Beyond Black: A Novel (18 page)

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.