We Are All Made of Stars (37 page)

‘They all only want to do one song – and, trust me, one song is usually too many.'

‘Look.' Ben leans across me. ‘You've probably heard of my band, The Black Angels? If you can do us a favour, I'll make sure you get a gig from the band. We always draw a full house.'

‘Oh well, that changes everything,' the guy says.

‘Really?' I say.

‘No, not really. Never heard of you. Now look, I'm already up to my ears in overentitled, middle-class, talentless school kids pouring their bile into my ears as it is. Come back next week and put your name on the list in advance.'

‘It's just that I'm dying, you see,' I say, and the words come out of my mouth in a rush. ‘Cystic fibrosis. And this is like one of the items on my bucket list. If I don't do it tonight, who knows when I will get the chance. Might be dead next week.'

‘Boo hoo. I'm weeping for you,' the bloke says.

‘Well, man, I hope you don't believe in karma,' Ben says. ‘Come on, Hope. You tried. We'll tell that journalist that you just didn't have the luck to meet someone who cares …'

‘Wait …' Ugly Hat pauses. ‘Really? You're really sick?'

‘Yes,' I say. That part at least isn't a lie, and I did
nearly
die quite recently. Maybe I should feel a little bad about using my CF this way, but bugger it – it owes me at least one favour.

‘Fine. All right, then; you can go on after the next guy. I just hope you don't get bottled off.'

‘Wow, thank you. You are really kind,' I tell him, not entirely sarcastically. Now all we need is two guitars.

Of course Ben has been on stage a hundred times before, a million times – every paving square or passing park bench is a stage for him – but I never have, and this small triangle of a platform stage, in the corner of a Camden pub, is pretty much the most terrifying thing I have ever encountered. The crowd talked over us while we set up. Ben said ‘one, two' into his mic, and then I did too, because that's what you do, although I have never really worked out why. We tuned two guitars, borrowed from some guys Ben knows, and then our benefactor coughed loudly from the side of the stage and gave me a look that said, ‘You're not the only one on a deadline.'

My voice is too thin, too quiet and too high for the first few bars, but Ben covers me with his too-loud, not-quite-in-tune-but-oddly-melodic tone. I remind myself I have less than three minutes to do this, and only one shot, so I close my eyes and pretend that the crowd isn't looking or listening to me, which mostly it isn't because people are talking amongst themselves. I just tune into the music and to Ben, and we sing. A few bars more and it's just us and the song, and I feel myself smiling as we become entwined in each other's voices. Our music soars; every hair on my arms is standing on end. I can feel my lungs working properly, my heart thundering. It's a perfect, wonderful two minutes and fifty seconds, and then it is done. I open my eyes. There is a ripple of disinterested applause and a half-hearted cheer from the back, but I don't actually care. I feel like Wembley Stadium just gave me a standing ovation.

‘We thank you!' Ben says. ‘Talent scouts, see me after!'

He bows, and I bow with him, a microsecond too late.

A few minutes later and we are running outside, laughing like loons.

‘That was brilliant!' I say. ‘We were awesome!'

‘Uh-oh, you've got the gigging bug,' he says, grinning fondly at me. ‘You were great, though, too good. Everyone in there was intimidated and resentful of your beauty and talent.'

‘What shall we do now?' I ask him. ‘I feel like I need to do something!'

‘Pub? Dinner? Back home to your mum's house for some more tea and biscuits?' he asks me.

‘Let go for a walk to Primrose Hill,' I say. ‘It's a nice mild night, and it's only a few minutes; we might even see some stars!'

Ben shrugs and lets me tuck my arm through his, and we make our way through the park, walking in silence, both of us lost in deep thought. Somehow, finding him, saving him from his stepdad's beating, changed everything. It changed my life even more than being born with CF, or surviving near-death, or knowing that my life will probably be really short. I have been too long in this cocoon that I spun myself, but it was a cocoon that didn't just protect me from the world, it kept me from it, too. It kept me from experiencing … well, everything. I was so busy feeling sad, scared, anxious, angry that I never had time to feel happy, scared, joyous, lucky. But now, tonight, I do feel lucky. I do. I feel like the luckiest girl in the world.

By the time we reach the top of the hill, Ben is flagging a little, and we stop by mutual consent to sit on a bench. For a few moments, we sit and look at the city below us, a skyline of landmarks stretching out, reaching upwards towards the heavens.

‘That thing you said,' Ben says. I hold my breath. ‘That thing about “the boy I love”.'

‘Yes?' I hold my breath.

‘Does that mean I can just kiss you when I want to now?'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘Yes, that would be perfectly fine.'

‘I'm really scared, right now,' he says, and I can feel him trembling. ‘It's scary to feel this much stuff, and admit to it. I'm terrified.'

‘I know,' I say. ‘But we already decided. From now on, we are going to be brave.' I place my hands on either side of his face, drawing him to me. His arms wrap around me, his huge coat enveloping me, and this kiss is the one that I will always remember to the day I die. This wonderful kiss that floats on clouds of joy and longing, and that is, at last, about to be quenched.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

When I come out of Mum's room for a moment, I'm surprised to find Sarah sitting in the corridor outside her room.

‘You came here? You didn't have to do that,' I tell her, though I am glad, deep in my heart, that she has.

I really had talked myself into believing that I didn't really need anyone, and that I was OK – happy going through life, passing through a series of not-that-close encounters. I was footloose and fancy-free. I made myself believe that, even though my dad taught me that it wasn't true. And then Mum came back, from the dead, turning my life full circle in one fluid moment, and I let myself feel again. All the love that I had felt for her before and pushed down and away for so long, all the fury and the bitterness, all the anger and the need, came flooding back and reignited me. Somehow, right at the last, she has saved me. Only now the doctors have told me this is likely to be her last night. I must go and be with the mother I lost, so many years ago, and watch as I lose her again. Yet there is hope in my heart as I stand outside her room. Because this time I get to look in my mum's eyes; I get to tell her goodbye.

‘Well, Mikey's mate invited him for a sleepover, and so I thought … well, I thought you might like someone here,' Sarah tells me with a small smile. ‘I think that you need people around you during times like this. Someone to hold your hand and make you tea.'

I take a breath and look back at the door. ‘It means a lot that you are here.'

‘Are you OK?' she asks, catching hold of my hand.

‘Not OK, no,' I say. ‘Not tonight; tonight I'm not OK. But one day. I feel like one day, at last, I will be OK. Does that sound weird?'

‘Everything you say sounds weird to me.' Sarah smiles very slightly, and then, leaning forward, kisses me softly, briefly, on the cheek. ‘I'll be here, when it's over. I'll take you home and we'll make you tea and toast. We'll look after you, all right? Me and Mikey, and even Ninja. I mean Jake.'

‘Talking of the cat of many names …' I tell her the story of how I found my, our, cat here, curled up on my mum's bed. ‘Here he is called Shadow.'

‘I thought he was just some scraggy little back cat,' Sarah whispers. ‘Turns out he's the Mayor of London.'

‘Well, as long as I don't find out that he's also my boss,' I say. I look into her brown eyes and feel steadied.

‘Time to go back?' she asks.

I nod once and go back into my mother's room.

Hours go by, and Mum sleeps with me by her side, keeping vigil. I don't know how long I watch the rise and fall of her chest, or listen for her every breath; it doesn't matter. It's timeless, this moment. It's never and for ever all at once. I am here with my mother, she is with me, and we will always be like this, somehow.

Sometime late, late into the night, she opens her eyes and speaks.

‘Do you remember, son?' she says to me. ‘Do you remember when you were so little, and we'd go camping in the night-time?'

‘I think so,' I say, taking her hand. ‘I think I remember being fast asleep and warm one minute, then, the next, you'd have pulled some sheets over some chairs to make a tent. And we'd be sitting on the grass staring at the sky, and you'd be telling me what the constellations were and what they meant.'

‘I made it all up, you know.' Her laugh is like lace – finely spun and delicate; like a spider's web that might fall apart in your hands. It is barely a breath on my cheek.

‘I did find that out a few years later, when I tried to tell my teacher that Ursa Major was a bear on roller skates going for a milkshake,' I say, smiling. I'm lying next to her, my face very close to hers. Our eyes meet and never stray for a moment. She is holding my hand in hers; my fingers are wrapped in hers.

‘I was a terrible mother, the worst,' she says.

‘You weren't textbook,' I admit, gently. ‘But I never felt sad, or frightened, or neglected. And I laughed all the time, and I never guessed for one second that you were so sad, so unhappy. You protected me from it all – right up until the moment you left. I wasn't sad until you left.'

She closes her eyes for one long moment, and I catch my breath, but she opens them again, slowly. I watch her pale gold lashes, few in number, the colour fading out of her eyes, sheened in silver.

‘But I still left. I left you.'

‘Yes,' I say. ‘And it hurt me, and it broke Dad's heart. But Mum, you came back. You came back and put it right with me, before it was too late. This day, this time with you; it's made me whole again. You've done that.'

‘I wish I hadn't been so scared,' she says. ‘I thought if I could save everyone, everyone else that I met, get them set right in the world, then the pain and the longing would cease. But it didn't; it never did. Not until I saw your face again. I'm so sorry.'

The effort of speaking exhausts her, and gently I lean my forehead against hers. There are no tears. I thought there might be, but I don't want to cry yet. There is peace – just peace, quiet and contentment.

‘Shall we go outside and see the stars?' she says suddenly, with a spark of something, a smile. Joy.

‘I'm not …' The words don't even reach my lips. Now is not the time to say no to her. ‘Of course, why not?' I say. ‘Wait a moment.'

Climbing off the bed, I take as many blankets as I can out of the cupboard and open the double doors that lead out on to her private patio. It will take more than just me to move the bed outside, so I open the door just a crack and catch Mandy's eyes.

Mandy detaches Mum from all of the beeps and buzzers, and just brings the drip out with us, as together we push the bed out into the night. It's cool, but not freezing, crisp and clear. The air is fresh, as if recently laundered, and the moon is bright and full, sailing above the treetops that seem to surround us. And in between their bare, balletic branches, I can see the first glimpse of dawn lighten the hems of the horizon.

‘Aren't they beautiful?' Mum says. ‘Can you see the stars? Can you see the fire? Ball of fires burning so brightly in the sky. I can feel their heat on my cheeks – can you? It's just like when you were little, and we lay out on the grass and watched the moon rise.'

I look at the same patch of sky that she is gazing at, where I see the barest few stars that are strong enough to filter though the light pollution.