Beyond Black. Hilary Mantel

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 computerising 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, 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 bedsit, 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?

       Chapter Four

      Click.

      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 OK 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. You 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.

       Click.

      COLETTE: OK, 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: OK, 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 bath 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 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 butter beans, 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 with a screwdriver. ‘Never do a hand’s turn, Gloria!’ her mother complained.

      As she lay in her little bed at night the doors banged, and sometimes the windows smashed. People came in and out. Sometimes she heard laughing, sometimes scuffling, sometimes raised voices and a steady rhythmic pounding. Sometimes she stayed in her bed till daylight came, sometimes she was called to get up for one reason and another. Some nights she dreamed she could fly; she passed over the ridge tiles, and looked down on the men about their business, skimming over the waste ground, where vans stood with their back doors open, and torchlight snaked through the smoky dark.

      Sometimes the men were there in a crowd, sometimes