The Brightest Star in the Sky

by Marian Keyes

  “Someone needs to be here,” Flan said, sounding uncomfortable.

  Irkutsk, Irkutsk, Irkutsk.

  Much as she disliked Flan Ramble, and she disliked him a lot, he was just passing on information. “Okay, thanks. I’m on my way.”

  No time for lunch now. She switched off her For Hire light, agonized by losing half a day’s income, and headed for home. While she drove she rang Murdy who, to her surprise, answered.

  “I thought you were the bank,” he yelped. “I’m in crisis here! They’ve stopped my credit line. I’ll be shut down if I don’t come up with thirty grand by close of business.”

  He hung up on her! Hung fecking up! She was used to him doing that but didn’t he realize that this was different? Worse. A fire. Flames. Burned curtains. Serious stuff.

  Immediately, she rang Ronnie who—to her disbelief—refused to get involved. “You’re making a drama out of a crisis,” he said, with infuriating calm. “Again.”

  “The house went on fire!”

  “If you’re that worried why aren’t you here?”

  He—too—hung up on her. Ssskkkk! This was mad stuff. Why was she the only one . . .? With shaking fingers, she rang Raymond but his phone was switched off. Why would his phone be off? Because he knew. He’d been tipped off.

  Fuck him. Fuck the lot of them, the selfish useless crowd of fucking fuckers. May they perish in Archangelsk. May they find themselves in Murmansk in the depths of winter with no gloves. May they fall off the side of a ship in dry dock in Gdansk. She’d have to drive to Boyne, County Meath, and she’d have to leave now if she wanted to beat the Friday-night exodus out of Dublin. Twenty minutes later would add three hours to her journey, most of them spent sitting on the N3, inhaling exhaust fumes and facing due west as a mad-shiny sun blazed down on top of her, in a car with no air conditioning.

  Grimly, she fashioned some plans. When she got to Boyne, she would descend upon that gobshite Buddy Scutt and she wouldn’t leave until she got what she wanted, what she should have been given months ago.

  Her final call was to Gilbert. The phone rang for a long time and eventually his voice mail kicked in.

  “I won’t be round tonight. Maybe not tomorrow night either. Call me,” she said. But she had a feeling he wouldn’t. He’d probably sulk, in a childish attempt to punish her for abandoning him at such short notice.

  At times she had her doubts about Gilbert.

  As Poppy said, “Never trust a man with two mobile phones.”

  And Gilbert had three.

  That she knew about.

  At 66 Star Street, she bounded up the stairs and ran into the kitchen to stick her yogurt into the fridge, but it was full—completely full—of neatly stacked cans of beer, funny Polish stuff they bought in the Polish shop. Jan was going to visit his girlfriend for the weekend, so Andrei was obviously planning a wreck-fest with his pals. There was literally no room for her strawberry yogurt. A single strawberry yogurt! Many was the girl who’d need space for soya milk and broccoli and flax-seeds and other bulky items. They had no idea how lucky they were to have her.

  She yanked one beer from its plastic holder, perched her little pink yogurt amid all that brownness and carefully placed the can of beer right in the middle of the kitchen floor, where hopefully Andrei would trip on it.

  Then, clear-headed from adrenaline, she began flinging things—underwear, spare jeans, iPod—into a zippy bag. What else did she need for this impromptu mini-break? Deodorant, toothbrush, makeup wipes . . . The downstairs buzzer rang; it was probably someone from one of the other flats who’d forgotten their key. She pressed the door open.

  Through the living-room doorway, she caught a glimpse of the computer. Should she go online? Just for a quick look? The urge was suddenly almost irresistible. No, no time. One final, eagle-eyed scan of the bathroom, just in case she’d missed something; of course, they had shops in Boyne, but there mightn’t be any time for—What was that? A knock on the door of the flat. Irkutsk! She shouldn’t have opened the front door without checking who it was. But no harm, she was in a very speedy groove and whoever these interlopers were—Mormons, politicians—she’d make short work of them. She’d bounce them back down the stairs in . . . how quick could she do it, she asked herself. Fifteen seconds, she decided.

  She wrenched open the door. “I’m a devout Christian, I don’t vote and I have no money to buy anything.”

  Standing there was a girl—so probably not a Mormon—and she looked nothing like a politician. The absence of a big fake grin plastered across her mug was the clue. But she might be flogging something. Crap makeup was Lydia’s guess.

  “I seek Oleksander,” the girl said.

  “Do you mean, you seek enlightenment?” The girl was clearly not Irish; she could have her words mixed up.

  “No. I seek Oleksander. A man.”

  “You’ll have to seek him somewhere else. There’s no one of that name here.”

  “Ukrainian man.”

  “I can do you a couple of Poles, if that’s any good.”

  “But this is the flat of Oleksander!”

  “There’s no Oleksander and I’m in a hurry.”

  The girl—slippery as an eel—slid past Lydia and into the tiny bedroom. “He lives here.”

  “This is my room. Ah! You must be talking about the previous tenant.” Now that she thought about it, Lydia had seen a couple of envelopes addressed to Oleksander someone. Andrei had organized a little pile of them in the kitchen. “You had me worried, there. I thought you were a madzer.”

  “Oleksander is gone!” the girl cried. “But where?”

  “I haven’t a scobie.”

  “I must speak with him! Oleksander is sexy, beautiful man.”

  “Ring him.”

  “I deleted number!”

  Lydia stared helplessly, scouring her brain for a solution, something to get rid of this girl so she could get on with her packing. “He’ll probably come back at some stage to collect his mail. Write him a note. I’ll give it to him.”

  Already the girl was scribbling on a piece of paper. “I am Viktoriya. Please tell him he must ring me.”

  “I will, I will, now I must—”

  “Also please tell him I made big mistake. Man from Department of Agriculture was stupid, and had a smell of cows.”

  “Had a smell of cows. Gotcha.”

  “You promise you will tell him?”

  “Yes, yes, yes, I promise.”

  But still Viktoriya lingered, giving the impression that she thought if she hung around long enough, this Oleksander would clamber out from under the bed, covered with dust balls.

  “He’s really not here. You must go. I have my own situation going on.”

  Day 57 . . .

  “Drink, Maeve?”

  They were nice to keep asking, her co-workers, even though she’d never yet joined them for the end-of-week happy hour. “I’m grand, thanks.” She smiled. “Have a good one. See you Monday.”

  Maeve had a regular appointment on Friday evenings. It was a good night for it because Matt was out too, on the jar with his team for their end-of-week wind-down.

  On the dot of six, Maeve finished up and began cycling through the bright evening, heading south. After eight minutes of pedaling, it suddenly hit her what date it was. Hard to believe that she’d only remembered it now, considering she’d spent her entire day working with days and dates. She spent a few shocked seconds just coasting, then surprised several people—four drivers, seven pedestrians and most of all herself—by making an abrupt U-turn. She was moving with purpose in a different direction. Not back toward work—so it wasn’t as if she’d just remembered that she’d left something like her phone or her wallet behind and was nipping back to pick it up—but down toward the river, to the docklands. The roads got narrower, but she zigzagged her way through them, bumping over cobbles, like a woman who knew exactly where she was going. Then she slowed and stopped. In a side street, she propped her bike against a wall a
nd fired off a quick text.

  Sorry. Sik. C u next week.

  Half-hidden by a building, Maeve peeped out at an office complex across the road. No Brainer Technology. An IT company, yet another one; this city was overrun with them. People were streaming out through the front door, nearly all of them young and casually dressed.

  Maeve watched and watched and her face displayed no emotion, even though she’d bent her right ankle until it was facing the wrong way, as if her leg had been put on backward. It was an agonizing maneuver, by the looks of things, but she was feeling no pain, even her breathing had almost stopped. And then she was ablaze with a dazzling cocktail of emotion. She released her ankle and it spun round, back to its correct alignment. Some bloke had just emerged from the building. Long and thin and handsome in a disheveled, unkempt fashion, he had the demeanor of a poet.

  He was walking away from where Maeve was secreted, but something stopped him in his tracks and made him twist his head round and look back over his shoulder. He saw her. Their eyes locked and a cable of white-hot energy snaked forth to unite them. It pulsed for some seconds, sparks and stars fizzing, then his eyes went dead and his face became blank as if his plug had just been pulled. He dropped his head and stumbled away.

  This was the man who was present in Maeve and Matt’s flat. This was the person who had inveigled his way in, corrupting the perfect two-of-this and the perfect two-of-that.

  All of a sudden Maeve was desperate to be somewhere, anywhere else, but her legs were shaking so much she couldn’t trust herself to cycle. Slowly, placing her feet carefully on the uneven streets, she wheeled her bike and wheeled her bike and wheeled her bike until the trembling left her.

  Day 57 . . .

  Andrei and Jan made their way along Eden Quay. They were supporting a large, burly man who appeared incapable of walking or even standing upright. A Friday-lunchtime drinks session that had gone too far, one could only presume.

  They caused quite a commotion as they proceeded, an unbreakable wall of three, along the pavement. Pedestrians were compelled to step out of their path, then would turn to stare with hostility after them. However, on closer inspection, it became evident that the middle person was not an obese man, made heavier by virtue of being stupefied by drink but, in fact, a very large teddy bear. Larger, actually, than either Andrei or Jan.

  The trio continued to bump their way down Eden Quay, making for the bus terminal.

  Jan was about to board the bus to Limerick, where his sweetheart, Magdalena, was currently billeted, working on reception in a big hotel. It would be her birthday on Sunday and Magdalena was very much a teddy-bear kind of girl.

  “Limerick?” the ticket-selling man asked. “One person?”

  “One person.”

  The ticket-seller, one Mick Larkin, leaned forward on his high swivel chair to get a closer look. “Is he going?”

  “Who?” Andrei asked. “Bobo?”

  “Is Bobo the bear?”

  “Yes.”

  “Bobo needs a ticket. He’s too big. He needs a seat of his own.”

  “He is going to visit his sweetheart,” Andrei protested.

  “Who? Bobo?” Mr. Larkin was a bureaucrat who liked to know exactly what he was dealing with.

  “No. Jan. This man here. It’s Magdalena’s birthday, she’s high-maintenance.” (Actually, Magdalena was sweet and easy-going but Andrei adored that phrase and used it every opportunity he got.)

  “Jan has budgeted carefully and he needs all the money he has with him.”

  Mr. Larkin shrugged. “Bobo needs a ticket.”

  “You have no romance in your soul,” Andrei complained.

  “Neither have you. You’re Poles, not Italians.”

  Ire rose in Andrei. Everyone misjudged them. They thought Poles were simply hard-working but passion-free builders. They had no idea of what they were really like.

  Jan was doing a quick calculation of his funds and the outcome compelled him to say, “Andrei, I am glum.”

  “You see?” Andrei pointed at Jan’s pitiful face. “You see how glum you have made him!”

  “Glum,” Andrei heard someone further back in the queue say. “Now, that’s a word you don’t hear very often these days.”

  “No, and it’s quite a good one,” another voice replied.

  “It sounds like what it is. Glum!” The first voice again.

  “Glum! I wonder why it went out of fashion.” A new voice. Several people were in the discussion now. “Glum, glum, glum, glum. What do we say instead?”

  “Pissed-off.”

  “Bummed-out.”

  “A bit down. Low. Depressed. In the horrors. Buzz-wrecked. Head-melted.”

  “Ah, no wonder glum went out of business! The market has been flooded with all these new words. The laws of supply and demand, they’ll get you every time.”

  “What’s going on up there at the front with the teddy? I’m going to miss my bus,” a man, six people back, said. “Although it might be a blessing. A weekend with my family, you know yourself . . .”

  “I do, yeah,” the girl in front of him said. “Low. Depressed. In the horrors. Buzz-wrecked. Head-melted.”

  “Glum!” he countered with, and loud laughter rippled through the queue.

  “I don’t want to miss my bus,” another woman said. She walked to the front of the queue and suggested, “He could put the bear on his lap.”

  Mr. Larkin shook his head sorrowfully. “Bobo’s too big.”

  “Is Bobo the bear? Okay, your man could sit on Bobo’s lap.”

  “Actually, he could . . .”

  As Andrei waved them off, Jan perched high on Bobo’s lap, he mouthed through the window of the bus, “You’re a hero.” As soon as they were out of sight, Andrei went to the gym where he spent sixty-seven minutes lifting weights, then he hurried home to admire his beer. He rubbed his hands together with the glee of freedom. Andrei carried many burdens: he was the main source of income for his parents and younger sisters at home in Gdansk; he felt deeply protective of Jan, who seemed to find life in this country even harder than he himself did; and he had started to worry about Rosie getting home safely from night shifts, even though she still wouldn’t sleep with him. At times Andrei felt he was responsible for keeping the world turning. But today all his liberations had come at once. He had sent a wodge of money home, which had lifted the harried feeling that perpetually dogged him; for the duration of the weekend, Jan was the responsibility of Magdalena; Rosie was in Cork on a hen weekend and therefore out of his jurisdiction; he had a fridge full of beer and a coterie of male friends coming over later; but, best of all, the evil pixie had gone on a trip. He knew this because his zippy weekend bag had disappeared. So had his deodorant.

  She was usually gone at weekends, off tormenting Poor Fucker, but he hugged a small warm secret hope to himself that the missing bag might signal a longer absence.

  Nothing, not even stumbling over the can of beer she had left in the middle of the kitchen floor, could dilute his happiness.

  Day 57 . . .

  More things Lydia hates:

  Magazines that are more than eight years old

  Saucepans that have had the arse burned off them

  Doctors’ waiting rooms

  The smell of rotting food

  Doctors’ receptionists

  Homes without broadband

  The smell of rubber gloves

  Doctors

  Her brother Murdy

  Her brother Ronnie

  Her brother Raymond

  Dr. Buddy Scutt

  Homes with no internet connection, not even dial-up

  Please note: this is not a complete list.

  Day 56

  Matt and Maeve tried to move their cart through the gridlock of the meat aisle.

  “Pizza, Sunday night. Lamb on Monday,” Maeve was muttering and counting out days on her fingers. “Fish, Tuesday and Wednesday. Beef, Thursday, takeout on Friday. So what’ll we have tonight?”
/>   “Maeve . . .”

  “What?”

  “We’re going out tonight.”

  “Oh.”

  “Mum’s birthday. Her sixty-fifth. Maeve . . .” He shook his head. This was almost funny. “You couldn’t have forgotten?”

  “I haven’t forgotten,” Maeve admitted. “I’ve tried my best but how could I forget when you’ve reminded me every day for the past month. I’ve just been in denial. Hoping that if I pretended it wasn’t happening, it wouldn’t.”

  “It’s happening.”

  “So we don’t need to get something for our dinner tonight?”

  “No. We’ll be getting top-notch grub at l’Ecrivain.”

  “What time are we meant to be there?”

  “Seven-thirty.”

  “Then there’s probably no point going on our hike this afternoon. We’d have to cut it short to get home in time.”

  “You’re right. Pity, though.” Matt tried to pretend he wasn’t relieved.

  He and Maeve went hiking in the Wicklow Hills every Saturday afternoon. Except they hadn’t been in weeks. And weeks. Now he could lie on the couch and watch the rugby instead.

  Ireland was in the process of suffering a humiliating loss to England when Maeve sidled into the living room. “Maaa-aaaat?”

  “Hmmm?” He couldn’t tear himself away from the screen.

  “Matt. I feel sick.”

  That got his attention. He twisted round to look at her. “What sort of sick?”

  “My stomach. I feel really pukey. I don’t think I can go tonight.”

  Matt gazed at her. He suddenly felt like crying. “Please, Maeve. Can’t you try? They haven’t seen you in ages. They’ll think I’ve murdered you and buried you in the back garden.”

  She hung her head.

  “It won’t be so bad,” Matt coaxed. “It’ll only be the six of us. It could be worse; they could be having a party.”

  But parties were better. You could disappear into the crowds at parties and, if you played your cards carefully enough, you could talk to almost no one.