Chapter 8
At the other end of a cobbled alleyway around the corner from Mr Arnott Brown’s office was a pretty Georgian square.
Ana took a right and found herself in a quiet residential street lined with diminutive Victorian council flats, with tiny balconies entwined with ivy and passion-flowers.
Children played in a small playground fronted by a sign declaring ‘Adults Permitted Only if Accompanied by a Child.’ The sun had come out again, and Ana pulled off her cardigan.
As she walked a delicious smell suddenly wafted towards her: fresh bread.
She hadn’t eaten anything at all that day, and her hangover was giving her a most impressive appetite.
She followed the smell into an art gallery housed in an old Methodist chapel and found herself in a peaceful, almost monastic courtyard, lined with wooden sculptures and large potted trees.
There was a small kitchen at the back of the courtyard, serving a limited menu of healthy-sounding things, and there was hardly anybody here.
Ana ordered a pasta and wild-mushroom bake, and as she waited for her food to arrive, she looked around her and began to feel overcome by a sense of her surroundings.
She was in London. She was in the city where Bee had gone when Ana was four years old.
The city that had broken her mother’s heart – twice.
And Ana was on her own – and it wasn’t that scary.
Ana had always thought of London as this mysterious place that swallowed people up like a big, black hole, that took away their values and their emotional depth, dressed them up in stupid clothes, hooked them on alcohol and drugs, infected them with viruses that didn’t even exist in Devon and then, when there was nothing left of the person they’d once been, spat them out the other end.
That’s what London had done to Gregor, according to Gay.
And that’s what London had now done to Bee, too.
But try as she might, Ana couldn’t hate the city for it, not like her mother did.
In fact, there was something fascinating about this huge, unruly place of which she’d seen only a fraction.
A man wearing just a waistcoat and jeans sat above her on one of the fire escapes twanging on a guitar, and some windchimes tinkled from a fig tree: all very West Country, in fact – Ana felt almost at home.
She settled herself at a wide wooden table in the shade and laid out Bee’s things again.
Her address book, notebook, camera, the Rough Guide to Goa.
She thought of the anomalies, the inconsistencies, the cottage, the weekends away, the missing cat, and then she picked up the piece of paper Mr Arnott Brown had given her with the address of John the Cat’s foster mother on it: Miss L. Tate.
She looked at her watch. 1.20 p.m. She had three hours before her train went, and it suddenly occurred to her that it wouldn’t actually matter if she missed the four-thirty – she could get the five-thirty, the six-thirty, whatever.
She should go and see this Miss L. Tate, this friend of Bee’s.
She’d like to meet a friend of Bee’s. She might be able to shed some light on things.
And she really wanted to see Bee’s cat, this creature who she’d apparently loved so much.
She pulled her map out of her handbag and looked up Bevington Road, W10, the current residence of John the Cat.
She found a payphone inside the chapel and dialled the number on the piece of paper.
And then she remembered that it was the middle of the day, that Miss L.
Tate was most probably at work, so she jumped a little when the phone was answered and a loud, raspy voice answered with an abrupt ‘yup’.
‘Um, hello. Is this Miss. L. Tate?’
‘Who’s this?’ said a suspicious-sounding voice.
‘My name’s Ana. Ana Wills. I’m er, I’m Bee’s sister.’
‘Oh my God,’ the voice screamed, ‘Bee’s sister! You really exist. I always thought Bee were making you up.’ She had a very broad Leeds accent.
‘Oh. Right. Yes. Well – I’m in London at the moment because I’ve been sorting out her stuff and I’m feeling a bit, er, confused …
and I needed to talk to somebody – to somebody who knew her.
And Bee’s solicitor gave me your number because you’re looking after her cat.
And I wondered if I could meet up with you.
Maybe. Or I could pop over? I won’t stay long. Unless you’re busy, of course …’
‘No. No, I’m not busy. I’m bored off my tits, actually. Why don’t you come round?’
Miss Tate lived just off Portobello Road.
Ana didn’t know much about London, but she knew that Portobello was cool, and this was confirmed resoundingly as she turned a corner and found herself slap-bang in the middle of some of the most frighteningly trendy-looking people she’d ever seen in her life.
Ana tried to bolster herself up, but couldn’t fight the ridiculous paranoid fear that one of these horribly self-assured people, one of these I-know-exactly-who-I-am-where-I-am-and-what-I’m-doing-here-type people was going to come up to her and take the piss.
But nobody even glanced at her – which was a strange sensation for Ana, because everywhere she went in Devon, she was stared at remorselessly.
There were three boys in particular, from the estate just outside Torrington, who tormented her every time she set foot out of the house.
The ones with the ears and the red hair and the jewellery.
Every time they saw her they would skid to a halt on their skateboards, scoop them up from under them and then just stop and stare at her as she walked past. And as she passed them, the tallest one, the one with the reddest hair, would hiss something, like ‘Freak!’ or ‘Scarecrow!’ or ‘Skinny bitch!’ Nothing very creative, but effective, nonetheless.
Ana decided she liked the anonymity of London’s streets, where you could be tall or short, black or white, have pink hair or pierced cheeks and still nobody gave you so much as a second glance.
She followed Portobello to its northernmost point, past a few sad-looking stands selling what looked to her like stuff that even the least choosy of bag ladies would be embarrassed to possess, past a vegetarian restaurant with a queue outside, past record shops with Rasta colours in the windows, past a falafel restaurant, under a bridge and past a bustling market square filled with yet more painfully trendy people.
The sky overhead was darkening, and it looked like rain, but it was still humid and sweaty.
She zigzagged through a couple of scruffy streets until she found herself in Bevington Road, a dinky little curve of brightly coloured stucco houses facing a schoolyard.
Number fifteen was a lurid grass-green with mauve woodwork. She took the steps to the front door, rang on the bell and was buzzed in. The tiny stairwell took her to the top floor, where she was greeted by an open front door and the sound of stampeding wildebeest.
‘Hello,’ she ventured.
The herd of wildebeest stopped stampeding for a second and then began again.
Ana glanced around nervously. ‘Hello.’
‘Fuckcuntbollocks.’
Ana followed the rasping and stampeding through the tiniest, messiest living room in the world to an even smaller and messier bedroom, where objects were being thrown, seemingly at the hands of a poltergeist, here, there and everywhere.
‘I’ve lost my cunting choker.’ The rasping was definitely coming from somewhere in the room. ‘It’s not even mine. It’s a Jade fucking Jagger. It’s worth about two squillion fucking quid and I’ve got to give it back tomorrow. Fuck.’
A head suddenly appeared from underneath the bed, and a black hand was extended towards her across the top of the unmade bed. Its fingers were tipped with the longest, whitest nails Ana had ever seen, like five magic wands.
‘Ana! Hi! Lol.’
‘Lol?’ repeated Ana, remembering the inscription in the Nigella Lawson cookbook.
‘That’s my name,’ she croaked. She sounded like she was losing her voice.
‘Sorry about this. I’ve just done this live appearance on some kid’s TV show and the stylist lent me this fucking stupid choker, and I forgot to give it back to her, and now I’ve fucking lost it.
And I’m gonna be dead, soooo dead …’ She grimaced.
Ana was too shell-shocked by the experience of meeting this dynamo of a woman and by the accompanying torrent of profanities to question what exactly it was she’d been doing on children’s TV.
As Lol talked she got to her feet. She had waist-length platinum extensions tied high in a pony-tail, golden-brown skin, a sapphire in her nostril and matching bright-blue eyes, patently purchased from an optician and not formed in the womb.
She was wearing a soft-leather bustier, exactly the same colour as her skin, and matching leather jeans covered in rhinestones.
And, most impressively to Ana, she was about six-foot tall and thin as a stick of linguine.
‘Oh. My. God!’ Lol said, staring in amused shock at Ana. ‘You look like my fucking negative!’ And then she started laughing. Louder than Ana had ever heard anyone laugh before.