The Brightest Star in the Sky

by Marian Keyes

  A voice spoke behind her. “What’s the story?” It was Fionn. “Still sitting here?”

  She scrambled to her feet. Her heart was suddenly pounding like the clappers and every instinct was telling her she was in mortal danger. Fionn bounded down the last few steps. He seemed almost amused. She was remembering the way he used to look at her, like he wanted to eat her. Devour her. Kill her.

  “Come on up and wait in Katie’s,” he said.

  She shook her head, unable to speak. Blood was roaring in her ears and fear was building, building, building in her chest, filling up the cavity, stopping her from breathing.

  “There’s nothing to be scared of.”

  There’s nothing to be scared of.

  He stepped nearer and reached out. “I’m not going to hurt you.” I’m not going to hurt you.

  “Come on.” He closed his hand around her arm.

  She hadn’t screamed the last time—that was her biggest mistake and she wouldn’t make it again. “Stop! Please!”

  Something was happening at the front door. Someone was out there. The buzzer sounded.

  “Matt,” she shrieked. “Matt!”

  But it wasn’t Matt, it was that big, dark man. Conall, she thought his name was. Katie’s boyfriend. At least he used to be.

  “What the hell?” Conall asked, looking from Maeve to Fionn, at Fionn clasping Maeve’s arm, at Maeve pulling away, trying to get free.

  Conall stepped forward and Maeve’s struggling and shrieking intensified. “Don’t! Oh please! I’m begging you.”

  Immediately, Conall stepped back.

  Maeve became vaguely aware that other faces had appeared on the stairs, looming over the banisters—Katie, snappish Lydia, some other girl and the old woman.

  “Leave her alone,” Conall said to Fionn. “You’re scaring her.”

  “Me? I’m helping her.”

  “She’s terrified of you. And me. Right?” he asked Maeve.

  Conall and Maeve locked eyes. She nodded.

  “She can’t breathe,” Conall said. “Maeve—is it Maeve?—will you let one of the girls help you?”

  No. They might be in on it too. Maeve began to pant with fear. They might all be in on it.

  “Someone get her a paper bag.” No one moved. Everyone was frozen as if the pause button had been pressed on a big action scene, so without taking his eyes off her, Conall reached into his pocket and produced a big bag of Licorice Allsorts. He tipped them on to the letter table, then handed the empty bag to Maeve. “Breathe into that.” He looked up the stairs at Katie. “Does it matter if it’s plastic?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

  “Can someone tell me what’s going on?” Conall asked.

  “She’s locked out,” Katie said. “Her husband isn’t here and none of us have spare keys.”

  “Do you know where he is?” Conall asked Maeve. “Matt? Is that his name?”

  “He’s on his way home.”

  “From where?”

  “Magnolia.”

  “Magnolia?” Both Conall and Katie said.

  “I thought that closed down,” Conall said, looking at Katie for confirmation.

  “It did. About a month ago.”

  “That’s what I thought,” Maeve whispered.

  An uncomfortable silence ensued.

  “We could try to pick the lock for you,” Conall offered.

  “How?” Maeve looked out from dazed eyes.

  As if by a powerful force, the collective gaze was drawn to one point: Lydia.

  “Why’s everyone looking at me?” she asked. “. . . Oh all right.”

  She ran upstairs and returned with a metal coat hanger, straightened it out and slid it into the keyhole, maneuvering carefully. Suddenly, she froze. She whipped out the wire. She’d gone quite pale. “It’s locked from the inside. Key is still in it.”

  “He’s in there?” Sissy mouthed.

  “Matt’s in there?” Conall asked Lydia.

  “What do you mean, he’s in there?” Maeve struggled for breath.

  Conall banged on the door. “Matt? Matt?” He turned to Maeve. “Did you try the buzzer?” Mutely, she shook her head, so he opened the front door and stepped out to press the bell for Flat 1, long and hard. When no voice came from the intercom and Matt didn’t appear to open the door, Conall said to Maeve, “Ring him. The landline.”

  Maeve handed him her phone. “It’s under ‘Home’.”

  Conall tapped a few buttons then through the door came the sound of a phone ringing. They were all holding their breath, and when they heard the answering-machine message start up there was an unspoken understanding that they had somehow found themselves in the middle of a tragedy.

  “Just because the key is in the door it doesn’t mean that he’s in there,” Fionn said.

  “How so?” Conall asked.

  “He could have locked the door and gone out the window.”

  “But what are the chances?” Conall was removing Maeve’s bicycle from where it was leaning against her door. “Stand back.” To general shock—how had things got so serious so quickly?—Conall threw himself, shoulder first, at the door and bounced violently off it. (Jemima saw Fionn fail to suppress a smirk.) Conall tried again and the rebound wasn’t quite so intense second time round.

  “What’s going on?” Maeve whispered. “I don’t understand.”

  The third assault was accompanied by the sound of wood splintering. Two more onslaughts from Conall’s shoulder and the door was swinging free of the lock.

  “Right,” he gasped. He looked around at the sea of faces. No one wanted to go in. It would have to be him. He perched in the doorway, like a man about to dive into a crocodile-infested river, then he took the plunge. For some moments a terrible silence prevailed, then they heard him. “Katie! Katie!”

  White-faced, Katie disappeared, following his voice, and almost immediately returned full of orders. “Lydia, ring an ambulance. Fionn, go in, he needs you to help lift him. Jemima, stay with Maeve.” As she was speaking, Katie was pulling up her skirt and pulling down her tights. She stepped out of them and ripped them in two at the weakest point, the crotch. “Tourniquets,” she said.

  Jemima put her hands on Maeve’s shoulders. “This is not the time for advice, but we may not get another chance. Listen to what I have to say, it is very, very important. Your body belongs to you. Not to that man, whoever he was. Take it back from him.”

  Maeve’s eyes were black and stunned-looking. She was stupefied, almost drugged from shock. “How do you know?” Her voice was a mumble.

  “I’m very old. I’ve seen a lot. Your fear of men, your unrevealing clothing, it seemed clear to me—”

  “What the hell . . .!” It was Sissy speaking. She placed a hand on Jemima’s arm. “Is it, are you . . . Mystic Maureen?”

  Not now, my dear, now is really not the time. Reluctantly, Jemima turned round. “Sissy, my dear?”

  “I can’t believe it’s you!” Sissy shoved her face forward into Maeve’s space. “Listen. You’ve got to listen. I mean, this woman!” Sissy threw her hands around, desperate to be emphatic. “Believe whatever she tells you. She’s super-psychic.”

  “No, really, I’m not mystic. Merely old. But I—”

  “Ambulance is here!”

  “That was fast,” someone said.

  Lydia watched as Matt’s lifeless body, dripping red water and trailing sheer black nylon from both arms was stretchered out of the flat and up into the ambulance. She cornered Conall. His dark suit was wet and his white shirt was splashed with what looked like blood. He was on the phone to Eilish Hessard, organizing a new door for Maeve’s flat. As soon as he hung up, she asked quietly, “What happened?”

  Conall flicked a look at Maeve, checking that she wasn’t listening. “In the bath. Cut his wrists.”

  Christ! Matt had slit his wrists! Very shocking and sad and everything but Lydia couldn’t help thinking it was quite a girlie way for a man to kill hims
elf.

  One of the ambulance guys, a short, stocky bloke, was back in the hall. “Which one of yous is coming? Be quick about it.”

  “This is Matt’s wife,” Conall said.

  “She can come in the bus, but there’s no room for the rest of yous.”

  Maeve shrank into herself. “I can’t,” she said. “They’re men.”

  “You must go, dear heart,” Jemima said. “You must be with Matthew. But we will follow.”

  Katie draped her arm around Maeve’s shoulder and Maeve allowed herself to be led to the ambulance.

  “I knew death was here.” Jemima gazed at the ambulance doors as they slammed shut. “I’ve felt it for weeks. I was so sure it had come for me. Far better me than this young man.”

  For crying out loud! I’m not death. I’m the very opposite.

  “Is your man, Matt, is he—actually, like dead?” Sissy swallowed.

  Conall looked pained. “. . . I don’t know. He didn’t look too alive.”

  The sound of a siren made them all jump and the ambulance pulled away.

  “Someone needs to go to the hospital to be with Maeve,” Jemima said.

  Lydia looked at her feet. This wasn’t her sort of thing. You have to play to your strengths and she was no TLC merchant.

  “I’ll go,” Katie said.

  “I’ll go if you think it’ll do any good,” Conall said.

  “I’ll go,” Sissy said. “Even though she doesn’t know me from a hole in the ground.”

  “She doesn’t know any of us,” Fionn said.

  “I would like to go,” Jemima said. “If none of you object.”

  No chance, Lydia thought. She could feel the wild relief of all concerned.

  “Perhaps you will escort me, Fionn?” Jemima said.

  “She’s afraid of me,” Fionn said.

  Indignation stirred in Lydia. Okay, none of them wanted to go, it was gruesome and, yes, Maeve was petrified by Fionn and Conall, but you couldn’t leave the old woman to go on her own. She was ancient. “Hey, I’ll drive you.”

  “It’s okay,” Katie said. “I’ll take you. My car isn’t far.”

  “I will go and Fionn will escort me,” Jemima declared. Fionn opened his mouth, then seemed to crumble to the inevitable. Jemima might be ancient, Lydia acknowledged, but she had a will of iron. “We can hail a taxi from right outside.”

  A further short squabble ensued when Lydia again offered her chauffeur services and Jemima declined them.

  “Whateves.” Lydia wasn’t feeling so hot, not so hot at all. It was a relief to not have to drive.

  Fionn went upstairs to change out of his wet, bloodstained clothes, then he and Jemima left, leaving Lydia with Conall, Sissy and Katie.

  “Maybe we should get a drink,” Sissy said.

  “Okay,” Conall said, and raised his eyebrows at Katie. “Any suggestions?”

  “Flying Bottle?” she said. “It’s handy. And they won’t object to a man with blood on his shirt.”

  “Practically obligatory.” He gave a weak smile.

  “Flying Bottle?” Lydia asked, her mouth awash with something bitter.

  “You know, the pub just down the road there, whatever it’s called,” Conall said.

  “There was a fight one night when we were there,” Katie said to Lydia. “Hence the nickname. But it’s early now, we should be grand.”

  “Grand,” Lydia said. Grand.

  If it was anywhere else except the Flying Bottle their appearance might have caused a few comments. Lydia and Sissy in grimy sweats and trainers, Katie in a classic little black dress and high heels, and Conall in a dark-grey Brioni suit, accessorized by splashes of blood that were already turning black.

  “I’ll go to the bar,” Conall said, as Sissy tried to find four stools that hadn’t been knifed open and had their foamy stuffing hanging out. “What’ll you have?”

  “Vodka and Red Bull,” Lydia said.

  “Me too,” Sissy said.

  “Katie?”

  “Oh? Sorry!” Katie looked waxen and dazed. “Brandy, I think. It’s meant to be good for shock.”

  “Okay. Lydia? Sissy? Sure you don’t want to change your order? To brandy?”

  “Quite sure,” Lydia snapped.

  She waited until Conall was standing at the bar with his back to them. “So,” she said to Katie. “You know all about first aid?” Something was telling her that the answer to this question was important.

  Miserably, Katie shook her head. “I’m just a keen amateur. I like getting spray and ointment from the drugstore, all the new stuff, every time they bring out a new type of Savlon, I get it, but when it comes down to it, like it did with Matt, I knew nothing.” Her hands were shaking and she looked on the verge of tears.

  “You knew about tourniquets.”

  “That’s only from watching cowboys films. And what if it was too late? What if he was already . . .?”

  Katie’s phone beeped and she looked at the screen. “It’s Fionn. Matt is still alive. He’s getting a transfusion.”

  “So does that mean he’s okay?” Sissy asked.

  “I don’t know. He doesn’t say. Maybe no one knows yet,” Katie said.

  Conall threw back his brandy, then got to his feet and looked at Lydia. “Are we right?” He needed to have frenzied sex to cast out the presence of death.

  Three years ago

  As he opened the bedroom door, he said, “Close your eyes.”

  She felt the weight and heat of his hands on her shoulders, guiding her forward.

  “Such a big deal.” She laughed. “This’d better be worth it.”

  “It will be.”

  She had crumpled and hit the floor before she knew what was happening. Her understanding was two or three seconds behind events. She felt a sharp pain in her hip bone and a ringing in her skull before she realized that he’d put all his weight into his arms and pushed her downwards, that her knees had buckled neatly and she’d banged against the wooden floor. While she was still piecing this together, David had climbed on top of her, his knees on her shoulders, the full weight of his body on her torso.

  No breath was going in or out of her; she’d been so busy falling and banging that she’d forgotten to inhale, and as soon as she tried, her chest couldn’t expand because David’s weight was crushing her.

  In the confusion, she’d thought it was an accident. But David was on top of her, his face was red and smiling. Obviously, he’d meant to do this. It was a badly-thought-out joke, one that hurt people. Taking small sippy gasps, she said, “David, get up, get off me.” She was exasperated, almost angry. Not afraid. Not yet.

  With a litheness she didn’t know he had, he shifted quickly so that he was now kneeling sideways on her flattened body, his right shin pinning her upper body to the floor, his left shin paralyzing her hips.

  Never before had she felt the strength of another human being being used against her. He was taller, heavier and much, much stronger. This was an entirely new experience and nothing had equipped her for it. Apart from harmless stuff in the school playground, she knew nothing about force.

  “David, let me up. Get off me. I can’t breathe.”

  Desperately, she pressed her palms against the floor and shifted and wriggled beneath him, hoping to topple him off her, but his weight pinned her so perfectly to the ground that her movements were tiny.

  He looked weird, like a stranger. She couldn’t read the expression on his face, she didn’t know what he wanted, but alarm bells were ringing. She was alone with him. No one knew she was here. And he was bitter and angry—she knew now that she’d been way wrong to think he’d forgiven her.

  “Let me up and we’ll go back into the sitting room and we’ll have a talk. C’mon, David, you’re a solid guy.” Even then, she thought she could talk her way out of it.

  She couldn’t even lift her head, so when she felt rather than saw him fiddling for the button on her jeans, genuine panic kicked in.

  “David, what a
re you doing?” He was trying to scare her. And it was working.

  “David, no! This is crazy. You’re hurt, you’re pissed off, but this has gone too far. Stop it now!”

  But he’d done it, the button was open. She’d always thought you could do something to protect yourself, you could scratch, you could kick, you could bite. But there was so much weight on her shoulders and upper arms that the nerves in her hands weren’t working, they’d turned to sand, her feet were too far away from him to do any harm and her head was pinned to the floor.

  Now he was unzipping her jeans.

  Was he planning to . . . rape . . . her? It looked a bit that way, but it couldn’t be true, because . . . Why not? Because things like that didn’t happen to people like her.

  “Okay,” she gasped. “I’m scared now, it’s working, it’s worked. Time to let me up.”

  He was shifting about on top of her, redistributing his weight as he pulled down her jeans. “Please, David, don’t, David.”

  I should yell. There might be people in the other flats; maybe they’d hear her. Bizarrely, she was almost embarrassed at the melodrama of shrieking, “Help!” After all, this was David. But when she opened her mouth it was a shock to discover how weak the scream was—she was flat on her back, there was no power to it.

  Awkwardly but methodically, he was managing to pull down her knickers, first one side, then the other, tug by tug.

  “Please stop, David, oh please.” Silent tears were flowing from her eyes. She hadn’t noticed them start.

  And there was his erection, purple and angry.

  My God, he’s really going to rape me.

  She clamped her thighs together, tensed with all her strength. Think, she beseeched herself, think. Somewhere she’d read that you should tell rapists about yourself, appeal to their sympathy, let them know that you’re a human being. But David knew this already.

  “I’m sorry I hurt you, David, I’m really sorry. But don’t do this to me, please.” Tears spilled down her temples.

  He moved, to position himself for entry, and for a moment his weight was off her shoulders. This was her opportunity. She struggled to sit up and she let forth a proper scream this time, shrill and ringing.