We Are All Made of Stars (34 page)

‘My flat,' she says. ‘I'm not going anywhere.'

‘But
you're
coming,' I tell Ben. ‘Buffy.'

‘Come on, son,' Dad says. ‘Do as the girl tells you. You can't refuse that face, can you?'

I colour as Ben looks at me. ‘Never have been able to say no to her yet.'

Dear Hugh,

I'm sorry to do this to you in a note, I really am, but I simply can't wait for you any more. Maybe that was the trouble between us. I wanted love and laughter and homebuilding. And you wanted fun – and never to be serious.

I thought that you and me were going to be together. I thought that I could change you, but I should have known better. The trouble is, Hugh, that I am not the right person to love you. We don't want the same things. You think you are happy, but you aren't, you know.

I'm leaving Jake with you because Angus is allergic to cats.

Good luck,

Mel x

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

When I wake up, I am immersed in a shocking, sudden, cold drench of panic.

I fumble for my phone at once and call my new, but somehow already familiar, friend Stella.

‘Is she …?'

‘She's here. She's stable,' Stella says. ‘I'm not on duty, but I wanted to come in, in case you needed me. I'm here and everything is fine for now.'

‘I slept,' I tell her, sitting up, taking a moment to become orientated to my unfamiliar surroundings. ‘I didn't mean to. It's what – seven? I must have slept all day.'

‘Well, you must have needed it,' she says. ‘How are you feeling?'

It troubles me that both Sarah and Mikey must have had to creep quietly around me all day, while I was completely oblivious to them. Either that or I kept them out of their own living room on one of the few days they get together. However, I'm also aware that I've not slept such a deep and dreamless sleep for so long, completely unaware of where I was or of the passing of time, which was running out.

‘I'm OK, I think,' I say.

‘What have you decided?' Stella asks me.

‘I don't have to decide,' I say. ‘In the end it's obvious there's no choice. I'm coming, now.'

‘Do you want me to warn her?' she offers. ‘After all, this is my fault.'

‘I don't know,' I say. ‘I have no idea how to do this.'

‘Just come. We can talk when you get here.'

When I put down the phone, I see Mikey in the doorway watching me, curiously. He looks somehow younger out of school uniform, in a pair of jeans that are a fraction too short.

‘Are you having a nervous breakdown?' he asks, matter-of-factly. ‘Our maths teacher had a nervous breakdown. It was sort of our fault.'

‘I'm sorry I crashed out on your sofa all day,' I say. ‘I must have pissed you off, keeping you away from Zombie Death Fighters.'

‘It's all right.' Mikey shrugs. ‘Mum said you needed your rest. She said you'd had a bit of a hard time and gone flipping mental!'

‘That's exactly what she said, is it?' I ask him.

‘Well, not exactly. You all right now?' He advances further into the room to peer at me, like I am one of the more curious exhibits in my museum. ‘She said your mum came back from the dead and it freaked you out. But not like a zombie. I thought, if your mum was a zombie, that would be cool.'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘That sums it up pretty well. And, no, not like a zombie.'

‘I don't blame you,' Mikey says. ‘I don't really see my dad much, and it's odd because when I don't see him, I miss him. But when I do see him, I feel like shit. So, you know, what's better?'

I'm touched that he's shared that experience with me, that somehow he's sensed that the one way to make me feel better is to feel less alone.

‘Do you like fishing?' I ask him.

‘No.' He looks offended.

‘Have you ever tried it?'

‘I'm not gay,' he says.

‘Whether or not you like fishing isn't a marker of your sexual orientation.'

‘You like long words, don't you?' he says. ‘And bow ties. But I don't think you are gay because you fancy my mum.'

‘I …' Two spots of heat ignite on my cheeks, and he grins, pleased to have caught me out. ‘I like fishing. Look, I've still got loads of kit, but I haven't been – not since my dad died. Would you come with me one Saturday, just to see if you like it? Because, you know, I've had a shit time and so have you.'

Mikey screws up his nub of a nose, looking thoughtful.

‘Can Mum come?' he says.

‘Sure,' I agree at once, because the idea of a Saturday with Mikey and Sarah makes me curiously happy in the middle of an ocean of sad.

‘And you can work up to asking her out,' he says by way of agreeing. ‘I'm going to put the telly on now.'

I stand up, stretching my arms above my head, then running one hand over my stubble, and that little bubble of tranquillity is replaced in my gut by churning, sickening nerves.

This is it.

It's time.

‘Right. I'm off,' I say, to myself more than to him.

‘No, wait,' Mikey says, as I pick up my coat. ‘Wait a minute.'

‘What's wrong?' I ask.

‘Well, give me a chance to shout “Mum”, and get my trainers on,' he says. ‘We can't let you go there on your own. We can walk you, at least.'

As good as Mikey's word, he and Sarah walk me to the high street, where they say their goodbyes – Sarah grabbing my hand just before she leaves and squeezing my fingers, leaving a trace of her warmth behind as she departs. Then Stella meets me at a green wooden side door set into a rough brick wall. I follow her down a stone path, surprised by the sense of space.

‘I never knew this was here – all the open grounds,' I say. ‘It's rather beautiful.'

‘Bequeathed in perpetuity by Marie Francis Bonne,' Stella tells me, as if she is quoting something. ‘For the well-being and respite of the weary and sick.'

‘Funny,' I say. ‘All I have to bequeath is a fishing rod and some DVDs.' I'm babbling because I am terrified, heartbroken, furious and needful. And somehow I know that Stella knows that. She listens to me talk, opening the door for me and leading me to what I guess must be the nurses' station.

An older woman, with short hair and huge earrings, greets me with a polite but surprised smile.

‘Mandy, this is my friend Hugh,' Stella says, adding quickly, ‘Hugh is Grace's son.'

Mandy's eyes widen.

‘Oh?' she says, looking at me, and then back at Stella. ‘I thought she didn't have family; she never mentioned any.'

‘Didn't she? She told me all about him,' Stella says.

‘Well.' Mandy looks at me, her smile full of sympathy. ‘It's wonderful that you are here. The doctor's on her rounds, but I'll get her to pop in and see you in between patients.'

‘Ready?' Stella touches my arm briefly.

‘No,' I say, and I feel my knees threaten to give way and my throat tighten. I am afraid. Stella takes my hand in hers and squeezes it hard – hard enough to hurt.

‘You will be OK,' she says, looking into my eyes.

I nod, and she opens the door to where my lost mother is sleeping. And the strangest thing happens: Jake, my cat, looks up as I enter the room and gets off the bed, and trots towards me. Bending down, I scoop him up into my arms, heartened and confused at the same moment. How can Jake be here?

‘That's Shadow,' Stella whispers, stroking his head. ‘He visits us all the time.'

I want to tell her that this is not Shadow, or Ninja, but Jake – strange, mysterious Jake – but it doesn't matter, not right now. All that matters is that he is here, because this small, odd little black cat gives me something I thought I might not have: he gives me courage. He leaps out of my arms as I begin to walk into the room, and takes up his place on her bed, his head by her dormant hand.

The room is gently lit, and the woman, the old frail woman on the bed, is lying very still, her eyes closed. There's a rhythmic beat of some sort of monitor and the steady, if laboured, rise and fall of her chest that tells me she is alive.

I come to a halt when I see her, and I hear a sob, deep and threaded tight with longing, tear from my chest, but I catch it and push it away, bracing myself.

Carefully, Stella edges around, and walks to her bedside, picking up my mother's hand. I take off my coat. It's so cold outside, it takes a moment for my face to thaw enough to move.

‘What?' Grace murmurs, so softly, to Stella, and I remember fragments, maybe memories, maybe dreams, of her whispering me goodnight. ‘What's up, little one?'

Stella nods at me, and I hesitate for one second longer, brim-full of such perfect pain and rejection that I almost want to run – run away from this moment, which will surely hurt us both before any good can be done, and out into a night where there is still the promise of the sun about to rise, flooding every corner with light.

But I steel myself, every sinew in my body tensing as I walk towards her.

‘Mum?' I say. The word sounds foreign, and tastes unfamiliar. She turns her head at the sound of my voice, her brow furrowed, confused.

‘Am I dead?' she asks, quite calmly. I pick up her hand; it's warm and full of blood, pulsing just under the skin.

‘Mum, it's Hugh. I … I found out you were here. I came to say … hello. Hello, Mum. I hope that's OK.'

Her eyes focus on me, and I catch my breath as her face fills at once with something akin to joy, something like pain.

‘Son? Is it you, really?'

‘Yes, it's me. Mum, is it OK, me being here? I know you didn't want to see me …'

‘Of course I wanted to see you,' she says, seeming to overcome her drowsiness by sheer force of will. I watch as she tries to drag herself up into a sitting position, and Stella steps forward, raising her bed with a remote-control thing and rearranging her pillows. Mum never takes her eyes off me – she doesn't even seem to blink. I think she is afraid I might be a figment of her imagination. I take the time to study her face. Her beautiful elegant blonde hair is all but gone now, but I can still see the traces of her that I remember, and more than that: I can see me, my own face, hiding in amongst the shadows of hers. We can't stop looking at each other, as if two people who have been thirsty all their lives are suddenly offered a glass of cold water.

‘Is it really you?' Her hand frees itself from my fingers and floats impossibly upward, lighting on my face. I take the greatest of care to control the storm of feelings that wants to shake me to pieces; I must not let that happen. I must keep myself so tightly sewn together that not one molecule of longing escapes. I don't want her to see what I didn't know until just this second: that I am still a little boy who needs a hug from his mother.

Stella looks like she is about to leave, so I send her a look, begging her to stay.

‘Do you want me to go?' I ask my mother. ‘I can, if that is what you want.'

‘I don't deserve to have you here,' she says. ‘I left you, and I didn't even have the courage to die. I ran away.'

There are some silent seconds, with nothing but the beat of the machines, the hum of the heating. It feels like I've been let loose somehow, set free of gravity and time; I'm just existing in this strange moment – almost like this is the afterlife and I've crossed over with her.

‘That doesn't matter now,' I say at last, and she will never know how much it costs me to say those words. ‘All that matters is this.'

She closes her eyes, and a tear tracks down her cheek.

‘I tried,' she said. ‘Every day I tried to get up and live this life as best I could … Not at first. At first I just drank, and hurt people, hurt myself, but the years went on and I realised. If I didn't have the guts to die, then I had to have to guts to stay alive.' She opens her eyes and grips hold of me so tightly. ‘Just before I came here, I phoned you, the house, the old number; I knew it off by heart. It was your dad on the answerphone … I felt like I was calling you then, when you were ten years old. I felt like I was reaching into the past to say goodbye. Only I couldn't find the words – there were not words.'