As I turn into our road I wonder what it is that I have lost. I know that I have lost myself – the strong, funny, capable woman I used to be. The woman who knew what to do in a crisis. The woman who never failed. I think I must have left her by the roadside one night, concentrating so hard on running away that I stopped running after what I wanted, or to the people I love.
I stop in front of the windows of the corner shop and look at my reflection in the glass. I’m soaked through to the bone; my feet are shoeless and wet. I’m exhausted and pale. I’m a half-person, living a half-life, surrounded by death. I’m a ghost, a shadow.
I hear the long sound coming before I realise that I am making it. Low like a moan, it is grief and it is mine. Slowly it builds into one wrenching sob after another, and I realise I am mourning. I am mourning for the life I had once. The exciting job that made a difference, that brought people back from the brink of death. The strong, handsome, brave husband who adored me. I am grieving for the girl who always knew what she wanted and knew how to be alive in this terrifying world. That girl is gone; she is lying in pieces somewhere, and I miss her. I miss her and I want her back.
I put the key in the lock, let myself in and listen to the house. It’s quiet.
I go up the stairs. A sound startles me and I realise that it’s my phone, vibrating against the bedside table where I must have left it all night. I pick it up. Thirty-seven missed calls in total: a dozen from Vincent and the rest from my message service. He must have been worried about me, out most of the night. I’ve been so thoughtless, so selfish and stupid. I need to tell him I’m fine. I need to tell him I know what I need to do, to make it better.
I call his number. It rings once and then goes to voicemail.
I hear the front door open, and I go to the top of the stairs. Vincent walks in and closes the door behind him very quietly, as if he doesn’t want to be heard. Because he doesn’t want to wake me up. Because he’s been out all night too.
He leans against the hall wall for a moment, and I see the briefest moment of pain pass across his face. He looks tired.
‘Hello,’ I say, sitting down on the top stair. He’s startled to see me.
‘Where have you been?’ he asks. ‘You didn’t come home. I waited and waited, called and called. Nothing. And then I realised what I’d done, that I’d lost it. I went to the nick to turn myself in – thought it was better than waiting for the Old Bill to come here. That bloke, he’s not pressing charges, though; he said he was drunk, and his wife said he was an idiot. They let me off with a warning, but that doesn’t matter. I crossed a line, Stella. I crossed a line with you that I don’t want to go back over again. I know now, I’ve got to go back to the army. I’ve got to ask for more help coping.’ He stares up at me, my head and shoulders in shadow. ‘I got home, and you weren’t here, and you weren’t answering your phone, so I’ve been out, looking for you.’
‘Why?’ I sit there on the top stair and wonder about going down, about going to my husband and putting my arms around him, and resting my cheek against his chest and listening to the beat of his heart until mine slows and synchronises with his. That’s what I want to do, so much, but that ease of intimacy is long gone. ‘Why look for me, when I make your life such a misery?’
‘I didn’t … The way things came out …’ He looks up at me. ‘Come down here. I can’t see your face.’ He stands up straight, watching.
I get up and descend one, two stairs and sit again; this time my face is exposed under the harsh hallway light.
‘You blame me,’ I said. ‘Is that it? You blame loving me for your friend’s death.’
‘It’s not that simple. I said stuff when I was angry and hurt, and so tired. You’ve got to understand, Stella. On the day I first saw you walking through the park, I knew who I was. On the day I first talked to you and asked you for coffee, I knew who I was. On the day we first kissed, and I fell for you before the kiss was even over, I knew who I was. I knew what I was offering you. I was an honourable man, a man who would lay down his life for his mates. I was brave, strong and certain. That’s the man I was when I met you; that was the man that fell in love with you. The man you fell in love with. But he’s dead now.’
‘And it was me, me that is to blame for that, for this?’ I nod at his leg and gesture around at our cold, neglected house.
‘No, not you.’ Vincent leans against the wall again. ‘Not you, but me. I thought that in that moment, when it came, in that life-or-death moment, I thought that I would be selfless, be a hero, fight for my mates. But I didn’t. I ran. I ran because … I wanted to see your face again. And now … I’ve been trying to write a letter to Kip’s wife ever since, and I don’t know how to tell her that I failed him, I failed her and her kid. I failed me.’
‘Doesn’t it count for anything that you didn’t fail me?’ I am surprised by how calm I feel, how still. ‘Doesn’t that matter?’
‘But if I can’t love you any more, then what’s it for?’ Vincent asks me. ‘If I can’t forgive myself for choosing to live, if I can’t love you any more, then why did my best mate die? Why did my leg get blown off? Why am I covered in burns? What for? Because when I look at you, I can’t feel what I want to feel, and I know I’ve failed you anyway, and that guy that I hit, he becomes right – it has all been for nothing.’
There is a long silence. Each moment that passes pulls us further and further apart; much more and we will be out of sight of each other.
‘We’re broken, aren’t we?’ Vincent says finally. ‘I’m broken, body and soul. And you can’t fix me. Only I can do that. Only I can find a way to forgive myself. All this time that you’ve been trying, been so loyal, so sweet, so … hopeful, you’ve been falling apart too, and I’ve let you. We’re in a bubble, two little unhappy bubbles bouncing off each other. You can’t help me, I can’t help you … we just keep hurting each other from a distance.’
Slowly I get up and walk down the rest of the stairs until I am standing in front of him.
‘What’s going to happen?’ I ask him.
‘I’m going away for a bit. Frenchie – you remember, Frenchie from training? – he’s got a spare bedroom in Vauxhall. He says I can go there for a few days. I’m going to go and crash there for a bit. We both of us need to figure it out. I need to find a way to tell Kip’s wife what happened, to look her in the eye and tell her what I did. I need to find a way to live with myself. And you … you need to be free of me.’
He leans forward and kisses me lightly on the forehead. It’s only then I see he’s packed his kit bag, and it’s leaning by the door. He heads to the door and pauses for a moment, his hand on the latch, his back to me. I see him turn his head very slightly towards me. And then he opens the door and is gone.
Sitting down on the bottom stair of my empty house, I close my eyes, and in that moment something shifts inside me and resets.
I’m done with feeling like this.
Girls,
I’m off, and this is just a quick note to say bye!
I’ve been thinking about that cruise we went on, after my divorce. Jen, you said, fuck him, let’s go on a cruise; and Sue and May, you were on board at once. Well, all I can say is, it was a good job that it was an all-inclusive cruise, because between us we nearly drank that boat dry.
When Barry fucked off, I thought life was over – that I’d spend the next forty years miserable and lonely. I didn’t even get half of the next forty years, but what I did have was the best years of my life because of you, my friends.
You lot, you make me laugh till I can’t speak. You make me adventurous and brave. If it hadn’t been for you, I wouldn’t have opened the shop, I wouldn’t have dyed my hair the same colour as a postbox or had my nose pierced. I wouldn’t have had the guts to have that eighteen-month, pure-sex affair with lovely young Fernando, who of course was really called Dan, but how we loved to call him Fernando.
Cancer is shit, and it hurts like a fuck, but I would have missed out on many mo
nths of my life if it hadn’t been for you lot, keeping me fighting. Well, I’ve lost this battle, but you go and win the war for me. I expect you all to be in every fundraiser in pink tutus and wigs – I’ll come and haunt you if you don’t!
Cheers, birds.
Have a large glass of wine for me, and then have three more.
Cheryl xxxx
THE SIXTH NIGHT
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
HOPE
I had a shower, and then I paced.
I took my meds, then paced, then did my physio behind a closed curtain, and paced. Then I looked at my underwear and panicked. For reasons unknown, I didn’t bring any sexy underwear with me to Marie Francis. What’s wrong with me? Why didn’t I plan to have sex with my best friend during my stay here? I am so short-sighted. All I have is plain white bras, now slightly grey, and no matching pants at all – nothing at all to stand between me and the fact that I am about to embark on something very foolhardy indeed. In the end I go black vest top, black pants and jeans. And then I wonder if jeans might be a bit awkward to take off, so leggings, for easy slip-downage, but then I take them off again and put the jeans back on because what has ever been alluring about an elastic waistband? I find a loose T-shirt; I’m not wearing a bra and that’s a bit awkward – I don’t want him to notice that my breasts are free-range until, you know, he notices. I try to think about what it will be like for Ben to see me naked, and for me to see him naked. I should just calm down; after all, it’s not the first time we’ve gone au naturel together. Of course, the last time we were seven and sharing a bath. Oh God, oh God, oh God. I need to pull myself together.
Shadow appears outside my patio door and stares at me through the gap in the curtain, with his huge mournful eyes. Hastily, I go over to the door and let him in. He hops up onto my chair and nestles into a pile of discarded-as-too-vile pants.
‘The trick,’ I say to him, ‘is to think of ways to make the act as easy as possible. After all, it’s not like we are going for any awards for style or technique. No one has to actually enjoy it. All we need to do is get it done. In. Out. In and out again, maybe. Then, done. No, wait. Everyone has to enjoy it – that’s why we are doing it. Why are we doing it? I can’t remember. What was I thinking, Shadow?’
Shadow’s luminous green eyes say, ‘Fuck me if I know.’
‘What do you think Ben is thinking?’ I ask the cat, who seems to be pretty good at listening. ‘Is Ben thinking about what pants to wear? I bet Ben isn’t thinking about it at all. He’s so lucky, that Ben – the way he just sails through his crazy life, never knowing or caring what comes next, or whether it’s going to be good or bad. And me, I just think all the time. I think of everything, every permutation, every scenario, every outcome. I try to think of a contingency plan for every possibility. But then usually my plan is to just stay inside, because that covers everything.’
I pick up clothes, fold and refold them, and then drop them back on the floor. Then I sit down on the bed, suddenly exhausted. The effort of trying to get dressed in order to get undressed has wiped me out for a moment, and I need a second to rest. Shadow stretches out, his claws becoming entangled in a pair of tights, which he vigorously tries to shake off his claws before becoming beguiled with the whiplash of tights and rolling over to try and kill them.
‘And now I’m thinking, what am I thinking?’ I tell him as he rips great holes in my tights. ‘What are we thinking? We can’t possibly go through with this, based on a whim and the death of a very young girl who had even less time than me to make stupid mistakes. It’s just silly. It was a moment; he was all worried about me with his germs, and I was all worried about not living life to the full, and thinking about Issy, and wishing I’d had better sex stories to tell, and that sounds really wrong!’ I pause, and Shadow rolls off the chair, engulfed in nylon.
‘We both let it get to us, in the moonlight, under the trees: the moment, my mortality. We are such a pair of planks. He’s going to turn up in a minute and give me that sheepish grin, and I’m going to give him my ‘who knows?’ shrug and we’ll laugh and get back to doing whatever it is that we do. Singing songs and teasing each other. Won’t we? Won’t we? Are you evening listening to me, Shadow?’
As the young cat rolls over and over again, shredding my tights with his extended claws, I think I can safely say the answer is no. Still, maybe if Shadow doesn’t give a shit about my problems, then neither should I.
Stella is having some time off, which is most inconsiderate of her. If Stella were here, she’d listen to me. Better than a stray cat with murderous tendencies towards hosiery listens, anyway.
A warm, tight feeling knots in my gut when I think about the things that Ben and I do, the friendship we have. That’s what it’s like to be with Ben; in every moment there’s this distant drum of longing always beating – always wanting more of him, just a little more. Perhaps I am like a vampire, a life vampire, stalking the night, sucking experience out of other people, out of Ben, who is always so fearless and brave. Ben, who never flinches from what the world has to offer. But I can’t take this from him. This is just … I can’t take his metaphorical life force via his penis.
We can’t have sex, we simply can’t. Because afterwards there would be nowhere to go. No singing and teasing any more – not after I’d seen his boy bits and he’d … Oh God, it doesn’t bear thinking about.
Oh, I wish Stella were here. If she were, I would tell her. Stella would get a sex plan, I know that. Stella has the look of someone who is used to desperate measures.
A coughing fit comes suddenly, but not out of nowhere; I realise I’ve been breathless for the last few minutes and probably ignoring it. The explosion of noise sends Shadow careering for the door as it opens, a trail of tights flapping crazily behind him.
Tonight’s night nurse, a well-meaning older lady called Mandy, who has certainly never needed a sex plan, pops her head round the door and then, seeing me sitting on the bed, comes in.
‘Choke up, chicken; it might be a gold watch,’ she says, patting me firmly on the back. I feel a nodule of mucus loosen sharply and then evacuate into my mouth. She hands me a box of tissues. Once it’s gone, I take a few deep breaths and wait for my eyes to stop watering, while she rubs my back.
‘A gold watch?’ I say.
She tips her head to one side and looks at me.
‘Something my nan used to say. So I hear your young man is taking you for a trip out? They reckon you’ll be discharged soon.’
‘Just a drink, and he’s not mine, as such.’
‘You look nice. That lipstick suits you.’ Her smile is benign.
‘Like Ben would even notice if I was wearing lipstick,’ I say. ‘I could get up in full clown make-up and he wouldn’t turn a hair. He only has eyes for himself.’
For a moment I wonder if full clown make-up would make inappropriate sex more manageable, but just the thought alone makes me want to book therapy.
‘You say that as if he’s no good, but from what I hear he comes every day to see you, and he makes everyone laugh while he’s here. He’s a rare sort of man – a man who keeps his word and brings happiness. You should keep him.’
‘I don’t think I’d be allowed to. I think that would be unlawful imprisonment,’ I say.
‘Well, anyway,’ Mandy says. ‘They are chucking you out soon, you know. Maybe even tomorrow.’
‘Really?’ I thought I’d feel happy, elated even, but I don’t. As soon as she says the words, there’s this little buzz of panic and a foreboding, because while I’ve been at Marie Francis, I’ve been in the holding pattern, this limbo. Now I have to make choices, or really just one choice, the same choice that I’ve been making over and over again since I was a little girl: whether to go out there and say hello to the world, or stay indoors with Mum. I know what Issy would want me to do.
‘I’m here,’ Ben proclaims as he opens the door, ushering in with him a miasma of Lynx.
‘No kidding.’ Mandy wrinkles
her nose. ‘I’ll leave you two to it. Oxygen’s on the wall if you need it.’
‘Or you could stay,’ I say, catching at her sleeve, a little desperately. ‘We could have a chat. All three of us, together. In a group.’
‘Darling,’ she says. ‘I’ve got work to do. And remember what I said, and think on.’
‘What did she say?’ Ben asks me.
‘Something about a gold watch,’ I say.
It’s fair to say that in the seconds after Mandy left the room, no two people have ever wanted to die more. And that’s saying something in a hospice.
‘So, let’s do this thing.’ Ben is stoic, in typical Ben fashion – never backing down from a challenge once he’s agreed to it. Like that time he ate a spider when we were eleven. ‘I’ve booked us a room in this hotel up the road. It’s not exactly The Ritz, it’s bordering on being a dive, in fact, but there’s no nurse’s button that we could accidentally push whilst in the throes of …’ He looks at me anxiously. ‘Doing sex stuff.’
Stay indoors with my mum, that’s the choice I make. I make the choice to stay indoors with my mum.
‘This is madness.’ Standing up, I notice that Ben takes two steps back. ‘Look, don’t panic. Don’t look like you are about to be led to your doom, because it’s fine, it’s OK. You’ve been granted a reprieve, OK? I’ve been thinking about it, and it was a silly plan, stupid and impulsive, and maybe we were both a bit drunk on the moment. But a stupid plan is a stupid plan, and just because we came up with it, it doesn’t mean we have to do it. It’s only one of many of our stupid plans through history, and let’s look at how those turned out. Like that plan you had to motorise a shopping trolley, or that time I thought I’d stand up to Jessie Sinclair because all bullies are cowards, and she punched me in the stomach and then you for good measure. It was a silly idea, and you are a sweet, good friend for offering to go through with it, but really. It’s fine, stand down. Stand your … bits down.’
We Are All Made of Stars Page 18