‘Oh, hello, Ninja!’ Sarah bends down, and Jake, keeping one watchful eye on me, butts the palms of her hand with his head – something he used to do with Melanie. ‘You come for your tea? I left it out for you.
‘I don’t know who the poor little bugger belongs to,’ she tells me as she grabs her bag. ‘But they can’t love him enough; he comes round here all the time, begging for food, poor little kitty. I’ve started getting stuff in for him. Mikey loves him!’
‘Right,’ I say, looking at Jake, who is weaving himself in and out of Sarah’s legs as if he hasn’t got a care in the world, which he hasn’t.
‘Actually, there’s a tin of cat food in the kitchen. Would you mind putting it out for him?’
‘Not at all,’ I say, staring pointedly at Jake, who really isn’t bothered that he’s been caught cheating on me, red pawed.
‘Me, I understand,’ I say to Jake as Sarah goes out. I watch her for a moment jogging up the street after a bus. ‘But that you are so willing to trample on the memory of Melanie. Well, I’m shocked, Jake. Frankly, I’m shocked.’
Jake looks like he’s wondering why on earth I would be talking to a cat. I suppose he does have a point. Bracing myself, I go back into the room where Mikey is still murdering zombies.
‘She works hard, your mum,’ I say, but Mikey doesn’t respond.
‘You’re a bit pissed off that I’m here, aren’t you?’ I say, and he glances up at me, perhaps intrigued by my daring use of bad language. Well, if that’s what it takes to get his attention, I haven’t played all my cards yet. I’ve still got shit and fuck to show that I’m down with the kids. But, oh shit and fuck, who am I trying to kid? I wasn’t interested in hanging out with children when I was a kid myself. What really is the point of trying now?
‘I don’t need an adult to look after me,’ he says. ‘All the doors are locked, I won’t set fire to anything, I’ve got telly. You can go, I won’t tell her.’
‘How old are you?’ I ask him. From what I’ve seen of him, he could be anywhere between seven and forty-six.
‘I told you, I’m ten. Why, you pervert? Too old for you?’
‘My mum died when I was ten,’ I say.
‘So?’ He sounds harsh, but he puts his controller down, adding, ‘That’s crap, though, sorry.’
‘Where’s your dad?’ I ask, thinking of that huge sweatshirt his mum was wearing and what sort of a man it would take to fill it.
‘Not dead, worst luck,’ he says. And then after another moment, ‘I don’t know, I never met him. He was long gone before I was born. Mum says we don’t need a dad to be a family.’
I stand there, he sits there – neither of us especially making eye contact or knowing what to say next. And I am the adult and he is the child, so I suppose it’s up to me to make the effort.
‘Well, I said I’d feed this cat,’ I said.
‘Ninja is back?’ Mikey openly smiles for the first time since I’ve met him, and even looks like a ten-year-old for a moment. He scrambles to his feet, following me into the kitchen, which is clean and neat – much better ordered than mine. Jake is sitting on the table, waiting patiently. ‘I want to keep him, but Mum says that he belongs to someone, and it wouldn’t be right to, but he comes every night, and he’s such a soppy cat. He loves cuddles, don’t you, hey, Ninja? I call him Ninja because he’s jet black and you never hear him coming.’
‘Loves cuddles, does he?’ I am not convinced, but sure enough, as Mikey sits at the table, Jake all but throws himself into his arms and wraps himself around the boy’s neck, batting at his nose with his paw in a decidedly kittenish way. I squint a little, wondering for a second if this Ninja is actually another cat after all, but, no, it is definitely my black cat; there’s that little, minuscule flash of white on his front left paw that makes him look like he’s just brushed against some drying paint.
‘So he does,’ I say.
I put the ice-cream tub on the worktop and look through a few cupboards, which, although not overfull, are stocked carefully with rice, pasta, some potatoes marked down, and three tins of cat food.
‘What did your mum die of?’ Mikey asks me.
‘Oh, I don’t know, really,’ I say, because I am pretty sure that, despite all his front and bravado, he probably doesn’t want to know the details.
‘How can you not know?’ he says, and I think for a moment about how to answer.
‘Well, I was a kid. No one really talked to me much; I think they wanted to protect me. Mum was ill, which I never realised until much later, and then she died. And even though Dad loved to talk about her while he was alive, he didn’t like to talk about how it all happened. It made him too sad.’
‘So you’re an orphan now?’ Mikey rocks Jake like a child, and his tough little face softens a little, revealing those baby edges that are just about still present.
‘Well, technically, but I’m heading towards forty, so … I’m not about to burst into “The sun will come out tomorrow”.’
‘What?’ Mikey says, burying his face in Jake’s soft tummy.
I’m not surprised that he hasn’t heard of Annie, but I am surprised by how much his earlier statement has hit home, and the wave of sadness that wells up in my chest, taking me by surprise. I have to turn my back on him suddenly, sniffing as I search through drawers to find a can opener and blinking away a threatening tear as I spoon food into a bowl. This is stupid; this is not me. This is that stupid answerphone message and talking to kids about parents. I’m famously happy-go-lucky. I’m Mr Love Them and Leave Them if they get too keen. I don’t weep in some stranger’s kitchen. I take a breath and square my shoulders. Dad said a good cry never did anyone any harm – he’d cry at the drop of a hat, would Dad, the sentimental old bastard.
‘So she just died. Did you go to the funeral?’ Mikey asks. I take a second to compose myself. I am beginning to think children are like wild tigers: if you let them sense your weakness, they will pounce and rip your guts out.
‘Why do you want to know? I ask.
‘My granddad died, and Mum and my nan had this massive row, and we couldn’t go to the funeral. Mum took me to his grave, afterwards, when everyone else was gone. But it was just a big pile of soil. I couldn’t get my head around the fact that Granddad was somewhere under it.’ He nuzzles his face against Jake’s. ‘I’m sorry. You don’t have to tell me about your mum.’
‘I did go,’ I say. I remember the ice-cream tub and set it on the table, prising the lid off with a soft pop. Six delicious-looking chocolate cupcakes are nestled in the kitchen roll inside.
‘My mum makes the best cakes,’ Mikey says, waiting for me to take one before he does. ‘What was it like?’ he asks me. ‘Did you ball your eyes out? Sometimes I try and pretend that my dad is dead, and I try really hard to make myself cry, but I never do. Did you cry?’
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I cried a lot about it, for a long time.’ I consider attempting a little bit of male bonding. ‘I still cry a little bit now, sometimes.’
‘You are a sad case,’ Mikey says, quite gently, though.
‘Do you give your mother this attitude?’ I ask him.
‘Are you kidding me? You haven’t seen her when she’s mad.’ He shakes his head and wipes crumbs away from around his mouth. ‘The Incredible Hulk has got nothing on her.’
Dear Martin,
I’ve been thinking about it, and I’ve decided on Dawn for you. She’s no me, but she’s the best of a bad bunch. I know what you’re thinking – you’re thinking, bloody woman, trying to organise me from beyond the grave; will she never let me be? But, Martin, you and I both know you can’t find your own nose on your face without help. And I shan’t be resting in peace worrying about you wandering around with no good purpose. You are a man who needs to be managed, Martin, and I think Dawn’s our best bet.
Now, obviously you can’t just go round there and blurt it out, like you did when you asked me to marry you – face the colour of beetroot, stammering so hard it took
you a minute and a half to get to the point.
There’s got to be a period of mourning, Martin. I insist on it. The funeral, the wake. I want a proper, sad wake, everyone in black. No getting drunk, no turning it into a knees-up. Only tea to be served – I mean it, Martin.
Then I think six months on your own is sufficient. None of us are getting any younger, especially not you, and anyway a man in his prime, like you are, they’ll be all over you like flies over honey. Especially that Oona Norman, waving her bust around like an open invitation. You’d think at her age she’d know better, but between you and me, I don’t think there’s hope for that one. You might be tempted, Martin. I don’t doubt you will be, because you are a man, and men are very unimaginative when it comes to bedroom business and bosoms. But I know you, and I know that Oona won’t make you happy the way you need to be made happy. Oona won’t be hoovering under the sofas, Martin. There would be dustballs.
So once the six months is up, shave off that stupid beard, get your best suit out from the wardrobe – it’s just been dry-cleaned and I put it away with mothballs so it will need an airing (and, while I think about it, you’d better stay away from those French Fancies you like so much – you don’t want to be courting, bursting out of your trousers, do you?). Take yourself round to Dawn’s and ask her out for a coffee. Don’t take flowers or anything, and don’t say dinner. Strikes me that dinner might be too much too soon. Coffee, cinema, walks in the park, maybe a historical society talk, but not one on war. After a month or so, ask her to marry you. She’ll say yes – she’s been giving you the glad eye ever since we did that French evening at the club and you impressed her with your French O level. And she makes a nice roast, does Dawn.
Well, Martin, it’s been a good forty years, being married to you. You’re a good man, a good husband and father. You never let me down or hurt me. You made me laugh more than you made me cry, and I don’t suppose a woman can ask for much more, really.
Signing off now.
Yours,
Trudy
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
STELLA
The nearly full moon is shining brightly enough to battle away the perpetual orange haze, and the streets are very busy, still full of people who must have come out when the night was new. I don’t know why – normally in the last hour before dawn it’s quieter than this. There must be a big gig or a festival somewhere, where all the men have beards and the girls have hats.
I stop running ten minutes from home and slow to a walk – a dumb, stupid walk. It’s been a long night. A long, hard night full of grief and loss, and sadness that is almost too hard to witness, and I am tired. I am so very tired.
I stayed with Issy and her mum for a very long time – just sat there, holding Thea’s hand whilst she wept. The doctors came and went. Thea called the grandparents, who were looking after Issy’s sister, and after a while I slipped the letter that Issy had asked me to write into the cover of the book that was still by the side of her bed. I left discreetly, as Issy’s grandmother arrived, pausing to open a window before I left. Laurie was waiting for me by the desk, tears in her eyes. For a long time we hugged, keeping our own sadness contained between the two of us, because to let it slip out from the confines of our embrace would mean we weren’t doing our job properly.
‘We need to get on,’ Laurie sniffed after a minute or two – the first to break the embrace and smooth down the front of her tunic, reminding us that no matter how much sadness we felt, this grief did not belong to us. I nodded.
‘You’d better get some sleep,’ I told Hope, who I found crying, though it was a trite and foolish thing to say. ‘You know, the time you spent with her, it really helped. So don’t feel sad. You made a difference to her life. That would have meant a lot to her and her mum. You should feel good about that.’
Grace was not asleep when I went to check on her. She watched me work for a while, in silence, and then, reaching out, stilled my hand.
‘What happened?’ she asked me. ‘You look so sad. Sit down for a moment and talk to me.’
‘I’m not sad,’ I lied to her. ‘But you’re right, I’m tired. It’s been a long day.’ I tried to rise but she stopped me.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘A patient, a young girl, she passed away today. I’ve known her family for a long time. It … it’s always hard, but this time …’
‘I don’t know how you do it,’ she said. ‘How you let yourself care about people who you know will leave you. How it doesn’t drive you to drink.’ She smiles a little. ‘Mind you, everything used to drive me to drink.’
‘I do it because it feel like it matters,’ I tell her. ‘And I need something that I do in this world to matter. I feel sometimes as if … Well, here we are hurtling through space on a rock, and we’re trying, all of us struggling, to make something count during our lifetimes, and … how can it possibly, really count? How can what one person does change anything at all?’
‘Kindness changes everything,’ Grace said. ‘You can’t worry about the rest of the world, never mind the rest of the universe. All you can do is look to your left and your right and try to be kind to whoever is there. When I stopped thinking only about myself, and started to see all the people in the world who didn’t have anyone to make sure they mattered, that’s when my life started to mean something. I wish I hadn’t left it so long, but at least I got there in the end. I mattered. Have you still got my letter?’
I hesitated, not sure if tonight of all nights I had enough strength to bear witness to another person’s secrets, their hopes and fears and final wishes. But then Grace has no less need, and certainly no more time than anyone else. I knew she’d want to talk about it, from the moment that I wrote her words down; I’d been hoping that she would. And also hoping she would change her mind.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I promised I would keep it until it was time, although … maybe this is a letter that shouldn’t wait.’
‘You must think I am an awful person,’ she said. It was hard to answer that.
‘I know you are not an awful person,’ I told her. ‘I know you have given so much to so many people. An awful person doesn’t try to make amends as much as you have. But, Grace, time is so short, and you could … you could tell the truth, make amends, face-to-face, and wouldn’t that be better?’
‘For who? For me? I don’t deserve better, and I don’t want it. When you’ve made the choices I have, there is no second chance, no going back.’ She shifted uneasily in her bed, agitated.
‘Not even for him? What about him? It seems too cruel. Perhaps it would be better not to send the letter at all.’
Grace’s silver eyes seemed to travel over every inch of my face, taking in every detail, and I let her look at me, guessing she was making some assessment.
‘When I’m gone I need to know he’ll know the truth about me; I owe it to him. But not before I’m gone. You made me a promise. Can you keep it?’
‘I’ll try,’ I said. ‘It’s in my bag. If you want to take it back, then you can.’
‘Try hard. Let me pay for my mistakes now. I’ve been putting it off long enough. I need to pay.’
‘I promise,’ I said, seeing her distress rise. ‘I promise.’
‘You don’t hate me?’ she asked, tightening her squeeze on my fingers.
‘Of course not.’ I smiled sadly. ‘What makes you think yours are the worst secrets I’ve written down?’
She eyed me suspiciously.
‘Besides, does it matter to you that much, what I think?’ I asked her.
‘I suppose so,’ she said. ‘Because, even after all the good I’ve done, I still hate myself.’
And now I slow almost to a stop. Closing the last few metres between here and my front door is like pushing through a wall of dense, spongy fog; every step is an effort that I almost don’t want to make.
Yesterday I lay in our bed and watched the daylight creep in through the gaps in the curtains and track its way across the green-pain
ted wall. It was painted that colour when we moved in, and it was going to be my job to decorate it, change our bedroom into a sexy boudoir while Vincent was on his last tour. I’d bought the paint: a deep charcoal grey and a luscious deep pink; I’d even found a video on YouTube that was going to tell me how to paper my feature wall. I knew that I’d make a mess of it and that all the time I was painting and papering I’d compose funny stories in my head, for Vincent – to tell him when we spoke next, to make him laugh and shake his head and roll his eyes. But the paint sits in unopened tins at the bottom of the bed, next to four rolls of wallpaper printed with huge great chrysanthemums. The day after I bought the paper and paint, Vincent and his patrol were ambushed. And the walls stayed green.
As I lay there, I listened for any noise from downstairs, and hoped for a sound on the stairs that would tell me that Vincent was coming – coming to take back his words, and hold me and say he was sorry, that he loved me after all. But there was only silence, so I closed my eyes and made it dark, but I still didn’t sleep. And I couldn’t stop thinking about the letter, Grace’s letter, and all the hurt and lies that it laid bare. Somehow, in the non-night, and the not-sleep, and the hours that stretched one after the other, punctuated only by the dull, constant ache in my lower back, her letter and Vincent’s words became tangled up together, as if the decision she trusted me to make meant something else. As if whatever ever happened next would change everything. And yet, nothing was supposed to happen next, at least not until after Grace was gone. I’d promised her. I promised I wouldn’t send the letter until she was gone, and everything after that is none of my business.
Except that by then it will be too late. Too late for Grace, too late for the man she wrote it to, and somehow – I don’t know how or why I know or think this – too late for me as well.
Usually I can run through anything – sickness, exhaustion, injury – but not tonight. Sadness drags at my heels, slowing me almost to a stop. I stand at the top of the road leading to our house. This is usually my favourite part of the run, the part where gravity makes me fly and I plummet, almost free-fall, towards the quiet tranquil safety of my bed. But now I want nothing more than to sit down on the wet pavement and hope the rain will wash me away, layer by layer. And I think about what it would be like to slip down the drain, and to finally be lost at sea – to be nothing in a great expanse of never-ending water.
We Are All Made of Stars Page 12
