Written in the Stars

by Ali Harris

  There are tears, but it is he who is crying, not me. I want to comfort him but I can’t. He’s a stranger, a man I don’t know. He holds his tanned, liver-spotted hand up and I notice it is shaking. ‘I’m sorry. I’m OK. I’m OK.’ He repeats this as if he’s trying to convince himself. He pulls a bottle of water out of his pocket and tips a couple of tablets into his hand then shakily swallows them.

  He smiles at me weakly. His eyes are watery, not with age or regret, but disconnected somehow. Like they know no great waves of happiness or sorrow, just the peaceful lapping at the shore of emotional equilibrium.

  ‘Dear Bea,’ he says softly, as if practising how the words sound on his lips. As he does I can imagine him saying them aloud all those years ago when he wrote my garden diary. ‘Dear Bea,’ he repeats. ‘You’re here.’

  Chapter 67

  We leave the market and go to a beach bar and find a quiet spot in a corner. I’m glad we’re on neutral territory; it was strange enough to see Dad’s humble little stall, I don’t know how I would cope seeing where he lives.

  The fact that the three of us are sitting around a table is almost too surreal to deal with. This is not helped by the fact that there appears to be a cow lying feet away from us, sunbathing next to a group of tourists.

  ‘So, you’re a painter,’ I say as three beers are placed in front of us by a man with a bright white smile. My question plants itself awkwardly between us. It is small talk and yet it comes out punchy, confrontational: sitting opposite him it feels like I’m interrogating him. I take a sip of beer to relax me, the cool but sharp taste piercing my throat and hopefully allowing my conversation to flow more freely.

  ‘It’s a little hobby,’ Len says, twirling his bottle on the table. ‘I paint the places I love. It makes me feel at home when I am far away; I find it therapeutic.’ He squints at the label and deep chasms appear around his eyes.

  ‘Do you work?’ I ask briskly. I bite my lip immediately. I don’t want to challenge him, I want to understand him.

  ‘Bits and bobs, Bea. Bits and bobs. Other than my stall I have my pension, I do some volunteering, I teach English to foreign students.’

  ‘Do you live here permanently?’ Loni asks. Her voice comes out as a squeak. She clears her throat and takes a swig of beer. I’m glad it’s not just me who’s nervous.

  His eyes settle on her; they seem to come in and out of focus as if he is in turn seeing her now and remembering her back then: before the time ball dropped, and after.

  ‘Permanent isn’t a word I have ever got along particularly well with.’

  ‘Me neither,’ I butt in and he looks at me, nodding as if understanding exactly what I’m saying. I look down at the table, buoyed by an acknowledgement of the connection I’ve always thought we would have. ‘I ran away from my marriage too,’ I blurt out suddenly. ‘On my wedding day. I ran away because I’m just like you, Dad . . .’ The sentiment slips from my mouth but falls into a void. ‘I’m just like you,’ I add quietly when he doesn’t say anything.

  It’s like he hasn’t heard me. Or doesn’t want to.

  ‘So I’m here for a few months of the year,’ he says conversationally as if I haven’t spoken. ‘Well, until monsoon season anyway.’ I feel like my heart has been thrown at some rocks. He doesn’t want to know. He doesn’t want to accept that I’m like him. ‘I can live a simple lifestyle here for very little money – the silver rupee is strong, you know!’ He pauses as if waiting for us to acknowledge this little joke but then continues quickly as if scared of the possibility of silence. ‘Most of the expats here are in our sixties and seventies. It’s all very The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel really!’ He laughs hoarsely and Loni and I force one out too; I notice how his eyes don’t twinkle like Loni’s naturally do. They are still; not quite tranquil, more . . . inert.

  No one knows what to say next and the longer the joke seems to be laid out in silence, the staler it becomes. He looks away, his gaze settling on the horizon as if he’d rather be anywhere but here. I glance at Loni. She hasn’t taken her eyes off him.

  ‘Why, Len?’ she says at last. ‘Why did you go?’

  He doesn’t answer for a moment, like he is lost in another place. Another time.

  ‘I couldn’t cope,’ he says simply. ‘I couldn’t cope with the life we had and I couldn’t cope with the guilt of what I knew my staying would eventually do to you. Leaving was the only option. It was that or . . .’ His voice croaks and cracks and he closes his eyes and takes deep restorative breaths. Suddenly it feels like he’s no longer here. That this is just an imagined, transient moment and if I make a sudden movement it will be gone.

  ‘You still practise meditation then,’ Loni says, her voice soft, soothing, maternal. ‘I’m glad.’

  Len looks across the table at her and now I feel like I’m no longer here. This moment is for them. ‘It’s one of the many ways in which you helped me, Loni. Learning meditation with you was one of the best things I ever did.’

  I think of Loni when I was ill, our daily mantras and meditations, my runs, the yoga, the gardening. Did she do it all – learn it all – for Dad? It all feels too familiar. Suddenly, without thought or intention, I push my chair out and I stand up. I can’t be here. It’s too hard.

  ‘Bea?’ Loni cries and grabs my arms. ‘Are you OK?’

  ‘I can’t do this . . .’

  ‘Shhh, Bea, it’s OK.’ She holds me and we sink back down into our seats. Len looks at me – with sorrow but also detachment.

  Loni puts her arm around me. ‘I think we both know why you left, Len,’ she says shakily. ‘But what we’d really like to know is why you never came back.’

  He gazes at us both as if he has searched for the answer to this question for a long time. It feels like a lifetime until he speaks again, and when he does it is in a choked raspy voice.

  ‘Like I said earlier, I – I couldn’t cope and I just knew you could live a better life without me.’

  ‘That wasn’t your decision to make,’ Loni replies, holding me tightly. We’re like one now, she and I. She is carrying me. She has always carried me. ‘Len, I loved you. I’d have done anything for you. If you’d just talked to me about how you were feeling I – I could have helped more . . . we could have had counselling, I would have done anything!’ She sobs suddenly, overwhelmed by the pent-up emotion of twenty-four years. ‘I needed you,’ Loni says tearfully when she has composed herself. ‘We needed you. All of us. No matter how capable I appeared I needed you because I loved you. I loved you and would never have left you. I’d have done anything to make you happy.’

  ‘And what about your happiness? If you’d have sacrificed that, then what?’ Len shakes his head firmly. ‘I could see that being with me was sucking the life out of you. You had already done everything you could to make me better, but I couldn’t expect you to keep throwing your energy into me when there were our kids to think about. I tried so hard to be the husband and father I wanted to be but every moment I spent with you all was also spent trying not to drown, to keep my head clear and my thoughts and emotions positive. I loved you all but I felt so weak all the time. But you, you . . .’ He looks at Loni and sighs, then says, ‘You were so strong. And the kids were always so happy around you; no matter what else you were dealing with, you were always silly and light-hearted and fun, you were always running around at the beach, making them laugh. I was useless, good for nothing.’

  ‘You weren’t useless – you were a husband, a father! I told you, they needed you – we all did!’ Loni says, and peels her arm from around me and slams her hand on the table. Len doesn’t flinch.

  ‘No, Loni, I wasn’t fit to be called a parent. I could barely cope with getting out of bed each day.’ He rubs his forehead and when he looks at me again I feel like I can see him clearly for the first time. Not as the picture book father I’ve been so desperate to remember, but the man – the raw, real, flawed man that he has always been.

  ‘You have to know how hard it was
to leave you. It wasn’t a decision I made lightly. For a whole year I kept putting it off, I’d wait until after Christmas, then Valentine’s Day, then Easter, then the summer holidays and Bea’s birthday. Bea, you and me, we always had this special connection . . .’

  He trails off, staring at me as if he’s trying to light our family circuit again but I look away. It’s too painful to look at him. I don’t feel any connection, just sorrow. I’m not stuck in the past any more. I’m right here in this moment; one I hope is going to finally allow me to let him go.

  ‘You were my little shadow, my little climber, do you remember?’ I smile politely but I can tell he doesn’t expect an answer. He isn’t seeing me as a thirty-one-year-old woman. I’m frozen in his memory as his seven-year-old child. ‘We used to spend hours outside, pottering around in the garden, you made me laugh every day, you brought the sun out when my heart was drowning in rain. You were my shining star when the sky was black. Every moment I spent with you was another day of my life saved. But then there were other days, dark days, when nothing could pull me out of the shadows, even you. I was so scared I was going to drag you down with me. I could see my anxiety reflected in your eyes, your sensitivity simmered on your skin. You walked around as if you had the world on your shoulders. I felt that I’d done that to you and I couldn’t bear it. I knew I needed to get help and I hoped that doing so would allow me to be the father I wanted to be to you and Cal. I went to California to try and sort myself out. I thought being out there would remind me of happier times, would make me strong enough to return. But in the six weeks I stayed there I realised that I wasn’t strong enough, or brave enough, so instead of coming home I moved on. I left because I wanted you both to cling to Loni’s comet, not plummet to earth with me.’

  His words make my heart break in two. ‘So why did you leave the day after my birthday?’ I ask tearfully. It is so long since I spoke that my voice sounds thin, reedy, childish. Childlike. ‘How could I possibly move on with my life when every year I got older was a reminder of another year that you hadn’t come back?’

  ‘I’d used every ounce of strength and resolve I had to get through your birthday with a smile on my face. I wanted to see your little face as you woke up that morning, I wanted to be there to watch you open your presents, to see your party, watch you blow out your candles. I had spent an entire year writing the garden diary for you and when you unwrapped it, I knew it was the right time to go. I stayed that night, but was too scared to stay a day longer in case I totally fell apart. I just couldn’t risk it.’ He shakes his head vehemently and his ponytail swishes behind his neck.

  ‘Instead I did,’ I say quietly. ‘Fall apart, I mean. Not that day, not even that year, just gradually, I completely fell apart . . .’

  Len gazes at me, not with shock or empathy, just with the blank gaze of an old man. I stare at my fingers that are twisting and coiling with anxiety. I glance across the table and see Len is doing the same. I pull my fingers apart.

  ‘Maybe I wouldn’t have become ill if I’d had you in my life,’ I challenge. I want to hurt him now. I want to force him to see the similarities between us.

  ‘No.’ He says it fervently.

  ‘How do you know? You made a decision that affected my life forever – you can’t ever know now if the opposite decision would have been better or worse!’

  ‘I can, Bea,’ he says quietly. His voice breaks and Loni looks at me worriedly. She clutches my hand again and I feel like her warmth, her spirit and strength is flooding into me. ‘I can,’ he repeats, ‘because my dad – your granddad – suffered from depression too.’ I stare at him but once again he isn’t seeing me; Len is lost in another time. ‘My dad, he – he was never a strong man, or a happy man. He suffered like I have suffered. But he stayed, he pretended he was OK, he tried to disguise himself as a functioning human being by pushing himself to do more than he was capable of . . .’

  I swallow as Loni squeezes my hand. ‘But he stayed, Bea, he honoured his commitment to his wife and kids. He tried so hard to make it work but he couldn’t cope. He just couldn’t cope.’

  ‘What happened to him?’ I whisper, but I think I know.

  ‘He . . . he committed suicide.’ Len’s words fall like rocks from a cliff and I feel myself slipping too. Back to the year when I was doing my A levels and Cal found me, in my bedroom, surrounded by coursework and revision cards and several empty bottles of paracetamol. He and the paramedics he’d called saved me that day. He was only fifteen and he had to watch me being dragged into an ambulance to have my stomach pumped. He always says, though, that it was the moment that made him decide what he wanted to do with the rest of his life. He wanted to save lives. It’s the only thing that has ever helped me make sense of what I tried to do. My selfish, stupid act has effectively saved hundreds of other people through my brother.

  I feel Loni grip me tightly. My breath has grown short, I’m panting with the pain of my past – and my dad’s.

  ‘I was eight years old,’ he says. ‘Just eight. I’d seen far too much and had felt too much responsibility for a man that I now accept I could never have saved. I didn’t want that for you,’ he says, reaching across the table for my hand. He looks up at Loni. ‘For any of you. It was my destiny, not yours, and I had to do something to break the cycle. Make a different choice. I knew my illness was too strong and I couldn’t deal with the guilt of dragging you down too, like my dad did with me. Every year you got older was a reminder of how similar I was to him, and when you turned seven, I knew my time had run out. I had to choose a life where no one had to be responsible for me and where I didn’t have to be responsible for anyone.’

  I feel like my heart is breaking for him, but Len seems emotionless. ‘Aren’t you lonely? Do you miss us?’ I say in a small voice.

  ‘This is the only way I can live, Bea,’ he says firmly. ‘It is half a life, but it is better than none.’ He smiles at me and I allow him to take my hand. ‘I can’t regret my decision because seeing you today is proof that I made the right one.’ He looks up at me then, his eyes watery with what-ifs. ‘I’ve never stopped thinking about you all, I’ve spent days, weeks, months wondering what would have happened if I had stayed. Would life have been different – not for me, but for you? But – my resounding answer has always been no.’ His words are broken and disjointed. I want to comfort him, to say something to make him feel better, but I don’t know how. Is this what I would have always felt? At once responsible and helpless? What would it have been like to always feel that I was trying to keep my father from throwing himself from the edge? Is this how Loni has always felt about me? I feel a new wave of wonder for her; this buoyant, compassionate woman who did everything to keep her family afloat even when disaster struck. I’m so lucky to have her. I look at her and see she has reached out across the table to Len and taken hold of his hand. She stares at it for a moment before raising it to her lips.

  He closes his eyes, a serene smile appears on his face and suddenly the years melt away. When he opens his eyes again he looks at Loni like a husband, not a stranger. ‘I never really left you, not up here. Never up here,’ he murmurs, tapping his temple.

  ‘I never left you either,’ she says tearfully.

  ‘I think it’s about time we did, right?’ And she nods and rests her cheek against his hand and they sit there for a moment. It is the goodbye she never got to say.

  She’s seen her alternative ending, and she knows it isn’t the one she was destined for.

  ‘So where do we go from here?’ I ask, breaking the moment and at once feeling like the child I used to be, squeezing in between my parents’ cuddle. A silence falls over us all as he looks at us both. The sun beams down on us relentlessly and suddenly I feel like I can’t sit here for much longer. As he stares at me I get the impression he’s storing my image for the future but strangely, I feel OK with that. I think it’s time to say goodbye too.

  I pull a book out of the pocket of my shorts and place it on the tab
le in front of us.

  ‘I brought this with me because I wanted you to know that you’ve always been a father to me, even after you left.’

  He blinks as he looks at the book and then he slowly untangles his age-spotted hand from Loni’s and gingerly strokes the blue diary with the gold embossed letters.

  ‘You’ve used it?’ His voice is hopeful, his eyes are shining for the first time.

  I nod quickly. ‘As a child, and more recently I turned to it when I really needed some guidance. I’ve had a pretty tough year—’ I stop. I don’t want to burden him with my problems. ‘Having this – having you with me has made it easier. Thank you.’

  He nods and a tear falls, a raindrop in the vast ocean. He swiftly brushes his fingers across his eyes and then slips his hand into his pocket and pulls something out and holds it out to me.

  I recognise it immediately. It’s a piece of blue card, crudely folded, with ‘I love you, Daddy, always’ scrawled on the front in crayon. I made it for him on my seventh birthday so he would have a piece of my happiness too. With tears blurring my eyes I open it. Inside is a flower I’d pressed for him. It’s a forget-me-not.

  ‘I’ve kept this with me every day for twenty-four years, Bea. In this gift you allowed me to leave but you gave me a little piece of your heart to take with me. I want you to have it now because it isn’t possible for me to ever forget you. I think this version of you, this loving, hopeful seven year old, belongs with the version of me you have of me there.’ He rests the card on top of the book. ‘The dad who loved you to the ends of the earth but who knew, if he left you with Loni, she would lift you up to the stars.’

  Chapter 68

  The sun is starting to set again as Loni and I head back to Baga on the moped. There’s no whooping and squealing from us this time. Just the noisy whirring of the little engine phut-phutting down the potholed roads. Neither of us feels the need to talk over what just happened. I cling on to Loni’s waist and close my eyes as the warm breeze tickles my face, the sun healing all the hurt that has gone before. Suddenly I am aware of my weight, how heavy I have felt for so long and how strong she has always been. She pulls up in front of the beach, like I ask her to. I want to go for a walk.