Beyond Black: A Novel (35 page)

“You ask for pest control, I think. And then they come out with very fine mesh nets, and fence all around your garden with them.”

“Are you having them?”

“Oh yes. Same time as we get the decking, to save digging up twice near the house.”

“Do you have to pay?”

“’Fraid so. But it’s worth it, wouldn’t you say?”

She went back into the house and said, “Al, I’ve told Michelle that gross poisoned worms are going to come and eat her kiddiwinks.”

Al looked up, frowning, from her tarot spread. “Why did you do that?”

“Just to see her shit herself.” Then she remembered. “By the way, that dream I had, it wasn’t a dream. When Evan got up this morning he saw some bloke messing around near the shed.”

Alison laid the cards down. Her situation, she saw, needed a rethink. I’ll have that rethink, she decided, when Colette goes out.

In the kitchen, out of Colette’s earshot, the breakfast dishes were chinking together; a little spirit woman was pushing them around on the worktop, wanting to help, wanting to wash up for them but not knowing how. “Excuse me, excuse me,” she was saying, “have you seen Maureen Harrison?”

Honestly, Al thought. A spirit guide is wasted on Colette. I ought to take time out and lay hold of Maureen Harrison and send her zinging to the next stage, out of Colette’s way, and then grab her poor little friend and catapult her after. It would be doing them a favour, in the long run. But she imagined their frail flesh shrinking inside the baggy sleeves of their cardigans (where their cardigans would be) as her strong psychic grip fell on their arms; she imagined the old pair weeping and struggling, snapping their feeble bones under her hand. Muscular tactics were seldom any use, she had found, when you needed to send a spirit over. You call it firm action and you think it’s for their own good, but they don’t think so. Especially not the older generation. She knows psychics who will call in a clergyman at the least excuse. But that’s like sending the bailiffs in; it shames them. It’s like dosing them with a laxative when they can’t get to their commode.

The telephone rang. Al lifted the receiver and said loudly, “Hello, and how’s Natasha this fine morning? And the Tsars? Good, good.” She dropped her voice confidingly. “Hi, Mandy, how are you, love?”

She smirked to herself. Who needs caller display? Colette, that’s who. She saw Colette scowl at her: as if she were taking some mean advantage.

When Colette left the room she said to Mandy, “Guess what? I thought Colette had seen a spirit.”

“And had she?”

“It seems not. It looks like it was a burglar.”

“Oh dear, anything taken?”

“No, he didn’t get in. Just walked about outside.”

“Why did she think he was a spirit?”

“It was last night. She thought she was dreaming. It was me who thought it was a spirit. When she said, I saw a man outside by moonlight, I thought I’d got a new guide.”

“No sign of Morris coming back?”

“None, thankfully.”

“I’ll drink to that.”

Only I have nightmares, Al wanted to say; but who doesn’t, in our trade?

“So did you ring the police?” Mandy said. “Because it’s awful down here on the coast. Your teeth aren’t safe in your head.”

“No, I didn’t bother. There’s nothing to tell them. I think I saw him myself. He didn’t look harmful. If it was the same man. Unless there are different men wandering around our garden. Which is possible, of course.”

“Don’t take any chances,” Mandy said. “Anyway, Al, I won’t take up your morning, let’s cut to the chase. There’s a new psychic supplier opened down in Cornwall, and they’ve got a very keen price list with some special introductory offers. Also, for a limited period they’re doing free postage and packaging. Cara put me on to them. She’s got some excellent runes and she says they’re going down very well with her regulars. You want a change, don’t you, from time to time? A change is as good as a rest.”

Alison scribbled down the details. “Okay,” she said, “I’ll pass it on to Colette. You’re a good mate, Mand. I wish I saw more of you.”

“Drive down,” Mandy said. “We’ll have a girl’s night out.”

“I couldn’t. I don’t drive anymore.”

“How hard can it be? Cut across to Dorking, then straight down the A24.”

“I’ve lost confidence. Behind the wheel.”

“Let me know what time you’re leaving, and I’ll chant for you.”

“I couldn’t. I couldn’t stay out overnight. I couldn’t leave Colette.”

“Christsake! Get in the car and do it, Al! She doesn’t own you.”

“She says what toast I can have.”

“What?”

“How thick a slice. I can’t have butter. Not any. It’s awful.”

“God, she’s such a bossy little madam!”

“But she’s very efficient. She’s great with the VAT. I couldn’t do it, you see. So I have to put up with her.”

“Have you heard of accountants?” Mandy said scathingly. “What do you think an accountant is for? Toss your bloody receipts in a brown envelope and stuff them in the post box at the end of the quarter. That’s what I do.”

“She’d be hurt,” Al said. “She’s got so little in her life, really. She has this ex with a nasty aura, I only got a glimpse of it but it churns your stomach. She needs me, you see. She needs some love.”

“She needs a slap!” Mandy said. “And if I hear any more of this toast business, I’ll whiz up there to Woking and give it her myself.”

Over the course of the day, it became clear to Al’s sharp eye that they had a guest in the shed. Something or someone was lurking; presumably it was the young lad in the hat. Perhaps, she thought, I should take something to defend myself, in case he turns nasty. Hesitating in the kitchen, she had at last picked up the bacon scissors. The blades fitted snugly into her palm, and the bright orange handles looked playfully robust, in a rough-and-tumble sort of way; it was much the sort of weapon you’d choose to break up a fight in a primary school playground. If anybody sees me, she thought, they’ll just assume that I’m about some tricky little garden operation; that I’m notching a stem, nipping a bud, cutting a bloom, except there isn’t one to cut, we’re not up to flowers yet.

When she opened the shed door, she braced herself for the young man to rush at her, try to push past. It could be the best thing, she thought, if he did. I ought to step back and let him go, if it comes to that. Except that if someone’s been in my outbuilding I’d like to know why.

The shed was in gloom, its small window spattered, as if it had been raining mud. In the corner was a mournful bundle that barely stirred, let alone made a dash for it. The boy was drawn into a foetal position, arms around his knees; his eyes travelled upwards, and stuck when they reached her right hand.

“I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. She peered down at him, perplexed. “Shall I make you a cup of tea?”

He had been living rough at the garden centre, the young man said. “I saw you with your friend, blond-haired lady, innit? You were looking at the Grace Road.”

“That’s right,” Al said.

“Thanks for this tea, by the way, this is good tea. Then after that you looked at Old Smokey, but you gave it the thumbs-down. You gave it the old heave-ho.”

As Al leaned back against the wall of the new shed, it shivered slightly, swayed. Not the most solid structure, she thought. “That’s where you were,” she said, “when I spotted you. You were hanging about inside Old Smokey.”

“I thought you saw me.” His head drooped. “You didn’t say hello.”

“I didn’t know you, how could I?” She didn’t say, I thought you were in spectral form.

“Any more of this tea?”

“Wait a minute.”

Alison took the mug from him. She inched open the door of the Balmoral, and peeped out to make sure there was no one in the neighbouring gardens, before she made a dash for the house. She couldn’t rule out, of course, being seen by spectators from an upper window. She thought, I’ve a perfect right to walk across my own lawn, from my own shed, with a china mug in my hand. But she found herself scuttling, head down.

She scurried into the kitchen and slammed the back door after her. She ran to the kettle and slammed down the switch. She rummaged in a cup-board. Better make him a flask, she thought. Can’t be running across the lawn, bent double, every time he wants a hot drink.

The flask was at the back of the cupboard, bottom shelf, skidding shyly from her fingertips into the corner. She had to bend deeply to fish it out. The blood rushed to her head and thumped at the back of her nose. As she straightened up, her head swam. She thought, he’s my visitor. I can have a visitor, if I want, I suppose?

His mug was on the draining board, marked with grimy fingerprints. He can make do with the top of the flask for his cup, she thought. I’ll take him some kitchen roll to wipe it round with. She tore some paper off, waiting impatiently for the kettle. Sugar, she thought, diving into a cupboard. I expect he’ll want lots of sugar, tramps always do.

When she got back, Mart—that was his name, he said—was crouching in the corner away from the light. “I thought somebody might look through that window,” he said, “while you was away.”

“I’ve been as quick as I could. Here.”

He shook as he held the flask top. She put her hand round his to steady it as she poured. “You not having one?” he said.

“I’ll have mine inside later.” She said gently, “You’d better not come inside. My friend wouldn’t like it.”

“I used to live in the Far Pavilions,” he said. “I lived there nice for two nights. Then they chased me out. They thought I was off the premises but I looped back and broke into Old Smokey. I was just hanging about wondering what I should do next, then I saw you. And later I saw your shed go. So I followed it.”

“Where did you live before that?”

“Dunno. One time I slept on me mate’s floor. But his floor got took up. They came from the council. The rat officer.”

“That was unlucky. People say—Evan, the man next door, he says—that you’re never more than three feet from a rat in Britain today. Or is it two feet?” She frowned. “So when the floor was taken up, was that when you went to the garden centre?”

“No, next I went in the park under the bandstand. With Pinto. My mate. Whose floor got took up. We used to go down Sheerwater, they had a drop-in centre. One day we get there and they’ve put steel shutters up. They said, it’s just a policy, don’t take it to heart.”

Mart wore a khaki jacket with lots of pockets, and beneath it a sweatshirt that was once a colour, and stained cotton pants with some rips in them. I’ve seen worse things, Alison thought, in the silence of the night.

“Look,” she said, “don’t misunderstand me, I have no right to ask you questions, but if you’re going to be in my garden for much more of today I would like to know if you’re violent, or on drugs.”

Mart lurched sideways. Though he was young, his joints creaked and snapped. Al saw that he had been sitting on a rucksack. It was a flat one, with very little in it. Perhaps he was trying to hatch something, she thought; some possessions. She felt a rush of pity; her face flushed. It’s not an easy life in a shed.

“You feeling all right?” Mart asked her. Out of his rucksack he took a collection of pill bottles and passed them to her one by one.

“Oh, but these drugs are from the chemist,” she said. “So that’s all right.” She peered at the label. “My mum used to have these. And these, too, I think.” She unscrewed the cap and put a finger in, swizzling the capsules around. “I recognize the colour. I don’t think she liked those ones.”

“Those are nice rings you’ve got,” he said.

“They’re my lucky opals.”

“That’s where I went wrong,” Mart said. “No luck.”

As she passed him the bottles back, she noticed that the surface of the stones had turned a sulky, resistant blue. Stuff you, she thought, I’m not going to be told what to do by a bunch of opals. Mart stowed the bottles carefully in his rucksack.

“So,” she said, “have you been in hospital recently?”

“You know, here and there,” Mart said. “On and off. As and when. I was going to be in a policy, but then they never.”

“What policy was that?”

Mart struggled. “A policy, it’s like … it’s either like, shutting down, or it’s like, admissions, or it’s … removals. You go to another place. But not with a removal van. Because you haven’t anything to put in one.”

“So when you—when they—when they get a new policy, you get moved to somewhere else?”

“More or less,” Mart said. “But they didn’t get one, or I wasn’t in for it. I don’t know if they put me down for it under another name, but I didn’t get moved, so I just went, after a bit I just went.”

“And this drop-in centre, is it still closed?”

“Dunno,” Mart said. “I couldn’t go to Sheerwater on the off-chance, with shoes like mine.”

She looked at his feet and thought, I see what you mean. She said, “I could drive you. That would save you wearing your shoes out any more. But my friend’s gone out in our car. So if you could just hide here till she comes back?”

“I dunno,” Mart said. “Could I have a sandwich?”

“Yes,” she said. She added bitterly, “There’s plenty of bread.”

Back in the kitchen, she thought, I see it all. Mother scooped into hospital at the last minute, the foetal heart monitor banging away like the bells of hell. Mama unregistered, unweighed, unloved, innocent of antenatal care, and turning up at the hospital because she believes—God love her—that her cramping needs relief: then sweat-streaked, panicked and amazed, she is crying out so hard for a glass of water that by the time they give it her, she prefers a glass of water to her newborn child. She would have sold him, new as he was, in his skin. She would have sold him to the midwives for an early relief from her thirst.

What can I give him? Alison wondered. What would he enjoy? Poor little bugger. You see somebody like that and say, well, his mother must have loved him; but in his case, no. She took out a cold chicken from the fridge and turned it out from its jellied, splintering foil. It was half used, half stripped. She washed her hands, opened a drawer, picked out a sharp little knife and worked away, shearing fragments from the carcass. Close to the bone, the meat was tender. So was the child Mart himself, picked out of the womb; as he was carried away, his legs kicked, the blood on his torso staled and dried.