one-hit wonder (31 page)

“Yeah,” began Ana, realizing immediately that this response would only lead to a full-length conversation, the prospect of which, in the current circumstances, she couldn’t quite stomach. “Well—sort of. Not really. No . . .” She shook her head dismissively. “You know . . .” She petered out.

“Oh well,” slurred Gill, “it was worth trying, I guess. And how was the delicious Flint?” she asked in a innuendo-laden voice accompanied by a grotesque wink.

“What do you mean?”

“Feisty Flint?” she giggled. “Did he behave himself?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh come on—you know what I mean. Did he try to—you know?”

“What?”

“To get into your knickers, of course.”

“No!” snapped Ana. “Of course he didn’t. Look,” she said,

“what exactly is it with Flint? I mean, why are you and Lol so mean about him?”

“Och—we’re not mean about him. We’re just teasing, that’s all.”

“Yeah—but why? He seems perfectly all right to me.”

“Yes. But that’s exactly it. He seems ever so nice. But he’s not. He’s a complete tart.”

“A tart?”

“Och. A right old slapper. He’ll screw anything that moves.”

“Flint?”

“ ’Course Flint. If it’s got a pulse and a hole—he’s in there.

And actually, it doesn’t even need to have a pulse. Just a hole will do.”

Ana face crumpled with confusion.

“We’ve all had him, you know.”

“Sorry?”

“Flint. All of us. Me. Cathy. Lol.”

“Lol?”

“Uh-huh—and Bee.”

Ana suddenly felt like she’d been kicked in the chest by a draft horse. She gulped as an image of a tiny Bee writhing around under a huge naked Flint flashed through her mind.

“No . . .” she managed to croak.

“Aye.”

“But—I mean—how do you know?”

“Cuz she told me, silly. That’s what girls do, isn’t it? Talk about stuff. Yeah. Bee and Flint had their moments. D’you see what I mean now? Keep away from Flint. You’re a nice girl and he’ll take advantage of you if you let him. . . .”

“Well,” said Ana sniffily, regaining her composure, “I’ve got no intention of letting him do anything. I’m really not interested in him in that way.”

“Good,” said Gill, finally realizing her bra strap was hanging down and snapping it back onto her shoulder, “that’s good. But I tell you what—if you want a nice, no-strings shag, you could do a lot worse than Flintypoos. He’s fucking great in the sack. And his bits are all in proportion, if you get my drift.”

A click from across the hallway drew their attention away from Flint’s proportions and toward Gill’s bedroom.

“Oh, Lloyd, sorry. I was just talking to my lodger.” In the doorway stood a black guy. He had small dreadlocks, a long face, and quite thin legs. “Lloyd—this is Ana—Ana—this is Lloyd.” They both smiled politely at each other and said “Hi.”

“Lloyd was our stripper tonight.” She turned and grinned at him saucily. “But I’ve kidnapped him, see. Kept him all for myself. Anyway—I’ll let you get to bed now. You must be knackered.” She rose to her tiptoes and left another big wet kiss on Ana’s cheek. “You sleep tight now.”

“Yeah,” said Ana, trying to wipe the wet kiss away surreptitiously, “yeah. You too.” She was just about to close the door, when Gill suddenly turned around again.

“Ooh,” she said, “I nearly forgot to tell you. Your mother called.”

“Oh God—when? What did she want?”

“Oh, she just wanted your address. She said she had some mail to forward to you. She’s ever so nice, your mother, isn’t she? Really friendly. Anyway. I’ve got sex on a stick waiting for me next door. N’night.”

She waved at Ana and closed the door behind her, and Ana collapsed onto her bed in a state of total and utter shock.

What was her mother up to? This “having some mail to forward” thing sounded highly suspicious—Ana didn’t get any mail. And Flint. Jesus. Horrible. He just didn’t feel like . . .

Flint anymore. He didn’t feel like a protector, he felt like a predator. He’d had sex with pretty much everyone Ana had met since she’d arrived in London. He’d had sex with Bee.

And he’d lied to her. Told her that Bee was asexual. What else had he lied about or omitted to tell her?

She pulled off her clothes, pulled back her duvet, and fell into a deep and instantaneous sleep.

thirty

Flint awoke at nine the next morning feeling strangely energized. Which was weird, because he usually woke up feeling like a ninety-year-old man with emphysema.

He made himself a cup of mint tea and a bowl of cereal, picked up the paper from his doormat, and made his way out to the garden, where he sat in his armchair in his boxer shorts and soaked up a few early morning rays. He looked ahead of him at the stool he’d brought out for Ana to sit on last night. It was still where she’d left it, directly opposite him, her empty lager can sitting on the ground next to it, and he could almost see her sitting on it—all hunched and awkward, her legs all twisted around themselves, picking at her fingernails, covering her face with her hands every few seconds, blushing constantly. He smiled to himself at the image.

He was just about to bring a spoonful of cereal to his lips, when something hit him on the back of his neck. Something wet and cold and heavy. He looked up for a large bird but couldn’t see anything. He put his bowl down on the grass and gingerly put a hand out to his neck. He prodded a bit and cringed. There was something there. Something squidgy and wet and disgusting. He grimaced and very, very gently picked the thing up between two fingernails. It was a large lump of wet pink toilet paper. And at the same moment he worked out what it was, another large lump landed on the grass at his feet and he heard the snorty sounds of stifled laughter. He looked up again. Two small faces in the top-floor flat disappeared.

“I saw you, you little fuckers,” he yelled.

More snorty laughing noises.

Flint decided to play along with them. He pretended to go back to reading his paper and eating his cereal. And sure enough, within a few seconds two little heads had appeared at the top window, one little hand clutching another blob of wet paper. Flint immediately leapt from his seat, took two giant strides backward, and lobbed his missile at them. It hit the smallest boy square in the face before dropping off and onto the windowsill below.

The two boys stopped smirking and started grimacing.

“You’re messing with the wrong man—I’m a trained marksman.”

“Ya mother,” said one.

“I beg your pardon,” said Flint.

“Ya mother.”

“What?”

“Ya mother ya mother ya mother.”

“What
about
my mother?”

The two boys fell silent for a moment and exchanged a confused glance.

“Ya mother is a
fanny rash
,” said the small one, eventually, before both of them dissolved into hysterical stifled laughter and closed the window behind them.

“Jesus,” he muttered under his breath, “Jesus Christ.” He took his cereal and his paper into the kitchen and finished his breakfast in there.

Later on, he phoned his mother to tell her that she was a fanny rash, and she laughed so hard she nearly wet herself.

“
Where are you
?” Ana shouted into the phone.

“Drinking espresso in the sunshine, with only a scabby old bassplayer to spoil the view.” Lol’s voice was a tinny echo on the other end of the line.

Ana could hear a man swearing in the background, and Lol started cackling. “Fuck off, soft lad. Go and find a car to nick or summat,” she cackled again. “So—talk to me, Ana. Tell me what’s happening. What’ve I missed?” ‘

Ana filled her in on all the events of the previous day.

“Jesus,” breathed Lol, “that’s unbelievable. You mean she’d been seeing that bloke for
three years
? But—when? How? I don’t understand.”

They chatted for a while about Zander and the children’s home, too. And the obvious question soon arose. “Flint won’t accept the possibility that Zander might be Bee’s kid,” said Ana.

“Well—I have to say that for once I agree with him. I mean—I know I spend a lot of time out of the country and everything, but even someone as dense as me would’ve noticed something like a pregnancy. So what are you going to do? What’s next?”

“Well,” Ana began, “Flint’s coming over in an hour and we’re going to do some research on the Internet—see if we can find out what children’s home Zander lives in.”

“Top idea,” said Lol, “good work. And how is Flint? Is he looking after you properly?”

“Oh yes. Totally. He took me out last night. . . .”

“Oh—he took you out, did he? And I sincerely hope he behaved himself. . . .”

Ana blushed, in spite of the five hundred miles and body of water that separated her from Lol. “Of course he behaved himself,” she murmured, “I really don’t think he sees me like that, you know. I don’t really think I’m his type, you know. . . .”

Lol made a strange Marge Simpson-esque noise into the phone, and Ana could hear that she had her lips tightly pursed. “Just be careful, that’s all. You’ve got enough on your plate right now without having to worry about old slinky-knickers Flint trying to schmooze you into bed.” Ana grunted and blushed even more.

A voice called out something in the background. “Hmm,” said Lol, noisily slurping down her espresso, “I’ve gotta go.

My golden tonsils are required in the studio. Phone me again tomorrow, won’t you? And look after yourself. Mwah.” She blew a kiss down the line, and then she was gone, leaving Ana standing there, wondering, with a strange sense of shame and excitement, why exactly old slinky-knickers Flint
hadn’t
tried to schmooze her into bed and what exactly was wrong with her.

Flint got to Gill’s at twelve. On the way there he bought a box of little Portuguese cakes from the place by the bridge up on Golborne Road. As he handed the white cardboard box to Ana at the door of the house, he felt like Tony Soprano.

“Hi,” she said. She was wearing the same jeans and top she’d been wearing last night, and all weekend, come to think of it. Flint had never before met a woman who appeared to have so little interest in clothes. Her feet were bare and her hair was tied back in a ponytail. It looked nice. Off her face.

Gave her a sort of ballerina look.

“Your hair looks nice,” he said, dropping his car keys into his pocket and following her into the living room. “It suits you—up like that.”

She didn’t say anything.

“Gill not here?” he said, looking around the empty room.

“No,” she said, “she’s at the gym.”

“Yup,” he said, “that sounds like our Gill.”

“Do you . . . do you want a cup of tea or something?” Ana said, fiddling with her earlobe.

“Yeah. Great. We can have the little cake things, too.” She nodded distractedly and padded into the kitchen, clutching the box tentatively like it was a dirty diaper.

Flint sat down. Something wasn’t right. With Ana. She seemed awkward. Well, she always seemed awkward, actually, that was nothing new. But she seemed extra awkward.

She came out with a tray with a couple of mugs on it and the cakes arranged on a plate.

“So—how are you getting along here with Gill. You happy?”

She shrugged. “Haven’t really been here enough to form an opinion. But it seems all right. Gill’s . . . nice.”

“Yeah.” Flint leaned forward and helped himself to a cake.

“I like Gill, too. She’s as mad as a hatter, but I like her.” He bit into his cake and the room fell silent. He couldn’t think of a thing to say to her. “Are you all right?” he managed eventually.

“Yeah,” she said, “I’m good. I’m great.” He looked across at her and felt a sudden wave of warmth and compassion for her. Poor girl. One minute she’d been living her funny little half life in Devon, thinking her sister hated her, and the next she’d been uprooted and transplanted to one of the biggest, noisiest cities in the world, was living with strangers and discovering that her sister’s entire life was a lie.

He put down his cake and walked over to where she was sitting on a low cushion thing. He crouched down and put an arm around her shoulder. She flinched. He put another hand on her knee and squeezed it. She stiffened.

“Are you missing home?” he asked.

She jumped slightly and looked him straight in the eye.

“God. No,” she said, “not even a tiny bit. I’m just tired, that’s all.”

He removed his hand from her knee and looked her in the eye. “Look,” he said, “I know this must all have been quite hard going for you. And I just want you to know that I’m here.

If you need me. If you want to talk. Or cry. Or anything. OK?” She didn’t look him in the eye this time, just sort of shrugged and nodded. And then, before he had a chance to push it any further, the doorbell rang. Ana looked at him and then at the door.

“Expecting anyone?” said Flint, getting to his feet and going to peer through the window.

She shook her head. “Who is it?” she said.

“I dunno,” said Flint, “some weird-looking bloke.”

“What does he look like?”

“Kind of geeky. Skinny. And he’s wearing really weird clothes.”

Ana got to her feet and walked toward the window. She peeled back the curtain and looked through the glass and suddenly jumped and flattened herself against the wall. “Oh my God,” she whispered, “it’s Hugh!”

“Hugh who?” said Flint, peering out again.

“You know—Hugh Hugh.”

“Ah. Right. That Hugh.
Your
Hugh. Yoo-hoo, Hugh,” he tinkled campily, pretending to wave at him.

“Don’t!” said Ana, slapping his hand away from the window. “And don’t answer the door,” she said. “Please. I don’t want to see him.”

“I think it’s a bit late for that,” he said, grinning and waving at the man who was now staring at them through the window. He was short. That was the first thing Flint noticed.

Not just shorter than Ana, but properly short. And his head was a strange shape—kind of like someone had tied a belt around the middle of it, really tightly, when he was a baby.

And it was just a little too large for his tiny, sloping shoulders. His hair had a strange sort of kink to it, which he’d tried to tame by combing it down flat to within an inch of its life. And he had a very high domed forehead with freckles all over it.