Seeing Stars

by Christina Jones

  Amber giggled. ‘And Zillah is so happy, isn’t she?’

  ‘Yeah,’ he nodded. ‘She is. Really happy and carefree for the first time in my life – which, at first, totally pissed me off, but then I thought that was bloody selfish of me. I’ve always been secure. I know how much she loves me. The love she felt – feels – has always felt for Clancy, is different.’

  Amber really, really wanted to cuddle him. She managed not to. ‘And you always wanted to know who he was, and why he wasn’t around – and now you know everything.’

  ‘More than I ever imagined. It would make a great weepy film, wouldn’t it? All that time they wasted, loving each other, unable to love anyone else – and I never knew Ma had been to Oxford or any of that. She had a whole secret life. How amazing is that? Christ! So much stuff has come tumbling out of the closet …’

  ‘But you’re OK with it?’

  ‘Getting there.’ He looked at her. ‘I can understand now, that with a secret as huge as that, the longer you leave it to talk about, the more impossible it becomes. I suppose if Ma had told me about it all when I was little, it would have simply become part of my life. I’d’ve accepted it and not thought too much more about it. But she didn’t – and then there was never going to be a right time.’

  ‘I think she’s been amazingly brave,’ Amber said. ‘And the way she was with me when I arrived – it all makes sense now. Gwyneth and Ida and everyone, including me, thought she loathed all your girlfriends and was pathologic-ally jealous of them, whereas all she really wanted to do was protect them from you.’

  ‘Cheers.’

  Amber shook her head. ‘No, sorry – badly put – but you know what I mean. She knew you looked like Clancy and obviously thought you were going to behave like him, too. Or at least how she thought he’d behaved. Which in turn made her fiercely protective underneath all that dreamy sadness, and no one really knew why.’

  Lewis nodded. ‘Yeah – you’re right. And most of it has fallen into place now. But I’ve always been dead proud of Ma, doing what she did for me, giving me the life she did – now I’m more than proud. And if this doesn’t sound too wet for words, it is a truly romantic story, isn’t it? Ma and Clancy? They really were made for one another.’

  ‘Yes, they were,’ Amber said, with a lump in her throat. ‘I hope they spend the rest of their lives making up for the lost years and being happy. Do you think he’ll move into Chrysalis with her?’

  ‘No idea. He’s got a place in Henley, which isn’t that far away. Maybe after all those years of living apart they’ll just sort of move between the two? It’ll be strange for them both, I guess, living together after all this time of having their own space. Whatever they decide, as long as it’s what they want and they’re together, I’ll be happy.’

  ‘Honestly?’

  ‘Yeah, honestly,’ he nodded. ‘Mind you, I have told him that if he ever hurts her, then I’ll kill him.’

  ‘Right – OK – and what did he say to that?’

  ‘That if he did, then I’d have every right, but that he never, ever will. And I believe him. He worships her. Adores her.’ Lewis laughed. ‘It sounds odd, doesn’t it? Like suddenly I’m the parent, the carer, the protector, anxious that my beloved offspring should be making the right life choices?’

  ‘I think it sounds as if you’re a thoroughly nice man, who has been brought up exactly right, with a fair set of values, and a caring, compassionate and generous heart – which is, after all, why you do the job you do at Hayfields so brilliantly.’

  ‘Christ!’ Lewis laughed. ‘And that makes me sound like the most boring paragon on the planet!’

  ‘Oh, no – you’ll never be that.’

  ‘There is one thing I do regret about all this, though,’ Lewis said wistfully. ‘Just one.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘That along with all the other obvious stuff I’ve inherited from Clancy, I haven’t got a bloody musical bone in my body. I could have made a fortune – not to mention the groupies …’ He sighed, then grinned at her. ‘Anyway, enough about all that for tonight – there’s something I want to show you.’

  He held out his hand but she didn’t take it. Couldn’t. She simply followed him along the side of the stream, skirting the crowds, past the bridge, ducking under the willows, until they reached a clearing.

  ‘Lay down.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Lay down,’ he grinned at her. ‘Just do it. Please.’

  ‘OK, but I didn’t think we had this sort of relationship. And I’ll have you know I’m not the kind of girl who—’

  ‘Amber –’ he was laughing ‘– shut up and lay down. On your back.’

  Giggling, she did and he lay beside her, mere inches away, so that she could feel the warmth of his skin, smell the lemon of his shampoo and shower gel mingling with the scent of the crushed thyme and baked earth.

  ‘There,’ he pointed upwards. ‘Isn’t that sensational.’

  She stared up at the sky.

  It was a vast, never-ending canopy, the deepest blue-black, and the stars, millions of them, were a giant’s throw of glittering, brilliant, three-dimensional diamonds.

  ‘There’s nothing – or almost nothing – more beautiful than an August sky,’ Lewis said softly. ‘Nature has all the best shows.’

  Amber didn’t speak. It was enough to simply stare upwards at the celestial glory with him beside her. She felt as though her body was floating towards the sky, that she only had to stretch out a hand and she’d be able to catch the stars in her fingers. It was as if time and space no longer existed. It was simply stunning: primeval and wondrous and out of this world.

  ‘Leo is the August constellation,’ Lewis said, also still gazing upwards, ‘both in astronomy and astrology. He’s also, conveniently, the god of the elements which is why we have Leo’s Lightning tonight.’

  ‘It’s wonderful,’ Amber whispered. ‘Do you know, I’ve never looked at the sky like this before. Never seen it. Just taken it all for granted.’

  ‘We all do that with familiar things. It’s only when you start to peel back the layers and look at what you’ve got that you realise …’ he stopped. ‘Yes, well, you know what I mean.’

  Amber turned her head to look at him. He was smiling at her, his eyes gentle.

  She took a deep breath. ‘Lewis—’

  ‘Sorry to break up the party,’ a wheedling voice hissed from above them, ‘but I don’t suppose either of you has got a spare fag?’

  ‘Bugger off, Slo!’ Lewis groaned, rolling over and sitting up. ‘And no we haven’t.’

  Amber sat up too, the moment of astral enchantment shattered.

  ‘Do you think Martha or any of the Hayfields lot will have a fag?’ Slo looked twitchy. ‘Those bloody do-gooding cousins of mine have found the stash in the Weasel’s lavs. Flushed the lot. Mean witches.’

  ‘No one at Hayfields smokes,’ Lewis said, picking dried grass out of his jeans. ‘But if it’s any good to you, I do know Goff keeps a few cigars tucked away for special occasions.’

  ‘Does he?’ Slo frowned. ‘Sly old fox! I never knew that. So, ’e has them on him, does he?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Carries them all the time.’

  ‘Thanks, young Lewis, you’re a pal’ Slo beamed, marching purposefully away into the darkness.

  ‘He doesn’t, does he?’ Amber chuckled. ‘Goff, I mean. Keep a few choice Havanas about his person?’

  ‘Probably not,’ Lewis agreed cheerfully. ‘But he might – and it got rid of Slo, didn’t it? Now, where were we?’

  ‘I don’t know where you were –’ Martha, the Hayfields housemother, bustled up in a matronly way, looming over them like a beomoth in the gloom ‘– although I can probably hazard a pretty good guess, but they’re just about to start the Leo’s Lightning thing proper and Jem won’t do it without you.’ Turning on the heel of her sturdy Mary-Jane’s, she gave Amber a cursory glance. ‘Sorry, love – duty calls.’

  ‘Sometim
es,’ Lewis grumbled, standing up and brushing the remaining grass from his jeans, ‘I really, really hate this place.’

  Amber, itching to join in the jeans-brushing but managing to resist, also stood up. ‘You don’t mean that.’

  ‘No,’ Lewis grinned. ‘I don’t. What about you?’

  ‘Me? Oh, I hate it so much that I’ve decided to take up Mitzi’s offer of a permanent job, start the day-release course at college in Winterbrook, stay for the foreseeable future …’

  ‘Really?’ Lewis’s face was inscrutable. ‘That’s great news – Jem will be ecstatic.’

  They slithered towards the main throng, everyone standing up now, almost visibly twitching with anticipation. Amber could see the entire village gathered in the blackness and then some.

  All except Zillah and Clancy.

  Lucky so-and-sos, she thought. Bet they won’t need any celestial incantations to bring on the fireworks tonight.

  The sky was still huge and clear, the stars a trillion twinkling sequins, the moon perfectly unshrouded by even the merest wisp of cloud. There was still no breeze, no hint of any to come, nothing to relieve the thumping, sticky humidity. In fact, no chance whatsoever, Amber thought, of Leo coming up with the goods.

  They plucked a beaming Jem away from the Hayfields crowd, and each holding a hand, made sure he didn’t stumble.

  ‘What do we do now, then?’ Amber asked.

  ‘Skip,’ Lewis said, straight-faced.

  ‘What?’

  ‘We all hold hands and skip.’

  ‘You’re having a laugh.’ Amber frowned up at him. ‘Aren’t you?’

  Jem shook his head, grinning hugely.

  Amber exhaled, thankful that no one who knew her from her trance and house days in the northern nightclubs could see her now. Skipping? Holding hands and skipping?

  With a lot of scuffling, and swapping places, and several small arguments, the throng seemed to eventually organise themselves into two huge circles, one inside the other. Somehow, in the organising, Jem was now between Lewis and Billy Grinley and Amber found herself rather disconcertingly holding Dougie Patchcock’s hand on one side and Lewis’s on the other.

  Sod’s law, she thought, that the first time they had any sort of physical contact it had to be in the company of about 8,000 other people and when she had exceedingly sweaty hands.

  However, the tingle when his fingers laced with hers was well worth the wait.

  They seemed almost ready to go, everyone practically quivering to let rip, when a small melee in the inner circle halted things.

  Slo and Goff were rolling over and over on the ground, scuffling like badgers.

  ‘He was trying to mug me!’ Goff yelled indignantly, glaring malevolently with his one eye. ‘He had his hands in me pockets!’

  Amber sucked her lips together to prevent the shriek of laughter escaping and didn’t dare look at Lewis. She could feel him shaking.

  Once Constance and Perpetua had broken up the fight and Slo and Goff, still glaring at one another were sulkily forced to hold hands like sworn enemies at a children’s party, they were off.

  The concentric circles skipped in opposite directions, faster and faster, like a manic game of The Farmer’s In His Den. Amber’s feet seemed to have left the ground and as they ran and whooped and skipped, round and round, increasing in speed until the faces were a blur.

  She really hoped she wouldn’t be sick.

  Just when she felt she really couldn’t keep up the pace any longer, and wondered how on earth old people like Gwyneth and Ida managed to cope with the G-force, and if Jem’s pentangle would have her eye out, everyone started singing:

  Leo’s Lightning

  Nothing Frightening

  Send us rain

  Send us rain

  Bring the storms, bring the gale

  Bring the thunder, bring the hail

  Leo listen

  Let rain hissen

  It would never make the charts, Amber thought dizzily, although it might go down a storm on Eurovision.

  Then as quickly as the Fiddlestickers had started the mad skipping, they stopped.

  Several people fell over. Amber, now suffering from a severe case of vertigo, staggered to a halt, pulling away from Dougie Patchcock but still managing to hold Lewis’s hand.

  ‘Jesus …’ she muttered groggily as the village green continued to spin.

  Jem grabbed her free hand to steady himself, gurgling happily.

  ‘He loves Leo’s night,’ Lewis said faintly, still swaying. ‘Loves the skipping and the singing. Although, personally, I’d prefer to feel like this after thirteen pints of Hearty Hercules and a kebab … What?’ He looked down at Jem. ‘Oh, yeah. Nice.’

  Billy Grinley was being discreetly sick on Perpetua’s sandals.

  The Fiddlestickers, all tottering, slowly began to disperse towards The Weasel and Bucket. Right now, Amber thought, alcohol was surely the last thing they needed. However, she was delighted to see that Gwyneth and Big Ida were amongst them, still on their feet.

  ‘Is that it?’ She blinked at Lewis. ‘All over?’

  ‘Actually, I think it’s only just begun.’

  She thought she’d misheard him. Her inner ears weren’t back on track. Surely he didn’t mean …? Hadn’t meant …? No, of course not. Get a grip. Don’t fall for it. Don’t become a bedpost notch. Don’t become another Lewis Flanagan conquest. Fight it. You’re friends – it’s better than nothing. Far better than the alternative.

  Impatiently, Jem tugged on her hand and pointed at the sky.

  ‘What? Yep, the stars are fabulous.’ Amber pulled herself quickly together. ‘But Jem, sweetheart, much as I know this will probably get me burned at the stake round here, I’m feeling very queasy and right now I’ve had just as much of stars as anyone can take – so … bloody hell!’

  The Fiddlestickers had all paused on their wobbling pubward journey. Everyone was looking upwards.

  The sky was no longer blue velvet with a drift of diamonds: it was dark and angry, the moon being swallowed up by billows of heavy, towering clouds. Black on black.

  The willow trees started to shiver as a breeze rustled across the green. The temperature dropped a few degrees as the first heavy raindrops fell.

  Amber shook her head. ‘No way. Absolutely no way – oh, flipping heck!’

  The skies literally opened. It was as if some giant hand had ripped the clouds apart.

  The rain fell in a blinding torrent, bouncing from the parched ground, shuddering and thundering through the trees.

  The Fiddlestickers screamed with delight, most running towards the pub, a few simply standing, heads tipped back, allowing the downpour to sluice away the weeks of heat.

  ‘Come on,’ Lewis shouted, holding her hand more tightly. ‘We’ll shelter under the trees. No, trust me Jem – it won’t thunder and lightning. At least not yet – the trees will be safe … Come on!’

  They ran, the three of them, slipping and sliding across the now treacherous green, the rain drenching them in seconds, towards the nearest of the willows.

  Beneath the tree the noise was amazing: a roaring waterfall, gushing past them, drumming, pounding, as the rain dragged the sweetest perfume from the baked earth.

  Lewis, his hair plastered to his head, pulled Jem against the trunk, his arm round him. ‘OK mate?’

  Jem, grinning delightedly, nodded, catching raindrops in his hands as they flowed from the tips of the branches.

  ‘And you?’ Lewis looked at Amber. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Me?’ She wiped the rain away from her face, and blinked drops from her eyes. There were mud splatters up her legs, her clothes were saturated and her hair was in rat’s tails. She looked a wreck. ‘Do you know, I don’t think I’ve ever been happier in my life.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Shine on Harvest Moon

  ‘Shine on Harvest Moon …’

  In the bar everyone took up the chorus even though it was only e
arly evening, and although growing dark outside, the moon was still nowhere to be seen.

  September already, Amber thought, as she helped Mitzi with the final cling-filming in The Weasel and Bucket’s kitchen. Where on earth had the time gone?

  September – still warm, but fresher now since the welcome rain of the last month, with its brilliant blue and golden mornings and hazy purple dusks. The trees just starting to change colour and the promise of darker nights and crackling fires and cosy Christmas to come.

  September – the end of her fourth month in Fiddlesticks and she couldn’t imagine ever living anywhere else.

  Fiddlesticks, and the villagers, and, yes – the star ceremonies, she’d accept that now – had changed her life.

  They’d changed her, too.

  ‘All done?’ Timmy popped his head round the door. ‘Enough to feed several armies?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ Mitzi nodded. ‘And all the proper stuff – nothing too OTT. All very suitable for tonight’s “all is safely gathered in” motif. The best of Granny Westward’s harvest home recipes. Loads of banana and tomato – although not together because I tried that and it looked like vomit – and pea and ginger, and carrot and grapes and olives, and peaches and marrow and pomegranate and—’

  Timmy held up his hands, laughing. ‘Stop right there. It sounds like something Fern concocts and calls a curry.’

  ‘Look at you,’ Mitzi grinned. ‘You only have to mention her name and you’re all gooey-eyed. Going well, is it?’

  ‘Blissfully,’ Timmy sighed ecstatically, drifting out again to serve yet another can’t-wait-a-minute-longer customer.

  ‘Right – that’s us done, love,’ Mitzi said, patting Amber’s hand. ‘You’ve been a godsend. Or maybe that should be a St Bedric-send?’

  Amber laughed. ‘Crikey – that seems so long ago. But yes, maybe. I mean – this – all this, is what I asked him for with my first very sceptical green-cheese wish.’

  ‘Mmmm, but don’t forget what I’ve always said about this practical magic stuff: you’ve got to know how to use it. True, some of the manifestations are totally inexplicable, but I still maintain the magic – herbal or celestial – only gives you a shove in the right direction. Yes, it makes things happen – I don’t doubt that for a minute. Not any more. But when it does, the rest of it is up to you. And you –’ Mitzi smiled ‘– have used it wisely. Anyway, I’m off for a shower and a cuddle with Joel – if I’m lucky and he’s not wrestling with a wisdom tooth – and we’ll no doubt see you later. I can’t wait for this Harvest Moon festival. Having a real, live band will make it one the village’ll never forget.’