one-hit wonder
Page 5
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 pajamas. This was madness.
She strode into the living room and addressed her mother’s back. “But why can’t we get the moving men to pack away Bee’s things?” she 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 gotten lost and she hadn’t been mugged and, in fact, she was feeling almost excited to be there.
Ana called downstairs to the porter, who locked up for her and gave her directions to the nearest supermarket. She bought herself a chicken salad 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 handle
slight melting on handle
1x
White plastic toilet brush in stand
good condition
1x
Three-seater sofa upholstered in “Normandy Rose” design fabric
slight 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 salad 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 Super
4 left
1x
transparent plastic Oral B toothbrush
very good condition
1x
interspace toothbrush
green
1x
tube smoker’s toothpaste
squeezed in middle
1x
bottle Listerine mouthwash
nearly full
1x
Boots own-brand dental floss
open
1x
OK! magazine—Pasty Palmer on cover
dated 7 January ‘00
1x
Hello! magazine—Ronan Keating on cover
dated 8 June ‘00
1x
large chrome ashtray
full
3x
houseplants
dead
1x
box matches
Pizza Express
1x
box matches
Vasco and Piero’s Pavilion
1x
box matches
Titanic Bar and Grill
1x
box pessaries (for thrush)
half full
1x
pessary applicator
1x
tube Vagisil
used
1x
Jolene Creme Bleach
1x
box mixed fabric Band-Aids
half empty
Ana failed to find any clues to her sister’s state of mind among 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 didn’t have a green thumb, 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 good-bye 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 get 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 shots 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 Lawson
pristine, untouched, signed with a handwritten inscription saying “To my best friend, who sometimes needs reminding, with love from Lol”
1x
glass bowl of lemons
green fur in places
2x
chrome cocktail shakers—one small, one large
sticky residue at bottom of both
1x
bottle of Jose Cuervo
nearly empty
1x
bottle of triple sec
nearly empty
1x
bottle of Absolut vodka
nearly full
1x
bottle of Bombay Sapphire gin
unopened
1x
bottle of Tabasco sauce
half full
1x
bottle of Worcestershire sauce
two-thirds full
1x
bottle of tonic water
unopened
1x
bottle of soda water
nearly empty
1x<
br />
packet Coco Pops
half full
1x
jar silverskin onions
two left
1x
jar gherkins
five left
1x
book called 101 Classic Cocktails
dog-eared—stained
1x
box Twinings Earl Grey teabags
twelve left
1x
jar brown sugar
very hard
1x
espresso machine
a bit dirty
1x
blue ceramic jar of real coffee
type unknown
1x
loaf of unsliced brown bread
very hard
1x
pink lip-shaped ceramic ashtray
full
In Fridge
4x
bottles champagne
various brands
1x
jar gherkins
unopened
1x
jar mixed nuts
unopened
1x
packet Sainsbury’s Normandy butter
half used
12x
bottles nail polish
various brands and colors
1x
large box of Charbonnel et Walker chocolates
only two missing
1x
tub Tesco’s brand cottage cheese
with garlic and chives
3x
liter cartons Libby’s tomato juice
green fur around spout of one
In Freezer
1x
2 kg. bag Party Ice
open
1x
large rump steak
1x
Tesco’s brand strawberry shortcake ice cream
one scoop missing
1x
bottle of Jose Cuervo
unopened
Bee, it seemed, had liked to drink. These bottles and shakers didn’t look like the type that sat around waiting for special occasions or important guests. They appeared to have been in everyday use. Ana thought back to the fancy green, blue, and pink things in odd-shaped glasses sporting parasols and sticky cherries that Bee used to drink when she and her parents went to see her all those years ago. She wondered briefly whether Bee might have had a drinking problem, whether that might have had something to do with her death. But, thought Ana, ideas going off in her head like fireworks, surely someone with a drinking problem wouldn’t go to all the effort of making cocktails every time they wanted a drink. No, thought Ana, Bee just liked a drink; she didn’t have a drinking problem.
Ana headed toward the living room and stopped on the way to open a small door set into the corridor wall. It was a linen closet, which contained, in addition to the traditional piles of folded towels and bedsheets, a used ashtray, a dirty mug, and a black evening jacket. The label inside the jacket read VIVIENNE WESTWOOD. It was heavy with sequins and smelled of strong perfume. She examined the label. It was a size ten. She searched it for pockets and found a small one located in the lining. Inside the pocket was a ring—a silver ring set with three large diamonds. Ana took it to the window in the living room and held it to the light. The sunlight glittered and gleamed off the stones, and the metal had a sheen about it that suggested something more valuable than silver—platinum, or white gold. She slipped the ring onto her finger and thought for a moment how ridiculous it looked on her skinny, scuffed fingers with their bitten, uneven nails, but she kept it there anyway, enjoying the heaviness of it and the way it caught the light.
The living room really was shockingly bare. There was no sense of “living” about it at all. No ornaments, no lamps, no mirrors, no paintings on the walls—just lots of ugly furniture, and books and records piled up around the place in a way that suggested they had been put there temporarily and never been moved. A motley crew of assorted soft toys and animals sat staring at Ana from the mantelpiece and, resting against the wall at the farthest side of the room, she caught sight of something quite heartbreaking—two of the saddest-looking guitars she’d ever seen, one acoustic, one electric, both broken, both missing strings, both covered in a fine layer of dust. For Ana this was equivalent to finding two abused, abandoned puppies in a cardboard box. How could people be so cruel? She picked up the acoustic. It was—had been—a beautiful instrument. There was a hole gouged out of the back panel and a massive chip in the head. It looked like it had taken a few beatings. She managed to extract a few discordant chords from the poor, unloved creature and then stroked it gently before wrapping it up in a pair of bath towels and nesting it gently into a cardboard box.
Ana wondered when Bee had learned to play guitar. Who’d taught her? Had she been any good? A person had to get pretty low to treat their guitars like that, Ana thought sadly to herself.
Glancing around the room, she decided to abandon her mental inventory—she was losing hope of finding anything even vaguely enlightening in this dump. She was throwing things rapidly into the boxes now, slowing down only to leaf through Bee’s CDs, books, and videos and coming quickly to the astounding realization that Bee had pretty good taste. And not just the sort of good taste you could buy by the pound, the sort of stuff that Sunday supplements told you to enjoy, but intelligent good taste, wide-ranging, eclectic, thoughtful, and, most suprisingly, unpretentious. Her music collection contained everything from David Bowie to Barry Manilow, the Candyskins to the Cocteau Twins, Paul Westerberg to the Pretenders, and Janis Joplin to Janet Jackson. Her videos ranged from Mary Poppins to Bill Hicks and from Gregory’s Girl to—Ana was hugely impressed to note—L.A. Confidential, her favorite film of the last few years. Among her dog-eared and well-thumbed books were titles by writers as diverse as Noam Chomsky, Stephen King, and Roald Dahl and biographies of people from wildly disparate walks of life like Alan Clark, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Adolf Hitler.
Ana had always thought disparagingly and, she supposed, superciliously, of Bee as a woman with bubble-gum tastes in popular culture, and felt slightly ashamed and saddened to find so many similarities between her own tastes and those of her sister.
She looked at her watch and was surprised to see that it was nearly eight o’clock. The day was beginning to fade away and Ana had been so absorbed by what she was doing that she’d hardly noticed the time passing. It was dinnertime and her stomach was rumbling slightly, the chicken salad sandwich now a distant memory. She headed for the kitchen and pulled open Bee’s fridge. The interior light cast a glow over the darkened room and gave the solitary items within a spotlit, Hollywood quality. A bottle of Perrier Jouet and the box of chocolates smiled seductively at her, Mae West-style. Why not? thought Ana. Why not? She plucked them from the fridge, pulled a glass from a cupboard, and headed back toward the bedroom.
It was nearly dark in there now and Ana felt a little spooked. This building was full of strange noises, bangs and creaks and clunks, and the sounds of city life floating through the windows were angry and disturbing compared to the clean silence of Torrington on a Friday night. Ana found the switch for the lights that framed the windows and flicked them on. On the other side of the room was an old table-lamp covered with a claret chiffon throw. She switched that on, too, and then looked around her. She shivered. It was lonely and empty and cold in there. It was spooky. Music: That’s what this room needed.
She retrieved a CD from next door—Blondie’s Greatest Hits—and put it in the tiny CD player next to Bee’s bed. And as the first bars of “Heart of Glass” filled the room and music pulsed through her feet, she felt herself being lifted out of herself and into the body of someone much more interesting. Some groovy bohemian woman who lived alone in a Baker Street apartment. Some decadent, beautiful creature who drank champagne on her own and ate expensive Belgian truffles with wild abandon. She popped the champagne, poured out a glass, and helped herself to a pistachio truffle. The fridg
e-cold crust of the chocolate shattered and the creamy center got stuck to her teeth. The ice-cold champagne bubbles fizzed over her tongue and down her throat. She found herself smiling.
She danced across the room in time with Blondie and pulled open Bee’s wardrobe, knowing even before she did that the essence of Bee would be contained behind those doors. Bee was all image and no substance, and her image was mainly about her clothes.
But even Ana’s greatest imaginings couldn’t have prepared her for the magical, fairy-tale dressing-up box that was Bee’s wardrobe. Sequins. Satin. Silk. Beads. Crystals. Frogging. Fur. Chiffon. Organza. Golds. Scarlets. Purples. Paisley. Polka dots. All arranged in a color spectrum from black, through ink blue, purple, and oxblood red to palest pink, faded lime, and snowy white, all glittering and gleaming. In the bottom of the wardrobe sat Bee’s shoes, all with towering heels, all bearing the expensive wooden shoetrees that wealthy men with loads of handmade shoes from Jermyn Street use. Hanging from the doors were feather boas and scarves and diamanté belts, tasseled shawls and furry things—and handbags, dozens of them. What use would one woman have for so many bags? Tiny ones, vast ones, chain mail, Lurex, marabou, embroidered, patent leather, floppy patchworked suede.