The Half Life Of Stars Part 26

'Guess.'

I frown; I'm done with guessing.

'His nemesis, Shorty, that's who. The party was only thrown by Harvey Weinstein.'

'He was there there?'

'Yes.'

'Huey saw him?'

'For a second.'

'What did he...what did Huey say?'

Michael smiles and yawns.

'He couldn't get over how small he was. He kept saying it over and over, while he drank. How could this man be so small?'

Portuguese Man-of-War.

Today the green ocean is full of rip tides, prowling for swimmers with greedy arms. Stiff onsh.o.r.e breezes beat the waves into a frenzy and freshen the sticky air with blasts of sweetness. The mugginess has gone, all the heaviness. We can breathe. We can finally breathe.

Michael and I have hired sun beds and umbrellas. We're laid out next to one another in our bathing suits, surrounded by the accoutrements of coupledom: shared tubes of sun cream, shared bottled water, magazines and books that we can swap. I rub sun-block on Michael's shoulders before they burn. I offer him a pretzel before he asks. He reaches out to touch me for no reason at all, other than to make sure I'm still there.

'Your nose looks red.'

'Does it?'

'You should put something on it.'

'One of those cardboard beaks, maybe?'

Michael tears the back cover off my magazine and begins to fas.h.i.+on me a protective beak. It looks like a miniature wizard's hat, I put it on. I try not to sneeze or blow it off.

'It looks good.'

'Not stupid?'

'Stupid but good. I still fancy you in it.'

I get a rush. There on the beach with a ridiculous paper cone on my nose. Then a breeze comes along and whips it off.

My magazine is called the Amateur Astronomer Amateur Astronomer and it's not an overly entertaining read. It's full of articles about far away planets and galaxies, but even though the subject matter is astounding, magical even, it still reads something like a wallpaper catalogue. and it's not an overly entertaining read. It's full of articles about far away planets and galaxies, but even though the subject matter is astounding, magical even, it still reads something like a wallpaper catalogue.

'Did you know the Milky Way is six hundred thousand light years across?'

'No.'

'That's pretty big.'

'Yes, it is.'

'Do you find that interesting?'

Michael thinks.

'It's impressive,' he says, licking the salt off a pretzel. 'But in essence it's just an abstract fact. It's hard to connect with. What exactly does it mean? What difference does it make to you and me?'

I think about this for a while.

'It makes me feel small. Insignificant.'

'And that makes you feel better, or worse?'

'Better.'

'Really?'

'No. Worse.'

We listen to the waves. We listen to the wind. Michael goes back to his book. I sit up and watch the skateboarders fighting with gravity; I watch the skinny girls dancing like cornstalks in the breeze in front of their s.h.i.+ny silver boom boxes. You can lose yourself so quickly in the big stuff. The small stuff; it's all in the small stuff.

'Are you thirsty? We ran out of water.'

'I dunno, I suppose. A little bit.'

'The pretzels made me thirsty. Do you think that I eat too much salt?'

'How much are you meant to eat?'

'I don't know.'

'You're probably OK then.'

'I'll get us an iced tea,' he says pulling on his trainers. 'What do you want, peach or lemon?'

'Um...peach.'

'Sugar or sugar free.'

'Sugar.'

'Sugar it is.'

I treasure these domestic exchanges. This is the language of love.

The Amateur Astronomer Amateur Astronomer is all worked up about the meteor shower tonight. It's going to peak at two in the morning, eastern time, and we can expect to see as many as one hundred and fifty of them in an hour. I'm exceptionally lucky to be here; the next celestial shower of this magnitude doesn't occur until August 2008. It turns out that meteors are far smaller than I'd realised, the size of a single grain of sand. How can a particle the size of a grain of sand produce such a dazzling sight? The answer is all to do with speed. This shoddy sc.r.a.p of debris from a lonely comet's tail enters the earth's atmosphere at unimaginable velocity. The s.p.a.ce Shuttle travels at eight miles a second, these meteors travel sixty to seventy. They burn up as they go, until there's nothing left, but for a few brief seconds they glow so bright and look so colourful we wish on them and call them shooting stars. What would I wish for? I'm not even sure. I close my eyes and try to think of a hundred and fifty different wishes. is all worked up about the meteor shower tonight. It's going to peak at two in the morning, eastern time, and we can expect to see as many as one hundred and fifty of them in an hour. I'm exceptionally lucky to be here; the next celestial shower of this magnitude doesn't occur until August 2008. It turns out that meteors are far smaller than I'd realised, the size of a single grain of sand. How can a particle the size of a grain of sand produce such a dazzling sight? The answer is all to do with speed. This shoddy sc.r.a.p of debris from a lonely comet's tail enters the earth's atmosphere at unimaginable velocity. The s.p.a.ce Shuttle travels at eight miles a second, these meteors travel sixty to seventy. They burn up as they go, until there's nothing left, but for a few brief seconds they glow so bright and look so colourful we wish on them and call them shooting stars. What would I wish for? I'm not even sure. I close my eyes and try to think of a hundred and fifty different wishes.

Michael has been gone a long time. I think I must have fallen asleep because my cheek is sore and my left arm is creased and I'm feeling s.h.i.+very underneath my towel. There's no peach tea getting warm in the sand and no ex-husband snoozing next to me on the sun-bed. I'd like to go for a swim but the danger flag is still fluttering on the life guard station and I can't see anyone else in the water. There's a jellyfish sign up there too, now: Beware, Portuguese man-of-war Beware, Portuguese man-of-war. What a strange name for a jellyfish to have. I wonder how it got that kind of name? You don't a.s.sociate the Portuguese with warring. I don't a.s.sociate the Portuguese with anything, much. Golf courses. The Algarve. Sweet custard cakes...

s.h.i.+t. I sit up straight. The sun-lounger pings and folds over, threatening to squash me flat like a sandwich. Did he do that? Did Michael go out there and swim? It's the kind of reckless thing he would do. When we went on a winter break once, to Cornwall, he went swimming in the sea before breakfast even though the waves were six feet tall. I stood on the rocks and called for him to come back, but he just kept on swimming further out: testing himself; pus.h.i.+ng himself; making me fretful and worried. He disappeared for a moment and I thought that he'd drowned, and a thousand thoughts went through my head. I wondered if I'd be able to save him. I wished that I knew what to do. Perhaps I should construct some kind of flotation device? From what? From my jeans? From my anorak? What if he'd been strangled by seaweed? What could I use to cut him free? I was down to my bra and my knickers. I had a sharp stone in my hand to cut away the seaweed. I was up to my knees in the water, about to dive in, when he surfaced.

'What are you standing here for?'

'I thought you might be out there, in the sea.'

'There are rip tides.'

'I know.'

'You're not supposed to go swimming when there are rip tides.'

'You would.'

'No, I wouldn't. It's too dangerous.'

I'm at the edge of the beach with a towel wrapped round my shoulders, staring down at my toes. The sun has dipped behind the clouds and I'm chilly. I have goose b.u.mps on my arms.

'You've been gone a long time.'

'Sorry, I lost track.'

'Did you bring the peach tea?'

'The tea? No, uh...I forgot.'

He's dressed now, in his jeans and his sun-faded T-s.h.i.+rt, his clothes smell of stale tobacco.

'I spent my money on a cigar instead,' he says, sheepishly. 'But, hey, the girl swore it was Cuban. I don't know if it is...I mean how can you tell? But it tastes pretty good. Here, I saved some for you.'

Michael pulls the stub out of his pocket: one end damp and chewed, the other end scorched black and tarry. I light it and take a drag. It tastes rich, chocolaty, strong. It makes me cough.

'Looks like it might rain,' says Michael, putting his arm round me.

Clouds are welling up on the horizon; black, angry, bloated with droplets of rain.

'I hope it clears up by tonight,' I say, tensely. 'If it's cloudy Daniel might not bother going.'

'What makes you think he'll go there anyway, to the park? You can see the meteors from all over southern Florida. Maybe he'll just watch from the beach.'

Why will Daniel go to Bill Sadowski park tonight? He'll go because he won't feel so alone. He'll go so he can share his enthusiasm with other people; people who feel something of the same way he does. He'll feel comforted by them and rea.s.sured. Even though his family are a world away, he'll feel some connection with other human beings. When they nod and whoop, he'll nod and whoop too. When they look through their telescopes, he'll join them. He'll swap facts and figures with men and women he's never met, and they'll seem like friends for a moment. You need to share your world with other people. Otherwise, what's the point?

'The park is far enough away from the city that the sky won't be polluted with light,' I say authoritatively. 'The view will be better, that's why he'll go.'

Michael shrugs.

'If it was me, if I was into that kind of thing, I'd find my own place to watch it. The top of a hill, halfway up a mountain. Maybe out on-'

'An island?'

'Perfect. Perfect Perfect. An island. I'd take a boat and a bottle of whisky. Maybe a spliff and a girl.'

'A girl?'

He gives me a tight squeeze. He yawns.

'You, Shorty. You know I'd take you.'

I Said I'd Be There. I'll Be There.

The thunderstorm breaks just as we're leaving the beach, drenching our clothes as we run for cover. I've never seen anything like it: lightning in sheets, forks, b.a.l.l.s, snarling and howling out to sea. People take shelter under the awnings: chatting, drinking, smoking, eating, but most of them aren't even watching it. I can't take my eyes off the lightning and Michael seems as transfixed as I am. We wonder what causes it. We know it's electricity, that it's to do with negative and positive charges in the airions or something like thatbut neither of us knows the answer precisely. Daniel would know. He'd roll his eyes and spell it right out for us, wondering why we didn't take better notice.

'You don't know anything about the world around you, Claire. I think you do it on purpose.'

'I know how to speak four languages already. Let's hear you try and speak to me in Serbo-Croat.'

'What's the point?'

'How do you mean?'

'What's the point of speaking a different language?'

'Daniel, don't be so stupid.'

'No, Mum, I'm serious. It's a serious question.'

Back from university. Who does he think he is? Thinks he knows the answer to everything.

'I mean it. What use is it, really? How does one language differ from another? It's just an altered set of vocal patterns. The words will be different, depending on which nationality you're speaking to, but the sentiment is precisely the same.'

Where do you start? Where do you start with an argument like that?

'It means I can communicate, Pinhead. With people people, with lots of different people.'

'Strangers, you mean?'

'No...not just strangers. It means I can visit a country and get to know it. I can dig beneath its surface, peel back its skin, find out what's really going on. You wouldn't understand it, why would you? You're a robot, you're practically mute.'

Seventeen years old. New home, new dinner table. Still calling my brother the same names. Different words. Same sentiment.