The Half Life of Stars (11 page)

Michael is hovering behind me, frowning and tapping at his watch. He has our bag slung over his shoulder: a faded brown carry-all with a creased paper label and a broken zip, held together with a grungy strip of duct tape. For some reason the idea of our clothes being packed together in that same suitcase makes me sad. It’s all wrong. It’s dated. It’s out of time. His pants and my knickers, his shaving foam and my make-up, his jazz CDs and my pulpy Russian novels. But he smiles at me and holds out his hand, encouraging me, beckoning me forward. I give in to the simplicity of Michael. He doesn’t have questions, he doesn’t have doubts; he’s certain what we’re doing is right.

A voice, thick and nasal, calls our flight number. I wonder if Sylvie hears it too.

‘Aren’t you going to wish me luck?’ I ask her, quietly.

She lays down the phone and it clicks. She just can’t bring herself to do it.

American airports smell of cheap coffee. It’s the first thing that hits you when you step off the plane; burnt coffee grounds, bitter and thin, with all of the perfume knocked out of them.

‘Coffee, I need a cup of coffee. Fuck, I can hardly stay awake. How much longer is it going to be, now? It’s been hours already. It feels like hours.’

The queue at immigration is growing restless. Rows fifty deep, exhausted and fierce, all vying for their turn at the desk. I hang back. I’m in no hurry to get to the front; I have no idea what I’m going to say. What are you doing in Miami? How long are you staying? What is your business in the city? Everyone seems to know the answer but me.

‘Have you filled in your form right? Check that it’s right. They send you to the back if you get any of it wrong.’

‘It’s fine, Michael. My form’s all OK.’

‘Check it, Claire.
Check
it. I’m not queuing up all over again.’

Michael is grouchy from the flight and just to calm him down, I go through the pretence of checking through my form. I’m in better shape than he is. Unusually for me, I managed to grab a few hours’ sleep on the plane, I even managed to dream. I dreamt of pelicans and peanuts and old Mr Kazman, and a beach covered over with snow. I was walking on the frozen sand with someone that I knew. Daniel? Michael? Sylvie? Dad? I had my swimming costume on. And a coat.

‘This is us,’ says Michael, anxiously. ‘We’re up next. But we shouldn’t go through together. You go first.’

The officer barely looks at me while he stamps my passport but he seems to be taking his time with Michael: asking him
questions, listening to answers, flicking back and forth through his travel documents. I cast my eyes around the arrivals hall while I wait for him. I don’t recognise it, not exactly, but it all feels weirdly familiar. Perhaps we queued up at that same desk on the way in all those years ago. Perhaps we walked down these same corridors going out. Just the four of us. A family with a missing limb, a missing heartbeat; a family diminished and altered.

‘Was there a problem?’

‘No. Uh…no problem. He was giving me a hard time, that’s all. I told him I was a musician, he was worried I was coming out here to work.’

After baggage claim and a cup of the bitter coffee, Michael seems a little cheered up.

‘So,’ he says, rubbing my neck. ‘I have this idea. Did I tell you my idea, yet?’

I shake my head.

‘OK, the thing is, we
could
check into a hotel, but that would be expensive, right? We don’t know how long we’re going to be here. Could be a week, could be a month, maybe longer. We should try to save as much money as we can.’

‘What are we meant to do, sleep on the street?’

‘No, see, I have this friend, an acquaintance really. There’s someone I know in Miami.’

‘You didn’t say anything.’

‘Didn’t I? No. Well, his name is Huey.’

‘Where did you two meet? Are you in contact? Did you tell him about us coming out here?’

‘No. But he’ll be cool with it, though. We hooked up at a jazz festival in New York a couple of years ago. He has an apartment out on South Beach. He said if I was ever in Miami…’

‘You should stop by?’

‘Exactly.’

‘Michael, people
say
things like that all the time, but they don’t actually mean it. We can’t just drop in on him out of the blue.’

‘You’re right, you’re probably right. But what the hell, it’s worth a try.’

Michael gets out his diary and heads for the payphone. He shrugs his shoulders while he dials. I would never have the guts to do something like this, to impose on someone like this.

‘We’re all sorted,’ he says, rubbing his hands together. ‘He’s going to meet us at his apartment in an hour.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘Absolutely, Huey’s cool. He’s very easy going, you’ll like him.’

There are a dozen more questions I want to ask, but I’m wilting now, I want to lie down. A bed, a floor, a mattress in someone’s flat. Really, how bad can it be?

‘So, you’re OK with this? You’re sure you don’t mind?’

‘No, Michael,’ I say, ‘I don’t mind.’

It’s early evening in Miami, but it’s still hot and sticky outside. A mini winter heatwave has gripped the city pushing temperatures up into the nineties. The dense humidity takes hold of me as we exit the terminal, making me feel nauseous and sick. We climb into a taxi, Michael stowing our luggage safely on his lap, me clinging hard to my stomach. I clutch it tighter as we move out onto the Dolphin Expressway. Six lanes of traffic, cram-packed with cars, it makes me feel anxious, claustrophobic. Everywhere I look the picture seems wrong to me and I can’t seem to make any sense of it. The billboards advertising cheap legal services and plastic surgery, the bikini-clad girls on the back of Harleys. I’m overwhelmed by the smells, the look, the style of this place, even Michael’s face seems wrong out here. His cheeks rough and pasty, his blond hair in wisps, his skin drained of colour in this sunlight.

‘Are you all right?’

‘Yeah. Uh-huh.’

‘Are you sure?’

I nod. Michael peers at me closer.

‘Uh, Claire?’

‘What?’

‘You might want to do something about that.’

‘About what?’

‘Right there. On your lip.’

‘What,
what
on my lip?’

‘Moustache.’

He says this all hushed, all quiet, the way my grandparents used to say the word
cancer
. I’ve been in such turmoil the last few days, the last few weeks, the last thing I’ve thought to do was wax my lip. It must have taken seed on the plane. I have dark body hair, on my legs, on my face; Jewish girl’s hair, from my father. I am mortified that Michael would mention it. Right here. Right now. Just as we’re driving past Star Island.

‘It’s not too much,’ he whispers. ‘Just a little bit. Should I not have said anything?’

I can’t answer. Can’t speak.

‘It’s just that…you know…
remember
?’

‘Yeah. Oh God, I remember.’

This was just before we got married. The moment I realised the two of us might have a real chance. A personal thing, an intimate thing. Michael catching me in the bathroom with a tub of hot wax.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Nothing,’ I said.

‘Shit, what’s that goo on your face?’

I confessed to him, I had to, and we laughed. He swore blind to me that he’d never noticed it. Not once.

‘So you’ll be the one, then?’ I said, afterwards.

‘What one?’ he said, all confused.

‘I can rely on you?’

‘To do what?’

‘To tend to my moustache, if I’m ever in a coma.’

‘What coma?’

‘You know. If I got ill. If I was…I don’t know, brain dead or something. I mean, it would just keep on growing, it could easily get out of hand.’

‘Well…what about the nurses? Wouldn’t they take care of it for you?’

‘No. I mean, you couldn’t be sure they’d get round to it. There’d be so much else for them to do.’

Michael grinned and patted my hand.

‘You’ve thought about this a lot, haven’t you, Shorty?’

Yes. I had to confess, I had.

‘OK, then. I swear.’

‘You
promise
?’

‘No question about it.’

‘Cross your heart?’

‘Absolutely. If you should get hit by a truck and end up a cabbage, I promise that I’ll personally…that I’ll, uh, get the nurses to keep your moustache in good order.’

He said it with a completely straight face. It was the nicest thing anyone had ever said to me.

As we cross the Macarthur Causeway towards the beaches I get my first glimpse of the port. Crisp, white cruise ships fill the basin, their fairy lights glinting off the water. Beyond them, in the distance, sit the jetties and the piers where the freighters empty out their precious loads: iron, maize, tin, ore; silicone, golf clubs, people. And away to the right sits downtown, glowing in the apricot sun. It looks like someone has thrown fertiliser over this city; it’s grown so big, so impossibly tall. I remember the first time I saw it from the back of the rental car my dad was driving. Sylvie was fast asleep on Daniel’s lap and the pair of us–brother and sister–were staring out of opposite windows. Daniel moody, grumbling and quiet; me overcome with excitement. I was carried away with the difference of it all. After the leafy green suburbs and terraced houses we’d left behind, Miami seemed to me like an alien landscape: hot, breathless and arrogant, a city with its arms folded across its chest.

There were cruise ships on the water that day too, and I remember being awed by the size of them. This was a time in my life when size impressed me, when taking a cruise seemed like the best of all possible holidays. A floating hotel, a different country every day, and a kids club where they could stow my
sister, Sylvie. I think of her now, back in London. I think of my mum and of Kay. Already it feels like they’re a world away and I begin to feel calmer and quieter. I begin to enjoy the stickiness, the heat on my skin. I begin to relish the absence of winter. The city’s arms are unfolding; embracing us, pulling us in.

There’s an ocean and palm trees outside our taxi window now, and a street lined with pavement cafés. Art deco palaces in chalky pinks and blues; sea colours, sky colours, instant summer. The ice cream coloured buildings cast long shadows over the dunes, sunbathers twist their toes in warm sand. Beautiful boys cruise the sea front in vintage cars; pretty girls drive cherry-red Lamborghinis. There is sadness in this part of the city, there must be, but at the beginning you just can’t see it. It’s so new, so shiny, so pleased with itself; the way rediscovered venues always are.

We turn off the beach, away from the sparkle, and head to where the streets are coarser and shabbier: past the clubs, the discount pharmacies and the T-shirt shops and the needle buzz from the dingy tattoo parlours. We come to a stop a few blocks to the west, at the corner of Washington Avenue and Espanola Way. Our new home. Our new host. Our first staging post in this segment of our journey. As we drag our bags from the taxi I notice the stars are coming out, peppering the inky sky with dots of light. I stare up at them for a moment: wondering if I’m the only person doing it, wondering if someone I know is doing it too. It’s a brief moment of reverie, a heady moment of optimism, quickly shattered by the rumpus on the street.

‘Sell me your hair.’

‘My hair?’

‘Yeah, man. I want to buy your hair.’

‘How much you gonna give me for it?’

‘How much do you want?’

‘A thousand dollars.’

‘A
thousand
? Are you crazy?’

‘This is nice hair that I’ve got. Very thick. A nice curl. When it’s clean it comes up pretty nice.’

‘Christ, Christ, it’s so unfair. This is
so
unfair. You’re a bum. Why do you even need hair?’

The bum shrugs.

‘You live on the streets. You pee in your own damn pants. What are you? Sixty, sixty-five? Fuck…this universe, man, it’s so…
unjust
. You have the finest head of hair I’ve
ever
seen.’

‘Thanks.’

‘I’m not complimenting you, man. I’m cursing you. Don’t you get that? I’m cursing you.’

‘Not complimenting me?’

‘No.’

‘Well. That’s not very nice. I don’t think I want to sell you my hair no more. What you gonna do with it, anyhow?’

‘I’m an actor. I need it. I’ve been in movies.
Actual
movies. Do you even know what that means?’

‘That you’re rich?’

‘No, idiot, I’m not rich, I can’t get cast any more.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I’m
bald
!’

‘You can’t even get the character parts?’

‘The
character
parts? Jesus, no. That’s not what I want. You should have seen me when I had hair, man. I was the hero, the love interest, the
lead
. Now all they want me for is, like, villains and stuff.’

‘And that’s no good to you, huh?’

‘No, man, it’s not. I don’t have a villainous nature.’

‘I thought you said you were an actor.’

‘I
am
. But I don’t like to play against type.’

‘So get plugs, then. Why don’t’cha get plugs?…Hey, hey, don’t kick me. That hurts. Jesus Christ, ain’t my life bad enough?’

I stare at the actor and the bum. Michael stares at them too, his face broken wide open by a smile.

‘Well, there he is, Claire, that’s Huey.’

‘That
man
?’

‘Yeah.’

‘With the head like a hard-boiled egg.’

‘Yep.’

‘Kicking that homeless guy in the shins?’

‘What did I tell you? There’s no one quite like Huey. That Huey, he’s a real one off.’

Huey, to his credit, is quickly overcome with something approaching guilt. He apologises for losing his temper with the bum, and offers him a compensatory cheque for fifty dollars on the condition that the bum doesn’t sue him for assault. The bum wants to know what he’s meant to do with a cheque. Huey says some people are never grateful. The bum says he’d prefer cash. Or a bottle of Thunderbird. Or a vegetarian happy meal with extra fries. Huey wants to know how long the bum’s been vegetarian. The bum says he likes to keep up with his daily quota of fruit and vegetables. Huey says the bum should think about going organic. The bum says organic produce is way overpriced.

It seems like this argument could go on all evening, and it would have, I’m almost sure, if Huey hadn’t turned round, suddenly and spotted us.

‘Michael. Wow, man. How
are
you? I can’t believe you’re finally here. How long has it been, now? How long have I been trying to get you to come out here?’

‘Too long, Huey. Too long.’

The two of them embrace.

‘Well, you finally made it. You look great, really great. And I’m sorry, you know…for the argument here, but I’ve had kind of a stressful day already. I mislaid my favourite hat this morning.’

‘Shit, that’s rough, man. I’m sorry.’

‘Pure alpaca wool. Blue. A real nice blue. You couldn’t find another hat like that if you tried.’

I loiter on the pavement with our bags, wondering if either of them are ever going to acknowledge to me. It seems that they’re not, so I cough. Loudly.

‘God,
sorry
. Huey, this is Claire…the woman I told you about.’

Huey holds out his arms, insists that I give him a hug.

‘Claire, it’s great to meet you. I heard all about your problems. You’re the girl with the runaway brother, right?’

I nod.

‘That’s rough. That’s totally rough. Here’s me all worked up about my missing hat and you’ve lost a member of your actual family. You must be feeling what I’m feeling times a hundred. A thousand. A
million
even.’

I don’t know what to say to the egg-headed man who’s comparing my missing brother to a hat. I have no idea how to respond. Are you on drugs? That’s what I should say. But instead I just smile politely.

‘I know what you’re thinking,’ he says, picking up my bags. ‘You’re thinking why does he need a hat in this heat, right? What does a guy who lives in Miami need with an alpaca woollen hat?’

I don’t say anything.

‘Thing is, Claire–and Michael can vouch for this–I feel the cold really badly. Ever since I lost all my hair.’

‘Uh…when did you lose it? If you don’t mind me asking?’

‘Three years ago,’ he says, gravely. ‘A month after I starred in
my first feature. I woke up one morning sort of achy in the head, and all my hair had fallen out onto the pillow. Just like that. Every single strand. Doc said it was stress related, that it’d all grow back. But…it never did.’

‘Right…well. That’s a shame.’

‘You have no idea,’ he says, raising his eyebrows. ‘
No
idea. And the worst thing about it is, the toughest thing of all, is that it left me feeling permanently cold. As if ruining my movie career wasn’t bad enough, now I have to be chilly all the time, too. I thought moving down south from New York would do the trick. Those Brooklyn winters were rough, let me tell you. But I still get the shivers, even now. Even on a hot day like this. A person loses thirty per cent of his body heat through his head. Did you know that?’

‘No…no, I didn’t know that.’

‘Well, there you go, then. That’s a fact.’

Huey unlocks a flaky wooden door and leads us up three flights of narrow stairs to his apartment. It’s shabby, run down, dreary, but clean and comfortable enough. Two closet-sized bedrooms, a tiny kitchen and a shower room, and enough bongs, pipes, Rizla papers and smoking paraphernalia to open up a small market stall in Camden Town. In the centre of the living room is a worn red sofa, shaped like a pair of smiling lips. A petite bug-eyed woman with beads tied in her hair is sat on it, cross legged, watching TV. She gives us a little wave as we come in but she doesn’t look up from the screen. She’s watching a programme called
Extreme Makeovers
.

‘I love this bit, don’t you love this bit?’ she says. ‘When they finally get them up there on the table. It’s like magic, what they do to them. They take these fat, ugly people and transform them, make them all thin and good-looking.’

‘That’s Tess.’ says Huey, gruffly. ‘Don’t mind her, she’s just leaving.’

‘Yeah. Don’t mind me, I’m just leaving.’

Tess doesn’t look like she’s going anywhere. She has no shoes
on her feet, a glass of wine in her hand and she’s eating stuffed olives from a tin; picking out the tiny pieces of pimento with her elaborately painted fingernails and depositing them neatly back into the oil.

‘Olive?’

‘No. No thank you.’

‘Sure,’ says Michael. ‘I’ll take one.’

‘Smoke?’

‘Joint? Yeah, why not.’

‘Can you roll? My fingers are oily.’

Michael sits down next to Tess, and we stare at the TV while he rolls. A pretty young woman–a primary school teacher–is having her left breast sliced open by a plastic surgeon. Tess is visibly moved.

‘Go girl, pump it up. Get that saline
in
. God, I am desperate for a boob job. Do you think I need a boob job, uh…?’

‘Michael.’

‘Right, Michael. Do you think I’d look better with bigger breasts?’

Tess lifts up her tank top so Michael can have a closer inspection. Her breasts are high and tanned–as good as perfect–supported by a skimpy, see-through bra.

‘I’m saving up for the operation,’ she says, weighing her breasts in each hand. ‘I want to go from a B cup, to double D. I’m gonna get a nose job, some lipo and a chin implant at the same time. I have enough money for the boob job already, but my surgeon thinks it’s better if I get it all done in one go.’

‘Put them away, Tess. Come on now, be nice. Can’t you see, we’ve got guests.’

‘But I’m just getting Michael’s opinion.’

‘Give the guy a break, he just got off a plane. I’m sure he’s not interested in your tits.’

‘What about you…uh, miss?’

‘Claire. My name is Claire.’

‘Right. Well, what about you, Claire? What do you think?’

‘I wouldn’t have plastic surgery.’

‘Really?’ she says, astonished. ‘Why not?’

‘Well, you seem to have a nice body already. I don’t see why you’d want to change it.’

‘I’m a singer,’ she says, as if that explains it. ‘I’m trying to get a record deal. I’m managed by a friend of Lenny Kravitz’s hairdresser.’

‘I see.’

‘My manager says I need to get bigger tits. Bigger tits, bigger deal, that’s what he says.’

‘Right. Well. That makes sense, then.’

Tess lowers her tank top, takes the freshly rolled joint from Michael and the two of them set about smoking it. Amid the puffs and the giggles and scratch of the surgeon’s scalpel I notice another noise in the room; something fast, repetitive and twitchy, like a bird hitting its beak on a branch. It’s a couple of minutes before I work out what it is, it’s the sound of Huey’s teeth chattering.

‘So, what do you do for a living, Claire?’ says Tess, offering me the joint. ‘Are you in entertainment, too?’

‘No,’ I say, taking a shallow toke. ‘I’m a translator.’

‘Excuse me. What? You do
transplants
?’

‘No.
Languages
. I translate foreign languages.’

Tess nods but I’m not sure she gets it.

‘So I guess it doesn’t matter what you look like, then. For that kind of a job, am I right?’

‘Well, you know. It’s not so important.’

‘That’s great,’ she says, beaming at me. ‘That really is. I actually admire you actually.’

‘Do you?’

‘Yes,’ she says, eagerly. ‘You’re happy with yourself. That’s such a rare quality these days. I mean, I think you’re sort of brave. I don’t think I could go out with that on my face.’

‘What on her face?’ Huey says.

‘
Moustache
,’ whispers Tess, pointing at me then tapping her upper lip.

‘I mean, I think it’s great that you don’t care about it, but
just in case, you should know, I have some spare hot wax in the bathroom. I know girls are all hairy in Europe–you don’t shave your armpits, right? Or douche, am I right? But this is Miami. You might want to think about…you know, getting rid of it.
Just
while you’re here.’

Michael seems to think this is hysterical; high and sleep-deprived he’s practically convulsing on the floor. I decide to cut my losses and go to bed, and Huey does the decent thing by confiscating Tess’s tin of olives and showing me into the spare bedroom. I walk in, close the door and collapse. The mattress is thin and smells of mildew, it’s gooey and lumpy all at the same time. Michael is still out there: laughing, chatting, getting stoned, getting drunk, trying on some of Huey’s spare hats. I turn out the light and fall asleep like a brick. I dream I’ve been committed to a nut house.