We Are All Made of Stars (26 page)

We can't have sex, we simply can't. Because afterwards there would be nowhere to go. No singing and teasing any more – not after I'd seen his boy bits and he'd … Oh God, it doesn't bear thinking about.

Oh, I wish Stella were here. If she were, I would tell her. Stella would
get
a sex plan, I know that. Stella has the look of someone who is used to desperate measures.

A coughing fit comes suddenly, but not out of nowhere; I realise I've been breathless for the last few minutes and probably ignoring it. The explosion of noise sends Shadow careering for the door as it opens, a trail of tights flapping crazily behind him.

Tonight's night nurse, a well-meaning older lady called Mandy, who has certainly never needed a sex plan, pops her head round the door and then, seeing me sitting on the bed, comes in.

‘Choke up, chicken; it might be a gold watch,' she says, patting me firmly on the back. I feel a nodule of mucus loosen sharply and then evacuate into my mouth. She hands me a box of tissues. Once it's gone, I take a few deep breaths and wait for my eyes to stop watering, while she rubs my back.

‘A gold watch?' I say.

She tips her head to one side and looks at me.

‘Something my nan used to say. So I hear your young man is taking you for a trip out? They reckon you'll be discharged soon.'

‘Just a drink, and he's not mine, as such.'

‘You look nice. That lipstick suits you.' Her smile is benign.

‘Like Ben would even notice if I was wearing lipstick,' I say. ‘I could get up in full clown make-up and he wouldn't turn a hair. He only has eyes for himself.'

For a moment I wonder if full clown make-up would make inappropriate sex more manageable, but just the thought alone makes me want to book therapy.

‘You say that as if he's no good, but from what I hear he comes every day to see you, and he makes everyone laugh while he's here. He's a rare sort of man – a man who keeps his word and brings happiness. You should keep him.'

‘I don't think I'd be allowed to. I think that would be unlawful imprisonment,' I say.

‘Well, anyway,' Mandy says. ‘They are chucking you out soon, you know. Maybe even tomorrow.'

‘Really?' I thought I'd feel happy, elated even, but I don't. As soon as she says the words, there's this little buzz of panic and a foreboding, because while I've been at Marie Francis, I've been in the holding pattern, this limbo. Now I have to make choices, or really just one choice, the same choice that I've been making over and over again since I was a little girl: whether to go out there and say hello to the world, or stay indoors with Mum. I know what Issy would want me to do.

‘I'm here,' Ben proclaims as he opens the door, ushering in with him a miasma of Lynx.

‘No kidding.' Mandy wrinkles her nose. ‘I'll leave you two to it. Oxygen's on the wall if you need it.'

‘Or you could stay,' I say, catching at her sleeve, a little desperately. ‘We could have a chat. All three of us, together. In a group.'

‘Darling,' she says. ‘I've got work to do. And remember what I said, and think on.'

‘What did she say?' Ben asks me.

‘Something about a gold watch,' I say.

It's fair to say that in the seconds after Mandy left the room, no two people have ever wanted to die more. And that's saying something in a hospice.

‘So, let's do this thing.' Ben is stoic, in typical Ben fashion – never backing down from a challenge once he's agreed to it. Like that time he ate a spider when we were eleven. ‘I've booked us a room in this hotel up the road. It's not exactly The Ritz, it's bordering on being a dive, in fact, but there's no nurse's button that we could accidentally push whilst in the throes of …' He looks at me anxiously. ‘Doing sex stuff.'

Stay indoors with my mum, that's the choice I make. I make the choice to stay indoors with my mum.

‘This is madness.' Standing up, I notice that Ben takes two steps back. ‘Look, don't panic. Don't look like you are about to be led to your doom, because it's fine, it's OK. You've been granted a reprieve, OK? I've been thinking about it, and it was a silly plan, stupid and impulsive, and maybe we were both a bit drunk on the moment. But a stupid plan is a stupid plan, and just because we came up with it, it doesn't mean we have to do it. It's only one of many of our stupid plans through history, and let's look at how those turned out. Like that plan you had to motorise a shopping trolley, or that time I thought I'd stand up to Jessie Sinclair because all bullies are cowards, and she punched me in the stomach and then you for good measure. It was a silly idea, and you are a sweet, good friend for offering to go through with it, but really. It's fine, stand down. Stand your … bits down.'

I am not getting the reaction of relief that I was expecting from Ben. Instead his frown deepens, and his expression is complicated and closed.

‘If that's what you want,' he says eventually. ‘Whatever you want.'

‘Well, isn't that what you want?' I ask him, confused.

He sits down opposite me, his long skinny legs folded inwards. He looks like some kind of bird – a rook or a crow, a portent of doom.

‘I want to keep you safe,' he says. ‘And you want to have sex. And, well, if you are going to have sex with someone, I want it to be with someone who will care for and respect you and take care of you, and not be a dick, like pretty much all guys my age are, including me at times. I want it to be nice, and warm, and kind and friendly, and full of love. And even if it's not lust-type love, actual real love for this person you are doing this amazingly intimate thing with.' He leans forward. There's a gravitas about his expression I'm not used to seeing – something that makes me sit up and listen. ‘When you first asked me, I thought, fuck that's weird, and I went home thinking, shit we can't do that. I'll turn up tomorrow and she'll say “what a joke” and everything will be fine. But then, I was awake all night thinking, thinking about the sex that I've had …'

‘Ben, really …' I don't want to know.

‘No, just listen.' Ben shifts in his chair. ‘I've been with a few girls. Not that many, actually. Fewer than ten …'

‘Ten is loads!'

‘I didn't say ten, I said fewer than ten.' Ben looks exasperated.

‘Fewer than five?' I feel that clarification is important.

‘Oh God! Six, I've had sex with six girls,' he says.

‘Well, why not just say six? What's this whole “fewer than” thing about? Because six is sixty per cent of ten.'

‘Hope,' he says. ‘Do you think you are maybe getting off the point on purpose?'

‘Six,' I say. ‘Sex with six girls.'

A sharp rip of disapproval and jealousy tears through me, though I'm not sure if it's the six anonymous girls or him I am jealous of.

‘Yes,' he says. ‘Yes. And it's nice, it's great, sex with girls. You know. It's fun, and they are mysterious and fit, and they all look different naked, and it's great. All the sex I've had in my life has been great, but it's never been …' He hesitates, struggling to express himself, which is most unlike Ben. One thing Ben is usually very good at is talking.

‘It's never felt safe, or kind, or caring, or special,' he says. ‘And I've never felt … cared for. Worshipped, sure, but not cared for.'

I look at him. Here is where I would normally laugh out loud, or tease, or insult him fondly, but I can see what it's cost him to tell me that. And I know how his life has been so often absent of care. There's his mum, who drinks cider in front of the TV all day and takes pills, and his stepdad, who blames everyone but himself for everything he's ever done wrong. Ben was the kid in the unwashed shirt, the scuffed, too-tight shoes. The boy who had beans on toast every night for a week, unless I took him home for tea. I know how he has longed all his life to feel cared for, except I thought he'd grown out of that now – that now he is so vibrant, so present in every moment, that he would never need anybody. But now he's saying that if we do what we said we'd do, it wouldn't just be for me, it would be for him too. Shit.

‘Is this an elaborate plan to make me feel better about emotionally blackmailing you?' I ask him. ‘Because it's sort of working.'

‘It's your call,' Ben says.

‘Well, if we are mainly doing it for you,' I say. ‘It's worth a try.'

With that he reaches out and takes my hand, and though my heart is pounding, I let him lead me out of the door.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

No rain, no moon.

After Vincent left, I slept like I haven't in months. Deep, dreamless, certain sleep. I woke to the sound of a bus creaking pass. It's troubling, this sense of peace. And I wonder, why now? Is it simply because the man I love, the man whose happiness and well-being I've worried about and obsessed over for so long, isn't here any more? Did I exchange my marriage for deep, dreamless sleep?

Perhaps it's the relief. The pain of living a life that is less than you always imagined, hoped it would be, is excruciating. It's so restful to stop trying to make things right. To make life smaller.

I'm not due at work tonight, but I go anyway. I have no idea what happened while I slept so soundly – if my delivery has had any consequences yet. Hugh, that was the name of the son, the poor man whose life I dropped a hand grenade into yesterday, he's probably been to Marie Francis by now. I need to find out what's happened, to apologise. To make amends for letting the tragedy of my life mix and mingle with something that had nothing to do with me. I need to make amends, as much as I can. I need to start again, reset, restore factory settings.

So the first thing I have to do is find Grace and tell her what I did, explain. Apologise. It might be too late; she might already be gone. The battery in my phone is dead, and I didn't have time to charge it before I left. What happens, whatever is waiting for me inside the walls of Marie Francis, on the other side of the green-painted door, I won't know until I am there.

As I run, falling into that easy comforting rhythm, it occurs to me I could just not go in and not face the consequences. I could just keep running now, and there would be no reason to turn back. I could run and run on to the next town, perhaps somewhere by the sea, and start again, start fresh. Like the night I packed up my rucksack. It's a thought that won't let me go, as I plod through the chilled night. There's a lure to it, a deep, abiding attraction to simply sweeping all of my mistakes away and starting again. And yet, deep down, I know I can't do that. I have to face them; I know that much. I just don't know how or what will happen next.

It's a quiet evening. The streets are empty of people, cars sweep by infrequently, as I make my way steadily towards Marie Francis. Across the street I see the fluorescent lights of the bakers flicker off. Two more minutes and I slow, ready to walk. In the next moment I become aware of a stranger's hand on my arm, stopping, holding me, attempting to control me. Adrenaline kicks in and my legs move faster, but he accelerates with me, pulling me backwards. It's happening so quickly there's no time to think, except to decide that my charmed life as a woman alone in the night is over; I've been seen. I do not know if he intends robbery or worse, but I try to shake him off. He stops me, holds me. I flail at his shins with my soft running shoes, and he lets go. I career off, shouldering a wall, feeling the stab of pain shoot inwards, using the impact as a launching point to run again.

‘Stop. Wait!' he calls after me, his voice echoing in the almost-empty street. Once I get up on to the high street, well past the entrance to Marie Francis, there will be more people, who may very well be indifferent to what happens to me, but still somehow I think a crowd will deter him. I can find a place to go inside, ring the police. I just keep running, and so does he. I am sprinting, and I'm fit, and I realise with an unexpected thrill that I will lose him. He's further behind me but still calling after me, and I am yards from the busy high road. And then it hits me: what mugger or would-be rapist asks his victim to slow down so that he can catch up?

I turn around and look. He's stopped a little further down the street to catch his breath. I recognise the bag and the shoes, the scarf, the fishing jacket. It's him. The man I gave Grace's letter to. Hugh.

I just stand there, in the dark, and wait for him to reach me.

‘I'm sorry,' he wheezes. ‘I didn't really think that through – pouncing on a woman alone in the dark. You're very quick, though.'

‘What are you doing?' I ask him. ‘Why are you here?'

He laughs, and it's full of anger. ‘You deliver that letter to me and you don't
know
?'

‘I'm sorry, I …' I don't know what to say. ‘I shouldn't have.'

‘I didn't know what to do,' he said, his gaze falling away from me. ‘You gave it to me, and I didn't know what to do or think. Whether to laugh or cry or … what? And I can't … I can't
see
her. This woman who says she is my mother. I can't just go and see her. So there is only one other person I can talk to, and that's you.'