We Are All Made of Stars (23 page)

‘I'm calling the police,' a woman behind me says, her voiced laced with genuine fear.

The man scrambles to his feet, backing away terrified without taking his eyes off Vincent. He holds his hands out in supplication.

‘I'm sorry,' he says. ‘I didn't mean anything. I wasn't thinking.'

‘No, you weren't.' Vincent takes a step towards him.

‘Vincent.' I reach out and touch his tense arm, and in one sharp movement he turns and pushes me away. It is not a hard push but I am caught off balance and knocked back against the wall, my head following on a second later with the sharp whip of my neck. I'm not hurt so much as shocked. Leaning against the wall, I stare at him. He stares at me, and then, taking a deep shuddering breath, he steps over the man and leaves.

‘I've called the police,' the frightened woman says. ‘They're on their way.'

Grabbing my jacket, I put all the cash I have on the table and follow Vincent out into the busy street. Looking both ways, I can see his head, his determined gait, already far ahead of me, swallowed up in the crowd, heading towards Regent's Park. I break into a jog to follow him, catching up with him as the street gives away to parkland and the path disappears into a hazy darkness.

‘Vincent!' I call his name, but he marches on, his fists still clenched at his side. ‘Vincent.'

Eventually I catch up with him, standing in front of him, challenging him to push me out of the way again.

‘Stella, go away,' he says. ‘Go away. I don't want you to see this. I don't want you to see me like this.'

‘Too late, I've seen you,' I say, touching my bruised shoulder. ‘I've felt you.'

‘I'm sorry.' He covers his face with his hands. ‘I didn't mean … I didn't mean to. I just wanted to get away, and so I pushed you. I didn't meant to; it just happened. I'm not the sort of man who hurts a woman, not any woman. I just … I'm not coping, Stella. I'm not coping. And I don't know how to ask for help.'

‘Vincent.' I press my hands against his chest; I feel his heart fiercely pumping. ‘Tell me. Tell me what it is. Let me help you. If you tell me, it will be a start and together we can go back and ask for whatever help you need. Just tell me, because you can't go on like this.'

‘You can't help me,' he says. ‘How can you help when you're the reason that I wish I had died out there?'

‘What?' His words make no sense. ‘What are you saying?'

He sidesteps me and walks – no, marches – on.

‘Vincent, what did I do? You have to tell me what I did. You can't say that and walk away. Where are you even going?'

‘I'm trying to get away from you,' he says, his eyes locked forward.

‘Vincent!' I howl his name, so loudly it echoes in the damp air. ‘Tell me what you mean.'

At last he stops. He bows his head, dragging breaths out of his chest, closing his eyes; he trembles, fighting tears, fighting fury.

‘I should have died, the day of the ambush,' he says. ‘It should have been me and not Kip. Or, at least, not just Kip.'

‘A lot of soldiers feel that way, remember?' I say. ‘The counsellor said …'

‘Oh, for fuck's sake, Stella, I'm not your patient! I'm your husband! Will you let me talk to you like a man, for once in my life?'

‘I'm sorry.' My voice is small, frightened. I'm not scared of Vincent, but of what he is about to say and how whatever it is will change everything. The park is not empty – groups of people and couples stand in their own little pools of darkness, but I know they are all straining towards us now.

‘I've been over and over it, again and again,' Vincent says. ‘And every time it's the same, it's exactly the same, but it didn't have to be. It could have been different. We were out on the road – routine patrol, all the precautions taken – looking for IEDs; everything was as it should be. Kip's little dog was trotting at his side. We got used to her stopping every few metres. We paid attention to her – she heard things we didn't, sensed stuff. But that day she was relaxed, happy. You should never relax, they tell you that; you should never let your guard down. But it was hot, and me and Kip, we were laughing about this YouTube video we'd seen – a cat and a photocopier. So fucking stupid; the sort of bollocks that Kip loved. And the dog was chilled. I looked up at the trees on the horizon, scrubs, really. And then I saw it: this flash, this reflection in the foliage, sunlight bouncing off metal where there shouldn't have been any. And I knew that, whatever it was, it was aimed at us.'

As I watch him talk, I realise Vincent isn't standing with me in soggy Regent's Park any more – he's thousands of miles away, back on that dirt road again, in the final seconds before his whole life was torn apart.

‘I had a second, one second. Kip was right next to me, oblivious. He didn't see it; he didn't know it was coming. I should have warned him, grabbed him, pulled him out. I should have told him to run, to dive with me. I had one second, you see, Stella, one second, maybe less, and I knew if I used it to try and warn Kip, I knew it would be one second too late for both of us. And I saw your face, Stella. I felt your skin. And I wanted to come home to
you
. I ran for cover. I didn't get far, a few feet at most. The rocket hit us square, hit Kip dead on. Took my leg off. And I saw it: I saw it go up in the sky in an arc, like it was a dream, and then there was this pink mist raining down on us, all of us. And it was a second or two before I could hear again – the thud of my leg in the dirt and the screams. My screams. And pain – pain that I had no idea was possible. I remember my squad facing sniper bullets to drag me to shelter, and realising the pink mist, the pink mist that was slicking my face and my hands, that was what was left of Kip.'

For several long seconds I can't say anything; there are no words. Before, I just knew the bare bones of what had happened to him, but now the images he has conjured up, the secrets that he's kept to himself all this time and the nightmare that keeps him awake, are all too vivid for me as well.

‘But Vincent, you couldn't have done anything … There wasn't time. You didn't know …'

‘Now, see that is where you're wrong.' Vincent takes a step towards me. ‘I could have done one thing very differently. I could have been a mate, I could have been a soldier, I could have been a
man
– and reached for him, warned him, taken him with me. We might have both died, but we
might
have both made it. It was a risk, a risk that I didn't want to take. I had to choose, Stella. I had to choose between being the man I always thought I was and coming home to you. And I chose you.'

The air smells of distant smoke. There are shrieks and howls somewhere in the distance, and it feels as if the world outside the pool of lamplight we are standing in doesn't exist.

‘And I thank God every day that you did,' I whisper.

‘Well, I don't.' His shoulders heave with the effort it takes him to speak in a level tone, fighting to keep his voice calm. ‘I'm not glad. Every night, every time I close my eyes, I feel that mist, the rain of my best mate, sticky on my skin; I smell it. I see the photo of his wife and kid that he kept taped above his bed. I know that I failed him; I failed my unit, my regiment, myself. I know that I am not the man I always thought I was. The man who when the moment came would step up, would do what he was trained to do. I didn't think it would ever be in doubt, because that is who I am. Who I thought I was. But the moment came and I failed. I'm weak, I'm useless. Broken body, broken mind. Not a soldier any more, not anything …'

‘You're still my husband,' I say. My hand hovers towards him, hesitating.

‘You just don't get it,' Vincent says. ‘I try to make it go away, Stella, but it won't. Sometimes there are moments, seconds, when I think perhaps it will be OK again, but they hardly ever happen and, when they do, they don't last. I didn't get out of bed today because I didn't want to disturb you. I got up because I couldn't be near you. Because when I look at you, all I see is the person that I am not. I see the reason why I failed.'

I run.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Mikey is really very good at shooting zombies.

I've never been much of a video gamer, or in fact any sort of gamer, so when he handed me the controller for the game he was allowed to play for thirty minutes after dinner, I was reticent. I really should have been leaving. I had planned a whole evening of research on Victorian funeral practices, but Jake was stretched out along the back of the sofa and he gave me this look that said, let the good times roll, loser. And Sarah's living room, exactly the same in dimensions as my own, was somehow a hundred times warmer and more inviting that mine, which is really just its own little museum of my life so far. So I took the controller and flailed about miserably, dying repeatedly, while Mikey showed me the ropes, clearly laughing at me but with a surprising amount of good nature and patience. An hour later and now I can stay alive for almost five minutes.

‘Bed time,
now
.' Sarah turns off the TV, clearly not prepared to be conned into letting us play for yet another ‘just ten more minutes'.

‘Ohhhh,' Mikey and I chorus as one, and she laughs. ‘You're as bad as each other. I already let you have twice as long as you need.'

‘But he's just getting good,' Mikey says. ‘If we stop now, he'll be crap again by the next time we play. I've spent all this time training him.'

‘My heart bleeds,' Sarah says, pointing at the door. Mikey throws me a look of defeat and scoops Jake up into his arms. My treacherous cat lies there like a rag doll, about as soft as an animal can be. It really is hard not to be offended.

‘Can I take Ninja?' Mikey asks.

‘Yeah, go on,' she says. ‘But he'll want to go home later, so make sure you leave the window open.'

She turns back to me as Mikey disappears to his bedroom, chatting to the cat as he goes.

‘He likes to pretend he's tough, but he loves it when Ninja is here at bedtime. I think he lets Ninja sleep on his pillow to protect him from zombies,' she says. ‘I wonder whose cat he is. I feel bad about it sometimes. Still, he does always leave before I go to bed, so he's probably going home, right? Maybe he gets a better breakfast there, than dinner.'

I think about my two bits of bacon that I cook every morning, and how I always feed one half of a rasher to Jake. Sarah has certainly got his number.

‘He's my cat,' I confess, and Sarah laughs and then bites her lip when she sees my deadpan expression.

‘Seriously? What, you're not joking?'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘Well, sort of mine. A girlfriend bought him – for me, ostensibly, as a present – and got tired of me soon after, leaving me behind. I don't think I'm Jake's idea of a dream owner. I thought he was out all night, killing things and having sex with lots of lady cats, but it turns out that he's just starved of the love of a little boy who is more scared of zombies than he lets on. I can't really hold that against him, so if you want to share him, that seems OK to me. Although you must let me pay for all the food he eats here.'

‘Oh, God, we've nicked your cat!' Sarah seems genuinely mortified.

‘No, you haven't. You are sharing him, like I said, and you know what? He's a nice cat round here. Round my house he's just … disappointed.'

Sarah presses her lips together in a clear attempt not to laugh. ‘But he's clearly special to you, right?'

‘Well, he's very nice for a cat,' I say. ‘And really it would be very unfair to hold any of his cat behaviour against him. I mean, you know, being emotionally rejected by a cat, it's not my finest hour, but it's not the worst, either. When I was about Mikey's age I had a hamster. It actually killed itself. Got out of its cage and jumped out of my open bedroom window. So a cat that seems to tolerate me is definitely a step up, you see …'

Sarah guffaws, covering her mouth with her hands, although it does little to stop the laughter from coming.

‘Oh, my God, you are a sad case!' she tells me sweetly. ‘You are an epic loser. Still, I'm a loser too. Knocked up at fifteen, no man, no family, barely two pennies to rub together. What a pair we make.'

Curiously I rather like being in a pair with her. Making her smile is giving me a strange sense of satisfaction. What I don't really understand is why the next question escapes from my mouth before I can stop it.

‘Do you mind … I hope I am not intruding if I ask about …' I shift from one foot to the other.'

‘Mikey's dad?' Sarah says the words for me. ‘Where is the fucker?'

‘Well, those weren't the exact words I was going to use. Mikey says he's never met him.'

‘I think that's the way he'd like it to be,' Sarah says sadly. ‘That's what he tells people … the other kids at school. But it's not true. Mikey's dad lived with us for a long time. He was an all right bloke, just had this temper on him, and he was … easily led. Fell in with the wrong people, ended up in the nick more than once – in and out. Stupid petty stuff, you know. But he kept going back, and then he got involved with drugs and … It wasn't like he ever hit me, or I was scared of him. I just realised one day that if I stayed with him, my life would always be the same. Me waiting. Waiting for him to get back from whatever he was doing, waiting for him to get nicked, waiting for him to come out. And Mikey was getting bigger and seeing all this going on, and I wanted something different for him. I want him to grow up decent, you know what I mean? I want him to try hard to make something of himself in the world.'