‘That’s enough, Zander. You’re just showing off. Andturn that computer off.’ Dr Chan strode towards him and put a finger out towards the power switch.
‘No!’ he exclaimed. ‘Don’t. I haven’t backed up my spreadsheets. I’ll do it.’ He hit a few buttons, sulkily. ‘There. It’s off. Are you happy now?’
‘Yes, thank you, Zander. Now, I’m going to leave you and your aunt alone together, to chat. OK? I’ll be back in an hour or so and we can all go and get some lunch. All right?’
‘Do I have a choice?’
‘No. You don’t have a choice.’
‘Well, then, why bother asking me?’
‘Fine,’ said Dr Chan tersely, throwing Bee a look, ‘I’ll see you in an hour, then. And if you need anything, just hit that bell.’ She pointed at a buzzer on the wall.
‘Who are you talking to – her or me?’
Dr Chan raised her eyebrows and left the room.
Bee wanted the earth to open up and swallow her. Dr Chan’s presence had given the situation a layer of insulation. Now it was raw and unprotected.
Zander wheeled towards her and then came to an abrupt halt a few inches from her feet. The room was entirely silent. He stared at her, his head on one side, rubbing the top of one of his ears between his fingertips.
‘So,’ said Bee, in an attempt to soften the malevolent atmosphere, ‘this is a nice room you’ve got here.’
‘I don’t believe you’re my aunt,’ he said.
Bee blanched and gulped. He knows, she thought,he knows.‘I’m sorry?’
‘It’s bullshit that you’re my aunt.’
‘And what exactly makes you say that?’
‘Well – everyone in my family was pig-ugly. You’re far too good-looking to be related to me.’
Bee tried to control her facial muscles, to look unfazed. Stick to the story, Bee, she told herself, juststick to the fucking story.‘Yes. Well. We had different mothers your mother and me. I never even met your mother.’
‘Bullshit.’
‘I didn’t. I mean, I only just found out that she existed and …’
‘Bull. Shit. Big steaming pile of it.’ He wiggled his fingers to demonstrate the steam coming off the shit.
Bee forced her fingers into the collar of her polo neck, trying to relieve her claustrophobia. ‘Look. I don’t know what else to say. I mean …’
‘Huge, vast mountains of hot steaming rancid fly-infested bullshit … Tons of it. Piles as big as the Himalayas. Everywhere. Urgh … urgh … urgh’ – he put his hand to his throat and pretended to choke – ‘the ammonia, the poisonous, noxious, choking gases coming off those piles of shit … Help me, I’m choking, choking to death on it … urgh …’
And as Bee looked at this puny little boy, with his withered legs and his too-big shirt and his stupid glasses, this little boy who she owed so much to, who she’d taken so much from and who she’d spent the past twelve years fantasizing about, she stopped feeling nervous and started feeling irritated, and suddenly and over-poweringly wanted to punch him in the face. Really hard.
‘OK, then, Mr Know-It-All,’ she snapped, getting to her feet, ‘if I’m not your aunt, then who the fuck am I?’
‘Well, that’s a very good question. An excellent question.Maybe you could answer it? My guess though is that you’re either a) an undercover reporter – something to do with all those TV airheads hanging around the place – but I have to concede that it’s unlikely you’d have undertaken such a sophisticated ruse just to talk to little old me. Or b) that you’re a sick sexual pervert who wants to put her hand in my knickers and feel my impotent little willy.’
‘Jesus Christ!’ said Bee, ‘that’s disgusting! How old are you?’
‘I’m twelve years old, thirteen in July. But I have the intellect and vocabulary of a thirty-year-old. If that’s what you were asking … So? Was I right? Are you a sick pervert?’ He threw her a lascivious look. ‘Because I really don’t have a problem with it if you are – sexy-legs …’
‘Oh. Jesus. You are disgusting.’ Bee folded her arms and eyed him with contempt. ‘Do you talk to the doctors and nurses like this?’
‘No. I’m just rude to them. But then, they’re not as good-looking as you – and they don’t lie to me.’
