ONE HIT WONDER (Penguin £6.99 September 2001)

12th September 1999

Ana Wills
12 Main Street
Great Torrington
Devon
EX38 2AE

Dearest Ana,

I never expected to have a sister. I was eleven years old when you came along and thought that the world revolved around me. Everyone expected me to be so jealous of you but I loved you from the first moment I set eyes on you. You were so tiny and weak in that incubator and I thought that I would die if anything happened to you. I'd just started my periods at the time and I remember thinking how I could have been your mother. When you came home I wanted you all to myself. I thought you were mine. I didn't let Mum get near you. You were so precious and perfect, like a tiny doll - almost like you were custom-made for my small arms. And you were such a good little girl. So obedient, always happy to tag along with me and run errands for me. You even gave me my name - Bee. I'd always hated Belinda, and then one day you were calling after me and you called out Bee and it stuck. I've been Bee since that day and I can't imagine a time when I was called anything else.

You probably don't remember much about the few years we lived together in Main Street. But I do. I remember everything. And you and I were very close. After Dad left I felt like I was all alone in the world. And then when Mum remarried I felt completely abandoned. Until you came along. You were my little sister and I loved you. I'll never forget your face when I left, the tears running down your cheeks and the way you insisted I take your rabbit, William. Do you remember him? I've still got him, you know. He sleeps beside me on my pillow. I always used to think he brought me good luck, but I'm not so sure any more ...

You were four years old when I left and you thought I was abandoning you. I want to explain to you now why I had to leave. Life with Mum was unbearable, obviously, but it wasn't just that. There was so much I wanted to do with my life and none of it was in Devon - it was all in London. But, if I'm to be completely honest with you - and I may as well be, now - I've nothing to lose - the main reason I left was because I was jealous of you. For having Bill. Your very own father. And even when you were tiny you looked just like him and there was this huge bond between you. I had no one. Only Mum and ... well, you know.

I wanted to be with my father. So I left and went to live with Dad in London, and as much as it broke my heart to leave you behind, it was the best decision I ever made. I loved my father so much, Ana, and I'm in pain thinking about how you must be feeling now, without Bill. He was a wonderful, kind and gracious man. He was gentle and quiet, like you, and I can't tell you how sorry I am for you. I also want you to know that it does get better. The pain does go away. Eventually. It really does. I won't be at the funeral, Ana. It's all too complicated, as I'm sure you're aware, but I want you to know that I'll be thinking about you every single second of Thursday.

I think about you often, Ana. I don't know what you're doing now or who you're with or anything. But I often wish you were here. I should have written before, I know that. We should have kept our bond, but circumstance and Mum and all that stupid ephemeral stuff seems to have got in the way of us being what we used to be - sisters. I'd love it if you came to visit, Ana, came to stay with me. I'm living in a beautiful flat in Belsize Park (that's posh, by the way!) and I've got a cat and a motorbike. I think you'd love London. You were always such a shy little thing. So nervous. Sometimes you need to take yourself out of a familiar situation and throw yourself into the unknown to get to know yourself properly, to find out who you really are. God - listen to me - I'm acting like time stood still after the last time I saw you, like you're still thirteen! You're probably living in New York or trekking through the Himalayas or something right now. But somehow, Ana, I can't quite imagine it ...

It's hard to imagine at your age, but one day you'll be thirty-six years old and it'll happen before you know it. You won't have any youth left to look forward to - it'll all be behind you and you'll wonder where the hell it went. Don't waste it, please. I've realized that I was never meant to be middle-aged. Every night, when I stand in the bathroom brushing my teeth, I look in the mirror and I cry, because it's the end of another day. It's like a little death, every day. Music doesn't move me any more. Kind words and good friends and happy days don't move me. The thought of the future doesn't move me. There's no magic left in anything. What I'm trying to say is this - youth is so fleeting - now's the time to take risks. Did you keep up your music lessons? The guitar? And singing? You must be so brilliant by now - it wouldn't surprise me if you were a hundred times more talented than me. Well, it wouldn't surprise me if anyone was more talented than me, but that's a different story!

I've changed a lot, Ana, since we last met. I've learned guitar! And I've grown up a lot. I'm not that ambitious, greedy, hard-nosed girl I used to be. Things have happened over the years. Terrible things. Things that change a person beyond recognition. Things that I could never tell anyone about. And I'm humbler now and hopefully I'm nicer, too. God, I'm rambling. Sorry. All I'm trying to say is that I'd love to spend some time with you. Here, in London. I know you probably feel like you don't owe me anything, and you don't. I've been a terrible sister to you - selfish, self-serving, thoughtless. But I've always loved you and nothing would make me happier than to spend some time with you now. Show you my world and the new, improved Bee. I'd love to see London through your eyes - it might reawaken the magic within me ... And to get to know you. Yes - mostly, I want to get to know you.

I don't expect to hear from you again. But nothing would make me happier. I want this very much.

My thoughts will be with you tomorrow. Please say a prayer for Bill from me.

Your ever-loving sister,

Bee xxxx

January 2000

Bee hissed under her breath at the sack-of-potatoes cab driver sitting there in all his Rothman-breathed, greasy-haired splendour while she hoisted boxes and boxes of stuff from the back of his estate car. Then she turned to hit Mr Arif, the corpulent and slimy property-agent who was grinning at her from the front step, with one of her sweetest smiles, when what she actually wanted to do was put his repellent testicles into a Corby Trouser Press and squeeze them till they popped.

It was one of those days. Wild and woolly. The sky was an intense blue and full of overfed clouds being dragged across the sun by an insistent wind, and it was bitterly, almost sadistically, cold.

Mr Arif sucked in his gut to let her squeeze past in the doorway and smiled at her, lasciviously. Bee nearly gagged on the smell of his liberally applied aftershave.

'Maybe, Mr Arif,' she began sweetly, 'it would be easier if you waited for me in the flat.'

'Oh yes, Miss Bearhorn, of course. I will await you. Upstairs.' He backed away grinning at her as if she was the answer to all his prayers. And in a way, she was. She'd phoned him that morning, asked to see a selection of flats, looked at this one off Baker Street just an hour after their phone conversation, told him she'd take it, gone back to his office, filled in some paperwork, given him cash for three months' rent in advance and was now moving in a mere four hours after first contacting him. He'd probably never had to do so little for his commission.

It really was a bloody miserable flat, and extortionately expensive, but with the driver seething damply in the minicab and John threatening to do something unmentionable in his cat box at any minute, time to find the perfect flat hadn't been a luxury available to her. And, besides, she quite liked the anonymity of the area around Baker Street. The blandness of it. There was no 'scene' in Baker Street, no vibe, just streets of blank-faced mansion blocks full of foreigners and retired people. In her current state of mind, Bee wasn't ready to fall in love with a neighbourhood again. And anyway, this was only going to be temporary, just six months to get her life back together, make some money and then she might even buy a place somewhere.

An elderly lady with intricately curled silver hair and a tartan-jacketed dachshund was waiting outside the lift as Bee made her way up with John in his carrier. She smiled at Bee as she pulled open the metal grille and then down at John.

'Well, well, well,' she said, addressing the cat, 'you're a very handsome young man, aren't you?' Bee smiled at her warmly. Any friend of John's was a friend of hers.

'What a beautiful creature,' said the woman, 'what d'you call him?'

'John.'

'John? Goodness. That's an unusual name for a cat. What type is he?'

Bee stuck a finger between the bars of John's carrier and played with the fluff on his chest. 'He's an English Blue. And he's the best boy in the world. Aren't you, my little angel?' John rubbed himself against her finger, purring loudly.

'And who's this?' Bee asked, addressing the small, bizarrely shaped dog sitting at the old lady's feet. She didn't really want to know but thought it only polite having discussed her own pet in such detail.

'This is dearest Freddie - named after Freddie Mercury, you know?'

'Really!' exclaimed Bee. 'And, why - er - Freddie Mercury?'

'He loves Queen, would you believe? He can howl his way through the whole of Bohemian Rhapsody.' She chuckled and eyed her pet affectionately.

Well, thought Bee, you never could tell about people, you really couldn't.

'So, dear. Are you moving in today?'

Bee nodded and smiled. 'Number twenty-seven.'

'Oh good,' said the old lady, 'then we shall be neighbours. I'm at twenty-nine. And it's about time we had a new young person about the place. There's too many old people in this block. It's depressing.'

Bee laughed. 'I wouldn't call myself young.'

'Well, dear - when you get to my age, just about everybody seems young. Alone, are we?'

'I beg your pardon.'

'Are you moving in alone?'

''Fraid so.'

'Oh well. A beautiful young thing like you, I shouldn't imagine you'll be alone for long.' She squeezed Bee's arm with one tiny, crepey hand and shuffled into the lift. 'Anyway. I'd better get on. It was charming to meet you. My name is Amy, by the way. Amy Tilly-Loubelle.'

'Bee,' said Bee, feeling for once like her name wasn't quite so whimsical, 'Bee Bearhorn.'

'Well - nice to have met you, Bee - and John. See you around.'

Bee smiled to herself at the old lady's closing blast of modern lingo and then the lift creaked and clanked and began its snail's-pace journey back down to the lobby. She walked down the corridor towards number twenty-seven - her new flat.

Mr Arif was sitting on the sofa, going through some paperwork, but stood up abruptly and let his papers fall to the floor when he saw her walk in.

'Oh, no no no no, madam. No no no.' He was crossing his hands in front of his chest and shaking his head, quite violently. 'This is simply not allowed. This animal. It must go. Now.' He pointed at John as if he were a sewer rat.

'But - he's my cat.'

'Madam. I do not care if he is the cat of the Queen. No animals, of any description, allowed in any of my properties. It must go - now.'

'But he's an indoors cat. He's never been outdoors. He's fully house-trained, he's quiet and he doesn't even moult and ...'

'Madam. I have no interest in the personal characteristics of your animal. All I know is this - it must leave. Now.'

Bee wanted to cry. She wanted to hit Mr Arif. Really hard. In fact, the way she was feeling right now, after the events of last night, she'd really quite like to kill him. With her bare hands. Put her hands around his big squishy neck and squeeze and squeeze and squeeze until he went purple and his eyes started bulging and then ...

'Miss Bearhorn. Please. Remove this animal. I cannot give you the keys until this animal is gone.'

He's not an animal, she wanted to scream, he's a human being. Bee could feel her temper building, a pounding in her temples, a painful lump in the back of her throat. She took a deep breath.

'Please. Mr Arif.' She perched herself on the edge of the sofa. 'I need time to think. I need ...'

'Madam. There is no time to think. These keys remain in my pocket until I can no longer see your animal.'

Bee lost her battle to control her anger. 'O K. O K, fine!' She leapt to her feet and grabbed John's carrier by its handle. 'Fine. Forget it then. Forget this flat. I don't like it anyway. I want my money back.

Take me to your office and give me my money back.' Mr Arif smiled at her indulgently. 'May I draw some points to your attention at this moment, most charming Miss Bearhorn. First of all, the contract is signed and your money is on its way to the bank. It is too late for any form of cancellation. And second of all, are you really wanting to take away all of your possessions when you have just this minute carried them up here? Possibly it would be easier to leave your animal with a friend or family?'

Bee looked around her at the piles of boxes and decided that although she'd be more than happy to sacrifice every penny of the cash she'd given Mr Arif in exchange for a place where John would be welcome, she really couldn't stomach the thought of lugging this stuff all the way back downstairs, with Mr Arif watching her with his smug little raisin-eyes, and then having to find another letting agency and look at another flat and go through this rigmarole all over again. So she took a deep breath and decided to lie.

'O K,' she said, 'no problem Mr Arif. None at all. You're absolutely right. I'll just make a call and find an alternative home for my, er, animal.'

She pulled her mobile phone from her bag and dialled in a made-up number.

'Hi!' she said breezily, to an unavailable tone, 'it's Bee. Are you around? Cool. I need you to do me a favour. Can I leave John with you? I don't know. For a while. Three months at least. Really? You don't mind? God - thank you. That's brilliant. You're a star. I'll be round in about ten minutes. O K. See you then.'

'All is sorted out?'

'Yes,' she beamed, tucking her mobile phone back into her handbag, 'all is sorted out.'

Outside the block, she agreed to meet Mr Arif later at his office to pick up the keys and then watched his huge arse swinging its way back down the street towards his offices in Chiltern Street. She stuck one finger up at his receding back and stuck out her tongue. 'Fucking tossy wankhead arseknob shitbag cunt,' she murmured under her breath, before leaning into towards the cab-driver who was waiting impatiently for her to remove the last two bags from the boot of his car and pay the fare.

'Hi!' she beamed, switching on the charm, 'there's been a slight change of plan. I need you to drive around the block a bit with my cat.'

'You what?' The fat cab driver looked at her in horror.

'You heard me,' she hissed, 'just take the cat and drive around a bit. I'll meet you back here in half an hour.'

The driver's expression softened when Bee forced three tenners into his sweaty hand. 'There'll be more where that came from when you bring him back. O K?'

'Whatever,' he shrugged, folding up his copy of the Racing Post. 'Whatever.'

She slipped John's box on to the passenger seat and tickled him under the chin. 'You be a good boy,' she whispered into his ear, 'I'll see you in half an hour. Be good.' And then she closed the door and felt tears tickling the back of her throat as she watched the car pull away and her beloved cat disappearing into the early evening London traffic.

She sighed and made her way to a Starbucks, where she sat for a few moments sipping an Earl Grey tea and taking stock of what had happened in the last twenty-four hours. Her life, as she knew it, was over. And all she had to show for it was as much as she could fit into the back of an Astra estate. She had no idea why she'd left her flat, no idea what she was doing moving into this one. It was really just a gut reaction to what happened last night. And in a strange way it felt sort of … pre-ordained.

After ten minutes she picked up her bag and headed for Mr Arif's office. He looked thrilled to see her sans cat, and handed over the keys with what seemed to be unbridled joy.

'And may I wish you many, many, many years of contentment in your beautiful new home, most charming Miss Bearhorn. I am sure you will be most happy there.'

Bee took the keys and headed wearily for Bickenhall Mansions, thinking that that was very unlikely indeed.