Bright Stars

by Sophie Duffy

  Take it or leave it.

  Barbara Dickson OBE, from ‘A Shirt Box Full of Songs’

  _________________________

  *Why does Bex let her dress like that? What do I know about parenting? I want a baby, Cameron. With or without you.

  *And have I mentioned the fact that Dad was a brewer? Yes, I think I probably have.

  Saturday

  Walk

  It’s still dark when I get up. Seven o’clock. The view from my room is of Green Park, skeleton trees doing a deathly dance in the wind. My heart is heavy when I see the rain. Welcome to England, Christie. Does the damp get into her battered bones? Does she have arthritis? Does she hate us all?

  My phone beeps. Amanda? Bex? Dad. Of course. Only an old person would ring at such a time.

  ‘How are you, son?’

  ‘I’m okay, Dad. Just waking up.’

  ‘Having a lie in? All right for some.’

  Myrtle interrupts, barking like a Rottweiler. Then there’s a yelp followed by silence.

  ‘You’ve got the zapper then.’

  ‘It works a treat.’

  ‘I’m not sure Myrtle sees it as a treat.’

  ‘Then she’ll soon learn.’

  ‘You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.’

  ‘You can with one of these up your jacksy, son.’

  ‘I thought you loved that dog.’

  ‘I do. It’s called tough love.’

  Tough love. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is bloody tough.

  ‘Was there anything particular you wanted, Dad?’

  ‘Just checking you’re okay. Have you seen her yet?’

  ‘I’ve seen Tommo and Bex but not Christie. That’ll be tonight.’

  ‘Hold your head up high. Face your demons, then get out of there and back home.’

  ‘Aye, Dad. I will.’

  Be proud of who you are.

  Determined not to be a complete tosser, I go down to breakfast. I am not avoiding the others by having it in my room. I am going to man up.

  As I enter the dining room, they’re already there, the four of them, Bex, Tommo, the twins. The daughter is without make-up this morning, the image of her mother at university. She looks up from her phone and gives me that half-wave. I wave back this time and walk over, slowly, carefully, eager not to make each step like something from the Ministry of Funny Walks.

  ‘Morning, Cameron.’ Bex smiles and Tommo does this ridiculous salute thing. The twins mumble. They’ve left me a space and Bex hails down a waiter with great panache to take my order.

  The table resembles the scene of a debauched Roman feast but that’s kids for you. My childhood home was always spilling over with wet trainers, bulky backpacks, oily motorbike parts. Christie has a daughter too but I don’t suppose she’ll be bringing her into this Bermuda triangle.

  ‘You look really well, Cameron. You’ve filled out a bit. It suits you.’ Bex is always brutally honest.

  ‘I was a weedy teenager.’

  ‘Does your wife feed you well?’ Tommo asks, ignoring Bex’s feminist glower.

  ‘Amanda and I are on a break.’

  ‘I heard that,’ Bex says. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘So Tommo told you.’

  She looks at Tommo. He shrugs. She shakes her head.

  ‘How did you hear then?’

  ‘I saw it on Facebook.’

  ‘I’m not even on Facebook.’

  Loulou and Ethan gawp at me, an alien.

  ‘Let’s just say Facebook has made this world very small,’ Bex says.

  The waiter brings me some tea, finds a space to set down the pot.

  The twins continue to gawp.

  Tommo piles three sugars into a cup of black coffee that the waiter has refilled for him.

  Bex sips her own tea, blinks at me with those spider leg lashes.

  ‘Do you have a girlfriend?’ Loulou enquires.

  I actually splutter. I wasn’t expecting such a personal question so early in the day, especially not from a girl I’ve only just met. They are all waiting expectantly for an answer.

  ‘Och, no.’ My face is heating up with a teenage flush. ‘I want to put my marriage right.’

  ‘You’re pretty buff.’ Loulou reaches out and squeezes my arm. A tingle travels all the way along it and I have to keep my stick on the ice, as Christie would say. This is Bex’s daughter.

  ‘You should try Internet dating,’ Bex’s daughter suggests. ‘Or speed dating. You’ll get loads of women after you. Young, hot women.’

  ‘Right, Lou. Leave Cameron in peace,’ Bex intervenes at last. ‘Go and get ready or we’ll be waiting all day for you.’ She hands over the room key.

  Loulou finishes her orange juice, noisily, and with much sass, before grabbing her brother. ‘Come on, Ethan. Let the grown-ups talk about grown-up stuff like mortgages and divorces.’ She flounces off, pulling Ethan along.

  ‘Sorry about that, Cameron. Hormones. She oversteps the mark sometimes.’ Bex shovels sugar into her tea and stirs voraciously.

  I wonder briefly how much Fairtrade sugar they get through in their household and then try to think of something to say, to show I am fine about being quizzed, that I am au fait with teenagers when really I am clueless. I was clueless when I was a teenager myself so how can I possibly understand the twins, the product of the other two people at this table?

  ‘What age did you say they were?’

  ‘Sixteen,’ Bex says.

  ‘Sweet sixteen.’

  An embarrassed pause. I sound like a perv.

  Help comes, unexpectedly, from Tommo. ‘There’s nothing sweet about them when they’re drinking illicit cider in the park or smoking my roll-ups out the bedroom window.’

  Bex shoots Tommo a sharp look. I cannot fathom the layers that lay beneath it.

  ‘Your son’s very quiet.’

  ‘He’s always been the quiet one,’ Bex says.

  ‘You know what they say about the quiet ones,’ I retort.

  ‘What do they say, Cameron?’ Tommo is alert now after his sugar-caffeine hit.

  ‘They’re the ones to watch.’ Awkwardness hovers above the table like a bird waiting to poop. The waiter deposits my plate of food. ‘I was the quiet one, remember.’ I cram my mouth full of bacon to staunch the flow of dodgy comments, praying silently to a god I still want to believe in that I won’t be afflicted with Tourette’s or say something racist, sexist, homophobic or vaguely right-wing (though being a Scot the latter is unlikely). But most of all I pray that I won’t let slip words like ‘crash’, ‘prison’, or ‘leg’.

  The other two shift in their seats. Tommo clears his throat as if he’s about to say something but he just carries on coughing. A smoker’s cough. Bex hands him her glass of orange juice, a fleeting gesture of concern, which he sips and eventually the coughing subsides.

  Maybe they are also worried about what to say. I’ve never really considered the possibility: Bex and Tommo stumped for words.

  ‘So.’ Bex swipes her breakfast plate to one side. The waiter swoops. She leans forward, elbows on table, close enough for me to make out the faintest of lines on her skin, around the eyes, the lips. ‘What are you doing today?’

  ‘Oh?’ Don’t these two communicate? ‘Tommo actually asked me if I wanted to go to the Tate with him.’

  ‘Did he? Right. That’s a good idea. I’m taking the twins to the London Eye. Tommo hates heights. And I need to get Lou a dress as well. Maybe we could meet up later this afternoon?’

  ‘That would be good.’

  The waiter whips away my breakfast plate and other detritus from the table, while Tommo lectures us on modern art, finally exhausting his spiel just as I finish my toast.

  ‘Um, so,’ I begin, hesitate, push on. ‘Did you two ever get wed?’

  ‘No.’ Bex says this firmly.

  Tommo says nothing.

  ‘Why not?’ Maybe I shouldn’t ask this question in terms of politeness and etiquette but we’re surely beyo
nd that ruling.

  ‘No need,’ Bex says. She briefly twists a silver ring on a non-wedding finger.

  ‘You should really consider the financial and legal implications.’ I sound like a pillock but I can’t help myself.

  ‘It’s sorted,’ Bex says. ‘We have wills.’

  ‘Right well, then, that’s good. I mean, I know it’s not romantic, but you have to think in terms of practicalities. Amanda and I signed a prenup.’

  ‘A prenup?’ Tommo splutters. ‘Michael MacDouglas or what?’

  ‘There’s property involved.’

  ‘So you’re a property magnate?’

  ‘We have a flat in the New Town.’

  ‘The crap bit of Edinburgh?’

  ‘The posh bit.’ I wait for some reaction but there is silence. They are waiting for me to say more so I please my audience. ‘Things aren’t so good between Amanda and I right now. In fact I’m living back with my dad for the time being. And there’s a possibility I’ll be out of work before Christmas.’

  ‘God, Cameron, really?’ Bex touches my hand, a squeeze almost painful in its exquisite tenderness, the silver ring digging into my skin.

  ‘The recession’s been hard for everyone, mate.’ This from Tommo, his voice rough as a badger’s arse. What does he sound like when he sings now? Barry White? Leonard Cohen? Bonnie Tyler?

  I can still feel the ghost of Bex’s hand on mine. The echo of Tommo’s voice continues to grate. The two of them still together, after all this time, considering their beginnings, is remarkable.

  ‘You two are all right though?’ I switch the focus back to them.

  ‘The squeezed middle,’ Bex says. ‘But we have more than enough. We have a roof over our heads, clothes on our back and food in our bellies.’

  I don’t correct her assumption that I am talking financially.

  ‘So, Cameron,’ she says. ‘Which way will you be voting in the referendum? Do you want to stay with the rest of us?’

  ‘I take it you’re talking about Scottish Independence?’

  ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘There is such a thing as the Secret Ballot Act, * you know.’

  ‘You don’t have to tell me but I’m interested. And surely if you have a strong opinion you should share it. It’s about your self-determination. It’s important.’

  As if she needs to tell me that.

  ‘Well, Bex, to satisfy your curiosity, I’ll be voting Yes. It’s time we had our freedom back.’

  ‘Your freedom?’ Tommo sounds surprised. ‘Is that how

  you see it?’

  ‘Aye, that’s exactly how I see it. My freedom.’

  Bex stands up, touches Tommo on the shoulder. ‘We need to get going. We’ll have to continue this hot debate later.’

  Tommo stands up too, does as he’s told, flicks the crumbs from his skinny black trousers. Not a word about kilts or tartan or Briga-bloody-doon. *

  I stand up too.

  The three of us all stand up.

  ‘I’ll meet you in the lobby, shall I, Tommo?’

  ‘Yep. Give me ten minutes.’

  ‘Right.’

  I leave them there, by the wreck of the table, and make my way out of the dining room, without goose-stepping or tripping or pirouetting. But the day stretches ahead of me and I wonder how I will survive to the end of it.

  Ten minutes can seem endless.

  Conquered, she was unconquerable, nor could the dungeon detain her; slain, yet deathless, imprisoned, yet not a prisoner. Thus does the pruned vine groan with a greater abundance of grapes, and the cut jewel gleams with a brilliant splendour.

  Extract from an inscription on Mary, Queen of Scots’ tomb, translated from Latin, in Westminster Abbey.

  _________________________

  *The secret ballot mandated by the Act was first used on 15 August 1872 to re-elect Hugh Childers as MP for Pontefract in a ministerial by-election, following his appointment as Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. (Yes, Lancaster. Who’d have thought?)

  *A quote made by Simon Callow in Four Weddings and a Funeral. Which had its fair share of kilts.

  Irises

  Not surprisingly, I like it in the Underground. (Jubilee Line. Green Park to Southwark.) It is reassuring and safe, a home from home. The place must be teeming with ghosts. The lost souls of the jumpers, the Victorian tunnellers, the druggies and the drunks. They must have a wail of a time in this subterranean world. If you’ll pardon the pun.

  Did you feel a sense of power when you locked Sanderson in the room?

  Did you want to be his jailer?

  Psycho-babble from Jeremy. I wanted to take control of the situation, yes, that is why I locked him up. But it wasn’t the locking-up per se that was important to me. It was the keeping-everyone-safe part that was my priority. Locking him up was a solution.

  But he reminded you of Tommo.

  Did he?

  Yes, I put it to you that he did.

  Shut up, Jeremy.

  ‘Who’s Jeremy?’ Tommo asks.

  ‘No one,’ I snap.

  Tommo and I emerge from the depths of south London into a reasonable bright sunlight for December. We make our way towards Bankside power station, his old stride nowhere to be seen, replaced with a shuffle like my dad’s.

  ‘Do you come here often?’ I’m not trying to be witty, it’s just that Tate Modern is such a Tommo kind of place.

  He shakes his floppy hair, takes out a fag for a quick puff. ‘I’ve never been.’

  ‘Never?’

  ‘Nope. I avoid London.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘My teenage life is a dim, hazy memory, like it belongs to someone else.’

  ‘What about your father?’

  ‘He’s still alive, semi-retired in Hampstead with his new wife who isn’t so new anymore. We rarely see each other. We barely talk.’

  He looks over his shoulder, like he’s checking for someone. His father? Or his younger self, maybe? The young lad who dreamt of fame and money and glittering prizes, who chose the less worn road up to a provincial northern mill town. Who got so near and then had it snatched from him. Who ruined everything. And where is he now? Middle-aged, in a hippy town in Devon, in a mind-numbing job in refuse and recycling. With a cough like a death rattle.

  ‘As for my mother, she’s still with the aging, withered Knob.’

  Inside the vast Turbine Hall there’s a cathedral-hush, an escape from the crowds, a remission from the jostling and the rushing. Time slows down. I can feel each breath of mine. I can hear each breath of Tommo’s.

  There’s a piece by Tacita Dean called Film – a silent 35mm looped film projected onto this whacking monolith.

  Tommo’s intrigued. ‘The images are analogue not digital,’ he says. ‘Like vinyl over CD.’

  ‘You’re still in a band, then?’

  ‘You make it sound like you’re asking if I’m still in the boy scouts. Not that I’ve ever been or done anything that requires a uniform, apart from boarding school but that didn’t last long. Not after the marijuana incident.’

  ‘So are you still in a band?’

  ‘Course.’

  ‘And Bex is okay with that?’

  ‘Why wouldn’t she be?’

  ‘Because you’re forty-seven.’

  ‘I’m forty-six.’

  I am forty-six.

  Tommo is forty-six.

  ‘Maybe you should focus your energies on a different hobby.’

  ‘You think my music’s a hobby?’

  ‘Well, it’s not like a job, is it?’

  ‘I make some money.’

  You’re not exactly Jarvis cocking Cocker.

  ‘What did you say?’

  ‘I spoke out loud again, didn’t I?’

  ‘Are you all there, mate?’

  ‘I might not be all there but at least I’m not still trying to be famous.’

  ‘Who said I want to be famous?’

  ‘You always wanted to be famous.’


  ‘If I’d wanted fame that much I wouldn’t have screwed it up the first time round, would I?’ He walks off, heads out the hall and into one of the galleries.

  I follow him. A shadow. I am a ghost that will haunt him forever.

  We’re in the middle of the water irises when he starts to cough. And cough. Hacking away. It won’t ease. It’s like it will never stop. Like he’s actually coughing up his guts. I’m embarrassed at first, his coughing disturbing the quiet peace of Monet’s pond. Then embarrassment turns to concern as the cough goes on and on and on.

  ‘You look terrible. Let’s get you out of here.’ And I grab his arm and lead him back through the galleries as he gasps for breath and I feel a panic in my own chest, my peripheral vision a blur of white walls and ghoulish structures and bright lighting. In the Turbine Hall there is more air and although his cough calms a little, it reverberates and so I steer him outside, into the cold freshness where he bends over, trying to exhume the cough. Dirty phlegm splatters on the ground, like a Rothko.

  His coughing settles, stops, and we both stare at the mess on the floor. ‘Are you okay?’

  ‘Bit woozy.’ His voice is hardly there.

  ‘You don’t need me to tell you what it is.’

  ‘Yeah, I know.’ He takes a breath. I take a breath. ‘The fags. I’ll cut back.’

  ‘Better quit altogether. And go to the doctors. You might have bronchitis.’

  He swats me away.

  I ignore him and push him down onto a bench.

  ‘A cold, that’s all,’ he mumbles.

  We sit there in silence for a while. The sun has gone, leaving a washed-out grey sky hovering above the city’s rooftops. People walk past. Pigeons peck. The wind bowls up the river. We sit there in silence a bit longer.

  ‘The night of the crash you complained about a cold,’ he says, out the blue, completely off message. ‘We were in the pub…’ He coughs, briefly, gets going again. ‘You were stubbornly refusing to have a drink. I’d had too much myself. Didn’t make the best decisions that night.’ He shrugs, takes another breath. ‘I’ve felt guilty ever since. Every night, the guilt haunts me. I lie in bed playing over every other decision I could’ve made. Not only that night but over my entire lifetime.’ He shifts, wipes his snot on the back of his precious jacket sleeve, like a toddler, like a tramp. ‘That way madness lies. So I take sleeping pills.’