‘I can’t lose you. I can’t.’ My voice was lost in the fabric of his jumper, but he heard me.
His mouth grazed my temple. ‘Listen. This is the way life is supposed to be: none of us know how long we’ve got left. We can’t control how long we live, onlyhowwe live. Who we live life with. And I know that two or three real, honest years with you are worth so much more than anything else could be.’ Gently he let go and stepped back to look at me. He stroked the hair back from my damp face and touched his forehead against mine. ‘I don’t need eternity, Pica. I just need a bit more time with you. Will you give me that?’
I felt like shoving him away–I felt like throwing my arms around him. Like scratching out his eyes and closing his mouth with mine. I wanted to kiss him until my body was nothing but that gentle burn and pleasant throb, not this sharp pain. I wanted to scream that I would never forgive him, I wanted to whisper my confession that I was in love with him–because Ihadn’t said it yet, not directly and honestly, and suddenly I realised I didn’t have as much time as I’d hoped.
I had always known it was dangerous, opening yourself up to other people. Once they get comfortable in there, sooner or later they get tangled up with you. They start popping into your head as you move through the world. I would never see a magpie again without thinking of the one I always carried in my pocket. Fitting neatly in my hand, in my heart. I would never eat a pain aux raisins without thinking of how much he wanted to like them, and wishing I could share my enjoyment of it with him. I would never hear organ music or smell honey without feeling a tug of longing in my stomach. I would see Cliff in every silver-shimmering scar, because his flaws were what made him most beautiful to me. I supposed that was what it meant to love someone.
What Cliff’ssoulwas, all those tiny details, had woven itself through my perception of the world. If he was torn away, it would leave a ragged hole inside me, trailing loose threads. Losing him would rip me apart, even as I was just beginning to feel like I’d been put back together–like I’d found myself again. I didn’t want to lose that, him and me. Us.
Fresh tears welled up, and I did nothing to stop them. ‘It’s not fair.’
‘I know.’ Cliff nodded and closed his eyes, but I saw a few tears run down his cheeks too. He didn’t try to hide them. This was the end of all lies. This was the final truth, and it was true what people said: most of the time, that truth was ugly.
‘I wouldn’t have done it if I’d known…’
‘I know. That’s why I couldn’t tell you.’ He kissed my forehead, the bridge of my nose, briefly and firmly on the mouth. He tasted of blood. We both did.
My lips quivered. So did my voice. ‘Just a short time won’t be enough.’
‘I know.’ He smiled weakly. ‘But that’s true for everybody, always. To have something you can lose is the most precious thing there is. I know you don’t get that right now, but I do, because it’s been so long since I had something like that: underneath, the pain is how you know you’ve lived a full life. That you’ve got something you love so much you can’t bear the thought of losing it. You’ve given that back to me, Mabel. And…I know it’s going to hurt like hell when I have to leave you, but… it’s worth it. So, if a short time is all we’ve got, then it’ll have to do.’ The colour of his irises blurred into an eddying darkness, but something about the look in them was bright enough to light up the gloom of my thoughts.
I was still in despair, still shocked and angry–at him, at myself, at the absurd situation we found ourselves in, where doing the right thing had led to something so horribly wrong, painful, cruel. But… I was still glad he was with me. It hurt, but Cliff was there. If I pushed him away while I still had the chance to be with him, I would never forgive myself. Maybe it was naïve to cling on to something I knew would soon be ripped away from me, but Cliff was right: what we had was worth it. It wasn’t perfect, it wasn’t easy, but it was real. And that was what life was about, wasn’t it? Finding something real.
I closed my eyes and forced myself to nod. ‘Okay,’ I whispered.
‘Anyway, time is relative.’ Cliff smiled into my forehead. ‘If I’ve learnt anything, it’s that. And I know everybody’s always wishing it would stand still, but for years now I’ve been wishing the opposite. That it would start up again. That… that I would start up again.’
I thought of Cliff’s watch, and how he’d told me it had stopped working the night that Heaven died. Suddenly I understood why he had never got it fixed. His world had been shaken to the core that night, and in a way, his life had stood still, too. He had realised what this existence truly meant, and it had stopped him dead. After all those decades of playacting his way through other people’s lives, he wanted to lead one of his own, at least for the short while that remained to him. A few years in which every sentence would be his, not the lines of a role he’d been forced to play–years when every step was chosen by him, every decision made by him. He just wanted to be himself once more. And that self wanted to be with me. I was the first decision he had made for himself in a very long time. And he… he was mine. No logic, no rationalisation, just the feeling that it had to be this way. We had to be, we wanted to be, and we could be. For a while, at least. Maybe that was all you could ever expect from life. In the end, there were never any guarantees, promises or certainties. Each life was a leap into the unknown. At some point you were going to hit the ground, and there was nothing you could do about it. All you could do was choose whose hand you were holding as you fell. And if you chose right, for a while, it might not feel like falling. It might feel like flying.
I took his face in my hands, one thumb on the silver scar at his temple and the other touching his moonspots. It wasn’t his first face, but it would be his last. And his truest, because it was the one he’d worn when he decided to take his life back.
Here he was. Here I was. And here we remained, even as we drifted on–even as we fell.
I took a deep breath, closed my eyes, and… leapt. ‘Then let’s make the most of our own little corner of eternity.’
Mabel
Two months later
The starlings came back. Cliff and I had seen them for the first time a few weeks ago, while we were revising on the banks of the Cam. For a moment I’d thought the spring sky was clouding over, but when I looked up, I realised the shadows speckling my notes were something else. Countless birds, flying in extravagant formations across the blue. In that moment I had understood why the League of Starlings had chosen that name. Not because they were the most talented mimics. Individually, the black dots in the sky were nothing special, but together they formed an impressive and powerful work of art.
Cliff had watched them, too, until they disappeared from sight beyond the college walls. He’d said nothing, but from the way his lips narrowed, I could tell he, too, thought it might be a bad omen.
It had been almost two months since I’d destroyed the artefact, and every day of them we’d been expecting delegates from the council to show up and ask questions. So far, nothing had happened. Norah had said she’d try to buy us time, but we knew it couldn’t last. Just like the real starlings, returning a hundred-fold with the advent of spring, the members of the League would eventually return to find out what had happened. And the trail would lead them to us. No matter what Norah had told them, no matter whether Ashton covered for us or denounced us. Sooner or later, they would come.
I wanted to say I wasn’t afraid, but unlike the birds in my room, which I now knew Victor had put there, these Starlings could be dangerous. For me, and for Cliff. It probably didn’t say much for my survival instincts that I was more worried about him than about myself. And I was pretty sure Cliff felt the exact inverse. The day we first saw the birds, he asked me if I wanted to go travelling with him during the Easter break.There are some places I’d like to show you, he had told me as we lay in bed together. It was one of those warm, languid moments when our eyes were shut and we were naked, inside and out, while the world beyond–the sounds of rain and the dull yellow beam of headlights–passed us by outside, crossing through our own dark quiet.
I still wasn’t keen on him buying me things I couldn’t afford, but I couldn’t bring myself to say no. Perhaps because I knew he, too, was trying to outrun his fear of the future, at least for a little while. Or because I knew now that our future together was going to be a lot shorter than I’d wanted.
So I agreed, and now here I was a few weeks later, standing in my room with my bags packed, gazing out of the window. No starlings in the sky, only a magpie perched on a tree in the court, polishing its feathers. If bad omens existed, there had to be good ones too, surely?
I smiled as I saw a figure slip behind the reflection of my own face, and I turned around. Zoe had just walked into my room. Her hair was intricately braided, and her lids gleamed as golden as her enormous hoop earrings and her eyes. No more poorly concealed dark circles, no bitter twist to her lips, no distracted sheen in her cornflower-blue eyes. Having Zoe back, reallyback, reminded me every day why it had all been worth it.
‘Shouldn’t you be on your way by now, my little globetrotter?’ The teasing note in her voice was gentle: Zoe was almost more delighted than I was that I was finally spending a holiday away from college.
‘Almost. How about you? Are you going home?’
‘No. Home isn’t… it isn’t the greatest for a holiday.’
