The Half Life of Stars (19 page)

Today the green ocean is full of rip tides, prowling for swimmers with greedy arms. Stiff onshore breezes beat the waves into a frenzy and freshen the sticky air with blasts of sweetness. The mugginess has gone, all the heaviness. We can breathe. We can finally breathe.

Michael and I have hired sun beds and umbrellas. We’re laid out next to one another in our bathing suits, surrounded by the accoutrements of coupledom: shared tubes of sun cream, shared bottled water, magazines and books that we can swap. I rub sun-block on Michael’s shoulders before they burn. I offer him a pretzel before he asks. He reaches out to touch me for no reason at all, other than to make sure I’m still there.

‘Your nose looks red.’

‘Does it?’

‘You should put something on it.’

‘One of those cardboard beaks, maybe?’

Michael tears the back cover off my magazine and begins to fashion me a protective beak. It looks like a miniature wizard’s hat, I put it on. I try not to sneeze or blow it off.

‘It looks good.’

‘Not stupid?’

‘Stupid but good. I still fancy you in it.’

I get a rush. There on the beach with a ridiculous paper cone on my nose. Then a breeze comes along and whips it off.

My magazine is called the
Amateur Astronomer
and it’s not an overly entertaining read. It’s full of articles about far away
planets and galaxies, but even though the subject matter is astounding, magical even, it still reads something like a wallpaper catalogue.

‘Did you know the Milky Way is six hundred thousand light years across?’

‘No.’

‘That’s pretty big.’

‘Yes, it is.’

‘Do you find that interesting?’

Michael thinks.

‘It’s impressive,’ he says, licking the salt off a pretzel. ‘But in essence it’s just an abstract fact. It’s hard to connect with. What exactly does it mean? What difference does it make to you and me?’

I think about this for a while.

‘It makes me feel small. Insignificant.’

‘And that makes you feel better, or worse?’

‘Better.’

‘Really?’

‘No. Worse.’

We listen to the waves. We listen to the wind. Michael goes back to his book. I sit up and watch the skateboarders fighting with gravity; I watch the skinny girls dancing like cornstalks in the breeze in front of their shiny silver boom boxes. You can lose yourself so quickly in the big stuff. The small stuff; it’s all in the small stuff.

‘Are you thirsty? We ran out of water.’

‘I dunno, I suppose. A little bit.’

‘The pretzels made me thirsty. Do you think that I eat too much salt?’

‘How much are you meant to eat?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘You’re probably OK then.’

‘I’ll get us an iced tea,’ he says pulling on his trainers. ‘What do you want, peach or lemon?’

‘Um…peach.’

‘Sugar or sugar free.’

‘Sugar.’

‘Sugar it is.’

I treasure these domestic exchanges. This is the language of love.

The
Amateur Astronomer
is all worked up about the meteor shower tonight. It’s going to peak at two in the morning, eastern time, and we can expect to see as many as one hundred and fifty of them in an hour. I’m exceptionally lucky to be here; the next celestial shower of this magnitude doesn’t occur until August 2008. It turns out that meteors are far smaller than I’d realised, the size of a single grain of sand. How can a particle the size of a grain of sand produce such a dazzling sight? The answer is all to do with speed. This shoddy scrap of debris from a lonely comet’s tail enters the earth’s atmosphere at unimaginable velocity. The Space Shuttle travels at eight miles a second, these meteors travel sixty to seventy. They burn up as they go, until there’s nothing left, but for a few brief seconds they glow so bright and look so colourful we wish on them and call them shooting stars. What would I wish for? I’m not even sure. I close my eyes and try to think of a hundred and fifty different wishes.

Michael has been gone a long time. I think I must have fallen asleep because my cheek is sore and my left arm is creased and I’m feeling shivery underneath my towel. There’s no peach tea getting warm in the sand and no ex-husband snoozing next to me on the sun-bed. I’d like to go for a swim but the danger flag is still fluttering on the life guard station and I can’t see anyone else in the water. There’s a jellyfish sign up there too, now:
Beware, Portuguese man-of-war
. What a strange name for a jellyfish to have. I wonder how it got that kind of name? You don’t associate the Portuguese with warring. I don’t associate the Portuguese with anything, much. Golf courses. The Algarve. Sweet custard cakes…

Shit
. I sit up straight. The sun-lounger pings and folds over,
threatening to squash me flat like a sandwich. Did he do that? Did Michael go out there and swim? It’s the kind of reckless thing he would do. When we went on a winter break once, to Cornwall, he went swimming in the sea before breakfast even though the waves were six feet tall. I stood on the rocks and called for him to come back, but he just kept on swimming further out: testing himself; pushing himself; making me fretful and worried. He disappeared for a moment and I thought that he’d drowned, and a thousand thoughts went through my head. I wondered if I’d be able to save him. I wished that I knew what to do. Perhaps I should construct some kind of flotation device? From what? From my jeans? From my anorak? What if he’d been strangled by seaweed? What could I use to cut him free? I was down to my bra and my knickers. I had a sharp stone in my hand to cut away the seaweed. I was up to my knees in the water, about to dive in, when he surfaced.

‘What are you standing here for?’

‘I thought you might be out there, in the sea.’

‘There are rip tides.’

‘I know.’

‘You’re not supposed to go swimming when there are rip tides.’

‘You would.’

‘No, I wouldn’t. It’s too dangerous.’

I’m at the edge of the beach with a towel wrapped round my shoulders, staring down at my toes. The sun has dipped behind the clouds and I’m chilly. I have goose bumps on my arms.

‘You’ve been gone a long time.’

‘Sorry, I lost track.’

‘Did you bring the peach tea?’

‘The tea? No, uh…I forgot.’

He’s dressed now, in his jeans and his sun-faded T-shirt, his clothes smell of stale tobacco.

‘I spent my money on a cigar instead,’ he says, sheepishly. ‘But, hey, the girl swore it was Cuban. I don’t know if it is…I mean how can you tell? But it tastes pretty good. Here, I saved some for you.’

Michael pulls the stub out of his pocket: one end damp and chewed, the other end scorched black and tarry. I light it and take a drag. It tastes rich, chocolaty, strong. It makes me cough.

‘Looks like it might rain,’ says Michael, putting his arm round me.

Clouds are welling up on the horizon; black, angry, bloated with droplets of rain.

‘I hope it clears up by tonight,’ I say, tensely. ‘If it’s cloudy Daniel might not bother going.’

‘What makes you think he’ll go there anyway, to the park? You can see the meteors from all over southern Florida. Maybe he’ll just watch from the beach.’

Why will Daniel go to Bill Sadowski park tonight? He’ll go because he won’t feel so alone. He’ll go so he can share his enthusiasm with other people; people who feel something of the same way he does. He’ll feel comforted by them and reassured. Even though his family are a world away, he’ll feel some connection with other human beings. When they nod and whoop, he’ll nod and whoop too. When they look through their telescopes, he’ll join them. He’ll swap facts and figures with men and women he’s never met, and they’ll seem like friends for a moment. You need to share your world with other people. Otherwise, what’s the point?

‘The park is far enough away from the city that the sky won’t be polluted with light,’ I say authoritatively. ‘The view will be better, that’s why he’ll go.’

Michael shrugs.

‘If it was me, if I was into that kind of thing, I’d find my own place to watch it. The top of a hill, halfway up a mountain. Maybe out on—’

‘An island?’

‘Perfect.
Perfect
. An island. I’d take a boat and a bottle of whisky. Maybe a spliff and a girl.’

‘A girl?’

He gives me a tight squeeze. He yawns.

‘You, Shorty. You know I’d take you.’

The thunderstorm breaks just as we’re leaving the beach, drenching our clothes as we run for cover. I’ve never seen anything like it: lightning in sheets, forks, balls, snarling and howling out to sea. People take shelter under the awnings: chatting, drinking, smoking, eating, but most of them aren’t even watching it. I can’t take my eyes off the lightning and Michael seems as transfixed as I am. We wonder what causes it. We know it’s electricity, that it’s to do with negative and positive charges in the air–ions or something like that–but neither of us knows the answer precisely. Daniel would know. He’d roll his eyes and spell it right out for us, wondering why we didn’t take better notice.

‘You don’t know anything about the world around you, Claire. I think you do it on purpose.’

‘I know how to speak four languages already. Let’s hear you try and speak to me in Serbo-Croat.’

‘What’s the point?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘What’s the point of speaking a different language?’

‘Daniel, don’t be so stupid.’

‘No, Mum, I’m serious. It’s a serious question.’

Back from university. Who does he think he is? Thinks he knows the answer to everything.

‘I mean it. What use is it, really? How does one language differ from another? It’s just an altered set of vocal patterns. The words will be different, depending on which nationality you’re speaking to, but the sentiment is precisely the same.’

Where do you start? Where do you start with an argument like that?

‘It means I can communicate, Pinhead. With
people
, with lots of different people.’

‘Strangers, you mean?’

‘No…not just strangers. It means I can visit a country and get to know it. I can dig beneath its surface, peel back its skin, find out what’s really going on. You wouldn’t understand it, why would you? You’re a robot, you’re practically mute.’

Seventeen years old. New home, new dinner table. Still calling my brother the same names. Different words. Same sentiment.

Back at the flat, after the rain, Huey and Tess have made it up again. I was expecting them to be in a state of depression or madness but everything appears to be OK. The snake is safe, the apartment is quiet, classical music plays softly from the radio. The two of them are curled up on the sofa and Huey is feeding Tess green grapes. Huey is talking about an acting class he used to take in New York City and Tess is reminiscing about her days at cookery school: she was top of her class, she was a natural, she was learning to cook cordon bleu.

‘You two get wet? What about that storm, wasn’t it amazing?’

‘Yeah,’ I say. ‘It really was.’

The sky is perfectly clear now. The sun came out the second the rain stopped, and all the clouds rolled away like a heavy curtain.

‘Tropical storms, that’s what they’re like,’ Tess says. ‘Sudden, short and intense. Don’t you love how they clean up the atmosphere?’

‘Yeah,’ says Huey. ‘I do.’

They’re so relaxed together the two of them, they don’t seem tense or anxious in the least. The shape of them, all loose and liquid, it makes me and Michael look stiff. Tess oozes out of the cushions and sits up and Huey rests his chin on her shoulder.

‘So,’ she coughs. ‘There’s something I wanted to tell you both.
I’ve booked myself in. This Monday. I’m going into the hospital with Orla.’

‘For the surgery?’

She nods.

‘Huey’s right behind me, aren’t you Huey?’

Huey smiles and strokes Tess’s boobs.

‘Well…if that’s what you’ve decided.’

‘I have.’

‘If you think it’ll make you happy?’

‘I do. Plus, it’ll help with my career. If you’ve got a singing voice as weak and screechy as I have, you need all the help you can get to be a star.’

Huey smiles. Tess gets into her stride.

‘The thing with plastic surgery,’ Tess says, knowingly. ‘Is that you have to be sure you’re doing it for the all right reasons. You can’t do it to please someone else, and I’m not. I’m having this operation for
me
.’

I scowl at her. I gesture towards Huey.

‘No Claire, you’re wrong, I was too. I’m not doing it for Huey, any more. We talked about it, didn’t we, baby? And he couldn’t care less what I look like. He appreciates me just the way I am. It’s just something I want to do all for myself. To make me feel more…um…’

‘Confident?’

‘Right, Huey, exactly. That’s right.’

‘You’re not worried about the risks?’

‘What risks?’

‘They could burst, they could look bad. They could leak out from under your armpit and poison you.’

‘They don’t do that any more, that’s all hype. And Doctor Roland is an amazing plastic surgeon.’

‘Dr Roland?’

‘He does sex changes mostly. But if he can make tits for a guy then he has to be able to do a good job on me, right? I already have them in place.’

‘How much is it costing?’

‘A thousand dollars.’

‘Isn’t that…a bit cheap?’

‘Uh…I’m getting a deal. Through Orla. It’s sort of…uh…at a discount.’

I squat down on a cushion; I don’t know what to say. Tess switches her attention to someone else.

‘What do you think Michael? You’re awful quiet.’

‘Me?’ says Michael, not bothering to look at her. ‘I think it will hurt.’

‘I’m good with pain. I have a high tolerance threshold.’

‘Well, then I’m sure you’ll do OK.’

He stretches his arms above his head and begins to peel off his damp shirt.

‘That’s it? That’s all you’re going to say to her?’

‘What do you want me to say? It’s only a boob job. Thousands of women get boob jobs every day.’

‘She doesn’t need it, she’s fine as she is.’

Michael holds up his hands; he doesn’t want to get into it.

‘So, Monday at noon,’ says Tess, definitively. ‘If you’re wondering where we are, that’s where we’ll be. Huey too, he’s going to come along with me.’

‘That’s right. On Monday. The both of us. We’ll both be at the hospital. That’s where we’ll be.’

‘You’re sure about this?’

‘We’re sure.’

‘I can’t say anything to change your mind?’

‘Nope. We have it all booked.’

There’s nothing to be done. There’s nothing more I can say. Huey and Tess go back to their grapes; Michael and I go and take a shower.

‘So, do you want to grab some food before we drive out to the park?’

‘Definitely, definitely. And then I need to stop off at the Wheel for an hour or so.’

‘The Wheel? What’s the Wheel?’

‘That jazz club we ended up at, after we’d checked out your dad’s hotel.’

I stop. I barely remember it. I was lost that evening, I can’t even picture what it looked like.

‘But it’s a late place isn’t it, and we’d have to be out of there by ten?’

‘You said we didn’t need to leave until eleven.’

‘Well, at a push. But I’d rather get there early. It’s…important.’

Michael scrubs himself down with a towel: thinking, thinking; spending a long time on his toes.

‘Michael, is something wrong?’

‘No. Nothing’s wrong.’

‘What’s going on? Is there something going on?’

‘I have an audition tonight.’

He says it out straight; just like that.

‘It might not be anything, but it might be something. Paid work. Out here. A month or two’s residency. At this club and a couple of others.’

His toes. He’s still drying his toes.

‘When did you…when was it arranged?’

‘Huey introduced me to the music booker when we were down there. I just ran into him on the beach. We talked, I bought him a cigar.’

‘Why didn’t you say anything? You never said.’

‘I’m saying it now.’

‘Well…can’t you audition for him tomorrow?’

‘Can’t do it…it has to be tonight.’

‘Why?’

‘Claire…it just does.’

His voice is terse, the beginnings of angry. He notices, he tries to calm down.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘But this guy, he’s quite important. I can’t piss him off now, it’s all been put in place.’

I want to ask how the music booker in a dingy Miami night club can be important to someone like Michael. I want to ask him why he arranged to audition tonight and why he can’t put
things off for one more day. But I don’t, because he’s looking at me like I shouldn’t.

‘So…how long will it take?’

‘An hour, tops. I have to be in there by nine.’

It’s cutting it fine. We both know it’s cutting it fine.

‘If it takes any longer, I’ll come on and meet you later at the park. You take the car, I’ll ride up later in a taxi.’

Is this what he wants? Is this what he’s angling for? Does he want me to do this without him? I feel clammy from the shower and flushed from the heat. I don’t want to go out to that park all alone. I don’t want to be the one wandering around the grounds with the smudged photocopies tucked under my arm while everyone else has their eyes glued on the sky. It feels foolish all of a sudden. Difficult. Unlikely.

‘Michael, I don’t want to fuck this up.’

‘You won’t. Why would you fuck this up?’

‘I have to bring him home.’

‘You will. You
will
.’

‘People are depending on me.’

‘And so they should.’

He puts an arm around me. Ruffles my hair.

‘Come on now. This is a long shot. It’ll probably come to nothing. Who knows?’

I realise he’s talking about the audition.

‘So why bother going, then? It’s just another club gig, you can get one of those any time.’

He frowns.

‘I know it’s bad timing, but it had to be tonight, and I promise I’ll be as quick as I can.’

‘You’ll come on afterwards, if you’re late?’

‘Absolutely. No question. Where would be a good place to meet, do you think?’

Ten past ten, I’m sitting in a coffee shop two blocks down from the Wheel. If I’m not back by ten go without me, he said. I’ll meet you by the entrance at midnight. There’s going to be a lecture
before the meteors start. There will probably be a stage or a lectern. Good, so we’ll meet at the lectern. Or the entrance. Or the biggest telescope we can find. The central place, whatever that turns out to be. Don’t worry. He’ll find me. Relax.

Twenty past ten. Why can’t I get up? I’ve finished my coffee. I should pay.

‘You want a refill?’

‘I…no.’

‘You’re all set?’

‘Yes. I am. I’m all set.’

I could go down to the jazz club and see if he’s finished, but he didn’t want me in there while he auditioned; he thought that I might put him off. He needs to concentrate, to get into his performance mode; he takes on a different persona when he plays. He needs to dig down deep into the music and the rhythms. He didn’t want to have to worry about the clock.

Half past ten. I climb into the car and spend a few minutes looking in the rearview mirror. Hoping. Hoping he’ll show up. My breathing is tight, the air is closing in; it’s getting humid again. What happened to that breeze, that blessed breeze?

Twenty to eleven. He’s definitely not coming. I roll down the soft top, start up the engine and drive off the island on my own.