‘Of course not,’ Gay had snapped.
‘So then – what happened?’
‘That,’ her mother replied abruptly, ‘remains to be seen.’ Gay had sniffed again and nodded sadly. And Ana had looked at her, at her tiny, pretty, doll-like little mother, with her tumble-down hair and her over-kohled eyes, a snotty tissue scrunched up between her bony old-lady fingers and, suddenly, for possibly the first time in her life, felt desperately sorry for her. She’d had such dreams for her life and it had come to this. Being trapped by her own insecurities and neuroses in this house, with two husbands dead and buried and the only thing in life she’d always been able to rely on, her good looks, rapidly letting her down. Her life was one big disappointment and the only light that had shone upon her dashed dreams had been the memory of her exotic eldest daughter. And now she was gone, too. Gay suddenly looked very small and very old, and for one bizarre moment Ana was overcome by a desire to hold her. She put out a tentative hand and brushed it against the satin of Gay’s blouse.
But as her fingers made contact with the fabric she felt her mother’s body tense up and Gay’s bony hand leapt from her lap to slap Ana’s hand away, so hard it stung. She turned and eyed Ana angrily.
‘It should have beenyou!’ she spat. ‘You should be dead. Not her. Not my Belinda. She had everything to live for – looks, money, personality, talent. And you have nothing. You – you sit in your room all day with your big, dangly body and your lank hair and you play your horrible music and pick your spots and bite your nails. You’ve got nofriends and no boyfriend, no job, nothing. There is no point to you. You are pointless, Anabella – pointless. And yet – you’re alive! You’re alive and Belinda’s dead! Ha! Something’s gone wrong – something’s gone wrong – up there,’ – she pointed at the ceiling – ‘with Him. Up there. He’s made a mistake. That’s what is it. Why else would he take away everyone – Gregor, Bill, Belinda – and leave you? Why would he leave you, Anabella?
‘God,’ she said, addressing the ceiling, her voice quavering like the Shakespearean actress she’d always dreamed of being, ‘God – you have fucked up. You have fucked up …’ She held out her hands in exasperation as she boomed at the Creator, and then pulled herself from the sofa and stalked from the room, stifling a sob as she went.
Ana had overlooked this tirade – it was nothing new – and instead she’d concocted filmic, romantic vignettes of Bee, draped all over a well-lit bed, her pale, bloodless arms trailing on to the floor, her green eyes staring glassily at the ceiling, a puddle of pills next to the bed. She’d prodded at her subconscious for some emotion, a sense of grief, but it wasn’t there. She’d felt shocked, but not sad.
It was ludicrous, Bee being dead. People like Bee didn’t die. Glamorous, beautiful, successful, rich, popular people didn’t take a load of drugs and die alone and not get found until four days later. That was what happened to sad losers, to people with nothing and no one, to people like Ana, in fact. How could Bee be dead? Why would a woman who had everything throw it all away? It made no sense at all.
Ana spent the rest of the evening going through all the possible explanations in her head, trying to give her sister’sdeath some sort of structure, but it wasn’t until a couple of hours later, lying in bed listening to the unnerving sounds of her mother downstairs being her mother and coping with her grief in ways at which Ana could only guess, that a sense of loss finally hit her.
She was never going to see Bee again.
She may not have seen Bee for the last twelve years, but she’d always sat on the emotional nest-egg of the knowledge that she could if she wanted to. That she could go to the train station, buy a ticket to London andsee Bee.Whenever she wanted. But she never had wanted to. And although Bee was practically a stranger to Ana, she was still her sibling, the only person in the whole world who could ever have possibly understood the things that Ana went through living with her mother, and now she was gone and Ana was totally alone.
It took a long time for Ana to get to sleep that night and when she finally did, her dreams were sad and hollow.
4
When Ana came down for breakfast that morning, her mother had been standing at the foot of the stairs with a letter in one hand and a bowl of cereal in the other.
‘Now,’ she began, as if the conversation had already been going for some time, ‘sit down. Eat this. And hurry up. I’ve got plans for you – things for you to do.’ Ana had felt a nervous nausea rising in her gut. She hadn’t seen her mother this animated in months.
As she munched, she heard her mother upstairs, banging and clanking about in what sounded like the attic. Ana could hear her mother talking to herself as well, and then moments later she came clattering down the stairs. Her hair was all dusty and extra tousled. She was smiling.Andit was a Thursday and she was wearing her Wednesday cardigan. Something very, very strange was going on.
‘The last time I used this was 1963. For my honeymoon.’ She got a faraway, wistful look in her eye and then plonked a suitcase on the breakfast table, right in front of Ana. It was small. And musty-smelling. And it was fashioned from a woolly tartan fabric in bright red and bottle green. It was very ugly. ‘Anyway, Anabella,’ Gay said, whisking the cereal bowl away from under Ana’s nose and dropping it noisily in the sink, ‘there’s no time for sitting around today. You’ve got things to do.’ Shesaid this as a parent might tell a child that they had sweeties in their handbag.
‘Mum. D’you mind telling me what the hell you’re going on about?’
‘I received a letter this morning’ – Gay tossed it on the table in front of her – ‘a letter from Bee’s landlord. Her lease has just expired, and if her possessions are not removed by tomorrow morning, he intends to dispose of them. So. There’s a train in just over an hour. Mr Arif will meet you outside her flat at one-thirty. He says you can stay in the flat overnight. I’ve organized for a removals company to bring her things back. They’ll be there at nine-thirty tomorrow morning. I’ve spoken to that Mr Arnott Brown person, Bee’s solicitor thingy – well, I thought since you were going to be there, you may as well kill all these birds with one stone – and he’ll be expecting you at midday tomorrow. Here’s his address. Your return train is at four-thirty and you’ll be back here by about seven tomorrow evening. Here’s some money –’ she dropped a comically large bundle of notes onto the table – ‘and here’s the address.’
Ana scanned the letter briefly, looked at the pile of strange, inexplicable things in front of her and then at her mother. This was utterly ridiculous. How could her mother expect her just to wake up one morning, pack a suitcase and go to London, of all places? On her own. She’d get lost. She’d never find Bee’s flat in the whole of London. She’d end up in Brixton or Toxteth or something and get mugged. Someone would steal all her money and her suitcase, and she’d be wandering the streets of London with only the clothes on her back. And people wouldlaugh at her. All those cool, hard-nosed London types. Ana’s heart started to race under her pyjamas. This was madness.
She strode into the living room and addressed her mother’s back. ‘But why can’t we get the removal men to pack away Bee’s things?’ she’d asked desperately, knowing already that it was futile.
‘I am not allowing a bunch of grubby, overweight buffoons to go rifling through my darling dead daughter’s personal things with their big, dirty fingers. How could you even consider such a thing. I mean – herlingerie,for God’s sake, and all her female bits and pieces. Absolutely not. Go and pack. Immediately.’
So Ana had. And here she was. In London. On her own. And she hadn’t got lost and she hadn’t been mugged and, in fact, she was feeling almost excited to be here.
Ana called downstairs to the porter, who locked up for her and gave her directions to the nearest supermarket. She bought herself a chicken mayonnaise sandwich and a can of Coke and asked the Indian guy stacking shelves for some cardboard boxes. He gave her a huge flattened stack of them and she bought herself a roll of parcel tape and lugged everything back to Bickenhall Mansions.
It was dazzlingly bright out in the street, but back in the overcast gloom of Bee’s flat, it may as well have been a late November afternoon. Ana picked up Mr Arif’s inventory and leafed through it while she nibbled on her sandwich.
1x Black plastic ladle w/green handle
slight melting on handle
