chair, and the queue parted to let her through. Colette saw Alison, very briefly, put her face in her hands: before raising it, smiling, to the next applicant for her services.
Even Sundays bring their ebb and flow – periods of quiet and almost peace, when sleep threatens in the overheated rooms – and then times of such confusion – the sunlight strikes in, sudden and scouring, lighting up the gewgaws on the velvet cloth – and within the space of two heartbeats, the anxiety is palpable, a baby crying, the incense choking, the music whining, more fortune seekers pressing in at the door and backing up those inside against the tables. There is a clatter as a few Egyptian perfume bottles go flying; Mrs Etchells, three tables down, is jawing on about the joys of motherhood; Irina is calming a sobbing adolescent with a broken engagement; the baby, wound up with colic, twisting in the arms of an unseen mother, is preying on her attention as if he were entangled in her gut.
She looked up and saw a woman of her own age, meagrely built, with thin fair hair which lay flat against her skull. Her features were minimal, her figure that of an orphan in a storm. A question jumped into Al’s head: how would this play if you were a Victorian, if you were one of those Victorian cheats? She knew all about it; after all, Mrs Etchells, who had trained her, almost went back to those days. In those days the dead manifested in the form of muslin, stained and smelly from the psychic’s body cavities. The dead were packed within you, so you coughed or vomited them, or drew them out of your generative organs. They blew trumpets and played portable organs; they moved the furniture; they rapped on the wall, they sang hymns. They offered bouquets to the living, spirit roses bound by scented hands. Sometimes they proffered inconveniently large objects, like a horse. Sometimes they stood at your shoulder, a glowing column made flesh by the eyes of faith. She could see it easily, a picture from the past: herself in a darkened parlour, her superb shoulders rising white out of crimson velvet, and this straight flat creature at her elbow, standing in the halflight: her eyes empty as water, impersonating a spirit form.
‘Would you like to come and sit?’
Not fair! the queue said. Not her turn!
‘Please be patient,’ Alison said sweetly. ‘I think someone’s trying to come through for this lady, and I daren’t keep spirit world waiting.’
The queue fell back, murmuring. She sat down before her, the pallid meek being, like a sacrifice drained of blood. Al searched her for clues. Probably never known the joys of motherhood? Fair bet, with those tits. Oh, wait, didn’t I see her last night? Near the front, third row, left of centre, no? Broken wedding ring. Man with the gadgets. Career girl, of sorts. Not much of a career, though. Drifting. Anxious. Pains in her gut. Tension at the back of her neck; a big dead hand squeezing her spine.
On her left, Mrs Etchells was saying, ‘Going on hols, are we? I see an aeroplane.’ Irina was saying, yes, yes, yes, you are very sad now, but by October zey are coming, four men in a truck, and building your home extension.
Alison held out her hand to Colette. Colette put her hand in it, turned up. The narrow palm was drained of energy, almost corpse-like.
I would have liked that, Al thought, all that Victorian fuss and frippery, the frocks, the spirit pianos, the men with big beards. Was she seeing herself, in a former life, in an earlier and possibly more lucrative career? Had she been famous, perhaps, a household name? Possibly; or possibly it was wish-fulfilment. She supposed she had lived before but she suspected there wasn’t much glamour attached to whatever life she’d led. Sometimes when her mind was vacant she had a fleeting vision, low-lit, monochrome, of a line of women hoeing, bending their backs under a mud-coloured sky.
Well now…she scrutinised Colette’s palm, picking up her magnifying glass. The whole hand was bespattered with crosses, on the major lines and between them. She could see no arches, stars or tridents. There were several worrying islands in the heart line, little vacant plots. Perhaps, she thought, she sleeps with men whose names she doesn’t know.
The pale client’s voice cut through. She sounded common and sharp. ‘You said somebody was coming through for me.’
‘Your father. He recently passed into spirit.’
‘No.’
‘But there’s been a passing. I’m getting, six. The number six. About six months back?’
The client looked blank.
‘Let me jog your memory,’ Alison said. ‘I would be talking about Guy Fawkes Night, or maybe the run-up to Christmas. Where they say, only forty shopping days left, that sort of thing.’ Her tone was easy; she was used to people not remembering the deaths in their family.
‘My uncle died last November. If that’s what you mean.’
‘Your uncle, not your father?’
‘Yes, my uncle. For Christ’s sake, I should know.’
‘Bear with me,’ Alison said easily. ‘You don’t by any chance have something with you? Something that belonged to your dad?’
‘Yes.’ She had brought the same props she had given to the psychic in Hove. ‘These were his.’
She handed over the cuff-links. Alison cupped them in her left palm, rolled them around with her right forefinger. ‘Golf balls. Though he didn’t play golf. Still, people don’t know what to buy for men, do they?’ She tossed them up and caught them again. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘Look, can you accept this? The bloke who owned these was not your dad. He was your uncle.’
‘No, it was my uncle that died.’ The client paused. ‘He died in November. My dad died about, I don’t know, ages ago – ’ She put her hand to her mouth. ‘Oh,’ she said. ‘Run it past me again, will you?’ Grant her this: she wasn’t slow on the uptake.
‘Let’s just see if we can unknot this,’ Al said. ‘You say these are your father’s cuff-links. I say, no, though they may have belonged to the man you called your father. You say your uncle passed last November, and your father passed years ago. But I say, your uncle has been a long time in spirit, but your dad passed in the autumn. Now, are you with me?’
The client nodded.
‘You’re sure you’re with me? I mean, I don’t want you to think I’m slandering your mum. But these things happen, in families. Now your uncle’s name is – ?’
‘Mike.’
‘Mike, and your dad’s – Terry, right? So you think. But the way I see it, Terry’s your uncle and Uncle Mike’s your dad.’
Silence. The woman shifted in her chair. ‘He was always hanging about, Mike, when I was little. Always round at ours.’
‘Chez vous,’ Al said. ‘Well, he would be.’
‘It explains a lot. My flat hair, for one thing.’
‘Yes, doesn’t it?’ Alison said. ‘When you finally get it sorted out, who’s who in your family, it does explain a lot.’ She sighed. ‘It’s a shame your mum’s passed, so you can’t ask her what was what. Or why. Or anything like that.’
‘She wouldn’t have told me. Can’t you tell me?’
‘My guess is, Terry was a quiet type, whereas Uncle Mike, he was a bit of a boyo. Which was what your mum liked. Impulsive, that’s how I’d describe her, if I was pushed. You too,
