one-hit wonder (32 page)

over it.

Also, as if God hadn’t given him enough to deal with on the physical front, he was horribly dressed. He was wearing a sort of windbreaker thing. In this weather. It was red and white. And tight black jeans. And chunky-looking lace-up shoes constructed from a kind of porous brown leathery stuff. He had a small knapsack on his back and, oddly enough, he was wearing an earring in his left lobe that didn’t go with the rest of him. Almost as if he were saying “Hey. I’m a cool dude—I just can’t be bothered to look like one, OK?” He was staring straight past Flint, and at Ana.

“Oh God,” she muttered, crossing her arms and going to the front door. Flint sat himself back down on the sofa and waited.

“Hugh,” he heard Ana saying breathlessly, “what on earth are you doing here?” And then Flint heard something that sounded like one of those pantomime dames talking—like a
Monty Python
woman. Flint put his hand over his mouth to stop himself laughing out loud.

“Flint,” said Ana, walking back into the room, crimson-faced, “this is Hugh. Hugh. This is Flint. Flint was Bee’s best friend.”

“Nice to meet you.” Hugh grinned at him with crooked, gray-colored teeth. Was he putting that voice on? Was it a joke? Flint didn’t know whether or not he was supposed to be laughing. He decided not to.

“Flint, did you say your name was?” Hugh furrowed up his big, freckled brow and put a hand out toward him. He had peculiarly hairy hands and a very strong handshake and didn’t seem at all fazed by the fact that Flint was nearly a foot taller than him. There were two types of unattractive men in this world, Flint had noticed: those who were painfully aware of the fact and tried their hardest not to draw attention to it and those who walked around like George Clooney was their ugly younger brother or something. And this guy—well—he definitely fell into the second category. He had no idea he was ugly. He had all the confidence and swagger of a handsome Italian playboy. He thought he was fantastic. And good on him, thought Flint, smiling and giving his hand a good hard shake, good for him.

“What are you doing here, Hugh?” said Ana, flopping onto the sofa.

“Well, your mother asked me to come, actually.” Ana raised her eyebrows and tutted. “I should have guessed. Jesus.”

“She’s worried about you, Ana. That’s all. She just asked me to pop in on you, see where you’re living. Find out what you’re doing. She’s just lost a daughter. I don’t think she particularly wants to lose another one just yet.”

“She’s not losing me, for God’s sake. I’m trying to find out what happened to Bee.”

“What do you mean? Bee’s dead. Isn’t that the end of the story?”

“No,” she snapped, “no—that’s far from the end of the story. Look,” she said, sighing, “you must be knackered—d’you fancy a cup of tea or something?”

He threw her an incongruously flirty, fluttery smile. “I’d love one, Bellsie. Thank you.”

Ana shot Flint a look. He raised a quizzical eyebrow at her. Bellsie? She got to her feet. “Flint will fill you in on everything that’s been happening, won’t you, Flint?”

“Yeah. Sure.” Ana left the room and Flint ran through the bare bones of the story—the cottage, Zander, Ed—and Hugh maintained a high level of very intense eye contact with him throughout, rubbing his chin occasionally and saying

“hmmmm,” as if he were Hercule bloody Poirot. He seemed to think that Flint and Ana had just been sitting around waiting for him to turn up and sort everything out.

“Well,” he said, “the first thing you should do is find out about the documentary this Ed chap said he was producing.”

“Yup,” said Flint patiently, “we were working on that one.”

“You could probably find everything you need on the Net.”

“Uh-huh, yeah. That’s why I’m here today.” He gestured toward Gill’s PC sitting in the corner.

“Whoa,” said Hugh, getting to his feet, “look at that old dinosaur. Fantastic.”

“Yeah,” continued Flint, suddenly and inexplicably feeling the need to impress this self-assured and very young man.

“We were going to look up TV-scheduling sites, you know, see if there was some kind of archive service or . . .” Hugh was already shaking his head and taking a seat at the desk. “No no no,” he said dismissively, hitting buttons in an infuriatingly confident manner, “waste of time. Even if there were such a thing, you’d never be able to find it. You’re much better off running a search for this Ed chap’s company. Oh God,” he muttered, “she hasn’t got her modem switched on.

Any idea where it is, Flint?” he said, wheeling his chair backward and looking under the desk.

Flint didn’t even know what a modem was. “Er, no,” he said, “no idea. Ana!” he called.

“What?” Ana emerged from the kitchen with a mug of tea.

“Any idea where Gill keeps her modem?”

“Her what?” she said, looking at Flint.

He shrugged behind Hugh’s back.

“A modem,” said Hugh in a pompously patient tone of voice, “it’s the hardware that connects your PC to the Internet. It’s like a box. It’s . . . aaaah . . .” He found something under the desk and reached underneath to fiddle with it,

“Excellent. OK. We’re all ready to go.”

Flint and Ana stood hovering above him, clutching their mugs of tea as Hugh bashed away at the keyboard. Flint stared at the top of Hugh’s huge head and tried to imagine Ana and Hugh writhing around in bed together. Ana’s beautiful tendrilly fingers running through the thatch of brittle brown straw that passed for Hugh’s hair. He imagined Hugh’s little falsetto voice cooing “Bellsie, Bellsie,” as he exploded inside of her and he suddenly and violently wanted to be sick. Jesus, he thought, surely Ana could do better than this.

“Okeydokey,” said Hugh, “Ed Tewkesbury Productions—

here we are.” Hugh hit a button on a side panel, and a list of productions came up. “Hmm,” sneered Hugh, “classy.” Ed’s company, it seemed, made a specialty of producing programs about drunken English people embarrassing the nation in various corners of the globe, and programs about people with really boring jobs being followed around all day people with really boring jobs being followed around all day by cameras, and programs about stag nights and hen nights and people with bizarre sexual preferences living in Berkhamsted.

“That must be it,” said Ana, pointing excitedly at a section entitled
High Cedars. High Cedars,
it went on to say, “was first broadcast on BBC1 in the summer of 1997. This seminal documentary, filmed over twelve weeks at High Cedars Residential Home for Children in Ashford, Kent, kept the nation emotionally gripped for the entire season with daily viewing figures averaging 3.3 million and set the standard for every human-interest docu-soap to follow.”

“Well,” said Hugh with a ring of self-satisfaction in his voice, “that’s that, then. You’ve got your children’s home.

Let’s run a search for it, shall we?”

He tapped the name of the home into a box and then clicked on a site on a list. A crested logo came up and a heading saying “High Cedars.”

“There it is,” he said smugly, “it’s all yours.” The site gave a phone number.

“So,” said Ana, turning to look at Flint.

He shrugged and looked over at the phone.

“What am I going to say?”

Flint puffed. “Ask to speak to Zander, I guess.” Ana made a cute little face at him, turning her mouth downward and widening her eyes nervously.

“I don’t mind doing it,” he said.

“No,” she said, and he saw her take a deep breath, “no. I’ll do it. OK. And what if he’s not there? I mean, what if I can’t talk to him? What shall I say?”

talk to him? What shall I say?”

Flint saw Hugh open his mouth to say something and quickly cut in. “Make an appointment,” he said, “or something.” He set his jaw defiantly and out of the corner of his eye saw Hugh raising an eyebrow.

“OK,” said Ana, “OK.” She walked over to the phone, and the room became completely silent as the two men watched her dialing the number. Flint held his breath. This could be it.

Ana might be about to talk to Zander.

“Oh,” she began, “hi. I wondered if I could talk to Zander Roper. Please.” She turned and hit Flint with a big grin that instantly warmed his heart.

“Um—yes, that’s the one. Yes. Who’s calling?” She turned and made a panicked face at Flint. “Oh it’s, er”—she gestured madly at Flint for him to come up with an identity for her—“it’s er . . .”

“Aunt,” he mouthed at her.

“Aunt,” she said, “I’m Zander’s aunt. Yes. Mrs. Wills. That’s right. I’m Mrs. Wills.” She threw an oh-my-God-I’m-freewheeling-like-a-motherfucker-somebody-please-help-me face at Flint and he smiled at her and gave her the thumbs-up. “Oh,” he heard her say, “right. I see. OK. And why is that, exactly? I see. I understand. No. No. That’s fine. OK.

And thank you so much for your help. Yeah. Bye.”

“What?” said Flint, unable to control his curiosity. “What did she say?”

Ana flopped down on the sofa and fanned her blazing cheeks. “He’s not taking phone calls from Mrs. Wills.”

“What?”

Ana shrugged. “I dunno. That’s all she said. Zander has requested that phone calls from Mrs. Wills not be put through to him.”

“So he doesn’t know that she’s . . . dead. Jeez.” Flint ran his fingers through his hair and exhaled heavily.

“D’you think I should have told the receptionist? About Bee?”

“No.” Flint shook his head. “No. If we’re going to talk to Zander, we need to take him as we find him. You know. And I think news like that would be best coming from you rather than a nurse.”

“So? Now what?” said Ana.

“Well,” began Hugh, “we should probably—” Flint cut in. “Did she say anything about visitors?” Ana shook her head.

“I think we should pay a little visit. What d’you think?”

“When?”

“Tomorrow—I’m not working during the day. Is that OK

with you?”

Ana nodded. Hugh cleared his throat. “I have to leave tonight, unfortunately. Early meeting tomorrow morning. So I’m afraid that . . .”

“Do you think they’ll let us talk to him? Without an appointment?” said Ana.

“Let’s talk about it tonight, eh? In the car?” Hugh, now unhappily picking up the complicity between Ana and Flint and the fact that he was somewhat excess to requirements, took his mug of tea and sauntered over to the sofa, where he started fiddling around in the voluminous sofa, where he started fiddling around in the voluminous pockets of his windbreaker. He eventually pulled out a small packet of papers and a pouch of tobacco and proceeded to make a neat and very professional little roll-up.

“So,” he said, lighting it, inhaling, and then picking a piece of tobacco off the tip of his tongue, “Bellsie. Are you going to phone your mother?”

Ana tore her eyes away from the screen and looked at Hugh pointedly. She tutted. “Yeah,” she said, “I suppose so.”

“She really is very worried about you, you know.”

“Yeah. Sure she is. She’s not worried about me. She’s just worried about herself. About her shopping . . .”

“Well—don’t you think that’s fair enough? I mean to say, she
is
all alone.”

“And whose fault is that?”

“Ooh,” said Hugh, inhaling and scowling, “that’s a little harsh, wouldn’t you say? The poor woman’s lost a husband and a daughter within a year. That’s tough for anyone.”

“Well—she should have been a bit nicer to both of them while they were still alive, shouldn’t she? I really think that if you haven’t appreciated people while they’re living, you’ve got no right to mourn them when they’re dead.”

“She loves you, you know.”

“She does not. She doesn’t love anyone.”

“She does. She cried, Bellsie. She did. Cried.” He ran his fingertips down his cheeks to demonstrate the tears.

“Jesus—what is this? Bee ignored me for ten years, cuts me out of her life, and all of a sudden the world and his wife is telling me how much she loved me. Now my evil witch of a mother, who won’t even let me touch her, is bursting into tears and claiming undying love for me. I should have come to London a long time ago. . . .”

Hugh rested his roll-up in an ashtray and walked toward Ana. “Bellsie,” he said, massaging her bare shoulders with his funny, muscular little hands and making Flint’s flesh crawl,

“come home. Eh? Come home with me now?”

“No,” said Ana more firmly than Flint had heard her say anything up to that point, “I’m staying. And I’m not coming home until I find out why Bee died.”

“Ah,” said Hugh, reaching back into his windbreaker pockets, “that’s another reason why your mother sent me.” He pulled out a sheaf of paper and handed it to Ana. “It’s the coroner’s report. On Bee,” he added unnecessarily.

Flint jumped from his chair and stood next to Ana while she opened the letter with slightly trembling hands. “Oh God,” she said, and Flint found himself, before he’d even had a chance to think about it, putting an arm around her shoulders and giving them a reassuring squeeze. It was the first time he’d touched her bare flesh, and it was nice. She didn’t seem to notice. She unfolded the letter and held it up for both of them to read. Flint’s eyes scanned the typewritten report, looking for the bottom line, looking for the verdict.

“Suicide,” said Ana suddenly, the tip of one finger hitting a spot farther down the sheet. “Well—there it is. . . .” She sat down heavily on the sofa, and her lanky body collapsed in on itself. Hugh plonked himself down next to her and started stroking her hair.

Flint felt himself go numb. Bee had killed herself. But—she Flint felt himself go numb. Bee had killed herself. But—she couldn’t have. Of course she hadn’t. I mean. Just. She couldn’t have. He took the page from Ana’s limp hand and surveyed it again, searching for something he might have missed, something that would tell him she hadn’t really killed herself, that it was an accident, that there was nothing Flint could possibly have done to have stopped it. Because as long as he’d been able to think of it as a tragic accident, he hadn’t had to accept any responsibility. As long as he’d thought Bee hadn’t meant to die, the pain he felt was the pain of futility instead of the pain of guilt and the pain of knowing that he hadn’t been a good enough friend, that he hadn’t phoned her for more than two weeks before she died, that he hadn’t been to her flat for weeks, that he’d just made assumptions that she was fine, that she was coping, that she was Bee and that Bee was always all right. Even when she left her beloved Belsize Park flat and moved into a desperately miserable flat that didn’t suit her at all. Even though she hadn’t had a boyfriend in years. Even though she had no job, no function, no purpose in life. Even though she’d been on anti-depressants half her life. Even though he couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her do that Bee thing of tossing back her head and opening up her mouth and laughing a laugh so loud that it scared the birds from the trees. That despite every warning sign that his so-called best friend was unhappy and spiraling downward to somewhere dark and lonely, he’d just left her to it.