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“Yes,” said Ana, “but when? I’ve got to go home tomorrow.”
“Oh, don’t be daft. You can’t go home now. Not now. We’ve got a mystery to solve.”
“Yes, but—what about Mum?”
Lol raised her eyebrows to the ceiling again. “You sound like a scratched record, d’you know that? What about Mum, what about Mum?” she mimicked Ana’s middle-class tones. “What about your bloody mother? How old is she?”
“Sixty.”
“Can she walk?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Can she use a toilet?”
“Yes.”
“Can she cook for herself?”
“Mm.”
“Has she got friends? People to look out for her?”
“Yes—loads. Everyone in Torrington thinks she’s wonderful.”
“So—she’ll be all right for a few days, then, won’t she?”
“She’ll give me hell, you know.”
“Oh, big-fucking-deal”—Lol drew a newspaper with her hands—“I can see the headlines already—‘Horror of Sixty-Year-Old Woman Shouting at Adult Daughter.’ How old are you, Ana? Twenty-four, twenty-five? And you’re still scared of your mum. Honestly, girl—you should be ashamed of yourself. And, quite frankly, if you don’t mind me being completely honest with you for a moment, your mother doesn’t deserve your concern. Not after the way she treated Bee. Particularly after the funeral incident…”
“What funeral?”
“Gregor’s funeral, of course.”
“Yes, but that was Bee’s fault. She attacked my mother…”
“And can you blame her? It was the most shocking thing I have ever witnessed, and if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes…”
“What?” said Ana. “What happened?”
“Well—what did your mother tell you happened?”
“That Bee threw her out of the chapel of rest, that she hurt her, that she screamed at her in front of everyone.”
“And why d’you think she might have done that?”
Ana shrugged. “Because she didn’t want her to be there? Because she was ashamed of her. Ashamed of us.”
“Is that what she told you?”
“Uh-huh.”
Lol raised her eyebrows. “That woman,” she said, “that woman should be… she should be—God. I dunno. She’s a disgrace. Look. Your mother behaved appallingly at Gregor’s funeral. She were sobbing and wailing and crying out ‘my husband, my husband,’ when everyone knew that he weren’t her bloody husband at all. And she were making such a racket that one of Gregor’s friends, this really lovely guy called Tiger, he went and sat next to her to try to calm her down. Apparently he just said, is there anything I can do for you, maybe you’d like some fresh air—that sort of thing. I mean, he wasn’t being even slightly rude. And he put an arm around her shoulder, like this. And she slaps it away and turns round to him and starts really laying into him…”
Oh God. Ana already knew what was coming. Her mother’s abundant charm was a barely existent membrane over her hateful innards. When she turned, she turned.
“She said, ‘Get your disgusting AIDS-ridden hand off me, you sniveling, malnourished, frankly rather unattractive excuse for a man.’ And then told him that he should hurry up and die and stop being a drain on the National Health. And then she stood up, in front of everyone, in front of all of Gregor’s friends, and accused them all of turning him into a pervert against his will and of deliberately infecting Gregor with their ‘rancid virus’ so that they could get their hands on all his money.”
