one-hit wonder (12 page)

Lol’s bathroom was a tiny damp tomb of a room with mildew on the ceiling and the widest array of beauty products Ana had ever seen. She encased herself in the shower cubicle and felt an overwhelming wave of relief as warm water ran from the crown of her head, down her face, and over her tired body. She washed her hair with a coconutty Afro shampoo, scrubbed at her face with a grainy unguent that smelled of grapefruit, and soaped her entire body with a translucent bar of apple-scented soap.

Lol forced a drink into her hand as she emerged from the bathroom; a pale, lemon-colored drink in a long-stemmed glass rimmed with glittering salt.

“Oh,” she said, staring at the drink, “margarita. That’s what Bee used to drink, isn’t it?”

Lol nodded and took a slurp, her tongue snaking around the rim, collecting grains of salt. “Sure was,” she said, “and you’re looking at the woman who taught her how to make them. Cheers,” she said, holding her glass aloft. “To Bee. The greatest bloody girl in the world, the best friend I ever had.

May her poor, beautiful soul rest in peace and may there be
rivers
of margarita flowing through the valleys of heaven. . . .” They brushed their glasses against each other’s and exchanged a fragile look. Lol was smiling, but Ana could see tears shimmering in her eyes.

“Right,” Lol exclaimed, putting down her drink and starting to unfurl Ana’s towel turban, “what are we going to do with you, then, eh?”

“What do you mean?”

“I wanna do you up,” said Lol, picking up strands of her wet hair and scrutinizing them. “You’re a pop star’s sister—

d’you know that? You should look like a pop star’s sister. I’ve got two wardrobes full of beautiful clothes, and this is the first time I’ve ever met anyone I could lend ’em to. And besides—you look fucking awful, if you don’t mind me saying. When was the last time you went to a hairdresser’s?”

“Yes—but, I don’t want to . . .”

“Don’t worry,” Lol smiled, “I’m not going to do anything overdramatic. I’m not going to make you look like me or anything. Heaven forbid! I just wanna—polish you. D’you know what I mean? I wanna make you
shine. . . .
” She slathered a load of slimy stuff onto Ana’s split ends and blow-dried her hair for about a quarter of an hour with a huge round brush until it lay gleaming on her shoulders like a black satin cape.

“Yasmin le Bon—eat your heart out.”

Then she applied some subtle makeup and forced Ana into a brown, strappy chiffon top sprinkled with gold beads that showed her midriff, a pair of very distressed vintage jeans with the waistband ripped off, and pointy-toed alligator-skin stilettos. “Ooh, it’s so nice not to feel like the only woman in the world with size ten feet for a change,” she said as she slipped Ana’s long, thin feet easily into the shoes.

Ana watched her transformation in the mirror with wonder. It had never occurred to her that she could be scruffy and glamorous at the same time, that she could look so chic in a pair of jeans. Back home, girls either dressed down in student attire or dressed up in spangly dresses and four-inch heels. You were either grungy or trendy. She liked this look, which was neither one nor the other. Her bony shoulders looked graceful under the barely-there chiffon, her pale stomach looked almost erogenous peeping between her top and trousers, and her legs looked shapely encased in pale denim on tiny, dainty heels. Lol had mascaraed her bottom lashes as well as her top lashes, making her eyes look enormous, and her hair looked shiny and wispy in a Patti Smith, rock goddess, kind of way.

“And you cannot carry your stuff around in that.” Lol pointed disdainfully at her grubby tapestry knapsack. “Here.” She chucked Ana a little gold clutch bag. And then Lol stood and appraised her for a second or two, a smile spreading across her face. “One last thing,” she said, walking toward Ana. She gripped Ana’s shoulders and yanked them up, then she walked behind her and put a fist into the small of her back.

“What are you doing?” said Ana.

“I’m making you stand up straight. Your posture, Ana, is appalling. God has given you this fantastic, elegant, sophisticated body. Act like you’re proud of it.” She backed away and appraised her again. “That’s better,” she said, “now you like a propah Lundarn bird, like. Bee would be so proud of you.” Her eyes glazed over again and for a second she stared into space. “Right.” She snapped out of her reverie and picked up her door keys. “You and me, girl, we’re gonna go out and be tall and skinny and black and white and scare the pants off all these poncey southern men. What d’you say?” Lol took Ana to a members’ only club, a painfully, impossibly trendy series of distressed, shabby-chic rooms in an old factory in a decidedly insalubrious Ladbroke Grove back street. Walking in with Lol, Ana noticed that for the first time since she’d arrived in London, she was being looked at—she was no longer invisible. And not just being glanced at but being stared at—with genuine interest—by men and women alike. And by some seriously stylish men and women, too.

“This,” said Lol, “is about as London as London gets. Look at ’em—stylists, designers, retailers, restaurateurs, journalists, models, broadcasters. These are—I’m afraid to say—the people who make London what it is. Without these people, London would just be, you know . . . Leeds.” Lol bought them a couple of margaritas, and they headed for a dark corner, spotlit through colored gels and furnished with big brown leather sofas. Groovejet played quietly in the background, while opposite them two posh girls in seventies clothes made self-conscious roll-ups from loose tobacco and Rizla papers.

“So—how did you and Bee meet?”

“Clubbing,” said Lol simply. “In the early eighties. I can’t remember a precise moment, though. We just sort of
merged.

She were wild back then, she really were. We were both part of the same scene for ages, all that New Romantic shite, Steve Strange, Philip Salon, Blitz, and all that. But we became proper friends a few years later, after she asked me to work with her on ‘Groovin’ for London.’ ”

“So—what d’you do?”

“I am the world’s least successful pop star.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—I left stage school fifteen years ago, I’ve worked nonstop since. I’ve been around the world about ten times, I’ve worked with some of the biggest names in the business, I’ve been credited on some of the most successful albums ever released. And I’m still five hundred pounds overdrawn and living in a grotty flat, just like I were the day I left college.”

“What’ve you been doing?”

“I’m a session singer, love. You know—the jobbing actors of the music industry. The faceless, anonymous providers of soulful harmonies, the unsung performers of those background noises that drown out the fact that the lead singer can’t sing. Oh—and music for ads, too, of course.”

“Ads?”

“Oh aye. I’ve sung all sorts. Songs about deodorant. Songs about hair dye. Songs about tampons. You feel a right bloody fool singing those things, I can tell you, but it pays well.”

“God,” said Ana dreamily, “imagine getting paid to sing.”

“Do you like to sing, then, Ana?”

“Uh-huh.” She nodded and took a sip of tangy margarita.

“Any good?”

She shrugged. “Dunno. I think so. I’ve never sung in front of anyone.”

“Hmm. Now, that’s a situation we might have to rectify at some point. A good voice should never be wasted. It’s like pouring Bolly down the sink.”

“What were you singing this morning, then?”

“Oh, my love—this morning were a real low point.

Backing vocals for Billie Piper. It doesn’t get much worse than that. She’s a nice lass, though, that Billie. Very mature. I told her about Bee. Didn’t know who the fuck I was talking about but she did her best to sound sad, bless her heart.

Ironic, really, isn’t it? That could be
her
one day, it could be Billie Piper lying dead in her bed and nobody giving a shit and some little teenage superstar of the day saying, Billie who? D’you know what I mean? That’s the business. That’s the life. That’s just the way it goes. Chews you up, spits you out.” Tears started plopping out of Lol’s brown eyes, and Ana quickly handed her a tissue. The two posh girls opposite pretended not to notice but had stopped talking to each other and were sitting stock-still, like little rabbits.

“D’you think that’s what happened to Bee, then? D’you think it was the music industry? I mean—do
you
think she killed herself?”

killed herself?”

Lol shrugged and blew her nose noisily into the tissue. “I don’t know, Ana. I really don’t know. It’s all I’ve thought about for the last three weeks. I mean, it certainly looks that way. I can’t see any other explanation. It’s just really painful to admit, though, in’t it? It’s like admitting that I wasn’t a good pal. That I didn’t really know her. That our friendship was a sham.” She sniffed and shot Ana a look. “What do you think?”

“About what?”

“About Bee, of course. Do you think it was suicide?” Ana shrugged. “It’s the only logical explanation.” Lol nodded sadly. “It is, isn’t it?”

“But why? Why would she have done something like that? I mean—did she
seem
unhappy?”

“The thing with Bee was that she was never really happy, was she? Not properly happy. Not after her dad died. And not really
before
for that matter. Except when she was young she used to drown it out by partying and drinking and sleeping around and being the original good-time girl. Then Gregor died and her career died and she never really recovered from it all.”

“But couldn’t she have gotten help?”

“Oh—she did. Didn’t she tell you?”

Ana shook her head.

“Yeah. She did three years of therapy—didn’t get her anywhere. And she were on antidepressants on and off for fifteen years.”

“Fifteen years?”

“Aye. Didn’t she tell you that, either? Jesus. Yeah—Bee just sort of existed, really. I don’t mean to say that she went around being miserable all the time, or anything. She was still funny. She still enjoyed herself and was good company and all that. But she just sort of stopped . . .
developing.
She got set in her ways and didn’t take risks. Didn’t participate in life—just let herself get carried along by it.”

“So you’re saying that Bee was depressed for half of her life?”

“ ’Fraid so.”

“But that’s shocking. Just shocking. Don’t you think?” Lol shrugged. “This is London,” she said, “depression’s like the flu in a city like this. The norm. But actually, Bee did seem better for a while last year. Started talking about her career again, her future. And then she moved house in January and seemed to go downhill again. Started obsessing about aging, talking about plastic surgery. And she stopped going out. I used to try and get her to come out with me, but she said she was trying to save money. She’d invite me over there, but I . . . this’ll make me sound bad, but I just
hated
that flat. I really did.”

“Why?”

Lol shrugged. “I dunno, really,” she said, “it were just a vibe.

Something about the atmosphere. It were . . .
dead
.”

“Where had she been living before that?” Lol shot her a strange look. “What exactly did you two use to talk about? It’s almost like you didn’t know her.” Ana shrugged. “Well—I didn’t really.”

“Well—she had this beautiful flat in Belsize Park. It was so gorgeous, all bright and posh and lovely.”

“Did she own it?”

“Nah—she never bought anywhere. She were too much of a free spirit to get lumbered with a mortgage. I never understood why she moved from there to Baker Street, though. And it were all so sudden. You know. One minute she was settled and sorted. She had her cat and all her lovely things. And then she just up and left, overnight. Left half her stuff behind, by all accounts. And moved into that pigging awful place. God—I hated that flat. . . .”

“But did she seem unhappy enough to—you know?” Lol shook her head and shrugged. “As I say, she was never really a content soul. But I thought she’d learned to live with that. And she certainly didn’t seem to be any
worse,
you know, like she was spiraling downward or anything. But, you know, when something like this happens, you start thinking about every little thing, don’t you?” She turned suddenly to Ana and looked at her desperately. “Ana,” she said, “there is one thing.

Something I’ve not told anyone else. One little thing. I mean, I don’t know if it was what caused it or anything like that, but . . .”

Ana nodded, encouragingly.

“. . . I think it might have been my fault.” Ana frowned at her. “Don’t be silly,” she said, “how could it be your fault?”

“Because . . . because, oh God. Listen. D’you promise you won’t tell anyone else what I’m about to tell you? Not your mother, not anyone?”

Ana nodded forcefully.

Lol took a slurp of her margarita. “Well,” she began, “it were the Wednesday before she died. I’d not seen her for a few weeks because I’d been out of the country, on tour, and she turned up on my doorstep first thing and she were in a right state, crying and shaking and everything. And she had her cat with her. She said that her landlord had been tipped off that she were keeping a cat in that flat and had let himself in and threatened to kick her out if she didn’t get rid of him. So she begged me to look after him, for just a couple of weeks, just until she found a new flat. And I said yes. And she looked so relieved and everything and I just felt, you know, really pleased to have been able to help her out.

“So, after she left I put all of John’s things out—his bowl and his basket and all that. And he made himself at home.

And then I went out that afternoon, to my voice coach and . . . and—oh God”—she sniffed again and rubbed her face into her crumpled tissues—“I’d left the window in my hallway open a crack. Just a crack, because it gets so blinking hot in that place. And the hall window looks over the back of the house. And when I got back—and I don’t know how he got through it ’cos he’s a fucking big cat, I mean—
huge
—but he weren’t in the flat and he weren’t anywhere, so he must have. And I searched everywhere. I were out in the street until ten o’clock that night, until it got dark, and he was nowhere. And then all the next day. And Bee sent flowers.