The Half Life of Stars (17 page)

I drop Tess back at the flat and go for a drive on my own. The hours have been full of other people since I’ve been here and I need some time for myself. I end up back at the apartment building where we used to live; it wasn’t intentional, it drew me here.

I find myself staring out to sea on the old wooden boardwalk, the same spot where I used to stop and chat with Mr Kazman. The pelicans are still doing their thing, flapping back and forth along the seashore–pouches swaying–until one of them folds its wings back and dives. There’s an ungainly splash as it enters the water; shallow and awkward, like a child thrown into the deep end without its arm bands. Down it goes, and up it comes, nothing in its beak but sand and salt. Its feathers are heavy and slick, and I watch as it flaps hard and burns its wing muscles, struggling to break free of the waves.

How many dives does it make in a day? How long before it strikes gold and gets to eat? Does it ever get tired, disconsolate? Does it ever wish life was easier than this? It doesn’t seem so. Minutes later the same bird is ready again, its keen eyes focused on the water. It turns and dips its body, deft on the ocean breezes, harvesting the merest scent of wind. This time it stops before its belly hits the surf, aborting its dive and lurching up again. It doesn’t seem the least bit disappointed, not that you’d ever know.

‘You like to watch the birds?’

‘The pelicans? Yes. I used to watch them here when I was a kid.’

‘You born here? You don’t sound to me like you were born round here.’

Tess is right. There are less pensioners in Miami Beach than there used to be, but the old people haven’t all fled. The man standing next to me–knuckles stiff with arthritis, left eye ripe with milky cataracts–must be ninety if he’s a day. He shifts from one foot to another in his plastic sandals and breathes in through wide open nostrils, sniffing for moisture in the air. He watches the pelicans while I stare at the ocean, scanning back and forth along the shoreline for the spot where I once swam with Julio. The slim shallow inlet where we tore off our clothes; the smooth crop of rocks where we rested. The point where I sprang from the waves filled with warmth, and collided with that cold, heavy air.

‘Mint Caramel?’

‘Thank you.’

‘They’re chewy, so watch out for your teeth. The caramel can stick round your gums if you’re not careful. My gums aren’t so good now, they’ve receded.’

‘Like the beach?’ I say.

‘Yep,’ he says. ‘Just like the beach.’

The sand bar is given to erosion up here, narrow and scrappy, fighting a battle with the sea. Further down the coast they restock it with finely milled rock–soft and white–but up here, they don’t seem to bother. Nature takes its course: unaffected, undaunted, unstoppable.

‘Lots of people from England living here,’ the old man says. ‘Florida’s a magnet for the English.’

‘It’s the weather,’ I say, chewing hard on the toffee.

‘Sure,’ he says, ‘the weather, the sunshine, and the mouse. I’ve never been able to make much sense of it, myself. Who’d fly four thousand miles, right around the world, just to shake hands with a plastic mouse?’

He smiles and displays his reddened gums.

‘You know how big the Magic Kingdom is?’ he says, spreading his hands out.

‘No,’ I tell him. ‘I don’t.’

‘Forty-six square miles, all told. Twice the size of Manhattan, can you believe it? Does that seem right to you?’

I tell him it doesn’t.

‘People like to get away, though, I guess,’ he says, turning back to the sea. ‘They like a place that can take them out of themselves. And it’s mostly for the kids, I suppose.’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It’s mostly for the kids.’

‘Which apartment building did you live at?’ he says, gesturing behind him. ‘Where did you live when you were here?’

‘The green one, the Siesta. It’s hardly changed in eighteen years, I can’t believe it’s still here.’

‘Funny,’ says the man, unwrapping another caramel. ‘That’s what the other fella said.’

My organs flip.

‘The other fella?’

‘From London. Stood right here, in this exact same spot, not more than a couple of hours ago. Amazed by how little it had changed, amazed to see the old place still standing.’

‘Did he tell you his name?’

‘English guy? No.’

‘Can you tell me…do you remember what he looked like?’

The old man is intrigued.

‘You know this fella? What’s the story? He owe you alimony, or something?’

I explain it as best I can. I reach into my pocket for a photograph and the man–his name is Samuel–fishes into his plastic bag for his reading glasses. He takes an age to put them on and I wonder if he can see well enough to read the picture.

‘Yep, that’s him. Neat looking fella. Nice fella, nice and polite. Said he lived out here with his family in the eighties, went back to England when his dad passed away…
hey!
Will you look at that. He only went and caught one. That same pelican only caught himself a
fish
.’

I ask every question I can think of, but Samuel only knows so much. He didn’t seem to notice how my brother arrived and he has no notion how he left. He could have driven up here in a rental car, he might have ridden up here on the bus. Maybe he’s
staying out here somewhere, boarding in one of the run-down motels.

‘Did he…did he seem OK?’

‘OK?’

‘Did he look unwell?’

‘Nope, I wouldn’t say so. He seemed pretty chipper as a matter of fact, took himself off for a good long run. Tore off his shoes and socks, left them right where you’re standing now, and took off down the beach like someone had shot him right out of a gun, it was quite something to watch. Moved in this tough way, sort of strong, sort of graceful, didn’t spill up too much sand as he went. When he came back to fetch his shoes he was dripping in sweat, but he didn’t seem all that out of breath. Must be good to be fit. I used to be fit like that once.’

I glow. My face starts to glow. The happiness spills off my skin.

‘Did you see where he went afterwards?’

‘I left him sitting right here. I offered him some candy and he took a piece and shook my hand. Like I said, he was a nice fella, nice and polite.’

I walk along the beach for an age after Samuel leaves me, tracing the steps of my brother’s run. I see him with his arms chugging like they did when he was a kid, I see how steady his head is on his shoulders. I have my feet in the dents that he left in the sand and I bend down so I can touch them. They are large, these marks, my brother has big feet, but the incoming waves have no respect for them. I crouch down on the sand as the high tide laps the trail, standing guard over the imprints until they fade.

‘I
see
you, Pinhead!’ I shout, to the waves. ‘I see you. Don’t you think that I don’t.’

I shout this over and over at the ocean, until I’m limp and hoarse and out of breath. It makes me feel better. For some reason it makes me feel better.

Sunburnt and fresh with adrenalin, I trudge along the boardwalk–up and down, up and down–checking out our old family
haunts: a coffee shop that I recognise, a run-down burger bar that Daniel and I used to go to on Saturday afternoons, and the same Jewish deli where we used to buy fresh bagels–hot and crispy–and load them up with salt beef or bright orange lox. It still has those same tubs in the window; deep wooden barrels filled up with cucumbers and outsized onions all slopping about in a malt coloured broth. The vinegar looks cloudy, like Samuels’s eye, like it’s been sitting here stewing since we left.

I show my brother’s photograph to the customers and staff but they shake their heads, so I buy myself a sandwich and head back to the car. I pull up the soft top, roll up the windows and blast my hot body with shots of cold. I missed him, that’s what I think as I eat. He was here but I missed him, I missed him.

I screw up my serviette, damp and disintegrating from the meat juices and look for something clean to wipe my hands with. Tess has left her copy of the Miami Herald behind–the newspaper Orla used to scribble down her operation dates–and I tear a sheet from the listings section. As I rub the page over my fingers and palms, depositing inky black print on my skin with every small rub at the grease, a tiny advertisement takes my eye. The Southern Cross astronomical society are meeting in Bill Sadowski Park this weekend to witness a rare meteor shower. Enthusiasts are coming from all over the county, and someone important sounding is giving a lecture. No cloud cover is predicted this weekend. The skies will be clear and the view from the park, away from the city’s light pollution, should be exceptionally good. Bring a picnic, it says; bring a telescope. I flatten the paper out, smooth and straight again, and slip it tight inside the back pocket of my skirt. They are expecting ten thousand people or more to descend on this park in two day’s time. I’ll bet my life one of them will be a nice polite fella.

‘How’s the weather?’

‘It’s hot.’

‘God, that dreadful heat…I never got used to how hot it was.’

‘You know where I am?’

‘Miami, Sylvie told me.’

What was I thinking? Of course she did.

Mum sounds well, lucid and rested–she doesn’t sound distant or drunk. I’m confused by her level of alertness, confounded by her level of support. She doesn’t call me stupid or tell me to come home; she believes that I’m on the right track.

‘You think this man was telling you the truth?’

‘He had no reason to lie, Mum. He recognised Daniel from the picture, he was right outside our old apartment.’

She rubs her head. I sense her rubbing her head.

‘And he’d been running?’

‘Yes, along that same stretch of beach.’

She sounds choked up, relieved, a little shocked. Her breathing deepens and quickens.

‘Well,’ she says. ‘Thank God, then. Thank
God
.’

I let her rest for a minute. I let the good news sink in.

‘He’s safe?’

‘Yes, Mum…I think he is.’

She breaks off and calls out to Robert. I listen as she tells him, as they embrace. I hear him tell her to find out more details.

‘Are there any more details,’ she says, when she comes back. ‘Did Daniel seem, was he…disturbed?’

I tell her no, that he looked fit. He was polite, asking questions,
having sane conversations. Was he eating? Yes, the man said he ate a piece of toffee. I think I hear her smiling but I know she’s confused, the same as I am. If he’s well, if he’s eating, if he’s mentally fit, why hasn’t he contacted us?

We go round and round it on the phone and I tell her the same things I told Sylvie. We wonder what effect the antidepressants might have had. We think long and hard about his behaviour all last year and I quiz her about my brother’s state of mind. I ask if she kept something secret; I want to know if she’s kept something back. She sniffs hard and swears that she hasn’t.

‘When the second shuttle went down, the Columbia? Did Daniel…did he speak to you about it?’

‘In February,’ my mother says, quickly.

‘You remembered, didn’t you? When I told you about the date on the pill packets, that’s what you were thinking about?’

She’s biting her lip. I picture her biting her lip.

‘I couldn’t be sure, Claire. It wasn’t anything he said, we only spoke about it briefly. You know your brother…he couldn’t, he doesn’t like to talk.’

‘But you suspected something?’

She’s silent for a time.

‘I should have pressed him harder,’ she says, almost to herself. ‘I knew he wasn’t right, a mother knows. It’s difficult, isn’t it? For you to talk to me, to tell me things. All three of you children are the same.’

I’m quiet. She takes this as a yes.

‘None of us were with him that first time,’ she says, simply. ‘None of us knows what it was like. I thought it would do them good to be alone, your dad and Daniel. The two of them…they needed some time together.’

She pauses and wonders if it’s true. For the millionth time, I think she wonders how that day went, and whether they were happy at any point. She wonders how the drive was, what they ate, what they spoke about: she wonders if Dad and Daniel ever made it up.

‘I should have been with them,’ she whispers. ‘A wife should be with her husband. A mother should be with her child.’

I hear her sniff–slowly and deeply–not with irritation, but with sorrow. A world away from me my mother sobs.

‘You know what I was doing the day your father died, while you were out on the beach? I was watching TV, making brownies; singing songs, smoking pot and getting high.’

‘Mum…you couldn’t have known.’

She laughs, the edge of malicious.

‘But that doesn’t stop it, that doesn’t stop the guilt. I don’t have to tell
you
that, surely?’

I’m quiet. Glued to the spot. Feeling like a kid again, feeling like I might need to pee.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘Claire, I’m sorry.’

‘It’s OK,’ I say.

But it’s not.

Some silence while she orders her thoughts.

‘I remember seeing it,’ she whispers. ‘I saw it explode. I watched it spill its guts into the sky. And I was so wasted by then, you know what I thought…I thought it looked
pretty
. I couldn’t see the horror in it, not right away. Couldn’t work out what it meant. So they punished me. Brought it home to me. Made me see what suffering was. Took away my husband, ruined my son, and still it goes on, even now. We’ve never been right since it happened, not one of us. Not me, not Sylvie, not Daniel and not you…not Claire.’

I shift from side to side, like she can see me. I want to turn my face away from the phone.

‘Are you still there…?’

I nod. I tell her I’m nodding. I hear Robert approaching in the background, offering her some tea, laying a hand on her shoulder.

‘He never talked about it, he didn’t speak to anyone. We should have got him some help, Claire…we should have got him some help.’

She puts her hand over the receiver. I’m quiet. I just let her cry.

‘Will you let Kay know,’ I say, gently, when she recovers. ‘She wasn’t at home, I couldn’t find her.’

‘Of course, of course,’ she says, blowing her nose. ‘I’ll tell her you’re there, that someone’s seen him. She’s going to be…so happy.’

She offers to send me some money. I tell her I’m doing OK. I tell her about the astronomy meeting out at the park this weekend and she thinks it’s as good a place as any to look. She’s coming back from Scotland tomorrow. She can’t begin to say how relieved she is.

‘I knew he was alive, I never doubted it,’ she says. ‘Not my clever Daniel, not for a second. Stay out there, Claire, with my blessing. Bring him back home to us, safely,’ she says. ‘I’m depending on you…we all are, we’re depending on you to bring him back.’

‘You don’t think Sylvie ought to come?’

‘No, I don’t think so, poor Sylvie. She wouldn’t know the first place to start.’

I leave the phone hanging in my hand after she’s gone, playing her words over in my head. Wondering if she meant it. Wondering what she was thinking. Wondering if I heard her quite right.

‘Hey.’

‘Hey.’

‘You’re up?’

‘What time is it?’

‘Almost five.’

‘Shit, I slept all day. What’s happened?’

I look down at Michael: mouth full and wide, body naked in thin sheets, eyes low and lazy from sleep. He already has the start of a suntan, just from our one day in the sun. Freckles have broken out on the bridge of his nose and the pastiness has gone from his cheeks. He kisses me on the neck, then the lips. He pulls me into bed with him, sour and sticky from sleep. He asks me how I am, how I’m feeling. He pushes his hands under my T-shirt and strokes his hands over my breasts.

‘Who were you speaking to?’

‘My mum.’

He recoils, as if he’s just spotted the snake.

‘She on your back, Shorty? She want you to come home? Just say the word and I’ll take her out.’

He puts up his hands and makes comedy fists like he’s going to box her.

‘No,’ I say. ‘Quite the opposite, she actually wants me to stay.’

A smile breaks out on Michael’s face as I explain it. He hugs me. We stand up. He holds out his hands and dances me up and down on the mattress.

‘Fuck…are you
sure
? This guy really saw him…I mean, there’s
no
words, this is great.’

He wraps his warm fingers round my waist and offers to take me anywhere I want: a restaurant, a bar, to the ends of the earth, anywhere at all that I’d like to celebrate. I feel close to him, near to him, happy to be with him, he cares about me still: I think he does. You have to take Michael in doses; he can’t be like this all the time. Other people are safer, sturdier, more supportive, but that’s not the way Michael is. You wouldn’t want to rely on him in a moment of crisis but when things are going well there’s no one bolder; more playful, more full of life. He thinks we should spend the day dancing. He thinks we should hire a plane: one of those aircraft that fly up and down the shoreline trailing advertisements behind their wings like giant ribbons.

‘We’ll do our own advert for Daniel,’ he says, spreading his arms out. ‘A big red banner with Huey’s phone number on it:
Has anyone seen Daniel Ronson?
’

I like it. I sort of want to do it. But it might scare him off and the last thing I want to do is scare him.

‘Of course, you’re right. You’re totally right.’

Maybe it’s just the elation, maybe it’s just the relief, but here in this tiny, hot windowless room I feel my guard starting to drop. I reach in and kiss Michael differently: briefly, intensely, from the heart. He feels it and kisses me back.

‘God…you’re fucking great, Claire,’ he says, as we start. ‘Really, you’re pretty fucking great.’

We collapse down onto the sheets like our bones are made out of sand. I’m already half undressed as we fall. Michael pulls me out of the rest of my clothes, stretching my arms above my head. My skirt is unzipped, my underwear is gone. I’m underneath his body and I’m lost. And really, this is the question: what does a man in gaudy earrings and a dress know about the subtleties of love?