Starlight (The Four Lights Quartet Book 1)

by Fergus O'Connell

  He thought of her in the other bedroom – they were separated only by the small landing. Was she asleep or was she looking at the stars too – and what was she thinking about? ‘There were times when it was very lonely,’ she had said. Yes, he could imagine there must have been. Between her marriage and now coming here, it sounded like she had spent a lot of time on her own. Just like him really.

  He heard a sound and he thought first it came from outside. It was a human sound, not an animal one. Like a sniff. Then he heard it again. And then, like the introduction to a song before the words start, the sniff was replaced by tears. They were coming from her room. She was crying. It went on for several minutes and then seemed to ease up a little, as though she was trying to stop.

  He wondered what he should do. Go to her? Knock on her door? But if she said, ‘yes?’ what would he say then? ‘I thought I heard you crying.’ And supposing she said she wasn’t. And what business was it of his anyway? He wished he could do something but he didn’t know what. While he was agonising over all this, her crying picked up again and continued for, it must have been nearly ten minutes, until it seemed to run out of steam. He heard a few more sniffs and then there was silence.

  He said nothing to her the next day and she seemed happy. They went to the beach and came back and had salad and cold meat for tea. But that night he heard it again, not long after they had gone to bed. This time he got up, opened his door and went across the landing in his pyjamas. It was louder now – deep, anguished sobs. He stood near the door, hesitating. Then he went back closer to his own door and called across, ‘Is everything alright, Helen?’

  There was a long pause and several snuffles before she said, ‘Yes, I’m fine. Sorry if I woke you. I’m fine.’

  ‘Anything I can do?’ he asked.

  ‘No thanks, Lewis. Go back to bed, won’t you?’

  He called goodnight to her to which she responded and then there was silence.

  She said nothing about it the next day and he decided it would be better for him not to, unless she mentioned it. She was subdued and when he suggested going to the beach, she told him that he should go by himself. It was phrased in such a way that he really felt he had no choice and so he spent the afternoon there reading and wondering what, if anything, he should do. When he came back, there was no sign of her. But the back door was open so he assumed she was in the house and not gone into town. He made himself a sandwich and sat outside watching the sea and the sun. He was still there and it was late – nearly nine o’clock – when he heard movement behind him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said.

  Her hair had been half-brushed and she wore no makeup. She had put on the clothes she had been wearing yesterday. He stood up and turned to face her.

  ‘Is everything alright?’ he said. ‘Has something happened? Are you ill?’

  Her smile was somewhat sheepish. She shook her head.

  ‘I’m sorry. It’s just that – marriage … feelings. You can’t just turn them off like a tap. I loved Robert one time. And I care about him now. I can’t bear to think of him being hurt.’

  ‘He hurt you,’ said Lewis baldly.

  ‘Yes, but that doesn’t mean I should hurt him. And what I’m doing – what I’ve done – will.’

  ‘Have you changed your mind?’ asked Lewis.

  ‘No,’ she said, with a huge sigh. ‘I haven’t changed my mind, but that doesn’t make all of this any easier.’

  Lewis wanted to go to her. To hug her. To hold her. She was just as kind and gentle and generous as he had thought she was, that first time he had seen her face. He doubted if he would have been as noble in a similar situation.

  ‘You’re a good person,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t know about that,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know about that at all.’

  28

  The days of July and August fell into a regular pattern. They got up around seven but by then – most days – it was already starting to be warm. There would always be a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Helen showed Lewis how to bake bread and make scones. While whatever it was they had made was baking in the oven they sat outside looking at the sea. They had breakfast while the day was still young and dewy and birds twittered in the foliage that surrounded the cottage and its little patch of land.

  Helen bought paints and a large block of paper. In the afternoons they would go to a cove or up on the cliffs or to a headland or to some place that overlooked Fowey and here, she would paint or draw. She wasn’t happy with her first efforts but she improved quickly. Lewis had decided that he’d better start becoming fit. So he began running and by the beginning of August he was able to do three or four miles each day, cruising up and down the local hills.

  ‘I was terrible at sports in school,’ he said. ‘But I suppose the nice thing about running is that everyone can do it. You don’t need any special equipment or technique or skill.’

  Helen was a strong swimmer, so she set herself to improve Lewis’ swimming. In the evenings she cooked dinner while he helped, chopping, cutting and fetching. Some memories of his childhood, long forgotten, surfaced. Standing on a chair at the sink doing the washing up – in reality more playing boats with the cups in the sudsy water. Helping Mum to mix the Christmas cake, the mixture like cement so that he was unable to make much headway in it. Then watching her slim, strong arm take over. Being allowed to lick the bowl afterwards. He didn’t mention them to Helen. He didn’t want her to think that he thought of her as a mother.

  After dinner, they would talk or listen to music. Sometimes they read – but not very often. There was too much to talk about. Too much – he felt – to find out about her. Always too, at the back of his mind, was the feeling that the days were numbered. He deliberately hadn’t counted them but he was conscious of them moving on. Soon it would be possible to count them on his fingers and then there would be none at all. He tried, as much as he could, to put these thoughts out of his mind.

  ‘When are you going to start selling your paintings?’ he asked.

  ‘Oh, not for a while yet,’ she said. ‘Maybe in September.’

  ‘And what about you, Lewis? The War can’t last forever. Who knows – hopefully it’ll be over by the end of the year and you won’t have to go to France. What are you going to do then?’

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ he said. ‘Way way back before the War began, I had planned to go to University. Then the War came along and I knew I would have to go into the Army. There didn’t seem much point in planning anything after that. What if I’m not around?’

  ‘Oh Lewis darling, don’t say that. You’ll get through it. I know you will.’

  He liked it when she called him darling.

  ‘Do you like writing?’ she asked.

  ‘I suppose I do. I won an essay competition in school a couple of years ago.’

  ‘Well, there you are then.’

  ‘There I am then?’

  ‘You should take up writing. Just as I’m painting. You could start keeping a diary and when the War is over you could publish it as a book. “One Young Soldier’s Experience In The War”.’

  ‘But I’m not a soldier yet.’

  ‘That’s alright. You can talk about your feelings as you enjoy your last few weeks before going into the Army. The preparations you’re making. Your fears and hopes. I’m sure there will be lots of people writing books after the War. Why shouldn’t you be one of them?’

  ‘I keep a diary anyway,’ he said.

  ‘There you are then,’ she said.

  ‘Maybe I just need to put more in it that might be interesting in a book.’

  ‘Of course, you’re missing one very important element,’ she said.

  ‘What’s that?’ he asked.

  ‘A girl. A love interest. You’ve got to have that for your story to be really exciting. You know – the girl you leave behind as you head off to the War to fight for her honour.’

  ‘You’re teasing.’

  ‘No, not at all. The story woul
d be so much more exciting if there was a woman in it. It’s Romeo and Juliet. Do the lovers and their love survive? The eternal question.’

  ‘So what did you think of it?’ Lewis asked when Helen handed him back The Wind in the Willows, saying that she had finished it the previous night in bed.

  ‘I think it’s the way the world should be – the way England should be. All beautiful countryside and where bad people always get their comeuppance. I thought that the chapter called The Piper at the Gates of Dawn was utterly beautiful. Mystical. Religious – at least the kind of religion that I should like to be part of.’

  ‘I used to think you were a churchgoer,’ said Lewis.

  ‘Why on earth did you think that?’

  ‘Because the first morning I was in Fowey I went to church.’

  She raised her eyebrows, questioningly.

  Oh, I didn’t really want to go, but when Mrs Middleton – my landlady – asked if I was going, I felt I had to. Anyway, as it turned out it was a good thing because you were there. I saw you. That was the first time I saw you.’

  ‘Ah yes, I did go once. I don’t remember seeing you.’

  ‘Well, I was there. You wore a white dress with some blue on it. It had long sleeves. And you had a sort of yellowy hat.’

  ‘I made a big effort that day,’ she said, smiling at the memory. ‘I’m not sure what I was thinking. Perhaps that I would meet some interesting people there. Or maybe an interesting person.’

  ‘But you just sat there where the service was over.’

  ‘I did,’ she said dreamily, as though remembering it. ‘I got very sad during the service. It was the music, I think – the singing. I was close to tears when it was over. I wasn’t fit to meet or talk to anybody. I was terrified the vicar would come and speak to me, especially as I was so obviously a stranger. I think I should have just burst into tears.’

  ‘And how is your sadness now?’ he asked.

  ‘It comes and goes,’ she said. ‘It’s only been three months after all. It’ll get better, I’m sure.’

  The tone in her voice didn’t sound that convincing to him. He thought he would change the subject and take her away from any unhappy thoughts.

  Have you ever read Treasure Island?’ he asked.

  ‘Can’t say that I have,’ she said. ‘It’s a boy’s book, isn’t it? Pirates and buried treasure and lots of swashbuckling, that sort of business.’

  ‘Yes, that’s right. My mum read it to me when I was four.’

  ‘Four! That was a bit young to be hearing about bloodthirsty things like that, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it was,’ said Lewis. ‘But I loved it. I really liked the beginning – the first five chapters. It begins in a lonely cove. I imagine it as like one of the coves around here. The hero is called Jim Hawkins and his parents run an inn. It’s perched on a cliff, maybe and a track leads from somewhere past the inn and on to Bristol. His father makes just one appearance in the book and then he’s gone.’

  ‘He dies?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘That’s pretty grim, isn’t it?’ she said.

  ‘I suppose it is. Anyway, after that, it’s just Lewis and his mother. He sort of becomes her protector and in the end – of the five chapters, I mean – he saves her from the pirates.’

  ‘Is that what you’re reading now?’

  He nodded.

  ‘I often re-read the first five chapters. They’re so atmospheric. And a lot of the countryside around here reminds me of it. I think it’s my favourite book.’

  ‘So now when you read it, you’re Jim Hawkins and I’m playing the part of your mother.’

  He blushed.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that,’ he said, hastily. It was exactly what he had meant.

  ‘I know what you meant,’ she said. ‘Anyway, for what it’s worth, I’d have loved to have had somebody like you as my son. And if I had, I should have read Treasure Island to him, just like your mum did.’

  There was only once during this time where there was any degree of friction between them. It happened one evening when Lewis asked her when she was going to see about her divorce. He had expected that they would talk about it in the way they talked about most things. But instead, she said, ‘Why are you asking me this?’

  If he noticed the strange tone in her voice, he didn’t respond to it.

  ‘No reason in particular,’ he said. ‘It’s just that I’d been thinking about what you said – about your husband using guilt to get you back. If you got a divorce it would be one step further away from him. It would be more final. Well, it would be final.’

  He realised that he was gabbling on.

  ‘Well, that’s hardly any of your business, is it?’

  Lewis was shocked.

  ‘I didn’t —’

  ‘Look Lewis, I’ll get a divorce when I’m good and ready. What are you anyway? Do you want to be my new husband, is that it?

  ‘No, I —’

  ‘I’m going to bed. I’ll see you in the morning. Good night.’

  And with that, she stormed off.

  Lewis sat there stunned. He went to bed himself shortly after that. He lay awake for hours, cursing himself for having raised the subject. He had ruined everything. He wondered if she would throw him out in the morning. In the end he drifted off into a deep sleep.

  When he awoke, the room was warm and filled with sunlight. It was late. The memory of last night hit him like a falling rock. He could hear her downstairs. She was alternately singing and humming a song. He dreaded having to go down to face her. He dressed slowly and went down the stairs. She was at the sink and turned when she heard him.

  ‘Morning, sleepy head,’ she said, brightly.

  ‘Helen,’ Lewis began slowly, ‘I’m really sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to … I shouldn’t have …’

  She turned to face him, drying her hands on a towel and then holding it in her lap in front of her.

  ‘Dearest, darling, Lewis. I’m the one who should be sorry. I shouldn’t have flown off the handle like I did.’

  ‘No, I shouldn’t have mentioned it. I was only trying to be —’

  ‘You were only trying to be a friend to me. Which is what you have always been – a true and dear friend. Come here.’

  He went to her and she embraced him and held him tight.

  ‘I behaved dreadfully. It was unforgivable. Will you forgive me?’

  ‘Of course I’ll forgive you.’

  ‘Now,’ she said, ‘let me get you breakfast.’

  29

  ‘Do you mind if I ask you something?’ asked Helen one evening.

  ‘Anything you like,’ replied Lewis carelessly.

  ‘Why did your Mum die?’

  ‘She got leukaemia. Why do you ask?’

  ‘No, I don’t really mean what did she die of. I meant why did she die?’

  ‘Is there a difference?’

  ‘Some people believe that we chose when we want to die. I remember I had an uncle and he was very sick. I can’t remember exactly what was wrong with him but he’d had a whole series of operations over a short period of time – less than a year. I remember the last time I visited him in hospital – the last time I saw him alive, actually – he told me that he was tired.’

  ‘Tired of the operations? Of being sick?’

  ‘No, tired of life. Of living. He’d had enough. He died a few days later.’

  Lewis thought for a moment.

  ‘But you could see how if he was sick, if he was spending all his time in hospital, how he might want to die. But my Mum was very healthy. We had gone on a holiday only a few months earlier and she seemed fine. She was full of life.’

  ‘And then she caught leukaemia.’

  Lewis nodded.

  ‘Why did she catch leukaemia, I wonder?’ said Helen.

  ‘I don’t know. I’m not a doctor. These things happen, I suppose.’

  ‘Some people think it’s all connected – our body, our mind, our feeli
ngs. So that if say, we weren’t feeling happy, it can appear as something in our body. So, for example, when I was married to Robert I used to get a lot of headaches. Maybe three or four times a week. Some of them were mild but some of them were so bad that I would have to go and lie down. I don’t get half so many now. And I remember the first week that I was here, I got this terrible pain in my stomach. Now, I’ve never had pains in my stomach. So what was that all about? I think it was my body reacting to the huge thing I had just done. ’

  ‘But those are headaches, stomach aches. Lots of people get those. There’s a bit of a difference between getting a headache and getting leukaemia.’

  ‘Is there?’

  Then, after a pause, she added, ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘One’s a serious illness. The other’s just … well, an inconvenience.’

  She began to raise her eyebrows so he added hastily, ‘Well maybe it’s more than an inconvenience —’

  ‘You’ve obviously never had headaches like I had them.’

  ‘I know, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘All I’m saying is that there’s a bit of a difference between a fatal illness and something that passes after a couple of hours or a couple of days.’

  ‘What’s the difference?’

  ‘I don’t know. Like I said, I’m not a doctor.’

  ‘Maybe the difference is to do with how unhappy you are. Or how well you can cope with that unhappiness. Maybe a small unhappiness produces a small illness and a big unhappiness produces a big one.’

  ‘Do you think my mum was unhappy?’

  ‘I don’t know. I didn’t know her. What do you think?’

  ‘I think she was happy when she was with me. I don’t think she was so happy with my dad.’