‘Jesus,’ said Ana, ‘ever since I got here, all I’ve heard is how great Bee thought I was.’
‘Well – she did.’
‘But she didn’t even know me.’
‘She knew enough. And she lived with your mother, too, remember.’
‘Yeah, but – she had no idea about anything else – she didn’t know about Hugh and my job and my life.’
‘No,’ said Flint, plainly, ‘she didn’t. But she knew what it was like to lose a father and she knew what it was like to live with your mother and she knew whatyouwere like. You know those meetings you all used to have, in Bristol and places like that?’
‘Yeah?’
‘She used to come back in tears sometimes. Usually because of your mother. But other times because she was sad about you. She said you were like this pale, beautiful little ghost, that she just wanted to pick you up and stick you under her arm and take you back to London with her. And she said she felt really bad because she never knew what to say to you, how to talk to you. She wasn’t the most maternal of people, but she always had this huge soft spot for you.’
‘Huh – well – you could have fooled me. She didn’t even use tolookat me unless it was to take the piss.’ She was looking at her watch again. ‘Oh look,’ she said, ‘it’s seven o’clock. That pizza place will be open now. We should get back. Lol’ll be starving.’ She already had her rucksack on her lap, the conversation was over. For now.
They finished their drinks, picked up their crash helmets and headed for the pizzeria.
19
September 1999
Bee descended the stairs of her Belsize Park flat in her satin dressing-gown, a mug of Earl Grey in one hand, John under her arm. Summer should have been over by now, but it wasn’t. After a dismal August, the sun was out every morning, the temperature not dropping below 73°F. It was like a little freebie from the weather gods and London was fully appreciating it. The sun was glowing through the stained-glass panel above the front door, casting pools of coloured light all over the pale wooden floor of the spacious hallway. Wendy the Reflexologist, who lived in the ground-floor flat, was listening to some kind of bongo-y ‘world’ music – very loudly. Bee was sure that Wendy the Reflexologist didn’t actually like world music but had obviously decided that it fitted her image.
A pool of letters lay on the doormat. Bee leaned down to gather them up and quickly let John drop to the floor when she saw an envelope addressed to her – in her mother’s handwriting. Bee hadn’t heard from her mother since Gay had written to tell her that she was contesting Gregor’s will. That was nearly ten years ago now. This had to be something pretty serious. She ripped at the Basildon Bond tissue-lined envelope and pulled out the neatly folded little letter, handwritten on heavy blue paper.
‘Dear Belinda,’it began,
I shouldn’t suppose that the following news is of very much interest to you but I thought it only polite to inform you that my beloved Bill passed away on Sunday. It was fast and relatively painless and he had a good, healthy, long and happy life. I should count my blessings, but can’t help feeling robbed and very, very bitter. First Gregor, then you (you may as well be dead) and now my wonderful, wonderful Bill. My life really is one long tragedy … The funeral is to be held on Thursday at St Giles(Bill always loved that church and he got on so well with Father Boniface)but I don’t suppose you’ll have any interest in attending. Still – I thought you should know.
Your mother,
Gay
Bee collapsed on to the bottom stair and clutched the two sides of her dressing-gown together over her chest.Ana,she thought immediately. Poor Ana. Her mind filled with images of pale little Ana, with her knobbly knees and gawky features, sitting there during those dreadful family meetings in the Eighties, so quiet and perfectly behaved. And so much like her father.
She stared into the distance for a while, stroking John, absent-mindedly, trying to decide what to do. It was Wednesday. The funeral was tomorrow. She had nothing planned for tomorrow. She could go. She could get on her bike and go. To Devon. She could. She squeezed her eyes closed and tried to imagine the scenario. Tried to imagine standing there in the graveyard at St Giles, her mother dressed in head-to-toe Escada sobbingdramatically at her side, sad, lanky Ana on the other. She imagined going back to Gay’s perfect townhouse on Main Street afterwards, the big, squishy sofas covered in huge jacquard cushions with glossy tassels that Bee happened to know had cost £8 5 each. Wandering around disconsolately on expensive cream Wilton in the glow of fat-bottomed table-lamps. Making polite, muted conversation around a coffee table covered in expensive little objects, tiny lumps of carved marble and beautiful engraved silver boxes that seemed to perform no function whatsoever other than to give her mother something extra to dust and polish and arrange. Standing drinking sherry beside the huge open fire carved out of the wall, flanked by big baskets full of dried roses and shiny brass things for stoking the fire. And remembering all the time her mother’srage ifany one of these pointless, spotless objects were moved by so much as a millimetre.
She tried to imagine her mother, moving from person to person, around her lovely home, dabbing daintily at her nose and soaking up the sympathy and the attention like a delicate sponge. Gay had her own personal fan-club in Torrington, people who could see no bad in her. People who thought she was an angel. People who truly believed her claim that her charmed life had been ‘one long tragedy’.
And then she tried to imagine what it would be like after all the villagers had left, when the canapés had been cleared away and the caterers had packed their van up and it was just her and her mother and Ana. And she would have to speak her mind. She knew it. ‘You didn’t deserve that man,’ is what she’d have to say, ‘he was too good foryou and you treated him like shit, like you were ashamed of him. You never appreciated him while he was alive and now he’s dead all you’re interested in is milking the situation for your own benefit, for the attention. Exactly like you did with Gregor. You fucked me up and now you’re fucking up poor Ana. You make me sick.’ That’s what she’d say. And every word would be true. Which was why she couldn’t go. She couldn’t do that to her mother. Not at her husband’s funeral. It wasn’t the right time.
Bee picked up John and went back up to her flat. Ed was just emerging from the bedroom, scratching at his cropped, silver hair and yawning.
‘Thought you’d been abducted by aliens,’ he said, heading towards the kitchen.
‘No,’ she said, ‘no. I got some bad news. In the post.’
‘What sort of bad news?’ Ed’s disembodied voice came from the kitchen, where Bee could hear the click of the fridge door being opened.
‘It’s my stepfather. He died.’
‘I didn’t know you had a stepfather.’ Ed emerged clutching a carton of orange juice and a cold sausage.
‘Uh-huh. My mother’s second husband. Ana’s dad. He was very old.’
‘So – are you going to the funeral?’