Beyond Black. Hilary Mantel

letter.’ She thought, M for Man?

      ‘Someone coming into your life. Not yet. An older bloke. Not too keen on you at first, I must say. ’

      ‘But then?’

      ‘All’s well that ends well,’ Natasha said. ‘I suppose.’

      She had walked away, disappointed; when she got back to her car, she had been ticketed. After that she had been for crystal healing, and had some reiki sessions. She arranged to meet Gavin in a new bar called Peppermint Plaza. He arrived before her and when she walked in he was sitting on a pale green leather-look banquette, a bottle of Mexican lager planted in front of him, leafing through Thames Valley Autotrader.

      ‘Renee’s money not come through yet?’ she asked. She slid into the seat opposite. ‘When it does, you could use some of it to buy me out of the flat.’

      ‘If you think I’m giving up the chance of a decent car, then no way,’ said Gavin. ‘If I don’t get the Porsche this is what I’m getting, I’m getting this Lancia.’ He flopped the magazine down on the table. ‘There’s one here.’ He turned the picture round obligingly so it was the right way up for her. ‘Recarro seats. Full spec. Seriously speedy.’

      ‘Put it on the market then. The flat. If you can’t buy me out.’

      ‘You said that. You said it before. I said, yes. I agree. So don’t go on about it. OK?’

      There was a silence. Colette looked around. ‘Quite nice here. Quiet.’

      ‘Bit girly.’

      ‘That’s probably why I like it. Being a girl.’

      Her knees touched his, under the table. She tried to pull her chair away, but it was bolted to the floor. Gavin said, ‘I want fifty per cent of the bills till the flat’s sold.’

      ‘I’ll pay half the monthly service charge.’ Colette pushed his magazine back across the table. ‘I won’t pay half the utilities.’

      ‘What’s that, utilities?’

      ‘Gas and electric. Why should I pay to keep you warm?’

      ‘I’ll tell you what, you stuffed me with a huge sodding phone bill. You can pay that.’

      ‘It’s your phone too.’

      ‘Yeah, but I’m not on it all night, blah-bloody-blah to some bint I’ve sat next to all day and I’ll be seeing again the next morning. And it’s not me phoning premium rate lines to what’s it called, bloody predictionists, bloody psychic lines at a quid a minute.’

      ‘Actually, sex lines are premium rate too.’

      ‘Oh well, you would know about that, wouldn’t you?’ Gavin gathered up his car magazine, as if to shield it from her. ‘You’re not normal.’

      She sighed. She couldn’t summon up the energy to say, ‘I beg your pardon, not normal, what do you mean?’ Any abstraction, indirection and allusion was wasted on Gavin, and in fact even the most straightforward form of communication – other than a poke in the eye – was a challenge to his attention span. There hadn’t, so far as she’d understood, been any dispute between them about what they did in the bedroom – it had seemed fairly straightforward stuff, though she was fairly ignorant and limited, she supposed, and Gavin, certainly, he was fairly ignorant and limited. But after the marriage is over, maybe that’s what men do, they decide it was the sex that was wrong, because it’s something they can communicate over a drink, something they can turn into a story, snigger over; it’s an explanation they can give themselves, for what would otherwise remain the complete mystery of human relationships. There were other mysteries, which loomed large to her and hardly loomed at all for Gavin: what are we here for, what will happen next? It was no use trying to explain to him that without the fortune tellers she had become afraid to act at all; that she liked to know that things were her fate, that she didn’t like life to be arbitrary. It was no use telling him either that she thought she might be psychic herself. The incident of the posthumous phone call, if it had ever sunk into his mind, had been chemically erased, because of the vodka he had drunk the night she moved out; this was lucky for her, because when next day he found his computer trashed he thought he had only himself to blame.

      ‘Don’t you want to ask anything?’ she asked. ‘Like where I’m living?’

      ‘So where are you living, Colette?’ he said sarcastically.

      ‘With a friend.’

      ‘Jesus, you’ve got a friend?’

      ‘But from next week I’ve arranged a house-share in Twickenham. I’ll have to start paying rent, so I need the flat to be sold.’

      ‘All we need is a buyer.’

      ‘No, all we need is a seller.’

      ‘What?’

      ‘Put it on the market.’

      ‘I have. Last week. ’

      ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ She slammed her glass down. ‘Why didn’t you just come out and say that?’

      ‘I would if I could get a word in edgewise. Besides, I thought you’d get a tip-off from the spirits. I thought they’d say, a strange man is walking around your bedroom with a steel measure.’

      Colette threw herself back in her seat: but it was strangely curved, and pushed her forward again, so her diaphragm was against the table’s edge.

      ‘So how much did they suggest?’ He told her. ‘That’s far too low. They must think you’re an idiot. And they could be right. Leave it, Gavin, leave it. I’ll get on to it tomorrow. I’ll phone them myself.’

      ‘They said, realistic price for a quick sale.’

      ‘More likely they’ve got a mate lined up, who they’re selling it on to.’

      ‘That’s your trouble.’ Gavin scratched his armpit. ‘You’re paranoid.’

      ‘You don’t know what you’re talking about. You use words without any idea what they mean. All you know is stupid jargon out of car mags. Recarro seats. Spicy lesbo chicks. That’s all you know.’

      Gavin turned down his mouth and shrugged. ‘So. You want anything?’

      ‘Yes, I want my life back.’

      ‘From the flat.’

      ‘I’ll make a list.’

      ‘Anything you want now?’

      ‘The kitchen knives.’

      ‘Why?’

      ‘They’re good ones. Japanese. You don’t want them. You won’t cook.’

      ‘I might want to cut something.’

      ‘Use your teeth.’

      He took a pull on his lager. She finished her spritzer.

      ‘If that’s all?’ she said. She gathered her bag and her jacket. ‘I want everything in writing, about the flat. Tell the agents, that all the paperwork must be copied to me. I want full consultation at every point.’ She stood up. ‘I’ll be ringing every two days to check on progress.’

      ‘I’ll look forward to that.’

      ‘Not you. The agent. Have you got their card?’

      ‘No. Not on me. Come back and get it.’

      Alarm flared inside her. Was he intending to mug her, or rape her?

      ‘Send it to me,’ she said.

      ‘I don’t have your address.’

      ‘Send it to the office.’

      When she got to the door it occurred to her that it might have been his single, clumsy effort at reconciliation. She