Star Shot
Page 6
And as the light of day gradually drains out of the darkening grove and into the far pond, he finds what he has been looking for, a particular silver-grey rowan, its pale clusters not ready yet to flower, but looking promising enough. He pulls a springy branch down towards him and carefully slips the bracelet on. Pushes it down, gently negotiating the little lateral buds and twigs, until it settles nicely, a silver twist against the smooth grey-brown bark. He admires it in the vanishing light. Grins at another sudden volley of starlings, and turns back towards the house.
28.
The face she sees is not the face she wanted to see, so she closes her eyes briefly and tries again. She is, in any case, still trying to untangle herself from a word she has heard somewhere and does not understand, genesistrine, sticky as a cobweb in her mind. But when she opens her eyes a second time, and focuses, it is still the wrong one, though familiar enough: a dark-brown bob cut so beautifully it slides like silk against the strong face with the pale blue eyes that bends over her all sympathy and concern.
Hello Myra, says the senior colleague. How are you feeling now? You have had a rough time.
Myra smiles weakly and nods and shrugs and looks self-deprecating all at once.
We thought we’d lost you! said the colleague. Not like that, I mean, though the consultant just told me they were worried you were too weak for this operation; he’s a nice man, isn’t he? We had a good chat. No, literally lost you – you got blipped off the system in some data-crash, did you know? No one could remember which ward you were supposed to be on, and Elin went all over gynaecology yesterday looking, and said you definitely weren’t where she’d left you last week, and then I thought I bet it’s cancer, and struck lucky up here. I always did think you might be the type. You poor girl.
She settles down in the chair by Myra’s bed. It looks like the same chair, thinks Myra, slowly, same chair same table same bed, but the light’s all wrong, the window is in a different place. Much closer. She can see out over a flat roof to brick buildings and a skyline of sorts, quite a bit of pale sky. Rain on the glass.
It’s raining, she says, quietly.
I won’t stay long this time, says the senior colleague, I have to get Siân from gymnastics. She’s got an exam next week, it’s going incredibly well, when you think she just started this year; I’m so proud of her, don’t know where she gets it from. But here, I’ve brought you this, from all of us.
She pulls out some flowers and a card. Myra opens the envelope and is surprisingly moved to see how many people have signed it. Although, on reflection, she suspects they probably didn’t have much choice.
And this from me of course! Producing a cake wrapped in foil and zipped into a plastic freezer bag. For when you feel a bit stronger, it keeps quite well. Apple, my mother’s recipe, Robbie and Siân’s favourite. I had to make two this time, or they wouldn’t have let me leave the house, you know what kids are like.
Thank you, says Myra. Lovely.
Yes. You do need building up … I always thought you were thin before but look at you now. Does it hurt, you know, where they operated?
Not sure, says Myra. I’m on painkillers, I think.
I expect you are, says the colleague. Terrible.
And then, reaching out to pat her arm, the concern spreading thickly all over her face again, We are so sorry. And you’re so young! It happened to a friend of mine but she was in her fifties and had three kids; it’s so terrible to think you can never have children…
I haven’t really thought about it, says Myra.
You can always adopt, she says; another friend did, it’s very rewarding. And anyway, maybe you’re not the maternal type, you know. Not everyone is.
She gets up and collects her things, then turns back brightly: And just think, you won’t ever need to worry about contraception!
Myra doesn’t know what to say.
When she has gone Myra goes back to the business of getting her bearings. She has, she realises, been here perhaps a couple of days already, but too ill and drugged to care. This ward is higher up, she reckons. And having the window that much closer is interesting. A huge gull is stamping up and down on the flat roof just outside. The sky is still completely devoid of colour. It looks cold.
When a nurse comes with fresh water for the bedside jug and a vase for the flowers she asks her to take the cake away and share it with the other nurses. That makes her feel better, for a while. She thinks with a kind of distant amusement how the news of her ovaries will be transmitted around the office, and then, thinking of the office, she sees her desk and her computer, and cannot help but imagine the rising tide of emails building up inside the machine, pushing and pushing to be released. When she goes back to work and switches the computer on, she thinks, they will surge out in a huge black wave and smash her against the wall, breaking her fragile bones.
She cringes back into the pillows and prays for sleep to come. Which, miraculously, it does.
29.
She is on her silent train heading for a silent Paris, he thinks; perhaps at this moment she is under the sea rushing towards the city with its grand and heartless perspectives, its distinctive smells. He wants to text her so she knows he is with her every mile, every kilometre of the way; that he watches her watching the world crammed into the jolting metro, and that he can climb every bit as lightly as she can up every single step out into the cold air and the blur and rush of evening lights. He wants to tell her to have a glass of beer for him in the place on the corner. He wants to know if she will be able to see the Chagall exhibition between rehearsals.
But not one of those silver threads gets sent, because he is working, and she is too, and he must turn his whole attention to the questions of his unsettled staff and the demands of unsettled ministers, and prepare for separate hurried meetings with the representatives of the museum board, and university high command, and the bloke from the council, and the army, and the journalists, and the television people, and all the others. He ticks off in his head the people who will need persuading in the next few hours, wonders how best to group them to get the best results and save time. But he does re-read the three notes she sent from St Pancras – the first an electronic scribble looped like a ribbon round a capital M, and underneath it the words: Fill it with noise. And then the second, qualifying: The loop, I mean: not the M. And finally, the single word: Parade.
How about we get the schoolchildren to hold hands round the building and sing? Phoebe is as button-bright as ever.
I thought the idea was to keep everyone moving? says someone else. We don’t want them to get trampled.
Yes, it’s a parade, remember; everyone needs to keep marching, singing, yelling, whatever…
Should they all be singing from the same hymn sheet? asks Aslan. Metaphorically, I mean.
Why metaphorically? It wouldn’t be a bad idea – ddim yn ffôl o gwbl t’wbod. Beth am Calon Lân?
Not multicultural enough? Luke sounds faintly apologetic.
Ond mae pawb yn hoffi Calon Lân! We could have the Merthyr Male Voice…
Colliery bands!
No, no, says Aslan: I think we need to be more angry: more in your face, I mean in its face, you know what I mean. Like punk, or Pussy Riot, or the early days of Brith Gof. We should bang things. Car doors. Oil drums.
That sounds satisfyingly medieval. Charivari.
Mari Lwyd!
The lot, throw the lot at it. Dylan as well, full blast. A hundred drama students all reciting Under Milk Wood. Or wait, ‘Do Not Go Gentle’, even better. That should finish it off. The Death of Silence.
The professor flexes a hand and gets to his feet and writes a beautiful black M on the whiteboard; then draws a fluent loop around it, with an arrow to show the direction of travel, clockwise. Underneath, he writes the words: Fill it with noise. Above, in a firm hand, he writes Cacoffoni Cymru: Wales Wails. There is a wholly spontaneous cheer.
30.
Luke is in the Kitty O’Shea, with his seco
nd pint of something that is still, after seven years, slightly too authentic for him. He will get there. He loves this place, this country, too much not to acquire its tastes. He is working, sort of, on a précis of the Parade meeting, and dipping in and out of the most recent maps of the silence, and sending a few emails to get ahead of himself for more meetings tomorrow. But he wishes he had someone real to sit next to. The noise levels surge and fall around him, like waves on shingle. It isn’t a young crowd, in here. And mostly men. Some in suits, maybe with a journalist amongst them. Some scruffier ones, laughing at each other, trading insults. One curious pair, a man and a woman, talking with a kind of starry intensity; others sitting together in the kind of social British silence he has yet to figure out. It feels warm in here, it feels good; there is some undefinable Irish-sounding music washing out from the back. He looks at the portraits of Kitty and Parnell, facing each other bravely from opposite walls. He raises his glass to them both, he wishes them luck.
After a while he comes to realise that the person he would most like to share this drink with is Dan. Which is a non-starter, of course, it being dark and cold and past nine, and the Kitty O’ Shea not being a suitable venue for a toddler. He starts to text a cheerful, slightly laboured message, about meeting up soon, and how he has news to report, and how he hopes they’re doing fine … and then, suddenly, he stops texting and presses call.
The place is much too noisy for this, he thinks, too late, and presses one hand over his other ear, and leans forward looking pained. He can hardly hear whether it is ringing or not at the other end, and wonders, in a rush of regret at his own impulsiveness, if he’ll be able to hear anything even if Dan does pick up. Which he doesn’t.
Luke puts the phone down on the table rather sadly, and has another sip of beer, and wonders if it might in fact be off, and wonders how you’d ever know. And he is just thinking about the best way to finish and send the original cheery text when the phone starts ringing.
Dan sounds utterly panicked.
What’s happened? He says. What is it?
Luke clamps his hand over his free ear.
Nothing’s happened. I just wanted to … ah … say hello.
Fuck’s sake, Luke! Nobody ever rings this thing. I thought someone had died.
No, no, says Luke. I … ah … just thought we should catch up. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean…
It’s OK, says Dan. No. It’s OK. It’s fine.
I’ll … ah … text tomorrow then? If you’re busy now, I mean…
Busy! says Dan, sounding slightly bitter. No. No, he’s down now. I’m not busy. As such.
Ah. I’m in a pub, says Luke. I just thought it would make a change from coffee, but I know it’s not … ah…
There is nothing, says Dan, very emphatically, there is nothing I would like more at this moment than a pint in a noisy pub. But not possible. Ring again in about ten years’ time.
I’m sorry, says Luke.
Where are you then? Which one?
Luke tells him.
That’s ten minutes from me, man, says Dan. Fifteen at the most. You come here instead. Less noisy, unless he wakes up. Bring beer, or Coke, or whatever it is Californians drink. I’ll text you the address and you can google your way over in the dark.
I’m drinking beer, says Luke, proudly. But I’ll bring both.
31.
She is stuck, once again, at the clinging edges of a bad dream. A weed-ridden sea, that won’t let her through in either direction; not forwards, to the land which she would like to reach and which she knows is close; not back into the dream, whose keynote is a sadness as wide and as bleak as the open ocean. And so everything is neither one thing nor the other, unless it is both. The figure of the man leaning intently over the naked woman is both sculptor and surgeon, about to do what he has to do to save her. He has a white marble beard, all coiled and curled, or a surgical face-mask, and he reaches out now to touch her, to roll her gently back towards him, so he can finish the job.
The woman is lovely. Marble again, lying on her side with her head resting on one arm, facing away. Her right hip disappears into, or has not yet been released from, the rough block of white stone. Sculpted strands of hair fall round her neck, her shoulders, and frame the face that looks away with an expression of unutterable distance and sadness. Seen from this angle, the curved body is not what it seemed; it is not relaxed, nor sleepily coming alive: it is tense and expectant. Her lips are pressed thin and her eyes stare straight ahead.
It is not his fault, she understands that much, thrashing about with some irritation in the weed. He is the creator, after all, yes even when he is more surgeon than sculptor, bent over the white anaesthetised body with a fine-bladed knife, she knows he is giving her the chance to carry on living and breathing, and what statue, however obstinate, would not jump at the chance to pull free of the marble block? Her ingratitude is devastating, he must never see it; so she keeps her face turned away and hopes her curves will be enough of a disguise, and that when the gentle hand eventually touches the marble flank she will not, this time, freeze and cry out.
Not again, he thinks, and wonders if he should get a nurse. She is clearly distressed and dreaming, her body curled protectively under the covers, her restless face expecting the worst. But she is not shouting, not yet; he watches a moment to see if it will pass. His big hands grip the metal bed-frame. He should call her, he thinks.
This time, though, she pulls herself free, and begins to wake into the bright sunlight of the ward. He stands quietly at the foot of her bed and waits to be recognised, watching as her thin mouth relaxes and the laughter, like water, rises slowly in her green eyes.
32.
Dan is so astonished to see the Syrian woman again he holds out his arms and almost embraces her; she looks up at him surprised, and he puts a hand on her shoulder and presses it gently. When she sees who it is she smiles a big smile, and raises her hands, and says she has no sweets for them this time. She looks older.
Oh, says Dan, parking Teddy neatly by the bench, I’m so glad you’re here. We missed you. Your bench has been empty for days – all the benches – I mean, I thought you were gone.
Not yet, she says. Maybe never. She reaches over to stroke Teddy’s hair.
Well, I’m glad anyway. How are you?
She shrugs. It’s OK, she says. OK. You know?
I know. He sits down next to her and shivers. Have you heard from your son? She shakes her head. And the others – the ones in Palestine?
No. Not recently.
The cold air around the bench defies the late April sun. Lina al Hassan has tears in her eyes.
I wanted almond blossom, she says; now I want apricot blossom. I have a grand-daughter I have never seen.
Dan bows his head, then gets up and extricates the unusually placid Teddy from the buggy. Praying that he will co-operate, he gives him a biscuit and puts him carefully into her lap. He doesn’t try to wriggle free, and by the time he has eaten his biscuit has discovered the bright stones in the rings on her worn-out hands. Lapis lazuli, opal, amethyst.
Thank you.
He can tell from her voice, from the soft curve of her arm, how the comfortable weight of the boy in her lap fills a void. It is her turn to ask:
How are you?
And his turn to shrug. OK, he says. It’s OK. All my time is with him, I don’t do much else. Are you working at the moment?
She nods. Still cleaning at the hospital, a few hours a week. It’s fine; the girls are fun. I don’t mind it at all.
Did you work before? Back home, I mean.
She nods, looks almost abashed.
University lecturer.
Christ, says Dan. What in?
Microbiology.
They look at each other and see the absurdity of it and start laughing.
Come on, says Dan. Let me buy you a coffee in the park.
She raises her thick black eyebrows and looks almost fierce. Because I’m a university lecturer?
I don’t have a swipe-card, she says. I’m not, how do you say, legitimate.
Don’t worry, says Dan. I know other ways.
33.
You took some finding, he says.
I heard I had disappeared.
They look at each other, delighted. He bends over to kiss her lightly on the cheek and is ambushed by thin arms which suddenly hug him tight.
Thank you for finding me, she says, I was afraid you might never come.
No chance of that, he says. No chance at all. I’ve got too much to tell you; it’s been building in my head. Like water behind a dam.
So tell me, she says, pulling herself more upright and patting the arm of the chair. No, wait. Go and get a cup of tea, and let me do my hair.
He grins and gives an ironic half-bow, and heads off in search of tea. Myra hauls herself further up and carefully puts her legs over the side of the bed, and sits for a few seconds, waiting to see what will happen next. Nothing. Good. She bends extremely cautiously to pull open the door of the locker by the bed where her things are, and is feeling around awkwardly inside when the distant buzzing starts up, and she gets a dim sense of the encroaching shadow. She curses, knowing she should retreat and get her legs back on the bed and lie flat as quickly as she can, but she thinks she can feel the spines of the brush, and tries to race the pooling dark as you might race an incoming tide in a place, like a channel or a sandbar, where the water comes from many directions.
So when he comes back with a small tray and two mugs and some standard-issue biscuits she is not in the bed, but beside it, with her arms wrapped around her knees and her head down and her whole body shaking.
Myra, for god’s sake!