Beyond Black

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 the house.”

“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, maybe. But only in—not in your general affairs but only in what we call—er—matters of partnership.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means that when you see a bloke you like you go straight after him.” Like a whippet after a hare, she thought. “You say to yourself, no, I must do strategy, play it cool, but you don’t heed your own advice, you’re very much—how shall I say it?—bed on the first date. Well, why not? I mean, life’s too short.”

“I can’t do this. I’m sorry.” The client half rose.

Alison put her hand out. “It’s the shock. About your dad. It takes a bit of getting used to. I wouldn’t have broken it to you like that if I didn’t think you could take it. And straight talking—I think you can take that too.”

“I can take it,” Colette said. She sat down again.

“You’re proud,” Al said softly. “You won’t be bested.”

“That describes me.”

“If Jack and Jill can do it, you can do it.”

“That’s true.”

“You don’t suffer fools gladly.”

“I don’t.”

It was an old Mrs. Etchells line; she was probably using it right now, three tables down: “You don’t suffer fools gladly, dear!” As if the client were going to come back at you “Fools! I love ’em! Can’t get enough! I go out round the streets, me, looking for fools to ask them home to dinner!”

Alison sat back in her chair. “The way I see you now, you’re dissatisfied, restless.”

“Yes.”

“You’ve reached a place in your life where you don’t much want to be.”

“Yes.”

“You’re ready and willing to move on.”

“Yes.”

“So do you want to come and work for me?”

“What?”

“Can you type, drive, anything like that? I need a sort of, what do they call it? Girl Friday.”

“This is a bit sudden.”

“Not really. I felt I knew you when I saw you from the platform last night.”

“The platform?”

“The platform is what we call any kind of stage.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. It’s historical, I suppose.”

Colette leaned forward. She locked her fists together between her knees. Alison said, “If you come into the front bar in about an hour, we can get a coffee.”

Colette cast a glance at the long queue behind her.

“Okay, say an hour and a quarter?”

“What do you do, put up a CLOSED sign?”

“No, I just put them on divert, I say, go see Mrs. Etchells three tables down.”

“Why? Is she good?”

“Mrs. Etchells? Entre nous, she’s rubbish. But she taught me. I owe her.”

“You’re loyal?”

“I hope so.”

“Is that her? Wrinkly old bag with a charm bracelet on? Now I’ll tell you something. She’s not loyal to you.”

She spelled it out: “She tried to poach me, tried to catch me as I was looking about for you: cards, crystal, and psychometry thrown in, thirty quid.”

Alison blushed, a deep crimson blush. “She said that? Thirty quid?”

“Fancy you not knowing.”

“My mind was somewhere else.” She laughed shakily. “Voila. You’ve already earned your money, Colette.”

“You know my name?”

“It’s that certain something French about you. Je ne sais quoi.”

“You speak French?”

“Never till today.”

“You mustn’t mind-read me.”

“I would try not to.”

“An hour and a quarter?”

“You could get some fresh air.”

On Windsor Bridge, a young boy was sitting on a bench with his Rottweiler at his feet. He was eating an ice-cream cone and holding another out to the dog. Passersby, smiling, were collecting to watch. The dog ate with civil, swirling motions of his tongue. Then he crunched the last of his cornet, swarmed up onto the bench and laid his head lovingly on the boy’s shoulder. The boy fed him the last of his own ice cream, and the crowd laughed. The dog, encouraged, licked and nibbled the boy’s ears, and the crowd went ohh, feech, yuk, how sweet!

The dog jumped down from the bench. Its eyes were steady and its paws huge. For two pins, or the dog equivalent, it would set itself to eat the crowd, worrying each nape and tossing the children like pancakes.

Colette stood and watched until the crowd had dispersed and she was alone. She crossed the bridge and edged down Eton High Street, impeded by tourists. I am like the dog, she thought. I have an appetite. Is that wrong? My mum had an appetite. I realize it now, how she talked in code all those years. No wonder I never knew what was what and who was who. Nor surprising her aunts were always exchanging glances, saying things like I wonder where Colette gets her hair from, I wonder where she gets her brains? The man she’d called her father was distinguished by the sort of stupidity that made him squalid. She had a mental picture of him, sprawled before