One Thousand Stars and You Page 12

  But would Alice want his help? Did she even realise how destructive it could be to bury a side of yourself in the hope that it would just go away? It had always been in Max’s nature to protect. He was the boy in the school playground who stood up for the bullied kids, the first of his mates to step in if a fight was kicking off on a night out and try to defuse it, and the lieutenant all his comrades would come to first if they were worried, or upset, or struggling with the unrelenting horror of life in a conflict zone. It was who he was, and the more time he spent in Alice’s company, the more he sensed that element of him being called upon.

  But Max was torn, because it wasn’t simply that he wanted to prove to Alice that there was another way – a more honest way – to be happy; he also wanted other things from her, too. And he couldn’t venture down that path, not even if he wanted to, not even if she wanted him to. She had never tried to pretend that she didn’t have a boyfriend, but then she had been looking through his Instagram account. Max had been pleased to get the notification.

  He had briefly considered broaching the subject of Alice with Jamal, but his friend was in favour of the idea of Max and Maureen hooking up. After they had bid the three girls farewell the previous evening, Jamal had begun trumpeting his approval. Max had nodded along and humoured him, but he couldn’t lie and say that he liked Maureen as anything more than a friend at this stage. She was a gorgeous girl, so confident, fun and feisty, but the connection was not there. Max had paid attention when Maur admitted she was on the lookout for an exciting man, and it made him wary. While he loathed the idea of a girl disliking him because of his injury, he equally wasn’t interested in being with someone who wanted him purely because they found his lack of a lower right leg alluring.

  He had given up on sleep not long after sunrise, the pain in his stump winning the battle against slumber, and he was now sitting in the courtyard garden of the Sunflower Hotel in Kandy, bright-yellow breakfast pancakes on the plate in front of him. They had to leave to catch the early train to Hatton in less than an hour, and from there it was a bus or local taxi out to Dalhousie, the small village at the base of Adam’s Peak. Whenever he thought about trekking up to the summit of that mountain, Max was assailed with a gut-churning mixture of trepidation and elation. It was going to be hard going, as much on the climb down those 5,500 steps as the trek up them, but he was adamant that it was another milestone he must achieve. He had set his mind on completing the London Marathon, and he had done it. This challenge should be more achievable, if anything.

  Back at Headley Court all those years ago, stairs had been Max’s nemesis. He had felt like a fraud when he struggled so much with his balance – especially when there were chaps with bilateral amputations making the task look easy. Again and again, he had fallen; time after time, he had felt as if half the world was made of quicksand. The ground seemed to fall away from him, and he would feel where he should not, hurt where there was nothing, and be bombarded by the nasty whispers in his mind telling him that he would never do it, that it was too hard, that it was easier to give up.

  But Max had not given up – he had fought hard, and he was still fighting.

  ‘You gonna eat those?’

  It was Jamal, looking well rested and perky as ever. He was pointing at Max’s untouched breakfast pancakes.

  ‘Yes, mate – I bloody am,’ Max told him in amusement. ‘Get your own.’

  ‘They any good?’ Jamal asked, holding his nose before necking his waiting papaya juice in one gulp.

  Max picked up his knife and fork and cut a slice off one of the rolled-up pancakes. It was moist and delicious and oozing brown sugar.

  ‘Itsh gwood,’ he said as he chewed.

  ‘Bad night?’ was Jamal’s next question, but he said it lightly.

  Max shrugged. ‘Just a bad dream,’ he lied. ‘Nothing too sinister.’

  ‘You should have woken me,’ his friend replied, thanking the waiter who had just brought over another plate of pancakes, plus some traditional string hoppers, scrambled egg and a small dish of bright-orange sambal. The desiccated coconut and chilli pepper mix was as common on a Sri Lankan table as salt and pepper would be in the UK, and both men sprinkled it over their food with enthusiasm. As was the case in so many Sri Lankan hotels and homestays, there was no breakfast menu – you simply ate what you were given.

  ‘I would have if it was a really bad dream,’ Max assured him, but he could tell that Jamal was not thoroughly convinced by his casual brush-off.

  ‘There isn’t anything else, is there?’ he pestered, his physio head firmly screwed on. ‘Any pain or discomfort?’

  ‘Right as rain.’ Max tapped his socket under the table. ‘Mister Tee here is fired up and ready to go, just like me.’

  ‘It’s not Mister Tee I’m worried about, mate,’ Jamal said, scooping up a pile of eggs and dumping them in the middle of his string hopper nest. ‘That’s several thousand pounds’ worth of engineering right there – he’s built to endure. But your residual limb is another matter.’

  Max took a deep breath so as not to betray his annoyance.

  ‘Honestly,’ he said, fixing his friend with what he hoped was a convincing expression. ‘I’m fine.’

  Jamal forked up a few more mouthfuls before replying, sipping his tea and watching Max intently over the rim of his cup.

  ‘Ulceration happens when a strained muscle can no longer recover on its own,’ he began, and Max rolled his eyes.

  ‘You don’t need to lecture me on the details of broken tissue,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve been there and lived through all that, remember?’

  Jamal shook his head, exasperated.

  ‘I know that, mate – which is why I’m bringing it up now. I know you want to climb this mountain tomorrow, but it’s not worth putting yourself at risk for. Pressure ulcers are like a sniper inside your stump – you know that. You won’t even know they’re there until they shoot you down, and by then it will be too late. Do you want to be laid up again?’

  Max grumbled under his breath.

  ‘You know I don’t.’

  Jamal abandoned his cutlery and started tapping his slender fingers on the table. Max could tell he was frustrated, but he also knew that this time Jamal was not going to talk him into wimping out. Walking was still possible, and so climbing would be, too. Max would not let a silly muscle cramp stop him from achieving the one thing he’d set his heart on when they booked this trip. And that was all the pain was, he was sure – just plain old muscle cramp.

  ‘You’d better eat fast,’ he told Jamal, motioning to the leftover pancakes. ‘We’ve got to crack on and catch that train soon. You wouldn’t want Steph to leave without us, would you?’

  At the mention of his new favourite person, Jamal visibly cheered up, but Max sensed his friend’s eyes watching him very closely as he got up to go and settle their bill.

  Just a little while longer, thought Max, and then they would reach the coast and he could rest his leg all he wanted. He would simply have to prove to Jamal that there was nothing at all to worry about.

  22

  ‘Alice, give me a hand with this, will you?’

  Maureen looked in genuine pain as she struggled to do up the waist strap of her backpack, and Alice let her own bag drop back on the bottom bunk before hurrying over to help.

  ‘I ate too many bloody coconut rotis!’ wailed Maureen, as Alice tried and failed to get the clip to snap into place.

  Monisha had prepared them a veritable feast for their final breakfast at the homestay, and as well as the coconut rotis, they had also shovelled in white bread with the crusts cut off, apple jam, rolled pancakes, fried eggs and a vast platter of chopped fruit, all washed down with passion fruit juice and black tea sweetened with honey. Alice felt like one of the rotund Muscovy ducks that she’d seen waddling into Kandy Lake.

  ‘I’m going to have to adjust it – hang on,’ said Alice, bending over until she was eye level with the offending canvas strip.

 
Steph, who was all strapped up and ready to go, took out her phone and recorded a video, laughing the whole time as Alice and Maureen each gave her the finger.

  ‘One final Instagram story before we lose Wi-Fi for the next God-knows-how-long,’ she said, pressing a button with a flourish just as Maureen went to grab the phone from her hand.

  ‘That reminds me,’ said Maureen, almost purple in the face now that Alice had finally managed to strap her in. ‘I need to check my emails before we go.’

  ‘You’ve got five minutes,’ Alice warned. ‘Or we risk missing the train.’

  ‘Are you really sure we have to climb this mountain?’ Maureen checked, for what felt to Alice like at least the twentieth time. She had initially been keen on the idea, but since arriving, her enthusiasm had been swayed by the intense heat.

  ‘It’ll be fun,’ Alice said. ‘An unforgettable experience, I promise.’

  ‘I’d rather find a man for one of those,’ quipped Maureen, disappearing in the direction of the balcony too quickly to hear Alice’s amused tut of disapproval.

  Steph grinned at Alice. ‘She’s just frustrated because nothing happened with her and Max last night. She never usually has to work this hard.’

  Alice made a non-committal noise in response.

  They had all stayed at the Slightly Chilled bar longer than perhaps they should have, given the long journey they faced today, but the warm evening breeze and the cold Lion Lager had been a very persuasive combination. After ten p.m., a live band had started playing inside the bar, too. Maureen had continued to flirt with Max like the future happiness of all humanity depended on it, but she had got nothing more for her efforts than a chaste peck on the cheek as they clambered into their separate tuk-tuks at the end of the night. Alice was trying not to think about how relieved she was that nothing had happened and focus instead on the next few days ahead.

  ‘We beat you for once.’

  Max stood up from where he and Jamal had been sitting waiting for them on a stone bench outside the train station, accepting Maureen’s kiss hello and a hug of greeting from Alice and Steph, before producing three pink paper tickets from the back pocket of his tatty denim cut-offs.

  ‘I hope second class is OK?’ he asked. ‘We thought we could all slum it together.’

  ‘How much do we owe you?’ Alice already had her purse in her hand, but Max shook his head.

  ‘It’s, like, three quid each or something,’ he said. ‘Call it my treat.’

  He was wearing his baseball cap again today, and it made his eyes look more indigo than blue. Alice had pulled on her trusty denims, too, teamed with a plain black vest and the moonstone necklace she’d bought at the gem store. She’d opted for her walking shoes, simply because they were heavier to carry than any other footwear she had brought, and she predicted having to lug her rucksack further than usual today. It was a long way to Hatton, and the various travel blogs she’d read had warned that this route in particular was a busy one. There was no guarantee of getting a seat on the train, and Hatton was almost three hours away.

  The rumours were proven true when the five of them clambered up the wobbly steps into the train carriage to find all but one lone seat full.

  ‘Ladies.’ Max extended an arm, but all three girls looked at him askance.

  ‘I’m fine standing,’ said Maureen.

  ‘Don’t look at me.’ Steph raised both hands as Jamal slid his long arms around her waist and pulled her backwards to where he was already setting up a little area of piled bags by the doors.

  Alice looked at Max.

  ‘Don’t be a hero,’ she told him. ‘Sit down for now, we can always swap later.’

  She could tell he was not altogether thrilled by the situation, but he didn’t argue with her. He did insist on stowing her rucksack in the luggage rack for her, however, and she stared unthinkingly at the muscles flexing along his arms.

  Maureen had abandoned her bag with Jamal and Steph and was now halfway down the carriage, busy making friends with a group of young British lads who were passing a bottle of Jack Daniels around between them. The rest of the seats were mostly taken by elderly Sri Lankans, their eyes closed and their white hair lifting off their foreheads every time one of the large ceiling fans completed a rotation.

  ‘Bit early for Jack,’ remarked Max to Alice as the lads jeered, and she pulled a face.

  ‘Tell me about it. I bet someone tells them off,’ she added, thinking about Buddhists’ strict rules when it came to drinking.

  More passengers were getting on the train now, and soon every available standing space was full as well as every seat, leaving Maureen stranded with the British booze hounds and Alice’s bare thighs pressed up against Max. He felt warm and solid and wonderfully present, and Alice’s heart began to beat a touch faster than it should. When the train finally jerked and rattled away from Kandy station, there was a clammy film of moisture between the two of them where their skin had come into contact, and Alice had to repeatedly stop herself from falling over by putting her free hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Sorry,’ she kept saying, until the two of them were laughing and Max offered his knee as a seat, pretending to look hurt when she refused.

  ‘I don’t bite,’ he said. ‘Well, not hard, anyway.’

  The Sri Lankan man sitting next to Max was staring with unashamed curiosity at his prosthetic leg, but Alice noted that Max didn’t seem in the least bit bothered. He must be well used to it by now, she supposed, but surely it still irked him sometimes? Alice hated people gawping at the scar on her face.

  They passed the time chatting about the upcoming climb and pointing things out to each other through the window. It didn’t take more than a few minutes for the large buildings in Kandy to vanish behind them and the lush hillsides and forests to appear. They passed homes that were little more than ramshackle sheds, many with a dog or goat tethered to a post outside next to piles of dead or decaying palm leaves.

  The train clattered along the tracks like something out of an old film, and when Alice bent her head to look, she could see steam from the engine billowing out behind them. All the doors were wide open, and the air that rushed through the carriage was fragrant with the scent of earth, smoke and vegetation. The group of British lads were making short work of their Jack Daniels, and Alice could hear Maureen’s peals of laughter floating over the seats. If Max was annoyed that she’d called a hiatus on her campaign of determined flirtation, he didn’t show it – his demeanour was almost serene today, his eyes closed against the sun streaming in through the window and a contented half-smile on his lips. Alice envied him – she felt as if her whole body had been stretched out like rope and then tied into knots.

  After half an hour or so, squealing brakes heralded their arrival at the first stop, and even more local people piled on to the train, some with young children and others with huge sacks that they balanced on their shoulders. There had been barely any space to move before, and now there was none, but again Alice shook her head when Max patted his lap in invitation. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to take him up on his offer; it was more that she did. She was so hyper-aware around him, and every morsel of physical contact sent a new tremble through her body. Now that the train was heading out into more open country and gathering speed, it was hurling everyone from side to side, and Alice’s hands, legs and body repeatedly collided with Max.

  ‘It must be your turn by now,’ he commented mildly, after she’d lurched so far forward that she almost headbutted him.

  What Alice wanted to say was that there was no way she was letting him stand, that it was hard enough to balance on this train when you didn’t have to factor in an artificial limb, but instead she fobbed him off with a shake of the head.

  ‘I’m enjoying myself,’ she told him with enthusiasm. ‘I’m getting the authentic Sri Lanka experience here.’

  Max smiled. His hand kept going to the top of his prosthesis, and he kept stretching the foot out in front of him.


  ‘Does it hurt?’ she asked, flushing at the directness of her question as he looked up at her.

  ‘Not so much,’ he said. ‘For a long time after it first happened, I would still feel my leg there, even though it was gone. That was pretty weird.’

  ‘I can’t imagine,’ Alice said honestly, turning her head away momentarily as she heard Maureen emit a particularly loud shriek of mirth.

  ‘It takes a while for your central nervous system to realise what’s happened,’ Max explained. ‘I had spent twenty-five years with two feet, then suddenly one was gone. You know how people always say they need to get their head around things?’

  Alice nodded.

  ‘That’s what my brain has had to do – get itself around this bizarre and unexpected turn of events.’

  ‘You’re amazing,’ blurted Alice, before hurriedly adding, ‘You know, I just mean because of how open you are about it all. I used to do anything to avoid answering questions about the wound on my face.’

  Max thought before answering.

  ‘I wasn’t always so open,’ he admitted. ‘For years, all I wanted to do was hide in my bedroom, and the pain was a problem – it was chronic and there seemed no end to it, no respite. I drank too much as a way of dealing with it, then that became a problem, too. I’m a classic problem child.’

  He smiled at that, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes.

  ‘What changed?’ Alice asked, swearing and then laughing as the train rounded a corner at speed and she careered into him yet again.

  ‘It was a combination of things, really,’ he told her, helping her to stand up straight.

  ‘My wife left me.’ He took in Alice’s stunned expression. ‘Yes, I was married. I’m a divorcee.’