one-hit wonder

by Lisa Jewell

  Lol indicated a sign just behind her with her eyes. It was painted with the words WEST LONDON CREMATORIUM.

  “Is this where . . . ?”

  “Uh-huh,” said Lol, “thought you might like to say hello. And good-bye.”

  Ana nodded slowly. She was going to see Bee’s grave. She hadn’t even thought about seeing Bee’s grave.

  She bought a bunch of orange gladioli and then wondered if they were quite suitable. For a dead sister. Or for a dead pop star, for that matter. Did anyone leave gladioli for Diana? She’d never seen gladioli tied to railings or on the side of the road, either, come to think of it. Maybe they were all wrong. A floral faux pas. “They’re beautiful,” said Lol, “orange was Bee’s favorite color.”

  “Was it?” said Ana. “Really?”

  “Yeah,” Lol nodded. “Well. One of them, anyway.”

  The two women began walking. “Isn’t Flint coming?” whispered Ana.

  “No. Flint likes to do things like this alone. You know?”

  Ana didn’t really know but nodded anyway. They were heading down a meandering gravel driveway flanked by plane trees and cypresses. The sunlight dappled onto lush green grass. A few other people were here, too, clutching flowers. The graveyard stretched out in front of them for miles.

  A crunching on the gravel behind them warned of an approaching car. They moved onto the grass and looked behind them. A funeral cortège. A coffin piled high with red roses and a large floral structure that spelled out the word “mum” lay in the back of the leading hearse. Lol put her hand to her heart and cast her eyes downward, standing still until the entire procession of cars had passed them by. When Ana looked at her again her eyes were damp with tears. “Sorry,” she sniffed, wiping them away, “I’m an emotional old bugger sometimes.”

  Bee’s grave was to the west, in the shade of a sycamore. She lay between her father and a man called Maurice Gumm who’d been born in Tobago in 1931. Her grave was a flat marble plaque, flush to the grass, engraved with the wording that Ana’s mother had chosen:

  BELINDA OCTAVIA

  BEARHORN

  1964-2000

  BELOVED DAUGHTER & SISTER

  SHE BROUGHT JOY TO MILLIONS WITH HER BEAUTY,

  HER TALENT, AND HER JOIE DE VIVRE

  SHE WILL BE MISSED FOREVERMORE

  “Joie de vivre”? thought Ana. Wasn’t “joie de vivre” a rather odd thing to put on a headstone? A small bunch of loosely tied pink roses rested on her grave.

  “Who d’you think left those?” said Ana.

  Lol shrugged.

  Ana placed her flowers next to the roses and dusted some dirt off the plaque. She felt strange. She knew she should be thinking about Bee right now, but she wasn’t. She was thinking about her father. She was thinking about rushing to Bideford General from her flat in Exeter with Hugh when the phone call came, and getting there just in time to say good-bye, just in time to tell him she loved him, to squeeze his liver-spotted hands while they were still warm. She was thinking about going to the co-op with her mother and picking out the oyster-colored marble with the pink veins, the gold-leaf lettering, the wording. Identical to Bee’s. Cut from the same stone, engraved with the same lettering. Her mother’s choice. Her mother’s taste. Ana’s mother had impeccable taste. She knew how she liked things.

  Tears started tickling at the back of her throat. Lol squeezed her shoulder. “D’you want me to leave you?”

  “Uh-huh,” Ana gulped. “Just for a minute.”

  “I’ll see you back at the car.”

  Ana listened to Lol’s footsteps receding across the crunchy gravel and bowed her head. And then her shoulders started trembling and shaking as tears erupted from the very pit of her stomach. The tears she hadn’t cried at her father’s funeral. The tears she hadn’t been allowed to cry because her father’s funeral had been all about her mother.

  He’d keeled over in the garden while digging up hyacinth bulbs‌—it was ironic that he should have been preparing so vigilantly for the next season when he wasn’t to last the day. He’d been taken by ambulance to Barnstaple General Hospital but had died two hours later while waiting for an emergency heart bypass. He had been eighty-two years old. It had been a quick and relatively painless death, exactly the death that Bill had always said he wanted. He’d never been a burden to anyone, never inadvertently hurt anyone, never forgotten himself, humiliated himself, or soiled himself.

  During the last few years of his life, Bill had started to stoop, and Ana had forgotten how tall her father actually was. As she watched his long coffin being slipped from the hearse onto the shoulders of six strong men, she’d felt strangely proud of his stature and, for the first time in her life, she’d felt proud of her own gangling body, long hands, and large feet, which echoed those of her father.

  Ana had always known that her father would die while she was relatively young, that he wouldn’t be there to see weddings and grandchildren, but when it came it was still a massive shock which, combined with her already self-obsessed mother’s rapid descent into an almost psychotic state of self-indulgence, had forced Ana rudely off the path to adulthood she had been successfully following. Well‌—successful-ish. A going-nowhere job at Tony’s Tin Pan Alley selling drum kits and synthesizers to pimply sixteen-year-olds, a damp flat with a shared bathroom and a six-year relationship with Hugh, the highly intelligent but occasionally overbearing guy she’d lost her virginity to. But since she’d lost her going-nowhere job, her damp flat, her overbearing boyfriend, and her father all within the space of three months, she’d done nothing to get her life back on track. Instead of finding someone to look after her mother, getting herself a new flat, and looking for a new job, she’d spent all her time in her bedroom writing songs‌—trite, sentimental, self-indulgent songs. Terrible songs. She had boxes of them under her bed. Dozens and dozens. They were so bad that she couldn’t even bear to look at them.

  When she wasn’t writing appalling songs, she was reading books‌—voraciously, two or three a week, from the local library. She could have fooled herself into believing that she was improving herself, expanding her mind, but the only books she ever read were crime novels. Patricia Cornwell. Ruth Rendell. P.D. James. Agatha Christie. And books about serial killers, too. Jeffrey Dahmer. Dennis Nielsen. Charles Manson. Ted Bundy. Ed Gein. Her mother called her a “ghoul,” but Ana was just compulsively fascinated by the workings of minds and souls darker than hers.

  Ana had never been a particularly gregarious or fun-loving girl. Her school reports had told of a bright, sweet-natured girl with an amazing talent for music writing, singing, and playing‌—but suggested that her social skills could be improved upon. People had always described her as “shy,” “quiet,” “studious,” “creative.” Since her father died, though, these adjectives had transmuted, subtly, to “strange,” “odd,” “peculiar,” and “weird.”

  Living alone with her mother had a lot to do with it. She and her mother were so diametrically opposed in every way‌—physically, socially, sartorially, intellectually‌—they could find no common ground whatsoever. Bill had always acted as a kind of buffer between the two women‌—he’d understood so well what made each of them tick‌—but without him there, the house on Main Street was a cold and unhappy place.

  “Oh God, Dad,” Ana whispered to herself, “I miss you so much, Dad, I miss you so much.” Ana was convulsing now, her stomach feeling bruised by contractions as tears that she hadn’t cried when she’d needed to came erupting to the surface. She choked and coughed on them and her whole body shook. For ten months she’d sat on these feelings, kept them to herself. She’d wanted to break down a long time ago, but Hugh had told her to be strong, told her that now was a perfect opportunity to grow, to become adult. When all she’d wanted to do was curl up in a ball in his arms and let him hold her like a baby, he’d forced her to restrain herself. And to prove to him that she could be strong, that she could be a woman, she’d done as he said. And denied her own grief.
And then Gay had started going downhill, and she’d moved home, and there was no room for anyone’s emotions other than her mother’s in that house. Ana wasn’t allowed to feel‌—all she could do was keep her head down and try not to antagonize her mother. This was the first time, Ana realized, since her father had died, that she’d been in a position just to . . . just to . . . “Oh God, Dad,” she sobbed, “what am I supposed to do without you‌—I don’t understand‌—how am I supposed to be able to live without you?”

  Ana stayed like that, her shoulders heaving, her stomach aching, her head bowed, and her knees bent, for another ten minutes, as she emptied her soul of all its pain, until she heard footsteps on the gravel behind her and pulled herself together. She took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her cheeks and pulled her hair away from her face.

  And as her tears began to subside and her vision cleared, she glanced down once more at the slab at her feet and felt suddenly gripped by the greatest, most overwhelming sense of loss‌—not of someone she’d known and loved, but of someone she should have known and loved, and she found herself whispering to Bee one single and entirely unexpected word: “Sorry.”

  thirteen

  Flint screwed the empty crisp packet into a tiny ball and squeezed it into the ashtray next to a scrunched-up Twix wrapper and a few pellets of graying, hardened chewing gum. He searched his pocket for a toothpick and found one, using it to investigate the crisp-retaining crevasses between his teeth. Lol was in the back of the car, and Ana was walking back toward them. Fuck, she was tall. Very tall. Taller than Lol, because she was wearing flat lace-ups and Lol always wore those bloody great skyscraper heels. And she was nothing like Bee. In fact, if someone had given you a picture of Bee and asked you to come up with a woman who was the complete opposite of Bee in every way, Ana would have been the result. Not his type. Not his type at all. But quite interesting. Interesting the way her nose protruded from her face almost like a spout, like a beautiful but functional spout. And her eyes were a fascinating shape‌—like soft little triangles resting on their sides. And such an amazing shade of hazel. Almost yellow. Long, thick eyelashes. And not a scrap of makeup. Flint admired that in a woman. She was quiet, too, had a sort of dignity about her. Not like Loudmouth Lol and Gibbering Gill. Flint liked quiet women‌—you never knew what was going on in their minds. That was the trouble with most women‌—they just wanted to tell you what they were thinking all the fucking time.

  As Ana got nearer, Flint noticed that her eyes were red and raw and felt a flash of empathy as tears started to stab at his own eyes. He cleared his throat abruptly. He’d cried more in the last three weeks than he’d ever cried in his life before. Enough crying. More than enough. He slid open the partition and glanced backward. “Are we ready?” They nodded and he put the car into gear and pulled away. He was feeling strangely intrigued by Ana, this awkward-looking sister whom Bee claimed to have spent every weekend with for the last ten years but who hadn’t actually seen Bee since she was thirteen, but he wasn’t much of a one for making small talk, so he switched on the intercom, unwrapped himself a stick of Wrigley’s, folded it into his mouth, and listened, instead.

  “You all right?”

  Sniffing from Ana. “Yeah. Sorry. I’m fine.”

  Sound of nose being blown.

  “What was it like, Lol? Bee’s funeral?”

  Short silence.

  “The weather was nice.”

  “How many people came?”

  “Me. Flint. Gill.”

  “Is that all?”

  “Uh-huh. We were pretty shocked. We thought you and your mum were going to come. We thought there’d be more people from home. You know, from Devon. Relatives. Family friends. I’d have invited other people but I didn’t know who else there was. I thought your mum was going to handle it all. . . .”

  “I wanted to come. Mum couldn’t‌—but I wanted to. . . .”

  “So‌—why didn’t you?”

  Brief silence.

  “Too scared, I guess.”

  “Scared? Of what?”

  “Scared of being alone, scared of London, scared of death, scared of Bee’s friends, scared of the train journey. You know‌—just scared.”

  “You silly arse.”

  Wry laughter. “I wish I’d come now. Now that I know it’s not scary. I really, really wish I’d come. Only three people. That’s so . . . awful.”

  Another brief silence.

  “And what about London? Bee’s London friends? What about all those people in her address book?”

  Sound of Lol sighing.

  “Look Ana. Your sister. She was my best friend, right. Truly, the best friend I had in the world. I’d have done anything for her and she’d have done anything for me. But‌—and please don’t take this the wrong way‌—she could be a bit of a cow.”

  Flint nodded and smiled to himself in the front seat.

  “Particularly in the early days, when she was much younger. She’d walk over people, use people. She were so bloody ambitious. And she pissed a lot of people off. I didn’t want to start going through her address book and hearing people telling me they didn’t want to come to Bee’s funeral because they didn’t like her, because she’d hurt them. D’you understand?”

  Flint nodded his agreement and swept the pavement with his eyes. Summer‌—he loved it. Girls. Flesh. Everywhere.

  “So, how come she never fell out with you?”

  “I knew how to handle her. That was the thing with Bee. She was this really special person and most people just handled her all wrong. Made excuses for her. Made a fuss. Treated her like a fucking princess. When all she wanted was an equal. A pal. Someone to have a laugh with. And, most importantly, someone she could trust. It was an education seeing what happened to Bee when her single came out and she was famous overnight, it really was. The way all these wasps came out of nowhere. Bzzbzzbzz. Bluebottles. Stinking great flies. It’s fucking nauseating the way these people come climbing out of the woodwork when they get a sniff of money. They crawl out and they treat you like the center of the fucking universe, like their life’s purpose is your happiness, your comfort, your every whim and desire. And then when she stopped making money they wouldn’t even give her fifty p for her bus fare. D’you know what I mean?”

  “But she can’t have fallen out with everyone, surely?”

  Lol sighed. “I don’t know, Ana, all right? All I know is that since her father died I only ever saw her on my own or with Flint. She never talked about anyone else. She didn’t trust anyone else. And now‌—well‌—it looks like she didn’t trust me, either.”

  “So‌—are you telling me that the reason no one came to Bee’s funeral was because no one liked her?”

  “That’s the long and short of it.”

  Short pause.

  Whisper from Ana. “That’s so terrible . . . imagine being alive for thirty-six years and having only three friends. . . .”

  A particularly ripe blonde caught Flint’s eye then. Tall, athletic-looking, tanned, tight cotton sundress, tennis shoes‌—posh. Ponies. Public school. Lovely. Flint had a particular thing about posh girls. And they seemed to have a particular thing about him. She saw Flint staring at her and flushed slightly. Flint laughed under his breath as he pulled away from the traffic lights.

  “Flint.” Lol opened the partition and leaned toward him with one of her “how can you resist me I’m so adorable and I’m about to ask you a really annoying favor” faces on.

  “Ye-es.”

  “Can we have some music in the back?”

  “Yes.” He sighed and switched on the radio. Groovejet. Had to be. Everywhere he bloody went this summer. Big Brother and Groovejet.

  Ten minutes later, he pulled up outside the photo shop on Latimer Road and watched as Lol and Ana both unfurled themselves and scuttled into the shop together like a pair of exotic stick insects, music blaring from the back of the car and everyone stopping to stare at them as they passed, wondering who they we
re. Flint sighed and wiped a slick of sweat off his upper lip with the back of his hand. A minute later they emerged from the shop, flapping photographs around and acting in a generally overexcited manner.

  Lol threw herself into the back of the car. “We got pictures!” she squealed so loudly that Flint had to put his hands over his ears.

  “Jesus, Tate,” he said, “calm down, will you?” He picked the photos out of Lol’s hand and looked at them. Ana slid into the passenger seat and looked over his shoulder. She smelled of Gill’s house‌—of fabric conditioner, of fresh bedclothes.

  “God,” Ana said in a whisper as Flint flipped through the pictures, “Bee looks so . . . so grown-up. Her hair’s really different. I always thought she’d still have that black bob she used to have.”

  “Nah,” said Lol, taking the pictures as they circulated her way, “she got rid of that when she turned thirty.”

  Flint swallowed and felt it catch at the back of his throat as he looked at Bee in the photos. She looked beautiful and was, of course, immaculately dressed in every picture. Her hair was decorated with fresh tropical flowers, fat white camellias and sprigs of mauve bougainvillea and, most surprisingly, she looked rapturously happy. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d seen her looking that happy. He flicked faster and faster.

  Bee on a beach.

  Bee in a restaurant.

  Bee haggling with a market trader.

  Bee on a bridge.

  Bee wearing a bindi.

  Bee eating a coconut.

  And then, finally, a couple of photos from the end of the pile, there was a picture of a man. They all stopped breathing. Lol shrieked, “Ohmygod, it’s a fella. It’s a fucking fella,” and grabbed the picture from his hands.

  He was in his early forties, his hair nearly completely white and shorn close to his head. He was wearing long shorts with trendy sandals and a brightly colored Hawaiian shirt, with a pair of those cool, pop-star-type sunglasses on his head. He was sitting outside a restaurant with one leg crossed high upon the other one, in a classic groin-display position, and he was looking slightly cross. He wasn’t particularly good-looking and he wasn’t ugly. He looked like a tosser.