‘OK.’ Alice’s voice was small. ‘I’ll go.’
She turned and hurried away from them, her eyes stinging with unshed tears. She just wanted a chance to say sorry, to tell Max that he had been right about her, about Freddie, about everything. She was a coward and he had every right to hate her, but that didn’t stop the knowledge hurting like hell.
When she reached the base of the Palm House steps, Alice turned and looked back up to Max and Jamal’s balcony. Steph was still up there, her arms around her new boyfriend’s waist as he leaned in and whispered in her ear. She was nodding, but not smiling, and Alice watched as Jamal handed her friend a small piece of folded paper, which she slipped into the back pocket of her shorts.
They kissed then, and Alice dropped her eyes to the floor, not wanting to intrude more than she already had on their happiness. All she had ever done, since she was ten years old, was try to make those around her happy, yet for some reason she kept messing it up. If Richard was happy, then Alice was not. If her mum was happy, then Alice was not. There was a pattern to this that should have been glaringly obvious – and so it had been to Max, who had seen it all and understood it, yet still let himself like her – really like her. And what had she done? She had thrown all of it back in his face. Every single word.
47
Despite the harassed thoughts chasing through her mind and the persistent roar of the ocean, Alice eventually dropped off to sleep, only waking when a fully dressed Maureen gently nudged her with a finger. She screwed up her eyes as soon as she opened them, putting out a hand to block the sun.
‘What time is it?’ she muttered, her voice gravelly.
‘Almost nine.’ Maureen suppressed a yawn. ‘But check-out’s at ten, so I thought I’d better wake you.’
The events of the previous evening landed like a thump in the middle of Alice’s chest.
‘Have you seen the boys?’ she gabbled, sitting up so fast that she almost fell out of the hammock.
Maureen clamped her teeth together.
‘Um …’ she said, and Alice grabbed her arm.
‘What? What’s happened?’
‘They’ve gone,’ said Maur, looking at Alice with genuine pity. ‘Jamal managed to get them on a new flight, but it was leaving this morning, so they got a taxi at about four a.m.’
‘What?’ Alice was aghast. ‘Why didn’t someone wake me?’
Maureen lifted a single shoulder in a half-shrug. ‘I don’t know. I only found out this morning myself. I think Steph said goodbye to Jamal earlier than that. He texted her or something. Max has got an infection – the doctor confirmed it – but he refused to go into hospital. Said he wanted to see his own doctor when they went home, so I guess the earlier flight is a compromise between the two.’
‘I should be on that bloody flight,’ wailed Alice. ‘I should have changed my flight the minute I heard about Freddie. Why didn’t I?’
Maureen was looking at her with increasing alarm.
‘You said your mum told you not to.’
‘Screw my mum!’ Alice growled, finally climbing out of the hammock and running an agitated hand through her hair. ‘I’m sick of doing whatever she says all the bloody time.’
‘OK …’ Maureen sounded on the verge of a nervous laugh.
‘I mean it!’ Alice went on. ‘I’m done. I’ve had it with her trying to control my life.’
‘Does she try and control your life?’ asked Maur, and Alice nodded.
‘Yes! But I’m not going to let her do it any more. I’m going to call her right now and tell her. I’m going to … Where is my phone?’ she demanded, patting each of her pockets and then flipping the hammock over in a temper.
Steph opened the treehouse door.
‘It’s in here,’ she said. ‘Charging. Exactly where you left it last night.’
‘Right,’ Alice stormed, barrelling her way inside. ‘Good. Right.’
She made it as far as the edge of the bed before folding over on herself in misery, biting her lip until she tasted blood. When Steph ran over to comfort her, Alice shrugged her away.
‘I’m fine,’ she said, although not one of them was in any doubt that she was not.
The journey from Tangalle to Mirissa passed without incident. Alice sat hunched on the left-hand side of the tuk-tuk, staring at but barely seeing the coast as they hurtled through the villages. The smell of the morning’s catch hung thickly in the air, and she counted twelve makeshift stalls piled high with a variety of sea life. Not even the sight of a stray dog stealing a squid could raise a smile to her lips. All Alice could think was that she wanted to go home, but she had missed that morning’s flight due to her own inability to make a decision, and now there were no more that would get her back to the UK any earlier than originally planned.
She was trying not to be sullen – if not for her own sanity then for the sake of Steph and Maureen, who still had holiday time which they deserved to enjoy. Alice figured that she had already caused distress to enough people that she cared about, without adding her two best friends to the list.
Steph was quieter than usual, presumably sad at having to say goodbye to Jamal so abruptly, but Alice had no doubt that they would see each other again within days of the three of them returning home. That piece of paper Jamal had given her last night could only have been his contact details, written down so that she could not forget them, even if she lost her phone. It was romantic, really. She was trying not to be cross with Steph or Jamal for allowing Max to leave without giving her the chance to see him – she knew that they each had the best interests of their separate friends at heart. But then, neither of them had been on the beach with her and Max – they hadn’t heard what he had said or seen the look on his face as he said it. Alice could not believe that Max would have chosen to go without a single word, but perhaps she was being naïve. She had sat there and listened while he laid himself and his feelings out for the taking, and then she had tossed them away like sand into the air. She could not stop picturing the look of bewildered hurt on his face when she had cast scorn on the skydive – the skydive that he had thought of and arranged as a gift. He had done that, and she had chewed it up and spat it back at him. She had never felt more ashamed.
They checked in to a clean but very basic hotel in Mirissa, then spent the afternoon exploring. Similarly to Tangalle, the small town had an island feel, with souvenir shops, numerous bars and a plethora of travellers sporting tie-dye harem pants and dreadlocked hair. People were more relaxed on the coast, and everything seemed to move at a much slower pace than it did in the cities.
Alice asked Steph every ten minutes if she had heard anything from Jamal, but no messages were forthcoming. She had even switched on the roaming on her phone in order to check Max’s Facebook and Instagram accounts, in case he had added an update before boarding the flight, but there was nothing new there, either. His last Instagram post was a photo he had taken of the elephants in Pudumayaki National Park. He had added something humorous below about it being ‘the calm before the storming elephant’, and all Alice could think was that she missed him so much it hurt.
After returning to their hotel to change and collect their washing – which the kind lady owner had laid out, knickers and all, across the roof of a small shed that was in full view of every single guest staying there – Alice, Steph and Maureen headed to the beach for dinner. There were restaurants dotted all the way along it, and Alice meandered behind her friends on purpose, content to let them decide where to eat. Soon, they were seated on squashy beanbags watching the sun set behind the ocean, Steph and Maureen toasting the various highlights of their trip and agreeing on all the things they would miss most about Sri Lanka, while Alice sat mutely beside them. When a message came through from Richard, she barely glanced at it, hating how unfair she was being to him but powerless to do anything about it. The sadness was just too heavy, her regret solidifying around her like wet cement.
Darkness seemed to arrive suddenly, as if the da
y had been turned off with a switch, and waiters hurried amongst the tables lighting candles. The stout palm trees lining the edge of the restaurant had been dressed in fairy lights, and small tortoiseshell cats picked their way between the holidaymakers’ feet, rubbing their fragile bodies against bare shins in the hope of a morsel or two. Piles of brightly coloured fish were proudly displayed on a table mounded with ice at the front of the seating area, but Alice found she felt only pity when she stared into their shiny, unblinking eyes.
In the end, she ordered her favourite kottu roti, opting for vegetables rather than meat, and switched from water to beer once the food had arrived. She knew alcohol would only make her feel worse, but she craved the momentary escape from despondency that it offered. Maureen had spotted a sign advertising a party further along the beach, and was adamant that they must all go. Alice nodded along with the plan as she pushed her dinner around on her plate – she would go through the motions for the final three evenings of their holiday. She owed her friends that much.
‘Isn’t this fun?’ Maureen slurred an hour later, grabbing Alice’s hands and attempting to spin her around in a circle. The DJ at the beach party was playing club tunes that Alice had not heard since the late 1990s, but if anything, this seemed to spur Maureen on even more. The crowd dancing out on the sand next to them were mostly young backpackers, but there was a healthy number of Sri Lankans here, too.
Despite pulling off some seriously impressive moves and swinging her long dark hair around as if she was a moshing Rapunzel, Maureen had failed to get the attention of any men. A fact that she was now lamenting to Steph and Alice at some length.
‘What does a girl have to do?’ she shouted over the music. ‘I mean, what is the secret?’
Steph thought for a moment.
‘I think it’s cartwheels,’ she said, and Alice frowned in amusement. Steph was clearly a lot tipsier than she looked. Alice had not been paying attention to the amount any of them had been drinking.
‘Cartwheels?’ Maureen squeaked. ‘But I can’t do a cartwheel.’ She was speaking so fast and with such drunken indignation that all her words were running together.
‘’Tis easy,’ Steph assured her, waggling a finger. She was wearing her pink denim shorts again, this time with a plain black vest top, which she was now tucking in with one hand.
‘Hold this!’ she instructed, thrusting her cocktail towards Alice before limbering up on the spot. Maureen, who was so drunk that she could not stay still, jumped up and down on the sand in anticipation.
‘Geronimo!’ yelled Steph, lurching forwards and managing to complete a rather bandy-legged cartwheel. Maureen began applauding loudly.
‘See!’ she declared. ‘This is why you have Jamal and I am going to die alone!’
She staggered forwards a few steps as she said it, kicking sand over Alice’s feet, then promptly bent down to pick something up.
‘What’s this?’ she said, peering at the folded piece of paper. ‘I think it’s for you,’ she added, handing it to Alice.
Steph stepped across to look, her hand immediately flying up to cover her mouth.
‘Oh bugger!’ she swore, inebriation making her giggle. ‘That must have fallen out of my pocket. Jamal gave it to me for you, but with everything that happened, I must have forgotten about it. Sorry, Alice.’
Alice wasn’t listening. She was staring down at the piece of paper in her hands – a piece of paper that had her name written on it.
‘Who’s it from?’ said Maur, but Alice did not reply. Instead, she unfolded the note and began to read.
48
First comes love
I saw it shining there
Reflected in her eyes
And in the strands of her hair,
First comes love
A leader, a thief
Breaking through the surface
To my heart underneath,
First comes love
It was sought unconsciously
I did not know I had it
Until she looked at me,
First comes love
Bright as those stars
We gazed upon together
As if the world was ours,
First comes love
Truth follows behind
Courage must be third
As hope feels blind …
49
Max
If I should live
I will strive to learn
What life is without her
And how not to yearn …
The vibrations came first, the rumble of heavy tyres against the dry earth. Everything was bright and hot, and Max could feel the weight of his body armour pulling against his shoulders and pressing hard on his chest. Dust swam in the air, swirling insects darted from person to person, and from somewhere at the front of the convoy, a shout rang out.
Max tried to blink, knowing he was dreaming yet unable to wake up. ‘Open your eyes,’ he urged himself, fearing what would happen if he did not, dreading the pain that he knew would soon reach up and drag him back to that place of terror and darkness.
He felt his body lurch downwards, then off to one side, his stomach disappearing as if thrown into a deep gulley. Sweat began to run down his face. He was not wearing his helmet. Why wasn’t he wearing his helmet?
‘Max.’
It was Jamal. But that couldn’t be right. Jamal had not been in the desert with him.
‘Max, it’s OK. It’s just turbulence. Go to your safe place. Can you hear me? Shit. Max, come on, wake up. You need to wake up.’
His safe place. Yes, that was it. Max could not wake himself up from this nightmare, could not open his eyes and banish the taste of death from his lips, but he could use what was left of his strength to take himself somewhere else, where it was not as hot, where he could breathe. But what was that place?
He could see a tumbling stream, and his bare knees as they had been before, when he was a child, stretched out in front of him, and he became aware of the comforting presence of his brother, Ant, beside him. For a few moments, the image swam around Max, and he reached out with his fingers, trying to draw the separate elements towards him, or haul himself into the image with them, into the place where he would be safe. But the picture was dissolving, a painting held under a faucet, a dream splitting open at the seams. Darkness crept in on the edges, black spots of despair that gave way to red.
Red was bad, red meant pain.
Max ignored the voice that he could hear urging him to wake. It was shouting at him over and over. He did not trust it – waking was a trap. There was nothing there for him but more pain. He screwed his eyes tightly shut and imagined that he was on a journey; that he was going to travel right down inside himself to where his heart sat beating, its rhythm shallow and irregular. What would he find inside it, he wondered, if he could only open the door?
Max pushed further, reached ahead of himself towards the light that glowed there, waiting for him. The redness began to darken. It was no longer the colour of fear, but the soothing shade of night. A night with a wide, clear sky, dappled with stars. One thousand stars.
She was here. Alice. Max could not see her, but he could feel her as she reached for his hand and he knew that she would not leave him. That she would keep him close beside her for always.
Max felt the fear flood out of him, and joy burst through in its place. Alice was his safe place, and now that he had found her, he could let go.
50
Richard answered on the second ring.
It was Alice’s final evening in Sri Lanka, and she, Steph and Maureen were spending it in the south-west port town of Galle. The area had been colonised at different points in history by the Portuguese, Dutch and British, the influence of each still apparent through the area’s European-style architecture and fortifying sea wall. Maureen had finally been granted her wish to shop, as the town centre was a warren of boutiques, cafés and ice-cream parlours. Traffic was not permitted through the heart of th
e city, and it meant that Galle had a quiet and almost timeless atmosphere, one which felt utterly at odds with the rest of the country. Wild peacocks strutted across rooftops, popcorn vendors wheeled their carts along the seafront, and children chased one another through cobbled squares.
It was quaint, but also tranquil, and Alice tried her best to draw as much peace from it as she could, drinking in the view across the water as she made her way along the city’s outer wall, looking for a place to sit down. Galle’s lighthouse stood proudly at the end of the pebble-strewn walkway, and Alice was reminded yet again of Max. He had acted like a guiding light in her life, had shown her the way towards real happiness, and now it was up to her to finish what he had begun.
‘Thanks for agreeing to talk,’ she said, pulling her mind away from Max and back to Richard. It had swung so often between the two men over the past couple of days that Alice felt as though her brain was a pendulum. As soon as she had read Max’s poem, she had known what it was she must do, but she had still given herself time to come to terms with her decision, to let the idea and all its consequences sink into her conscience until she could be sure it was not simply a knee-jerk reaction.
She lowered herself down on a patch of sparse grass and swung her legs over the edge of the sea wall. In the distance, she could see the sun as it sank steadily behind the vast expanse of the ocean, taking the final day of her holiday with it.
‘Is everything all right?’ Richard asked warily. ‘To be honest, I didn’t quite know what to make of your message.’
Alice had texted him in advance, asking him to make some time for her. She hadn’t said much more, other than telling him that it was important they speak to one another.
She took a deep breath. Now that she was here, speaking to him, her careful plan of what to say had crumbled into dust. She, Steph and Maureen had talked it all through the previous day, and it had all made sense then – she had been confident that it was the right thing to do. But now that it had come to saying the words to Richard, knowing full well the effect they would undoubtedly have, Alice found herself stuttering.
One Thousand Stars and You Page 27