Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black

“Let me see.” Colette paused. “There’s Donnie. There’s Keith … she and Keith go way back.”

Al stood in the doorway. “Colette … don’t.”

Colette gestured to her angrily, to go away.

Don’t make a joke out of the fiends, Al pleaded; but not out loud. She turned and left the room. You should know better, Colette, but how can you know better? You believe and you half-believe, that’s the trouble with you. You want the frisson and you want the money, but you don’t want to alter your dumb view of the world. She heard Colette say to Gavin, “There’s Dean. Dean really fancies me. But he’s quite young.”

“What do they do, these blokes?” Gavin said. “Are they fortune-tellers as well?”

“There’s Mart,” she said “Oh, and our neighbour, Evan. Plenty of men in our lives, you see.”

“You’re carrying on with a neighbour?” Gavin said. “Married, is he?”

“That’s my business.”

Colette had that fizzing, crawling feeling you get when you’re lying. When she heard what was coming out of her mouth she was frightened. It was quite natural that she should want to put the best face on things, with Gavin, but stop, stop, she said to herself, Donnie and Keith aren’t real and Evan is a wanker and Mart lives in the shed. Or used to.

“Fair dos,” Gavin said. “I mean, I can’t see anybody leaving his wife and kids for you, Colette, but then I’ve no right to an opinion, have I?”

“Damn right you haven’t.”

“No, you see who you like,” he said—still, she thought, with that lordly air, as if he were giving her permission. “Look, what I called about—they’ve been having a bit of a shakeout at work. They’ve let me go.”

“I see. When did this happen, this shakeout?”

“Three months back.”

“You could have said.”

“Yes, but I thought I’d get fixed up. I called a few people.”

“And they were out, were they? In a meeting? On holiday this week?”

“There’s a downturn, you know?”

“I don’t think it’s a downturn. I think they’ve finally rumbled you, Gavin.”

“No, it’s happening everywhere, all the big consultancies are shedding.”

“So how are you managing? Money must be tight.”

“It’s just a cash-flow problem.”

“I’m sure Zoë can help you out.”

He seemed to hesitate—so Colette said sharply, “She is still with you, I suppose?”

“Oh, yes, she’s very loyal. I mean, she’s not the sort of girl to chuck you if you had a temporary setback.”

“Not like me, eh? I’d be out of there like a shot.”

“So I have to ask you about the payments, for the flat. I have to cut down my outgoings. Just till I get sorted.”

“So is there a downturn in the modelling business too? Or is she in hock for her tit lift and her bum suction? Oh, it’s all right, Gavin, I can afford to carry you for a while. Alison and I are doing really, really well.”

“Yeah, it’s all over the TV, psychic shows.”

“Yes, but that’s fraud. We’re not fraud. And we’re not dependent on the whims of schedulers, thank you.” Something touched her, a small hand on her sleeve: compunction. “So how are you,” she said, “apart from poor? How’s your car running?”

There was a short silence. “I have to go,” Gavin said. “Zoë wants me.”

“Probably some bit of her fallen off,” Colette said. “By-eee.” As she put down the phone she chuckled. Gavin had always lived in anticipation of his next salary cheque, and with his credit cards charged up to their limit. He’ll be wanting a loan soon, she said to herself. She sang out to Alison, “Guess what? Gavin’s got the boot.” But Al was on the other line.

Mandy said, “It’s time we started offering something to the punters that they can’t get from satellite TV. It’s all very well, but who’s making money out of it? Not us, for sure. It’s three hours hanging about in a back room with a plate of stale biscuits, an hour in makeup with some snooty cow drawing your eye-brows in the wrong place, and then when you see yourself you’re edited down to the blink of an eye and you’re supposed to be bloody grateful.”

“I thought it would be glamorous,” Al said wistfully. “Colette says I can’t go on because of my size, but I thought it would be nice for you.”

“In my view,” Mandy said, “we have to reinstate the personal touch. Silvana’s been advertising psychic hen parties, and she’s getting a very good response. You need to be able to provide one reader to about every six ladies, so I said I’d see if you were willing.”

“Be a change, wouldn’t it?”

“That’s what I think. A change for the guests, too. It’s a bit more upmarket than going on the razz and sicking up vodka outside some club. What with date-rape drugs, all that, you wouldn’t want to venture out.”

“No men,” Al suggested. “We don’t want Raven droning about ley lines.”

“Definitely no men. That’s what they’ve come to get away from.”

“And we’re not including Mrs. Etchells, are we? We don’t want her twittering on about the joys of motherhood.”

“Or telling them they need a little op. No, definitely no Mrs. E. I’ll sign you up, Al. You know those people in Cornwall, those new suppliers? They offer party packs, sort of goody bags for the clients to take away, minisizes of aromatic oils, three-pack of incense sticks, candle in tin, you know the sort of thing, presented in a velvet-look pouch. We can put a markup on them and sell them to the party organizer and we can bring along our own stocks of angel cards and spiritual CDs. Gemma’s got a cash-and-carry card so we could supply the champagne and party snacks. Ideally we’ll make it an evening of pampering and relaxation, as well as prediction. We can give nutritional advice—perhaps not you, Al—and we need somebody to do massage and reflexology. Silvana does Reiki, doesn’t she? And Cara’s got this new therapy she’s going in for, I forget what they call it. Anyway, you rub their feet and it brings back memories of life pre-birth.”

“Really?” Al said. “Have you tried it, Mandy?”

“Mm. Quite intriguing. Peaceful.”

“What was it like?”

“Darkness. Sort of swishing.”

She thought, I wouldn’t like to have access to my thoughts, before I was born. An image came to her of her mother, patiently fishing for her with a knitting needle.

“Anything else? Besides swishing?”

“Yes. Now you mention it. I think I got reverted to my past life. The closing moments, you know. Bloody great hoof coming down on my head. I could hear my own skull cracking.”

At the hen parties, through the summer evenings, Colette sat in other women’s kitchens, perched on a stool, frowning as she inputted data into her palm-top organizer. She was cool and neat in her little beige skirts and tiny T-shirts, an inch of flat midriff showing, as fashion decreed. She sat with legs crossed, a sandalled foot swinging, as she squared up Alison’s autumn schedule and calculated her expenses. When the Sensitives in their floaty scarves slid away for a break, when they leaned against the fridge and tried to engage her in conversation, she would give them her flat-eyed stare and, with an irritated twitch of her lips, go back to her sums. When they were called back to the party, she would take a long breath, finding herself alone, and look about her. They were working some upmarket locations—Weybridge, Chobham—and there were state-of-the-art kitchen fittings for her to admire: granite worktops like dark mirrors, and brushed steel in which she saw, faintly, her slight and wavering form as she crossed the room to pour herself a glass of San Pellegrino. When the door opened, New Age music wafted towards her, and dreamy half-clad girls, slippery with aromatic oils, drifted past and sometimes offered her a carrot baton or a bite of sushi.