Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black

“And then?”

Al had been to the garage to fetch them two folding garden chairs. She didn’t feel she could keep standing, with her back to the shed wall and Mart crouching at her feet. It was natural for Mart to want to tell his life story, his career history, just to reassure her that he wasn’t an axe murderer; not that anything he had told her had actually reassured her of that, but she thought, I would have a feeling, my skin would prickle and I’d know.

“So then …” Mart said. He frowned.

“Don’t worry,” Al said. “You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want.”

All Mart’s jobs seemed to have involved hanging about in public places. For a while he was a car park attendant, but they said he didn’t attend it enough. He was a park patroller, selling tickets for the attractions. “But some little lads knocked me down and robbed my tickets and threw them in the pond.”

“Didn’t the hospital give you any help? When you got out?”

“You see, I came through the net,” Mart said. “I’m an outloop. I’m on a list, but I’m not computerate yet. I think—the list I was on—I think they lost it.”

More than likely, Al thought. I dare say, when I was a kid, people put me on a list. I expect they made a list of bruises, that sort of thing, noticeable marks. But it never came to anything. I guess that list got put in a file; I guess that file got left in a drawer; “I’d like to know,” she said, “how you got in trouble with the police.”

Mart said, “I was at the zone. I was near the scene. I had to be somewhere. Somebody had to be there. Police Constable Delingbole beat the shit out of me.”

“Mart, ought you to be taking your pills? What time do you have them?”

“You see, we got some stickers and we put them on people’s cars, that were parked. We waited till we saw them leave and then we came with the stickers and put NO PARKING BY ORDER on their windscreen. Then we hid in the bushes. When they came back we jumped out and fined them a fine.”

“Did they pay?”

“No way. One geezer got on his mobile. Delingbole was round like a shot.”

“And where were you?”

“Back in the bushes. He didn’t catch us that day. It was a good idea, but it caused a description of us to be made and put in the local paper. Have you seen this distinctively attired man? ”

“But you’re not. I wouldn’t call you distinctive.”

“You didn’t see the hat I had in those days.”

“No. That’s true.”

“By the time I came round your place, I’d got a different hat. I was down on the building site, sometimes they give us tea. I said to this Paddy, look mate, can I have your hat? Because it’s been in the paper about mine. He says, sure, I says, I’ll buy it off you, he says, no, you’re all right, I’ve another one at home, a yellow one. So when I came for mowing your garden, I said to your friend, does this hat make me look like a brickie? Because it belonged to a brickie. And she said, I’d take you for a brickie anywhere.”

“So you’ve met Colette,” Alison said. “I see. You’re the bloke from the gardening service.”

“Yes.” Mart gnawed his lip. “And that was another job that didn’t last. How about some more tea?”

Alison hurried back across the garden. Michelle’s kids were home from their nursery; she could hear their wailing, and the air was loud with their mother’s threats and curses. She brought out another flask, with a mug for herself, and a packet of Chocolate Digestives, which Colette allowed her to keep for nervous clients, who liked to crumble and nibble. This time she made sure she got some; she held the packet on her lap, and offered them to Mart one by one. “Missus,” he said, “have you ever been described in the paper?”

She said, “I have, actually. In the Windsor Express. ” She’d had three dozen photocopies made: ATTRACTIVE FULL-FIGURED PSYCHIC, ALISON HART. She’d sent one to her mum, but her mum never said anything. She’d sent them out to her friends, but they’d never said anything either. She had plenty of press cuttings now, of course, but none of them mentioned her appearance. They skirt around it, she thought. She had shown the Windsor Express cutting to Colette. Colette had sniggered.

“You were lucky,” Mart said. “Windsor, you see. That’s outside Delingbole’s area.”

“I’ve never had any time for the police,” she said. I suppose I should have called them, when I was a kid. I suppose I could have laid charges. But I was brought up to be scared of a uniform. She remembered them shouting through the letter box: Mrs. Emmeline Cheetham? She thought, why didn’t my mum get one of her boyfriends to nail it shut? It isn’t as if we had any letters.

Just as Al had finished cleaning the kitchen and tidying away signs of Mart’s lunch, Colette came in with a handful of carrier bags and in a state of outrage. “I was putting the car away,” she said. “Somebody’s swiped our garden chairs! How did that happen? It must have been that man in the night. But how did he get in the garage? There’s no sign of forced entry!”

“You sound like Constable Delingbole,” Alison said.

“Been talking to Michelle, have you? I can tell you, I wish I’d been a bit more wide awake this morning. I should have rung the police as soon as I spotted him. I blame myself.”

“Yes, do,” Alison said, in such a commiserating tone that Colette didn’t notice.

“Oh well. I’ll claim it on the insurance. What have you had to eat while I’ve been out?”

“Just some cornflakes. And a bit of salad.”

“Really?” Colette swung open the fridge door. “Really and truly?” She frowned. “Where’s the rest of the chicken?”

“There wasn’t much left, I threw it out. And the bread.”

Colette looked knowing. “Oh yes?” She lifted the lid of the butter dish. Her eyes swept the worktops, looking for evidence: crumbs, or a slight smearing of the surface. She crossed the kitchen, wrenched open the dish-washer and peered inside; but Al had already washed the grill pan and dishes, and put everything back where it should be. “Fair enough,” she said grudgingly. “You know, maybe that bloke down at Bisley was right. If they can get into the garage, they could certainly get into the shed. Maybe it wasn’t the best idea. I won’t move anything in yet. Till we see. If there’s any recurrence, in the neighbourhood. Because I’ve laid out quite a lot. On forks, and so on.”

“Forks?” Alison said.

“Forks, spades. Hoes. Et cetera.”

“Oh. Right.”

Al thought, she’s in such a state of self-reproach that she’s forgotten to count the bacon rashers. Or even check the biscuit tin.

“Mart,” Al said, “do you hear voices? I mean, inside your head? What’s it like when you hear them?”

“My hands sweat,” Mart said. “And my eyes go small in my head.”

“What do they say?”

Mart looked at her cunningly. “They say, we want tea.”

“I don’t mean to intrude, but do you find the pills help?”

“Not really. They just make you thirsty.”

“You know you can’t stay here,” Al said.

“Could I just for tonight, missus?”

He calls me missus, she thought, when he wants to be extra-pitiful. “Don’t you have a blanket? I mean, I thought if you’d been sleeping rough you’d at least have a blanket, a sleeping bag. Look, I’ll sneak something out.”

“And a flask refill,” said Mart. “And a dinner, please.”

“I don’t see how I can do that.”

She felt ill already—she’d gone all day, on a bowl of cereal and a few biscuits. If she were to bring out her lo-fat turkey strips and vegetable rice to Mart, he would eat it in two swoops, and then she’d probably faint or something—plus, Colette would say, Al, why are you going into the garden with your Ready Meal?