“That’s nice,” Alison said. “It’s respectful. It’s old-fashioned.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Colette said. “It’s to keep the sun out, so they can see the TV.”
They pulled into the hotel car park, and Colette jumped out. A spirit woman slid into her place in the driver’s seat. She was little, old, and poor, and she seemed overwhelmed to find herself behind the wheel of a car, dabbing her hands at the indicators, saying, ee, this is a novelty, do you pedal it, miss? Excuse me, excuse me, she said, do you know Maureen Harrison? Only I’m looking for Maureen Harrison.
No, Al said kindly, but I’ll tell you if I bump into her.
Because Maureen Harrison were friends with me, the little woman said, aye, she were an’ all. A complaining note entered her voice, faint and nostalgic, like the moon through mist. Maureen Harrison were me friend, you know, and I’ve been searching this thirty year. Excuse me, excuse me, miss, have you seen Maureen Harrison?
Al climbed out. “That’s Mandy’s car, she’s early too.” She looked around. “There’s Merlin. And there’s Merlyn with a y. Dear God, I see his old van has got another bash.” She nodded towards a shiny new minivan. “That’s those white witches from Egham.”
Colette lugged the bags out of the boot. Alison frowned.
“I’ve been meaning to say something. I think we should go shopping for you, if you’ve no objection. I don’t feel a nylon holdall gives quite the right message.”
“It’s designer!” Colette bellowed. “Nylon holdall? I’ve been all around Europe with this. I’ve been in Club Class.”
“Well, it doesn’t look designer. It looks like market stall.”
They checked in, squabbling. Their room was a box on the second floor, overlooking the green paladins that received the back-door rubbish. Morris strolled around making himself at home, sticking his fingers with impunity into the electrical sockets.
There was a tapping from beyond the wall, and Alison said, “That’ll be Raven, practicing his Celtic Sex Magic.”
“What happened to Mrs. Etchells, did she get a lift in the end?”
“Silvana went for her. But she’s asked to be dropped off at some bed and breakfast in Beeston.”
“Feeling the pinch, is she? Good. Cheating old bat.”
“Oh, I think she does all right, she does a lot of postal readings. She’s got regulars going back years. No, it’s just she finds a hotel impersonal, she says, she prefers a family home. You know what she’s like. She reads the tea cups and leaves her flyer. She tries to sign up the landlady. Sometimes they let her stop for nothing.”
Colette pulled a sheaf of Al’s new leaflets out of their box. They had chosen lavender, and a form of wording that declared her to be one of the most acclaimed psychics working in Britain today. Al had objected, modestly, but Colette said, what do you want me to put? Alison Hart, Slightly Famous Along The A4?
The schedule was this: a Fayre this evening, Saturday, to be followed next day by a Grand Fayre, where a group of them would have their forty-minute slots on the platform; meanwhile, whoever was not onstage could carry on with private readings in the side rooms.
The venue was an old primary school, the marks of violence still chipped into its red brick. As Al stepped inside she shuddered. She said, “As you know, my schooldays weren’t what you call happy.”
She put a smile on her face, and lollopped among the trestles, beaming from side to side as her colleagues set out their stalls. “Hi Angel. Hi Cara, how are you? This is Colette, my new assistant and working partner.”
Cara, setting down her Norse Wisdom Sticks, lifted her sunny little face. “Hi, Alison. I see you’ve not lost any weight.”
Mrs. Etchells staggered in, a box of baubles in her arms. “Oh, what a journey! What a day after the night before!”
“You got a toy boy, Mrs. Etchells?” Cara asked, giving Al a wink.
“If you must know, I was up all night with the Princess. Silvana, love, help me dress my table, would you?”
Silvana, raising her pencilled brows and hissing between her teeth, dumped down carrier bags and unfurled Mrs. Etchell’s fringed crimson cloth into air laden already with the smell from oil burners. “Personally,” she said, “I never heard a squeak from Di. Mrs. Etchells reckons she was with her, talking about the joys of motherhood.”
“Imagine that,” Mandy said.
“So this is your assistant, Alison?” Silvana ran her eyes over Colette; then ran them over Alison, with insulting slowness, as if they had to feel their way over a large surface area.
They hate it, Al thought, they hate it; because I’ve got Colette, they think I’m coining it. “I thought—you know,” she said. “A bit of help with the—with the secretarial, the bookkeeping, the driving, you know. Lonely on the road.”
“Yes, isn’t it?” Silvana said. “Mind you, if you wanted company on the motorway you could have run over to Aldershot and collected your granny, instead of leaving it to me. This your new flyer?” She picked it up and held it close to her eyes; psychics don’t wear glasses. “Mm,” she said. “Did you do this, Colette? Very nice.”
“I shall be setting up a Web site for Alison,” Colette said.
Silvana tossed the leaflet down on Mrs. Etchells’s table and passed her hands around Colette to feel her aura. “Oh dear,” she said, and moved away.
Seven o’clock. The scheduled finish was at eight, but tonight they would be lucky to get them out by half-past; the caretaker was already banging about, kicking his vacuum cleaner up and down the corridor. But what could you do with the punters: lever them, sodden and sobbing, into the streets? There was hardly one customer who had not mentioned Di; many broke down and cried, putting their elbows on the trestles, edging up the lucky pisky figurines and the brass finger cymbals so they could sob their hearts out in comfort. I identified with her, she was like a friend to me. Yes, yes, yes, Al would say, like her you are drawn to suffering, oh yes, I am I am, that’s me. You like to have a good time, oh yes I have always loved dancing. I think of those two boys, I would have had two boys, except the last one was a girl. Diana was Cancer like me, I was born under Cancer, it means you are like a crab, inside your shell you are squidgy, I think that’s where her nickname came from, don’t you? I never thought of that, Al said, but you could be right. I think they made her a scrapegoat. I dreamed of her last night, appearing to me in the form of a bird.
There was something gluttonous in their grief, something gloating. Al let them sob, agreeing with them and feeding them their lines, sometimes making little there-there noises; her eyes travelled from side to side, to see who was conspiring against her; Colette stalked between the tables, listening in. I must tell her not to do that, Al thought, or at least not to do it so conspicuously. As she passed, ill will trailed after her; let them not cold-shoulder me, Al prayed.
For it was usual among the psychics to pass clients to each other, to work in little rings and clusters, trading off their specialties, their weaknesses and strengths: well, darling, I’m not a medium personally, but you see Eve there, in the corner, just give her a little wave, tell her I’ve recommended you. They pass notes to one another, table to table—titbits gleaned, snippets of personal information with which to impress the clients. And if for some reason you’re not on the inside track, you can get disrecommended, you can get forced out. It’s a cold world when your colleagues turn their backs.