Call Me Star Girl

by Louise Beech

Stella, you want to tell them.

  I shiver. Shake my head. It’s her again. Why is she talking to me now? Why tonight?

  Stella, I’ve been talking to you for weeks, but you just weren’t listening. You didn’t even hear me. I was that whisper in the movement of bedsheets. I was that rustle in the trees outside. I was that voice in the tap water. Now I think you’re ready.

  It was her when I thought I’d heard something earlier. Does she hate me? Why would she come to me like this? For revenge? Will she forgive me if I tell the truth? Can I forgive me?

  Oh God.

  Speak now, Stella.

  ‘If I speak now, who should I tell?’ I whisper.

  Jesus, I’m talking to myself. To the voice of a dead girl. To an empty studio.

  Tell them all, Stella. Then you’ll stop vomiting every morning and every night. Then you’ll be able to look at yourself in the mirror.

  Them all? Who all? My mum? The Man Who Thought He Knew? Tom? Oh, Tom. I wish … What do I wish? I need to speak to him. That’s it. If I talk to Tom, I’ll know exactly what to do. I find his name on my phone, and press it, praying he’ll answer. It rings and rings and rings. I hang up and try again. After a while, he picks up.

  ‘Stella?’

  ‘You fell asleep.’ I sound accusatory.

  ‘No,’ he says sleepily.

  ‘You said you’d wait up.’ I feel sad.

  ‘I did. I am. I was just resting my eyes. Couldn’t find my phone.’ He pauses. ‘You okay?’

  ‘I’m just calling to tell you I’m not coming home yet,’ I say, and I’m surprised. I didn’t even know I was going to say it. I know I don’t want to leave, but I didn’t want to tell Tom.

  ‘Oh.’ Silence. I imagine him looking at the time. If I close my eyes, I can smell him; but this isn’t a time to ache for him. This isn’t a time to be soft. ‘God, it’s four-fifteen. What time did the show you were covering finish?’

  ‘Over an hour ago.’

  ‘I don’t get it. Why the hell haven’t you left yet? I’d have been as worried as hell if I’d woken and you weren’t here.’

  ‘Tom,’ I say softly.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you love me?’

  ‘Of course I love you. What kind of question is that?’

  ‘But how much?’

  ‘What do you mean, how much? What’s wrong?’ He sounds fully awake now. ‘Is this the Vicky stuff? I knew I shouldn’t have told you. Look, I didn’t love her like I love you. Nothing about her compares to you.’

  ‘I believe you,’ I say. ‘I do. I just want you to tell me how far you would go to show that you love me. Tell me what you’d do. I want to hear you say it. You see, I’d do anything for you. Do you know that? I don’t like that I would.’ I pause, touch the picture of my parents. My parents. Two of them. ‘I don’t like that it makes me so like my mum. I’ve always said I would never desert a child for some man, but what if I would?’

  ‘You wouldn’t,’ says Tom.

  ‘But what if I would? Because I’d do anything else for you.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘It’s been such a strange night.’

  On the radio, Gilly Morgan is speaking in hushed tones about an upcoming charity event, and I remember the one where Tom shaved his head and I touched his naked skull beneath. The moment we met. I know that I will never love anyone the way I love Tom. I know it absolutely. The studio lights up blue; the phone. I won’t answer. Probably Stephen checking if I’m still here. Or maybe The Man Who Knows again? I don’t care.

  ‘Why, what’s happened tonight?’ Tom asks.

  ‘Did you and Vicky ever see each other after we got together?’

  ‘What? No.’

  ‘Did you ever call her?’

  ‘No. Are you okay, Stella? Should I come there? Wait, is it that strange guy loitering around there again? Is that what’s unnerved you?’

  I laugh. ‘No. Nothing like that.’ The blue flashing of the studio phone dies. ‘I know who my father is now,’ I say. I had wanted to tell him in person, but I can’t wait for that. I need him to know now but I’m not sure why.

  ‘She told you?’ he says gently.

  ‘Yes. My mum came here earlier.’ I wonder again if she ever found out Tom was Victoria’s boyfriend and the father of her child. Surely if she’d known she would have told me? And does Tom know my mum was her doula? Surely he can’t. I shake my head. It’s all too much to process at once.

  ‘She finally told you,’ says Tom, ‘after twenty-six years of keeping it from you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘So?’ he asks.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Who is he then?’

  ‘You won’t believe it.’ I take a breath. ‘You know that book I’ve been reading?’

  ‘The Beverley Alli—’ He realises halfway through his words.

  ‘The one with the note on. The Harland Grey one.’

  Silence. A song starts. ‘Father Figure’ by George Michael.

  ‘No,’ he says. ‘She left you the book? It’s … Harland Grey? How the hell? But he’s a…’

  ‘I know. Go on, say it.’

  ‘…a murderer.’ The word is so quiet I wonder for a moment if I imagined Tom saying it.

  ‘Louder,’ I say.

  ‘No,’ snaps Tom. ‘What’s wrong with you?’

  ‘You know, you look like him. And you’re like him…’

  ‘What the fuck? I’m not!’

  ‘Our film,’ I say. ‘Playing dead. He would have loved it. Except he’d have wanted the death to be real and not pretend.’

  ‘Don’t compare us to that sick fuck,’ snaps Tom. Then, more kindly, ‘Sorry. He’s your father, I guess. But, Jesus, what a father to have. You must be shocked.’

  ‘Forgiveness,’ I say.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Should people forgive something like that?’

  ‘Stella, come home,’ he cries. ‘Stop arsing about and come to bed. We can talk here. I get that you’ve had a hell of a shock, but I’m worried about you.’

  ‘Don’t be,’ I say.

  ‘Of course I am.’

  ‘I just want you to know I love you,’ I say.

  ‘I know that.’

  ‘There’s only one thing left to do to show you how much.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Tom cries. ‘I know you do. You’ve done so much for me. You got me Perry! You had our initials carved on a key—’

  ‘One that you lost!’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘I thought I’d lost you.’

  ‘But you haven’t!’ He must be out of his mind at my words. ‘Never!’

  ‘You’ve been different recently. Not arguing with me. It was like you’d given in somehow. I thought I had finally bored you.’

  ‘I’ve had a lot on my mind,’ he admits. ‘The police interviews. It was scary stuff. But I always loved you. Please, Stella, come home now. I can show you how much I do.’

  ‘I need to tell everyone,’ I say.

  ‘Tell everyone what?’

  I look up and she is there. Victoria. Vicky. No surname needed now. We are closer than that. She stands in the studio doorway with her halo of golden hair – like a goddess. No baby this time. Instead she holds her bloody coat around her body. The one that was put over her after she died. It’s red. I know because I have seen it before. I close my eyes. When I open them, she has disappeared, but I can smell something. Something familiar. Something gone now.

  The star perfume.

  The room pulsates with its scent.

  How I miss it.

  ‘Stella?’ cries Tom. ‘Are you still there? Answer me! If you don’t come home now, I’m coming there!’

  ‘Don’t come here,’ I say.

  ‘I am if you’re not here in twenty minutes.’

  ‘Tom, I’m going.’ My throat hurts. ‘Just remember, I did it because I love you. I don’t really mind about the key … we all lose things … I’ve lost things I
love…’

  ‘Did what? Did what?’

  I hang up.

  What time is it now? Four-thirty. Stephen Sainty will be here anytime. He can’t come in. He can’t. I rush into the foyer, open the main door and step outside. I know how to change the door code, but so does everyone else who works here. I need to disable it. This is the only entrance to the building. The fire exit on the first floor can’t be reached because the metal fire-escape stairs are broken and the windows are either barred or too small or too high.

  I run upstairs to the junk cupboard where everyone chucks old computers and grab a hammer from the box of tools at the back. Keeping my foot in the main door so it stays open, it doesn’t take much effort to smash the small box. Once it’s hanging by two wires, I rip them out. Then I come inside and let the main door slam shut. I try the handle. It won’t open. With the door code disabled, I can’t get out, but no one can get in either.

  It’s just me

  Me and Victoria Valbon.

  I can smell blood and perfume and night air.

  Tell them. Tell them, Stella. Let me rest in peace. Only you can do that. Tell them and I might forgive you.

  I sit at the desk. Gilly Morgan is talking about the charity event again. She will be there, she says, auctioning wedding dresses, raising money for cancer. I get my mobile phone and turn it off. Then I hover one finger over the fader, ready to silence Gilly, and another over the mic button. I have done my last show. I have played my last song. But I’m not done.

  I have not said my last words.

  What will I say though? How to tell this story? No – I will not think about it until I say it. I will not plan it. I will let the words come as they may. Let them find their own way. And then Victoria might forgive me. But will anyone else? Are they listening? Are they all asleep?

  ‘Vicky,’ I whisper to the room. ‘Now you can leave me alone.’

  Then I push down the fader and slide up the mic.

  I am The Woman Who Knows.

  And now they all will too.

  I speak.

  38

  ELIZABETH

  THEN

  While I waited for Vicky to come out of her house, I thought about Harland. I couldn’t help it. Thinking of him always made me emotional beyond words, but I needed to be upset when Vicky came, anyway, to create some drama and detain her. I thought of a moment in a court room. A moment I thought might be last time I ever saw him. I hadn’t thought of it in a long time.

  As I sat on the wall on the end of Vicky’s street, I closed my eyes and remembered it. Him. The wood-panelled room. All I could see at first were the green shoes I’d been wearing. I shouldn’t have been in them, not really, not being five months pregnant. But just like Vicky in her kitten heels, I had refused to give up my fashion. Refused to be frumpy. I was only twenty and the man I had loved for barely a year, who the fortune-teller had called my twin flame, was receiving his sentence. I had wanted his last sight of me to be something he would never forget, so I wore the shoes he loved me in.

  Because Harland had admitted his guilt as soon as he was arrested, there had been no trial, no jury. There had been a few hearings that were to do with sentencing, when Harland had had the chance to justify why he’d killed Rebecca March, and answer questions. But I didn’t go to those. I couldn’t bear to hear him talking about another woman. He had committed the murder before we met, so it wasn’t about any sort of disloyalty. I was just afraid of how much it would hurt if I saw his eyes glow with passion when he spoke about her.

  I only went to the sentencing.

  I looked across the small room at him, in his grey suit, no expression on his usually powerful face. Rebecca March’s family were there too but didn’t know who I was. I hadn’t even been mentioned in the newspapers because Harland wanted to protect me. No one knew I was his girl.

  I wore my green heels that day. Harland once told me that green made me look all the more wicked. I saw his eyes follow them when I took my seat. Then he looked me full on. Eye to eye. Beseeched me with those dark, deep pools of ink. I saw everything there. The passion we had shared. The pain at my last visit, when I’d told him I would not be coming to see him in prison.

  I was still able to hide my pregnancy. I had found out about it while he was inside, awaiting the sentence. It had been too late to do anything but have the baby. I had been so wrapped up in Harland’s arrest, the shock truth about what he had done, that I’d missed the signs.

  The day before I had told him that I would always love him, but I could not forgive what he had done to that girl. I lied. How bitter the irony that if I’d not been pregnant I’d have stayed with him, gone to visit him as much I could. I’d have waited for him forever. It was my own jealousy that made me end it. My need to be number one in his life or not in it at all.

  Harland was given fifteen years. I did not know then that he would be out in just twelve. In my head, I wondered if I could bring up my child until he or she was sixteen, and then go back to Harland once he was released. I would have done my duty. I would be free.

  I watched Harland being taken down. The pain was exquisite. For a moment, I wondered if such pain could kill a foetus. I’m not proud to say that I almost wished it would, so I could scream out that I would visit him as much as I could. Every part of me wanted to run and grab him, to kiss him, to cling to him.

  But I could not get Harland’s words out of my head. The ones he had said just months earlier, as we lay in bed. I’d been so utterly happy. Then he asked if I ever wanted children. I don’t think he saw my repulsed expression in the blackness, because he went on to tell me how he wanted just one child. Hopefully a girl. He said girls were more fun. He said he liked the idea of having just one, because then she could be the absolute centre of his world.

  I decided then never to get pregnant with his child.

  But it was too late. I would have been a month gone already. When I found out, his words about a daughter screamed at me. What if I had a girl? His love for her would eclipse his love for me.

  I let my twin flame go.

  And I didn’t see him again until he wrote to me more than twelve years later.

  I am what I am. I know I’m no good. I’m not nice. I’ve always been driven by my own needs. I went straight back to Harland on his release, leaving my own child. But because I know love – obsessive, desperate, selfish love – I finally know what I can do for my daughter. My Harland is gone now, dead at only sixty-one, but everything I’ve ever done wrong – and oh, I know there is so much – I can put right tonight.

  Footsteps sounded behind me then.

  They sounded like Vicky’s low heels.

  With tears already on my cheeks, I turned around, ready to face her, and do whatever I must.

  39

  STELLA

  NOW

  ‘This is Stella McKeever.

  I know, I know – you’re surprised to hear me again. Sick of me after I did lovely Maeve’s show too. I imagine you think I’ve pulled poor Gilly Morgan out of her seat. But no, she isn’t here. She’s hopefully having an amazing time in Vietnam right now. You were listening to a prerecorded show. Like the reheated news on the hour. But this is live now. This is really me, in the flesh, right here, right now. No music, no adverts, no local news. Just me, for as long as it takes.

  You see … I have something to share with you all.

  God. I don’t exactly know how I’m going to do it. I haven’t thought further than what I’m saying now. I … well, I … Let’s just see.

  This isn’t like my usual show, where I’ve planned it in advance, chosen my songs and my stories and everything. Actually, you know what, in a way I have been planning it. For three weeks. I just didn’t know it.

  I didn’t know it until now.

  I had this caller earlier, Chloe – hi, Chloe if you’re listening still; she said we should keep our secrets to ourselves. She said people unburden themselves, but they’re only doing it to relieve their own guilt. K
eep it to yourself, she said. We don’t want to know. But what I’m going to share is something that won’t serve me well at all.

  It will ruin my life, but I’m ready for that.

  I think…

  I…

  I don’t know how many other listeners are still with me. It’s four-forty-five so unless you’re on the nightshift, or you start very early, I won’t have many of you at all. It doesn’t matter. Just one listener is an audience.

  I’d like to think my mum is listening. If she is – hi, Mum. I’m glad you are. I bet you’re confused right now. What the hell is she doing? you’re thinking. Me being on here is how we met again after fourteen years, you see.

  So, what am I doing, Mum?

  The answer is … I’m not entirely sure yet. I mean, I am sure. I’m just not sure I can. I want to. I do. I have to. You’re going to be shocked. I know that much. But I think you might understand. You of all people will understand the most. And that makes me really happy. It does. You are the one who has hurt me more than anyone, but you’re also the one who, I guess, I understand the most. You can be proud of me, Mum, because I don’t think anyone is going to call me boring after tonight.

  Wait. The phone’s ringing. Shit. Sorry – I shouldn’t swear on air.

  But I guess this isn’t my usual kind of show…

  You guys won’t hear the phone. We have it on silent in the studio. Should I answer it? No, I don’t think so. I bet it’s Stephen Sainty. He’ll be on his way here for the early show and he won’t be happy, but this is pretty irregular stuff.

  Stephen, if you’re listening in the car, don’t rush here. There’s no point. You won’t be able to get in. I’ve disabled the door code. I’m sorry, but I had to. I can’t do this any other way. I’ll pay for it to be fixed, I promise. So, you’ll understand that I can’t answer the phone right now. Don’t bother trying my mobile either, because I’ve turned it off. You might be mad right now, Stephen, but this won’t do our ratings any harm, trust me. This is definitely going to be what they call an exclusive, and it’s only at WLCR. You’ll thank me tomorrow.

  I don’t know if you will, Tom.