Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black

“Shh,” Alison said. “Oh dear, Colette.”

AITKENSIDE: Here, Morris, you don’t get a good gherkin these days. Not like you used to get. Where would you go for a good gherkin?

MORRIS: You don’t get a good pickled onion. You don’t get a good pickled onion like we used to get after the war.

“It’s Morris.”

“If you say so.”

“Can’t you hear him? Maybe his course is finished. But he shouldn’t be back.” Al turned to Colette, tears in her eyes. “He should have moved on, higher. That’s what happens. That’s what always happens.”

“I don’t know.” Colette threw her bag down. “You said yourself, you get these cross-recordings from the year before last. Maybe it’s old.”

“Maybe.”

“What’s he saying? Is he threatening you?”

“No, he’s talking about pickles.”

AITKENSIDE: You don’t get a mutton pie. Whatever happened to mutton? You never see it.

MORRIS: When you go on the station for a samwidge you can’t get ham, you can’t get a sheet of pink ham and some hot mustard like you used to get, they want to go stuffing it with all this green stuff—lettuce—and lettuce is for girls.

AITKENSIDE: It’s all wog food, pansy food, you can’t get a nice pickled egg like you used to get.

MORRIS: Could have some fun with a pickled egg, see a pickled egg and Bob Fox he would start up without fail. Pass it round, lads, he’d say, and when MacArthur comes in you just drop it on the table, say aye-aye, MacArthur, have you lost something, old son? I seen MacArthur turn pale. I seen him nearly drop in his tracks—

AITKENSIDE: I seen him clap his hand to his empty socket—

MORRIS: And Bob Fox, cool as you like take up his fork and stab the little fucker then squeeze it up in his fingers—

AITKENSIDE:—all wobbling—

MORRIS:—and take a bite. Tee-hee. I wonder what happened to Bob Fox?

AITKENSIDE: Used to knock on the window, didn’t he? Tap-tap, tap-tap . That was Bob.

Towards dawn, Colette came down and found Al standing in the kitchen. The cutlery drawer was open, and Al was staring down into it.

“Al?” she said softly.

She saw with distaste that Al had not bothered to tie up her housecoat; it flapped back at either side to show her round belly and shadowy triangle of pubic hair. She looked up, registered Colette, and slowly, as if half asleep, pulled the thin cotton wrap across her; it fell open again as her fingers fumbled for the ties.

“What are you looking for?” Colette said.

“A spoon.”

“There’s a drawer full of spoons!”

“No, a particular spoon,” Al insisted. “Or perhaps a fork. A fork would do.”

“I should have known you’d be down here, eating.”

“I feel I’ve done something, Colette. Something terrible. But I don’t know what.”

“If you must eat something, you’re allowed a slice of cheese.” Colette opened the door of the dishwasher and began to take out yesterday’s crockery. “Done something terrible? What sort of thing?”

Alison picked out a spoon. “This one.”

“Not cornflakes, please! Unless you want to undo all the good work. Why don’t you go back to bed?”

“I will,” Al said, without conviction. She moved away, the spoon still in her hand, then turned, and handed it to Colette. “I can’t think what I did,” she said. “I can’t quite place it.”

A shaft of rosy sunlight lay across the window ledge, and an engine purred as an early Beatty backed out of his garage. “Cover yourself up, Al,” Colette said. “Oh, come here, let me.” She took hold of the housecoat, wrapped it across Al, and tied a firm double bow. “You don’t look well. Do you want me to cancel your morning clients?”

“No. Let them be.”

“I’ll bring you some green tea at eight-thirty.”

Al moved slowly towards the stairs. “I can’t wait.”

Colette opened the cutlery drawer and slotted the spoon among its fellows. She brooded. She’s probably hungry, considering she sicked up all the party snacks. Which she shouldn’t have been eating anyway. Maybe I should have let her have some cereal. But who is this diet for? It’s not for my sake. It’s for her sake. Without me behind her, she goes right off the rails.

She stacked some saucers into the cupboard, tip-tap, tip-tap . Did Al have to look so naked? But fat people do. Laid open to the morning shadows, Al’s white belly had seemed like an offering, something yielded up; a sacrifice. The sight had embarrassed Colette. Colette disliked her for it.

The summer heat took its toll on Al. In the week that followed, she lay awake through the nights. In the heat of the day her thighs chafed when she walked, and her feet brimmed over the straps of her sandals.

“Stop moaning!” Colette said, “We’re all suffering.”

“Sometimes,” Al said, “I have a sort of creeping sensation. Do you get that?”

“Where?”

“It runs down my spine. My fingers tingle. And bits of me go cold.”

“In this weather?”

“Yes. It’s like, my feet won’t walk properly. I want to go one way, and they want to go a different way. I’m supposed to come home, but my feet don’t want to.” She paused. “It’s hard to explain it. I feel as if I might fall.”

“Probably multiple sclerosis,” Colette said. She was flicking though Slimming magazine. “You ought to get tested.”

Al booked herself in at the health centre. When she rang up, the receptionist demanded to know what was the matter with her, and when Al explained carefully, my feet go different ways, she heard the woman sharing the news with her colleagues.

The woman’s voice boomed down the phone. “Do you want me to put you in as an emergency?”

“No, I can wait.”

“It’s just, you need to be sure you don’t wander off,” the woman said. There were cackles in the background: screeches.

I could ill-wish them, Al said, but I won’t, on this occasion. She thought, are there occasions when I have ill-wished?

“I can fit you in Thursday,” the woman said. “You won’t get lost on the way here?”

“My manager will drive me,” Al said. “By the way, if I were you I should cancel your holiday. I know you’ll lose your deposit, but what’s a lost deposit compared to being kidnapped by Islamic terrorists and spending several months in leg irons in a tin shack in the desert?”

When Thursday came, Colette did drive her, of course. “You don’t have to wait with me,” Al said.

“Of course I do.”

“If you leave me your moby, I could call a cab to take me home. You could go to the post office and post off my spells. There’s one going airmail that needs to be weighed.”

“Do you really think I’d leave you, Alison? To get bad news by yourself? Surely you think more of me than that?” Colette sniffed. “I feel devalued. I feel betrayed.”

“Oh, dear,” Al said. “Too many of those psychic hens. It’s bringing your emotions out.”

“You don’t realize,” Colette said. “You don’t understand how Gavin let me down. I know what it’s like, you see. I wouldn’t do it to someone else.”

‘There you go again, talking about Gavin.”

“I am not. I never mention him.”

When they got into reception, Al scrutinized the practice staff behind their glass screens. She couldn’t see the one who had laughed at her. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but when I saw she was booked on a Nile cruise I just couldn’t resist. It’s not, it’s really not, as if I wished her any ill. I only told her.

“This is interesting,” she said, looking around. It was just like the doctors’ waiting room that the punters always described: people sneezing and coughing on you, and a long long wait. I’m never ill, she thought, so I don’t know, first-hand. I’m ailing, of course. But not in ways doctors can cure. At least, I’ve assumed not.