The Brightest Star in the Sky

by Marian Keyes

  With some misgivings, Katie stretched out her arms to accept the thorny-looking bundle. But Cesar was consulting his clipboard. “Have you moved flats?”

  “No.”

  “But this is for flat three.”

  “It must be a mistake, I’m flat four.”

  “This is for flat three. It says it here.” He indicated his worksheet.

  “It’s just a mistake, Cesar. I’m sorry, but I’m late for work.” And she was going to be even later because she’d have to run back upstairs with the flowers, so if Cesar would just hand them over . . .

  She had a thought. “Unless they’re not from Conall.”

  “They’re from Mr. Hathaway, all right.”

  “Then they’re for me.”

  “Hold on a minute.” Cesar had his mobile out. “I’ll just give the girls a shout.”

  After a short conversation, he snapped his phone shut. “It’s for the taxi-driver girl, who lives in the flat below Katie Richmond.”

  “Oh.” Katie couldn’t think of anything else to say so she said it again. “Oh.”

  All the breath had been knocked out of her. What was Conall up to? How did he know Lydia? How did he know she drove a taxi?

  “I’ll, ah . . . just . . .” Cesar indicated that he needed to get past to reach the doorbell—in order to give the flowers to the right person. He looked a little mortified. Eye contact wasn’t what you might call full. “Right, ah . . . Good luck, Katie, have a nice day.”

  “Yes, ah, Cesar. Yes, right, you too.”

  Day 36 . . .

  Lydia tumbled into the flat, every sense on red alert, seeking Andrei’s presence. Or rather, hoping not to seek it. Don’t be in, you miserable Pole, be at college, be at your creepy girlfriend’s, be out drinking, but don’t be here.

  She stuck her head around the sitting-room door and there he was. Shite. The first time she’d seen him since . . . Since nothing. Since the thing that hadn’t happened.

  “Where’s Jan?”

  “At work.”

  “When will he be home?”

  “After ten.”

  “Are you in for the evening?” Maybe he’d be going out with Rosie.

  “Yes.”

  Minsk.

  “Rosie is coming over,” he added.

  Oh no! Worse and worser! Rosie was the pits. Whenever Lydia was with her—not often, which was just the way she liked it—Lydia always got this mad urge to start yelling that Rosie was a total faker, that she was only pretending to be virtuous and that she was actually calculating and cold and probably had a plan for world domination. Not that Lydia minded anyone being calculating and cold. Be as calculating and cold as you like, just be honest about it; and if you’ve got a plan for world domination, at least have the decency to live in an underground lair and wear a white suit and stroke a fat white cat, don’t be skipping round the place going on about pretty flowers and fluffy bunny rabbits and pinkness. The only thing that stopped Lydia from thrusting a fork into Rosie’s eye was that Rosie clearly detested Lydia as much as Lydia detested Rosie and she made no attempt at all to hide it, none whatsoever, and Lydia respected that because for once Rosie wasn’t faking.

  “Andrei, how long more before you go on your summer holiday?”

  “Four weeks, six days and sixteen hours.”

  Further away than she’d thought. Much further. Shite. “Oh, I borrowed your bag,” she said. “Your overnight bag.”

  “It’s okay,” he said. “Where were you? You see your mum?”

  She gave a curt nod.

  “Sad?” he asked.

  Feck off with your sad, you love-wrecker. Gilbert would still be my boyfriend if it wasn’t for you.

  Naturally, she was prepared to take the rap for whatever part she’d played in herself and Gilbert being trashed but, come on, when you thought about it, it was all Andrei’s fault.

  She went into the kitchen and came to an abrupt halt. Instantly, she returned to the living room. “What’s with all the bunches of flowers? The kitchen’s fecking full of them! I can hardly get in.”

  “They are for you.”

  “Haha.”

  “Truly. They are for you.”

  “For real?” She’d assumed he had bought them to give to drippy Rosie. “Who are they from?” Then she had a dreadful thought. “Not from you?”

  “Haha. Funny joke.” His sarcasm was quite impressive.

  She returned to the kitchen and gazed with confusion and irritation. There were four bundles of blooms, each of them humongous. One in the sink, one lying on the draining board and two standing upright on kitchen chairs, looking like they were about to tuck into their dinner. Even then she knew they weren’t from Gilbert. He wasn’t that type of man, and just as well he’d slept with other girls because this sort of cheesy gesture would send her right off him.

  What was she meant to do with them? Like, what was the use of flowers? Chocolates she could understand, but flowers were just pointless bloody things. Hadn’t Poppy got a bouquet when she’d left her last job . . .? Lydia had a hazy, drunken, late-night memory of all of them trying to snort the life-extendy powder, but they hadn’t got a hit. Like she said: pointless bloody things.

  She spun on her heel and returned to Andrei. “Who sent them?”

  “Man in van.”

  “Yeah, but who sent them?”

  He shrugged. “Open envelope. There is envelope with each collection.”

  “The word is bunch.”

  Cautiously, she approached the bunch in the sink. As Andrei said, there was a little white envelope on a stick, in the middle of the foliage. As she reached for it, something stung her. “Ow! Christ!” What happened there? Were those green fronds . . . nettles? They fecking were! In fact, all the plants—you couldn’t really call them flowers, they were mostly thistles and thorns—were spiky and aggressive and dangerous-looking. They were held together by a neat little bow, very cute, except that it was made of barbed wire. She tore open the envelope and written on a little white card was:

  I saw these and thought of you

  It was so unexpected that she actually laughed. But the card wasn’t signed so she reached into the heart of another bouquet, this time the one lying on the draining board. Large, closed, flesh-colored buds crowded together, sinister-looking, like they could open their jaws and savage you with serrated teeth. She whipped the card out quickly before they came to life and snapped her hand off.

  . . . and these . . .

  Love of God!

  She rounded on one of the bundles on the chair. A cluster of pointy, orange things, as long as razor shells and just as sharp, it bristled with malign energy.

  . . . and these . . .

  The last bouquet was different. It had proper flowers: round smiling blooms in blocks of bright color—vibrant yellows and reds and pinks—like a child’s drawing.

  . . . and these. Conall Hathaway. Give me a call.

  Who? Aha! She had it! Mr. Wellington Road. The old rich guy. She’d been so tired doing that drive she only half-remembered it. But she remembered that he’d asked her out.

  “Out out?” She’d been gobsmacked.

  “Yeah. On a date.”

  Then he’d asked her if she liked stationery shops. Or drugstores. He was really weird. She didn’t think she’d ever been in a stationery shop in her life.

  “No thanks,” she’d said.

  “Why not?”

  Why not? She’d turned to stare at him. “You’re not my type.” Then she’d added, “To put it mildly.”

  “I’m fucked-up,” he’d said enticingly.

  Perplexed, she’d asked, “Since when was that a good thing?”

  “I’m told that’s what the girls like. The young ones, anyway.”

  “Look, just pay up and get out of my car.”

  “I’m hard to get.”

  “You’re not! You’re offering yourself on a plate! You couldn’t be easier.”

  “Only now, just to get the ball rolling
. But in a month’s time you won’t know which end is up. How much do I owe you?”

  “Eight euro forty. I’ll call it eight if you’ll just get out.”

  He’d handed her a tenner. “Keep—”

  “—the change? No thanks. Here’s your two euro. Please get out. I’ve to go and see my mum.” She’d looked at her watch. “I need a few hours’ nap first.”

  “One of my girlfriends, the one before Katie, parked outside my house for sixty-seven hours when I broke up with her.”

  “I would never go out with someone like you. You’re too old. You’re too . . . You’d bore me senseless . . . Look! You’re upset about the sexy governess, but she’ll take you back, her type always does.”

  “I’m Conall Hathaway. I like you. Expect to hear from me again.”

  “Feck off, you stalker. I suppose you’ll be wanting a receipt? Your type always does.”

  “Who send flowers?” Andrei asked.

  “Some lunatic.”

  Andrei smirked.

  “What?” she demanded.

  “I did not say word.”

  “Yeah, but you were thinking that a man would have to be a lunatic to send me flowers.”

  “I said nothing,” he said, over-innocently.

  She glared but let it go.

  Day 36 . . .

  Fionn was outside on the front step, the blue door swinging open behind him. He was pretending to study the stars while trying to catch a glimpse of Maeve through the gap in her sitting-room curtains. But all he could see was Matt sitting on the floor, steadily eating his way through a box of—Fionn couldn’t be certain, it was too far away—but it looked like a box of blackcurrant flapjacks. Maybe not blackcurrant, they could be blackberry, or even blueberry, but definitely some sort of rectangular bun with a purplish jam.

  “What are you up to, son?” A duo of passing policemen interrupted his beady-eyed squinting.

  “Standing outside my own dwelling place looking at the stars.”

  “Stars are that way.” The bigger of the two pointed at the sky and only when Fionn turned his face upward did they lumber on.

  Fionn gazed up into the royal-blue dusk, waiting for the boyos to disappear, resenting every second that he wasn’t keeping tabs on Maeve. And it wasn’t like he could even properly see the stars, not in this city, which blazed artificial light everywhere and dimmed the wonder of nature. Arm-wrestling with nature. He liked that phrase. He wondered if Grainne would let him use it. She might, you never know. Then again, she might not and Grainne was a tough nut . . . Something compelled him to turn his head, and through the dim light he saw a female creature walking along Star Street toward him. All at once his vision filled with comets and stars, colors and spirals—Fionn had fallen in love again.

  Like someone who’d discovered a new skill, perhaps like making pancakes or riding a unicycle, Fionn was keen to keep trying it out. Even as he was stunned with love for this new woman, this bandbox-fresh little delight, he was kind enough to consider Maeve and he knew he would always think fondly of her, his first love. But, all of sudden, Maeve seemed raw and disheveled—What was with the baggy cords?—and the type of woman a youngster, inexperienced in the ways of love, would fall for. This new emotion was different, infinitely more sophisticated, because Fionn was more mature now, more of a man.

  He fastened his loving gaze on the vision’s swinging skirt, her narrow waist, her swishing ponytail. An expression that Fionn didn’t even know that he knew spoke in his head: matchy-matchy. Shoes, belt, handbag. An embroidered blouse. A modest girl, like something from the olden days, the early eighties, perhaps. He knew with profound certainty that she could sew a button on to a shirt. He pictured her, pulling a length of thread along her plump lower lip and expertly snapping it with a bite of her little white teeth.

  Fionn stepped forward to impede her progress along Star Street. He was powerless to stop himself. “Hello,” he said.

  She stopped. She stopped! “Hello.”

  He was close enough to see she was wearing a delicate gold cross on a chain around her slender white neck.

  “I’m standing here looking at the stars,” he said.

  “We all have to have a hobby.”

  “See that one.” He pointed toward a pinprick of intense light. “That’s the planet Venus. It’s not actually a star at all.”

  “Would you credit it? It looks just like a star. Only brighter.”

  “The brightest star in the sky. They call it the planet of love.” Was he going too far? “I’m Fionn Purdue.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Purdue.”

  Oh the modesty, the sweetness! “Fionn, Fionn, Fionn. And what do they call you?”

  “Rosemary Draper.”

  “Rosemary,” Fionn murmured. God, it was beautiful. Rose, Rose, Rose. Mary. Mary. Mary.

  “My friends call me Rosie.”

  “May I . . .?”

  “Are you my friend?” Oh flirting! Flirting from the little madam who looked like butter wouldn’t melt.

  “I’d like to be.”

  “Oh stop that now, you brazen pup!” But she smiled. A prim little smile, somewhat lacking in warmth, but a smile nonetheless.

  Already he knew so much about her. Their home would always be neat and pretty, far more charming than the identical ones their neighbors had; she’d be a marvel with money, making a little go a long way; she’d be a gifted cook, working alchemy with cheap cuts of meat; they’d be the only people in their street to go on a foreign holiday; she’d keep her figure even after countless babies and she’d always be delightfully turned out in skirts and blouses that she’d fashioned herself at her sewing machine. Fionn wasn’t sure why their life together would be lived in the mid-fifties, but there you are.

  “What do you do for a crust, Rosemary?” He was planning to land it on her that he was shortly to be a star of the small screen.

  “I’m a nurse.”

  A nurse! She seemed too, well, prissy, to be a nurse. The nurses Fionn knew were earthy raucous creatures who spent their days tending with great compassion to the sick and the dying and their evenings drinking vast quantities of alcohol and dancing the night away in Copperface Jacks with policemen and firemen.

  “Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Rosemary—dare he call her Rosie?—made to get round Fionn. She seemed to be aiming herself at the open doorway.

  “You’re coming in! You live here too? I’m on the first floor!” What was it with this house that it was riddled with beautiful women? Sirens! Temptresses! Then it occurred to him that perhaps the only reason she had stopped to talk to him was because she was trying to gain ingress into the house and his great joy dimmed a little.

  “I’m visiting my boyfriend. Andrei Palweski.”

  “You have a boyfriend?” It was a blow.

  “I have a boyfriend.”

  But of course she did. Never mind. He’d make short work of that arrangement.

  “What hospital do you work at?” he called, as she climbed the stairs away from him.

  Her lower legs—all he could see of her—hesitated. Then the magic words floated down to him. “St. Vincent’s.” And her legs began to climb again.

  Day 36 . . .

  “I’ve no food in and I’m starving,” Lydia said. “Do you mind if I eat some of your funny Polish bread?”

  “No problem; but it is old.”

  “Stale. Can I eat some of your funny Polish cheese?”

  “For sure.”

  She slapped some white cheese and two slices of stale bread together, then flung herself on the couch. Amazing what tasted nice when you were starving. Some program was on, about a house being exorcized of its ghosts. She let it wash over her, too tired to ask that they watch something good.

  She flicked a glance out of the corner of her eye, just to see if Andrei was showing signs of effing off to his room. As if he felt her eyes on him, he turned and looked at her and they exchanged a moment of hearty, mutual dislike. Naked antipathy. Then one
of them, probably Andrei, she decided afterward, made a small movement and everything went blurry. They both moved, a twist of the body toward each other, and then they somehow launched themselves at one another, kissing and pulling and tearing, caught in a frenzy of want.

  It was like the previous time, except that now she had the pleasure of anticipation. She knew how fabulous it was going to be. She knew how his skin would feel—hot and cold and smooth and rough—against hers. She knew how he would press her hips flat against the bed, his biceps bulging. She knew she would arch herself upward to meet him. She knew how he would move himself, rock hard, back and forth into her, smooth and fast as a piston. She knew she would wrap her legs around him and come again and again.

  It was an absolute revelation, to discover so much pleasure available to her, right in her own home. Right in her own body. The skin of his back beneath the palm of her hands, the resistance of muscle as she pressed her heels into his buttocks. If she could spend the rest of her life doing this, captured in the moment, with Andrei’s mouth on hers, his body moving in and out of hers, she would happily live forever.

  It was different from Gilbert; Gilbert was slow. If the phrase didn’t make her want to puke, she would say that he made love. But with Andrei there was no finesse, it was wild and intense, the volume of every nerve ending turned up to ten, like a roller-coaster ride, a short, thrilling burst of out-of-control sensation.

  Harmonious heart currents? It’s all such a wild lustful flurry, everything beating in such a frantic, deafeningly loud cacophony that it’s impossible to tell.

  On paper, Andrei and Lydia don’t look like the perfect match, but you’ve got to stay open-minded, no?

  Day 36 . . .

  Rosie knocked softly on the door of flat three, then stood back and smoothed her skirt and fi xed a sweet smile to her face.

  But the moments passed and the door remained unanswered and she was surprised. Vexed, in fact. Obliging her to knock for a second time was . . . well, it felt disrespectful. As she rapped once again, a frosty persona began to steal over her, one that Andrei would have to work hard to jolly her out of.