‘Hi,’ he said, handing her her tea.
‘Hi,’ she said, taking it from him and pulling the duvet up around her armpits.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘this is a turn-up for the books, isn’t it?’
‘Mmm,’ murmured Ana, taking a slurp of tea.
‘How you doing?’
‘Er …’ – she grinned and put her tea on the bedside table – ‘good. I’m good.’ And then she beamed at him – a huge toothy, tonsilly grin, and for the first time ever Flint could see something of Bee in her.
‘That’s what I like to hear.’
‘You know, Gill told me specifically not to do that.’
‘What?’
‘Have sex with you.’
Flint liked the fact that she said ‘have sex’ and not ‘make love’, surely one of the vilest expressions known to man. ‘And why’s that, exactly?’
‘She told me you were an old tart. That you’d sleep with anything with a hole in it.’
‘She said what?’
‘She said that you weren’t as nice as you seemed. That you weren’t to be trusted.’
‘And what exactly did she base that judgement on?’
‘On the fact that you’ve slept with her. And Lol. And Cathy – whoever the hell Cathy is.’
Flint raised his eyebrows and groaned. ‘Oh,’ he said, ‘for God’s sake. I can’t believe she told you that. That’s so unfair.’
‘But true?’
‘Yeah it’s true. But that was fucking aeons ago. We were all young. All in our twenties. Thought that sex was just a big game. And for a while, after I got back from Japan and I wasn’t even drinking any more, it was the only vice I had. I slept around a lot when I was younger – a hell of a lot – it wasn’t like I made a point of only sleeping with people I knew.’
‘And Bee?’
‘What about Bee?’
‘You slept with Bee, too …’
‘Oh. God.’ He let his head drop on to his fist. ‘Yes,’ he sighed. ‘I slept with Bee. Once. About a week after we met. And that was it.’
‘Why?’
‘Why what?’
‘Why did you only sleep with her once?’
Flint thought about it for a moment. ‘Because it seemed wrong.’
‘Wrong?’
‘Yeah. Not right. It was embarrassing. Awkward. A mistake.’
‘And these days?’
