‘Oh nothing. Nothing. Just. God. Shit. This is horrible, isn’t it? I mean isn’t this – just horrible?’ She sniffed again and laughed, and Ed gave her hand a squeeze. ‘Look,’ shesaid, regaining her composure, ‘it’s better this way, you know. I think I’d fooled myself into believing that things would work out for you and I, but they wouldn’t have. Not really. It would never have been right. It would always have been a bit of a … you know, a mess. It’s better this way. It’s better.’
‘I’m going to miss you so much, Bee Bearhorn. So much you wouldn’t believe it.’
‘Yeah right,’ she said, picking up her champagne glass, ‘you wait till you’ve got three little buggers running around the place morning, noon and night – you won’t have a chance to miss me.’
‘Bee,’ he said, squeezing her hand even harder, ‘I am going to miss you until the day I die. You’re the most amazing person I’ve ever known.’
Bee shook her head and smiled. ‘No,’ she said, ‘I’m not. And if you really knew me, if you really knew what sort of person I’ve been, you’d walk out of here now and breathe a great big sigh of relief. Because I’m bad, Ed. I’m B.A.D.’
‘No you’re not,’ he said, ‘you’re more than the sum of your life history, Bee. Somewhere underneath all that armour, you’re still the same person you were when you were a child, before you’d had a chance to make any mistakes. And you should remember that. Stop letting yourself be weighed down by the things you think you did wrong. Stop being a victim of your own fallibilities. You should. Your whole life will just … just … you know –stagnateif you don’t move on. If you don’t start again. Bee. Please. Please try to make yourself happy. For me.’
Bee looked at Ed and forced a smile. ‘Don’t you worryabout me, my lovely Teddy Tewkesbury. I’m going to be just fine. Honestly. Just fine.’
They squeezed each other’s hands and smiled grimly, each one of them wholly aware that she was lying through her teeth.
27
‘Jesus,’ said Flint, pulling on a pair of sunglasses as they walked away from the Japanese restaurant and towards his car, which he’d parked in the NCP in Brewer Street.
‘I mean,’ began Ana, her mind boggling so hard it hurt, ‘what …? It’s all so … it’s just so … Jesus.’ She did a double-take as her eye was caught by a window display of chrome and leather bondage gear and pictures of half-naked men with shiny chests and body piercings. Good grief.
‘Christ, that bloke’s a tosser.’
‘What,’ said Ana, teasingly, ‘didn’t you like him?’
‘Him? God. No. I … Oh, very funny,’ he said, when he noticed Ana smiling at him. ‘Was it that obvious?’
‘Uh-huh. It was this obvious.’ She extended her arms.
‘I don’t trust him, not even a tiny bit. And did you notice how close together his eyes were? And how he was all sort of … clammy?’
Ana smiled again. ‘I thought he was all right,’ she said.
‘What. Really?’
‘Yeah. I just think he was unbelievably nervous. I think Bee gave him a huge secret to look after and he was scared he was going to blow it. I think he really loved Bee – he was just protecting her.’
‘Hmm,’ said Flint, unconvinced. ‘And did you believe what he said – about the boy?’
‘What d’you mean?’
‘I mean – why would she say that he was her son, when I know for a fact that he couldn’t possibly have been?’
Ana shrugged. ‘Maybe it was easier to lie than to admit the real truth? And are you sure she couldn’t have … you know?’
‘Absolutely. Totally. A lot of shit happened to Bee in 1986. Big shit. And having a baby was not part of that shit, I can assure you.’
‘What sort of big shit?’
‘Oh, you know. Having two flop singles. Being dropped by Electrogram. Being slagged off by the national press. Public humiliation. Her father being diagnosed with HIV. The usual sort of shit.’
They’d reached the car park and were heading up a urine-soaked stairwell.
‘Fancy a drink?’
Ana stopped in her tracks. ‘What?’
‘A drink. D’you fancy one?’