Chapter 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. And it was a Thursday and she was wearing her Wednesday cardigan.
Something very, very strange was going on.
‘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 would laugh 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 – her lingerie, 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 handleslight melting on handle
1x White plastic toilet brush in standgood condition
1x Three-seater sofa upholstered in ‘Normandy Rose’ design fabricslight fraying around legs, small burn on left arm
It went on in this tedious, painstaking manner for twelve pages. Ana sighed and put it down.
She looked around the flat for a moment, threw away the crusts of her chicken sandwich, gulped down her Coke, and then began the peculiar task of sifting through the debris of her enigmatic older sister’s life.
She started in the bathroom, figuring that the least of the work would need to be done in there.
She made up a small cardboard box and began placing Bee’s things in it, very slowly, item by item, making a mental inventory of her own as she went, hoping that by piecing together all these disparate, insignificant bits and pieces, somehow, miraculously, a fully rounded picture would emerge and she would come to know her sister and why she died.
1x box of Tampax Super4 left
1x transparent plastic Oral B toothbrushvery good condition
1x interspace toothbrushgreen
1x tube smoker’s toothpastesqueezed in middle
1x bottle Listerine mouthwashnearly full
1x Boots own-brand dental flossopen
1x OK magazine – Patsy Palmer on coverdated 7 January’00
1x Hello magazine – Ronan Keating on coverdated 8 June’00
1x large chrome ashtrayfull
3x houseplantsdead
1x box matchesPizza Express
1x box matchesVasco and Piero’s Pavilion
1x box matchesTitanic Bar and Grill
1x box pessaries (for thrush)half full
1x pessary applicator
1x tube Canestenused
1x Jolene Crème Bleach
1x box mixed fabric plastershalf empty
Ana failed to find any clues to her sister’s state of mind amongst these objects – all they told her was that Bee was a woman who liked to read trashy magazines on the toilet, signifying prolonged, possibly masculine-style bowel movements (which Ana found quite disturbing, as she’d never really thought of Bee – in much the same way as the Queen and Claudia Schiffer – as the going-to-the-toilet type), and that she was very conscious of oral hygiene, although not so concerned, it would appear, with other aspects of her physical health – as indicated by the presence of a full ashtray on the side of the bath.
She was not green-fingered, and suffered from thrush, unwanted facial hair and somewhat heavy periods.
She was also, it seemed, not a big believer in rinsing out the bath after use, as demonstrated by a small cluster of curly black hairs clinging to the grimy tidemark that ringed the bath.
Ana stared at them for a while. Bee’s pubes.
Bits of Bee. A sudden and painful reminder of why Ana was there.
Bee was dead. Her sister was dead. And nobody could tell her why.
All the evidence pointed to suicide but, for whatever reasons, a tragic accident seemed somehow the more palatable option.
When Bee went to bed that Friday night, had it occurred to her that she wouldn’t wake up the next morning?
When she brushed her teeth that night, had she known that she’d never see her reflection again?
Had she moved around the flat before she went to her bedroom, saying goodbye to things because she knew she was going, or was it just another Friday night, a late night, too much to drink, staggering around trying to get ready for bed, reaching for the sleeping pills when she couldn’t nod off, grabbing the painkillers when her hangover kicked in, not thinking what she was doing?
Maybe she was here now, a soul in limbo, watching Ana packing away her things and wondering what the fuck she was doing.
Ana often had this really strange thought when famous people died untimely deaths – the thought that they didn’t know that they were dead, that no one had told them.
She imagined Diana on that Sunday morning in 1997, coming down for breakfast and reading the headlines, switching on the TV and seeing pictures of the mangled Mercedes in the underpass, the photos of Henri Paul, the CCTV of her and Dodi leaving the Paris Ritz and thinking no, no, no and …
Ana sighed and got to her feet. She really was a very morbid, very weird person sometimes.
And she really did think all sorts of peculiar thoughts.
She moved to the kitchen, and into a second box, or in some cases, into the bin, went the following:
1x copy of How to Eat by Nigella Lawsonpristine, untouched,
signed with a
handwritten
inscription saying ‘To
my best friend, who
sometimes needs
reminding, with love
from Lol’
1x glass bowl of lemonsgreen fur in places
2x chrome cocktail shakers – one small, one largesticky residue at bottom of both
1x bottle of jose Cuervonearly empty
1x bottle of triple secnearly empty
1x bottle of Absolut vodkanearly full
1x bottle of Bombay Sapphire ginunopened
1x bottle of Tabasco saucehalf full
1x bottle of Worcester saucetwo-thirds full
1x bottle of tonic waterunopened
1x bottle of soda waternearly empty
1x packet Coco Popshalf full
1x jar silverskin onionstwo left
1x jar cornichonsfive left
1x book called 101 Classic Cocktailsdog-eared – stained
1x box Twinings Earl Grey teabagstwelve left
1x Jar brown sugarvery hard
1x espresso machinea bit dirty
1x blue ceramic jar of real coffeetype unknown
1x loaf of unsliced brown breadvery hard
1x pink ‘lip’-shaped ceramic ashtrayfull
In Fridge
4x bottles champagnevarious brands
1x jar cornichonsunopened
1x jar mixed nutsunopened
1x packet Sainsbury’s Normandy butterhalf-used
12x bottles nail polishvarious brands and colours
1x large box of Charbonnel et Walker chocolatesonly two missing
1x tub Tesco’s brand cottage cheesewith garlic and chives
3x litre cartons Libby’s tomato juicegreen fur round spout of one
In Freezer
1x 2kg bag Party iceopen
1x large rump steak
1x Tesco’s brand strawberry shortcake ice-creamone scoop missing