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

lodging didn’t seem to bother him. On his bent, tough little legs, he was a good walker. But reservations at room-only motor lodges were not his favourite. He grumbled that there was nothing to do, stranded somewhere along the motorway, and he would sit in the corner of their room being disgusting. Al would shout at him for picking his feet; after that, she would go quiet and look furious, so Colette could only guess what he might be doing. He grumbled also if to get to his evening out he had to take a bus ride or find himself a lift. He liked to be sure, he said, that if need be he could get back to her within twenty minutes of the pubs’ closing. “What does he mean, if need be?” she’d asked. “What would happen if you were separated from Morris? Would you die?” Oh no, Al said; he’s just a control freak. I wouldn’t die, neither would he. Though he has already, of course. And it seemed that no harm came to him on the nights when he would fall in with some other lowlifes and drift off with them, and forget to come home. All next day they’d have to put up with him repeating the beery jokes and catchphrases he had picked up.
    When she’d first joined Al, she’d not understood about Morris. How could she? It wasn’t within the usual range of experience. She had hoped he’d just lurch off one night and not come back; that he’d have an accident, get a blow on the head that would affect his memory, so he’d not be able to find his way back to them. Even now, she often thought that if she could get Al out of a place on the dot of 8:30, they’d outsmart him; hurtle back onto the motor-way and leave him behind, cursing and swearing and walking around all the cars in the car parks, bending down and peering at the number plates. But somehow, try as she might, they could never get ahead of him. At the last moment, Al would pause, as she was hauling her seat belt over her bulk. “Morris,” she would say, and click the belt’s head into its housing.
    If Morris were earthside, she had once said to Al, and you and he were married, you could get rid of him easily enough; you could divorce him. Then if he bothered you, you could see a solicitor, take out an injunction. You could stipulate that he doesn’t come within a five-mile radius, for example. Al sighed and said, in Spirit World it’s not that simple. You can’t just kick out your guide. You can try and persuade him to move on. You can hope he gets called away, or that he forgets to come home. But you can’t leave him; he has to leave you. You can try and kick him out. You might succeed, for a while. But he gets back at you. Years may go by. He gets back at you when you’re least expecting it.
    So, Colette had said, you’re worse off than if you were married. She had been able to get rid of Gavin for the modest price of a do-it-yourself divorce; it had hardly cost more than it would to put an animal down. “But he would never have left,” she said. “Oh, no, he was too cosy. I had to do the leaving.”
     
    The summer they had first got together, Colette had said, maybe we could write a book. I could make notes on our conversations, she said. You could explain your psychic view of the world to me, and I could jot it down. Or I could interview you, and tape it.
    “Wouldn’t that be a bit of a strain?”
    “Why should it be? You’re used to a tape recorder. You use one every day. You give tapes of readings to clients, so what’s the problem?”
    “They complain, that’s the problem. There’s so much crap on them.”
    “Not your predictions?” Colette said, shocked. “They don’t complain about those, surely?”
    “No, it’s the rest of the stuff—all the interference. People from Spirit, chipping in. And all the whizzes and bangs from airside. The clients think we’ve had a nice cosy chat, one to one, but when they listen back, there are all these blokes on the tape farting and spitting, and sometimes there’s music, or a woman