We Are All Made of Stars (33 page)

His phone is ringing, and an unfamiliar voice answers.

‘What?'

‘Um … is Ben there?'

‘Wrong number.'

‘No, this is Ben's number. Is he there?'

‘This is Ben's stepdad, and this phone now belongs to me. I'm sick of him sponging off us …'

‘Hey, give me that, you wanker …' It's Ben. For a moment, I am flooded with relief. Except that I can't hear him – maybe he sat on his phone or something? There's a noise, perhaps a movie, shouting, crashes. I can hear shouting. I open my mouth to do that thing, that thing where you yell ‘hello', even though you know no one will hear you. I am going to do that anyway, when I hear the cry again, and I freeze. It's his mum crying, ‘Stop it. Stop hitting him!'

I'm through the safe, green door and into the mayhem of the street before I know what I am doing. I'm not even at the end of the road and my legs are shaking, my chest is aching. There's no medical reason for me not to exert myself a reasonable amount; I need to build up my stamina, the doctors say. But, even so, the pain, the pain, and the fear that I might die if I run too fast, dog me. However, I don't stop. I won't die if I run, even though I'm not fit, but I won't die if I run, so I jog, as fast as I can go, into the heart of Camden. I jog out past the tube station and then, finally, out of breath, I pause to cough what feels like it might be my lungs up, then turn left into the estate where Ben lives.

He's always lived here, and I've always lived four streets away. He's always lived in a split-level flat on the fourth floor, with a balcony that runs the length of a row of front doors looking out on to the courtyard, where we used to play as kids. Now we're older it always seems to be full of menacing-looking teens not much younger than me. But I don't think about the fact that it's dark, or that my lungs are screaming. I just know I have to find out where he is, and the only place I can think of to start is his home. The lift, for once, is not out of order, which is good news. The bad news is that it terrifies me; it always smells of stale pee and disinfectant. It's cleaned all the time but you can still see the ghostly outlines of graffiti that has been and gone. The words ‘You gonna die, bitch' loom out of the dark, taking shape as I stare for a long time at the place where they almost are. I hold my breath as the metal box rumbles up. I think about the last time I took a lift, with Ben, and remind myself to never get in a lift again. I'm always scared I'll get stuck in a lift, always; and, worse, I'm scared I'll get stuck in a lift needing a wee, and then what?

But the lift makes it to fourth floor and, after that terrifying moment of stillness, the doors open. It's more or less quiet along the balcony that fronts Ben's flat. Streets in the air – that's what they were designed to be once. There is a group of girls, smoking intensely, standing between me and Ben's front door. They are just girls, just girls like me, probably thinking and worrying about a lot of the same things, and yet they frighten me. I have no reason to believe they are going to hurt me, or even notice me, and yet I do believe that. I try to make myself small and avert my eyes as I hurry past. They gossip and laugh as I pass, and I am certain that they are talking about me.

And yet I still stop before I get to Ben's doorway.

It's been fifteen minutes, slightly less, since I heard what I thought was some kind of fight and ran out on my parents. What if I overreacted? What if it was just one of the normal run-of-the-mill shouting matches between Ben and his stepfather, and I've raced here, arriving dripping in sweat, to what … save the day? Make a cup of tea? What am I even doing here? And then I hear it again. The shouting is coming from inside his flat, and this time I can hear a woman screaming.

Glancing behind me at the girls, who seem oblivious or immune to the cries, I run to the door, press the doorbell several times, and bang hard on the glass. Seconds stretch out. Behind the frosted door I can see muffled figures tussle for a moment, tumbling into another room. I look back at the girls, unable to believe that they can so casually ignore what's happening.

‘Can't you hear that?' I shout at them.

‘It's always like that round here,' one says.

‘Call the police!' I tell them. ‘I think they are killing each other!'

‘You call the police; they'll get here next Tuesday,' the same girl says, turning her back on me.

I hammer on the door again, but there is no reply. No matter how hard I knock, I don't think anyone can hear it over the yelling and the screaming. Looking around, I see a desolate-looking window box, full of dead soil and cigarette butts, leaning up against the railing. I pick it up and hurl it at the glass door before I know what I'm doing. It barely dents the toughened glass, but all I can think about is Ben, and getting to Ben, and the screams of his mother behind the door. Ben is tall and strong, but he's never been in a fight in his life, and Mark, his stepdad, Mark gets in a fight every Friday night.

‘Fuck! Are you crazy?' one of the smoking girls asks me, suddenly switched on to what I'm doing.

Ignoring her, I kick at the dent in the glass, and it hurts – a pain shooting up into my thigh. I kick again, and again, with first one leg then the other, each exertion more painful than the last. I double over, an explosion of coughing halting my rescue attempt, a wave of fiery pain surging up through my lungs. Maybe I could die. Maybe, in my weakened state, I could die. But it doesn't matter. I have to keep on trying, even if I do die. I go again, but the smoking girl steps in front of me.

‘Fuck it,' she says. ‘Stand back.'

She picks up the window box again and slams it hard and fast into the glass, again and again – clearly she's much fitter and stronger than me. When the glass finally gives way, she reaches inside and undoes the latch, releasing the door.

‘I'll call the feds,' she says. ‘I ain't saying who I am. You need any help, scream.'

I nod and barge my way into the flat. And for a tiny second, I catch myself and wonder what the hell I am doing, but then I charge on.

They are in the living room.

I see it all in a series of stills, like Polaroids coming into focus, with each swing of the naked light bulb in the centre of the room.

Ben's mum, in a T-shirt and nothing else, stands in the corner, her hands covering her face. She wails, she keens, she screams.

Ben goes down, tumbling against a table as his stepdad catches him under his jaw. I see that Mark has an eye that is swelling shut, blood tricking from his nose. If he's in a bad way, God only knows how Ben is. I scramble to the floor where Ben is trying to drag himself up, and put myself between him and Mark.

‘STOP IT!' I shout. ‘Stop it – the police are coming!'

Mark lunges towards me, grabbing my arm to drag me out of the way of his target, his fury blinding him to what he is doing. His grip is strong; it hurts at once, but I resist.

Fuck it.

Clambering up, I run at Ben's stepdad and shoulder into him, catching him off guard. He topples and I topple with him, screaming at the top of my voice, growling, yowling. I am a wild animal; I am a banshee. I only know that Mark has to stop what he is doing, and that it is going to be me who stops him.

‘Hope?' Ben seems to come to as he sees me land hard on top of his stepdad, winding him, and he tries to reach me, while his mum is screaming and screaming. I see blood, fresh bruises forming on Ben's skin before my eyes. Staggering, he clambers to his feet and pulls me off of his stepfather, and together we stand unsteadily in each other's arms. Adrenaline races furiously through my blood. In this moment, I think I could defeat the world if it tried to hurt the person I care most about. The man that I love.

In obvious pain, Ben inserts himself between Mark and me.

‘So a little girl going to stand up for you, is she?' Mark says. He's drunk, blindly, furiously drunk. ‘A little sick girl got more fight than you, has she?'

‘What are you doing?' Ben asks.

I dodge Ben, pressing forward, thrusting my face into the old man's. ‘You're pathetic. You're just a pathetic old bully. You are disgusting … Aren't you disgusted with yourself?'

‘You little …' He raises the back of his hand, but I don't move. And I see it in his eyes: as drunk and angry as he is, he knows that hitting me will have consequences; he knows that I wouldn't just take it.

‘You've got no right coming round here, telling me how to live, you little bitch,' he says, but his hand retreats. ‘He lives under my roof, by my rules. I deal with him as I see fit.'

‘It's not your roof,' Ben's mum says, her hands trembling as she lights a cigarette. ‘It's mine. I've put up with a lot of your crap, Mark, but not that. You are not getting into a fight with my son in my home.'

‘He started it,' Mark protested. ‘Did you see him start it, going on at me, baiting me?'

‘Didn't take much, did it?' Ben says, straightening his shoulders. ‘You've been itching for an excuse to beat the crap out of me since you moved in.'

‘Not any more. Get your stuff, you're out.' Ben's mum's voice grows in strength with each drag on her cigarette.

‘You can't throw me out,' Mark laughs. ‘You can't even light a fag without popping some pills. The three of you can't throw me out.'

‘Want to chance it?' I say, staring at him hard, and in my head I am six foot tall and invincible, imperious, powerful. I am Wonder Woman. I am an Amazon queen.

Ben steps past me and goes toe to toe with Mark; he's a good few inches taller.

‘Get out, Mark. Just get out.'

The man stares at him for a long moment, and I wait. And then the sound of sirens can be heard in the background. Maybe they are on the way here, maybe not, but it doesn't matter – he grabs his coat.

‘Fuck the lot of you,' he says as he exits. The second he is gone, Ben sinks down onto the sofa; his mother approaches him warily, blinking in bewilderment.

‘What did you do that for?' she says, and her tone is full of confusion. ‘It was like you were spoiling for a fight from the second you got in; you wanted that to happen.'

‘I couldn't stand us living under his hair trigger all the time,' Ben said. ‘He was waiting for an excuse, so I gave him one. Didn't take much, did it?'

For a moment I watch the two of them, mother and son, exchanging gazes full of hurt and wonder. I see what I have always known: how much they love each other and how little they understand each other, too.

‘You need an X-ray,' I say, to break the deadlock. As I gingerly lift up the edge of Ben's T-shirt, the bruises on his stomach are already beginning to flower. ‘Internal bleeding, maybe.'

He shakes his head. ‘No. Hospital means police, police means interfering. And I was spoiling for a fight, Mum. You let these men come into your home and walk all over you. You've got to stop it; you've got to get your act together. I can't live here for ever, you know.'

‘What do you mean?' she asks.

‘I mean, I think I want to get away for a few months. Travel, maybe. I dunno,' he says. ‘But I can't do that if you are like this – like a zombie. You've got to sort yourself out; for me, if not for you.'

She drops her gaze, twisting her fingers together. She look old, frail and frightened – not like a woman who can only be in her forties.

‘Maybe a cup of tea?' I suggest, wanting to give her something to do.

‘I'll make some tea,' she says, as if she hasn't heard me.

I wait for her to go to the kitchen before sitting down next to Ben. He refuses to look at me.

‘What's going on?' I ask him.

‘Do you care?' he asks angrily.

‘Ben, what do you mean? Of course I care, of course I do. But this, this isn't you. Picking a fight with a bloke who's got love and hate tattooed on his knuckles!'

‘How do you know?' he asks me. He winces as he tries to widen the gap between us. ‘Do you think you really know me at all, Hope?'

He's hurt and angry, and still pumped up from the fight, and words aren't going to work now, so I move closer to him, and put my arms around his neck, and rest my head on his shoulder. After a while, one bruised and cut hand comes to rest on my knee.

‘Were you impressed by how I came here and battered a door down to rescue you?' I ask him softly.

‘I didn't need rescuing,' he points out, but the anger has ebbed out of his voice. ‘But, actually, yes. Actually, I think it's the nicest thing anyone has ever done for me.'

There's the smallest wobble in his voice, and neither of us say a word or move a muscle until he is calmer.

‘That door will need boarding up tonight,' Mrs Dargue calls from the kitchen, as if nothing very much has happened. ‘We're out of milk.'

I take Ben's broken, bruised hands in mine. He has such long, fine fingers, gentle and kind fingers.

‘Are you really going?' I ask him. ‘Will you really go travelling?'

‘I've got to do something, Hope,' he says. ‘I can't spend my whole working in a phone shop and … hanging around with you. We're grown ups; we should probably start acting like it.'

‘But it doesn't have to be, like, today, does it?' I ask him. ‘We could start tomorrow, maybe – because I just got out of hospital, and I was thinking gluten-free pizza and a
Buffy The Vampire Slayer
marathon?'

He pauses for a moment, and the sweetest little smile lights just one corner of his mouth. ‘Fine, but from tomorrow onwards we are all about maturity.'

‘Ben.' His mother reappears, and it is as if she has erased the scene that has just happened from her mind entirely. ‘What are we going to do about the door?'

‘Leave it to me,' I say.

I go into the hallway. And I do what girls who are going to start being women tomorrow do. I call my dad. He arrives in less than twenty minutes with his toolbox and some plywood and my mum in tow. My mum runs a bath for Mrs Dargue. We try to persuade her to come and spend the night with us, four streets away in our nice Victorian semi, but she won't come.