Seeing Stars (19 page)

Jem, holding Slo’s hand, waved at them. They all waved back.

Slo made sure that Jem was comfortably seated before beetling away to find another nicotine stash.

Having taken a satisfying gulp from his pint, Jem tapped Amber on the arm and waved a tissue paper package under her nose.

‘Oh – thank you. Lewis said you’d made me a present … It’s really, really kind of you.’ As Fern and Win watched and Jem grinned,
Amber undid the bundle of much-sellotaped tissue sheets with some difficulty. ‘I can’t imagine what it is, but – oh, wow!’

She blinked at the tiny wooden star in amazement. Five pointed, each point made from a different wood, polished and varnished
to bring out the beauty of the veneers, the whole thing was threaded on a slim leather necklace to make a perfect delicate
pendant.

Amber was ashamed to admit she had been expecting something pretty clumsy and unrecognisable which of course she’d love, but
this was something else.

‘God, Jem, I don’t know what to say. Thank you is totally inadequate … You are so clever. This is just exquisite …’

Jem beamed and hugged her arm.

‘It’s a pentangle,’ Win said. ‘A star magic symbol.’

Amber sniffed back her tears. Jem pulled away from her, giggling, and took the pendant, indicating that she should bend her
head down. Taking infinite care not to tangle the star in her hair, Jem slowly pulled the thin strip of leather round her
neck so that the pentangle nestled just above her breasts.

They all stared at it and smiled mistily at one another.

‘Thank you …’ Amber took Jem’s face between her hands and kissed him. ‘It’s the nicest present I’ve ever had. It’s beautiful.
I’ll always wear it. I knew tonight was going to be special but this …’

Jem, having happily kissed her back, now suddenly pulled away and started to jerk his head towards the pub.

‘It’s Lewis!’ Win cried, waving her gin and tonic with enthusiasm.

Amber, despite herself, felt her pulse beat take an uptempo turn. Maybe tonight, with all the love emblems and star magic
and frivolity.

‘Shit!’ Fern groaned. ‘And double shit! He’s brought someone with him.’

Wishing on a Star

The calypso syncopation of Amber’s heart dropped to an adagio funeral march in less time than the click of a metronome.

Lewis, all faded denim and tousled hair, was manoeuvring his way through The Weasel and Bucket’s trestles towards them, his
arm round the shoulders of a very pretty girl.

‘Hi,’ he grinned round the table, making swift introductions. ‘And this is Sukie.’

Sukie?
Sukie?
Amber had heard that name recently, surely?

Ah, yes! Bloody Sukie the bloody mobile beautician who had practised on Gwyneth and Big Ida and Mona Jupp the other evening.
The one Lewis had remembered was pretty stunning. The one she’d decided she hated.

That hadn’t taken him long, then.

‘Hello.’ Sukie smiled sweetly.

Sukie, Amber noted, was so clever at using her own expertise and techniques, that she looked as though she was wearing no
make-up whatsoever. Her skin was slightly freckled and sun kissed, her short dark hair chopped into haphazard glossy layers,
her lips pale and plump, her turquoise eyes huge and simply framed by lush black lashes.

It must have taken her
hours.

And she wasn’t even particularly slim – but her very old jeans and very new white T-shirt fitted perfectly and accentuated
her curves in an irritatingly sexy girl-next-door manner.

Amber absolutely loathed her.

‘Hi,’ Amber beamed through her teeth. ‘Lovely to meet you.’

Win also was effusive in her welcome. Jem and Fern weren’t.

‘I see Jem’s given you his present already.’ Lewis nodded towards the pentangle. ‘I knew he wouldn’t wait until I got here.
It looks even better on than off. Do you like it?’

‘It’s wonderful,’ Amber touched the tiny star. ‘So special. I love it. I’ve told him it’s the nicest present I’ve ever had
and that I’ll always wear it. He’s very talented.’

Jem grinned at her and blew her a kiss, then immediately frowned at Lewis and Sukie.

‘And you just missed my round,’ Amber said, smiling so hard at Lewis that her jaw ached, ‘so I’ll get yours now – no, I insist.
Lewis? The usual? And what would you like, Sukie? Just pineapple juice? Sure? OK.’

Amber, valiantly trying to maintain the sunny smile, stomped away back into the pub.

Zillah, taking a much-needed breather in The Weasel and Bucket’s doorway, had seen Lewis and Sukie arrive.

Bugger.

Just when she’d thought she didn’t have to worry any more. Just when she’d convinced herself that Amber wasn’t going to foolishly
fall for Lewis’s charms, but that maybe they’d continue their friendship and that things may or may not develop from there.
She’d eventually reassured herself that Lewis wasn’t interested in adding Amber to his list of love ’em and leave ’em conquests,
and Amber, if she was hankering after Lewis at all, had been clever enough not to show it.

Ever since Lewis had reached puberty, and her beautiful child had grown into an even more beautiful man, she’d been terrified
that he’d make some poor girl suffer the way she had. If he – and the rest of Fiddlesticks – thought she was a sinisterly
overprotective mother, then so be it. She’d had her reasons.

Bizarrely now, Amber, Zillah thought, sipping her iced Coke in the stifling darkness, would have been exactly the sort of
girl she’d like Lewis to settle down with. If only, of course, Lewis hadn’t inherited every one of his father’s womanising
genes.

She swallowed. The memories still wouldn’t leave her alone. She’d successfully buried them for so long, but now everything,
from Big Ida’s casual mention of the solstice, to Amber finding that long-hidden record, seemed determined to remind her.

And how genuine were her memories anyway? Oh, she remembered the searing hurt and heartbreak, the I-can’t-live-without-him
desperation of sleepless nights, and then the almost unbearable fear of being left, young, alone and pregnant – but before
that, had it really been as amazingly wonderful as her rose-tinted glasses would have her believe?

Yes, he’d been the love of her life. Yes, she’d adored him unreservedly. And he’d loved her once, hadn’t he? Yes, surely the
wild, mad, exciting, blissful things they’d done together hadn’t simply been the stuff of dreams? It had been real, perfect,
total bliss, hadn’t it?

She’d been so lucky to know what it was like to love and be loved like that, to be young and crazy and unconventional, to
have her heart loop the loop each time he smiled, or feel her body shiver each time he touched her.

She sometimes wished she’d never met him. But then, if she hadn’t, she wouldn’t have had Lewis … If only Lewis wasn’t so like
him.

‘Okay, Zil?’ Timmy, hands full of empty glasses, loomed up in the doorway. ‘You can go and sit down for a while, if you like.’

‘No, I’m fine. There’s no time to sit down – as you well know. I’ll be back in a minute.’

Timmy smiled down at her and for an awful moment she though he was going to kiss her.

‘You work too hard.’ He held the glasses over his head as a crowd of youngsters in baseball caps and strange, bright-white,
hooded tops surged in. ‘And maybe you were right about taking on some extra staff tonight. Constance and Perpetua are behind
the bar at the moment as they were the only ones available but as they’ve never poured a pint in their lives it’s not going
to be a long-term thing. About five minutes at the most. I honestly hadn’t expected it to be this busy – can’t remember Cassiopeia’s
being this hectic last year.’

‘It rained last year,’ Zillah reminded him. ‘We all made our wishes to dark clouds in our macs and wellies. The rose petals
got trodden into puddles, the rain fused the fairy lights, the barbecue had to be indoors and the balloons disappeared towards
Winterbrook on a stiff north-easterly.’

‘God, yes … Hell! Balloons! Where are the balloons?’

‘In the cellar. With the helium. Don’t panic – Goff and the boys have them all in hand. Your bit is the buckets of rose petals,
the Cassiopeia Cup and firing up the barbie – as well as serving ten thousand customers, of course.’

‘No pressure there, then.’ Timmy turned back into the pub. ‘And – er – if you want to stay out here for a bit longer, it’s
fine by me.’

‘Are you trying to get rid if me?’

‘As if,’ he grinned and then frowned as his mobile started a muffled ringing. ‘Oooh – er – that might be important and it’s
in my pocket and I’ll have to answer it and I’d better go and yes, OK – hang on you lot, I’ll be there in a minute – and,
Christ, Perpetua, whisky is
not
sold in pint glasses! Hang on …’

Zillah watched his confused exit with amusement. He was a nice man. Such a nice man. Why, oh why, couldn’t she love him?

‘Sorry, oh – sorry Zillah …’ Amber, head down, brushed against her. ‘I wasn’t looking where I was going.’

‘And I shouldn’t be blocking the doorway,’ Zillah sighed, draining the last of her melted ice cubes. ‘Timmy insisted that
I took a break, though. Now –’ she gestured towards the trestle tables ‘– I wish I hadn’t. Do you think it’s serious?’

Amber shrugged. ‘Lewis and Sukie? No idea. I mean, he’s clearly known her for some time because he said so the other night.
But I – er – hadn’t expected her to be with him tonight, though. She’s – um – very pretty. Seems a nice girl.’

‘She is. Both of those. They always are. And then Lewis gets bored and moves on. Oh dear, the joys of motherhood … Anyway,
I suppose I ought to get back to work. For the last half an hour Timmy has done nothing but hold furtive conversations on
his mobile and keeps giving me silly looks … Men!’

‘Don’t say “who needs ’em”,’ Amber said, looking round at the multitude of hearts and flowers, ‘otherwise this lot tonight
will be pretty redundant. Oh, lordy …’

‘What?’ Zillah frowned, following Amber’s gaze into the crowded pub. ‘What –? Oh, bloody hell!’

Goff Briggs, accompanied by his coterie of Dougie, Slo and Billy, had just emerged from the cellar and they were all prancing
round the middle of the bar, high as kites on inhaled helium, singing ‘It’s Raining Men’ in Donald Duck voices.

Laughing, Zillah shook her head. ‘Sorry love – but who needs ’em?’

The rest of the evening had been fairly weird, Amber thought. They all sat round the table, drinking, talking, and apart from
Lewis and Win, none of them were happy. Even Sukie seemed to sense the atmosphere, which wasn’t difficult, as Jem made his
feelings particularly obvious with flamboyant gestures and his own brand of signing and facial
expressions, and constantly hugged Amber’s arm while glowering malevolently at Lewis.

As the night darkened gently, more and more people gathered on the village green. Timmy and Goff – now looking rather shamed-faced
– had set up a huge barbecue beside the rustic bridge and the charcoal glow joined the fairy-lights and the waning moon in
illuminating the scene.

Children splashed in and out of the stream, the benches were all taken and Billy Grinley and Dougie Patchcock were in danger
of taking off with massive armfuls of silver balloons dancing in the moonlight on twisted tinsel threads.

Lewis leaned across the table towards Amber. ‘Have you got your Cassiopeia wish ready, then?’

She looked at him with what she hoped was a superior and scornful expression. ‘Of course. Not that I believe in this nonsense,
as you well know. But I intend to join in.’

‘So do I.’ Sukie smiled her gentle smile. ‘We don’t do anything like this in Bagley-cum-Russet and I’m never averse to anything
that might spice up my love life.’

Everyone looked at her. No one spoke.

Really, Amber thought, what could anyone say to a remark like that when you were sitting with the most gorgeous man in the
universe thigh-to-thigh next to you?

‘Cassiopeia is up there,’ Win shrilled, gesticulating wildly across the heavens. ‘Isn’t she, Fern?’

‘Yup,’ Fern nodded.

‘And she’ll make someone fall in love with you if you ask her nicely, won’t she?’

‘Yup,’ Fern pulled a face at Amber. ‘Course she will – even if she takes a bloody long time about it.’

‘Don’t swear,’ Win said primly. ‘You always tell me not to swear.’

‘Sorry,’ Fern said as they all made a move to stand up. ‘Right – it looks as though it’s about to start. Timmy’s circulating
with the Cassiopeia Cup, and those buckets over there are filled with rose petals and oh … thanks.’

Billy Grinley, looming over the table, clearly going for the best cleavage-vantage point, handed everyone two silver balloons.

Amber fastened Jem’s round his wrist. ‘Then you can let them go when we’re out on the green, can’t you? And up until then
you can hold Lewis’s hand.’

Jem nodded, grinning wickedly, and clambered slowly from the bench, managing to wriggle himself between Lewis and Sukie and
slide his hand into Lewis’s.

‘Nice one,’ Fern looked at Amber. ‘And I bet I know what you’ll be wishing for …’

‘And I bet you don’t,’ Amber sighed. ‘OK? So – what do we do now?’

‘Follow the herd,’ Lewis motioned towards the green. ‘Goff will do his usual bit – then it’s every man – or woman – for himself.’

For such a tiny village, the crush on the green was amazing. Despite her scepticism and Sukie, Amber felt a frisson of excitement.
Now, in the balmy darkness, with all the traditional accoutrements, it was impossible not to feel fired by some sort of pagan
zeal. Maybe, just maybe, there was
something
in this astral magic.

With her silver star and heart bobbling above her, she followed everyone else, managing to find a space beside the largest
willow tree. As Timmy, helped by Constance and Perpetua, hurled millions of rose petals into the air, Goff stood on the bridge
and held his arms aloft.

The rose petals tumbled over everyone and everything like a pale pink scented snowstorm.

It was too theatrical for words.

‘Fiddlestickers!’ Goff cocked his good eye towards the assembled throng. ‘Lady Cassiopeia is ready to receive your wishes.
She will work her celestial magic for you. Remember, as you wish, release your balloons, the star first to add light to Cassiopeia’s
eternal path in the heavens, the heart for the granting of everlasting love, second, and then afterwards – as always – you
can refresh yourselves
with a draught from Cassiopeia’s Cup and there’ll be plenty of food for everyone.’