one-hit wonder Read online

“This is getting better and better,” he said happily.

  “What on earth was all that about?” she asked angrily. “How dare you go around telling people I’m your mother?”

  “Well,” said Zander, “how dare you go around telling people you’re my aunt?”

  “I am. . . .”

  “No you’re not. And I’ve got the evidence to back it up now, thanks to our smarmy TV-producer friend.”

  “What do you mean?” Bee perched on the arm of a chair.

  “Recognize this?” He turned back to his computer and hit a button.

  Nothing happened for a while, and then some music started playing. Zander shut his eyes and swayed his head as the intro began. Bee recognized it immediately. Of course. It was her song. It was “Groovin’ for London.” It was Groovin’ for fucking London.

  “Where the fuck . . . ?”

  “Aah,” said Zander, “the wonders of modern technology.” He turned and fiddled with his mouse for a while. “Recognize this, too?”

  It was “Space Girl,” her shockingly bad second single.

  “But where . . . ?”

  “WAV files. I just downloaded them from the Net.”

  Bee looked at him blankly. She knew absolutely nothing about computers.

  “Techno-bimbo?”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You? Are you a techno-bimbo? I.e., is your experience of digital communication limited to thumbing through the Yellow Pages for dress shops?”

  She looked at him blankly again.

  “Look,” he said, moving slightly so that she could share his view of the monitor. “I ran a search for Bee Bearhorn and it brought up all these results.”

  “And what are all these?”

  “They’re Web sites.” Zander clicked on his mouse twice, and the screen changed. Slowly, line by line, a picture emerged. It was Bee. A publicity picture taken at the height of the campaign for “Groovin’.” Some graphics popped up underneath, THE UNOFFICIAL BEE BEARHORN SITE in huge sparkly disco letters.

  “Hmmm,” said Zander, rubbing at his chin and turning from the screen to Bee and back again. “Looks a lot like you, wouldn’t you say? Except obviously, you look a lot older than her.”

  Bee slanted her eyes at him‌—he really did know exactly how to get to her.

  “Yes, in the time it took you to smoke a fag . . .”

  “How . . . ?”

  “I can smell it on your breath‌—you stink, d’you know that? Like a dirty old ashtray. Anyway‌—in the time it took you to smoke a fag and take another minute off your already curtailed life expectancy, I have managed to discover everything there is to know about Bee Bearhorn.” He started scrolling down the screen. “Yes‌—let me see. Born in 1964, in Devon. Only daughter of Gay and Gregor Bearhorn. You moved to London in 1979 when you were fifteen years old and soon found yourself absorbed into London’s burgeoning club scene. I believe you were something of a ‘wild child.’ You founded a few bands from the years 1979 to 1984, mainly New Wave, New Romantic, and punk bands, all of which disappeared without a trace. But you were disgustingly ambitious and never gave up. In 1985 you sent a demo tape of one of these bands, The Clocks‌—great name by the way‌—love it”‌—he winked at her and she gave him the finger‌—“to Dave Donkin at Electrogram Records. He liked you but not the other greaseballs in the band, so you abandoned them and were signed up as a solo artist. What a sweetheart you are. This was about the time that you adopted your trademark black bob.” He threw a disparaging look. “What happened to that, then?” he asked, pointing at her hair.

  “It looked fucking stupid, so I got rid of it.”

  “Hmmm. So. Your first single, ‘Groovin’ for London,’ was released in October 1985 and spent five weeks at number one, before being toppled by ‘The Power of Love’ by Jennifer Rush. The single sold in excess of 750,000 copies. Realizing that there was more money to be made in the songwriting side of things than the prancing-about-wearing-stupid-clothes-and-miming-on-Top-of-the-Pops side of things, you rejected your label’s suggested song for your second single and insisted on using one you’d written yourself. It was called ‘Space Girl.’ It made number thirteen in the charts in March 1986 and sold around 150,000 copies. Your third, also a self-penned single, ‘Honey Bee,’ was released in July 1986, got to number forty-eight, and sold 24,000. Electrogram Records promptly dropped you, and your pop career came to a grinding halt.

  “Still. It wasn’t all dull, dull, dull after that, was it? Your father, the revered theater director Gregor Bearhorn, developed full-blown AIDS shortly after the disastrous flop that was ‘Honey Bee’ and you devoted yourself full-time to caring for him in his dying days. Gregor finally passed away in late 1988 and you inherited shedloads of money. You eschewed all the traditional routes that ex-pop stars take‌—no pantomime for you, no marrying a rich record producer or presenting on VH1. You just . . . disappeared. Completely disappeared. Probably to spend all your dad’s money. On cocaine or something, probably. Or‌—if I’m to believe the ridiculous story you told the staff here to get a crack at me, to become a schoolteacher and decide that you were related to my dead mother.”

  Bee sighed. OK. Plan A had gone distinctly pear-shaped. And she didn’t have a Plan B. “Who writes this shit anyway?” she said, gesturing dismissively at the screen.

  “This particular piece of shit was written by . . .”‌—he scrolled down to the very bottom of the screen‌—“some sad loser called Stuart Crosby. He’s a ‘big fan’ ”‌—he made the quotes with his fingers‌—“of yours, apparently. How sad is that? To be a ‘big fan’ of some has-been, one-hit-wonder old tart who no one’s heard of for more than a decade. Huh . . . People . . .”

  Bee thought about slapping him round the face. Really hard. So that it left a big handprint. So that he’d start crying. Just like a big baby. God, she’d love to.

  “Anyway. I have a new theory about you now. You’re not my aunt. And you’re not my mother. And, to be quite frank, I really don’t give a toss who you are. My theory is that you’re just rich and lonely and feeling guilty about contributing nothing to this life except a couple of mediocre‌—and I’m being kind when I say that‌—mediocre songs. You’re just a shallow London ex-celebrity with a big gaping hole in your life. And you want to do good. I also believe that it’s you who’s been sending me those big, anonymous money orders every Christmas. Thanks for those, by the way‌—they’ve been very useful.” He gestured at his PC and his TV and his PlayStation. “Those are my theories, Miss Bee Bearhorn, and I don’t care whether I’m right or wrong, they’re the ones I’m working with.”

  Bee opened her mouth to argue with him but then shut it again when she realized that his theory was perfect. Just perfect. She let her shoulders slump forward in a gesture of acquiescence. She shrugged, sniffed. “Well,” she said, “I haven’t really done much in my life to be proud of.”

  He smiled at her triumphantly. “You know,” he said, “I think this might work. I like the idea of being your little project. I like that you used to be famous. I like that you haven’t got any kids of your own. I like that you’re stinking rich. I like the fact that you’re guilty about your pointless existence and that you want to use me to assuage that guilt. It’s all great stuff. It all puts me in a very comfortable and fortunate position. And I actually quite like you. . . .”

  Bee was gratified to note that the cocky little shit had the decency to blush. She was also surprised to feel a flush of pleasure in her own stomach.

  “So,” he continued, “I’ll play along with this ‘aunt’ thing. And you’ll play along with me. OK?”

  Bee’s eyes turned to slits as she looked at him. “What?” she said suspiciously, “what do you want from me?”

  “I want you to take me away from here.”

  “What!”

  “I’m serious. I want you to take me away from here. Not permanently or anything. Just now and then. You know.”

  “Where?”


  Zander looked into Bee’s eyes for a moment before turning around and wheeling himself toward the window. “To a house,” he began, “somewhere small, cozy. Warm. Somewhere quiet. Near the sea. Somewhere with a garden. And a birdbath. Somewhere private. Somewhere where everybody doesn’t know my business. I’ve been here for ten years,” he said, turning to face her again, “do you realize that? Pretty much all my life. And the only place I’ve ever been is to the hospital or on stupid day trips with all the other cretins in this place. And everyone stares at you when you’re out with that lot. They think you’re just a stupid spastic, just a brain-dead vegetable. And this place is very pleasant, I can see that. My grandma chose this herself just before she died, and she went to see loads of places. And this was definitely the best. It’s a nice building and they try to make things as nice as possible. But it’s not a proper home, is it? I mean‌—is it? I don’t want to sound like I feel sorry for myself or anything, but I haven’t anyone. No family at all. No one to take me out of here occasionally and make me feel . . . special. I want my own life. A special little private life. Away from here. D’you see? Do you?”

  They stared at each other for a while. There was a vein throbbing on Zander’s temple, and his hands were clenched into fists. He’d dropped the façade, and for the first time since Bee had walked into his room, she felt that the real Zander was talking to her.

  A smile played at the corners of her mouth.

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing.”

  “It’s not funny. What are you smiling at?”

  She opened her lips and beamed at him. “Has anyone ever told you that you look really cute when you’re begging?” she said.

  “Oh, piss off, you old Pop-Tart,” he said, but he was smiling as he said it.

  twenty-five

  Ed took Flint and Ana to a shockingly expensive Japanese restaurant just around the corner from his office. It was packed full of businessmen and they were served by a tiny woman in a blue kimono. Ed ordered the most expensive sushi sets for the three of them and insisted that Ana eat even the pieces that scared the living daylights out of her‌—pieces filled with huge, violently orange fish eggs; or draped with skinny, naked pairs of prawns with the heads still attached, two sets of beady eyes gazing at her in confusion; things wrapped in glossy emerald seaweed and things swathed in rubbery slices of suckery octopus. Ana had only ever had sushi once before, but that had been from Sainsbury’s and she’d been less than impressed. Now she finally understood what all the fuss was about.

  “Enjoying it, Ana?” said Ed, waving his chopsticks at her beautifully presented plate.

  “Yeah,” she said, “it’s incredible. Much better than the supermarket stuff.”

  “Oh God,” he said dismissively. “Supermarket sushi is an aberration. Sushi should never be put in a fridge. The key to sushi, the magic of sushi, is in the warmth of the hands of the sushi chef. The fish is important, the rice is paramount, but put even the finest sushi in a fridge and it dies, Ana. It just dies.”

  Ana glanced at Flint. He was making disparaging, sneering faces at an oblivious Ed. He hated him. Really hated him. She stifled a smile under her hand. “Enjoying your sushi, Flint?” she said, clearing her throat and covering her mouth with her hand again.

  Flint grunted and nodded.

  Ana smiled again and then put something into her mouth that looked like a damp puppy’s tongue sitting on an oblong of rice. “Ouurghhh . . .” she suddenly murmured through her mouthful, “thish ish fuffing gorshuss, wharrishitt?”

  “Er . . .” Ed picked up the photo-illustrated sushi menu and started looking at it, “it’s er . . .”

  “It’s toro,” said Flint quietly.

  Ana looked at him quizzically.

  “Toro is the meat from the tuna’s belly. There’s not much of it, so it’s a real delicacy. It should taste . . . buttery?”

  “Ouurghhh,” said Ana, nodding and swallowing and taking a slurp of Kirin. “That’s exactly what it tastes like‌—freshly churned butter.”

  Ed looked at Flint in surprise. “Know a bit about Japanese food, then, Flint?” he asked.

  “Yeah. Well”‌—Flint slipped a pearly-pink piece of pickled ginger into his mouth‌—“I was out there for a while, you know. You pick things up.”

  “You went to Japan?” asked Ana, unable to mask the surprise in her voice.

  “Yeah. I was there in 1984. For a year.”

  “Really?”

  “Uh-huh. In Tokyo.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Teaching, mainly.”

  “Teaching what?”

  “English.”

  “Wow.”

  “Yeah.” He shrugged and dunked a salmon roll in his soy. “Long time ago, though, that.”

  Ana looked at him in wonder. Flint had lived in Japan. For a year. He’d been a teacher. She wondered what else he’d done. She’d just assumed, rather narrowmindedly, that he’d sort of been born behind the wheel of his limo, that he hadn’t existed before he met Bee. She tried to imagine Flint as a fresh-faced twenty-one-year-old, teaching English to a rapt group of wide-eyed Japanese children, walking the streets of Tokyo, towering over everybody else. She really didn’t know a thing about him. Or his relationship with her sister, come to that. She was about to ask him another question about Japan but he forestalled her by addressing a question to Ed.

  “So‌—you never actually heard Bee admit that Zander was her son?”

  “Well‌—no, not in so many words. But I always referred to him as her son and she certainly never corrected me.”

  “And what about the father? Did she ever say anything about Zander’s father?”

  “No. I asked. But she refused to tell me anything about Zander. Refused to talk about him, full stop.”

  “Isn’t that a bit weird? If you were the only person in her life who was aware of Zander’s existence, what would she have had to lose by telling you about him? I don’t understand.”

  “Look,” he said firmly, “I’m as confused as you are. I never understood why she refused to talk about him. But in the end I respected her need for privacy, for secrecy, whatever her reasons. And why would the boy have lied, anyway? Why would Bee have spent all that time with him, bought a house for him? He was a horrible little bastard, so it can’t have been because she liked him‌—there’s no other explanation.”

  Flint and Ana exchanged a look. He had a point.

  “So, what happened to you and Bee?” asked Ana. “Why did you split up?”

  Ed grimaced momentarily and he dabbed at his mouth with his napkin. “Ah,” he said, “now, there’s a story. Another beer, anyone?”

  twenty-six

  January 2000

  Bee let the ring on her wedding finger glint and glitter in the muted light. She smiled. It was very traditional, classic, not what she’d have chosen, but still stunningly beautiful. And at least it was platinum, not gold. She hated gold.

  “Hi.” Ed came back from the men’s room and slid into his seat. Bee smiled at him. It was incredible, she thought to herself, how when she’d first gone out with Ed‌—to this exact same restaurant, actually‌—she’d thought he was vile, a puny little coke-sniffing media-weasel. The idea of having sex with him had made her feel quite queasy, in fact. Having dinner with him was just something that had to be done to ensure that he never spilled the beans to anyone about Zander. But he’d grown on her imperceptibly during the course of that first evening. She’d gone from finding him smug, arrogant, and bland to seeing him as a sweet, confused, kindhearted man who wasn’t really very happy. Someone who just wanted to be loved. Unconditionally. Someone who didn’t know how to show his vulnerability. Someone just like her, in fact.

  By the time they’d checked into a hotel, drunk another bottle of champagne, and fallen noisily and clumsily into bed with each other, she’d been more than happy with the situation. And when, after their next meeting, he’d told her he loved her and wanted to leave his wife
for her, rather than running a mile in the other direction like she usually did when men told her they loved her, she’d actually found it quite sweet.

  As the months went by, she’d found herself anticipating his phone calls and his visits with more and more enthusiasm. And then, at some vague point, she’d fallen in love with him. She’d fallen in love with a short, bald, married man. Funny old world.

  And now, here they were, nearly three years later, engaged and about to go public. They’d just had their first proper holiday together. To Goa. It had been the most amazing two weeks of her life, two weeks of normality, of feeling like a real person, and two weeks in which it became obvious to Bee that she needed this man in her life. Properly. Not part-time.

  So when Ed handed her the ring, nervously and uncertainly, at the airport on their way out, she’d grabbed it with both hands and grinned from ear to ear. Marrying Ed had suddenly gone from being an utterly ludicrous concept to seeming like the best idea in the world. He was going to leave his wife the moment they got home, leave her. He’d had enough. Tina was a wonderful person, as he kept telling Bee, but her desire for a baby had destroyed their relationship. He’d had three courses of fertility treatment in the last year, despite the fact that the gynecologist had told her she had only a one-in-a-thousand chance of ever conceiving and carrying a child. Now she was talking about finding a surrogate mother.

  Ed couldn’t stomach the thought‌—his baby in another woman’s womb. Not to mention all the potential emotional anguish and pain. And what if the mother changed her mind, kept the baby‌—it would destroy Tina completely. And without the incessant obsession with reproduction, the doctor’s appointments, the thermometers, the test tubes, the tears and the never-ending waiting as Tina’s periods became the focus of their lives, there was nothing left . . . absolutely nothing.

  Ed had convinced himself‌—and Bee, who’d never been happy with the idea of Ed leaving Tina‌—that it was in Tina’s best interest for him to leave. She’d be happier without him. She was only thirty, she had plenty of time to meet someone who might be prepared to do the surrogate thing or go through the treatments all over again. So he was going to leave her. The minute he got back from Goa. And tonight was going to be their first meeting as legitimate lovers, a celebration of their freedom.