One Thousand Stars and You

by Isabelle Broom

  Max had tried many times to explain to her that he may have lost a limb, but that in the years since he’d gained so much more, and grown so much more. He was more of a man now than he’d been when he left for Afghanistan, back when he was putting on a tough-guy act the whole time, and he was still her son. While she would listen and nod and pat his hand, his words never seemed to sink in. His mother’s favourite phrase had always been, ‘I’m your mum, I know what’s best for you.’ She had been parroting that line since he was a little boy, and he feared that in her mind, at least, he still was one, and a broken one at that. She seemed unable to look at him without zoning in on what was physically missing, and he longed for the day she would be able to move past that ridiculous mental roadblock.

  Max knew that his mum blamed herself for what had happened to him, even though it made no sense. She had never tried to talk him out of joining the army, and so therefore she carried the burden of blame for what came next. Part of the reason he had come away to Sri Lanka in the first place was to show her just how ‘normal’ he was still capable of being, and now, thanks to this wretched new pain, his plan had been ruined.

  The shower had started to run cold as he sat there contemplating, and Max leaned across guiltily and turned it off. Jamal would have even more reason to be annoyed with him now that he’d inadvertently nicked all the hot water. When he emerged from the bathroom in a cloud of steam a few minutes later, however, his friend was nowhere to be seen. Jamal’s rucksack lay open on one of the twin beds, its insides spewed out across the top sheet and the floor below, and his phone was plugged into a charger on the bedside table. He had probably gone to spend some more time with the birthday girl.

  Max was just rooting through his own bag for some clean clothes when he heard a tentative knock on the door.

  ‘Max?’ a girl’s voice called.

  ‘Hang on,’ he called, rearranging his towel around his waist. ‘Come on in.’

  He had assumed it would be Alice, so when the door opened and Maureen stepped boldly into the room, he raised his eyebrows in surprise.

  ‘Oh, hello.’

  ‘Sorry.’ She looked suddenly unsure of herself. ‘You hoped I’d be Alice.’

  ‘No, no.’ Max was contrite. ‘Not at all. What can I do for you?’

  ‘Now there’s a loaded question,’ she replied, flashing him that flirtatious smile he’d become so accustomed to seeing. Max couldn’t help but feel flattered that she liked him – Maureen was a beautiful girl, and seriously sparky, too. He could do a lot worse.

  ‘I actually came to check on you,’ she went on. ‘Is your, erm, leg really OK?’

  Max took a long breath in through his nose.

  ‘Not really,’ he admitted with a frown, realising that there was no point in lying any more. ‘But it will be, hopefully. It’s just a bit swollen, that’s all.’

  Maureen glanced down to below Max’s towel, to where one wet foot glistened. He’d used his crutches to get from the bathroom to his bed, and was balancing on them now, as he stood in front of her.

  ‘You’re in great shape,’ Maureen pointed out, and Max laughed.

  ‘Cheers.’

  He didn’t feel embarrassed at all, Max mused, even though they were both very aware that he was naked save for his towel. While he felt hyper-awake whenever Alice was with him, Maureen brought out his more light-hearted side. She radiated fun and frivolity, while Alice was often quiet and came across as more thoughtful. He supposed that was why the two girls’ friendship worked, because they were able to balance one another out. If Max was to guess, he’d say that Steph was the mother hen of the group. There was something very grounded and calm about her – she and Jamal had that trait in common.

  ‘I have to stay relatively fit,’ Max told her, sitting down on the nearest bed and gesturing to Maureen that she should follow suit. ‘Boring, but true. If I put too much weight on, or lose too much, I risk my prosthetic leg not fitting. It can take months to get a replacement socket from the clinic, and they don’t come cheap. I don’t want to be more of a burden on the NHS than I have to be.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, looking at him from under her eyelashes. ‘It looks good on you.’

  ‘I could bore you all day long about calorie content,’ Max told her, picking up a second, smaller towel, and using it to dry his upper body.

  ‘It wouldn’t be anything I hadn’t heard before,’ Maureen assured him. ‘I think I’ve been talking about calories since I was about twelve – depressing but true.’

  Max regarded her through narrowed eyes.

  ‘You look good too, you know,’ he said, returning the compliment.

  Maureen didn’t blush at his words, as he guessed Alice would have; she merely flicked her dark snake of a ponytail off her shoulder and smiled.

  ‘It’s because I’m so busy all the time,’ she explained. ‘I do yoga, but that’s about it.’

  Max listened as she chatted for a while about the merits of Downward Dog and meditation, pulling a T-shirt over his head and rubbing the second towel through his wet hair. He wanted to put his pants on, but didn’t want to appear rude by asking Maureen to give him some privacy. As much as he liked her, there was a certain amount of effort behind their conversation – the chatter didn’t flow like it did when he was with Alice. Maureen was regaling him now with stories about the various dates she’d been on, and men she’d rejected for being too needy, too poor, too possessive, or – in one puzzling case – too nice. It was the same topic that she’d chosen before, when they were exploring the Botanical Gardens in Kandy, and he assumed it must be her go-to option when talking to members of the opposite sex. Max knew he wasn’t contributing much to the conversation, but he couldn’t quite muster up enough energy to try.

  ‘What have you got Alice for her birthday?’ he asked, picking a subject he could at least be enthusiastic about.

  Maureen pulled a face.

  ‘It’s my birthday first!’

  Max held up his hands in mock surrender. ‘Sorry – of course it is. What have you got planned?’

  ‘Well, that’s kind of what I wanted to talk to you about,’ Maureen began. ‘I was wondering if you wanted to do something, you know, just the two of us.’

  Her expression made Max become even more aware that he was naked under the towel.

  ‘Like what?’ he said, rubbing his hair again so he wouldn’t have to look at her.

  Maureen hesitated.

  ‘Aren’t we all going to Pudumayaki National Park tomorrow?’ he said. ‘Wasn’t that the plan?’

  ‘Yes, but …’ Maur stopped again, her cheeks reddening slightly. ‘I meant in the evening. Dinner, maybe, or just a few drinks.’

  ‘That is …’ Max trailed off. He wasn’t sure how to say no without sounding rude, and wondered if he should just agree. It was only dinner and drinks, after all. It wasn’t as if he was going to do anything. And even if he did, why did it matter?

  But it was hopeless. He knew why.

  ‘Listen, Maur,’ he said, making himself meet her green eyes with his own. ‘I’m really flattered, but I don’t think it would be fair on the others. It’s your thirtieth birthday – Steph and Alice would never forgive me if I stole you away for the evening.’

  ‘Well, that’s a load of crap,’ she replied, her expression turning hard. ‘If you don’t fancy me, you can just say so.’

  ‘It’s not that I don’t. I mean, you’re great – any man would be lucky to …’ He realised that his words were doing the very opposite of appeasing her. She seemed angry now.

  ‘Is this because of Alice?’ she asked, and Max coloured despite himself. He realised her anger wasn’t directed at him.

  ‘No, of course not.’

  ‘Did she warn you off me – is that it?’

  Max actually laughed at that, because it was so unlike anything he could imagine Alice ever doing. Maureen stood up abruptly, her eyes flashing with hurt.

  ‘You know what,’ she said, her voice ch
oked with bitterness. ‘I think Alice has been with Dickie so long that she’s forgotten what it’s like to be single. Just because her own relationship is boring, she sees fit to mess around with everyone else’s.’

  ‘Alice hasn’t said anything to me about you,’ Max told her honestly, quickly swallowing the question he wanted to ask, about Alice’s relationship with Richard apparently being tedious. She had told him on the train that she was happy, but Alice did not seem like the type of girl who would be satisfied with stagnation. ‘Honestly, this is all me. I’m just not looking to meet anyone at the moment – not as anything other than a friend, anyway. I’m sorry,’ he added, as her forthright temper dissolved into humiliation, and she cast her eyes to the floor.

  ‘We can still go out,’ he went on. ‘I could use a big night out, truth be told – something to take my mind off the old leg.’

  Maureen stared down at the space below the bottom of his towel, almost as if she had forgotten all about his missing limb, and for a second Max’s heart went out to her. Before he could open his mouth to try to fix things, however, Maureen had turned and was walking away towards the door.

  ‘We could go out tonight.’ She paused, her manner softening. ‘All of us, I mean. But only if you’re feeling well enough.’

  Max thought about his swollen, painful stump. The sleep he’d missed over the past twenty-four hours and the cluster of red dots spreading across the rippled join of his scar.

  Then he pictured Alice, smiling at him.

  ‘I wouldn’t miss it for all the tea in Sri Lanka,’ he said.

  31

  It was dusk by the time they left Doctor Perera’s homestay and made the short tuk tuk journey down the hill towards Ella’s rudimentary village centre. The sun that Alice and Max had watched rise together that morning was almost ready to slip away behind the distant mountains, and its fiery orb was now the dark-gold colour of lentil curry. The scenery in this part of Sri Lanka was dramatic, with sweeping, shamrock-green valleys, hillside tea plantations and the occasional glisten of a river far below the roads. The evening air was damp and a good few degrees cooler than it had been up in the Cultural Triangle.

  Alice had left her hooded top on her bed in the girls’ room, and she shivered as the air rushed through the open sides of their tuk-tuk. It was nice to feel a chill – it reminded her of being back at the top of Adam’s Peak. The experience already felt as if it had happened days ago, rather than hours, and she was seized with fear that soon the memory would fade, and she would forget how it had felt to reach that summit and see the daylight pouring like bright treacle over the landscape. She knew that for the rest of her life, she would think back to the month she turned thirty and have not one single regret about the adventure she had marked it with.

  Alice had never done anything as special and meaningful as that uphill trek, not even during all her years with Richard. She tried to imagine how it would have felt to scale the peak with him, rather than Max, and the contrast saddened her. Rich would not have enjoyed himself – he would have been far too concerned about the probability of them both contracting a bacterial infection from the rudimentary bathrooms en route to appreciate the beauty of the place, and of the people. It had never used to bother her too much that she and Rich had vastly different interests – she had merely accepted that while he was her boyfriend, that did not mean he had to be by her side all the time. But what she was beginning to realise now, was that she wanted to share experiences with someone. She could easily have climbed Adam’s Peak by herself, but would it have felt as magical? Wasn’t that the whole point of relationships – and of love? Having someone there to share your adventures with, and knowing they wanted to be in that moment with you?

  Rich would not dive with her, or climb with her, or travel the world with her. But he did love her – of that, at least, Alice was certain. If anything, he loved her too much. It was why he felt such a strong need to protect her, from herself more than anything else.

  She was snapped back from Wonderland to reality as they rounded a corner at speed, and she promptly fell against Steph, who in turn squashed Maureen. Jamal and Max were in the tuk-tuk behind theirs – Alice could just about hear the nasal purr of its engine. She was relieved that Max was coming with them, but this was making her suffer a two-pronged attack of guilt. Firstly, because she was worried about the pain in his right leg, and knew he should probably be resting, and secondly because she shouldn’t, in all honesty, be craving his company as much as she was. She had wanted to go and check on him earlier, following the confrontation he’d had with Jamal, but Maureen had insisted that she go instead, telling Alice that she could have first dibs on the shower. Doctor Perera had installed better showers than Alice had seen anywhere – not just in Sri Lanka – and it had been blissful to step underneath the hot flowing water and feel the aches and pains of the arduous climb easing away.

  Steph had played the birthday girl card and persuaded Alice to wear a far tighter dress than she usually would, while an oddly distracted Maureen had helped coerce her stubbornly straight hair into messy, beachy waves, which Alice was continually fiddling with now as they drove. She had never really been a girl who dressed to impress, but today she had wanted to look different, more grown-up. She felt different, too, but she knew it was not solely because she was nearing an age milestone. Her rebellious and reckless side, which she had successfully, for the most part, trapped under a tight lid since her accident, was making a concerted bid for freedom. She could feel it there, just under the surface, and was rapidly losing any inclination she had to stop it. Just the fact she had agreed to wear one of Steph’s tightest and shortest black dresses for their night out was proof that sensible Alice had been left on the train somewhere between Hatton and Ella. Bad Alice was out to play tonight, and the thought of her taking hold of the reins once again was exciting, even if she knew deep down that it was probably a knee-jerk reaction to the row she’d had with Richard over the phone. He would not be impressed to see her with this much foundation caked on, and he would tut at the high hemline of her dress. His argument would be that this wasn’t her, that she didn’t need either of these things to look nice – and he might be right on both counts. But tonight, for some reason, Alice felt as if she did need them. She wanted to plaster over her confused emotions with metaphorical Polyfilla.

  The tuk-tuk driver dropped them off halfway along the main road that snaked through the heart of Ella, making sure they took one of his little business cards so that they might call him later for a lift back. Alice had quite a collection of them now, and she stowed this new one in the zip-up pocket of her bag with the others. There were bars, restaurants and shops dotted all the way along the street, most with thatched roofs and wooden floors, and most of the people Alice could see strolling past appeared to be tourists rather than locals. Ella was a popular stop-off point for anyone making the journey down to the south of the country from Adam’s Peak or Kandy, and she was looking forward to exploring. Maureen was adamant that they make time for shopping, while Alice was eager to go on safari the following day. Steph, as always, was happy simply to tag along with whatever excursion they chose, although Alice suspected what her besotted friend really wanted was some proper alone time with the new object of her affection.

  She watched Jamal now as he clambered out of the second tuk-tuk, holding out his hand to grab Max’s crutches. The two men seemed to be back on speaking terms, but Alice hadn’t managed to get Max alone yet to ask him if he was OK. Maureen had assured her that he was, but the appearance of the crutches could not be ignored. She hated the idea of him being in pain.

  ‘Shall we just head over there?’ Maureen suggested, tugging down the bottom of her denim hot pants. She, too, had left her warmer top back at the homestay, and Alice could see goosebumps on her arms.

  They all looked across the road to where a two-storey bar called Kamikaze glowed with inviting light. It was open-fronted with a treehouse-like terrace as its top tier, and musi
c filtered out from amongst tables cluttered with young travellers. After wandering up the steps, they were quickly ushered to a large circular table by a bearded waiter wearing gold trousers and a red shirt. Alice, who was determined to eat only local food while she was in Sri Lanka, was dismayed when the waiter reeled off a list of Western dishes, including beef burgers and pasta carbonara.

  ‘Do you have kottu roti?’ she asked, smiling as the waiter nodded at her, ‘with eggs, chicken and extra chillies, please.’

  ‘Remind me what that is again,’ said Steph, her blonde hair a halo of frizz.

  ‘Chopped bread – well, flatbreads,’ Alice replied. ‘Then it’s fried, and you add toppings.’

  ‘Yum,’ Steph said, always easy to please. ‘I’ll have the same.’

  Maureen was just in the middle of ordering a fish curry when Alice’s phone lit up with a message. Distracted, she picked it up and swiped her finger across the screen, only to roll her eyes.

  ‘Who is it?’ Steph asked.

  ‘My mum,’ Alice informed the table. ‘Checking that I’m still alive, as per usual.’

  ‘Oh, bless Mrs Brockley,’ Steph said kindly, but Alice wasn’t listening.

  ‘Freddie still hasn’t texted me back,’ she said, hearing the concern in her own voice as the realisation sunk in.

  ‘I’m sure he’s just busy and forgot,’ Steph was quick to offer, adding, ‘Freddie’s her older brother,’ to Jamal. Max finished giving his order of Ceylonese spit chicken and touched Alice’s arm.

  ‘Men are useless at replying to texts,’ he assured her, but Alice shook her head.