Call Me Star Girl

by Louise Beech

  I think of it a lot, you see. That afternoon. I think about our whole relationship a lot. Because two weeks after that Vicky was dead and neither of us had any idea it was coming.

  I bought us an ice lolly each from the van nearby, and when I returned with them, Vicky asked if I remembered what she’d said. I must have looked blank – she had said many things during our time together – so she reminded me; asked if I recalled that rainy afternoon in the café when she had said that she was going to get her baby’s father back once she’d given birth and felt up to it?

  I licked cherry-juice drops from the back of my hand and nodded.

  Vicky said she felt she was up to it now. Why wait, she said. She might be knackered after the birth if it was difficult. She would look tired and washed out. Have hormones pulsing through her. Leaking breasts and saggy belly. She laughed and said it would hardly be her most seductive moment, while now she felt good. Her hair was full of bounce and her cheeks were glowing.

  I had to agree. Sometimes I couldn’t tear my eyes from her. Even now, I see her as an angel. Glowing from the inside.

  What are you going to do? I asked.

  Vicky finished her lime ice lolly and sucked on the stick. Juice stained her chin. I remember wanting to wipe it off, almost licking my sleeve and dabbing at her, the way you do a messy child. She said she was going to see him the next day. She knew where he lived. There was just one big problem: he had a new girlfriend. She studied me to gauge my response.

  I thought about Stella’s father. Imagined him with another woman. What would I have done to get him back?

  Anything.

  I asked if this other woman was pregnant, and she said she didn’t think so. She admitted to having gone past the house, seen her coming out.

  I told Vicky that having a child together meant they had something he and this other woman didn’t. I knew she hadn’t told him about the pregnancy. She said once that they split up just before she found out – one of the other ways that her relationship paralleled mine with Stella’s father. Vicky had said a few times that they had lots of mutual friends who’d have passed the news on.

  Now Vicky said that she didn’t like the idea of breaking up a relationship, but she had realised that family was everything. That he deserved the chance to be a dad to his child. And that the story of my passionate love for Stella’s father had made her realise Tom was the one.

  A crisp leaf fell from the tree above us and landed in her lap. She turned it over and traced her finger along its ridges. Then she looked at me. Hesitated. Said she was hoping that, if he took her back, then he could be with her at the birth after all. There was time. She had another month. She wanted him to be the one to tell her whether they had had a son or a daughter.

  Do you mind? Vicky asked me.

  She’d asked me to be the first to know her child’s gender. This meant she would no longer need me to be her doula. In a sense, we’d be over. I realised I’d have no one to talk to about Stella’s father. No one to drink in my words and ask for more.

  As though she had seen all of this flitting across my face, Vicky quickly added that I had been everything to her this year. That without me she would not have left her bed. I licked the corner of my sleeve and wiped the green juice off her chin. I couldn’t recall ever doing such a thing for Stella. Vicky smiled. I told her she should go get her man back. Go get her twin flame. Do anything.

  And I meant it.

  Until she said his name. Showed me a picture of him. It was at my request, so I could hardly blame her.

  I said, Tell me about him.

  And she did. She said they had only been together a year, but they got engaged quite early on. She flushed when she admitted that it was the most intense thing she’d ever experienced. That at times he was so demanding it wore her out. And that’s what had caused the split – he exhausted her. But now she said she was beginning to realise that Tom’s traits were merely his passion. How he expressed his love.

  Tom’s traits.

  The words made me frown. A coincidence? Yes, that was all it was, I thought. Both my daughter and Vicky – two women the same age – had a Tom. I asked if Vicky had a picture of him. She pulled out her phone and swiped through images, stopping at one that made her eyes fill with tears. She showed me. At first, I thought my eyes were playing tricks on me. That the sunlight through the leaves had bounced off the screen and distorted his face.

  It was our Tom. Stella’s Tom. Tom who I’d only met twice but whose striking face was permanently stuck in my head. Tom who Stella had sensed was coming.

  Had Vicky clicked on the wrong picture?

  She was looking at me. Asking what I thought of him.

  A million thoughts crashed into my head. How was it possible? Why did it have to be him? I couldn’t let it happen. I had to stop Vicky trying to get him back. It was imagining my daughter’s man being taken from her that finally ignited maternal passion in me. This was how I should have felt when she was born. When she cried, when she needed me. This was how I should have felt when her father got back in touch. I should have turned him down and stayed with her.

  It didn’t matter. I felt it now: I was a lioness protecting her cub. At long last the glory of motherly love engulfed me. And I knew I could not let Vicky take Tom from my daughter.

  Under any circumstances.

  Are you okay? she was asking me.

  I told her, Yes. I just feel a little unwell. Maybe the ice lolly gave me acid.

  I composed myself. Then I told her that Tom was handsome. But maybe she shouldn’t be too hasty. Maybe she was heading for heartbreak if she went looking for him. What if he was happy in his new relationship? What if he rejected her? How much would that hurt?

  Vicky frowned at me. Asked why I’d changed my mind. Said I’d only just insisted that having this baby meant they had something Tom’s new girlfriend and he didn’t. Then she put a hand on mine and asked if I was sad that she might not need me at the birth if Tom took her back and decided to be there.

  Another leaf fell, this time into my lap. They were turning golden early this year. I studied it to give me time to think up a response.

  Eventually I told Vicky that I cared deeply about her and it wasn’t about whether I was at her birth or not. That what we had shared was about more than me being her doula. I wanted her to be happy. And I was concerned that she might be heading for more heartbreak.

  What if Tom loves his new girlfriend deeply? I asked her. What if the upset affects you and the baby?

  Vicky looked thoughtful.

  After a while she whispered that, if Tom and she were meant to be, then it would happen. She reminded me that he could be her twin flame, just as Stella’s father had been mine.

  What could I say to that?

  I had to come up with something.

  I suggested she wait until her baby was here, as she’d initially planned. That would buy me time to think of a way to change her mind. I added that, if she turned up with his child in her arms, Tom might find it hard to resist her.

  Vicky suddenly let out an oof sound.

  Just the baby, she explained, rubbing her tummy. Kicking again.

  I’d felt those kicks many times in the last few weeks. I’d stroked her belly more than my own when I’d been pregnant. She put my hand there now. I felt the ripples of flesh as her child wriggled and squirmed. A baby I had no idea then would never exist outside her womb.

  Vicky said that she was determined to give Tom the chance to see his baby being born. That most of the women at her antenatal group had said they couldn’t imagine not having their husbands or boyfriends with them for that life-changing moment.

  But he’s not your man, I wanted to scream.

  He’s Stella’s.

  I knew if I pushed Vicky she’d begin to wonder why. I couldn’t have her know who Tom was to me, because then she’d know my efforts to stop her were selfish. She’d end our relationship and pursue Tom without restraint. She had incited moth
erly affection in me, had given me the chance to talk freely about the love of my life, but now she was threatening to destroy my real daughter’s love life, and that I couldn’t permit.

  Why don’t you wait? I said. Think about it for a few days and then see how you feel. If by then you still feel strongly that you want to go and see him before the baby comes, I could take you. Wait in the car in case it doesn’t go how you want it to. I couldn’t bear to see you hurt.

  Vicky nodded. She admitted that the pregnancy hormones might be making her behave rashly. She said she hadn’t told her mum that she wanted Tom back because she thought she would disapprove. She hadn’t particularly liked him.

  Mums know best, I said.

  Vicky laughed.

  I asked if she wanted to walk for a bit, to go and see the birds in the aviary. I needed to get her thinking about something else. As we strolled around the park, I thought about the last time I’d been with Stella and Tom. We had gone for a drink at the marina. Sat on a wall with our beers. Every time he spoke she held his gaze so intently that I knew nothing else existed. I knew that look. She told me once that he had a way of saying the most ordinary thing and making it sound like poetry. She had that gift too and I don’t think she knew it.

  I had abandoned Stella and would have to live with that for the rest of my life. But now I could stop it happening again. I could stop Tom deserting her for another woman.

  And I would do absolutely anything to make sure he didn’t.

  To make sure that Vicky kept well away.

  31

  STELLA

  NOW

  I think of cinéma vérité. Truth cinema. I’m in the middle of my own film, but there is no camera to record the moment; no camera to capture my vomit swirling like a whirlpool down the toilet. Hunched over it, I grip the seat and then sit back on my heels.

  My mum taps on the door and asks if I’m okay. I want to ask whether she has the good camera with her, the one with a zoom lens and all the fancy gadgets and functions. If she takes a picture of me right now it will be the most truthful one ever taken. My face will tell my whole story.

  I open the door. She stands there, sheepish, concerned, hair messed.

  ‘The camera,’ I say, realising something else.

  She looks confused. ‘What about it?’

  ‘It was his, wasn’t it?’ I pause, readying myself to say the two words I’ve been reading repeatedly for the last few weeks. The two words on the cover of the book on my bedside table. ‘It was Harland Grey’s. My father’s.’

  ‘It was.’ She speaks softly. ‘It was Harland’s. I can’t use it the way he did. My pictures used to come out all blurry, as you know. I’ve practised since but they’re still not the best. I can’t part with it.’ She seems to have an idea. ‘Would you like it?’

  ‘No,’ I snap. ‘I bloody wouldn’t.’

  I push past her, stagger into the foyer. What time is it? How long did I throw up for? How long do we have left? I look at the clock above the door. Just ten minutes until the songs end. I can always talk for a bit on air and then resume the conversation with my mum, but now I know who my father is I realise I want to deal with it on my own.

  The way I’ve always dealt with things.

  ‘Harland fucking Grey,’ I say. ‘No. No. I reckon you’re making it up. Using some local celebrity’s name so you don’t have to tell me that my dad’s actually boring John from up the road, or the postman.’

  Even as I say the words, I know they’re not true. Now that I know my mum left the book here, it all makes absolute sense. I want to deny it, but there was something that felt right when she revealed he was my dad. I can’t explain it. Reading the book did at times feel like I was reading someone’s diary. Someone I knew.

  Stella, this will tell you everything.

  That note.

  ‘It’s him,’ she says. ‘He’s really your father.’

  ‘And you thought that leaving a book about him would just make me think, ahhh, this is my dad!’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admits.

  ‘How the hell did you get in here?’

  ‘That time I came to the studio with you – I remembered the code. And I just sneaked in and left it.’

  ‘Some other presenter could have taken it.’

  ‘That’s why I came during your show,’ she says. ‘And left the note on it.’

  I go back into the studio. The song is a love ballad from the eighties, the title of which I can’t recall. The clichéd words mock this moment; a totally inappropriate soundtrack. I go to my window. One star shines alone. I’m there with it, like when I was small.

  ‘Tell me about him,’ I say. ‘We’ve got less than ten minutes now. What do I need to know that isn’t in that bloody book? What more is there – other than the fact that he was this reclusive, obsessive film-maker?’

  ‘Why don’t you just ask me what you want to know,’ she says.

  ‘Okay then. How did he like his coffee?’

  ‘You’re being facetious, Stella.’

  ‘Are you surprised?’ I compose myself. Turn to face her. ‘Did he ever know about me?’

  My mum shakes her head. ‘I thought it was for the best that he didn’t.’

  ‘The best for who?’ I demand.

  ‘For me,’ she admits.

  ‘Fair enough. At least you’re being honest. Why best for you?’

  ‘Don’t you think it’s odd,’ she says, ignoring my question. ‘He tried to capture the truth and, in a way, you speak the truth on a radio station. You have a way of talking that’s so like him. I can’t describe it, but it’s there. You’re alike. You are.’

  She might be right.

  I don’t want her to be.

  ‘He killed a woman,’ I snap.

  ‘He did,’ admits my mum. ‘I can’t forgive or condone that. But it didn’t stop my love. Nothing could. That’s the thing, Stella; it was like nothing you can imagine. He committed a brutal act, but he wasn’t a serial killer or anything. It was…’

  ‘Art,’ I finish, sarcasm dripping from the word. ‘I know. He was quoted in that bloody book as saying that Rebecca March was part of the art he created. What was it now? Oh yes … he was just the catalyst of the situation. He was capturing the truth of her death. But who was he to decide when she died? I can understand murder driven by passion. By people who are angry or jealous or blinded by the intensity of their emotions. But to coldly kill a young girl as part of a film, and then call it art?’ I shake my head. ‘No. That I don’t get. How can you make excuses for what he did? How could you go back to him?’

  ‘I loved him.’

  The three words used by many humans over the centuries to justify a bad relationship. Love is all you need, croons the singer on the radio. Why all the fuss over romantic love? Why do we glamorise it? Excuse horrific crimes because of it?

  How far would I go for Tom?

  I’ve surrendered to every one of his desires so far. I’ve kept myself interesting. I’ve played all the games to keep him utterly enthralled. And I love him. Like my mum loved my father?

  No.

  I do not.

  Do I?

  ‘I’m guessing my father went to prison?’ I say. ‘That it’s where he went when you got pregnant with me?’

  She nods.

  ‘And when you left me when I was twelve it was because he was freed?’

  She nods again.

  ‘Harland can’t have been his real name,’ I say.

  ‘It was. It was the only one he ever gave me.’

  ‘I imagine he’ll be dead proud that you’re a murder suspect too? Two peas in a pod, you are.’

  ‘Stella,’ she sighs, ‘I’m not a suspect, I told you that. I’m just answering their questions. And Vicky’s murder was nothing like Rebecca March’s. That was a crime of passion.’

  ‘Was it? How do you know that?’

  ‘The papers. The news. How do you think?’

  I hold my mum’s gaze. She looks away f
irst. ‘I can’t imagine Vicky or Rebecca cared how it happened,’ I say. ‘They probably both just wished it wasn’t happening. They probably both fought to live.’ I come back to the desk and lean against it. ‘What was he like then? In everyday life?’

  ‘Fascinating,’ she says. ‘Intense. In our early days, he often went off to make his films and take his pictures. He always had one project or another. I never went along, but when he came home he sparked with energy and we…’ She closes her eyes. I close mine. This, I don’t want to know. Am I afraid it will be similar to Tom’s and my passion? ‘Anyway,’ she continues, ‘as a young man, he was vigorous and passionate about everything he did. About me.’ She pauses. ‘Prison changed him.’

  ‘It’s supposed to,’ I say.

  Ignoring me, she continues, ‘After his time there he was more subdued. He’d lost some of his spark. I brought a bit of it back, I think. But he never made another film. He still took photographs. Always liked the human form.’

  ‘Alive or dead?’ I can’t help but ask.

  ‘Stella, he killed once, and he paid for it. Served his time. That was part of an experimental film he was making, and yes, he took it too far. But I was never afraid of him. Ever. He never hurt me. And no one ever made me feel more alive.’

  I glance at the monitor. We have just five minutes until I must speak to the listeners. Are they out there waiting, or have they all fallen asleep by now? Is Tom awake?

  ‘Harland never bored me,’ my mum finishes.

  ‘But I did,’ I say softly.

  ‘Did you?’ She frowns.

  ‘Yes. I could tell. Your eyes always wandered when I chatted as a kid. I could tell you wanted to be anywhere but with me.’ I rub my arms. ‘Now I know where you wanted to be.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispers.

  ‘You’re not,’ I say.

  ‘I am,’ she insists.

  ‘If we could go back,’ I ask, ‘would you stay with me instead of going to him?’