‘Are you OK?’ she asks, catching hold of my hand.
‘Not OK, no,’ I say. ‘Not tonight; tonight I’m not OK. But one day. I feel like one day, at last, I will be OK. Does that sound weird?’
‘Everything you say sounds weird to me.’ Sarah smiles very slightly, and then, leaning forward, kisses me softly, briefly, on the cheek. ‘I’ll be here, when it’s over. I’ll take you home and we’ll make you tea and toast. We’ll look after you, all right? Me and Mikey, and even Ninja. I mean Jake.’
‘Talking of the cat of many names …’ I tell her the story of how I found my, our, cat here, curled up on my mum’s bed. ‘Here he is called Shadow.’
‘I thought he was just some scraggy little back cat,’ Sarah whispers. ‘Turns out he’s the Mayor of London.’
‘Well, as long as I don’t find out that he’s also my boss,’ I say. I look into her brown eyes and feel steadied.
‘Time to go back?’ she asks.
I nod once and go back into my mother’s room.
Hours go by, and Mum sleeps with me by her side, keeping vigil. I don’t know how long I watch the rise and fall of her chest, or listen for her every breath; it doesn’t matter. It’s timeless, this moment. It’s never and for ever all at once. I am here with my mother, she is with me, and we will always be like this, somehow.
Sometime late, late into the night, she opens her eyes and speaks.
‘Do you remember, son?’ she says to me. ‘Do you remember when you were so little, and we’d go camping in the night-time?’
‘I think so,’ I say, taking her hand. ‘I think I remember being fast asleep and warm one minute, then, the next, you’d have pulled some sheets over some chairs to make a tent. And we’d be sitting on the grass staring at the sky, and you’d be telling me what the constellations were and what they meant.’
‘I made it all up, you know.’ Her laugh is like lace – finely spun and delicate; like a spider’s web that might fall apart in your hands. It is barely a breath on my cheek.
‘I did find that out a few years later, when I tried to tell my teacher that Ursa Major was a bear on roller skates going for a milkshake,’ I say, smiling. I’m lying next to her, my face very close to hers. Our eyes meet and never stray for a moment. She is holding my hand in hers; my fingers are wrapped in hers.
‘I was a terrible mother, the worst,’ she says.
‘You weren’t textbook,’ I admit, gently. ‘But I never felt sad, or frightened, or neglected. And I laughed all the time, and I never guessed for one second that you were so sad, so unhappy. You protected me from it all – right up until the moment you left. I wasn’t sad until you left.’
She closes her eyes for one long moment, and I catch my breath, but she opens them again, slowly. I watch her pale gold lashes, few in number, the colour fading out of her eyes, sheened in silver.
‘But I still left. I left you.’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘And it hurt me, and it broke Dad’s heart. But Mum, you came back. You came back and put it right with me, before it was too late. This day, this time with you; it’s made me whole again. You’ve done that.’
‘I wish I hadn’t been so scared,’ she says. ‘I thought if I could save everyone, everyone else that I met, get them set right in the world, then the pain and the longing would cease. But it didn’t; it never did. Not until I saw your face again. I’m so sorry.’
The effort of speaking exhausts her, and gently I lean my forehead against hers. There are no tears. I thought there might be, but I don’t want to cry yet. There is peace – just peace, quiet and contentment.
‘Shall we go outside and see the stars?’ she says suddenly, with a spark of something, a smile. Joy.
‘I’m not …’ The words don’t even reach my lips. Now is not the time to say no to her. ‘Of course, why not?’ I say. ‘Wait a moment.’
Climbing off the bed, I take as many blankets as I can out of the cupboard and open the double doors that lead out on to her private patio. It will take more than just me to move the bed outside, so I open the door just a crack and catch Mandy’s eyes.
Mandy detaches Mum from all of the beeps and buzzers, and just brings the drip out with us, as together we push the bed out into the night. It’s cool, but not freezing, crisp and clear. The air is fresh, as if recently laundered, and the moon is bright and full, sailing above the treetops that seem to surround us. And in between their bare, balletic branches, I can see the first glimpse of dawn lighten the hems of the horizon.
‘Aren’t they beautiful?’ Mum says. ‘Can you see the stars? Can you see the fire? Ball of fires burning so brightly in the sky. I can feel their heat on my cheeks – can you? It’s just like when you were little, and we lay out on the grass and watched the moon rise.’
I look at the same patch of sky that she is gazing at, where I see the barest few stars that are strong enough to filter though the light pollution.
‘It’s amazing,’ I agree. Mandy brings me a chair and I sit beside Mum, gazing upwards.
‘I loved your dad so much,’ she says, and I am not sure if she is telling me or telling the heavens. ‘He was a man who was too good for me, from the start, right from the start. He always had a smile on his face, always full of light. I thought if a man like that loved me back, he’d turn every dark corner I have into sunshine; he’d love the blackness out of me, and I’d be happy again. And he did love me – he loved me so much. But all I did was pour the darkness into him, turn his happy life into a tragic one.’
‘That isn’t true,’ I whisper. ‘Not true at all. I know that for a fact. He talked about you all the time; he made me talk about you all the time. The adventures we had, our Saturday mornings, our nights under the heavens. That holiday we’d had in Margate, when you entered the talent competition and came second and pushed the winner off the stage. And we all had to run away, down to the beach, laughing and screaming. We ate fish and chips on the sand and stayed up so late. You sang for us; you took your shoes off and danced in the surf and sang for us. And afterwards I gave you a rock I’d found on the beach as a prize. Those were the things Dad talked about. He never talked about your hard times, the depression, the drinking – not until I was a lot older. And, even then, never with any regret.’
‘I’ve never believed in God,’ she says. ‘But if there is something, anything else, I hope your dad is there. I hope he is there and that he will forgive me.’
‘He forgave you a long, long time ago.’
‘You take after him,’ she says. ‘You have his sunshine in your heart.’
Thinking of my job – the rows of white faces, the endless strands of hair caught in glass – I wonder if that is true. I want it to be. I want to be like my father. But I want to be like this woman, too – this woman who failed in her eyes so unforgivably, but who somehow came back to life. More than that: she lived for other people. She came back from the dead to be amongst the living. And I – I choose to spend almost all my time amongst the dead, trying to work out, if anything, what their passing meant. Suddenly I realise, with a rush of clarity, that it means nothing, not to me. To the historian, the writer, the morbidly curious, it’s interesting: a fascinating insight into a time gone by. But every one of those white faces in the hallway at the museum only had meaning while there was still someone who had once known them – still alive to look at them and miss them. Once, their deaths meant everything, and now they mean nothing; just a footnote in a textbook that no one will read. This is what matters: this moment, this present, this life, this death.
‘There’s this kid moved in next door, and his mum. They are going to make me tea, and I’m going to take them fishing like Dad did. The boy, Mikey, he’s funny, sweet and thinks he’s tough. And Sarah, she’s kind and … sort of gentle. I like her a lot.’
At first I don’t think she’s heard me, but then she smiles and says softly, ‘I’m glad you have someone.’
She raises a hand just a few inches off the bed.
�
�That one,’ she says, pointing at the morning star, shining brightly, over the crest of the tree. ‘Do you know what that star means?’
‘I don’t, Mum.’ I smile, resting my cheek against hers.
‘It means I love you,’ she says. ‘I love you, Hugh.’
Carefully, I wrap my arms around her and hold her, and we watch the star shining so brightly it can outshine a city. And we watch as the sky becomes the deepest purple, erupting into streaks and gold and orange, reaching out bright tendrils into the night. And just before the dawn, just before the warmth of the sun can find us, I feel her breathing slow and stop, followed by one long sigh that seems so full of relief. I bury my face in her hair, and I weep.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
HOPE
‘We’ve stayed up all night,’ I say, leaning back against Ben’s chest, both of us wrapped in the warmth of his huge coat, looking out across the city. ‘Not bad since you were getting the crap beaten out of you when this night began.’
‘I know, me up all night with a hot girl, talking,’ he says. ‘I’ve lost my touch.’
‘Talking and kissing,’ I say, turning my head to smile up at him. ‘And going for a midnight all-day breakfast in that café. And quite a lot of heavy petting, too.’
‘Mm.’ Ben’s hands, which had been resting beneath my shirt, begin to roam again. ‘The anticipation is certainly building. You totally sure you don’t want to do it on a bench?’
‘I am,’ I say. ‘And, besides, I want to enjoy this part for a little while longer.’
‘I’m really fucking happy,’ he says. ‘I’m so happy that I’m scared. I don’t think I’ve ever had anything I was afraid of losing before, except for you. And now … now I’m twice as terrified that I’ll fuck it up.’
‘You won’t,’ I tell him. ‘I won’t. We’ve both changed.’
‘Well, we might have, but the world hasn’t.’ He sounds apprehensive. ‘I still work in a phone shop; my mum is always going to be a space cadet. Your mum is still going to worry about you …’
‘Worry about me – she’s going to kill me,’ I say.
‘Why? You told her you were with me, and that everything was fine.’
‘Yeah, but I’ve been out all night, in a park, in November. Without my vest on.’
‘Or your bra,’ Ben says. ‘And I have to say, after several years of wondering, I was right: your breasts are magnificent.’
‘Ben!’ The happiness, the laughter, it just bubbles up in me, like a lava lamp or a hot spring. Like someone has finally pulled the plug that was keeping me from feeling these things, knowing these things that I have always skirted around before: desire, delight, happiness.
‘Well it’s true,’ Ben says. ‘And, anyway, your mum can’t be cross about you staying out all night; you are twenty-one years old, Hope. You are a woman. All woman, as it turns out.’ Turning, I kiss him again, and quickly we are both caught up in the moment of desire.
‘We need to find a bed,’ I say, breaking the kiss abruptly.
‘Are you OK? Are you tired?’ he asks me, his face full of concern. ‘Do you need to lie down?’
‘No, you idiot. I really want to have sex with you. Right now.’
Ben takes a ragged breath.
‘I don’t know what we are sitting here for, then,’ he says, pulling me to my feet. He slips his coat off and wraps it around me.
‘Won’t you be cold?’ I ask him.
‘I think something like the equivalent of a cold shower is exactly what I need right now,’ he says.
As we start to go down the hill, we stop for a moment and watch gold pouring into the dawn, streaking the sky with bronzes and ruby pinks, turning the dirty city into a gilded landscape, touching everything with beauty.’
‘Oh, Ben,’ I say, breathless with joy. ‘This is it. This is the day that everything begins.’ And somehow I know, whatever comes next will be wonderful.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
STELLA
The moon, battling off the arrival of dawn, travels with me as I race along the streets of London, keeping a steady, strong pace. Days, months of exhaustion, drop away under its benign gaze – full and round, silver and flat. And soon, the breathlessness drops away and I begin to feel strong again. Strong and certain. It’s wonderful.
London seems to bow to me as I weave through her maze of streets. Knowing roughly where I need to go, I take right turns and left turns as the mood takes me – never slowing, never faltering. I run past lit windows and dark ones, hunched figures in doorways, new couples pressed urgently against lamp posts, groups of girls in sequins squealing, party-goers, dancers, men on a mission and cabbies leaning against their cars, grabbing a quick smoke.
Each step I take brings me nearer to him.
Nearer to what I need to say.
Through Victoria, past the palace, I run, only pausing for the great rush of traffic that never ceases in the centre of this city. Past the station and down Vauxhall Bridge Road; past quaint exhausted little Georgian houses, leaning against red-brick modern apartment blocks. Past pubs that are still lit from within – the muffle of voices sounding through reinforced glass. The pavements shine with yesterday’s rain; the puddles of dirty water are turned into sudden bright worlds that shatter and reform as I run through them.
Vauxhall Bridge greets me with wide open eyes as I dodge a red light to leap onto her. And for a moment, just a pulse, I pause and look at my city, stretching out either way, tumbling along the river’s shore. I find myself smiling as I sprint on, forward into the night. Under the railway bridge, silent and still, and onwards, past the tall, dark towers and the one thousand sleeping lives, until I stop suddenly – my hands acting as a break against the wall of the tower block where Vincent is.
Somehow I need to get in, without pressing the doorbell where he is staying. I don’t want to be turned away down here, fifteen floors from making amends. And yet, looking at my watch, I see that it is almost 5 a.m. Someone in the great, vast, self-contained town must be pacing the floors now. I close my eyes and press button after button after button, silently apologising for the sleep that I’m disturbing; careful to avoid the one button that I am afraid of. Finally the intercom crackles into life.
‘Sweets, that you?’ I hear.
‘Yeah,’ I say, wondering who sweets is and what she or he sounds like.
The buzzer sounds and I push the door open, making my way to the lift.
It’s not until its door slides open to reveal the floor where Vincent is staying that I start to doubt myself.
The corridor is dark and long, lined with doors on either side. As I walk along towards 1543, my invincible legs begin to tremble, my strong heart starts to falter, my step slows a little more with each one taken. And yet I am here, and I cannot turn back, so on I go until I stand outside his door.
I lean my head against it and listen. It’s almost quiet inside but I think I can hear the sound of a TV or a radio. That will be Vincent in his nightly vigil to keep away the demons, memories and dreams that have haunted him ever since the moment he woke up alive – I’m almost certain of it.
I knock gently at first – so quietly it clearly can’t be heard. There is no sound of shifting from within, no approaching footsteps. So I knock again, a little louder, and then louder after that. And, finally, there’s the sound of someone approaching, accompanied by muttered swearing. I stand back so I can be viewed through the spyhole.
‘Shit! Is that you, Stella?’
It’s not Vincent who opens the door to me, but his mate, Frenchie, Sergeant William French, whose place this is.
‘Mate, it’s fucking five a.m.,’ he says. ‘What you doing here?’
‘Vincent’s here, isn’t he?’ I say, trying to see past him, to catch a glimpse of my husband.
‘Yeah, yeah, he’s here.’ Frenchie runs his fingers through his ruffled hair. ‘But, babe, he’s sleeping. I know you guys are having trouble, but waking him up now for a barney – I’m not sure th
at’s the way to go. Know what I mean?’
‘He’s asleep?’
‘Yeah, like a baby. He’s slept pretty much since he got here. Snores like a fucking pig as well. I want you two to get it sorted, I tell you. I’m fucking knackered.’
‘Please, Frenchie, just let me see him, please. I’m not here to argue. I’ve come a long way. Don’t turn me away, please.’
‘Fuck if I know what women are thinking.’ Frenchie shrugs and steps aside to let me in. I walk into the hallway, catching sight of myself in the mirror – flushed, damp with sweat, soaking clothes, dirty shoes. Self-consciously I take my muddy trainers off and leave them by the door.
‘He’s in there.’ Frenchie nods at a closed door with the name Danielle emblazoned across it in pink letters. ‘It’s my weekend to have her, next weekend, so if you can make it up before then, I’d be grateful. I’m watching telly. I’ll come if it sounds like it’s getting violent; otherwise I’ll leave you to it.’
Slowly, hesitantly, I push the door open and close it softly behind me. It takes a moment for my eyes to adjust to the dark. A pink night light glows softly on a shelf, and I see him then, sprawled on his stomach on the bed. My heart lurches. His leg is propped up against the wall, and he’s sleeping in a pair of white boxers. He is sleeping, deeply. His face is relaxed and calm. He looks so beautiful.
He takes up most of the single bed, but I strip off my damp leggings and wet top and climb in next to him, winding my arms around his chest, moulding myself to the curve of his back. He adjusts slightly, moving over to make room for me in his sleep. His arms shift to cover mine, securing them, and then he settles back into deep sleep.
For the longest time, I am tense and nervous. I am cold and cramped, waiting for him to wake up and push me away, but he doesn’t. After a few minutes, I realise my neck is at a painful angle, my shoulder is pressed against something hard and uncomfortable, but I do not move; I dare not move. Instead, I just let the warmth and strength of Vincent’s body seep into mine. And slowly my heartbeat steadies, my eyes grow heavy and dreams start to weave their way into my thoughts.
We Are All Made of Stars Page 27