We Are All Made of Stars (30 page)

She turns off most of the lights until just a night light glows in the corner, right next to a photo of Casey's dad in dress uniform.

‘Kiss, Uncle Vinnie,' Casey demands, in one last-ditch attempt to stay awake a moment longer. I bend down and kiss the top of her head; she rolls over and is asleep at once.

‘Amazing, isn't it?' Maeve whispers beside me. ‘I wish I could turn off my head like that.'

Downstairs, I sit, upright, back straight, on Kip's sofa, in Kip's living room, drinking what should have been Kip's beer.

‘You'd better say what you want to say,' Maeve says, a little anxiously. ‘I can see it's killing you, keeping it in.'

‘I wrote you a letter,' I tell her. ‘I've written you a lot of letters, but I've never quite managed to finish them. But this time, I think I might have got it right. It took me a long time to get the courage together, to say what had to be said, and then when I did, when I finally did, it felt wrong to just post it. So I brought it with me.' I hand her the letter, expecting her to take it and read it, but she shakes her head.

‘You read it to me, Vincent,' she says softly. ‘You've come a long way to tell me what's in it.'

Her face is tense and quiet as she watches me stand up. I don't know why, but I feel like I should be standing up, to honour him, to salute him.

I take the folded square of paper out of my jeans pocket and put the beer bottle down. I see the quiet look of worry on her face, and I see how much she's had to bear in the last year and a half, and how much sadness and loss there is still to process, but I know I have to tell her the truth. I look at the letter; it reveals the tremor in my hand. I begin to read.

‘Dear Maeve,

I wanted to write to you to let you know what a very fine man, and a very fine soldier, Kip Butler was. He was my mate, my brother, in life as well as in arms. He could be the most idiotic man I ever knew – stubborn as a mule, and soppy when he'd had too many. He was kind too: knew when a bloke was having a rough day somehow, and always knew how to give them a lift. I remember how he rescued this little stray pup, starving on the roadside, and brought her into camp. He fed her up, trained her. She was a proper little hero, always brought a smile to the lads' faces. But he wasn't just a decent bloke, he was the best kind of soldier too.

The day that we got hit …'

I hesitate and take a breath.

‘He did everything right, the whole patrol did. It was an ambush, and we didn't have time to react. Except … there was a second, one second that plays over and over again in my head, when I think I could have grabbed him. I could
have tried to take him out of harm's way. But I didn't; I lost my nerve and I went the other way when the shell hit. He died right away – he wouldn't have known about it. There wouldn't have been even a second of fear or pain. And afterwards, the evac team took care of him, right away. He was never left alone, not for a second, not until we were all safe. I wake up some days and I wish I was dead alongside him, or instead of him, because I think he had so much to live for, and so many people that he loved and who loved him back. I only had one person who really loved me in my life, and all I wanted was to be back by her side. Now I don't even deserve her love, because loving her just makes me feel guilty. For months and months, I've known that I've had to tell you that there is a chance, just a small chance, that I might have been able to save him, and I was too scared to take it. And I want to say, to your face, how sorry I am that I failed him, and you. I failed myself.'

I swallow and stop reading and look at Maeve. She says nothing for a moment, burying her face in her hands. Her shoulders shake. I wonder if I should go to her, but I don't know how. I just stand there, the letter in my hand; hopeless, helpless.

Eventually, her shoulders rise and fall as she takes a deep breath, and she uncovers her face and looks at me. Her expression is kind, gentle.

The sting of tears threatens at the back of my eyes, but I won't let them show.

‘I'm so grateful, Vinnie, that you came; that you told me that. It's such a … relief. To hear from you that he didn't suffer. It means so much to me.'

I shrug. I can't speak; words are thick in my mouth. She stands and takes a step towards me.

‘You don't know if you could have saved him,' she says softly. ‘We'll never know. But if it had been Kip who'd had that second, I would have wanted him to save himself for me. I would have hoped and prayed that he would have done everything so that he could have come back to me and Casey. Vincent, you can't change what was inevitable, not in one second. And you did the right thing; you made the right choice. The choice I'd have wanted Kip to make. He knew what he was doing. We knew there was a chance this could happen – we talked about it. And he said that if I asked him to, he'd leave the army, because loving me and loving Casey meant more to him than anything. But I didn't ask him to leave, Vincent. He died doing the job he loved, protecting the rights and freedom of a people he came to care about and respect. And if he had been the one with that second, I know he would have chosen me and Casey. I know, because he made me that promise before he went back.' After a moment, she steps closer and puts her arms around me.

‘It means so much to me to know that it was quick and painless,' she tells me, holding me very, very tight.

After a moment, I return her hug. And for the first time in what feels like months, I let go of the breath I have been holding.

Dear Simon,

I hope this letter reaches you in time, and that you aren't waiting for me, wondering where I am. It seems ridiculous that we've never exchanged phone numbers or addresses. But that wasn't the way it worked, was it? Just one meeting, once a year. One night together, away from our lives, that no one in the whole world knew about but us. Except when you go to the railway station café in Penzance on December 6
^th
this time, I won't be there. I'd hoped to be, I'd prayed to be; I just wanted the chance to say goodbye.

Ours was not a torrid affair, was it? It was hardly an affair at all – more just a deep and abiding love that lasted thirty years. Thirty nights, one each year. Two single bedrooms side by side in that nice little B&B. A walk on the beach, dinner where perhaps we might hold hands, and then the next day, after a pleasant breakfast, you'd walk me to the station and kiss me on the cheek. And you'd say, ‘Goodbye. I'll see you again, my dear.'

I had no idea, the last time you said that, that it would be the last.

I love my husband, and my children, my family, and my life. I've loved them all, but those thirty walks on the beach, dinners on the front, sleeps with only a wall between us. Those thirty goodbye kisses on the cheek were some of the happiest moments of my life. And I thank you for them.

Goodbye, Simon. I'll see you again, my dear.

Frances

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

The walk from the café into Euston isn't long – although it's taking us a little longer than it has to because Hugh insists on taking the less direct routes, which he claims are shortcuts.

‘I've lived round here all my life,' he says, as we walk down house-lined streets, passing tall concrete blocks of flats that are bulging with life and drama, losses and loves, all contained, tonight, at least, behind tiny little squares of light.

‘And does that mean you can defy the physics of basically walking in a straight line getting you anywhere quicker?' I ask.

He laughs, thrusting his hands deep into his pockets.

‘My dad was an engineer. He worked out all the routes everywhere – to the nearest millimetre. I watched him do it. I promise you, we are getting where we are going by the fastest possible route.'

‘And where is that, exactly?' I ask him. ‘I know you said you wanted to show me where you work, but what do you do for a living? Is it something scary like butcher or serial killer?'

It feels a little surreal, that this complete stranger and I have fallen into this excursion together. Odd, but oddly natural. As if our paths crossing at exactly this moment in our lives is for a reason – perhaps this reason, even if the reason is just to walk and talk and not think about the pieces of our separate lives that are disintegrating around us. I see something in him that he also recognises in me. He is lost. I am lost. And both of us just want to find a way back to somewhere we recognise.

Hugh leads me past the smell and bustle of Euston Station and into the quiet elegance of Bloomsbury, the crowds on the streets thinning as the evening turns slowly towards midnight.

So when he had asked me, in the twenty-four-hour café, what I was doing now, I'd said, ‘Nothing.'

I'd expected an invitation to the pub to catch last orders or something. Something that I'd planned on refusing, although I wanted to know what it would be.

‘Would you like to see where I work?' he'd said.

‘Where do you work?' I'd asked him. ‘I mean, it's really late …'

‘Up the road, sort of. In Bloomsbury. In a museum.'

‘The British Museum?'

‘No, not there.' He'd smiled, as if he was used to people making that assumption. ‘The Liston James museum. When I first worked there, it was soon after my dad died. I found it really hard losing him. He was my anchor. I'd spend long, long hours in the museum, in the rooms when it was quiet and empty, and dark, looking at the relics of other people's lives and thinking. I worked out of lot of my problems there. You've got problems, I've got problems. We'll go there and work them out.'

‘We've only just met,' I'd said.

He'd shrugged. ‘Good – fresh perspective.'

And that's how we started this walk: two strangers in a city of strangers, looking for a way to be found.

It is becoming increasingly cold. We walk quickly, and in companionable silence, trusting Hugh's dad's route, keeping our heads down, tucking our chins into our coats, to keep the chill from biting at our cheeks.

Our pace doesn't slow until we draw up opposite the British Museum – floodlit, stately and magnificent. As I look at it, standing sentinel over the city, I realise what a small life I've been living recently. The little dark triangular world I live in: home and Vincent and work – three points that I keep on running away from, one after the other. No wonder I am so tired.

‘My museum is not as grand as that one,' Hugh says, almost apologetically, as we cross the road.

I follow him down a narrow road I've never noticed called Willoughby Street, and towards the end of that, tucked away behind a Japanese restaurant, is one of the secret little spaces that, even in a city like London, you would never stumble across by accident. Hugh leads me through a small alleyway, barely shoulder-width, into a tiny mews made up of five perfect Georgian houses, two either side and one at the end. It's lit with wrought-iron street lamps, casting dramatic shadows across the cobbles.

‘I had no idea this was here.' I whisper because somehow it feels appropriate, like we have stepped back in time. Every window in every house is shuttered and dark. The sound of the city has drifted away, and even the dark sky seems more dense – as if this is a world of its own.

‘No, most people don't; it is not exactly a tourist attraction. Liston James House is the one at the end, and the others are owned by rich Russians, an actress, a politician, I think. Rarely occupied. It's a scandal, really. Sometimes I think about crowbarring open the shutters and inviting in all the men and women sleeping in doorways at the end of the road. But I suppose I was brought up too politely to be much of a revolutionary, so every Friday night I buy whoever is there fish and chips and a cuppa, instead.'

We stop at the unnaturally large, black-painted door at the front of the end house, and Hugh fishes out a selection of keys from his jeans.

‘Before we go in, I just want to say – the collection, it's very unique, and a difficult one for a lot of people to stomach, these days. I think you will be fine with it, but if for any reason you don't like it, just say and we will go.'

I do waver; on paper it feels a little bit like I am volunteering to go down into a cellar when there is a maniac on the loose, but there is nothing about this situation that frightens me – no sixth sense or hairs standing up on the back of my neck. In fact, being with Hugh is unexpectedly calming. Like being with a friend or my brother.

‘Well, we're here now,' I say.

He unlocks the door and punches a code into an alarm system. As I walk into a grand and vaulted hallway, built around an elegantly sweeping marble staircase, lights come on all around me, glittering against crystal chandeliers. I stand for a moment and let myself understand that this is a real place, and I'm not in a dream. It has all the traditional hallmarks of a grand mews mansion – everything you'd assume when you see one of these houses from the outside: ornate plaster work, high ceilings, a sense of space and symmetry – but it's like no other room I have ever seen. The walls of the vast room are painted a dense, light-absorbing black and are covered from floor to ceiling in white masks, spaced only an inch or so apart. It's like suddenly finding yourself on stage in a pocket theatre, with the house lights up. Propelled by curiosity, I walk over to one wall and examine the masks. They're faces, all kinds of people's faces: men, women, children, mostly with their eyes closed, expressions dormant, but some lids remain open, white blank globes gazing at nothing.