colette as my partner—with Colette as my business partner—I was hoping—oh, let me say it—I was aspiring—I want a way out of Aldershot, out of my childhood, away from my mother, some way to upscale, to move into the affluent world of the Berkshire or Surrey commuter, the world of the businessman, the entrepreneur: to imagine how the rich and clever die. To imagine how it is, if you’re senior in IT and your system crashes: or the finance director, when your last shekel is spent: or in charge of Human Resources, when you lose your claim to have any.

When she was packing for their trip to Nottingham, Colette came in. Al was wearing just a T-shirt, bending over the case. For the first time, Colette saw the backs of her thighs. “Christ,” she said. “Did you do that?”

“Me?”

“Like Di? Did you cut yourself?”

Alison turned back to her packing. She was perplexed. It had never occurred to her that she might have inflicted the damage herself. Perhaps I did, she thought, and I’ve just forgotten; there is so much I’ve forgotten, so much that has slipped away from me. It was a long time since she’d given much thought to the scars. They flared, in a hot bath, and the skin around them itched in hot weather. She avoided seeing them, which was not difficult if she avoided mirrors. But now, she thought, Colette will always be noticing them. I had better have a story because she will want answers.

She fingered her damaged flesh; the skin felt dead and distant. She remembered Morris saying, we showed you what a blade could do! For the first time she thought, oh, I see now, that was what they taught me; that was the lesson I had.