The Half Life Of Stars Part 39

'Yes, sis...that's how it was.'

The taxi arrives to ferry us to a hotel in Orlando.

'Are you scared?'

'I'm ashamed.'

'You shouldn't be.'

'I'm a coward.'

'No, you're not.'

'Yes, I am.'

We smile at one another, I can't believe we're smiling. Even now, we squabble like children.

'Julian will be there. Kay brought him.'

He's shocked. He crumbles. He slumps.

'Hey...hey, it's all right.'

Daniel inhales from his stomach, he can't seem to get enough air.

'Is he OK?'

'He had a cold...but he's fine.'

He absorbs this slowly, he does everything slowly. He looks sh.e.l.l-shocked, stretched, overloaded.

'I didn't know what to do...I just, I wanted to leave.'

'Please...it's OK. I'm here, I'll go with you. You'll be fine.'

'I couldn't stay.'

'I know, I understand.'

'Julian would have grown up to hate me.'

'He wouldn't. He won't.'

We ride in the taxi with the dusk folding in on us; Daniel in shreds, his head resting up against the window.

'How long?'

'My affair? About a year. There was nothing much left...Kay and I...not for me...there was nothing much left.'

'She knew about it, didn't she?'

'I told her. I finished it the day the Columbia went down. I watched it on the news and it just...it just shattered shattered me. I couldn't believe what I was doing to them...what I'd me. I couldn't believe what I was doing to them...what I'd done done. I came home and confessed the whole thing. I'm just like him, isn't that perfect? It turns out...I'm exactly the same.'

He stares out through the gla.s.s.

'I tried to put things right. I tried to go backwards...I couldn't...I just couldn't do it. I turned into such an a.r.s.e...so sanctimonious. I remember telling Sylvie that you and Michael should give it another go, can you imagine?'

'No,' I say. 'No, I can't.'

'I was jealous or something. You've always been so free with your life, Claire. You've always gone your own way with your life.'

My own way. Perfect. Like a blind man feeling around in the dark.

'And Chloe, I cared for her, but I didn't...not like Dad loved Annie. She was an escape route, that's all.'

'From what?'

He exhales.

'From the boredom, the job, from the marriage. It was always so rigid rigid...such a lie. I felt crushed...I always felt crushed. I tried to make it up to him, to Dad. I did everything he wanted. I gave myself away, gave it up. What more more could I do for him? I did what he asked me. I rubbed myself out. I led the life he wanted me to lead.' could I do for him? I did what he asked me. I rubbed myself out. I led the life he wanted me to lead.'

We stare at each other. We understand the depth of his mistake.

'I went the wrong way,' he says coldly. 'We took the wrong exit. I went the wrong way with my life.'

Outside on the hotel forecourt, my brother's eyes dip down and glaze over. I tell him he shouldn't be so hard on himself and he laughs.

'I don't know, Claire...shouldn't I be dead?'

'Please...please, don't say that.'

'I planned it for months,' he says, quietly. 'It's all that kept me going. Putting money aside...siphoning funds...I felt like an actor, a ghost. I didn't deserve it, the life that I had...couldn't make sense of it any longer.'

'So, you took it off?'

He looks confused.

'Removed it...like another man's coat?'

'I just wanted...to start again...to begin my life over. I thought to come looking for my old one. I hoped it might still be here, where I buried it.'

'But it wasn't?'

He shakes his head.

'I planned to move on...I should have moved on from here straight away. But I still had to save him. I still had to put it all right.'

'And you couldn't?'

'I tried, Claire. I tried.'

We walk towards the hotel. It has a revolving door, the kind that never stops turning.

'How...how do you feel about him, now?'

'I think he was selfish, a coward just like I am. I think he turned our mother into an alcoholic.'

'But you feel sorry for him?'

He falters.

'I don't think he knew what kind of a life he was meant to lead. He had no idea how to lead it.'

'You understand him now?'

'I think I do.'

We ride up in the lift, tight like a coffin, and rest for a while outside the room. I can hear Julian playing. He's ringing a bell, squeezing a toy, I think he might be giggling. He's giggling. Daniel's face is alight. He can't wait to see him, to hold him, to kiss him; he's stuffed full of grief for his child. And then I see him stiffen and change. He doesn't know how to open the door.

'I don't know what to say.'

'It doesn't matter. Be yourself.'

He's confused, he wonders what this means. He starts to push at his cheeks; pulling the skin, dragging his pores, willing his bones to shape up. He's trying to remould himself, to be the Daniel Kay knows, the Daniel she expects him to be. He can't do it. He deflates. He steps back.

'And then what? What happens next? Afterwards, I just...I go back?'

He's so near, he's so close close; his damp hand is pressing on the handle, his fingertips are touching the lock. Don't do this to me now, it's my one good chance. Pinhead, you have have to give me this. I turn up with you now, I'm the hero: I go home without you, I'm lost. to give me this. I turn up with you now, I'm the hero: I go home without you, I'm lost.

'You don't have to go anywhere,' I say finally. 'It's your life, you can do what you like with it.'

'Can I?'

'It's yours. Take it back.'

He relaxes. He calms. Looks alive.

'I might like to stay...I don't know...'

'It's fine, whatever. You don't have to decide, yet. But right now you ought to go in there.'

'Alone?'

'It would probably be better.'

He breathes. He squeezes my hand.

'Fats, Mum will never forgive you for this. Didn't you promise to bring me home?'

It's true, Pinhead, I did. But I promised someone else that I wouldn't.

My brother and I stand by the ocean looking up at the carpet of stars. I don't ask him how it went, there's no need to; I can read the whole storyevery line, all regretsjust by feeling the roughness of his hand.

'Is that rocket still up there?'

'Yes, it'll be in orbit now.'

'What's the point?'

'What do you mean?'

'Of going out there, into s.p.a.ce. I don't see the point, all that emptiness.'

'Look at it, Claire. See how vast it is up there.'

'I see that. It makes me feel small.'

'That's the point.'

'Is it?'

'You have to think things could be different. It gives me...it's always made me hopeful.'

'Black holes, they make you feel good?'

'No Fats, not the holes.'

'What then? The giant stars, the frozen planets, the lack of atmosphere? Everything charred and uninhabitable?'