Star Shot (10 page)

The woman is lovely. Marble again, lying on her side with her head resting on one arm, facing away. Her right hip disappears into, or has not yet been released from, the rough block of white stone. Sculpted strands of hair fall round her neck, her shoulders, and frame the face that looks away with an expression of unutterable distance and sadness. Seen from this angle, the curved body is not what it seemed; it is not relaxed, nor sleepily coming alive: it is tense and expectant. Her lips are pressed thin and her eyes stare straight ahead.

It is not his fault, she understands that much, thrashing about with some irritation in the weed. He is the creator, after all, yes even when he is more surgeon than sculptor, bent over the white anaesthetised body with a fine-bladed knife, she knows he is giving her the chance to carry on living and breathing, and what statue, however obstinate, would not jump at the chance to pull free of the marble block? Her ingratitude is devastating, he must never see it; so she keeps her face turned away and hopes her curves will be enough of a disguise, and that when the gentle hand eventually touches the marble flank she will not, this time, freeze and cry out.

Not again, he thinks, and wonders if he should get a nurse. She is clearly distressed and dreaming, her body curled protectively under the covers, her restless face expecting the worst. But she is not shouting, not yet; he watches a moment to see if it will pass. His big hands grip the metal bed-frame. He should call her, he thinks.

This time, though, she pulls herself free, and begins to wake into the bright sunlight of the ward. He stands quietly at the foot of her bed and waits to be recognised, watching as her thin mouth relaxes and the laughter, like water, rises slowly in her green eyes.

32.

Dan is so astonished to see the Syrian woman again he holds out his arms and almost embraces her; she looks up at him surprised, and he puts a hand on her shoulder and presses it gently. When she sees who it is she smiles a big smile, and raises her hands, and says she has no sweets for them this time. She looks older.

Oh, says Dan, parking Teddy neatly by the bench, I'm so glad you're here. We missed you. Your bench has been empty for days – all the benches – I mean, I thought you were gone.

Not yet, she says. Maybe never. She reaches over to stroke Teddy's hair.

Well, I'm glad anyway. How are you?

She shrugs. It's OK, she says. OK. You know?

I know. He sits down next to her and shivers. Have you heard from your son? She shakes her head. And the others – the ones in Palestine?

No. Not recently.

The cold air around the bench defies the late April sun. Lina al Hassan has tears in her eyes.

I wanted almond blossom, she says; now I want apricot blossom. I have a grand-daughter I have never seen.

Dan bows his head, then gets up and extricates the unusually placid Teddy from the buggy. Praying that he will co-operate, he gives him a biscuit and puts him carefully into her lap. He doesn't try to wriggle free, and by the time he has eaten his biscuit has discovered the bright stones in the rings on her worn-out hands. Lapis lazuli, opal, amethyst.

Thank you.

He can tell from her voice, from the soft curve of her arm, how the comfortable weight of the boy in her lap fills a void. It is her turn to ask:

How are you?

And his turn to shrug. OK, he says. It's OK. All my time is with him, I don't do much else. Are you working at the moment?

She nods. Still cleaning at the hospital, a few hours a week. It's fine; the girls are fun. I don't mind it at all.

Did you work before? Back home, I mean.

She nods, looks almost abashed.

University lecturer.

Christ, says Dan. What in?

Microbiology.

They look at each other and see the absurdity of it and start laughing.

Come on, says Dan. Let me buy you a coffee in the park.

She raises her thick black eyebrows and looks almost fierce. Because I'm a university lecturer?

No, he says, because this bench is bloody cold and just through that big gate there I promise it is actually spring.

I don't have a swipe-card, she says. I'm not, how do you say, legitimate.

Don't worry, says Dan. I know other ways.

33.

You took some finding, he says.

I heard I had disappeared.

They look at each other, delighted. He bends over to kiss her lightly on the cheek and is ambushed by thin arms which suddenly hug him tight.

Thank you for finding me, she says, I was afraid you might never come.

No chance of that, he says. No chance at all. I've got too much to tell you; it's been building in my head. Like water behind a dam.

So tell me, she says, pulling herself more upright and patting the arm of the chair. No, wait. Go and get a cup of tea, and let me do my hair.

He grins and gives an ironic half-bow, and heads off in search of tea. Myra hauls herself further up and carefully puts her legs over the side of the bed, and sits for a few seconds, waiting to see what will happen next. Nothing. Good. She bends extremely cautiously to pull open the door of the locker by the bed where her things are, and is feeling around awkwardly inside when the distant buzzing starts up, and she gets a dim sense of the encroaching shadow. She curses, knowing she should retreat and get her legs back on the bed and lie flat as quickly as she can, but she thinks she can feel the spines of the brush, and tries to race the pooling dark as you might race an incoming tide in a place, like a channel or a sandbar, where the water comes from many directions.

So when he comes back with a small tray and two mugs and some standard-issue biscuits she is not in the bed, but beside it, with her arms wrapped around her knees and her head down and her whole body shaking.

Myra, for god's sake!

He puts the tray down and crouches beside her, and when she lifts her face to his she is tear-stained and laughing.

What happened?

She waves the hairbrush at him.

Got the bastard, she says.

She won't let him ring for the nurse, but she does let him help her back into bed and give her a mug of horrible sweet tea and a brief homily on the virtues of patience in patients.

There's no time to be patient, I have no time for this. She is helpless, petulant.

Tough, he says. If you're not patient now there'll be no time for anything later.

She shrugs, and then sips her tea. Decides not to tell him that one of the consultants is advising a course of chemotherapy.

Tell me the other things now, she says, the ones behind the dam. And he starts to explain about the channels of silence eating into the city, and tells her a bit about Luke and Dan, and the other people on the benches, and the mapping project, and the various possible solutions, including the imminent parade around the museum. He treads as carefully as he can, nervous of upsetting her, but she nods, and seems to accept it all without difficulty, and even laughs at the idea of the parade.

That poor building, she says. Doesn't sound at all like its kind of thing. Undignified. Do you think it'll work?

Theo considers. No, he says. No, I don't. I'm not sure that even they think it will really. The problem is obviously next door, and the solution obviously needs to be more radical. But I think it's a useful experiment, to see if noise is the answer, if it helps at all. And it'll be vastly entertaining to watch.

Are you going?

I thought I probably would. It'll be on telly, though – you can watch it from here. Saturday. Day after tomorrow.

I'm unlikely to be out by then.

On your current showing, most unlikely.

She closes her eyes. I'm going to sleep again, she says. Then, anxiously. Will you still be here when I wake up?

He looks at his phone. Probably not, he says. I have heaps to do. But I'll stay till you're properly asleep, and I promise you the dream won't…

It was a different one, she says, visibly drifting now. It was sad, sad… She looks at him from a distance and he can see trouble fogging up her eyes.

Not now, he says. Don't try and tell me now. I'll come back tomorrow and maybe you can tell me then; here, let me read a bit, close your eyes, here's some more Fort.

34.

They finally work their way through the last item on the list and rub their eyes and look at each other. Finished. Yes. Thank you.

They stand up, and he puts a friendly hand on Luke's shoulder and thanks him again, warmly, for all his hard work. The look he receives is so proud, so helplessly grateful, it pulls him up short. He smiles him out of the office and turns back to his desk, glad, half-amused, a little shocked, to have made the young man so happy: that such things should be somehow in his gift still surprises him. It has been a pleasure, too; he is so used to having negotiate resistance.

He stands perfectly still at his desk for a moment, letting it all ebb away. The week-long frenzy of meetings, of organization, is still flinging out a few last-minute emails; they drop quietly onto his computer screens, his phone, his iPad. He deliberately disconnects. He turns off his computer, watches the beautiful maps go out one after the other all around the room, puts his work phone into a drawer, and then, next to it, his private phone. He leaves the drawer open for a minute or two, while he slowly unknots his tie, just in case her name should light up either of them. You could wish me luck, he thinks. It was your idea. He pushes the drawer to, slips out of his neat dark jacket, hangs it carefully on the back of his chair. Then he unbuttons his white shirt and takes that off too. He sits at his desk, putting one foot, then the other, onto his desk to remove his shoes and his bright socks. Then he stands, his bare feet on the smooth cold floor, to unbuckle his belt and slip out of his trousers, folding them neatly over the chair. He spends five minutes prowling around the room in his boxers and t-shirt, opens the drawer one last time, and shuts it hard. You could wish me luck. He fetches his running things from the cupboard and puts them on; finds his swipe-card and his housekey, pushes them deep into the pocket of his shorts, and heads out towards the park.

There is little point in running before the park itself. He crosses the war memorial gardens as briskly as he can; another place where the cold silence pools, and the thick white cherry blossom seems unreal, suspended. He nods at the high naked angel with the beautiful wings and the beautiful behind.
Ti ddim yn oer lan fan ‘na ngwas i?
The A470 opens up for him like the Red Sea, and he is suddenly at the gates.

There, with his usual ironic grimace, he swipes his card and he is in, running fast and light across the playing fields through bright trees and rugby players, children, sweet hyacinths and dogs, to the river. The great park swindle, he thinks, still not quite yet apparent. Give it another couple of years. It depends how quickly people, the People, decide to sell up. He has been pushing at the university council for months now to do what he has done in the Institute, and start buying them whenever and wherever they come up – in twos and threes, if necessary, though occasionally you'll get a small handful, all at once. People die, or suddenly need the money; they can always borrow a card from a friend, from a relation; or they never go near the place at all, why would they? Cash it in now. It's just a matter of time, of patience.