One Thousand Stars and You

by Isabelle Broom

‘But I’m in pain now!’ Alice exclaimed, exasperated but trying her hardest not to show it. ‘Or I was, at least, until I met someone who made me realise there was another way.’

  Freddie stood up from his stool and moved behind Alice, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘I was in pain, too, Mum,’ he said, and Alice watched as Marianne’s eyes filled with tears. ‘Alice is right – both of us have been trying to make up for that accident ever since we were kids. You were so upset, then so angry with us all the time. I just wanted to do whatever I could to make you happy again.’

  Alice watched as her mother took it all in, seeing the flicker of accountability register as the tears began to fall. It wasn’t easy for her to hear any of this stuff, Alice knew that, but it was also too important to be glossed over any longer. Freddie looked sad now, too, but relieved, as if a huge weight had been lifted from his shoulders. He must have been trying to work out how to broach this subject for months now – maybe even years, ever since he took that job in the City that he didn’t really want. Alice felt ashamed that she had not come to his aid sooner. It could have saved them a lot of heartache if she had.

  ‘You both think I’m a terrible mother,’ Marianne sobbed, using the bottom of her apron to wipe her eyes. ‘All I have ever wanted was what was best for you both.’

  ‘I know you do,’ Alice soothed, stepping forwards and placing a cautious hand on her mum’s arm. ‘But you have to try not to worry so much. You are a good mother. You’ve raised two strong people, and you can trust us to look after ourselves.’

  Freddie braved a small laugh. ‘Well, you can now, in any case. A few weeks ago, I couldn’t be trusted to go to the corner shop and back.’

  Alice’s mum managed a chuckle. ‘Oh, stop,’ she scolded. ‘This is no time to be making jokes, Fred.’

  ‘On the contrary,’ Freddie said. ‘There’s no better medicine, if you ask me.’

  The next thing Alice knew, he had pulled both her and their mother into a group hug, all three of them laughing and crying and exclaiming how sorry they all were. They stayed like that for some time, breaking apart only to fall back together again in earnest. It felt so good to have so much truth out in the open, and Alice kept catching Freddie’s eye and laughing in disbelief. After all this time, and after so many mistakes, she and her brother had finally stood up for themselves, and it had not even been close to as painful as either of them had feared. It was liberating.

  Eventually, Alice crossed the kitchen to make more tea, then dug through her backpack in search of the gifts she’d brought for them – an elephant-dung notepad and pen set for Freddie and a beautiful sarong for her mum – and she was given her own belated birthday present, a silver bangle engraved with a message that read: ‘For our own Alice In Wonderland’.

  ‘You know, not being a neurotic mother is going to take some getting used to,’ Marianne mused. ‘Will you both forgive me if I revert back to old habits every now and then?’

  Freddie rolled his eyes and Alice snorted with amusement – there was no way that either of them genuinely expected their mum to change overnight. Alice knew there would be tough days ahead, and that she would frequently need to remind her mother of the conversation they had just had, but she also knew that it was a challenge she was ready to take on. More than that, it was one that she relished.

  ‘As long as you don’t try to stop me working my way through my bucket list,’ she warned, smiling as her mum wrung her hands in pretend despair, only for her look of genuine horror to give her away.

  ‘I don’t even want to know,’ she said, cutting across Alice just as she was about to start listing activities. ‘What I don’t know can’t worry me. Just don’t jump out of a plane, for God’s sake.’

  Alice bit her lip. Perhaps there were certain things that her mum never needed to know.

  What she had yet to tell either of them was that she did have a plan that concerned her new to-do list, and that it was going to involve some very big changes indeed. All in good time, though, she thought, snapping out of her daydream as she heard the doorbell chime.

  ‘I don’t think we’re expecting anyone,’ her mum said, and Alice’s mind lurched immediately and ridiculously towards Max. She knew that he and Jamal had got back to the UK, because Steph had received a message saying as much when they were still in Sri Lanka, but it had been frustratingly lacking in details. When Steph asked if everything was OK, Jamal had merely responded by saying that he would call her once the girls were home. Alice had scoured Max and Jamal’s social media accounts looking for clues that he was over the fever that had struck him down so forcibly in Sri Lanka, but so far, she had drawn a blank, comforting herself with the knowledge that if there had been any bad news, she would have heard about it by now. Talking to Max was the very first thing on her to-do list – she wanted to see him so much that she could barely keep still with the thought of it. She only hoped that he would give her the chance to explain why she had been so idiotically dismissive of his feelings that fateful night on Tangalle beach, and to tell him she was sorry.

  ‘Maybe it’s Maureen,’ she said to Freddie. ‘She did say she would be round to visit you as soon as she could.’

  ‘She did?’ Freddie said, sitting up straighter, and Alice grinned at him. If anyone was going to put a smile back on her brother’s face, then it would be Maur. Ever since Alice had told her friend to go for it with Freddie, Maur had been busy formulating a plan. Alice would have put money on her brother being out of the singles’ market for good by the time summer began, and it was a bet she would be very happy to win.

  ‘Alice,’ her mum called from the hall. ‘It’s for you.’

  Alice made her way along the carpeted corridor to find Steph hovering in the open doorway, looking unsure of herself.

  ‘What is it – did I pack your pants instead of mine?’ Alice asked, grinning at her own terrible joke.

  Steph didn’t so much as flicker a smile, and Alice realised she had been crying.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ she asked, drawing her into the lounge. There was a photo of a young Alice framed on the wall beside them – the last one before she had got her scar.

  ‘I …’ Steph began, staring at the carpet. She seemed unable to meet Alice’s eyes.

  ‘What is it?’ Alice asked, still grasping on to the possibility that this might all be nothing, even though she knew, and could feel, that it was something bad. ‘You’re scaring me.’

  Steph looked up, her face collapsing into misery.

  ‘It’s Max,’ she said. ‘I’m afraid I have some bad news.’

  52

  ‘All Saints Hospital,’ shouted Alice, slamming the door of the black cab behind her.

  The driver looked at her in his rear-view mirror, his eyebrow lifting in surprise when he took in her dishevelled state. Alice had not had time to change out of the dust-covered leggings and oversized T-shirt that she had worn on the flight home from Sri Lanka, and her hair was wild where she’d run her hands through it and tugged with despair during the train journey from Suffolk to London.

  ‘Quickly, please!’ she begged, tossing her bag on to the seat and grasping the plastic bar to steady herself as they zoomed up the ramp away from Liverpool Street Station. Her first thought had been to drive, but when she reached her battered Mini, parked down the road from the flat she had, until that day, shared with Richard, she had found the battery completely flat.

  Sitting in the taxi, she went over what Steph had heard from Jamal. ‘It’s not looking good.’ The infection was worse than he had thought, and the last he had heard, Max was going into surgery.

  ‘Can you go any faster?’ Alice said, an image of Max covered in tubes and wires making her feel faint. The driver turned briefly and shook his head.

  ‘Sorry, love – it’s the time of day. It’s pretty much gridlock all the way along here.’

  ‘Fuck!’ she said with feeling, and the cabbie switched on his intercom again.

  ‘I know
a short cut,’ he said. ‘Sometimes there are delivery vans parked down there, and we might get stuck worse than we are here, but I’m happy to try if you like?’

  ‘Please!’ Alice thought she might scream soon. ‘Try whatever you can.’

  She stared out with unseeing eyes at the blur of the capital, unjustified rage rising in her chest every time she saw a person meandering along – not desperately on their way to hospital, not filled with fear, not doubting their survival. Why Max? Why had it happened to him? She could have wept with the unfairness of it all.

  After Steph had told her what was going on, she had only one thought – that she should be by Max’s side, the very place she should have been already. She had been an idiot in Sri Lanka – a coward and a fool – but she had known even before Max collapsed on the beach in Tangalle that she did not want to spend another minute, another moment, another breath, without him. But she had not been ready to accept her feelings then; nor had she been brave enough to admit as much – not even to herself. Then she had got Max’s poem, and as she read it, Alice had wept tears not only of regret, but also of recognition, because he had put into words everything that she was feeling. She, too, had sought his love unconsciously, but unlike Max, her hope was no longer blind, because his words had renewed it. They had provided her with the strength she needed to break up with Richard, and finally face down the suffocating and misguided love of her mother. When it came to Max, Alice had realised too late how much he meant to her, how much she wanted to be with him, and now she was afraid that she would be too late again.

  ‘All Saints is just up there,’ the driver said, rousing Alice from her thoughts. He was pointing through the windscreen towards where a vast, grey building loomed. They were on yet another busy road where the traffic was lined up bumper to boot, and Alice immediately saw his meaning – it would be quicker for her to get out and run.

  Shoving a twenty-pound note through the partition, she yelled out her thanks and bolted along the pavement, knocking into passers-by as she went. One woman screamed obscenities as Alice accidentally kicked her shopping bag, causing it to split and spill its contents, but still she didn’t stop. She did not hesitate, even for a second. Ever since Steph had uttered those awful words, all Alice had been able to think was that she must be with Max. She did not know if he was still in surgery or not, but it didn’t matter. All she knew was that he wasn’t well, that he was in pain, and that was enough to spur her into action. She needed to see him. She needed to know that he was all right.

  Racing through the automatic doors of the hospital entrance, Alice saw a large queue at the main reception area and felt a surge of panic. She didn’t want to wait – she didn’t think she could wait. Images of Max were assaulting her – his amused grin when she jumped up and down with excitement at the skydiving centre, the pressure of his warm thigh against hers as the train rocked and lurched, the sadness in his eyes when she told him that she didn’t believe his feelings, that she could not accept his love.

  Scanning the signs on a nearby wall, she spotted an arrow for the lifts and hurled herself around the corner, her dirty trainers squeaking as her feet skidded across the polished floor. There were three lifts, and Alice pressed the call button for each of them, before running a finger down the hospital plan that was displayed nearby. If he was having an operation, then surely he would be in the intensive care unit? Alice had not been in a hospital more than a handful of times since her accident twenty years ago, and she cursed her own lack of knowledge. She would start in the ICU, then come back to reception if necessary.

  The lift pinged and the doors slid neatly aside, but Alice had to wait while a young family filed out past her. The mother was being pushed in a wheelchair by someone in a blue hospital uniform, while a proud-looking father carried a car seat bearing a tiny baby. He smiled at Alice as he passed, but she barely mustered a response. Max was here, in this building, in one of the hundreds of rooms in the vast structure above her. There was nothing else that mattered right now.

  The lift spewed her out on the fifth floor, and Alice immediately found herself thwarted yet again – this time by a set of locked doors. There was an intercom to the right, and she pressed it several times.

  There was a crackling sound.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I’m looking for Max. Max Davis.’

  Silence.

  ‘Can you help? I’m here to visit Max Davis. Is he here? I need to see him!’

  ‘Hold on,’ said the voice. Whoever it was sounded stern but bored, and Alice bit her fingers to stop herself pressing the intercom button again. Where the hell was their sense of urgency? Didn’t they understand what was at stake here?

  She was just about to say to hell with it and try again, when a kind-looking nurse with blonde hair approached her on the other side of the doors, her face immediately softening when she saw Alice’s stricken look.

  ‘Do you need to get in?’ she asked, once she had opened the door.

  ‘Yes! Thank God. Thank you!’ Alice rushed through the gap. It was deathly quiet now that she was inside, and the silence stilled her for a moment. Taking a deep breath, she walked along to a deserted reception area, telling herself to remain calm. Someone would be along in a minute, all she had to do was wait.

  She drummed her fingers on the desk, then began to tap her foot. There was no sign of anyone, and all of the doors in the unit were closed. Green curtains had been pulled across where Alice guessed the open wards began, and she itched with the knowledge that Max was most likely lying on a bed behind one of them.

  It had been five minutes now. Alice coughed, as loudly as she dared, but still nobody came. There was no bell in the reception area to attract attention, and the blonde nurse who had let her in was nowhere to be seen. Alice leaned over the counter, wondering if the call button might have been put there, out of reach, and as she stood back up she saw it through a part-open doorway – the corner of a white board with a list scribbled on it. Taking one last look around to make sure she was alone, she walked around behind the desk, scooting past the office wheelie chair and through the door beyond. Max’s name was there, third from the top. She had found him.

  She almost fell over in her haste to get back out to the main corridor, and she jogged all the way along until she reached room number three. Giving herself only a second to catch her breath and swallow the huge lump in her throat, Alice pushed open the door.

  53

  The empty bed stared back at Alice, its flat, sterile lines so at odds with the fierce tangle of emotions that were rushing through her. She stood paralysed, her mind racing to finish the story before her heart was ready to comprehend its truth.

  ‘No,’ she murmured. Her voice sounded far away, as if it had become detached. She imagined the word breaking off from the mooring of her consciousness and floating away, a lost particle in space, destined to orbit without purpose.

  She tried to take in what she could see. Sheets folded neatly in a pile on the bed. A television screen attached to a retractable arm, which had been pushed against the wall. There were no flowers, no cards, no sign that any living person had ever inhabited the space. The sludgy green-grey walls were bare, while the floor was clean enough that she could see the overhead strips of light reflected in it. It hurt her to look at it for too long, just like it hurt her to be here.

  She made it to the bed before her knees gave way and she crumpled to the floor. Pressing her face against the bedframe, she felt the cool metal digging into the soft part of her cheek and neck. She brought up her hands and knotted her fingers together, digging in her nails until the flesh below them turned pink, then red. She could not feel them. She could not feel anything.

  He was gone. Max was gone. She was too late.

  Alice felt the wail surge up and through her, but when her mouth opened to release it there was no sound. She wanted to run and she wanted to curl up into a ball and she wanted to pull out her hair and bite her lip, harder and harder, until she ta
sted blood.

  After everything that Max had already endured and overcome, surviving an explosion that had killed two of his friends, going to the darkest of places in his bid to walk again, battling with PTSD and gritting his teeth through the pain and mess and mayhem of it all to find himself again – and to find her, too. How could he be gone now, after all of that?

  She crammed her hands over her ears and closed her eyes until they were slits, squeezing out the world. Images flooded into her mind, unbidden. Images of Max, his hand holding hers, the hint of laughter on his lips, the reflection of stars, thousands of stars, in his deep-set eyes, always kind, always searching out her own. She would never look into those eyes again, never feel the warmth of his fingers, never bask in the glow of his strength, never have the chance to tell him how much she loved him. She loved him. She loved him. She loved him.

  ‘I loved him.’

  She let herself slip into the blackness now, static ringing in her ears, her face pressed against the floor.

  She didn’t know how long she lay there, until there was a sound behind her, hands on her back.

  ‘There now,’ said a voice, sweet as honey. ‘Let’s get you up. Come on, now.’

  Alice gripped the bedframe harder. She did not want to open her eyes. Reality was too cruel a game, and it had played her its hardest hand.

  The honeyed voice left her, but seconds later it was back, and this time strong arms lifted her, rolled her back until she was lying sideways on top of the bed. His bed, she thought, and shuddered herself upright.

  ‘There you are.’

  The blonde nurse peered at her.

  ‘You gave me such a fright,’ she said, gently stroking Alice’s hair out of her eyes.

  ‘I …’ Alice stopped, waiting for the world to cease its spinning.

  ‘Max is … gone,’ she choked out, tears running from her eyes into her open mouth.

  The nurse was crouching down in front of her now.

  ‘Are you a friend of Max’s?’ she asked. ‘Max Davis?’