The Half Life of Stars (15 page)

‘What kind of hotel are you building?’

‘I’m not building it. I’m overseeing the renovation.’

‘You’re painting it?’

‘Among other things, yes.’

‘Is it as rundown as our house back at home?’

‘More so, it’s practically a shell.’

I thought about this for a moment. A building like a shell, brittle and empty, just a skeleton frame to hold it up.

‘Can I go there one day, can I see it?’

‘No.’

‘But I’d like to see what it looks like.’

‘It’s dangerous. Things could fall on you, you might get hurt.’

‘I’d wear a hat.’

‘We don’t have any hard hats that would fit you.’

‘What about the one you give to Daniel? His head’s not much bigger than mine is. He has a pin head, everybody says so.’

‘I don’t have a pin head…shut up,
Fatso
.’

‘You do. And you have weird-shaped ears as well.’

‘It’s not going to happen, Claire, that’s
final
. Stop asking, you’d only get in the way.’

I don’t think he realised how harsh he sounded. I don’t think he realised what he’d said. I felt myself shrinking into my chair, like I suddenly needed to take a pee. My father had one of those large, resonant voices whose volume knob only had three settings: off, regular and loud. When he was angry or peeved, like he was after I’d spent the last ten minutes badgering him, it sounded like the honk of a bassoon. And I
was
in their way, I could feel it, just by my being there in the kitchen. Mum could barely get
past me to empty out the washing machine; Daniel couldn’t get to the cupboard to fetch his cereal. And Dad couldn’t shuffle out from behind the breakfast bar without me squeezing my stool tight into the counter top until it knocked all the air out of my stomach.

‘So, that’s definitely a no, then?’ I said, as my father reached up for his file of blueprints.

He didn’t reply. He didn’t have to.

My father always left for work before the rest of us had properly woken up yet. He was dressed, showered, and halfway through his eggs before we’d had our first glass of juice, or changed out of our pyjamas. He always wore a serviette when he ate because he sometimes spilt food down his front. By the end of his breakfast his newspaper would bare a tell-tale egg stain, or a translucent butter stain, or a splash mark from the coffee he’d just gulped down to help aggravate his ulcer. Everything my father did was in a hurry. He was a man who always did things in a rush. He ate too quickly. Spoke too soon. He sometimes didn’t speak to us at all. He had hair that grew out of his ears and his nose, and a thumb that was crooked from where he once hit it with a hammer. He liked Marx Brothers’ films and football and fatty food, and he never forgot the punchline to a decent joke. He was an atheist. A pessimist. A mischievous cynic. I never once saw him wear a suit or tie. Nothing got him down like the winter time. Nothing cheered him up like the spring. He wasn’t as bright as we thought he was. He wasn’t as ignorant as he feared. He was fiercely, blindly judgemental and blunt. He was generous, affectionate and kind. Sometimes he’d pick us up and kiss our cheeks for no reason, sometimes he’d ignore us all for days. He didn’t know why we didn’t get him. Couldn’t work out why he didn’t quite get us. This was his greatest confusion, I think. Open minded as he tried so hard to be to the world, a part of him seemed ever closed to us.

‘So what’s it like, then?’ I said to Daniel.

‘It’s amazing,’ he said. ‘It’s ten storeys high and it’s crumbling, they’re going to paint the whole thing bright blue.’

Thanks. Don’t play it down, then. Not for my sake.

‘It’s like somebody set fire to its insides,’ he said. ‘It smells damp inside, like a cave. They’re taking it apart piece by piece and making it shiny and new again. Better than it ever was before.’

‘Will it still be the same place?’

‘How do you mean?’

‘Well if they take all the pieces away and replace them with new ones, if all that’s left is the façade. Will it still be the same place, or different?’

‘Who knows, Fats? But Dad said I can have a say in the final design.’

‘You?’

‘Yeah. I’m going to think of something really good. I’ll get to choose how big the swimming pool is, or something cool like that. Maybe they could lay a running track around it.’

What a way to bribe your teenage son; the chance to design his own running track. I’d never seen my brother look so excited.

‘A running track,’ I sniffed. ‘That’s boring. If he’d asked me I’d have chosen a waterfall, or a lake with alligators in it and tropical fish and…’

‘And what?’

I thought for a moment.

‘A giant slide.’

‘Dad would never go for that.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I’m telling you, Fats. He just wouldn’t.’

I never got to find out what it was in the end, the detail that Daniel added to the blue hotel. I didn’t even know where the building was or how it looked; I never even found out what it was called. I wanted so badly to go there: to see it, to touch it, to smell this rotting cave that he was magically transforming into a palace. But If I couldn’t go with them, then I didn’t want to
know too much about it, so I let Daniel get on with it on his own. He started going down there more often, sometimes as much as twice a week. Most times it cheered him up immensely when he went, other times it left him thoughtful and morose. On one occasion, just after the brand new bar had been fitted out, the two of them came back in the foulest mood. My dad silent and heavy, his stomach slopping with acid, Daniel as taut as a drum.

‘What’s wrong with you two?’

‘Nothing. There’s nothing wrong.’

‘Daniel, what’s the matter? What’s going on?’

He wasn’t a cry baby, my brother, you’d never see him in tears, not even when he was a tiny kid. But this time he couldn’t hold it in; his whole face withered and cracked. He put his arms round my mother’s neck and sobbed. Mum scowled over his shoulder at Dad and they held each other’s gaze like lasers. For seconds. For minutes.

It took me a while to work out why Daniel had been so upset that afternoon, but I finally figured it out. A couple of weeks later I asked Dad if there was going to be a running track fixed around the swimming pool and he looked up at me like I was mad and shook his head. That was why Daniel had been so pissed off. That’s why they’d argued, it was obvious.

‘In that case,’ I said. ‘I mean, it’s only a suggestion. But you might want to think about having a waterfall.’

‘A waterfall?’

‘Yes. With, you know, stepping stones and stuff like that. Or maybe, perhaps, a giant slide?’

Dad forced another Rennie past his rough chalky lips and turned straight back to his newspaper. Daniel wasn’t getting his way on this matter and, it turned out, neither was I.

I lean further back in my chair. I spend a long time gazing up at those telescopes, all bent in different directions, like broken limbs. Some point out at the ocean, some of them are focused
on the street. My father rejected the waterfall and the running track, but I’ll bet the telescopes were another of my brother’s ideas. So this must be it, the blue hotel: spruced up for a second time and painted white. This is the secret place my father came to, six days a week while we lived here. This is where he worked so hard and stressed out so much that none of us knew his heart was breaking.

I feel sick to the pit of my stomach. I am doing it all over again; letting things slide, letting things slip, letting things drift out from underneath me. Sitting here on the street, full of alcohol and pills, dolled up like a 1980s prom queen. I should be fast asleep getting rest for tomorrow. I should be out pounding the streets. I should be writing stuff down, totting things up, racking my brains for ways to look for Daniel. What if I walked right past him on Ocean Drive just now? What if I was too stoned to notice? What if he saw me and blinked once or twice at the strange girl who looked a little like his sister? I’m hiding in this outfit, in this make-up, in this bar, because my real life’s too strange, too complicated. And Miami, these surroundings, this city, this street; it’s all so gloriously, comfortingly shallow.

I stand up, heavily, jogging our wicker table and head for the lobby, next door. No one seems to notice me leaving and no one calls for me to stop or follows after me. I get as far as the white marble staircase before the hotel doorman bars my way with his hand. I can’t go inside, it’s a private party tonight; entry is only for guests of the hotel and specially invited VIPs. I raise my voice and press hard against his arm, but there’s no way he’s going to let me through. I’m not nearly beautiful or sober enough; my face doesn’t fit, it’s all wrong. I’d need to be a different kind of person to get into this place; someone famous, rich or important.

‘My father restored this hotel,’ I say, weakly. ‘He helped to build this place where you work.’

‘Is that so?’ says the doorman, unimpressed. ‘So, go tell him he should have built a bigger VIP room, then. It’s crushed so tight in there the guests can hardly breathe.’

I turn round to leave; to give up, to walk away, but suddenly Tess is right next to me.

‘Let the girl in, it’s important,’ she says. ‘This girl, she really needs to get inside.’

Tess knows the doorman, she slips him a couple of Valium, she gets all four of us inside. The VIP Rose Room is out of bounds tonight–it’s crushed too tight–but we have free reign over the rest of the hotel. Huey and Tess head outside to the pool while Michael and I queue up at the registration desk. It’s a long shot, I know it, but still, it can’t hurt to ask.

A second hotel employee, hip and humourless, flicks through the bookings for late December. They were sold out, he tells us; Christmas is their peak time. If my friend did stay here, then he must have made his booking some way in advance.

‘Check,’ I say. ‘Please, can you check?’

He shakes his head, there’s nothing; no room booked under the name of Daniel Ronson. What else would he have called himself? What alias could he possibly have used? I ask if I can take a look at the bookings myself, but the receptionist won’t let me near the computer. I beg, plead, hustle and mope, until he agrees to read out all the names for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Nothing rings a bell or strikes any kind of note, so we move on from the doubles to the suites. Were any rooms booked under the name of Annie. Annie what? Annie anything at all. No Annies, he tells us, only an Andrew and an Alex.

With some effort I persuade him to give me a copy of the guest list and, with the print-out safely folded into my pocket, I look for a place to sit down. Michael and I squeeze through the crowds back to the lobby, and sink into an empty white sofa. It’s the first chance I’ve had to look around. How elegant this place is; how tasteful, how discreet. How completely unlike my father. The floors are polished white marble, the walls are painted
eggshell and cream. Original deco pillars, painstakingly restored, support the inlaid ceiling like flower stems. The round porthole windows; the wide, filmstar staircase, it feels to me like we’re sitting in the ballroom of a vintage cruise liner. Nothing is too gaudy, too laden with gilt; nothing is too dressed up or overdone. It is the antidote to all the brashness, the roughness, outside; the very model of taste and restraint.

I’m guessing it’s been decorated over again since the eighties but whoever restored it first had a delicate touch. And I can’t imagine my father being delicate with anything; this clumsy man with egg yolk down his front. I can’t imaging him fretting over ebony inlays or the quality of the walnut veneers. He was the site manager here, the project supervisor, but I can’t pretend to know quite what that means. Did he stand here shouting at the architects? Did he whip the decorators into shape? Was he the foreman, the leader, the playground bully, or did he contribute to the look and feel of this place? Did he etch a part of himself into it; a stamp I can’t fathom or recognise? His skilful side, his artistic side; the side he took off at the doorway like a uniform, before he came home to live with us.

Why is it only as adults that we wonder what our parents did all day when we were kids? When I was young, I simply took it for granted. My father went out looking tired in the morning, he came back hours later looking measurably worse. He never spoke until he’d washed and changed out of his overalls, and we knew better than to bother him with our gossip or our grievances until he was fully a civilian again.

What exactly did he do those ten long hours he was out? How did he get covered in brick dust and pencil lines and slicks of oily, pungent-smelling paint? Was he the builder, the designer, the furtive pen pusher? Did he lay these stones and planks with his own hands? If Daniel was suggesting design details to him, then he must have held some sway in this place. He must have had an input, an influence, an eye; yet we never credited him with having talent or finesse. I knew he could draw–pencil lines, plans, detailed sketches–but we never thought this valuable or
skilful. In our house the only things that seemed important to us were whether or not Dad had fixed the leaking taps. Had we enough money to pay the rate bills that month; had we enough saved up to buy new track shoes for Daniel, or to put in that proper fitted kitchen.

What a huge project this hotel must have been, it must have meant an enormous amount to him. It was his vision, his baby, a legacy of sorts, but at home in the silent apartment, it was barely mentioned.

Michael is up out of his seat. He’s hovering at the lobby bar, still buzzing and high, schmoozing with a beautiful waitress.

‘Yeah, I’m with the party in the Rose Room. It’s too crowded in there. But I can still get free drinks from you, right?’

She eyes him suspiciously.

‘So, you’ll know what the party’s for, then?’ she says, testing him.

‘Yeah…of course…a launch of some kind? An album?’

She shakes her head.

‘Film, then? Is it something to do with film?’

The pretty waitress raises an eyebrow.

Michael flirts a little harder and flashes her a smile, but she still won’t dish up the goods.

‘This place, it’s hard work,’ he says, miserably, when I come over. ‘No one will make me a cocktail.’

‘Try paying them, Michael. Try offering one of them money.’

‘I have no cash on me, it’s all in my other jacket. You mind getting me something while you’re up here?’

Michael goes back to the sofa to fidget and chew his cheeks, and I queue up in line and take my turn.

‘That your boyfriend?’

‘Yeah.’

‘He’s cute.’

‘Uh…thanks.’

‘Yeah, I like his accent, are you from England?’

I tell her I am.

‘So,’ I say, while she fixes our drinks, ‘this party tonight, who
is
it for?’

‘Hollywood people,’ she says, looking bored. ‘Some big shot director or something. They make a lot of noise, order a lot of champagne, but mostly it’s just a load of hangers-on waiting to get a glimpse of someone famous. I don’t even think the host is in there. He’s probably up in his suite with the A-list.’

I nod, like I know how it is.

‘What’s it like in there, the Rose Room? Is it nice?’

‘It’s gorgeous,’ she says, simply. ‘The only place they didn’t redecorate during the refit.’

‘How come?’

She shrugs.

‘Didn’t think they could enhance it, I guess. It’s old-fashioned, sort of unique. And it’s, well, it’s kind of romantic. You’d really need to see it for yourself.’

I balance the cocktails so as not to spill them, and make my way back over to Michael. He downs his drink in a gulp and a half, licks his lips heartily and declares it excellent.

‘Better?’

‘Yeah, much. Just what I needed. Let’s go and find Huey and Tess.’

We take the long way round, past the ocean front and the beach, and the low white cabanas, their gauze curtains lilting in the breeze. Michael holds my hand as we walk; calmer now, more patient, his dilated eyes absorbing every detail. The garden is illuminated with candles, and hanging lanterns that throw out a soft, fat light. Palm trees sparkle under their frosting of fairy lamps, guiding us up the steps to the pool. It stretches out in front of us like a lagoon, not blue but inky and black. No running tracks here, no waterfalls to speak of, nothing tacky or cheap or fake tropical. More cosy sofas in monochrome colours and a sprinkle of ruby cushions that look like jewels. Waiters ferry drinks back and forth on silver trays to toffee-skinned girls in pale dresses. And away at the back stand Huey and Tess, gaudy and refreshingly loud.

‘Where were you guys? There were free drinks out here, they just finished.’

Michael groans. He can’t believe he missed them.

‘It’s beautiful out here, isn’t it?’ says Tess, admiringly. ‘I mean credit where it’s due. They did an awesome job.’

‘On what?’

‘The pool. They ripped it out last year and started all over again. Cost millions. Several. At least. The pool runs right into the underground spa, it’s easily twice as big as it was.’

‘What did it look like before?’

‘It had this tropical vibe,’ says Huey, twisting his earflaps. ‘It sort of looked like Hawaii, or something.’

‘Tikkii huts, thatched parasols, waitresses in hula skirts, that kind of thing.’

‘Sounds tacky,’ says Michael.

‘You know what? It really wasn’t. It all sort of fit together somehow. It had these cool stepping stones that you could—’

‘
Stepping
stones?’

‘Yeah. You could walk right across the pool, even at the deep end, from one side right to the other. It was sort of fun, actually.’

‘I liked that swim-up bar that they used to have.’

‘With the waterfall? Yeah, that was great. You had to get soaked to go through it but they made the
best
pina coladas. And you know what was over in that corner, Claire? Where the stainless steel sculpture is now?’

I take a breath before I answer.

‘A giant slide?’

‘Yeah, there was. How on earth did you guess? God, I
loved
that giant slide.’