Beyond Black: A Novel

by Hilary Mantel

  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 sh
are.”

  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 a
nd 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?”