Hilary Mantel - Beyond Black

“It might come to all of us.”

“Not to me,” Colette said. “If I can’t get as far as the lavatory, I’ll top myself. Honestly. There’s only so far you can sink in self-esteem.”

“If you say so.”

They drove in silence, to the next traffic light. Then Al lurched forward in her seat; her seat belt dragged her back. “Colette,” she said, “let me explain to you how it works. If you have lovely thoughts, you get attuned to a high level of Spirit, right? That’s what Mrs. Etchells always said.”

“I wouldn’t call that a high level of Spirit, the one who said that old biddy was up the duff.”

“Yes, but then a spirit—” she gulped; she was frightened to name him—“but then a spirit, you know who he was, had broken in on her, like a burglar—she couldn’t help it, she was just transmitting his message. But you see, Colette, some people are nicer than you and me. Some people are much nicer than Mrs. Etchells. They do manage to have lovely thoughts. They have thoughts that are packed inside their head like the chocolates in an Easter egg. They can pick out any one, and it’s just as sweet as the next.”

The lights changed; they shot forward. “What?” Colette said.

“But other people’s heads, on the inside, the content is all mixed up and it’s gone putrid. They’ve gone rotten inside from thinking about things, things that the other sort of people never have to think about. And if you have low, rotten thoughts, not only do you get surrounded by low entities, but they start to be attracted, you see, like flies around a dustbin, and they start laying eggs in you and breeding. And ever since I was a little kid I’ve been trying to have nice thoughts. But how could I? My head was stuffed with memories. I can’t help what’s in there. And with Morris and his mates, it’s damage that attracts them. They love that, some types of spirits, you can’t keep them away when there’s a car accident, or when some poor horse breaks its leg. And so when you have certain thoughts—thoughts you can’t help—these sort of spirits come rushing round. And you can’t dislodge them. Not unless you could get the inside of your head hoovered out. So if you ask why I have an evil spirit guide instead of an angel or something—”

“I don’t,” Colette said. “I’ve lost interest. I’m past caring. I just want to get in and open a bottle of wine.”

“—if you ask why I have an evil guide, it’s to do with the fact that I’m a bad person, because the people who were around me in my childhood were bad. They took out my will and put in their own. I wanted to do a good action by looking after Mart, but you wouldn’t let me—”

“So everything’s my fault, is that what you’re saying?”

“—and they wouldn’t let me because they want the shed to themselves. They want me, and it’s because of me that they can exist. It’s because of me that they can go on the way they do, Aitkenside and Keef Capstick as well as Morris, and Bob Fox and Pikey Pete. What can you do? You’re only human, you think they’ll play by earthside rules. But the strong thing about airside is that it has no rules. Not any we can understand. So they have the advantage there. And the bottom line is, Colette, there are more of them than us.”

Colette pulled into the drive. It was half-past nine, not quite dark.

“I can’t believe we’re home so early,” Al said.

“We cut it short, didn’t we?”

“You could hardly expect Cara to go on. She was too upset.”

“Cara gets on my tits. She’s a wimp.”

Al said, “You ask why I have an evil spirit guide, instead of an angel. You might as well ask, why do I have you for my assistant, instead of somebody nice?”

“Manager,” Colette said.

As they stepped out of the car, Pikey Paul, Mrs. Etchell’s spirit guide, was weeping on the paving by the dwarf conifers that divided them from Evan next door.

“Pikey Paul!” Al said. “It’s years since I seen you!”

“Hello, Alison dear,” sniffed the spirit guide. “Here I am, alone in this wicked world. Play your tape when you get in. She’s left you a few kindly sentiments, if you want to hear them.”

“I’m sure I shall!” Alison cried. She sounded, in her own ears, like someone else; someone from an earlier time. “Why, Paul,” she cried, “the sequins is all fell off your jacket!”

Colette removed Al’s portrait from the boot of the car. “They’re right,” she said. “You need to get this picture redone. No point in fighting reality, is there?”

“I don’t know,” Al said to her: temporizing. Said Paul, “You might fetch out a needle and a scarlet thread, darling girl, then I can stitch up my glad rags and be on my way to my next post of duties.”

“Oh, Pikey Paul,” she said, “do you never rest?” and “Never,” he said. “I’m on my way to link up with a psychic in Wolverhampton, would you know anyone who could give me a lift up the M6?”

“Your nephew is around here somewhere,” she said.

“Never speak of Pete, he’s lost to me,” said Paul. “I want no truck with his criminal ways.”

She stood by the car, her hand resting on its roof, her face entranced.

“What’s the matter with you?” Colette said.

“I was listening,” she said. “Mrs. Etchells has passed.”

Torches crept over Admiral Drive. It was the Neighbourhood Watch, beginning their evening search among the cow parsley meadows that led to the canal, for any poor wastrels or refugees who had grubbed in for the night.

Colette played the messages on the answering machine; several clients wanting to set up readings, and Mandy’s cool level voice … . “on a trolley in the corridor … didn’t linger … mercy really … given your name as next of kin.” Once she had shot her first draught of sauvignon blanc down her throat, she wandered into the sitting room to see what Al was doing. The tape recorder was in action, emitting chirps and coughs.

“Want a drink?” Colette said.

“Brandy.”

“In this heat?”

Al nodded. “Mrs. E,” she said, “what’s it like there?”

“It’s interactive?” Colette asked.

“Of course it is.” She repeated, “Mrs. E, what’s it like in Spirit?”

“Aldershot.”

“It’s like Aldershot?”

“It’s like home, that’s what it’s like. I’ve just looked out of the window and it’s all happening, there’s the living and there’s the dead, there’s your mum reeling down the road with a squaddie on her arm, and they’re heading for hers to do the unmentionable.”

“But they’ve demolished those houses, Mrs. Etchells. You must have been past, you only live down the road. I went past last year, Colette drove me. Where my mum used to live, it’s a big car showroom now.”

“Well, pardon me,” said Mrs. Etchells, “but it’s not demolished on this side. On this side it looks the same as ever.”

Alison felt hope drain away. “And the bath still in the garden, is it?”

“And the downstairs bay got a bit of cardboard in the corner where Bob Fox tapped on it too hard.”

“So it’s all still going on? Just the way it used to?”

“No change that I can see.”

“Mrs. Etchells, can you have a look round the back?”

“I suppose I could.” There was a pause. Mrs. Etchell’s breathing was laboured. Al glanced at Colette. She had flung herself onto the sofa; she wasn’t hearing anything. “Rough ground,” Mrs. Etchells reported. “There’s a van parked.”

“And the outbuildings?”

“Still there. Falling down, they’ll do somebody a damage.”

“And the caravan?”

“Yes, the caravan.”

“And the dog runs?”

“Yes, the dog runs. Though I don’t see any dogs.”