Page 70 of One-Hit Wonder

“Ooh”—Flint sucked in his breath and smiled at her—“that’s not exactly my favorite subject.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, you know. Skeletons. Closets. That sort of thing.”

Ana thought back to the warnings that both Lol and Gill had given her about Flint and felt her curiosity intensely stimulated.

“I told you all about me yesterday,” she said. “It’s only fair you tell me a bit about you.”

He smiled. “You know what?”

“What?”

“Bee always had this theory, right. About people—she always compared them to clothes. Some clothes, she said, you’d try on, and you’d know within a few seconds whether or not they suited you. Other clothes you’d think suited you but then you’d take them home and realize that they didn’t go with any of your other clothes. But the best clothes were the ones that always suited you, that never went out of fashion, and that made you feel good every time you put them on, even when they shrank in the wash. She said me and Lol were her favorite old clothes. But that she still loved trying on new clothes. Making impulse purchases. Do you see what I mean?”

“No,” said Ana.

“Well, basically, she reckoned that pretty much everyone could be interesting for half an hour. What you did with them after that was irrelevant. But she was always willing to talk to new people. It was her specialty. She used to say it was all in the questions—you had to ask the right questions. If you asked people boring questions, then you’d get boring answers. So, it’s”—he craned his neck around the corner to view the clock above the bar—“five to eight. From now until twenty-five past, you’re allowed to ask me anything you like.”

Ana looked at him.

“Go on, then,” he teased.

“OK,” she said, “OK. Tell me about… Japan.”

“What d’you want to know?”

“How come you went? Why did you come back?”

“Shit,” said Flint, sucking in his breath, “that’s a good question—that opens up a whole can of worms. Right. Well. I’d been in the army…”

“Really?”

“Uh-huh. For three years. Hated it. So I left. When I was twenty. And things went… well, it was tough coming out, you know. I had no useful skills and no work experience that was of any interest to anyone. So I went on the dole and then I got in with the wrong people, as they say.”

“What sort of people?”

“Oh. You know. Bad people.”

“What sort of bad people?”

Flint smirked and took a sip of lager. “It’s funny,” he said, “but for some reason I feel really embarrassed talking to you about all this.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. It’s just—you’re so… kind of untainted. I guess it’s because you’re a country girl. You’ve never lived in a city…”

“Exeter is a city.”

“Yes, but you know what I mean—you’re just not urban. You make me think of cornfields and village fetes and macramé pot holders…”

“Oh—thanks!”

“No—but you know. You’re clean. And the way my life was then—it was dirty. And I’m so used to it and everyone I know is so used to it and it just really brings it home to me, just exactly how rank it all was, when I’m sitting here talking with someone like you. Yeah. Drugs,” he said suddenly, as if he was trying to get it over with. “I was into drugs.”

“What sort of drugs?”

He shrugged. “Heroin. Pills. And drink. And a bit of petty crime. Everything, basically. And in quite a big way. I was a mess, really. It was all a mess. People dying and that. And then, you know that scene in Trainspotting, when his mum and dad lock him up in his room. Well, my mum did that to me. And while I was locked up, going through hell, I got this idea in my head. It was after watching something on the news about Tokyo, I can’t remember what it was about. But I just remember thinking how clean it looked. How clean all the people looked. It looked so hygienic, like a huge hospital or something. And that became my obsession. I started reading up all about the culture and history and everything. Spent every day at the library. Everything about the place struck me as being the complete opposite of my life in London. And then my mum—God bless her soul—she was my savior. She was doing all this overtime, telling me it was for a holiday for herself, and then one day she came home with a present for me—a one-way ticket to Tokyo. So I went.”