Seeing Stars (2 page)

So George has this theory: the first thing we ever steal,

when we’re young, is a symbol of what we become later

in life, when we grow up. Example: when he was nine

George stole a Mont Blanc fountain pen from a fancy

gift shop in a hotel lobby—now he’s an award-winning

novelist. We test the theory around the table and it seems

to add up. Clint stole a bottle of cooking sherry, now

he owns a tapas bar. Kirsty’s an investment banker and

she stole money from her mother’s purse. Tod took a

Curly Wurly and he’s morbidly obese. Claude says he

never stole anything in his whole life, and he’s an actor

i.e. unemployed. Derek says, “But wait a second, I stole

a blue Smurf on a polythene parachute.” And Kirsty says,

“So what more proof do we need, Derek?”

Every third Saturday in the month I collect my son from

his mother’s house and we take off, sometimes to the

dog track, sometimes into the great outdoors. Last week

we headed into the Eastern Fells to spend a night under

the stars and to get some quality time together, father

and son. With nothing more than a worm, a bent nail and

a thread of cotton we caught a small, ugly-looking fish;

I was all for tossing it back in the lake, but Luke surprised

me by slapping it dead on a flat stone, slitting its belly

and washing out its guts in the stream. Then he cooked it

over a fire of brushwood and dead leaves, and for all the

thinness of its flesh and the annoying pins and needles of

its bones, it made an honest meal. Later on, as it dropped

dark, we bedded down in an old deer shelter on the side

of the hill. There was a hole in the roof. Lying there on

our backs, it was as if we were looking into the inky blue

eyeball of the galaxy itself, and the darker it got, the more

the eyeball appeared to be staring back. Remembering

George’s theory, I said to Luke, “So what do you think

you’ll be, when you grow up?” He was barely awake,

but from somewhere in his sinking thoughts and with a

drowsy voice he said, “I’m going to be an executioner.”

Now the hole in the roof was an ear, the ear of the

universe, exceptionally interested in my very next words.

I sat up, rummaged about in the rucksack, struck a match

and said, “Hold on a minute, son, you’re talking about

taking a person’s life. Why would you want to say a

thing like that?” Without even opening his eyes he said,

“But I’m sure I could do it. Pull the hood over someone’s

head, squeeze the syringe, flick the switch, whatever.

You know, if they’d done wrong. Now go to sleep, dad.”

The couple next door were testing the structural fabric

of the house with their difference of opinion. “I can’t

take much more of this,” I said to Mimi my wife. Right

then there was another almighty crash, as if every pan

in the kitchen had clattered to the tiled floor. Mimi said,

“Try to relax. Take one of your tablets.” She brewed a

pot of camomile tea and we retired to bed. But the

pounding and caterwauling carried on right into the small

hours. I was dreaming that the mother of all asteroids

was locked on a collision course with planet Earth,

when unbelievably a fist came thumping through the

bedroom wall just above the headboard. In the metallic

light of the full moon I saw the bloody knuckles and a

cobweb tattoo on the flap of skin between finger and

thumb, before the fist withdrew. Mimi’s face was

powdered with dirt and dust, but she didn’t wake. She

looked like a corpse pulled from the rubble of an

earthquake after five days in a faraway country famous

only for its paper kites.

I peered through the hole in the wall. It was dark on the

other side, with just occasional flashes of purple or green

light, like those weird electrically-powered life forms

zipping around in the ocean depths. There was a rustling

noise, like something stirring in a nest of straw, then a

voice, a voice no bigger than a sixpence, crying for help.

Now Mimi was right next to me. “It’s her,” she said. I

said, “Don’t be crazy, Mimi, she’d be twenty-four by

now.” “It’s her I tell you. Get her back, do you hear me?

GET HER BACK.” I rolled up my pyjama sleeve and

pushed my arm into the hole, first to my elbow, then as

far as my shoulder and neck. The air beyond was

clammy and damp, as if I’d reached into a nineteenth-

century London street in late November, fog rolling in up

the river, a cough in a doorway. Mimi was out of her

mind by now. My right cheek and my ear were flat to the

wall. Then slowly but slowly I opened my fist to the

unknown. And out of the void, slowly but slowly it

came: the pulsing starfish of a child’s hand, swimming

and swimming and coming to settle on my upturned

palm.

He splashed down in rough seas off Spurn Point.

I watched through a coin-op telescope jammed

with a lollipop stick as a trawler fished him out

of the waves and ferried him back to Mission

Control on a trading estate near the Humber Bridge.

He spoke with a mild voice: yes, it was good to be

home; he’d missed his wife, the kids, couldn’t wait

for a shave and a hot bath. “Are there any more

questions?” No, there were not.

I followed him in his Honda Accord to a Little

Chef on the A1, took the table opposite, watched

him order the all-day breakfast and a pot of tea.

“You need to go outside to do that,” said the

waitress when he lit a cigarette. He read the paper,

started the crossword, poked at the black pudding

with his fork. Then he stared through the window

for long unbroken minutes at a time, but only at the

busy road, never the sky. And his face was not the

moon. And his hands were not the hands of a man

who had held between finger and thumb the blue

planet, and lifted it up to his watchmaker’s eye.

A man was hitching a lift on the slip road of the A16 just

outside Calais. Despite his sharp, chiselled features and a

certain desperation to his body language, I felt compelled

to pick him up, so I pulled across and rolled down the

window. He stuck his face in the car and said, “I am

Dennis Bergkamp, player of football for Arsenal. Tonight

we have game in Luxembourg but because I am fear of

flying I am travel overland. Then I have big argument with

chauffeur and here he drops me. Can you help?” “Hop in,

Dennis,” I said. He threw his kit in the back and buckled

up next to me. “So what was the barney about?” I asked

him. Dennis sighed and shook his classical-looking head.

“He was ignoramus. He was dismissive of great Dutch

master Vermeer and says Rembrandt was homosexual.”

“Well you’ll hear no such complaints from me,” I assured

him. We motored along and the landscape just zipped by.

And despite some of the niggles and tetchiness which crept

into Dennis’s game during the latter part of his career, he

was a perfect gentleman and the complete travelling

companion. For example, he limited himself to no more

than four wine gums from the bag which gaped open

between us, and was witty and illuminating without ever

resorting to name-dropping or dressing-room gossip.

Near the Belgian border a note of tiredness entered

Dennis’s voice, so to soothe him to sleep I skipped from

Classic Rock to Easy Listening. It wasn’t until we were

approaching the outskirts of the city that he stirred and

looked at his Rolex. “It will sure be a tight one,” he said.

“Why don’t you get changed in the car and I’ll drop you

off at the ground?” I suggested. “Good plan,” he said, and

wriggled into the back. In the corner of my eye he was a

contortion of red and white, like Santa Claus in a badger

trap, though of course I afforded him complete privacy,

because like most professionally trained drivers I use only

the wing mirrors, never the rear view. Pretty swiftly he

dropped into the seat beside me, being careful not to

scratch the console with his studs. “Here’s the stadium,” I

said, turning into a crowded boulevard awash with flags

and scarves. Dennis jogged away towards a turnstile,

through which the brilliance of the floodlights shone

like the light from a distant galaxy.

And it’s now that I have to confess that Mr. Bergkamp was

only one of dozens of Dennises to have found their way

into the passenger seat of my mid-range saloon. Dennis

Healey, Dennis Hopper, Dennis Potter, Dennis Lillee, the

underrated record producer Dennis Bovell, and many,

many more. I once drove Dennis Thatcher from Leicester

Forest East service station to Ludlow races and he wasn’t a

moment’s bother, though I did have to ask him to refrain

from smoking, and of course not to breathe one word about

the woman who introduced rabies to South Yorkshire.

From the last snowfall of winter to settle on

the hills Damien likes to roll up a ginormous

snowball then store it in the chest freezer in

the pantry for one of his little stunts. Come

high summer, in that thin membrane of night

which divides one long day from the next,

he’ll drive out in the van and deposit his

snowball at a bus stop or crossroads or at the

door of a parish church. Then from a discreet

distance, using the telescopic lens, he’ll snap

away with the Nikon, documenting the

awestruck citizenry who swarm around his

miracle of meteorology, who look upon such

mighty works bewildered and amazed.

Damien, I’m through playing housewife to your

“art” and this brief story-poem is to tell you

I’m leaving. I’m gaffer-taping it to the inside

of the freezer lid; if you’re reading it, you’re

staring into the steaming abyss where nothing

remains but a packet of boneless chicken thighs

and a scattering of petis pois, as hard as bullets

and bruised purple by frost. At first it was just

a scoop here and a scraping there, slush puppies

for next door’s kids, a lemon sorbet after the

Sunday roast, an ice pack once in a while for my

tired flesh, then margaritas for that gaggle of

sycophants you rolled home with one night,

until the day dawned when there wasn’t so

much as a snowflake left. And I need for you

now to lean into the void and feel for yourself

the true scald of Antarctica’s breath.

A young, sweet-looking couple came into my pharmacy.

The woman said, “I’d like this hairbrush, please. Oh, and

a packet of sugar-free chewing gum. Oh, and I’ll take one

of these as well,” she added, pointing to a pregnancy-

testing kit on the counter. I slipped it into a paper bag, and

as I was handing back her change I winked at her and said,

“Fingers crossed!” “What did you say?” asked the man.

“I was just wishing you luck,” I said. “Why don’t you

mind your own business, pal,” he hissed. “Or is it giving

you a big hard-on, thinking about my girl dropping her

knickers and pissing on one of those plastic sticks?” A boom-

ing, cavernous emptiness expanded inside me—I felt like

Gaping Ghyll on the one day of the year they open it

up to the public. “You’re right, sir,” I said. “I’ve

overstepped the mark. I’m normally a model of discretion

and tact, but not only have I embarrassed you and your

good lady, I’ve brought shame on the ancient art of the

apothecary. Please, by way of recompense, choose

something and take it, free of charge.” The man said,

“Give me some speed.” “Er, I was thinking more like a

packet of corn plasters or a pair of nail scissors. What

about one of these barley sugar sticks—they’re very good for

nausea?” “Just get me the amphetamine sulphate,” he

fumed. Then the woman said, “Yeah, and I’ll take a few

grams of heroin. The pure stuff you give to people in

exquisite pain. And you can throw in a syringe while

you’re at it.” “But think of the baby,” I blurted out.

When people have received a blow to the head they often

talk about “seeing stars,” and as a man of science I have

always been careful to avoid the casual use of metaphor

and hyperbole. But I saw stars that day. Whole galaxies of

stars, and planets orbiting around them, each one capable of

sustaining life as we know it. I waved from the porthole of

my interstellar rocket as I hurtled past, and from inside

their watery cocoons millions of helpless half-formed

creatures with doughy faces and pink translucent fingers

waved back.

C was bitten on her ring finger by a teensy orange spider

hiding inside a washed-and-ready-to-eat packet of sliced

courgettes imported from Kenya. The finger swelled and

tightened; how could the epidermis stretch so far without

tearing apart? But the real problem was in her toes: pretty

soon she lost all feeling in her feet and dropped to the

floor, and moment by moment the numbness increased

as if molten lead were flowing through her veins to her

lower limbs. However, her mind remained clear, and with

great foresight she thumped the leg of the kitchen table

with the outside of her fist, causing the telephone handset

to jump from the docking station and fall safely into the

hairy tartan blanket in the wicker dog basket. She called

her brother, Sandy. Sandy’s voice said, “Hi, I’m at the golf

course, leave a message.” She called her mother. Her

mother said, “Forget the spider, where’s that pastry brush I

lent you, and the silver candlesticks you borrowed to

impress that boss of yours at one of your fancy-pants dinner

parties? Where will it all end, C? It’ll be the melon baller

next, then the ice cream scoop, and soon I’ll have nothing.

Do you hear me? Nothing. God knows I didn’t bring you

up to be a thief but you have a problem with honesty, C,

you really do. Did you find a man yet? Now leave me

alone, I can hear the nurse coming.” C’s dog padded over

and licked her chin, then went back into the living room to

watch daytime TV.