one-hit wonder

by Lisa Jewell

  “But why? Why would she have done something like that? I mean‌—did she seem unhappy?”

  “The thing with Bee was that she was never really happy, was she? Not properly happy. Not after her dad died. And not really before for that matter. Except when she was young she used to drown it out by partying and drinking and sleeping around and being the original good-time girl. Then Gregor died and her career died and she never really recovered from it all.”

  “But couldn’t she have gotten help?”

  “Oh‌—she did. Didn’t she tell you?”

  Ana shook her head.

  “Yeah. She did three years of therapy‌—didn’t get her anywhere. And she were on antidepressants on and off for fifteen years.”

  “Fifteen years?”

  “Aye. Didn’t she tell you that, either? Jesus. Yeah‌—Bee just sort of existed, really. I don’t mean to say that she went around being miserable all the time, or anything. She was still funny. She still enjoyed herself and was good company and all that. But she just sort of stopped . . . developing. She got set in her ways and didn’t take risks. Didn’t participate in life‌—just let herself get carried along by it.”

  “So you’re saying that Bee was depressed for half of her life?”

  “ ’Fraid so.”

  “But that’s shocking. Just shocking. Don’t you think?”

  Lol shrugged. “This is London,” she said, “depression’s like the flu in a city like this. The norm. But actually, Bee did seem better for a while last year. Started talking about her career again, her future. And then she moved house in January and seemed to go downhill again. Started obsessing about aging, talking about plastic surgery. And she stopped going out. I used to try and get her to come out with me, but she said she was trying to save money. She’d invite me over there, but I . . . this’ll make me sound bad, but I just hated that flat. I really did.”

  “Why?”

  Lol shrugged. “I dunno, really,” she said, “it were just a vibe. Something about the atmosphere. It were . . . dead.”

  “Where had she been living before that?”

  Lol shot her a strange look. “What exactly did you two use to talk about? It’s almost like you didn’t know her.”

  Ana shrugged. “Well‌—I didn’t really.”

  “Well‌—she had this beautiful flat in Belsize Park. It was so gorgeous, all bright and posh and lovely.”

  “Did she own it?”

  “Nah‌—she never bought anywhere. She were too much of a free spirit to get lumbered with a mortgage. I never understood why she moved from there to Baker Street, though. And it were all so sudden. You know. One minute she was settled and sorted. She had her cat and all her lovely things. And then she just up and left, overnight. Left half her stuff behind, by all accounts. And moved into that pigging awful place. God‌—I hated that flat. . . .”

  “But did she seem unhappy enough to‌—you know?”

  Lol shook her head and shrugged. “As I say, she was never really a content soul. But I thought she’d learned to live with that. And she certainly didn’t seem to be any worse, you know, like she was spiraling downward or anything. But, you know, when something like this happens, you start thinking about every little thing, don’t you?” She turned suddenly to Ana and looked at her desperately. “Ana,” she said, “there is one thing. Something I’ve not told anyone else. One little thing. I mean, I don’t know if it was what caused it or anything like that, but . . .”

  Ana nodded, encouragingly.

  “. . . I think it might have been my fault.”

  Ana frowned at her. “Don’t be silly,” she said, “how could it be your fault?”

  “Because . . . because, oh God. Listen. D’you promise you won’t tell anyone else what I’m about to tell you? Not your mother, not anyone?”

  Ana nodded forcefully.

  Lol took a slurp of her margarita. “Well,” she began, “it were the Wednesday before she died. I’d not seen her for a few weeks because I’d been out of the country, on tour, and she turned up on my doorstep first thing and she were in a right state, crying and shaking and everything. And she had her cat with her. She said that her landlord had been tipped off that she were keeping a cat in that flat and had let himself in and threatened to kick her out if she didn’t get rid of him. So she begged me to look after him, for just a couple of weeks, just until she found a new flat. And I said yes. And she looked so relieved and everything and I just felt, you know, really pleased to have been able to help her out.

  “So, after she left I put all of John’s things out‌—his bowl and his basket and all that. And he made himself at home. And then I went out that afternoon, to my voice coach and . . . and‌—oh God”‌—she sniffed again and rubbed her face into her crumpled tissues‌—“I’d left the window in my hallway open a crack. Just a crack, because it gets so blinking hot in that place. And the hall window looks over the back of the house. And when I got back‌—and I don’t know how he got through it ’cos he’s a fucking big cat, I mean‌—huge‌—but he weren’t in the flat and he weren’t anywhere, so he must have. And I searched everywhere. I were out in the street until ten o’clock that night, until it got dark, and he was nowhere. And then all the next day. And Bee sent flowers. On the Thursday. While I were looking for her cat. Beautiful flowers with a note saying how grateful she was to me and how she knew that I wasn’t that keen on cats and how much it meant to her that I’d taken him in and how she wouldn’t have wanted to have left him with anyone else‌—and there was this, too.” She pulled open an embroidered silk purse and pulled out a piece of paper, torn from a magazine. She handed it to Ana. “She said she’d torn it out ages ago, had been meaning to give it to me for months.”

  The clipping was entitled “True Friendship” and was taken from a letter from Kingsley Amis to his friend Philip Larkin:

  I enjoy talking to you more than to anybody else because I never feel I am giving myself away and so can admit to shady, dishonest, crawling, cowardly, unjust, arrogant, snobbish, lecherous, perverted, and generally shameful feelings that I don’t want anybody else to know about; but most of all because I am always on the verge of violent laughter when talking to you.

  If you were here, I keep thinking, we would spend the time in talk and drink and smoke, and I should be laughing A LOT OF THE TIME, and I should be enjoying myself A LOT OF THE TIME.

  Lol pointed at it. “Look,” she said, fresh tears springing to her eyes, “look. If you were here it says. If you were here. God, that gets me. Because I wasn’t there, I really wasn’t. See, me and Bee, we’d always been the ‘single girls,’ you know, the eternal bachelor girls. We always made time for each other. And then, last year‌—I fell in love. For the first time. I mean, I’d had obsessions before, and passion and all that. But with Keith I just knew I’d found my soul mate. He’s a Romany”‌—she grinned through her tears‌—“a real, proper Romany. And he’s an astrologer. Really successful. He’s got syndicated columns all over the world. And I’m out of the country a lot, on business. And before, I’d always make sure that when I was around I spent time with Bee. But since I met Keith‌—well, he’s the one I want to make time for. I didn’t have enough spare time to share it between both of them. And something had to give. And it was Bee. So what with her not wanting to come out, and me being with Keith and that fucking awful flat, well‌—I’d hardly seen her at all. And that clipping”‌—she pointed at it again‌—“it was a cry, don’t you think? A cry for help? And there’s me lying to her, telling her John’s doing really well. When he’s probably flat on his back in a gutter somewhere.” She sniffed and dragged a finger across her nostrils.

  Ana handed the clipping back to Lol and she folded it sadly and put it back in her purse.

  “So, the next day, I put up posters on trees and all that. I started knocking on people’s doors. I went to the local vet. To the RSPCA. The animal dispensary. I know I should have told Bee, but I just couldn’t. She loved
that cat like a kid, d’you know what I mean? But when he hadn’t turned up by the Friday, I just thought . . . you know. So I told her, and she lost it, Ana‌—I mean, big-time lost it. It was terrible. She didn’t get angry with me, though. She didn’t blame me or anything. She kept blaming herself. It were almost like she was saying that she were a bad mother or summat. She came round that afternoon when I was out and she scoured the area, too. I didn’t get back till late on the Friday night, and the next thing I heard was a phone call from the fucking police on the Tuesday evening‌—saying she were dead. Saying she’d been dead since Friday. Saying she’d died all on her own.” Lol blew her nose again and rubbed her eyes. “So even if she didn’t kill herself, even if it was an accident, it was still my fault. Because I lost her cat, I lost John. And I made her miserable. And she died like that‌—miserable, and all alone, Ana. Isn’t that the worst thing to imagine? Someone you love, dying all on their own?”

  Ana nodded, tears catching in her throat as an image of Bee’s bed floated into her consciousness once again.

  “I tried phoning her all weekend and there was no answer. I just presumed that she’d gone to see you, so it didn’t worry me too much and‌—”

  Ana turned to Lol. “Sorry,” she said, “can you say that last bit again?”

  Lol looked at her. “I said that it didn’t worry me too much when she didn’t answer the phone because I presumed she’d be in Devon. With you.”

  Ana’s jaw fell open. “Oh, now‌—this is too weird, too, too weird.” She told Lol about what Mrs. Tilly-Loubelle had said. And then she told her everything, about the cottage and the song about Zander and the trip to India. Lol knew nothing about any of it and was completely silenced by the information.

  “I’m gobsmacked,” she said, her eyes wide with confusion, “totally, completely and utterly gobsmacked. And I thought it were weird,” she continued, “the way you’ve been asking me all these questions about Bee, as if you didn’t know her. And you mean to say,” she squeaked incredulously, “that Bee was disappearing off somewhere every weekend and lying to me about it? Me‌—her best friend? And that that mare had a lovely little cottage in the country and she never told anyone. God, you know, I always wondered what she’d done with all that money from her dad. I couldn’t work out why she was always talking about being broke. And she was always, always going on about going to India. It was like her big dream. And she fucking went and didn’t even tell us. I am outraged, Ana‌—outraged. You know what we’ve got to do, don’t you?” she said.

  Ana shook her head.

  “We’ve got to go. We’ve got to go to this Broadstairs place and find this cottage. I’ll bet you anything it’s where she was going every weekend. She probably had a secret lover or something. This Zander bloke. I bet it was him. You said you found some keys in the flat?”

  Ana nodded numbly.

  “So. We’ve got a photo. We’ve got keys. We have to go.” Lol was growing more and more animated as her tears dried up and her plan took shape.

  “Yes,” said Ana, “but when? I’ve got to go home tomorrow.”

  “Oh, don’t be daft. You can’t go home now. Not now. We’ve got a mystery to solve.”

  “Yes, but‌—what about Mum?”

  Lol raised her eyebrows to the ceiling again. “You sound like a scratched record, d’you know that? What about Mum, what about Mum?” she mimicked Ana’s middle-class tones. “What about your bloody mother? How old is she?”

  “Sixty.”

  “Can she walk?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Can she use a toilet?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can she cook for herself?”

  “Mmm.”

  “Has she got friends? People to look out for her?”

  “Yes‌—loads. Everyone in Torrington thinks she’s wonderful.”

  “So‌—she’ll be all right for a few days, then, won’t she?”

  “She’ll give me hell, you know.”

  “Oh, big-fucking-deal”‌—Lol drew a newspaper with her hands‌—“I can see the headlines already‌—‘Horror of Sixty-Year-Old Woman Shouting at Adult Daughter.’ How old are you, Ana? Twenty-four, twenty-five? And you’re still scared of your mum. Honestly, girl‌—you should be ashamed of yourself. And, quite frankly, if you don’t mind me being completely honest with you for a moment, your mother doesn’t deserve your concern. Not after the way she treated Bee. Particularly after the funeral incident‌—”

  “What funeral?”

  “Gregor’s funeral, of course.”

  “Yes, but that was Bee’s fault. She attacked my mother. . . .”

  “And can you blame her? It was the most shocking thing I have ever witnessed, and if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes‌—”

  “What?” said Ana. “What happened?”

  “Well‌—what did you mother tell you happened?”

  “That Bee threw her out of the chapel of rest, that she hurt her, that she screamed at her in front of everyone.”

  “And why d’you think she might have done that?”

  Ana shrugged. “Because she didn’t want her to be there? Because she was ashamed of her. Ashamed of us.”

  “Is that what she told you?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  Lol raised her eyebrows. “That woman,” she said, “that woman should be . . . she should be‌—God. I dunno. She’s a disgrace. Look. Your mother behaved appallingly at Gregor’s funeral. She were sobbing and wailing and crying out ‘my husband, my husband,’ when everyone knew that he weren’t her bloody husband at all. And she were making such a racket that one of Gregor’s friends, this really lovely guy called Tiger, he went and sat next to her to try to calm her down. Apparently he just said, Is there anything I can do for you, maybe you’d like some fresh air‌—that sort of thing. I mean, he wasn’t being even slightly rude. And he put an arm around her shoulder, like this. And she slaps it away and turns round to him and starts really laying into him. . . .”

  Oh God. Ana already knew what was coming. Her mother’s abundant charm was a barely existent membrane over her hateful innards. When she turned, she turned.

  “She said, ‘Get your disgusting AIDS-ridden hand off me, you sniveling, malnourished, frankly rather unattractive excuse for a man.’ And then she told him that he should hurry up and die and stop being a drain on the National Health. And then she stood up, in front of everyone, in front of all of Gregor’s friends, and accused them all of turning him into a pervert against his will and of deliberately infecting Gregor with their ‘rancid virus’ so that they could get their hands on all his money.”

  “No!” said Ana.

  “Yes,” said Lol, “she fucking well did. Oh Ana, I tell you, it were one of the most shocking things I have ever seen in my life. I wanted to hit ’er. I really did. And then I saw Bee getting up from her seat, and her face went all sort of twisted up, and she just grabbed your mother by her arms, like this, and frog-marched her out of the chapel. Told her she didn’t ever want to see her again. Told her she was disowning her. I wanted to cheer, I really did. But it weren’t exactly appropriate, you know. . . .”

  Ana’s face felt slack with shock‌—not shock that her mother was capable of behaving so badly, but shock that she’d missed out on a relationship with Bee because of it, that the infamous and much-vaunted bruises on her mother’s arms, far from being an acceptable reason to sever ties with Bee, were the exact opposite. And that she’d been stupid enough to believe her mother’s version of events in the first place.

  “So,” said Lol, “that should give you a fresh perspective on things.” She picked up her bag. “I’m going to get us some more drinks now, and by the time I get back I expect you to have made the right decision. All right?”

  “All right.” Ana’s hands shook as she picked up her margarita and drained it of the last few drops. The enormity of what Lol had just told her was hitting home. Everything could have been so different.

  She wat
ched Lol sashay across the room in her blue chiffon Gypsy top and indigo jeans, her white ponytail and long diamanté earrings swinging from side to side, and the eyes of every person in the room on her. Lol knew no fear. She didn’t see obstacles in life‌— only opportunities. She wasn’t just Ana’s physical negative, but her mental negative, too.

  Ana looked around her at the other people in the bar. Strangers. Dozens of them. Strangers with strange lives who lived in flats she’d never visit and had jobs she’d never heard of. This was Bee’s world, she realized, this city of transients and trendies, exclusivity and anonymity, this city where it could take two hours to visit a friend living three miles away but less than thirty minutes to get a fresh lobster delivered to your front door. And not only did she want to know what this city had done to her big sister, she also wanted to know it. She wanted to feel at home here. Like Bee had. She wasn’t ready to go home. She wasn’t ready to face her mother. She wanted to stay.

  “I’m staying,” she said firmly when Lol returned with two more margaritas. “I’m staying.”

  Lol threw her arms around her, and the two women hugged. “Nice one, girl, nice one. Now we’ve just got to sort out a plan. We’ll go on Sunday, right? I’ve got to work tomorrow and I’m off on Monday.”

  “Off?”

  “Yeah. I’m going to St. Tropez for a few days. To a recording studio.”

  “Really?” Ana’s mind was boggling with the glamour of it all.

  “Uh-huh. I’m going to be staying in a belle époque mansion on a cliff overlooking the sea with a swimming pool and a maze and fountains and everything.”

  “Wow,” said Ana.

  “Yeah. Downside is I’m going to be there with a bunch of foul-mouthed, beer-swilling Liverpudlians with too much money in their pockets and too much coke up their noses. But I’m not complaining. Not at all. And I’ll find you a place to stay. I’d offer you my flat, but it’s a shithole and, anyway, I don’t want you living on your own. Not a country girl like you in a city like this. Have you got any money?”