The Half Life of Stars (25 page)

As soon as he’s able to stand I drag him away from the hard shoulder and down through the embankment to the trees. There are police sirens giddy on the highway and we need a place we can both sit still and hide. They can’t see us, it’s too dense in these mangroves; we are a couple of runaways in the gloom. We stop. We don’t say much of anything. My brother’s face is blood-drained and grey; cracked up, broken and tear stained. He mutters under his breath. ‘I could have made it. I would have made it. I should have run, run,
run
–faster,
faster
.’ This is what he thinks. This is what he says. This is most of what he says before he sleeps. I tell it to him over and over while he dreams. It wasn’t you. It wasn’t your fault.

All is reordered when Daniel wakes up, the traffic noise restored to a roar. No one came looking for us here, which doesn’t mean they won’t, but life has pushed forward without us. My brother rubs his head and asks for water. I have a packet of Juicy Fruit squashed in my pocket. I hand it to him; it’s the best I can do. We sit back together against a tree stump: silent, reflective, chewing gum. Listening to the traffic. Listening for bird sounds in the trees.

‘Why did you find me?’

‘You mean how did I find you?’

‘No.’

‘That’s a stupid question.’

‘Is it? I wish you’d just left me, let me go.’

‘Fuck you, Daniel. Stop feeling sorry for yourself.’

He blanches, hallelujah; a reaction, a response. The slamming down of a mash-potato-covered fork.

‘Is that what you think, that I’m sorry for myself?’

‘Aren’t you?’

‘No. No, I’m not.’

He lowers his head. He looks so empty.

‘Hey…I didn’t mean it. It’s going to be all right, it’s…OK.’

He tries hard to smile, but he can’t.

‘How did you find me?’

‘You mean why?’

‘No, Claire. How did you find me?’

There are a lot of answers I could give. I choose this one.

‘I don’t know. I was lucky. I spoke the right languages, I sniffed you out. I talked to a lot of different people. The Japanese waitress at the restaurant, some German guy at the shipping line, the Russian sailor at the docks—’

‘You spoke to Alexi?’

‘I met him.’

‘He was rude to you?’

‘Exceptionally.’

‘Helpful?’

‘Eventually.’

Daniel’s lips twitch, half a smile.

‘What was it like?’

‘On the ship? I was seasick…I puked up a lot.’

That’s all he says. He drifts off, I’m losing him and he’s gone again. I desperately try to bring him back.

‘And when I got out here…then I went to our old apartment. I went everywhere I thought you might be. I went to the port and the beach where we used to swim and I met this old man who’d seen you running, and…I saw the meteor shower, you were there at the park…I just missed you, and I ended up at the Blue Hotel.
Dad’s
hotel.’

The mention of our father brings the pain flooding back and Daniel retches and clings to his stomach.

‘I have an ulcer,’ he says. ‘Just like his.’

‘Does it hurt?’

He winces. He breathes in and out.

‘He thought it was heartburn, that’s what he thought. He thought it was a bad dose of heartburn.’

I shake my head. I don’t know what he’s talking about.

‘When we were out in the car,’ Daniel says. ‘On the way home from the launch. He thought he had indigestion, he took a Rennie. I was so fucked off with him…so fucked
off
.’

I put my arm round my brother’s shoulder. He shakes it off.

‘You never talked about it.’

‘No. Well, I couldn’t.’

‘Was it really that bad. All this time?’

‘Yes,’ he says, quietly. ‘It really was.’

‘You couldn’t have run any faster,’ I say. ‘You couldn’t have done any more. You did all you could. You were a hero, that’s what they said. No one’s ever doubted what you did.’

His face. What a face. What desolation.

He says, ‘None of you know what I did.’

They stood in the park with their mouths held wide open watching the shuttle debris fall to earth. Every part of my father’s body ached. The flight of this rocket had excited and invigorated him in a way that he couldn’t have imagined. Its wild bid for freedom had touched him, and the vivid disappointment of its failure had carved a line straight to his chest. It made him sweat and cough, until he couldn’t catch his breath. It felt like the end of all dreams. Right then he wanted to go home. To his wife, to his daughters, to his family; to begin his small world of repairs. How stupid he’d been, how unsteady. How bitterly, rigorously in love.

They walked away in silence, just the two of them, pushing and shoving through the grief-stricken crowds as they forced their way back to the car. His son’s face was sulky and teenage, purposefully turned away from his. Daniel shouldn’t have mentioned it–he wouldn’t have mentioned it–but something was snapping on his skin. A mixture of the purest kind of sorrow and exhaustion. Somehow, he couldn’t keep it in.

‘I can’t stand you,’ he said to his father.

‘Daniel. Stop it. Enough.’

‘You shouldn’t have done this. Why did you do this? Why did you have to ruin everything?’

His father wouldn’t listen or talk, it’s not what his father cared to do. So Daniel kept on pressing, digging, forcing, while his father began to slide away and sweat. He missed the exit they needed and he swore.

‘Stupid,’ he said. ‘Now I’ve missed it.’

‘You’re still in contact with her, aren’t you? You’re still calling her, aren’t you? I know.’

‘This is none of your business. Do you hear me? You don’t…you can’t understand.’

But he did, of course. He was sixteen years old, he understood the whole world.

‘I
do
understand.’

‘No. No, you don’t.’

‘You’ve ruined Mum’s life.’

‘No, I haven’t.’

‘She’s stoned all the time. Did you know she gets stoned? You dragged us out here to this dump and you spoilt it all. You ruined all of our lives.’

His father turned round, half pleading, half choking. He took his hand off the wheel.

‘And what about my life? Jesus, you ungrateful…what about
mine
?’

Daniel decided that was the end of it. He lurched forward as they slowed in the traffic and dealt a blow to his father with his fist. Right on the cheek, near the nose, below the eye, and the sound it made when it hit him. Like a boot on a football, like a bat on a wicket, then that moan like a cow giving birth. He slumped forward so hard on the steering wheel that the car’s horn went off with a howl. Daniel reached over and stopped it. He shook his father’s shoulders and his face. He put his hand to his father’s mouth and felt the hot shallow breaths that crept their way over his lips. He heard rasping and saw bubbles of blood. Then he ran. And he ran. And then he ran.

I try not to recoil, but I do. I sense myself pulling away. It only lasts a second, but he feels it,
I
feel it. I break it. I move back. I breathe.

‘Do you think I killed him?’

‘You think you killed him. Isn’t that what you mean?’

‘I punched him. I hit him and he died.’

The tree stump digs hard into my back. I’m swirling like I might faint.

‘He had a heart attack, Daniel, he was terribly ill. He would have…he would have died anyway.’

‘How do you know that? How can you
know
.’

‘That’s what they said…the coroner said so. If it hadn’t happened then…it would have happened the next day or the next.’

My brother cries out. He starts to sob.

‘I made him miss the turning. I knew he wasn’t well. If I hadn’t…we wouldn’t have been trapped.’

‘Daniel, please, you can’t do this.’

‘He might have survived.’

‘Daniel, what’s the
good
?’

‘So I killed him? Didn’t I? I
killed
him.’

I grab him by the shoulders and shake him like a rattle, until some of the pain falls out.

‘Listen to me.
Listen
to me.
Stop
. You asked me how I found you and this is the reason, I found you because I knew where to look. Because I know who you are, what you are in your bones. And you have to believe me…I swear it. I know you did the best that you could.’

We sit in a café a mile or so from the road, our bodies are sore from the walk. Daniel sips cold Coca-Cola. I stir a weak cup of tea.

‘How long had you known?’

‘About Annie? I don’t know, for years.’

My metal spoon clinks on the rim. This cup is chipped, it has cracks.

‘He introduced me to her. They used to pick me up from school in her car.’

‘You’re joking?’

He shakes his head.

‘Was she beautiful?’

‘Yes.’

‘Younger?’

‘Not younger, just different. He wanted me to meet her, I think he was proud. He thought that a son would understand.’

I twist in my seat, I can’t stay still.

‘What was she? What did she do?’

‘She was an artist of some kind, I don’t think she was particularly good. Dad paid for everything, supported her. That’s why we never had money.’

‘How often—’

‘As often as he could. He didn’t take overtime, he didn’t work weekends. He spent all his free time with her.’

My mother. I think of my mum.

‘Why not just…leave us?’

Daniel sips his drink and rubs his neck.

‘Maybe it suited him that way, the security of us, of Mum, of
home…and then the excitement of her…I don’t know, Claire, maybe he was scared. I think the indecision ate away at him. I don’t think he had the strength to jump.’

‘He loved her?’

Daniel reaches into his bag.

‘Here,’ he says, ‘see for yourself.’

Daniel has more of Annie’s letters: years of correspondence, kept silent and hidden, letters that he knows off by heart. He found them after Dad died and hid them from Mum, and poured over them night after night. He took them with him everywhere he went after that: from home, to university, to his first shared apartment, to the first house he furnished with Kay. He hid them in all kinds of daft places: a tin in the garden, a carton in the freezer, and one he forgot to pick up when he left, squeezed inside a resealed pill packet. I take half a dozen and read them. They are frank, sweet, passionate, dark; alternately delicate then wild. One side of a dialogue–lover to lover, woman to stranger–to a man I never knew, never met.

‘God.’

‘I know.’

‘They’re not…when she describes him…it just doesn’t sound at all like Dad.’

‘He had a different life when he was with her. They did things, they went out a lot. Galleries, theatres, exhibitions; they ate in nice restaurants, hung out with her friends, went to parties.’

‘Dad liked to watch TV. He hardly went out of the house.’

‘No, not with Mum. Not with us.’

‘They’re quite—’

‘Physical?’

‘Intimate, yes.’

I fold the letters up tight and wrap them back in their brown paper envelope. I’ve read too much already. I don’t want to know. I’m an uninvited guest, an intruder.

‘I have more.’

‘That’s enough, Daniel…really.’

‘You don’t want to read them?’

I shake my head. My brother leans back, he looks defeated.

‘I hated him for it. I
hated
him, for what he was doing to Mum.’

‘He shouldn’t have involved you. You were far too young…it wasn’t fair.’

‘I didn’t understand it. Why
couldn’t
I understand? I thought he was pathetic, just…weak.’

‘Mum knew?’

He nods.

‘When did…when do you think she found out?’

‘I’m not sure. She’d probably put up with it for years. But Sylvie was so small, I don’t think she’d have left him, and Dad doted on her, you saw how he was. I think she hoped Sylvie might mend things, bring the two of them back together.’

But she didn’t, not really.

‘He laid off for a while, the year after she was born, but he didn’t…he couldn’t stay away. He used to make me cover for him. I had to say Dad was out working on a build, that he couldn’t be reached, that he’d called me.’

I’m feeling uneasy and adrift. How could this all go on without me? How was it possible not to know?

‘She gave him an ultimatum in the end, that’s when we moved over here.’

‘Why didn’t you tell me…you could have. Why didn’t you say?’

He doesn’t need to answer. He thought he was doing the right thing.

‘I thought it would get better. I hoped it would…but it just got worse.’

‘He missed her?’

Daniel’s fingers clench and relax.

‘He built that whole place just for her, the hotel, the Rose Bar,
all
of it. And I knew what was going on, I was there when they named it, I saw the neon sign they put up. He tried to buy me off with some fucking
telescopes
, can you believe it? And Mum was left at home…just as worn, just as lonely; getting stoned,
getting drunk, and wearing those ridiculous clothes that she’d started to wear, because she thought they made her look more…
attractive
.’

‘She still loved him?’

‘I suppose so.’

‘So, that’s how it was?’

‘Yes, sis…that’s how it was.’

The taxi arrives to ferry us to a hotel in Orlando.

‘Are you scared?’

‘I’m ashamed.’

‘You shouldn’t be.’

‘I’m a coward.’

‘No, you’re not.’

‘Yes, I am.’

We smile at one another, I can’t believe we’re smiling. Even now, we squabble like children.

‘Julian will be there. Kay brought him.’

He’s shocked. He crumbles. He slumps.

‘Hey…
hey
, it’s all right.’

Daniel inhales from his stomach, he can’t seem to get enough air.

‘Is he OK?’

‘He had a cold…but he’s fine.’

He absorbs this slowly, he does everything slowly. He looks shell-shocked, stretched, overloaded.

‘I didn’t know what to do…I just, I wanted to leave.’

‘Please…it’s OK. I’m here, I’ll go with you. You’ll be fine.’

‘I couldn’t stay.’

‘I know, I understand.’

‘Julian would have grown up to hate me.’

‘He wouldn’t. He won’t.’

We ride in the taxi with the dusk folding in on us; Daniel in shreds, his head resting up against the window.

‘How long?’

‘My affair? About a year. There was nothing much left…Kay and I…not for me…there was nothing much left.’

‘She knew about it, didn’t she?’

‘I told her. I finished it the day the Columbia went down. I watched it on the news and it just…it just
shattered
me. I couldn’t believe what I was doing to them…what I’d
done
. I came home and confessed the whole thing. I’m just like him, isn’t that perfect? It turns out…I’m exactly the same.’

He stares out through the glass.

‘I tried to put things right. I tried to go backwards…I couldn’t…I just couldn’t do it. I turned into such an arse…so sanctimonious. I remember telling Sylvie that you and Michael should give it another go, can you imagine?’

‘No,’ I say. ‘No, I can’t.’

‘I was jealous or something. You’ve always been so free with your life, Claire. You’ve always gone your own way with your life.’

My own way. Perfect. Like a blind man feeling around in the dark.

‘And Chloe, I cared for her, but I didn’t…not like Dad loved Annie. She was an escape route, that’s all.’

‘From what?’

He exhales.

‘From the boredom, the job, from the marriage. It was always so
rigid
…such a lie. I felt crushed…I always felt crushed. I tried to make it up to him, to Dad. I did everything he wanted. I gave myself away, gave it up. What
more
could I do for him? I did what he asked me. I rubbed myself out. I led the life he wanted me to lead.’

We stare at each other. We understand the depth of his mistake.

‘I went the wrong way,’ he says coldly. ‘We took the wrong exit. I went the wrong way with my life.’

Outside on the hotel forecourt, my brother’s eyes dip down and glaze over. I tell him he shouldn’t be so hard on himself and he laughs.

‘I don’t know, Claire…shouldn’t I be dead?’

‘Please…
please
, don’t say that.’

‘I planned it for months,’ he says, quietly. ‘It’s all that kept me going. Putting money aside…siphoning funds…I felt like an actor, a ghost. I didn’t deserve it, the life that I had…couldn’t make sense of it any longer.’

‘So, you took it off?’

He looks confused.

‘Removed it…like another man’s coat?’

‘I just wanted…to start again…to begin my life over. I thought to come looking for my old one. I hoped it might still be here, where I buried it.’

‘But it wasn’t?’

He shakes his head.

‘I planned to move on…I should have moved on from here straight away. But I still had to save him. I still had to put it all right.’

‘And you couldn’t?’

‘I tried, Claire. I tried.’

We walk towards the hotel. It has a revolving door, the kind that never stops turning.

‘How…how do you feel about him, now?’

‘I think he was selfish, a coward just like I am. I think he turned our mother into an alcoholic.’

‘But you feel sorry for him?’

He falters.

‘I don’t think he knew what kind of a life he was meant to lead. He had no idea how to lead it.’

‘You understand him now?’

‘I think I do.’

We ride up in the lift, tight like a coffin, and rest for a while outside the room. I can hear Julian playing. He’s ringing a bell, squeezing a toy, I think he might be giggling. He’s giggling. Daniel’s face is alight. He can’t wait to see him, to hold him, to kiss him; he’s stuffed full of grief for his child. And then I
see him stiffen and change. He doesn’t know how to open the door.

‘I don’t know what to say.’

‘It doesn’t matter. Be yourself.’

He’s confused, he wonders what this means. He starts to push at his cheeks; pulling the skin, dragging his pores, willing his bones to shape up. He’s trying to remould himself, to be the Daniel Kay knows, the Daniel she expects him to be. He can’t do it. He deflates. He steps back.

‘And then what? What happens next? Afterwards, I just…I go back?’

He’s so near, he’s so
close
; his damp hand is pressing on the handle, his fingertips are touching the lock. Don’t do this to me now, it’s my one good chance. Pinhead, you
have
to give me this. I turn up with you now, I’m the hero: I go home without you, I’m lost.

‘You don’t have to go anywhere,’ I say finally. ‘It’s your life, you can do what you like with it.’

‘Can I?’

‘It’s yours. Take it back.’

He relaxes. He calms. Looks alive.

‘I might like to stay…I don’t know…’

‘It’s fine, whatever. You don’t have to decide, yet. But right now you ought to go in there.’

‘Alone?’

‘It would probably be better.’

He breathes. He squeezes my hand.

‘Fats, Mum will never forgive you for this. Didn’t you promise to bring me home?’

It’s true, Pinhead, I did. But I promised someone else that I wouldn’t.

My brother and I stand by the ocean looking up at the carpet of stars. I don’t ask him how it went, there’s no need to; I can read the whole story–every line, all regrets–just by feeling the roughness of his hand.

‘Is that rocket still up there?’

‘Yes, it’ll be in orbit now.’

‘What’s the point?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Of going out there, into space. I don’t see the point, all that emptiness.’

‘Look at it, Claire. See how vast it is up there.’

‘I see that. It makes me feel small.’

‘That’s the point.’

‘Is it?’

‘You have to think things could be different. It gives me…it’s always made me hopeful.’

‘Black holes, they make you feel good?’

‘No Fats, not the holes.’

‘What then? The giant stars, the frozen planets, the lack of atmosphere? Everything charred and uninhabitable?’

‘No.’

He smiles.

‘The lack of gravity. Just for a second, wouldn’t you like to feel weightless?’

We spend some time jumping on the sand. No matter how hard we push our legs into the ground we still come crashing back down to earth. Daniel on his arse in the sand, me face down in the water. But it feels good to try. So we jump. We both jump for hours.