The Brightest Star in the Sky

by Marian Keyes

  Even after Auggie died so unexpectedly and Ellen became a widow at the age of fifty-seven—and, worse, a widow with a mountain of debt to pay off—she didn’t go greasy-haired and crying-at-the-kitchen-table maudlin. She just got on with things. Although her empire had been reduced to a single car, she’d continued to work all the hours, a reliable and pleasant driver, whose only fault, if one were to look for fault, was that she took the roads a little too cautiously. You wouldn’t want to have a train to catch, as her loyal customers would say. (Which was their little joke, because they usually employed Ellen to drop them at the station in Mullingar to get the Belfast Express.)

  The only time Ellen had allowed herself a good old cry was whenever Lydia was on one of her short, infrequent visits home. They’d take it in turns to impersonate Auggie Duffy pacing up and down in front of the mantelpiece and beseeching God to send through a job. “Poor Dad,” Ellen would say and Lydia would reply, “Poor Dad.” They’d shed a few tears together, then Lydia would sniff loudly and say, “Gimme a tissue. Anyway, he was an eejit and we’re well rid of him,” and half-mean it and Ellen would cuff her and say, “You’re very bold.”

  Lydia was so deep in thought that she didn’t see the man on the next landing until she had crashed into him.

  “Hey,” he said, eyes sparkling, teeth gleaming. “I’m Fionn, your new neighbor.”

  A good-looking sort who wanted everyone to love him—Lydia was on to him immediately.

  “Oh yeah?” she said, with an extra dollop of sneer. “What’s with the smile?”

  Day 47

  Conall took it hard.

  “But Katie, I love you.” It was the first time he’d said it.

  “You don’t.”

  “I do. I’m sorry about Helsinki. I’m sorry about Jason’s wedding. I know how much it meant to you. But we couldn’t get the takeover signed off without losing another twelve staff—”

  “I don’t want to know.”

  “I will work less.” He grasped her hands. “I will. I promise you.”

  “You’ve said that before, Conall.”

  “But this time I mean it.”

  “No.” She pulled her hands away from his. “You’re too unreliable and I don’t want to do it any more.”

  The strange thing was that she meant it. She wasn’t playing games nor was she being torn apart by a conflict between her head and her heart in which her head was telling her she had to end things but her heart was kicking and screaming.

  Conall was sexy, he was powerful, he was rich, he had a beautiful mouth, he smelled delicious, he had perfect skin, he had stubble, he was a good kisser—and it didn’t matter. She could no longer do the dance of Conall, one step forward and one step back, and she’d never felt this way before: sad but certain she was making the right decision. So certain that in fact there was no decision.

  Was this what turning forty did to a person? Removed your tolerance for bullshit? Did people run out of patience? Could it be that you only get so much in a lifetime and hers was all used up? Whatever, it was very awkward, very, very disruptive.

  “I’m serious,” she said.

  From his stunned expression, he was starting to realize that, actually, she was.

  “You can’t help it,” she said. “I know you never meant to hurt me. You’re not a bad man.”

  “Pity!” he exclaimed. “You pity me.”

  “No . . . I . . .” God, maybe she did.

  “But what will I do without you?”

  “Try a younger woman,” she said.

  He was aghast. “I don’t want a younger woman. I want you.”

  “A girl in her twenties.” She carried on as if he hadn’t spoken. “They usually can’t tell the difference between challenging and fucked-up.”

  She should know. She’d wasted her twenties unable to tell the difference.

  “But what happened? ” he asked. “What changed?”

  She didn’t know. It wasn’t as if she’d had a massive infusion of self-esteem and was strutting around the place shouting, “I’m fantastic and deserve better. R.E.S.P.E.C.T.! R-E-S-P-EEEEEEEEEE-C-T.”

  “I just . . . can’t be bothered any longer.”

  “Can’t be bothered?”

  “Conall, I’ve always believed in love, that love would conquer all. But it doesn’t. Because here I am, at forty, and love has conquered nothing. Except my common sense over two and a half decades.”

  “But Katie . . .”

  “I want you to go now. And remember what I said: a girl in her twenties.”

  Conall’s and Katie’s heart vibrations are no longer in harmony. Something has jolted Katie’s heart off course—it could be that bloody mile-stone birthday—and Conall’s heart knows this. It’s all over the place, trying to adjust itself in his chest, trying to latch on to the new beat, trying to find the way back.

  Day 46

  Matt and Maeve’s clock started its gentle plinky-plonky chiming and Matt tumbled out of bed, making for the kitchen. He wasn’t exactly sure why, but he was expecting to find another note from Fionn on their hall floor this morning.

  He and Maeve had seen him a few mornings now, being driven away in his Merc and staring at Maeve like he wanted to eat her. Maybe he and Maeve should change the time they left for work, he thought. Then a worse thought occurred to him: maybe Fionn wouldn’t send another note, maybe he’d just show up at their door and ask why they hadn’t been in touch and then Maeve would find out that Fionn had sent a letter and that Matt had put it in with the vegetable peelings . . . So it was almost a relief when he saw the white envelope lying on the floor beside their front door.

  He whipped it up and threw a quick look over his shoulder to make sure Maeve hadn’t seen anything, then hurtled into the kitchen and tore it open. Just like the last letter. Filming a garden show. Please come along. This phone number. That phone number. Whenever suits you.

  Rage boiled in Matt’s stomach. The cheek of the man. Maeve was his wife. He’d have to do something. But what? In theory, Fionn had done nothing wrong. He’d invited both of them to the filming. Not just Maeve. Although they all knew that it was only Maeve that Fionn was interested in. What the hell was he to do? Well, he’d destroy this fucking letter, for starters. He tore it into a hundred little pieces and stuffed it deep into the trash.

  Day 46 . . .

  Katie wasted no time breaking the news about the demise of herself and Conall—the more people who knew, the more real it became—and, considering how everyone had always thought she was punching way above her weight with him, they were surprisingly shocked. And when they discovered that Katie had been the one who’d administered the fatal blow, they were utterly floored.

  “You?” Naomi yelped. “I thought he’d improved recently. Switching his phone off when he was with you, that sort of thing.”

  “I suppose he had.”

  “So what the hell . . .?”

  “I can’t really explain, Naomi. I’d just had enough. He’s driven in a way I’ll never understand. He told me once that work was the force at his core. Apparently, we all have one.”

  “Bollocks. I certainly haven’t got one. Have you?”

  “The only thing I could come up with was food-clothes-exercise. The blessed trinity. How much can I eat while still looking half-decent in my clothes? How much exercise must I do so I can eat as much as I want? Obviously, we were very different.”

  “But he was just starting to come good. All that work you put into him, all that patience!”

  Don’t. “The next woman will benefit.”

  Naomi could hardly bear it. “But it’s not fair! Won’t you miss him?”

  “Hard to miss a man I never saw.”

  “You did see him!”

  “God, you’ve changed your tune.”

  “I know you think we all hated him—”

  “But you did!”

  “—and yes, in a way, we did. But it was because he gave the impression that it wasn’t serious to him.
He didn’t seem long-term enough about you.”

  “And because he was flashy.”

  “Only Dad. And only because he’s jealous.”

  “I’m not saying Conall’s a bad man,” Katie said. “Because he isn’t.

  But you know what, Naomi? If he wasn’t a workaholic, if he’d been reliable and . . . and . . . normal, he wouldn’t have bothered with me. He’d be married to someone like Carla Bruni.”

  “You’ve become very philosophical. So let me get this straight, you don’t even miss him? Mind you, it’s only been one night. Let’s try you again in a week.”

  “Naomi, please . . . I’m trying really hard to not think about it. The idea of him with another girl . . .”

  “And he’ll get a new one fast, won’t he?”

  “Would you stop? I know all of this, there’s no need to spell it out.”

  “But if it hurts you so much, then why—”

  How could she describe it? The certainty that it was less painful to be without Conall than with him? That loneliness was preferable to chronic disappointment?

  “Because . . .” Well, yes, it was true! Say it, go on say it. “I thought I deserved better.”

  Naomi made a strange little squeak. She tried to push the terrible words back into their box, but they erupted with force. “Deserve? You’re forty, Katie! That’s really quite old. I grant you, we’re living longer these days, better diets and all, but even so you’re still probably halfway through your life. Deserve has nothing to do with it. You take what you’re given and you should be grateful for it.”

  “Maybe it’s Conall who should be grateful. Did you ever think that actually he was the lucky one? I gave him a lot of happiness. More than he gave me.”

  Empty space hissed on the line: Naomi was dumbfounded. After a long pause, she asked, “Have you done another course? Did Granny Spade appear to you in a vision and send you to another of those mad places?”

  “No, but I do sound quite weird. Not like myself.”

  Naomi sighed. “It’s a disaster.”

  “I thought you’d be glad he was gone.”

  “Not when he was just starting to come good.” Naomi seemed dangerously close to tears.

  “Naomi, just because I think I deserve better doesn’t mean I’m going to get it. Like, I’m sure I won’t get it.”

  “You won’t?” Naomi sounded mollified.

  “No.”

  Well, that was all right then.

  Day 45

  “Gilbert, I slept—” Lydia paused. If she was going to tell the truth to Gilbert she might as well do it properly. “I had sex with Andrei.”

  She waited for thunder to fill his face, but apart from a little flicker behind his eyes, Gilbert’s expression remained blank. After staring at her for some moments he asked, very politely, “Which Andrei? This flatmate of yours?”

  “Yes.”

  “The one you dislike so much?”

  “. . . Ah, yes.”

  “Perhaps,” he said, in his dark-chocolate voice, “you will have the courtesy to tell me what happened.”

  She opened her mouth, then closed it again. It was very hard to say.

  “There was this pot,” she started.

  “A pot?”

  “You know, a saucepan, a small one. We were in the kitchen. He wanted to use it but I hadn’t washed it. He was annoyed. Is he ever any other way?”

  She wondered how best to describe what happened next. Andrei had banged the saucepan down hard on the kitchen counter and he’d glared at her, his eyes burning blue, a muscle working in his jaw, and she’d glared back at him, and suddenly—and quite genuinely she was at a loss to describe how it started—they were kissing frantically, ferociously, and it was such a relief. Then she was tearing at his clothes, desperate for more of him, and he was steering her to his bedroom and, locked in his steely embrace, she tumbled on to the bed, and he was muttering endearments in Polish and distributing small frenzied kisses along her hairline, and she stretched out her arm, which had become inexplicably naked, and swept the bedside photo of Rosie onto the floor and that made him laugh. And despite the narrowness of the single bed and the fact that she disliked Andrei so strongly, it was the best sex of her life.

  But she couldn’t tell Gilbert any of that.

  “The flat is too small,” she said, the only explanation she had come up with that had made any sense. “I don’t think men and women were meant to live so closely together. When lots of women live on top of each other, their periods get synchronized. When men and women live together they end up having sex—” She stopped. This was convincing no one. “It meant nothing,” she said.

  Admittedly, it had been the most intensely experienced fifteen minutes she had ever lived through; she had never been so grateful to have been born, to have skin and nerve endings and the sense of touch and smell and taste, but it had meant nothing.

  “ ‘It meant nothing’? You sound like a man.” Gilbert’s face was cold and unimpressed.

  “It meant nothing. It will never happen again. I don’t even like him . . . and I like you very much.”

  “So, Lydia.” He tapped his long elegant fingers on the table. “I am asking myself a question: why are you telling me this?”

  “Because it’s right. I have to be honest. I respect you, Gilbert.”

  “You respect me? You sleep with another man and show me disrespect by telling me?”

  “No! I sleep with another man, by accident, I might add, and I respect you enough to tell you the truth. You think I wanted to tell you? It would have been far easier for me to say nothing, to treat you like a sap, a sappy sap who’d get upset, but that would have been wrong. Honesty is important. If we haven’t got honesty, we haven’t got anything.”

  But even as she was saying it, she was asking herself if she was wrong.

  “When did this accidental event take place?” Gilbert asked.

  Lydia looked at her watch. “An hour and . . . thirty-seven minutes ago.”

  “You have come straight from his bed?”

  “I had to tell you.” She’d felt that every second that had passed without Gilbert knowing was a further insult to him . . .

  “How thoughtful you are.”

  ... although Gilbert was so angry that now she wasn’t sure. But she couldn’t have lived with a cover-up. What would have been best was if she hadn’t had sex with Andrei, but unfortunately that wasn’t an option.

  “You think you have been my only woman?” Gilbert asked softly, sudden spite in his eyes.

  She swallowed away a lump in her throat. “Yes,” she said. “Actually, I did.”

  “But you were not.”

  She swallowed again. “Grand. I see. Right.”

  “There have been others.”

  “Okay.” She heaved a huge breath from deep in her gut. “Just as well we’re having this little chat, then, no?”

  “But these other women—” with a triumphant glint, he sarcastically mimicked her earlier words—“it meant nothing.”

  “It meant nothing? Just like mine meant nothing? But funnily enough,” she said, as she got up to leave, “the last thing you sound like is a man.”

  Day 43

  The years have been good to you.

  It’s the weekends that have done the damage.

  Katie was so surprised and entertained that a little noise escaped from her throat. Could she be said to have laughed out loud, she wondered. Did that make the quote count as “laugh-out-loud” funny? Automatically she went for her phone: Conall would love this one.

  Then she remembered that she couldn’t ring him. Not now, not ever. Another little noise escaped from her throat and this one definitely wasn’t a laugh.

  The days when she could casually pick up the phone and read out that day’s bitter little bon mot from her diary were gone forever.

  Oh. Now that didn’t feel at all nice. She wasn’t feeling too good this morning. Monday night, the night she’d broken it off with him, had
gone okay. Tuesday night had gone okay. Wednesday night had gone okay. Last night had not gone okay.

  Because she’d made the terrible, terrible mistake of reading an Anita Brookner—she didn’t know the name, they were all the same—and it had put the fear of God in her. She was convinced that for the rest of her life she’d have to spend her holidays with some woman she barely knew from work, someone with repressed lesbian tendencies, and together they’d visit cathedrals. They’d wear stout shoes and carry guide books and spend entire days admiring fifteenth-century naves. In the evenings they’d go for a prix fixe and have one glass of house red each and the repressed lesbian would say, “Men, nasty brutish creatures. We women can provide comfort for each other.”

  That’s what happened when you were forty and alone.

  In fact, she would probably die alone. She’d be dead for eight days before she was found, and only the mewing of her twenty-seven hungry cats would alert her cold-hearted, uninterested neighbors.

  But she didn’t care too much about that; after all, she’d be dead. It was just the holidays she was worried about: the stout shoes, the cathedrals, the cheapo stuff on the prix fixe (soup of the day, melon) and all the lovely things on the à la carte—the prawns, the sea bass—forbidden to her. And what if she wanted a second glass of wine, would her lezzery companion permit such debauched bacchanalia?

  She rubbed her hand over her eyes. What a bleak picture of a life . . . And—she just thought of something else—they’d have a box of chocolates, some dreary brand like Milk Tray, and every night before they climbed into their narrow single beds to read four pages of their improving books, her companion would invite her to select a sweet. To show her appreciation, Katie would be obliged to spend hours reading the guide, and even longer savoring the one piece, the only piece, of pleasure in her life, then the box would be replaced in her companion’s suitcase—and locked!—until the following night.