Beyond Black

Colette’s education in the psychic trade was brisk and nononsense. Al’s absurd generosity to the waitress in the coffee shop might represent one side of her nature, but she was businesslike in her own way. She wouldn’t be taken for a ride, she knew how to charge out every minute of her time, though her accounts, kept on paper, were a mess. Having been a credulous person so recently, Colette was now cynical and sneery. She wondered how long it would be before Al initiated her into some fraud. She waited and waited. By mid-August she thought, what fraud could there be? Al doesn’t have secret wires tapping into people’s thoughts. There’s no technology in her act. All she does is stand up on stage and make weak jokes. You may say Al’s a fake because she has to be, because nobody can do what she claims to do. But there it is; she doesn’t make claims, she demonstrates. And when you come down to it she can deliver the goods. If there is a fraud, it’s a transparent one; so clear that no one can see it.

Al hadn’t even been registered for VAT, when Colette had come on board as her business brain. As for income tax, her allowances were all over the place. Colette had been to the tax office in person. The official she saw admitted to a complete ignorance of a medium’s ™ she was poised to take advantage of it. ‘What about her clothes,’ she said, ‘her stage outfits? Her outfits for meeting her clients. She has to look good, it’s a professional obligation.’

‘Not one we recognise, I’m afraid,’ the young woman said.

‘Well, you should! As you ought to know, being the size you are yourself, decent clothes in large sizes don’t come cheap. She can’t get away with the tat you find on the high street. It’s got to be specialist shops. Even her bras, well, I don’t need to spell it out.’

‘I’m afraid it’s all dual purpose,’ the woman said. ‘Underwear, outerwear, whatever, you see it’s not just specific to her trade, is it?’

‘What? You mean, she could pop to the postbox in it? Do the dusting? In one of her stage outfits?’

‘If she liked. I’m trying to envisage – you didn’t bring pictures, did you?’

‘I’ll drop some in.’

‘That might be a help. So we could work out what sort of class of item we’re dealing with – you see, if it were, well, a barrister’s wig, say, or protective clothing, say, boots with steel toecaps, for example…’

‘So are you telling me they’ve made special rules about it? For mediums?’

‘Well, no, not specifically for – what you say your partner does. I’m just going by the nearest cases I can envisage.’ The woman looked restless. ‘I suppose you might classify it as show business. Look, I’ll pass it up for consideration. Take it under advisement.’

Colette wished – wished very strongly, most sincerely – that she had Al’s powers, just for sixty seconds. So that a whisper, a hiss, a flash, so that something would overtake her, some knowledge, insight, some piece of special information, so that she could lean across the desk and tell the woman at the tax office something about her private life, something embarrassing: or something that would make the hair stand up on the back of her neck. For the moment, they agreed to differ. Colette undertook to keep a complete record of Al’s expenditure on stage outfits. She lost no time, of course, in computerising their accounts. But the thought nagged at her that a record kept in figures was not quite enough.

Hence her good idea, about writing a book. How hard could it be? Al made tape recordings for her clients, so wasn’t it logical, in the larger world, to tape-record Al? Then all she would need to do would be transcribe, edit, tighten up here and there, make some chapter headings…her mind moved ahead, to costings, to a layout, a photographer…Fleetingly, she thought of the boy in the bookshop, who’d sold her the tarot pack. If I’d been self-employed then, she thought, I could have set those cards against tax. Those days seemed distant now: leaving the boy’s bedsit, at 5 a.m. in the rain. Her life with Gavin had receded; she remembered things he had, like his calculator, and his diver’s watch, but not necessarily the evil things he had done. She remembered her kitchen, the scales, the knives; but not anything she cooked there. She remembered her bed, and her bed linen; but not sex. I can’t keep on losing it, she thought, losing chunks of my life, years at a time. Or who will I be, when I’m old? I should write a book for me, too. I need a proof of some sort, a record of what goes down.

The tape recorder worked well on the whole, though sometimes it sounded as if Alison had a bag over her head; Colette’s questions, always, were piercingly clear. But when they played the tapes back, they found that, just as Al had foreseen, other items had intruded. Someone speaking, fast and urgent, in what might be Polish. A twittering, like small birds in a wood. Nightingales, Alison said unexpectedly. Once, a woman’s irate voice cut through Alison’s mutter: ‘Well, you’re in for it now. You’ve started so you may as well finish. It’s no use asking for your money back, sunshine. The trade doesn’t work that way.’

COLETTE: When you were a child, did you ever suffer a severe blow to the skull?

ALISON: Several…Why, didn’t you?

Chapter Four

Click.

COLETTE: It’s Tuesday and I’m just – it’s ten thirty in the evening and – Al, can you come a bit closer to the mike? I’m just resuming where we left off last night – now, Alison, we’ve sort of addressed the point about the trivia, haven’t we? Still, you might like to put your answer on the tape.

ALISON: I have already explained to you that the reason we get such trivial information from spirit is –

COLETTE: All right, there’s no need to sound like a metronome. Monotone. Can’t you sound a bit more natural?

ALISON: If the people who’ve passed – is that OK now?

COLETTE: Go on.

ALISON: – if the people who’ve passed were to give you messages about angels and, you know, spiritual matters, you’d think it was a bit vague. You wouldn’t have any way of checking on them. But if they give you messages about your kitchen units, you can say if they’re right or wrong.

COLETTE: So what you’re mainly worried about is convincing people?

ALISON: No.

COLETTE: What then?

ALISON: I don’t feel I have to convince anybody, personally. It’s up to them whether they come to see me. Their choice. There’s no compulsion to believe anything they don’t want.

Oh, Colette, what’s that? Can you hear it?

COLETTE: Just carry on.

ALISON: It’s snarling. Somebody’s let the dogs out?

COLETTE: What?

ALISON: I can’t carry on over this racket.

Click.

Click.

COLETTE: OK, trying again. It’s eleven o’clock and we’ve had a cup of tea –

ALISON: – and a chocolate-chip cookie –

COLETTE: – and we’re resuming. We were talking about the whole issue of proof, and I want to ask you, Alison, have you ever been scientifically tested?

ALISON: I’ve always kept away from that. You see, if you were in a laboratory wired up, it’s as good as saying, we think you’re some sort of confidence trick. Why should people come through from spirit for other people who don’t believe in them? You see, most people, once they’ve passed, they’re not really interested in talking to this side. The effort’s too much for them. Even if they wanted to do it, they haven’t got the concentration span. You say they give trivial messages, but that’s because they’re trivial people. You don’t get a personality transplant when you’re dead. You don’t suddenly get a degree in philosophy. They’re not interested in helping me out with proof.

COLETTE: On the platform you always say, you’ve had your gift since you were very small.

ALISON: Yes.

COLETTE (whispering): Al, don’t do that to me – I need a proper answer on the tape. Yes, you say it, or yes, it’s true?

ALISON: I don’t generally lie on the platform. Well, only to spare people.

COLETTE: Spare them what?

Pause.

Al?

ALISON: Can you move on?

COLETTE: OK, so you’ve had this gift –

ALISON: If you call it that.

COLETTE: You’ve had this ability since you were small. Can you tell us about your childhood?