one-hit wonder (13 page)

On the Thursday. While I were looking for her cat. Beautiful flowers with a note saying how grateful she was to me and how she knew that I wasn’t that keen on cats and how much it meant to her that I’d taken him in and how she wouldn’t have wanted to have left him with anyone else—and there was this, too.” She pulled open an embroidered silk purse and pulled out a piece of paper, torn from a magazine. She handed it to Ana. “She said she’d torn it out ages ago, had been meaning to give it to me for months.” The clipping was entitled “True Friendship” and was taken from a letter from Kingsley Amis to his friend Philip Larkin: I enjoy talking to you more than to anybody else because I never feel I am giving myself away and so can admit to shady, dishonest, crawling, cowardly, unjust, arrogant, snobbish, lecherous, perverted, and generally shameful feelings that I don’t want anybody else to know about; but most of all because I am always on the verge of violent laughter when talking to you.

If you were here, I keep thinking, we would spend the time in talk and drink and smoke, and I should be laughing A LOT OF THE TIME, and I should be enjoying myself A LOT OF THE TIME.

Lol pointed at it. “Look,” she said, fresh tears springing to her eyes, “look. If you were here it says.
If you were here.
God, that gets me. Because I wasn’t there, I really wasn’t. See, me and Bee, we’d always been the ‘single girls,’ you know, the eternal bachelor girls. We always made time for each other.

And then, last year—I fell in love. For the first time. I mean, And then, last year—I fell in love. For the first time. I mean, I’d had obsessions before, and passion and all that. But with Keith I just knew I’d found my soul mate. He’s a Romany”—

she grinned through her tears—“a real, proper Romany. And he’s an astrologer. Really successful. He’s got syndicated columns all over the world. And I’m out of the country a lot, on business. And before, I’d always make sure that when I was around I spent time with Bee. But since I met Keith—

well, he’s the one I want to make time for. I didn’t have enough spare time to share it between both of them. And something had to give. And it was Bee. So what with her not wanting to come out, and me being with Keith and that fucking awful flat, well—I’d hardly seen her at all. And that clipping”—she pointed at it again—“it was a cry, don’t you think? A cry for help? And there’s me lying to her, telling her John’s doing really well. When he’s probably flat on his back in a gutter somewhere.” She sniffed and dragged a finger across her nostrils.

Ana handed the clipping back to Lol and she folded it sadly and put it back in her purse.

“So, the next day, I put up posters on trees and all that. I started knocking on people’s doors. I went to the local vet.

To the RSPCA. The animal dispensary. I know I should have told Bee, but I just couldn’t. She loved that cat like a kid, d’you know what I mean? But when he hadn’t turned up by the Friday, I just thought . . . you know. So I told her, and she lost it, Ana—I mean, big-time lost it. It was terrible. She didn’t get angry with me, though. She didn’t blame me or anything. She kept blaming herself. It were almost like she was saying that she were a bad mother or summat. She came round that afternoon when I was out and she scoured the area, too. I didn’t get back till late on the Friday night, and the next thing I heard was a phone call from the fucking police on the Tuesday evening—saying she were dead. Saying she’d been dead since Friday. Saying she’d died all on her own.” Lol blew her nose again and rubbed her eyes. “So even if she didn’t kill herself, even if it
was
an accident, it was still my fault. Because I lost her cat, I lost John. And I made her miserable. And she died like that—miserable, and all alone, Ana. Isn’t that the worst thing to imagine? Someone you love, dying all on their own?”

Ana nodded, tears catching in her throat as an image of Bee’s bed floated into her consciousness once again.

“I tried phoning her all weekend and there was no answer.

I just presumed that she’d gone to see you, so it didn’t worry me too much and—”

Ana turned to Lol. “Sorry,” she said, “can you say that last bit again?”

Lol looked at her. “I said that it didn’t worry me too much when she didn’t answer the phone because I presumed she’d be in Devon. With you.”

Ana’s jaw fell open. “Oh, now—this is too weird, too, too weird.” She told Lol about what Mrs. Tilly-Loubelle had said.

And then she told her everything, about the cottage and the song about Zander and the trip to India. Lol knew nothing about any of it and was completely silenced by the information.

“I’m gobsmacked,” she said, her eyes wide with confusion,

“totally, completely and utterly
gobsmacked.
And I thought it were weird,” she continued, “the way you’ve been asking me all these questions about Bee, as if you didn’t know her. And you mean to say,” she squeaked incredulously, “that Bee was disappearing off somewhere every weekend and lying to me about it? Me—her best friend? And that that mare had a lovely little cottage in the country and she never told anyone. God, you know, I always wondered what she’d done with all that money from her dad. I couldn’t work out why she was always talking about being broke. And she was always,
always
going on about going to India. It was like her big dream. And she fucking went and didn’t even tell us. I am outraged, Ana—outraged. You know what we’ve got to do, don’t you?” she said.

Ana shook her head.

“We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go to this Broadstairs place and find this cottage. I’ll bet you anything it’s where she was going every weekend. She probably had a secret lover or something. This Zander bloke. I bet it was him. You said you found some keys in the flat?”

Ana nodded numbly.

“So. We’ve got a photo. We’ve got keys. We have to go.” Lol was growing more and more animated as her tears dried up and her plan took shape.

“Yes,” said Ana, “but when? I’ve got to go home tomorrow.”

“Oh, don’t be daft. You can’t go home now. Not now.

We’ve got a mystery to solve.”

We’ve got a mystery to solve.”

“Yes, but—what about Mum?”

Lol raised her eyebrows to the ceiling again. “You sound like a scratched record, d’you know that? What about Mum, what about Mum?” she mimicked Ana’s middle-class tones.

“What about your bloody mother? How old is she?”

“Sixty.”

“Can she walk?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can she use a toilet?”

“Yes.”

“Can she cook for herself?”

“Mmm.”

“Has she got friends? People to look out for her?”

“Yes—loads. Everyone in Torrington thinks she’s wonderful.”

“So—she’ll be all right for a few days, then, won’t she?”

“She’ll give me hell, you know.”

“Oh, big-fucking-deal”—Lol drew a newspaper with her hands—“I can see the headlines already—‘Horror of Sixty-Year-Old Woman Shouting at Adult Daughter.’ How old are you, Ana? Twenty-four, twenty-five? And you’re still scared of your mum. Honestly, girl—you should be ashamed of yourself. And, quite frankly, if you don’t mind me being completely honest with you for a moment, your mother doesn’t
deserve
your concern. Not after the way she treated Bee. Particularly after the funeral incident—”

“What funeral?”

“Gregor’s funeral, of course.”

“Yes, but that was Bee’s fault. She attacked my mother. . . .”

“And can you blame her? It was the most shocking thing I have ever witnessed, and if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes—”

“What?” said Ana. “What happened?”

“Well—what did you mother tell you happened?”

“That Bee threw her out of the chapel of rest, that she hurt her, that she screamed at her in front of everyone.”

“And why d’you think she might have done that?” Ana shrugged. “Because she didn’t want her to be there?

Because she was ashamed of her. Ashamed of
us
.”

“Is that what she told you?”

“Uh-huh.”

Lol raised her eyebrows. “That woman,” she said, “that woman should be . . . she should be—
God.
I dunno. She’s a
disgrace.
Look. Your mother behaved appallingly at Gregor’s funeral. She were sobbing and wailing and crying out ‘my husband, my husband,’ when everyone knew that he
weren’t
her bloody husband
at all.
And she were making such a racket that one of Gregor’s friends, this really lovely guy called Tiger, he went and sat next to her to try to calm her down. Apparently he just said, Is there anything I can do for you, maybe you’d like some fresh air—that sort of thing. I mean, he wasn’t being even slightly rude. And he put an arm around her shoulder, like this. And she
slaps
it away and turns round to him and starts really laying into him. . . .” Oh God. Ana already knew what was coming. Her mother’s abundant charm was a barely existent membrane over her hateful innards. When she turned, she turned.

“She said, ‘Get your disgusting AIDS-ridden hand off me, you sniveling, malnourished, frankly rather unattractive
excuse
for a man.’ And then she told him that he should hurry up and die and stop being a drain on the National Health.

And then she stood up, in front of everyone, in front of all of Gregor’s friends, and accused them all of turning him into a pervert against his will and of deliberately infecting Gregor with their ‘rancid virus’ so that they could get their hands on all his money.”

“No!” said Ana.

“Yes,” said Lol, “she fucking well did. Oh Ana, I tell you, it were one of the most shocking things I have ever seen in my life. I wanted to hit ’er. I really did. And then I saw Bee getting up from her seat, and her face went all sort of twisted up, and she just grabbed your mother by her arms, like this, and frog-marched her out of the chapel. Told her she didn’t ever want to see her again. Told her she was disowning her. I wanted to cheer, I really did. But it weren’t exactly appropriate, you know. . . .”

Ana’s face felt slack with shock—not shock that her mother was capable of behaving so badly, but shock that she’d missed out on a relationship with Bee because of it, that the infamous and much-vaunted bruises on her mother’s arms, far from being an acceptable reason to sever ties with Bee, were the exact opposite. And that she’d been stupid enough to believe her mother’s version of events in the first place.

“So,” said Lol, “that should give you a fresh perspective on things.” She picked up her bag. “I’m going to get us some more drinks now, and by the time I get back I expect you to have made the right decision. All right?”

“All right.” Ana’s hands shook as she picked up her margarita and drained it of the last few drops. The enormity of what Lol had just told her was hitting home. Everything could have been so different.

She watched Lol sashay across the room in her blue chiffon Gypsy top and indigo jeans, her white ponytail and long diamanté earrings swinging from side to side, and the eyes of every person in the room on her. Lol knew no fear.

She didn’t see obstacles in life— only opportunities. She wasn’t just Ana’s physical negative, but her mental negative, too.

Ana looked around her at the other people in the bar.

Strangers. Dozens of them. Strangers with strange lives who lived in flats she’d never visit and had jobs she’d never heard of. This was Bee’s world, she realized, this city of transients and trendies, exclusivity and anonymity, this city where it could take two hours to visit a friend living three miles away but less than thirty minutes to get a fresh lobster delivered to your front door. And not only did she want to know what this city had done to her big sister, she also wanted to know
it.
She wanted to feel at home here. Like Bee had. She wasn’t ready to go home. She wasn’t ready to face her mother. She wanted to stay.

“I’m staying,” she said firmly when Lol returned with two more margaritas. “I’m staying.”

Lol threw her arms around her, and the two women Lol threw her arms around her, and the two women hugged. “Nice one, girl, nice one. Now we’ve just got to sort out a plan. We’ll go on Sunday, right? I’ve got to work tomorrow and I’m off on Monday.”

“Off?”

“Yeah. I’m going to St. Tropez for a few days. To a recording studio.”

“
Really
?” Ana’s mind was boggling with the glamour of it all.

“Uh-huh. I’m going to be staying in a
belle époque
mansion on a cliff overlooking the sea with a swimming pool and a maze and fountains and everything.”

“Wow,” said Ana.

“Yeah. Downside is I’m going to be there with a bunch of foul-mouthed, beer-swilling Liverpudlians with too much money in their pockets and too much coke up their noses.

But I’m not complaining. Not at all. And I’ll find you a place to stay. I’d offer you my flat, but it’s a shithole and, anyway, I don’t want you living on your own. Not a country girl like you in a city like this. Have you got any money?” Ana thought guiltily of the 7,350 pounds sitting in her suitcase at Lol’s flat, and nodded.

“Excellent. Leave it with me. And we’ll get Flint to drive.”

“Flint? Who’s Flint?”

Lol raised her finely plucked eyebrows. “Don’t ask. Just a guy. A guy with a really big car. So—a toast,” she grinned, raising her glass toward Ana’s, “a toast to us—the Cagney and Lacey of W10.” They laughed and clinked glasses, and then Lol turned to Ana and looked serious.

“Do you forgive me?” she said.

“What for?”

“For not being a good enough friend to Bee? For being selfish? For losing the cat? For breaking Bee’s heart? For letting her down?”

“Oh Lol—don’t be silly. It wasn’t your fault. Look—Bee would have kept searching for that cat if it had taken her forever. It wasn’t the cat. It was something else. And that’s what we’re going to search for in Broadstairs. OK?”

“OK,” said Lol, “OK.”

And then their conversation was interrupted as a floppy-haired man in a T-shirt and Bermuda shorts approached them.

“Excuse me,” he said in a German accent, “my friend and I”—

he indicated another floppy-haired man standing at the bar—“we were wondering. You two are very beautiful and also very tall. Are you by any chance—models?”