one-hit wonder (30 page)

Spent every day at the library. Everything about the place struck me as being the complete opposite of my life in London. And then my mum—God bless her soul—she was my savior. She was doing all this overtime, telling me it was for a holiday for herself, and then one day she came home with a present for me—a one-way ticket to Tokyo. So I went.”

“Really. And what was it like?”

“Fucking nightmare.”

“You’re joking.”

“Yeah. At first. The one thing I hadn’t found out about the place before I went was how
expensive
it is. A flat like mine, you know, piddling little shoebox, ten miles from downtown, was like about 250 pounds a week. So I had to get a job, pretty sharpish, and the only thing I could find was door work. You know, working as a bouncer, which wasn’t exactly what I’d had in mind. Those Japanese businessmen—

Jesus, they got so drunk. Made us lot look like teetotalers.

Picking fights. Puking. Falling over. But still—it was clean—

and there were no drugs to speak of. And the women were—

God, you know, just beautiful . . .”

“Oh,” said Ana, immediately putting Flint into the same category of old and ugly men who went out to Thailand and the Philippines to buy young, beautiful wives, and feeling vaguely and inexplicably disappointed in him.

“To look at, obviously. I didn’t touch. Not at all. They’re so vulnerable, those women. And so small. You felt like you’d break them. And anyway—I like a woman with a bit more—

oomph.”

Ana smiled.

“So I took a course and started teaching English during the day and doing the door work in the evenings.”

“What else did you do?”

“Ate sushi. Drank green tea. Went to the gym. Learned kendo.”

“Oh yes? How far did you get?”

“Black belt.”

“No!”

“Uh-huh. It’s the fittest I’ve ever been. I was in amazing shape, and it was like the smack and the booze had been washed out of my system months before, in my bedroom in London, but being in Tokyo cleansed my soul. Shit—that sounds really wanky, doesn’t it?”

Ana shook her head. “No it doesn’t. Not at all.” He looked pleased that he hadn’t sounded wanky. “So—

after ten months I decided to leave. It was such a weird place, Tokyo—they’re all bloody mad over there. I knew I was better when I could see how fucked up their society was, when I could see it objectively. And I was missing home, missing my mum, missing London. Missing the dirt, actually. Ironically. But I’ve found that when you’re clean inside, the dirt outside is just sort of . . . comforting. Do you know what I mean?”

“I’m not sure that I do, actually.”

“No. I don’t suppose you would.”

“So what did you do when you got home?”

“Well, I’d really enjoyed the teaching and I thought about doing that again, English, to foreign students. But I didn’t have the right qualifications over here. So I got a job with this limousine company. As a driver.”

“Why that job?”

“I dunno, really. I’ve never thought about it, particularly. It just seemed like a nice job. You know—the isolation, the nice car, the smart uniform. I felt like I was damaged goods, and it just seemed to fit me, as a job. It seemed to be the right sort of job for a reformed character. It made me feel like Robert De Niro actually,” he grinned, “especially when I was driving around at night, through the city. It can be a very romantic job sometimes, you know.

“Bee used to say it was the best feeling in the whole world, being driven around the streets of London in the back of my car, music playing, not having to speak, not having to do anything. Just sitting there watching the world go by, thinking her own thoughts. She used to say that London always seemed like a film when she was in my car, like a beautiful dream, and all the people on the streets looked like actors—it was like having a layer of insulation between her idea of what life
should
feel like and what it actually felt like. There were never any disappointments in the back of my car, that’s what she always used to say. . . .” He fell silent for a moment and fiddled with a coaster.

“D’you miss her?”

“Every second of every day.” His voice stayed steady but Ana noticed a film of tears spring to his eyes. He cleared his throat and took an abrupt sip of his lager.

“Tell me about when you first met her. Tell me what she was like.”

Flint craned his neck again to view the clock in the bar.

“How are we doing on that half hour?” he said jokingly.

“Plenty of time,” said Ana. “We’ve only done half of it.”

“Well—according to Bee, the first time we met was when I picked her up from the airport after she’d been in Germany.

But I think that was another driver. She had a terrible But I think that was another driver. She had a terrible memory, that woman. The first real memory I’ve got of Bee, though, was this day when I had to take her to the dentist.

That woman, I tell you, that woman was just obsessed with her fucking teeth. It was unreal. I swear to God half her fortune ended up in the pockets of nice Jewish men in Harley Street. She said she had toothache, so I drove her over there and two hours later she comes out and she’s all wobbly and all over the place. The dentist had only taken her fucking wisdom teeth out while she was sitting in the chair.” He winced. “Her face was all puffed up down this side and she could hardly talk and there was all this drool”—he demonstrated it with his fingers on his chin—“pouring down her chin. So there’s this tiny little woman wearing a black leather trench coat and black shiny boots, with her boobs hanging out of this tight corset thing, with her face all fat and swollen with drool all over her chin. And then she started crying, too, so there was mascara running all down her face, and she’s going”—he spoke affectedly—” ‘oh Flint, I hurt, Flint, I hurt so much I want to die,’ just on and on and on and on, like a scratched record. So eventually I stopped the car and I turned around and I said, What the bloody hell do you want me to do about it? And she sits there looking all shocked like I’ve just slapped her or something—all hurt and injured. And then she pulls herself up, like this, trying to make herself look tall, and she says, I’ll tell you what you can do about it,
Flint.
You can take me into that bar over there and buy me eight thousand fucking margaritas and stay with me until I’ve drunk them all. OK?

“And we both just stopped, then, and she stared at me until I couldn’t stand it for another second. And I said, Can I laugh at you now? And she just looked at me all sniffy and serious and said, Yes, you may laugh at me now. And I tell you what—I just lost the plot—totally. I don’t think I’ve laughed so hard before or since.

“So anyway, we walked into this bar, and I knew what we must have looked like to other people—this big bloke with a scar on his cheek holding up this tiny beat-up little woman in head-to-toe leather who’s so woozy she can’t walk in a straight line. So, of course, everyone just stared at us, and I tell you what—that was the moment when I knew that Bee was special, that I wanted to get to know her. She was this famous pop star and she honestly didn’t give a fuck about people seeing her looking like a crackhead whore. All the money that her label invested into creating and maintaining her image and she didn’t give a flying fuck. I loved that. . . .

“So. We stayed in that bar all afternoon, and she wanted to know all about me—my family, my childhood, my girlfriend, my hopes and dreams. She was so easy to talk to, that woman, so excited by people and life and all the . . . I don’t know—all the little stuff. She liked detail. Not that she’d ever remember any of it afterward.” He smiled. “You could never just tell her that you’d met a girl in a bar and gone to bed with her. It would be, What bar? Who spoke first? What were you drinking? Whose place? What color sheets? What fucking color was her fucking bush? She honestly asked me that once. . . .” He laughed and then fell silent, staring at the grubby pattern on the carpet. “Fuck. I’m going to miss her. I’m going to miss her so much. Still,” he said, snapping out of his reverie, “we’re breaking the rules here, aren’t we? We weren’t supposed to be talking about Bee. And—oh look—

my half hour’s up. Time to get another round in. Same again?” At eleven o’clock, Ana and Flint spilled from the pub and into the slightly chilly outside air. Flint had offered Ana his sofa for the night, but she’d declined, and they were now waiting for a cab to take her back to Ladbroke Grove.

“So,” said Flint, “tomorrow. Daytime. We’ll do some research, yeah? Maybe I’ll come over to Gill’s—she’s got the Internet, hasn’t she?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’ve got a job tomorrow night, but you could always come out with me if you fancied it?”

“What d’you mean?”

“I mean sit up front with me, in the passenger seat.”

“But—won’t your client mind?”

“Nah. They won’t even know you’re there. And besides—

it’s my car. I can have whoever the fuck I want in it.”

“OK. Maybe.” Ana didn’t want Flint to think she was leeching onto him. “But definitely, tomorrow, research.”

“OK. I’ll phone you. Tomorrow. Yeah?”

“Yeah. Tomorrow.”

“Good. Well—it’s been an experience, hasn’t it?”

“God—that’s an understatement. Sunday morning feels like years ago now, doesn’t it?”

“Uh-huh. Oh look—cab.” Flint strode out into the street with one large arm held aloft. It pulled up beside him and he gave the address.

“So,” he said, handing Ana into the cab, “see you tomorrow.

And sleep tight.” He closed the door on her and leaned into the open window. “And thank you.”

“What for?” laughed Ana.

“For being such great company. I’ve had a really good night.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. Really.” He stepped onto the sidewalk and started to walk away, but Ana felt suddenly compelled to ask him something. “Flint?” she called out, gripping the edge of the open window.

“Yes, sweetheart,” he said, turning back to her.

“Were you . . . were you ever in love with Bee?” He laughed. “No,” he said, “no. I’ve never been in love with anybody.”

And then, before Ana had a chance to check the expression on Flint’s face as he said it, the cab pulled away and bore her homeward. And as the cab drove on, Ana wondered to herself how anyone who was friends with a man like Flint could ever possibly want to kill themselves when all they’d have to do, she was sure, was phone him and talk to him and everything in the world would be just fine. . . .

twenty-nine

“That’ll be 18.60, please, love.”

Ana’s eyes boggled slightly, but she pulled out her purse anyway and took out a twenty-pound note. “Bloody hell,” she said under her breath as she got out and walked toward the house. Twenty quid! For a cab ride. This city really was a rip-off.

As Ana regarded the little house on Latimer Road, she suddenly felt like she’d been gone forever. And in a strange, heartwarming way, it almost felt like home. She picked up her knapsack and made her way inside. Once again, all was in darkness. She went to the kitchen and poured herself a couple of big glasses of water to thin out all the whiskey she’d drunk and then found, much to her delight, a couple of plates of yummy things in the fridge—party food, little sausages, terriney-salmony things, bits of battered fish. In the dishwasher were a few used champagne glasses and in the trash lots of empty crisp wrappers and hummus pots. Gill must have had some people round. And, in true Gill style, had cleared away every last crumb and wrapping. She grabbed a couple of nibbly things and took them upstairs.

And, almost like a déjà vu, as she grabbed the handle of her bedroom door, she could hear groaning. And grunting. And slapping. And moaning. And giggling. Lots of giggling. No, thought Ana, no way. She couldn’t be. Not again. And surely not on a
Monday night.

She let herself silently into her bedroom and breathed a huge sigh of relief as she let her knapsack fall to the floor and flopped onto her futon. She felt utterly exhausted, mentally and physically. She felt like every last drop of energy she’d ever possessed had been wrung out of her, like she’d never be able to stand up again. And she really wanted a bath—she hadn’t had a bath since last week, since Torrington. She wanted to run herself a huge, steaming, foamy bath and lock the door and read her serial-killers book and not get out until she’d turned into a prune. But she couldn’t. Because she was living in a house with a nympho, and she was too scared to open her bedroom door for fear of who she might find herself bumping into.

Slowly and painfully she started to peel off the clothes she felt like she’d been wearing for three years, and she had her top halfway over her head when she heard a gentle knock at her door. Her heart stopped beating for a millisecond.

“Yes,” she said cautiously.

“Ana—it’s Gill, can I come in?”

Oh God, thought Ana, oh no. What does she want?

“Yeah,” she said, slipping her top back on, “sure.” The door creaked open slowly and Gill crept in.

“Oh,” said Ana, jumping slightly and clutching her chest.

Gill was wearing nothing but a pair of purple satin knickers and a matching bra, with one strap hanging off her shoulder and the majority of her breast on display. There was gingery lipstick streaked all over her face and bits of paper streamer in her hair. And she hadn’t, Ana couldn’t help but notice, done her bikini line.

“Hi,” she smiled crookedly, lurching a bit from side to side,

“Hi,” she smiled crookedly, lurching a bit from side to side,

“I heard you coming in and I just thought I’d see how you were.”

“Oh,” said Ana, covering half her face with a hand and feeling unbelievably claustrophobic, “oh, I’m fine. Really—

fine.”

“Good. I’ve been a wee bit worried about you.”

“Oh. You didn’t need to worry. I’ve been—”

“You shoulda been here earlier on, Ana—you missed a
hoot
.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah—I had a hen night here, for my friend Cathy. It was
hilarious.
We had a stripper and everything. You’d have loved it.”

“Oh. Yes. That is a shame. . . .”

“And how wuz Broadstairs? Did you find anything interesting?”