Written in the Stars (5 page)

One year
, he’d whispered into my mouth as I kissed him again and again, desperately clinging to him like a mollusc to a rock.
One year and I’ll be back for you
.

Do you promise?

I do.

I blink and see the same silver ring on his finger, even now after all this time. The ring I saw when I was walking down the aisle. I’d worn mine on my right hand for a whole year until I moved to London, where eventually, reluctantly, at Milly’s persuasion, I buried it in a suitcase of memories. A month later I met Adam. I should be wearing
his
ring now. Would I be wearing it if Kieran hadn’t come back?

I think of Adam standing in the church doorway, and imagine myself back there.

What have I done?

Chapter 7

Bea Bishop has changed her name to Bea Hudson.
Relationship status: ‘Married’.

I look around at our guests covertly as I change my Facebook profile, my wedding ring glinting as I tap expertly away on my phone. I know straight after the wedding ceremony and during the formal wedding photos on the lawn is not a particularly appropriate moment to do this, but the guests are happily talking and laughing, milling around in front of the marquee like brightly coloured ballroom dancers, and in this moment, I have an overwhelming urge to let everyone I’ve ever met hear how perfect it all is and how happy I am. Maybe because now I remember how close I came to ending this day very differently. When I saw Kieran in the congregation I wanted to run out the church and far away but then I’d fallen and forgotten and I’m
so glad
. I’m safe now. I have Adam. I glance around to check that Kieran hasn’t returned, trying to quieten the pounding of my heart that seems intent on giving me away. Why was he there? What could he possibly hope to achieve by turning up after all this time – and at my wedding? When he was the one who left and didn’t come back? I want to know, but equally, I’m frustrated that I’m thinking about him. I’m married. When I made my vows I resolved to put him out of my mind, to focus on the here and now – but he remains stubbornly in my head.

I walk across the lawn towards Adam, who is standing in front of the lake surrounded by a group of guests. My body is here but my brain is drowning in memories. I stop and hold on to a tree before I faint again. I’m trying to calm my breathing, to prevent the panic attack that I can feel rising up through my body. I look at the clear, tranquil water of the lake glimmering in the spring sunshine and try to remind myself that nothing has changed.

Kieran’s gone and no one knows my secret. And hopefully no one ever will.

‘There she is! Come here, my beautiful, perfect wife!’ Adam calls, and waves.

I pause, take a deep, calming breath and then I let go of the tree and with a smile on my face I walk slowly towards my husband, my wedding dress threatening to trip me up with every single step.

I’m standing on the lawn sipping tea from a china cup in what I hope is an elegant, ladylike way, a string quartet playing behind me as I hold court with some distant family of Adam’s.

‘Yes I
am
very lucky, yes of course I know what a catch he is! Why did it take me so long to say yes? Er . . . well, you know a girl has to be a hundred per cent sure these days, ha ha!’ I can tell from their expressions this is the wrong answer. ‘No, seriously, the truth is it was just very hard to find a gap in Adam’s diary.’ They nod sagely at this. They understand how busy and important he is, his whole family does. ‘And,’ I continue, ‘I didn’t want a long engagement so I kept him hanging on until I knew we could marry as quickly as possible.’ I pause. ‘Couldn’t risk any other girl getting her hands on him!’

They laugh along with me and I smile brightly before making my excuses and walking away. They’re happy that I’ve given them a funny but believable reason for my indecision that is far preferable to the truth: that I just wasn’t sure before.

I’m gagging for a glass of champagne and a proper chat with someone who actually
knows
me. To be honest I’m still feeling embarrassed and shaken by what happened during the ceremony. Not just about falling over, but what – no,
who
– precipitated it.

Despite the vast swarm of guests I’m surrounded by I suddenly feel incredibly alone. There is only one person I can talk to about what happened in the church.

‘Milly,’ I hiss as a goddess in gold glides past me, holding two glasses of champagne aloft. ‘You, me, in the Portaloo now!’

‘You saw
who
?’ Milly gasps and looks down at me in horror.

I’m slumped on the toilet, skirts held aloft by Milly, white lace knickers down by my ankles, and clinging on to my champagne flute as I self-consciously try to empty my bladder (and my conscience) before my best mate.

‘Kieran Blake.’ I whisper his name quietly in case anyone else has come in.

‘Former breaker of your heart?’ Milly hisses.

I nod.

‘The guy who swept you off your feet for a single summer and then nearly destroyed your life, leaving me and Loni to pick up the pieces? The one who watched his own brother
die
because of his own stupid recklessness and left you to carry the guilt?’ I close my eyes. ‘He was here? And that’s why you fell when you came down the aisle?’

I nod again.

She narrows her eyes. ‘So, how did you feel?’

I look at her and then down at my feet guiltily. ‘Like I was drowning.’

‘Did you talk to him?’ She pauses briefly. ‘Well, did you?’

I shake my head.

‘Good. You know that him being here doesn’t change anything, don’t you?’ she says urgently. ‘Except to prove what a selfish bastard he still is.’ She looks at me, as if waiting for me to echo her character assassination of him. But I can’t. What happened to Elliot wasn’t his fault.

‘Milly, you don’t know him, that isn’t fair—’

She rolls her eyes as if she has heard this a million times before. Milly tends to make snap judgements. It’s partly to do with her job as a hedge fund manager that she operates entirely on gut instinct. And so far it has seen her become a partner at one of the biggest investment companies in the City, marry her perfect man and make brilliant decisions in all other aspects of her life including: The flat she bought eight years ago (a two-bedroom dump opposite Greenwich Park acquired in an auction without seeing – now worth nearly a million pounds). Her clothes – the woman has never got it wrong, ever. Her hairstyle – a chic, sharp bob that she had cut aged thirteen after seeing
Pulp Fiction
– and has never ever changed because she nailed her look right then (I mean, who manages that as a teenager?). So when she says she never liked Kieran and that she always knew he couldn’t be trusted even before he left me, I should listen. She was my saviour after that summer. She visited me throughout the year that I barely left Loni’s house, and when he didn’t come back when he said he would, she and Loni intervened and moved me up to London to live with her.

I didn’t really have a choice in the matter and that suited me. As far as I was concerned I didn’t deserve one any more.

‘You know how I feel about Kieran Blake,’ Milly says now. ‘He tried to ruin your life once and he didn’t succeed. I can’t believe he’s come back today of all days to do it again. Well, I hope he realises he’s too late . . .’

I don’t reply.

‘Bea?’ Milly says, grasping my arms and looking into my eyes. ‘This doesn’t change anything, does it? Him being here? I mean, you
know
that you and Adam are perfect for each other, don’t you?’

I think of how I felt after my fall, and when I said my vows, and I know she’s right. Kieran coming back hasn’t changed anything.

‘I do,’ I say for the second time today. And then again, more emphatically, ‘I do.’

Chapter 8

‘I’ve waited for this moment for eight long years, Bea. Do you know, wherever I’ve been in the world, at any particular moment, when I close my eyes I’ve always been taken back to this beach, gazing at this view. With you . . .’

I stare at Kieran and then shake my head, fighting a compulsion to laugh manically at his words even as a desperate sob rises up through my body. I want to throw my arms around him and tell him to fuck off at the same time. Clearly I’m having some sort of breakdown. And not just of the marriage kind.

Instead I say nothing. I just lift some sand in my palm and watch as the grains slip through my fingers like time itself. I glance up at Kieran. He’s looking at me dreamily, like he too has one foot in the past and one in the present. He crouches down and tries to put his arm around me.

‘Kieran—’ I protest sharply, pulling away. ‘Don’t. Just, don’t. Have you forgotten—’

‘I’ve
never
forgotten you, Bea!’ Kieran says fiercely. ‘You should know that. How could I forget what we went through together?’ He reaches out his hand. I look at the ring on his finger and then at him and pull my arm away from his touch.

‘I was going to say have you forgotten about my
wedding
. You know, the one you just crashed? Funnily enough I don’t feel like reminiscing with you right now.’ I turn away from him, my pulse throbbing, heart pounding, hands shaking. I don’t want to look at him or be drawn into this conversation. But even though I have my back to him his image is still imprinted on my eyes. I can feel his presence in every one of my pores. It’s like he is insidiously making his way under my skin again and I’m unable to resist him.

I can’t help it. I glance over my shoulder and study him defiantly, without restraint. He has undoubtedly grown into a strong, fit, capable, magnetic man. But then I blink and it is as if the sand-timer has suddenly been flipped and the years dissipate before my eyes like a sandcastle swallowed up by the incoming tide. His gym-honed body shrinks and becomes the lean surfing machine it was when he was in his early twenties, his cropped hair grows long over his eyes, the sunken lines around his mouth and forehead fade into nothingness. I know he is imagining me too as I was then: with longer, looser hair, less make-up, fewer frown lines. And without the wedding dress.

‘Why are you here, Kieran?’ I ask warily. Wearily. ‘Why now?’

He waits for a moment before he answers. ‘It just felt like the right time, I guess.’

I force a laugh. ‘Oh really? Right for who?’

Kieran looks at me sorrowfully. ‘You’re angry at me.’

‘No, I’m angry at me.’ I exhale. ‘This is not the time, Kieran. Eight years ago was the time.’ I go to stand up but find I can’t in this stupid tight dress. I flail around for a moment like an upturned beetle before giving up.

‘Here, let me help you,’ Kieran smiles.

‘No, thank you.’ I slump back on the sand and fold my arms.

Kieran sighs and turns his back to me. ‘Bea, I know you don’t want to hear this right now but I need you to understand something. No matter how far I travelled and how long I stayed away, you’ve always been with me. You, Elliot, that summer’ – he looks down – ‘that night. In many ways I feel like I never left. A big part of me has always been here, with you.’ He steps towards me as if taking my silence as acquiescence. Acceptance. ‘I’ve missed you so much, Bea . . . you’re the only one who understands me, who knows where I come from, who I am. You’re the only one who could ever understand what it’s like to lose someone you love . . .’ His voice cracks. ‘I still miss him, you know. Every day.’

I close my eyes and instantly see an image of Elliot jumping gleefully off Cromer Pier. I hear his cry as he slipped and caught his head on the side. I see his lifeless body as Kieran dragged him out of the sea.

He reaches out and offers me his hand and this time I find myself taking it. As I do I notice the tattoo of a star sign just visible on his wrist. Gemini. The twins. I run my finger over it for a second and he clutches my hand and then smiles sadly, his lips flicking up and then down in a quick movement like a cat’s tail. Instead of getting up I pull him down so he’s next to me.

We sit in silence watching as a flock of Brent geese arc across the sky. It’s then that I allow the memories to come flooding back of that halcyon summer when we met. He was twenty-five, I was twenty-two. He and his twin brother Elliot had been to Norfolk many times before but had never stayed long enough to settle down. They were ex-foster kids whose foster parents had split up and then moved abroad, neither of them willing to go on looking after them. He told me that when they were in care, he and Elliot became wilder and wilder until their lives effectively evolved into an extended childhood game of chicken. When they turned eighteen and left the care home, they worked their way along the coast, finding jobs at campsites, in bars and restaurants, each encouraging the other to go for the next prohibited thrill.

The very first time we slept together, Kieran told me he didn’t answer to anyone. He made his own decisions and always followed his heart and his instinct, wherever they took him. I remember exactly how he’d looked at me when he said that. ‘And now I know why they brought me here,’ he’d added, lowering his head and resting it on my chest as we fell asleep under the stars, entwined round each other’s bodies. We didn’t untangle ourselves for another four months. It was blissful. My summer of love. Until . . .

I remember with a jolt what he’d said to me the day he left after Elliot’s funeral, on this very beach:
I can’t do this. I’m sorry.
I feel a sudden wave of remorse as I remember how Adam looked when I told him the very same thing earlier today.

‘What am I doing?’ I didn’t mean to but I realise I’ve said this aloud. Using his arm as a hoist I pull myself up to my feet before trying to run down the dunes, my feet sinking into the sand, grains flying up around me and into my eyes as I stagger awkwardly across the beach. Kieran’s empty words from all those years ago are still echoing in my head.
I just need some time. You’ll wait for me though, won’t you? I need to know you’ll wait . . .

‘Bea!’ Kieran calls. ‘WAIT!’