When Stars Collide

by Tammy Robinson

  “You don’t mean that”

  “No” she said quietly, but it was just to appease him. Inside she thought, I’ve never meant anything more.

  But for once he could not read her thoughts, so he believed her and simply reached out and touched the hand she had rested on the back of the chair and flinched at how ice cold it was, as if the blood had frozen in her veins.

  The service was, as far as services go, a beautiful one. The minister spoke at length about the tragedy that had happened and how it affected those left behind. He managed to squeeze enough religious matter into the ceremony to make a few people restless, but he knew how to read his audience and kept it to a minimum. Some of the family members spoke. Describing their lost loved one through tears, or reading passages highlighted from poetry journals that spoke of angels and were designed to offer some comfort.

  Ivy drew none.

  Throughout the service she remained steadfast. People expected tears but she had none left to give. She felt as if she were observing herself and this service from a distance. Like it was happening to someone else. None of this felt real anymore. She was certain that at some point she would wake up and this would all have been a bad dream. There was simply no believing that she would never see her mother or sister ever again, it just wasn’t possible. Never see their smiling faces? Hear their voice, feel their touch, enjoy their presence? How could this be?

  What could she have ever done to deserve such a fate?

  What did they ever do?

  There was no understanding for her. So she retreated into herself and went into denial. If she didn’t allow herself to think about it then maybe it hadn’t happened.

  So she sat, and she listened and she watched. She sang along when the moment called for it, or rather she mouthed the words that danced in black and white on the song sheet tucked inside the service one. Singing was awkward at the best of times let alone at a funeral. From beside her came the deep and melodious tones of her grandfather. She could feel them vibrate through her chest to her heart. He was all she had left in the world.

  No - don’t think about that.

  She chose a purple sprig of lavender from the basket she was offered and she followed the queue up to the table where she placed the lavender on the box containing all that was left in this world of her mother and sister.

  I’ll take you home again soon, she promised them.

  She observed the other boxes of ashes impartially; unable to reconcile their contents with the tanned, healthy women she had drunk/eaten/swum with not too long ago.

  In the background she heard one of her mother’s favourite songs, an acoustic duet by Dan Fogelberg and Emmylou Harris and for the first time tears threatened. A vivid vision sprang into her mind; her mother, last Christmas, eyes closed, glass of sherry in hand, swaying gently to the music while June and Ivy argued over the dishes, flicking each other with tea towels. Leo and Craig had retired to the longue with glasses of whiskey.

  “I bags doing the washing” Ivy said laughing, darting round the breakfast island and out of June’s reach.

  “No way, you always do the washing. I hate drying.”

  “Me too, that’s why I bags doing the washing.”

  “I’m the oldest so I should get to choose first.”

  “Yeah right, the baby of the family gets first choice, i.e. me.”

  “I think we should let mum decide.”

  “Fine.”

  They both turned to Pat expectantly, pouts at the ready, prepared to plead their case. Only to find she hadn’t been listening, instead lost in her own world to the music.

  “Mum?”

  “Hmm?”She opened her eyes, moistened and glistening with tears.

  “We can’t agree on who has to wash the dishes.”

  She smiled, wiped away one escaping tear, “leave them,” she said, “and come here.”

  They went to her and she took them both in her arms, pulling them close and the three of them swayed together to the music, enjoying the beautiful lyrics and the feeling of sanctuary their little family provided.

  The memory of the feel of her mother was so vivid she started to gulp and hiccup awkwardly, her breath deserting her under the onslaught of sobs, and she was seized with a longing so violent she doubled over from the strength of it.

  “I love you girls so much.”

  “Ivy? Are you ok?” Walt asked, concerned.

  “We love you too mum.”

  “Ivy?”

  “I can’t be here, I have to go, I have to get out of here, I can’t breathe –” she stammered, clawing at the collar of her dress as if it were squeezing and restricting her neck.

  ‘I’ll come with you.”

  “No.”

  And then she was gone, walking away, the distance ever increasing between them. He watched as she moved quickly away from the service. Something tugged at his hair and he noticed an angry breeze had kicked up as if someone had flicked a switch, whirling and diving through the crowd, seizing service sheets and sending them dancing along the grass. People tried to talk to her as she passed them but again she ignored them and something in her manner told them that this was not the time so they let her go, and their attention turned back to people who were more willing to converse.

  But Walt never took his eyes off her, and he watched as she reached the edge of the reserve where she paused in her tracks and he could sense her deliberation. Her mind changed as quickly as the weather had and she turned and headed for the beach instead. He realised that she was heading for the estuary and the treehouse. The tide had turned but was still very high and he thought surely she would realise she was unable to cross at this moment. To his horror though, she stopped only long enough to peel off her shoes and throw them on to the bank, then she was in the water, as if she were in bathers rather than fully clothed, already up to her thighs before he finally reacted and started to run.

  The wind sensed his urgency and aided him, lifting his feet and pushing him so that he made up the distance quickly, but still not quickly enough as the water was now up to her chest and he could see that she was starting to struggle and that beneath the surface the currents had embraced her legs and were pulling and tugging at her, dragging her towards the mouth and the open sea.

  “Ivy I’m coming,” he screamed but the words were whipped away into the swirling airstream and she heard nothing.

  Out in the water, Ivy felt no fear. She hadn’t intended this to happen, not consciously anyway. She had thought the water might reach up to her waist at most, but it was now at her armpits and small waves were slapping at her face so that she started to swallow sea water not air, and it made her cough and choke. She curled her toes and tried to dig them into the sand and mud but the water was having none of that, and her feet were pulled out from underneath her.

  Just let go.

  The voice was not that of her mother, or June. It was her own voice and she obeyed it without question, relaxing and letting her body succumb to the water. Closing her eyes she remembered the water in Bali; warm and gentle on her body. This water was wilder, mischievous, and determined to claim her. It took her swiftly and she let it, deciding that this is what was meant to have happened all along. She wasn’t supposed to survive the bombing but somehow she had. She’d cheated death, and now it had come to claim her.

  It was strangely peaceful, dying. She wasn’t scared this time. She felt the water trying to get into her lungs and she wasn’t going to fight it.

  But then,

  “Ivy! Grab onto me - ”

  The voice was muffled as if from a distance. She felt detached; it didn’t concern her. She felt arms snake around her waist, a shoulder for her head, hands holding her across her ribs firmly. Strong hands. A vice like grip, almost painful.

  “Ivy, please baby, I need you to try and swim.”

  But her eyes stayed closed, and she ignored the voice.

  I’m coming mum.

  “Ivy! Swim darling, swim!”

&
nbsp; But she stayed heavy and motionless in his arms, and then Walt knew he would have to do the work for both of them, so he stopped trying to get through to her and concentrated on getting them both to shore, one stroke at a time. With an arm around Ivy he fought the water, cursing it, and it felt like hours passed before he looked up and saw he was making progress, the far side of the estuary was tantalisingly close and with renewed determination he kept going, and going, until his foot hit the bottom and with a few more strokes he could stand with both feet and then he pulled and he dragged her from out of the waters grasp.

  He collapsed onto the shore with her in his arms while he caught his breath, rubbing her face and arms and shaking her and calling her name over and over until finally, with a few splutters she coughed and he rolled her over and patted her back like he’d seen them do in movies, while she vomited out a small amount of sea water on to the sand.

  “Oh thank god you’re ok,” he breathed, sagging back onto his heels but not letting her go.

  “Of course I’m ok,” she said, as casually as if nothing had happened, but her eyes couldn’t meet his.

  “Are you for real? You could have drowned!” he said angrily, frightened at how close he had come to losing her yet again.

  “Hardly,” she sat up, struggling away from him, “you’re being dramatic. I was fine.”

  “You were not fine. You were nearly swept out to sea.” He couldn’t believe she was downplaying what had just happened.

  “Well I wasn’t, I’m here and I’m safe, so let it go.”

  He closed his eyes and turned his face skyward; made himself take five deep breaths to calm himself down before he let himself speak.

  “I can’t,” he said. “I’m worried about you. Your grandfather is worried about you.”

  “What do you want me to say? You both know what I’ve been through,” she said, her voice cracking as it always did when she had to speak about what had happened.

  “We want to help you. You need to let us help you to get through this. You can’t deal with it on your own.”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Ivy,” he sighed, “I’m not going anywhere if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  She flinched but again, said nothing, just started to cry, her shoulders heaving and her sobs lost against the pounding of the waves on the shore.

  “Baby,” he moved behind her and drew her close, wrapping his arms and his legs around her and pulling her against his chest, forming a protective circle around her. They sat joined like that for a time, while the salt spray coated their skin and she shivered, her soaked clothing offering little protection from the elements. He squeezed her against him tighter.

  “I love you. That’s never going to change. Let me be here for you,” he said.

  And her answer was so quiet that he couldn’t make out the words and he had to murmur in her ear and ask her to repeat them.

  “You can’t say that.” she said again, louder.

  “Can’t say what?”

  “That you’ll be here for me, forever.”

  “Ivy I can, and I will. I mean it, I’m not going anywhere. Since the moment I saw you at that party I knew what was going to happen. I love you, I will always love you, don’t you believe me?”

  She made to pull away but he gripped tighter.

  ‘No,” he said firmly, “you have to stop running away from me.”

  “My mother said the same thing,” Ivy said, her tone flat.

  “What?”

  “That she’d love me forever. That she would always be there for me.”

  And what could he say to that? He wasn’t a particularly religious person, so he chose to rehash some of the things he’d heard people say at the service.

  “She’s still here Ivy, in one form or another. She’s always going to be watching over you.”

  But without any belief in the platitudes they sounded hollow and stupid even to him and he regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth.

  “That’s bullshit.” she said angrily.

  “I know, I’m sorry.” he tried to backtrack

  “As far as fucked up things you can say to someone who has lost their whole world, that’s right up there with ‘it was just their time’, or ‘everything happens for a reason’.”

  “I agree –”

  “I’m so sick of people saying that shit to me.”

  He was taken aback, not used to her swearing so much or the anger that radiated in her voice. He regretted the words he’d carelessly thrown at her.

  “I’m sorry Ivy, I didn’t mean –”

  “If one more person tells me that my mum died for a reason I won. It’s all so wrong and unfair and screwed up. Mum, June, the others – they were all so innocent and just having fun you know? They didn’t deserve what happened, it’s not fair.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  “What had they ever done to deserve this? They should be here! They’ve been robbed of so much, so many things. June will never be a mum now –”

  And then she stopped talking, because she couldn’t form any words through her tears and the raw, guttural cries that were coming from her throat.

  She closed her eyes and tried to block the horrible memories of that night from her mind but she couldn’t. Every time she closed her eyes she was back there. She forced herself to remember the good times; when she was small and her mother would wait at the letterbox for her after school, scooping her up into her arms with a smile and asking her about her day as she carried her inside. When she would wake crying from a nightmare and her mother would be there, soothing her with her touch and her voice and her kisses, and she would take her back to her own bed and she would snuggle up beside her mother and feel safe.

  So many memories, each one treasured yet painful to recall, now that she knew there would be no more memories to be made.

  It hurt.

  It hurt really, really, bad.

  She was angry and she was heartbroken and she ached; a physical sensation in her chest where she imagined her heart would be.

  And she couldn’t see how it would ever stop hurting.

  Chapter seventeen

  In the days that followed the service Walt respected Ivy’s request for some time alone. Even though it was unbearable for him not to be near her and he tortured himself with wondering how she was, he stayed away.

  His flatmate thought he was nuts for wanting to stick by her.

  “Dude” he said, “she’s bound to be so messed up by what happened. You should take advantage of the fact she doesn’t want to see you and let this one go”

  Walt told him to mind his own business, although in much less polite terms, and they stopped speaking for a few days.

  But even though he stayed away, he text her a few times every day, just to tell her that he was thinking of her and that he missed her. To tell her again how much he loved her and that he could be there in a flash if she so desired. And she even text back occasionally, thanking him. Telling him she missed him too and that she would let him know when she felt up to seeing him.

  To Walt, every minute felt like an hour, each hour a day.

  He barely slept, taking to walking the streets at night, letting his feet lead him to her house where he stood outside and leaned against a streetlamp, watching the light in her bedroom window which stayed on all night. He knew that inside she was probably not sleeping either, and the light was her protection against dark dreams and memories. His feet itched to take him to her but he turned them away and headed to the beach instead, cooling the itch in the water and eventually sleeping in the dunes until the dawn against his eyelids aroused him and he hurried home to change and drink coffee before heading off to classes.

  He barely ate, surviving on coffee and the occasional meal his mother delivered to him. She was very concerned for her son.. She felt for Ivy, she really did, but her first priority was Walt. While she accepted she couldn’t protect him from heartbreak, she determined to be there for hi
m when it all fell apart.

  Sometimes, when he was really missing her, it was all he could do to remember to breathe.

  Chapter eighteen

  Somehow Ivy made it through the days immediately following the service and her near drowning. She briefly considered becoming an alcoholic; after all it seemed to be acceptable to turn to drink in movies when coping with something such as what she had been through. From what she’d heard, it numbed the senses, and she welcomed such a promise.

  She took a bottle of vodka from her grandfather’s liquor cabinet to her room and after the initial burn it went down very easily. It worked too, for a few hours she forgot the pain, and the vodka enabled her to pass into a deep, dreamless sleep for the first time since it had happened. But when she woke the next morning she felt the sickest she’d ever felt in her life, and she spent the majority of the day hugging the toilet bowel and vomiting while a concerned Leo hovered outside the door, oblivious to the cause and asking her more than once if she needed him to call an doctor, an offer she politely refused.

  She paced the house furiously, unable to sit still for any length of time, yet unwilling to leave the house and run the risk of bumping into people who would tilt their heads concernedly, and ask her gently ‘how she was going’, and ‘was she hanging in there ok?’

  Because they didn’t actually want to hear the truth, that she was only hanging on by the tinniest of threads, and that sometimes, when the screams in her head were really loud she actually considered the thought that she might be going crazy. They didn’t really want to hear that so she would just nod and say she was, ‘doing ok thanks,’ and agree with them that yes, she would ‘get there’ eventually.

  She didn’t believe really believe that though.

  She missed her mother and her sister with every single heartbeat. Everywhere she turned was a reminder of them. Physical reminders like the two chairs at the table where they had sat. Those two chairs stared accusingly at her every time she tried to sit and eat at her grandfather’s insistence.