Beyond Black: A Novel by Hilary Mantel Read Free Book Online

since I was a child. I used to see him everywhere. He’s a darling little bloke, always laughing, tumbling, doing his tricks. It’s from Morris that I get my wicked sense of humour.”
    Colette could only admire the radiant sincerity with which Al said this: year after year, night after bloody night. She blazed like a planet, the lucky opals her distant moons. For Morris always insisted, he insisted that she give him a good character, and if he wasn’t flattered and talked up, he’d get his revenge.
    “But then,” Al said to the audience, “he’s got his serious side too. He certainly has. You’ve heard, haven’t you, of the tears of a clown?”
    This led to the next, the obvious question: how old was she when she first knew about her extraordinary psychic gifts?
    “Very small, very small indeed. In fact I remember being aware of presences before I could walk or talk. But of course it was the usual story with a Sensitive child—Sensitive is what we call it, when a person’s attuned to Spirit—you tell the grown-ups what you see, what you hear, but they don’t want to know, you’re just a kiddie, they think you’re fantasizing. I mean, I was often accused of being naughty when I was only passing on some comment that had come to me through Spirit. Not that I hold it against my mum, God bless her, I mean she’s had a lot of trouble in her life—and then along came me!” The trade chuckled en masse, indulgent.
    Time to draw questions to a close, Alison said; because now I’m going to try to make some more contacts for you. There was applause. “Oh, you’re so lovely,” she said. “Such a lovely, warm and understanding audience! I can always count on a good time whenever I come in your direction. Now I want you to sit back, I want you to relax, I want you to smile, and I want you to send some lovely positive thoughts up here to me … and let’s see what we can get.”
    Colette glanced down the hall. The manager seemed to have his eye on the ball, and the vague boy, after shambling about aimlessly for the first half, was now at least looking at the trade instead of up at the ceiling or down at his own feet. Time to slip backstage for a cigarette? It was smoking that kept her thin: smoking and running and worrying. Her heels clicked in the dim narrow passage, on the composition floor.
    The dressing room door was closed. She hesitated in front of it. Afraid, always, that she’d see Morris. Al said there was a knack to seeing Spirit. It was to do with glancing sideways, not turning your head: extending, Al said, your field of peripheral vision.
    Colette kept her eyes fixed in front of her; sometimes the rigidity she imposed seemed to make them ache in their sockets. She pushed the door open with her foot, and stood back. Nothing rushed out. On the threshold she took a breath. Sometimes she thought she could smell him; Al said he’d always smelled. Deliberately, she turned her head from side to side, checking the corners. Al’s scent lay sweetly on the air: there was an undernote of corrosion, damp, and drains. Nothing was visible. She glanced into the mirror, and her hand went up automatically to pat her hair.
    She enjoyed her cigarette in the corridor, wafting the smoke away from her with a rigid palm; careful not to set off the fire alarm. She was back in the hall in time to witness the dramatic highlight—which was always, for her, some punter turning nasty.
    Al had found a woman’s father, in Spirit World. “Your daddy’s still keeping an eye on you,” she cooed.
    The woman jumped to her feet. She was a small aggressive blonde in a khaki vest, her cold bluish biceps pumped up at the gym. “Tell the old sod to bugger off,” she said. “Tell the old sod to stuff himself. Happiest day of my life when that fucker popped his clogs.” She knocked the mike aside. “I’m here for my boyfriend that was killed in a pileup on the sodding M25.”
    Al said, “There’s often a lot of anger when someone