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“I dunno.” She took a slurp of beer. “Find a flatshare. Or something.”

“You know you’re welcome to stay here? With me?”

“Oh. You don’t want me hanging around here. Surely. I’d be cramping your style. Mr. Confirmed Bachelor.”

“No. I mean it. Honestly. Just temporary. Obviously. I mean, you’re only young, too young to make any lasting decisions just yet. But I’d rather you stayed here for a while than just rushed into the first flatshare you came across. And besides, you’ve got to get a job first, haven’t you?”

She shuddered. “Urgh, God. Don’t remind me.”

“You know you can do anything you like, don’t you?”

“Yeah—right.”

“No. Really. Don’t just settle for any old thing. Take a leaf out of Bee’s book. Follow your dreams. Look how far you’ve come just in a fortnight. Give yourself some time and I reckon you’ll conquer the world. What would you like to do? In an ideal world?”

Ana thought for a moment. In an ideal world. In this world. What would she like to do? “Soundtracks,” she said in a flash of inspiration. “I’d like to be the person who does the soundtracks for films.”

“You mean a composer?”

“No—the one who chooses the songs to go with the scenes. Like ‘Stuck in the Middle with You’ in Reservoir Dogs. Inspired.”

She laughed and nestled her head into Flint’s shoulder. They sat for a while in silence and absorbed the atmosphere.

“Did you ever use to think that Bee was destined to die young?” she asked.

Flint thought for a moment. “Yeah,” he said, “I suppose in a way, I did. Not consciously and not the way she went, obviously. But she always had this air about her of someone who was just passing through.”

“D’you ever think…?” began Ana.

“What?”

“Well—this might sound a bit callous. But d’you ever think that Bee…?”

“Yes,” said Flint, “all the time.”

“But you don’t know what I was going to say.”

“Yes I do.”

“Go on, then. What was I going to say?”

“You were going to say—do I ever think that Bee died so that you and I could meet?”

Ana looked at him in shock. “Fuck,” she said.

“And the answer to that question is that yes, I do. I believe that everything happens for a reason. And I believe that you and I were destined to meet. Now. In these circumstances. Here. Tragic as it is.”

Ana turned slightly and planted a big kiss on Flint’s forehead. And then she looked up at the sky. “No stars,” she said, “no stars at all.”

Flint looked upward, too.

“I was thinking of what Zander said in his speech. You know, that Janet Jackson song? I was looking to see if I could see a star for Bee.”

The two of them craned their necks for a moment, scanning the navy sky for stars. And then they saw one. A big fat one. It was all alone. And it was twinkling at them. They both raised their beer cans to the solitary star.

And then they put down their beer cans, unfurled themselves from the armchair, and hand in hand they walked barefoot across the grass and into Flint’s flat.

Ana awoke at five that morning, needing to go to the loo. As she passed the kitchen, a shaft of moonlight highlighted her handbag, and she suddenly remembered the manila envelope. She padded across the warm linoleum and pulled the envelope from her bag. It had one word written on it, in her mother’s scratchy handwriting. “Sorry.”

She pulled the letter from the envelope. It was mauve. It was the same paper that Bee had written her letter to Zander on. She looked at the date. It was a year ago, almost to the day. And then she started reading.

“Dearest Ana,” it began.

“I never expected to have a sister…”