by Lisa Jewell
“Come on, you two—enough of all that,” said Lol, twirling a shawl over her shoulders as the sun started disappearing behind the trees, “we’ve got a party to go to!”
forty-four
“Hi there, everybody. Hope you’re all enjoying this very special soirée. My name is Lolita Tate and these other guys”—she indicated the musicians behind her—“are just some weird old blokes who can play instruments. This bloke”—she pointed at Keith—“is the world’s greatest living tambourinist. And also, I am very happy to say, my lover. And we’ll be your band for tonight. We’re happy to do requests, so feel free to offer suggestions. We’re also very happy to accept guest musicians during the course of the evening, so if anyone thinks they can do any better than us, just let us know. OK, boys—take it away.” The drummer tapped his cymbal three times and then the band launched into a fantastic version of “Born to Run.”
Ana turned to Flint and smiled. “Can you dance?” she asked.
He grimaced. “Not even slightly,” he said.
“Good,” she said, “neither can I.”
They both leaned back against the wall and watched the party. Flint had his arm around her shoulder and she drew his fist toward her and kissed his knuckles. There were about thirty people in the room. A lot of the “fans” had stuck around, having originally said they were going to stay for only one drink. Amy was still here and was now dancing with one of Keith’s friends, who looked as if he was thoroughly enjoying himself. Ed had left immediately after the service at the cemetery, his eyes looking slightly red but with a sense of relief about him that it was finally over. And Dr. Chan had told Zander about a dozen times that they had to leave but he was still here, drinking a warm shandy and sneaking puffs on other people’s cigarettes when Dr. Chan wasn’t looking.
Lol’s voice was absolutely incredible. Ana had never heard her singing live before, only on tape, and shivers ran down her spine just listening to her. And the band was brilliant. Ana had no idea that Lol was going to put together such a professional outfit for her. Saxophones, trumpets; electric, acoustic, and twelve-string guitars. The band was almost bigger than the party.
Flint and Ana held each other tight and watched the band, swaying around a bit, both with matching stupid grins on their faces, chatting every now and then. A still-dancing Amy tottered toward them, grinning from ear to ear.
“Oh Ana,” she said, “Bee would have loved this, you know. It’s been a marvelous day. Absolutely marvelous. Now. There was something I needed to ask you. And I know that now’s probably not the best of times, I know how busy you young people are, but I needed to ask you—about John. Not that I’m not thoroughly enjoying his company. I am. But dear Freddie has some, er . . . objections to his presence. And I wondered if you might give some thought to alternative arrangements for the dear creature. . . .”
Ana looked at Flint.
He smiled at her. “I’ll have him,” he said easily.
Amy clapped her hands with delight.
“Really?” said Ana. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” he said, “why not? I’ve always wanted a pet. And he can catch spiders for me.”
“You’re scared of spiders?”
“Uh-huh. Terrified . . .” He addressed Amy. “How’s about I pop around tomorrow and pick him up?”
But before Amy could answer, there was a lull in their conversation, just in time for them to hear Lol say, “We have a singing virgin in the house, a certain young lady who tells me she thinks she can sing but she’s not sure because she’s never sung in front of anyone before. Well, singing runs in her family, so I’m convinced she’ll be great. Ana—where are you?”
And before she could do anything about it, half a dozen pairs of hands, including Flint’s, had bundled her up onto the stage, and six seconds later she was standing over the microphone shielding her eyes from the glare of a spotlight that she hadn’t even realized was there until that moment.
“Give her a huge round of applause, everyone.”
Ana looked blindly into the crowd. Thirty-odd people suddenly looked like three hundred. A two-foot rostrum suddenly felt like a vast stage. Expectant faces beamed up at her, and she didn’t recognize any of them. She tried discreetly to get off the stage, but hands kept appearing from everywhere to push her back on. She turned around to Lol. “I can’t,” she mouthed.
“Yes, you bloody well can,” she replied, turning her back toward the microphone.
“But I don’t know what to sing.”
“What’s your favorite shower song?”
“My what?”
“What do you sing in the shower?”
“God. I dunno. Loads of different things.”
“Well. Pick one. Tell the band what it is. And then sing it. You can sing it backward if you like.”
“Backward?”
“Yes. Facing away.”
“Oh God. This is horrible, Lol.”
“Yeah. It is. At first. But once you get going, you’ll be addicted. I promise you. Now. What d’you want to sing?”
“God. I dunno.” She bit her lip and looked at Lol desperately. Every fiber of her being was telling her to get off the stage. Now. Every brain cell she possessed was shouting at her to get off immediately, before she made a gigantic fool of herself. But then a little voice started talking to her. The little voice who remembered all those nights she’d lain in bed fantasizing about a moment like this, wondering if she’d be up to it, dreaming about having the sort of life where she’d even be asked to do this in the first place. And here she was, finally, at the ripe old age of twenty-five, being given the opportunity to sing anything she liked with a band of professional musicians in front of a friendly crowd at her sister’s wake. She took a deep breath and said the first thing that came into her head. “What about . . . ‘Time Will Pass You By’?”
“What?”
“Tobi Legend.”
“Who?”
“Northern Soul classic.”
“Never heard of it.” She turned to consult with the band. “OK,” she said, turning back to Ana, “they have. You’re on.”
She winked at her and suddenly the drummer was tapping out the rhythm and suddenly the intro was playing and suddenly Ana was facing the crowd and suddenly she was singing. Fuck. How had that happened? She was singing. She was breathless at first, her voice slightly weak and quavery, but within the first few bars she was just . . . singing. In front of people. She didn’t look at them as she sang. She looked at the dartboard. She looked at a poster on the wall for a pub quiz. And all the notes came out properly. And she even started dancing a bit. And halfway through the song she actually forgot she was singing in public and just concentrated on getting the full meaning of the song from her soul to her lungs and to her lips. All she was aware of was the lyrics and how apt they were and how much she wished Bee could have been out there listening to them . . . and then suddenly she was bowing and it was over and everyone in the room was going mental. A huge smile split her face in two and Lol grabbed her and hugged her and Flint leapt onto the stage and buried her in a bear hug and held her face in his hands and kissed her on the lips. Her heart raced with adrenaline and her face was flushed with heat and excitement. Oh my God. She’d done it. After all those years of fantasizing. All those years of dreaming. She’d got up on stage in front of people and she’d sung. And it was brilliant. One of the best feelings she’d ever experienced. She beamed at the crowd, who all cheered her on. She turned to Lol. “What about a duet?” she whispered.
Lol nodded and hugged her again. “ ‘Suspicious Minds’?” she said.
Ana nodded enthusiastically.
The band started up again and the two of them launched into the song, Ana providing the harmonies. This time it was even more enjoyable, and by the time the song finished and the crowd started shouting again, Ana was ready to spend the rest of the night on the stage. “Am I all right?” she whispered to Lol.
“Ana
, my love, you are much more than all right. You are fucking fantastic. Now sing something else. Quick. The crowd is getting restless.”
Ana turned and faced the audience. She smiled. They cheered. This was fun. And as she looked around at the faces in the crowd, she spotted a beaming Zander, his hands held above his head, clapping loudly and whistling, and it suddenly occurred to her that he was probably the bravest person she’d ever met. This party was for Bee, but Zander deserved a moment in the spotlight. Because he was here. At a party to celebrate the life of a woman who’d taken everything away from him. And then she remembered something. “A Song for Zander.” She’d finally put some music to it last week. She’d been intending to ask Lol if she’d be able to get it recorded for him, as she wanted to send him the tape in St. Andrews. But now . . . well, now was just perfect.
She leaned down and asked Flint to pass her her bag. And then she asked a big guy with a beard if she could borrow his guitar. She looped the guitar around her neck and strummed it quietly, getting used to the feel of it after so many weeks without practicing.
“Um. This is a song. This is a really, really special song. Because Bee wrote it. And no, it’s not ‘Space Girl’ and it’s not ‘Honey Bee’ ”—there was some muted sniggering—“but it’s a song I found in her flat when I cleared it out last month. These are Bee’s lyrics. I just added a simple tune. And it’s called ‘A Song for Zander.’ ”
Tears started catching at the back of her throat as she sang, and for a brief second she felt something powerful entering her—an external force. And for a brief second it was as if it wasn’t her singing anymore, as if it was somebody else, and as her eyes found Zander’s again, a jolt shot through her and she saw it hit him, too, and it felt like Bee.
She handed the guitar back to the beardy guy when she finished and leaned into the microphone.
“It’s somebody else’s turn now,” she said, and then she clambered down from the rostrum.
“Ana,” said Flint, clasping her immediately, “that was . . . Jesus . . . that was just fucking brilliant. You’re just fucking brilliant.” He squeezed her tight and kissed her and then other people came up to her and they all had the same look in their eyes. Respect.
Zander wheeled himself toward Flint and Ana. “Well,” he said, “that was officially the best moment of my life. That was beyond and above everything. That was better than getting my A-level results, better than Napster, better than anything. Ever. Thank you, Ana.” He clasped her hands in his and she leaned down and kissed him and he whispered in her ear. “Did Bee really write that? Or were you, you know, just saying that for effect? You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone.”
“Bee wrote it, Zander. I promise. I’ll send you the lyrics if you like.”
“Bee really wrote that song? About me?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Fuck me.”
Dr. Chan appeared at Zander’s shoulder. “OK. You’ve had an extra hour and now you’ve had a song written and performed in your honor. It’s time for Cinderella to go home.”
Zander sighed and shrugged. “Looks like my time is up. My carriage awaits. I have to go. Thanks for such a great day. It’s been really—well, you know. It’s just been brilliant. I know that’s a weird thing to say about a funeral, but you know what I mean. I think we all really needed this, Ana. Thank you so much for organizing it.”
“You are incredibly welcome.”
“By the way, I’ve spoken to my lawyer about that will. Apparently it’s kosher. It’s legal. Obviously it all needs to be finalized, and I can’t help thinking that your mother will have something to say about it. But in the meantime, I’d really like it if you treated the cottage like your own. I’ll be living there during holidays, but it’ll be empty most of the time. I’d really like it if you used it. And the bike”—he looked at Ana—“I really want you to have the bike. I obviously won’t have much use for it. And I think it would really suit you. . . .” He grinned at her.
As Flint carried Zander down the stairs to the ground level and helped Dr. Chan get him into the ambulance, among more promises to keep in touch and come up and see him in St. Andrews, Zander pulled Ana toward him urgently and whispered in her ear.
“I felt it. When you were singing. I felt Bee.”
She nodded at him knowingly and he kissed her hard on the cheek. “Thank you,” he whispered. And then Dr. Chan closed the door, climbed into the driver’s seat, and the ambulance disappeared into the dark.
Flint and Ana ordered a cab at eleven. They wobbled drunkenly down the stairs when it arrived and were about to get in, when Ana remembered something.
“Oh,” she said, “my stuff. That Mum brought. It’s still in the back of your car.”
“We can pick it up tomorrow,” said Flint. “Don’t worry about it.”
“No, but Bee’s stuff. Mum said there was a letter in there. From Bee. To me. I want to see it.”
“OK,” said Flint, and handed her his car keys.
Ana made her way unsteadily toward the car and pulled open the trunk. She peered inside and then pulled out the manila envelope. She opened it, but in the muted tangerine streetlights she couldn’t see a thing. Just a few sheets of paper. She locked the trunk and weaved back to the waiting cab where she angled the letter closer to the light.
“What does it say?” said Flint.
“God,” she said, “I dunno. It’s really hard to tell in this light. I’ll look at it when we get back to yours.”
She slid the paper back into the envelope, slipped it into her bag and snuggled into Flint’s shoulder as the cab bore them homeward through the empty streets of North London.
It was still warm outside when they got back, and neither of them was even slightly tired, so they decided to crack another beer and sit in the garden for a while. Flint wedged a CD player under the back window and put on a Green Day album and Ana draped herself over his lap in the old brown armchair. The moon over the railway line was a perfect half-moon. They sat in silence for a while, breathing in the fading scent of summer and listening to the distant city noises. Someone having a party up the street opened a window and the bangbangbang of the Chemical Brothers ate into their own music.
“God,” said Flint, “it’s never just quiet, is it? Not even at this time of night.”
“Silence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” said Ana. “That was one of the things I hated most about Torrington. The silence. It was, like, I knew there was this whole world out there, all this life to be lived. But nobody was sending me any smoke signals. D’you see?”
“So, I take it you’re not going back, then?”
Ana snorted. “No way,” she said. “And now I don’t even have to think about it, thanks to the lovely Mr. Redwood taking my mother off my hands. But I don’t think I was ever supposed to have been there in the first place, really. Like Bee. A fish out of water. From the second day I was in London I already knew it was right for me. And then I met you . . .”
“Ye-es . . .”
“And then I met you and suddenly I had the best reason in the world to stay here.” She turned around and kissed him on the cheek and she loved that she didn’t have to feel insecure about saying things like that to Flint.
“What are you going to do about your flat? About moving out of Gill’s?”
“I dunno”—she took a slurp of beer—“find a flatshare. Or something.”
“You know you’re welcome to stay here? With me?”
“Oh. You don’t want me hanging around here. Surely. I’d be cramping your style. Mr. Confirmed Bachelor.”
“No. I mean it. Honestly. Just temporary. Obviously. I mean, you’re only young, too young to make any lasting decisions just yet. But I’d rather you stayed here for a while than just rushed into the first flatshare you came across. And besides, you’ve got to get a job first, haven’t you?”
She shuddered. “Urgh, God. Don’t remind me.”
“You know you can do any
thing you like, don’t you?”
“Yeah—right.”
“No. Really. Don’t just settle for any old thing. Take a leaf out of Bee’s book. Follow your dreams. Look how far you’ve come just in two weeks. Give yourself some time and I reckon you’ll conquer the world. What would you like to do? In an ideal world?”
Ana thought for a moment. In an ideal world. In this world. What would she like to do? “Sound tracks,” she said in a flash of inspiration. “I’d like to be the person who does the sound tracks for films.”
“You mean a composer?”
“No—the one who chooses the songs to go with the scenes. Like ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ in Reservoir Dogs. Inspired.”
She laughed and nestled her head into Flint’s shoulder. They sat for a while in silence and absorbed the atmosphere.
“Did you ever use to think that Bee was destined to die young?” she asked.
Flint thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, “I suppose in a way, I did. Not consciously and not the way she went, obviously. But she always had this air about her of someone who was just passing through.”
“D’you ever think . . .” began Ana.
“What?”
“Well—this might sound a bit callous. But d’you ever think that Bee . . . ?”
“Yes,” said Flint, “all the time.”
“But you don’t know what I was going to say.”
“Yes I do.”
“Go on, then. What was I going to say?”
“You were going to say—do I ever think that Bee died so that you and I could meet?”
Ana looked at him in shock. “Fuck,” she said.
“And the answer to that question is that yes, I do. I believe that everything happens for a reason. And I believe that you and I were destined to meet. Now. In these circumstances. Here. Tragic as it is.”
Ana turned slightly and planted a big kiss on Flint’s forehead. And then she looked up at the sky. “No stars,” she said, “no stars at all.”
Flint looked upward, too.