Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black

“Ironic,” she said to Al. “You lot, giving advice on love and marriage. There’s not an intact relationship between you.”

She heard the psychics muttering about her presence, heard herself referred to by Silvana as “that hanger-on.” She knew Silvana was jealous, because she herself couldn’t afford a manager. She pictured herself hitting back: I’m really the core to the heart of this enterprise. You ask my ex, Gavin. I keep him, these days. I’ve made this business boom. I have many skills and talents. I could tell the punters what’s going to happen in their love lives. You don’t need psychic powers.

Alison came into the kitchen looking hot. “I’m just slipping out. Tell the clients I’ll be ten minutes. Or shift some of mine over to Cara.”

“Certainly.” Colette opened the chart on which she kept track of the evening’s proceedings.

“Skivving off, eh?” Gemma said, following Alison into the kitchen. “I’m needing some matches, the moon candles keep going out.” She cast her eyes around. “There’s nothing that needs lighting, is there, in a house like this? And they all don’t smoke. Or claim they don’t.”

Colette opened her bag, and took out a box. She rattled it, looking smug. “Don’t,” said Al, flinching. They stared at her. “I don’t know,” she said. “I just don’t like people rattling a box of matches. It reminds me of something.”

“You were probably burned at the stake,” Gemma said. “In a previous existence. You were probably a Cathar.”

“When were they?” Colette said.

Gemma frowned. “It’s medieval,” she said.

“Then I don’t think they had matches.”

Gemma flounced out. “It’s a presence in there,” Al said, “blowing out the candles. Cara tried to get it in a corner, but we don’t want to be frightening the punters. I’m just popping over the road, because there’s a bunch of grannies standing by the hedge.”

“Where?” Colette went to the window.

“Spirit grannies. Great-grannies. Great-greats.”

“What do they want?”

“Just to say hello. Congratulations. To have a look at the décor. You know how it is.”

“You’re too soft,” Colette said. “Let the grannies stand there, and you get back to your clients.”

“I have to explain to them,” Al said, “that they’re not wanted. I have to put it so as not to cause pain.”

As she went out towards the lift, the little woman followed her, saying, “Excuse me, miss, have you seen Maureen Harrison?”

“You again?” Al said. “Haven’t you found her yet? Stick around, ducks, follow us home.”

Gemma came back into the kitchen with a girl leaning on her shoulder: pin-thin, teetering on high heels, wailing and dripping tears. “Get up, Colette,” she said. “This is Charlotte, our hostess. Let Charlotte sit down.”

Colette vacated her stool, Charlotte hopped up on it; it wasn’t the sort of stool you could sink onto. Her bleating continued, and when Gemma tried to hug her she squealed, “No, no,” and beat her away with little flapping motions of her hands. “He just texted her,” Gemma said. “The bastard. It’s off.”

Hens filled the doorway; their mouths were ajar. “Come on back, ladies,” Silvana urged, “don’t all crowd around, let her get over the shock.”

“Christ,” Colette said. “She’s the bride?”

Cara pushed the hens aside. She looked little and fierce. “Text him back, Charlotte.”

“Can you pretext?” Gemma asked. “Is that possible? Would you know, Colette? If she made it look as if she sent a message before he sent his, then she could be the one to call it off.”

“Yes, do that,” Cara urged. “Your self-esteem’s at stake here. Pretend you never got it.”

“Now look, darling.” Gemma squatted on the ground before Charlotte. Charlotte keened and flapped at her, but Gemma took her hands and squeezed them tight. “Now look, you think the world has stopped turning, but it hasn’t. You’ve had a shock but you’ll get over it. This is your lowest ebb and now the only way is up.”

“That filthy scumbag,” wailed the girl.

“That’s the spirit,” Gemma said. “You’ve got to put it behind you, sweetheart.”

“Not till she’s billed him,” Colette said. “Surely. I mean, there’ll be deposits. On the venue. And the honeymoon, air tickets paid for. Unless she goes anyway, with a girlfriend.”

“At least she’s got to text and ask him why,” Cara said. “Or she’ll never achieve closure.”

“That’s right,” Gemma said. “You’ve got to move on. I mean, if you’ve had bad luck in your life, what’s the use of brooding?”

“I disagree,” Colette said. “It wasn’t bad luck. It was bad judgement.”

“Will you shut it?” Gemma said.

“There’s no point in her moving on until she’s sure she’s learned something from it.”

She glanced up. Alison was wedged in the doorway. “Actually I agree with Colette,” she said. “Just on this occasion. You have to think about the past. You ought to. You can work out where it went wrong. There must have been warning signs.”

“There, there,” Gemma said. She patted the girl’s bare bronzed shoulder. Charlotte sniffed, and whispered something; Gemma said, “Witchcraft, oh no!” But Charlotte continued to insist, blowing her nose on a piece of kitchen roll that Al handed to her; until at last Gemma whispered back, “I do know someone in Godalming. If you really want to make him impotent.”

“I expect that will cost you,” Colette said. She thought, I wonder, if I went in for it, could I get a trade discount? That would be one in the eye for Zoë. She said, “Some girls in your position would go the direct route. What do you need a witch for, when you could go around there with a carving knife? More permanent, isn’t it?”

She remembered her own moments of temptation, the night she left Gavin. I can be reckless, she thought, at secondhand.

“You’d go to jail,” Gemma said severely. “Don’t listen, sweetheart. What do they say? Revenge is a dish best eaten cold?”

Al moaned and clasped a hand to her belly. She made a dash for the kitchen sink, but it was too late. “Oh, that’s all I bloody need,” said the bride-to-be. She jumped from her stool to fetch a mop and bucket.

Afterwards, Colette said, “I told you prawns were dodgy in weather like this. But you can’t curb your appetite, can you? Now you’ve embarrassed yourself.”

“It wasn’t the prawns.” Hunched in the passenger seat, Al sounded snuffly and depressed. “Prawns are protein, besides.”

“Yes,” Colette said patiently, “but you can’t have the extra protein and the carbohydrates and the fat, Al, something has to give. It’s a simple enough principle to get into your head, I’ve explained it a dozen times.”

“It was when you rattled the matches,” Al said. “That’s when I started feeling sick.”

“That doesn’t make any sense at all,” Colette said. She sighed. “But I’ve ceased expecting sense from you. How can you be frightened of a box of matches?”

Between the bride’s sudden jilting and Al’s sudden vomit, the hen party had broken up early. It was not quite dark when they let themselves into the Collingwood. The air had cooled, and the cats of Admiral Drive tiptoed along the garden fences, their eyes shining. In the hall, Al put her hand on Colette’s arm. “Listen.”

From the sitting room came two gruff male voices, rising and falling in amicable conversation.

“A tape’s playing,” she said. “Listen. Is that Aitkenside?”

Colette raised her eyebrows. She flung open the double doors from the hall; though as they were glass, the gesture was superfluous. No one was within; and all she could hear, from the machine on the table, was a faint hiss and twitter that could have been the machine’s own workings. “We ought to get some more sophisticated recording equipment,” she said. “I’m sure it must be possible to cut out these blips and twitters.”