Call Me Star Girl

by Louise Beech

  But that isn’t real life, is it, she’d often said.

  I decided to ask my new client if she’d heard the single parents on the show. To try and make her feel she would be fine doing this alone.

  We met in West Park. She arrived first. She was sitting on a bench beneath the still-bare trees as I approached, wrapped in the bright-red coat she had told me she’d wear, with golden hair flying like kite strings from her head. She turned at the sound of my feet on gravel and gave me the loveliest smile. Her eyes shone emerald green in the soft, spring light.

  My first thought was: Who could abandon such a sweet girl?

  My second was: I could. I did.

  But this time I wouldn’t. This time I would make sure the petite young woman who invited me to sit next to her and who offered me a toffee from a bag (because she had such a craving for them, she giggled) had someone at her side when she gave birth.

  She told me her name, though I already knew from the agency.

  Victoria Valbon.

  Then she said she wanted me to call her Vicky; those closest to her called her that.

  And after that I always did.

  25

  STELLA

  NOW

  With Tom’s words, my mum’s words, and the words from The Man Who Knows whirling around my head, I open Jim’s message.

  I remember reading once that when singers sing in unison, their heartbeats often synchronise. My heart pounds now in time with the wild drums of the heavy-metal love song chosen by Sean in Gilberdyke for his wife. I try to concentrate instead on Jim’s words; to read; to know. But the text blurs into a mass of grey cloud, so I shut my eyes, open them, look over at the sky, and then try again.

  Jim again. Sorry. Said I’d only message with news but have to ask if you’ve heard anything? Am desperate.

  ‘Shit,’ I whisper.

  Where the fuck is she? It’s been hours now.

  I type my response: So sorry, haven’t heard a thing. Promise to message the second I do. Please try not to worry.

  Time to go back on air.

  ‘It’s just after one-thirty,’ I say, ‘and you’re all very quiet out there. I hope you’re all snuggled up with the ones you love. Sleeping. Oblivious. If you are awake, do you wish you weren’t? Who wants to be awake at this hour? Maybe I can play a song to help you drift off. Or you can tell me all the things we only talk about when it’s dark. I’ll be here until three. Don’t be shy.’

  As we go into the next batch of adverts, the studio lights up electric blue. I’m afraid to answer. Not because of the stranger who might be out there, but because of those close to me. They have all the secrets tonight.

  ‘Stella McKeever,’ I say.

  ‘I’m awake,’ says a sleepy female voice. ‘Maeve usually helps me to sleep. But you sound so…’

  ‘What?’ I ask.

  ‘Edgy,’ she says. ‘You’re making me nervous.’

  I smile. Can’t help it. ‘Am I? I don’t mean to.’ Are my own feelings tonight pulsating out across the airwaves, carried on my words? ‘I admit no one quite has the magic touch of Maeve Lynch.’ I pause. ‘You sure that’s all that’s keeping you up?’

  She doesn’t answer. ‘You’re playing ridiculous songs too.’

  ‘Is there one you would like then?’

  ‘That “Ballad of Lucy Jordan” was all wrong.’

  ‘It was a request,’ I lie.

  ‘You should ignore requests for the wrong song.’

  I laugh. ‘How do I know they’re wrong?’

  ‘Maeve only plays love songs,’ she says. And she will again, I insist to myself. ‘I don’t want stuff about suicide and depression. I don’t want your edgy tone. I want to sleep, for God’s sake.’

  ‘Maybe you have a secret?’ I suggest.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Something to get off your chest. Then you’ll sleep easily.’

  She hangs up. I must have hit a nerve.

  I wonder if Tom is sleeping; if he is managing to stay awake until I get home like he said he would. If he’s still listening to my ‘edgy’ voice. He’s been falling asleep earlier this past week. I was worried he was avoiding talking to me. But now we have so much more to talk about. We’ve only scratched the surface. I’ve so many questions about Victoria – some Tom probably can’t even answer.

  What was she like? Did she wear perfume? What was her favourite? How did she like to be kissed? Had she thought up names for her baby? Did she know the gender?

  Did Tom ever ask her to play dead?

  No. That was our thing. I know that.

  I remember our conversation about the odd years being the best ones. ‘Odd year, odd stuff,’ Tom said. We met this year – 2017. When did he and Victoria meet? He said they were together for a year. That would mean they met at the end of 2015. An odd year also. I don’t want their relationship to have been anything like ours. I don’t like that she had him before me. That she got a part of him I don’t have. His child. I don’t even know if I want a baby, but it hurts like hell when I imagine Tom having one with someone else.

  But that poor infant is gone.

  That poor little mite died before he or she could exist.

  I close my eyes; feel sick.

  No time for sadness. I push the nausea away and play another song. A slow love song. One with gentle, syrupy words for those who need them tonight. Then I go into the hallway. It’s dark. Stephen turned the lights off. Should I turn them on? I wait; listen. How much would have to happen for me to run out of the building? The door banged shut and I’m still here. Someone got in and left a creepy book and I’m still here. Maeve is missing and I’m still here. A sound. I hold my breath. Nothing. It’s me – it’s my imagination. It has to be.

  Everything lights up electric blue behind me. Shit. The phone. I rush to it and pick up.

  ‘It’s me,’ she says. My mum.

  ‘I know.’ I have three minutes.

  ‘I was waiting for another song so I could call again,’ she says.

  ‘There have been a few songs since we spoke.’

  ‘I know. I’ve been sitting here, mulling everything over. I was going to ring you tonight about something anyway, before you went to work, but then I was busy.’ She pauses. ‘And then you made the comment about not knowing who your father is. I’ve been waiting since we met for that question. It seemed more powerful somehow with what I was ringing to tell you…’

  As my mum speaks I wonder: did I reveal the mystery of my father on the show because I knew she would hear? A subconscious part of me must have known she often listens. Must have known that, if I put it out there, it would prompt her to call with an answer.

  But what’s the other thing she wants to tell me?

  What on earth else can there be?

  ‘First there was what you said about never wearing perfume,’ she says.

  I’ve forgotten I even said that. How long ago it seems now.

  ‘I’d never noticed,’ she says. ‘And then I thought about it. You definitely never smelt of the star perfume. I would have known that one.’ She pauses, then inhales as though actually smelling the fragrance now. ‘And I realised it’s true. You don’t wear any scent. You always just smell like … you.’

  I laugh. ‘Oh dear.’

  ‘No, it’s nice. I know it now. Your smell.’ She sounds sad. ‘So why don’t you ever wear perfume?’

  ‘Not entirely sure,’ I admit.

  ‘But it’s unusual.’

  ‘Yes. I decided a long time ago. When I was little.’ I pause. ‘When you were still around.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Yes. You always had different perfumes from different men. The star one was the only one you wore when they weren’t around.’ My throat feels tight. ‘When it was just us,’ I add.

  ‘Oh Stella. I was terrible, wasn’t I?’

  I don’t like her self-pity. I’d rather she was cool and indifferent. I don’t know what to do with sadness other than bury it. I ignore it. �
��I just decided I’d never wear any at all. No one would mark me with it. I wouldn’t even be marked by the star perfume, though I adore the smell.’ Should I tell her? I do. ‘I couldn’t wear it now if I wanted to.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I lost it.’

  ‘No?’ The self-pity is gone.

  ‘Trust me. I’m sad about it. You know I’ve had it since I was twelve. But what can I do? I looked online for something similar but couldn’t find anything at all like it. And even if there was, it wouldn’t be that one, would it?’

  ‘No. That one was … special.’

  ‘Why?’ I ask.

  I remember how she saved it, only wore a tiny dab of it each time. It feels like the song has gone on forever and I realise I only have one minute. It’s so frustrating.

  ‘Why was it special?’ I ask.

  ‘Stella … your father bought it for me.’

  I don’t know what to say.

  My father.

  It makes him all the more real. He chose it. Touched it. And now it’s gone.

  ‘Who was he?’ I demand.

  ‘I’ll tell you,’ she says. ‘But not on the phone like this. It should be done properly, when we’re together. You deserve it that way.’

  I think hard. I can’t wait until we next see one another. I feel I must know everything tonight.

  ‘Come to the studio,’ I say. ‘Soon. Now. You can be here in ten minutes. I’ll make the first twenty minutes of the next hour all songs so we can talk. Stephen Sainty will be asleep now so he won’t even know I’ve done it.’ I need her to be gone before three though, before The Man Who Knows comes. That meeting needs to be private.

  ‘Can I ask a question?’ she says.

  ‘I’ve only got thirty seconds. Can it wait?’

  ‘Why have I never been to your house?’ she asks anyway.

  There simply isn’t time to explore such a question now. I’m not even sure I know the answer. I know that I’ve occasionally thought about inviting her over and then found some excuse not to: the house isn’t clean enough or I want time alone with Tom. But I guess if I really wanted her in my home, I’d have made it happen.

  ‘What was it you wanted to tell me?’ I ask instead.

  ‘I so want to see where you live,’ she persists. ‘You let me come and see the radio studio that time…’

  This is futile – I have seconds until I must speak.

  ‘Hold on a moment,’ I say, and slide up the fader and speak to the world. ‘That was “Everything I do” by Bryan Adams, and it’s almost one-forty-five. For my anonymous caller who can’t sleep and misses Maeve Lynch, I hope you’ve found peace now. If anyone else wants peace, call and tell me about it. I’m a good listener. After the adverts, I’ll look at tomorrow’s weather…’

  ‘You still there?’ I ask my mum.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘What did you want to tell me earlier?’ I repeat.

  ‘I was Victoria Valbon’s doula,’ she says.

  ‘What?’

  These are the last words I expected to hear. It knocks the wind out of me.

  ‘I called her Vicky, though,’ she says softly. ‘All those who knew her did.’

  ‘You were…’ I can’t finish.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘But … how? … When?’

  ‘I’ve never really talked to you about my doula stuff,’ my mum continues. ‘I don’t like to bother you with it, I suppose. When we’re together, I’m trying to make it all about you and not about what I’m up to.’

  My mum knew Victoria Valbon too.

  Tom and my mum.

  Shit.

  It’s like Victoria is getting closer to me. I turn around, almost expecting to see her standing there, by my window, tiny baby in hands. And for a moment, she is. The green eyes that stare sadly out of so many newspaper pictures are bright with life; her throat is bloody, the red spilling down a frilled blouse, along her fingers, and onto her baby’s golden head. Dripping scarlet stains onto sweet skin. I shut my eyes. When I open them, she has gone.

  ‘But you…’ I can’t find the right words. ‘But she … How long?’

  ‘Her doula? Since March.’

  ‘Six months?’

  ‘No. I wasn’t her doula until … the end.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘I just … we fell out.’

  ‘About what?’ I ask.

  ‘Look,’ my mum says gently. ‘You’ve asked me to come into the studio. Let me do that. I’ll leave now. We’ll talk. I know we won’t have long, and it seems there is so much to say.’

  She’s right. I have to do the weather. I have to get my head together. Line up some songs so we can talk after the news on the hour.

  ‘What was she like?’ The words jump out before I can think.

  Silence from my mum. In one of the adverts, a man describes his accident and how his huge claim changed his life.

  Eventually she says, ‘She was a sweet girl. She was. I really … I couldn’t … She just couldn’t…’

  ‘Couldn’t what?’

  ‘Stella, I’ll leave the house now. Come to you. We’ll talk. Okay?’ She hangs up.

  When I read the weather for tomorrow, I again have the gut feeling I might not see it. Might not feel the unseasonably mild temperatures or see the haze of clouds that will depart to leave a sunny afternoon. Might not leave a coat at home and enjoy the light October breeze.

  26

  STELLA

  WITH TOM

  It turns out I told Stephen Sainty that I was leaving WLCR at about the same time as Tom was being questioned by the police about Victoria. Stephen ranted at length about my not giving him enough notice, even though I reminded him I had three weeks of holiday remaining so only had to work one more week. I didn’t know that while I was hiding my imminent redundancy from him, Tom was in a room with two police officers, sharing intimate details about his one-year relationship with Victoria Valbon.

  Did he take time off work to go?

  Did he go when I was at the radio station?

  I don’t suppose it matters.

  I do know that during those days Tom was more tender with me than he ever has been in all our time together. I thought Perry had caused the softness; that her purring had imbued us both with calm. That my gift – my wanting to undo Tom’s sadness about his childhood pet – had peeled yet another layer away from his façade and shown me more of the real boy I loved, the child beneath the man who liked danger.

  We let Perry sleep with us, her warm body between our feet. She preferred me though. I’d wake with her curled up in the curve of my back and pick her up and put her next to a snoring Tom. Hazel eyes glared at me in the dark, said Perry was not amused, but she would stay there if she must.

  Some mornings, Tom held my gaze so long, I felt he could see everything I thought, and I had to break the connection.

  ‘What’s up?’ he’d call as I went to the bathroom.

  ‘Nothing,’ I’d lie.

  ‘You’d think you were hiding something,’ he’d say. ‘Not like you to be the first to look away!’

  I’d compose myself, look in the bathroom mirror, study my eyes. Wait for strange voices to rise up from the gush of water.

  Stella, Stella, you know what you see in your eyes.

  Then I’d go back to Tom, say, ‘Nothing to hide here.’

  In truth, I loved to get lost in Tom’s dark eyes; loved to fall into the autumnal browns that changed like dying leaves. At times, I was nervous about what he would see in my lighter irises. But I could cope with that. It was what I might see in his that I sometimes feared so much I felt sick.

  That he might leave me.

  I never cared what he might do.

  Just stay with me.

  ‘I’m gonna make an omelette for breakfast,’ was all I’d say those mornings.

  Our chopping board game ceased around this time too. Tom didn’t play anymore. Instead of leaving it wildly diagonal he left it exactly where
I had put it – further back so the crumbs didn’t hit the floor. He wiped up his mess too. He washed his dishes rather than leaving them on the side for me. He emptied bins and ashtrays. He made the bed if he was the last one out of it.

  My heart constricted.

  I loved our conflict. Our sexual games. Our fight to dominate in the bedroom, on the floor of the bathroom, the kitchen table. This game of Tom being submissive unnerved me. Like he had given in, somehow. Surrendered. And I wasn’t sure what that meant.

  So I created the conflict by turning into him. I was the one who left crumbs scattered like mouse droppings on the kitchen worktop. I left the duvet hanging off the end of the bed. I swilled coffee all over the stairs when I carried a full mug to the bedroom. Had I known he was being interviewed by the police about his relationship with Victoria, I would have smashed every cup in the kitchen.

  If Tom noticed my slovenliness, he never said anything.

  Did I no longer incite him to battle?

  Was he bored?

  Four nights ago, four nights before my last radio show, I was reading my Harland Grey book in bed. I was almost finished with it but still dipped in and out of it, occasionally opening it at random pages. Tom had gone to a work meeting – or so I thought, but who knows now – and it wasn’t a radio night for me. Perry curled up in my lap beneath the hardback.

  I read about Harland’s obsession with detail. How in his films he used actual things rather than props. If a cup was to be smashed, he liked the sound of thick glass not the sugar glass they used for stunt crockery. This brittle glass is less likely to cause injury. But Harland didn’t care if an actor was cut or bled profusely. He liked it. It was all about the reality. About real blood. About really feeling it.

  When Tom walked into the bedroom, it took me a while to notice. I jumped when I looked up and saw him studying me from the end of the bed.

  ‘How long have you been there?’ I asked.

  ‘About a minute.’