The Brightest Star in the Sky

by Marian Keyes

  Day 25 . . .

  “Why don’t you have a boyfriend?” Conall asked, into the silence.

  They’d been lying without speaking, his leg thrown across Lydia’s legs, the weight of it pinning her to the bed. Lydia was speechless and happy, as much because of the size of the bed as the sex.

  “What makes you think I don’t have one?”

  “We wouldn’t be doing this if you had, right?”

  “Is that how it works?” Even to herself she sounded hard done-by. Although she didn’t care about Gilbert any more—and she discovered that she really didn’t—her pride was still a bit wounded: who would have thought he was off riding other girls?

  “What?” Conall was suddenly interested.

  “I did have a boyfriend until about a month ago.”

  “But?”

  “But I accidentally slept with my flatmate.”

  “What?” Conall sat up, he was so startled.

  “Yeah, I accidentally slept with my flatmate.”

  “How often? Just the once?”

  “Just the once. Apart from one or two other times. It was like the damage was done, you know? We might as well. You know?”

  Conall looked far from happy.

  “So are you still sleeping with him?”

  “Well, not right now, obviously.”

  When Conall made no pretense of a smile she said, “I’m not sleeping with him at all.”

  He nodded. He seemed satisfied.

  “Except for when it happens.” Lydia felt she’d better add that.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Sometimes it just happens. If I bump into him in the kitchen . . .” She shrugged. “Or the living room. That sort of thing.”

  “How many times has it just happened?”

  “Four.”

  “Four?”

  “I think four. It might be a bit more.”

  She’d lost count after nine.

  “He’s your boyfriend.”

  Lydia laughed. “Listen to yourself, you’re like a possessive . . .” She searched her head for the word with the correct quantity of scorn. “. . . girl. He’s not my boyfriend. We don’t have conversations. We don’t even like each other. A bit like you and me.”

  “But I do like you.”

  “Well, I don’t like you.” Although that was no longer strictly true.

  “When we had sex there, was it like you and . . . what’s your man’s name?”

  “Andrei.” No. Nothing could compare with the sex with Andrei. “Listen to me, Conall. Andrei and me, it’s not real life.”

  “It’s mind-blowing, isn’t it?” Conall said.

  She waited before replying, not sure what to say. But why would she lie? “Well, yeah. But I don’t even like him. It’s nothing. Nothing,” she repeated. “Now let’s go to sleep. I’ve to get up very early.”

  “So have I.”

  “How early do you have to get up?”

  He eyed her. “Five-thirty. I’m going to Milan.”

  “So late? God, I’ll have half a day’s work done by then. What are you doing in Milan?”

  “Taking over a company.”

  “Easy for some.”

  “Milan is just the first stop. Then I’m going to Malaysia.”

  “Taking over another company there?”

  “Same company. Their HQ is in Milan but most of their operations are in Southeast Asia.” He braced himself for a barrage of anxious questions: how long would he be gone? When would he be back? How was she meant to endure his absence?

  “Conall?”

  “Mmmm?” Here we go.

  “How do I turn off your stupid lights?”

  “. . . Ah . . . clap twice.”

  “No. I’d feel stupid. You do it.”

  Conall clapped his hands and darkness fell.

  “Can I say something?” Lydia said into the silence.

  “What?”

  “Oh nothing. Just that you looked quite stupid. Lying there with nothing on, clapping like a madzer.”

  “Goodnight.”

  Oh lovely sheet, Lydia thought, stroking it again and again. So cool and smooth and beautiful beneath my palm. Oh loads of lovely room to stretch out all my arms and all my legs, oh lovely marshmallowy pillows, so many of them—

  “What age is he?” Conall’s voice interrupted her reverie.

  “Who—Oh, Andrei. Don’t know.”

  “Twenties? Thirties?”

  “Twenties. Maybe twenty-seven? Go to sleep.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Computers. Fixing them, I think. I don’t really know. Like I said, we don’t talk. Go to sleep.”

  “So he doesn’t own his own company or anything?”

  “No.”

  “What does he drive?”

  “Some sort of van. It’s not even his.”

  “A van.” Conall sounded scornful and pleased.

  “But he does have a very big mickey.”

  Beside her, Conall went as tense as a plank of wood.

  “A joke.” Although Andrei did have a very big mickey. “Go to sleep.”

  It was the most delicious dream imaginable. She was bouncing up and down in a sea of feathers, the softest, the sweetest . . . then something was happening, someone was shaking her. Then she wasn’t in the lovely dream any longer. She was fecky well awake, in Conall Hathaway’s frankly magnificent bed.

  “What does he look like?” a voice asked. Conall Hathaway.

  “Who? Oh, for the love of God! Have some pride!”

  “I just need to know what he looks like.”

  “Blue eyes. Very short hair, blondish.”

  “Tall?”

  “Yes.”

  “Muscular?”

  “Very. Sweet dreams.”

  Day 24

  “Big night last night, Matt?”

  “. . . What?” Matt realized that Salvatore was talking to him.

  “Where’s my smile?”

  “What?”

  “Why the long face? One too many amarettos last night?”

  “Nothing’s up. Eee-yargh!”

  Matt waited until Salvatore went back to his own desk, then let his face sink down again, until it was as gloomy as his feelings.

  Doing the AOKs had been a pain in the arse, but Maeve nixing them was far more unsettling. Everything was moving in the wrong direction. Things were supposed to be getting better, but they seemed to have doubled back on themselves and started getting worse. He wasn’t sure he could do this again; he didn’t have it any more, whatever it was that was needed.

  He picked up a newspaper that someone had left lying around and his heart lifted slightly when he read that another crater of ice had come crashing to earth, this latest one in Lisbon. Lisbon. See? Another capital city. Was he the only one who had noticed this fact? The very strange thing was that—as yet, anyway—no one had been hurt by these massive ice boulders. They came hurtling out of the sky and made shit of cars and roofs and public monuments, but no human being had strayed into their path. If—no, when—Matt told himself hopefully, when one landed in Dublin, it would definitely land on a person, a particular person, and it would knock the living bejayzus out of them. If there was any justice. Which, of course, there wasn’t. The descent back into despair began again and intensified when he read that scientists were investigating the phenomenon (he rallied briefly at the word phenomenon, it smacked of science fiction, the kind of stuff he enjoyed; he could do with a bit more of that in his life), and they’d concluded that the icy missiles definitely weren’t the opening salvos from a hostile alien race. The theory the scientists liked best was that the lumps of ice were coming from planes flying overhead.

  Matt’s phone rang and his nerves flared. With his heart banging in his throat, he spoke. “Edios. Matt Geary.”

  “Matt?” It was Natalie. “Are you leaving Edios?”

  “No. Why?”

  “I’ve been head-hunted.”

  The lizard part of his
brain, the old instinctive response that alerted him to life-threatening danger, suddenly kicked into action.

  “By Edios,” she said. “Heading up the sales team, chasing new business, conducting negotiations until they sign.”

  “That’s my job.”

  “That’s what I thought. Sorry, Matt.”

  They were sacking him, there was no other explanation. They wouldn’t be bringing Nat in to head up a second sales team, not in the current climate when there was barely enough work for one. Suddenly, Matt understood that yesterday’s summons to the Office of Fear had been for the gruesome threesome to settle their heads on the matter.

  It all came back to that Bank of British Columbia thing, Matt realized. Everything that had gone weird and wrong could be blamed on that. It was his own fault. He’d been affected by a perplexing paralysis whereby he didn’t have the strength of will to bend the bank into buying and he didn’t have the guts to call their bluff, and because of that everyone was stuck.

  Christ, though. To be sacked. A wave of light-headed horror washed over him. He’d never before been sacked. It was always the other way round; employers loved him, and whenever he’d tried to leave they always begged him to change his mind. A sacked Matt? He didn’t know that person.

  Money. Without an income, what would he and Maeve do? Maeve’s salary was a joke, like pocket money. He’d have to get another job but, for the first time in his life, he felt he wouldn’t be able to. He wasn’t the person he used to be. There was no way he could go into a room, the way he had once upon a time, and face down an interview board and convince them that what their business needed was him, Matt Geary.

  It wasn’t just the money that was a worry. It was Maeve. This would be the finish of her. She saw disaster in everything; one piece of bad luck was a sign that their life together was cursed.

  He had a terrible sense that all control had long disappeared, that he and Maeve were heading toward some terrible dark finale. Goodness and happiness were gone for ever and nothing could be retrieved. This was going to end; and end terribly. The last three years had been spent trying to dodge their fate, but it was rushing up to meet them.

  His phone rang. Feeling like he was in the middle of a bad dream, he answered and . . . oh the unbearable irony . . . it was Head of Procurement at the Bank of British Columbia. They were buying the system.

  It was too late. He’d taken too long. He’d spent too much money on the chase. But for the sake of the team he had to go through the motions. Yell. Punch the air. Shout “Ouff,” many times. “For a minute there I thought the bastards were going to bail on us! Only for a minute, mind!” He had to pick up Salvatore and twirl him around. Send Cleo out to buy champagne. And at least when he started crying, heaving out some awful feelings from his solar plexus—and for a few petrifying moments, being simply unable to stop—it had been put down to tears of relief.

  It was almost five-thirty before the call came: he was to present himself at the Managing Director’s office asap. The old Matt would have made some quip to the others: “I may be some time.” But the old Matt was no more. He said nothing to anyone. He’d never see them again; he wouldn’t be allowed back into the office to say his goodbyes; he’d be escorted from the building without his special mug and his picture of Maeve. But it didn’t matter. It was only stuff; they were only people.

  At least, thanks to Natalie, he knew what was coming. Without her call he might be skipping off to the Office of Fear, thinking he was going to get a pat on the back for landing a big sale. And yet, as his legs moved forward without any input from him, it was impossible to believe that things had got so bad. He felt as though he was moving through mist and he couldn’t feel his feet as they connected with the floor.

  He’d arrived. He knocked, the door was opened and in he went. Serious faces all round. Matt bowed his head and waited for the executioner’s ax to fall.

  But it was worse than he’d expected. Oh far, far worse.

  Matt wasn’t being sacked. Oh no. Matt was being promoted.

  Two Weeks Later

  Day 10

  Lydia’s phone rang. It was Conall.

  “Where are you now?” she asked.

  “Vietnam.”

  She laughed out loud. “No? For real?” In the last two weeks he’d gone from Milan to Kuala Lampur to Manila. “Where’s next?”

  “Phnom Penh. Cambodia.”

  “You lucky bastard.”

  “It’s not as nice as it sounds.”

  “Yeah, right. Flying first-class, staying in hotels, getting room service. I love room service.”

  “When I come back, we could go someplace. Like, with room service.”

  “Whateves.”

  “So what’s going on?”

  “The results of Mum’s scan tomorrow. Dr. Buddy Scutt will explain all.”

  “Good luck with that. Let me know.”

  “Will do. Not much else to report. Poppy’s wedding next Wednesday. She’s cracking up.”

  “I keep meaning to ask, how come you’re not one of her bridesmaids?”

  “Her mother hates me. And Poppy has Cecily, her perfect cousin. Since they were aged ten or something they swore they’d do each other.”

  “So who’s your Plus One?”

  Once upon a time it was meant to be Gilbert. “No one, I suppose. You’re not volunteering, are you?”

  “Maybe I am.”

  “You can come so long as I don’t have to mind you. Does that mean you’re my boyfriend?”

  “I don’t know. Does it?”

  Then he was gone. Hung up on her! He was always doing that; he was an absolute bloody champion at getting the last word.

  After glaring at the phone for some seconds, she rang Poppy. “Conall Hathaway wants to come to your wedding.”

  “Does that mean he’s your boyfriend?”

  “That’s what I said.”

  “Maybe he is,” Poppy said. “How’re things with delicious Andrei?”

  “I’m cured.” She hadn’t slept with him since the night she’d spent in Hathaway’s supersized bed. In fact, between taking Mum for her scan and having summit meetings in Boyne, she wasn’t sure she’d even seen Andrei for at least a week. More, actually. “And don’t call him delicious.”

  Day 10 . . .

  Jemima tossed and turned in her bed, trying to find a position that didn’t hurt. Grudge clambered up beside her and lay his head on her stomach. The heat he emitted was a great painkiller, so Jemima frequently told him. But she wriggled and couldn’t settle and he wasn’t surprised when she said, “Forgive me, my darling Grudge, but I’m finding the weight of your head quite uncomfortable.”

  Not surprised, no. But wounded, oh yes, very wounded. He bounded off the bed and stalked, rigid-necked, from the room to nurse his grievance in his basket. Then he tensed. Fionn! So finely tuned was Grudge’s hatred that he could sense him even at a distance.

  Fionn was down in the street with Katie. They were getting out—nay, tumbling out—of a taxi and trying to get their key into the front door; and here they came, padding up the stairs, giggling and mumbling. Coming home with the milk, to use a phrase of Jemima’s, which Grudge didn’t understand. Fionn and Katie didn’t bring milk. They didn’t bring anything, only sadness to his poor old mistress. Grudge shook his woolly head in disgust.

  Until now, he had liked Katie—well, as much as he was able to like anyone—but her dalliance with Fionn showed a regrettable lapse in taste and judgment.

  Trying to curl his lip in contempt, Grudge listened to the sniggering and whispering as the loved-up pair ascended the stairs in their stockinged feet. Lots of “Sssh’s and stifled laughs. Unseemly. “Stop it, you brat!” Katie commanded in a hoarse whisper and Grudge wondered what Fionn had done. Stuck his hand up her skirt? Shoved her hand down his pants? A muffled bumping noise ensued. Fionn must have pushed her against a wall for a snog. Dear God, the carry-on!

  They tiptoed past Grudge, hidden behind Jemima’s door, gro
wling softly. Now they would go into Katie’s flat at the top of the house and have noisy relations.

  Fionn hadn’t slept a night in Jemima’s flat for almost three weeks. He was practically living with Katie. This development had thrilled Grudge to his angry marrow—not only did he have Jemima all to himself again, but he could indulge in long sessions of sanctimonious disdain. What a fickle feckless creature Fionn was. What a disloyal ingrate. Jemima had taken care of him through his vulnerable years but he had dropped her like a hot potato when he took up with the fragrant, large-bosomed Katie.

  Poor Jemima tried to pretend she wasn’t sad. “Katie is such a sweet girl. So sensible. Although how long will she stick with Fionn? That’s the question.”

  Nowadays, they only saw Fionn when he called in to pick up his invitations to glamorous events. The first few times he’d pretended that it was a real visit, then Jemima had got wise. Now, she had taken to stacking the large, colored, exciting-looking envelopes in a neat pile on the escritoire, and when Fionn breezed in he’d make straight for it and start tearing things open.

  He’d sicken you, him and his invitations. Sicken you. Three or four arrived every single day, sometimes not even by ordinary post, but by courier, and Fionn thought he was fucking fantastic. The more he got the more insufferable he became and Grudge would give all he owned to be able to point out that they only came because he was on some PR company’s computer mailing list. No one really wanted him there. And to listen to him going on! Oh no, the album launch is the same night as the celebrity birthday party! Or: If we do the red carpet thing, but don’t actually watch the movie, we can catch the end of the gallery opening.

  Like anyone cared.

  Admittedly, Fionn tried to cajole Jemima along to some of the shindigs—although Grudge suspected that Katie was almost certainly behind those kindnesses. But, pray tell, what use were those parties to Jemima? She was eighty-eight, an open-minded eighty-eight, for sure, but how much interest did Fionn expect her to have in test-driving the latest Ferrari? Eh? Eh?

  Grudge blamed Fionn’s new glamorous life on that horrible pushy Grainne Butcher. She’d given Fionn’s details to every PR agency in the country and told him to get his face “out there” because the countdown to the first episode of Your Own Private Eden was underway. Only twelve days to go now and she wanted to build a “buzz.”