Chapter 44 #2
Tears started catching at the back of her throat as she sang and for a brief second she felt something powerful entering her – an external force.
And for a brief second it was as if it wasn’t her singing any more, as if it was somebody else, and as her eyes found Zander’s again a jolt shot through her and she saw it hit him too, and it felt like Bee.
She handed the guitar back to the beardy guy when she finished and leaned into the microphone.
‘It’s somebody else’s turn now,’ she said, and then she clambered down from the rostrum.
‘Ana,’ said Flint, clasping her immediately, ‘that was … Jesus … that was just fucking brilliant. You’re just fucking brilliant.’ He squeezed her tight and kissed her and then other people came up to her and they all had the same look in their eyes. Respect.
Zander wheeled himself towards Flint and Ana.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘that was officially the best moment of my life. That was beyond and above everything. That was better than getting my A level results, better than Napster, better than anything. Ever. Thank you, Ana.’ He clasped her hands in his and she leaned down and kissed him and he whispered in her ear.
‘Did Bee really write that? Or were you, you know, just saying that for effect? You can tell me. I won’t tell anyone. ’
‘Bee wrote it, Zander. I promise. I’ll send you the lyrics, if you like.’
‘Bee really wrote that song? About me?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Fuck me.’
Dr Chan appeared at Zander’s shoulder. ‘OK. You’ve had an extra hour and now you’ve had a song written and performed in your honour. It’s time for Cinderella to go home.’
Zander sighed and shrugged. ‘Looks like my time is up. My carriage awaits. I have to go. Thanks for such a great day. It’s been really – well, you know.
It’s just been brilliant. I know that’s a weird thing to say about a funeral, but you know what I mean.
I think we all really needed this, Ana. Thank you so much for organizing it. ’
‘You are incredibly welcome.’
‘By the way, I’ve spoken to my solicitor about that will.
Apparently it’s kosher. It’s legal. Obviously it all needs to be finalized, and I can’t help thinking that your mother will have something to say about it.
But in the mean time, I’d really like it if you treated the cottage like your own.
I’ll be living there in the holidays, but it’ll be empty most of the time.
I’d really like it if you used it. And the bike’ – he looked at Ana – ‘I really want you to have the bike. I obviously won’t have much use for it.
And I think it would really suit you …’ He grinned at her.
As Flint carried Zander down the stairs to the ground level and helped Dr Chan get him into the ambulance, amongst more promises to keep in touch and come up and see him in St Andrews, Zander pulled Ana towards him urgently and whispered in her ear.
‘I felt it. When you were singing. I felt Bee.’
She nodded at him knowingly and he kissed her hard on the cheek. ‘Thank you,’ he whispered. And then Dr Chan closed the door, climbed into the driver’s seat and the ambulance disappeared into the dark.
Flint and Ana ordered a cab at eleven. They wobbled drunkenly down the stairs when it arrived and were about to get in when Ana remembered something.
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘my stuff. That Mum brought. It’s still in the back of your car.’
‘We can pick it up tomorrow,’ said Flint. ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘No, but Bee’s stuff. Mum said there was a letter in there. From Bee. To me. I want to see it.’
‘OK,’ said Flint and handed her his car keys.
Ana made her way unsteadily towards the car and pulled open the boot.
She peered inside and then pulled out the manila envelope.
She opened it, but in the muted tangerine streetlights she couldn’t see a thing.
Just a wodge of paper. She locked the boot and weaved back to the waiting cab where she angled the letter closer to the light.
‘What does it say?’ said Flint.
‘God,’ she said, ‘I dunno. It’s really hard to tell in this light. I’ll look at it when we get back to yours.’
She slid the paper back into the envelope, slipped it into her bag and snuggled into Flint’s shoulder as the cab bore them homewards through the empty streets of North London.
It was still warm outside when they got back and neither of them was even slightly tired, so they decided to crack another beer and sit in the garden for a while.
Flint wedged a CD-player under the back window and put on a Green Day album and Ana draped herself over his lap in the old brown armchair.
The moon over the railway line was a perfect half-moon.
They sat in silence for a while, breathing in the fading scent of summer and listening to the distant city noises.
Someone having a party up the road opened a window and the bangbangbang of the Chemical Brothers ate into their own music.
‘God,’ said Flint, ‘it’s never just quiet, is it? Not even at this time of night.’
‘Silence isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,’ said Ana. ‘That was one of the things I hated most about Torrington. The silence. It was, like, I knew there was this whole world out there, all this life to be lived. But nobody was sending me any smoke signals. D’you see?’
‘So, I take it you’re not going back then?’
Ana snorted. ‘No way,’ she said. ‘And now I don’t even have to think about it, thanks to the lovely Mr Redwood taking my mother off my hands.
But I don’t think I was ever supposed to have been there in the first place, really.
Like Bee. A fish out of water. From the second day I was in London I already knew it was right for me. And then I met you …’
‘Ye-es …’
‘And then I met you and suddenly I had the best reason in the world to stay here.’ She turned around and kissed him on the cheek and she loved that she didn’t have to feel insecure about saying things like that to Flint.
‘What are you going to do about your flat? About moving out of Gill’s?’
‘I dunno,’ she took a slurp of beer, ‘find a flatshare. Or something.’
‘You know you’re welcome to stay here? With me?’
‘Oh. You don’t want me hanging around here. Surely. I’d be cramping your style. Mr Confirmed Bachelor.’
‘No. I mean it. Honestly. Just temporary. Obviously. I mean, you’re only young, too young to make any lasting decisions just yet. But I’d rather you stayed here for a while than just rushed into the first flatshare you came across. And besides, you’ve got to get a job first, haven’t you?’
She shuddered. ‘Urgh, God. Don’t remind me.’
‘You know you can do anything you like, don’t you?’
‘Yeah – right.’
‘No. Really. Don’t just settle for any old thing. Take a leaf out of Bee’s book. Follow your dreams. Look how far you’ve come just in a fortnight. Give yourself some time and I reckon you’ll conquer the world. What would you like to do? In an ideal world?’
Ana thought for a moment. In an ideal world. In this world. What would she like to do? ‘Soundtracks,’ she said in a flash of inspiration. ‘I’d like to be the person who does the soundtracks for films.’
‘You mean a composer?’
‘No – the one who chooses the songs to go with the scenes. Like “Stuck in the Middle with You” in Reservoir Dogs. Inspired.’
She laughed and nestled her head into Flint’s shoulder. They sat for a while in silence and absorbed the atmosphere.
‘Did you ever use to think that Bee was destined to die young?’ she asked.
Flint thought for a moment. ‘Yeah,’ he said, ‘I suppose in a way, I did. Not consciously and not the way she went, obviously. But she always had this air about her of someone who was just passing through.’
‘D’you ever think …?’ began Ana.
‘What?’
‘Well – this might sound a bit callous. But d’you ever think that Bee …?’
‘Yes,’ said Flint, ‘all the time.’
‘But you don’t know what I was going to say.’
‘Yes I do.’
‘Go on then. What was I going to say?’
‘You were going to say – do I ever think that Bee died so that you and I could meet?’
Ana looked at him in shock. ‘Fuck,’ she said.
‘And the answer to that question is that yes, I do. I believe that everything happens for a reason. And I believe that you and I were destined to meet. Now. In these circumstances. Here. Tragic as it is.’
Ana turned slightly and planted a big kiss on Flint’s forehead. And then she looked up at the sky. ‘No stars,’ she said, ‘no stars at all.’
Flint looked upwards, too.
‘I was thinking of what Zander said in his speech. You know, that Janet Jackson song? I was looking to see if I could see a star for Bee.’
The two of them craned their necks for a moment, scanning the navy sky for stars. And then they saw one. A big fat one. It was all alone. And it was twinkling at them. They both raised their beer cans to the solitary star.
And then they put down their beer cans, unfurled themselves from the armchair and hand in hand they walked barefoot across the grass and into Flint’s flat.
Ana awoke at five that morning, needing to go to the loo.
As she passed the kitchen, a shaft of moonlight highlighted her handbag, and she suddenly remembered the manila envelope.
She padded across the warm linoleum and pulled the envelope from her bag.
It had one word written on it, in her mother’s scratchy handwriting. ‘Sorry.’
She pulled the letter from the envelope. It was mauve. It was the same paper that Bee had written her letter to Zander on. She looked at the date. It was a year ago, almost to the day. And then she started reading.
‘Dearest Ana,’ it began.
‘I never expected to have a sister …’