One Thousand Stars and You Read online

‘Not in time to climb Adam’s Peak, though,’ Maureen grumbled, and Alice shook her head.

  ‘Shit, I totally forgot. That sucks. Sorry, Maur.’

  Maureen shrugged expansively.

  ‘I’ll get over it. One of the lads I met on the train isn’t doing it either – told me he was too lazy. Maybe I can just hang out with him.’

  Alice wanted to point out that their ascent would begin at two a.m., meaning that both this bloke and Maureen would most probably be tucked up in bed, but she thought better of it. Maureen’s fuse had been frazzled by her fall, and Alice could practically feel the fury in the air around her. Her being pedantic about anything right now would not be well received.

  ‘I’ll stay with you, if you like?’ offered Steph, and Alice reddened. She should have thought to say the same thing. The truth was, though, that it would take a train running right over Maureen to stop Alice going up that mountain.

  Maur, however, was shaking her head. ‘No, absolutely not. I’m not letting any of you babysit me. Well, unless you’d rather stay in bed with me than climb a big old rock?’

  She looked straight at Max as she said the last part, but he laughed it off in good humour.

  ‘No way am I missing out. Sorry, Maur.’

  ‘Your loss,’ she said jokingly, and Alice stared hard at her shoes.

  Jamal was back and beckoning them to follow him, so Alice and Steph hoisted Maureen up between them while Max carried her discarded rucksack and his crutches. Outside in the station forecourt, predictable chaos was ensuing, with tuk-tuk drivers falling over each other to reach them and offer a fare, and buses and cars belching smoke as they stood idle in the dust. Somehow, in the midst of all this, Jamal had found them a real taxi with room enough for eight, and they all piled in thankfully. There was dirt on the floor and no air conditioning or seat belts, but it was certainly a step up from a three-wheeler, and Maureen was able to use a spare seat as a footrest.

  ‘Now you’re my hero,’ she told Jamal.

  ‘I’m a hero every day,’ he joked, and Max started booing loudly from the front of the van.

  ‘Dalhousie, all?’ checked the driver, who barely looked old enough to have a licence.

  ‘Yes, please!’ they chimed, and with an extra-long lean on the horn and a certain amount of friendly yelling by the driver out of his window, they were off, chugging through the traffic before turning off and winding along a narrow road overlooking a deep valley.

  Alice’s mouth opened in a perfect ‘O’ as she peered over the edge of the cliff and took in the wide blue lake hundreds of metres below, its surface the impenetrable blue of spilt paint. The towering hillside on the opposite bank was patterned with swatches of green, and intermittent flashes of bright-red leaves or fruit – Alice could not be sure from this distance – were visible in the treetops. The colours were achingly bright and rang with clarity, as if someone had taken a photo of the landscape and applied filter after filter, nudging up the contrast and saturation levels until the image looked more painted than real.

  The road they were on banked and twisted, the loose stones on its dry surface crackling under the weight of the tyres. The young Sri Lankan drove with one hand on the wheel, nonchalant even on the tightest of bends, and Alice could only just make out what he was saying to Max over the sound of the rushing wind. He was explaining what Alice already knew, that today was Adhi Madin Full Moon Poya Day – the second of two full-moon days in the month of March, and a Buddhist holiday. As well as this, it was Easter Saturday, and Steph’s last day as a twenty-something. There was an awful lot going on. She listened as the driver explained that their climb that night would be very busy, because many Sri Lankan people planned their visit to coincide with Poya Day, and advised that they set off in plenty of time.

  ‘You can climb with this leg?’ Alice heard him ask Max, but a tuk-tuk driver chose that moment to zoom past them beeping his horn, so she didn’t catch the reply.

  It was another hour’s drive to Dalhousie, by which time Alice’s limbs were beginning to ache from lack of movement. The combination of painkillers, Jack Daniels and humiliation had lulled Maureen into a snooze, and Jamal had dozed off on Steph’s shoulder, but Alice was far too excited to feel tired. She was trying her best to take it all in, bank all the memories for a future that she feared would contain far less vibrancy, noise and energy. As they rolled into Dalhousie, however, her first impression wasn’t one of captivated awe, as she’d hoped it would be. Straight away she understood that here was a place born purely out of necessity rather than anyone’s true desire to make a home.

  ‘Bloody hell,’ said Max. ‘This place reminds me of Afghan.’

  The taxi pulled up in a makeshift parking area that was essentially a muddy field, and the five of them clambered out in turn, Maureen wobbling slightly on Max’s borrowed crutches. Three paths led off in different directions, and a hand-drawn sign crudely informed them that the left-hand one was the start of the climb, while the one on the right took them to the hotels. The last pathway would take them back the way they came. All around the edges of the drop-off zone and stretching away along either side of the dirty roads were stalls of various shapes and sizes, selling everything from food and drinks to high-tech walking gear and camping equipment. Everything had been crudely constructed, as if it had been thrown up in a great hurry, and it was quiet here, too – so much so that it was almost eerie. Alice had never been to a shanty town before, but if she had to describe Dalhousie, those would be the words she would choose. With its muted palette of greys and browns, it was so unlike the rest of the country they’d seen so far that at first Alice was shocked into silence. She had never felt more like she was actually in Wonderland in her life.

  ‘What a shithole,’ proclaimed Maureen, and Jamal burst out laughing.

  ‘I was going to say “rustic”,’ he replied. ‘But you may have a point.’

  ‘Look,’ said Steph, pointing towards the nearest stall. ‘You can even buy toys here.’

  She was right. The pop-up shop was piled high with plastic dolls in boxes, buckets and spades, trucks, cars, teddy bears and even a small tricycle.

  ‘Because toys are exactly what you need when you’re climbing a mountain,’ Jamal commented in bemusement. Sri Lanka kept the surprises coming, that was for sure, and now Alice realised why all the travel blogs she’d read before they came out here advised only staying in Dalhousie for a few hours at the most. It was merely an overgrown forecourt to the main event, but she had no doubt that Adam’s Peak would more than make up for it. She could see the top of the mountain now, as they made their slow way towards Daddy’s Guest House, rising out of the late-afternoon mist. It looked as if it was miles away, and was mind-bogglingly high, too.

  ‘Starting to feel grateful for my swollen ankle now,’ commented Maureen, who had fallen in beside Alice and was also gazing up at the peak. ‘Is it really only seven thousand feet?’

  ‘I think it’s closer to seven and a half thousand, if memory serves,’ Alice said. ‘But what’s an extra five hundred feet when you’ve already been climbing for three hours?’

  ‘Rather you lot than me,’ Maur replied.

  Alice shook her head. ‘I actually can’t wait,’ she said, smiling to herself as Maureen shook her head in disbelief and moved away awkwardly on the crutches. Alice liked that Dalhousie was strange and bewildering, because it was almost as if they had been driven right into the pages of a fairy tale. Nothing felt solid or tangible here at the foot of Adam’s Peak, and the edges seemed to blur like those in a dream. Wispy fog swirled, the air was thick and made her ears hum, and tonight the moon was going to shine at its fullest and most bright. Alice knew with a sweet certainty that she was about to embark on a physical challenge like none other she had ever had the chance to try, and the knowledge alone was enough to thrill her. Not only that, but she was also going to share this experience with someone she had grown to care about, more than she knew she should. At least for a while, Alice thought
, she would allow herself to believe the fable, and let herself be free. This was her time, and she wanted to look back and know that she’d spent every moment of it as her real self.

  24

  Max

  If I should die,

  Do not seek to blame,

  I chose this adventure,

  Made mortality a game …

  Max rubbed the sleep from his eyes before lacing together his fingers and pushing his hands forwards, feeling his joints creak and his ligaments burn with the effort of moving. A gaping yawn drew much-needed oxygen into his lungs and cleared his groggy vision, and he unscrewed his bottle of water to take another long drink.

  Alice was next to him, her eyes shining with determination in the darkness, her gaze fixed firmly on the trail of lights that seemed to go right up into the heavens. Their pathway up Adam’s Peak was lit; now all they had to do was follow the flickering golden stars to the top.

  Jamal and Steph were here, too, hand in hand as they always seemed to be, so at ease with one another despite having met less than a week ago. It said a lot that his friend was being so attentive, because while Jamal was always unfailingly fair to the girls he hooked up with – and Max had known there to be rather a lot of those – he was usually casual, too. Steph had got underneath Jamal’s skin in a way that Max had never seen any girl do before, and he worried what would happen when the two inevitably had to say their goodbyes. Then again, he chastised himself, Suffolk was not that far away from London – if Steph and Jamal wanted to keep on seeing each other, then he imagined they would find a way to make it work. Hell, if Jamal could get Max working again, he was probably capable of anything.

  They had all headed to bed early the previous night, after a huge helping of kottu roti each, and were only mildly miffed to discover that beer was strictly off the menu because of the full moon. Being dehydrated would not serve the four of them well on this climb, and for Max it was an even bigger problem. The tedious pain in his stump was currently being kept at bay with a couple of aspirin, but he was nervous about them wearing off – especially now that he didn’t have his sticks as a back-up. It hadn’t occurred to Maureen to offer the crutches back to him when she limped off to bed, and Max had been too proud to ask.

  Too proud and too stupid, he thought to himself now.

  Dalhousie was even stranger at two in the morning than it had been in the daylight, with small pockets of people clustered around the stalls that remained open, and barely any sound save for the gentle scrape of their walking shoes on the muddy ground. It reminded Max unavoidably of going out on a mission in the early hours, his night-vision goggles making the barren desert surroundings look even more like an alien planet. He could recall the thump of his agitated heart in his chest, the throbbing of the veins in his temples as fear and adrenalin coursed through him, and the sound of his comrades in front and behind, their footfall steady and repetitive.

  Max snapped his elastic band against his wrist and blinked himself back into the present.

  ‘Chilly, isn’t it?’ said Alice. She had been quiet since they left the guest house, seemingly content to just take it all in as they made their way to the starting point of the climb, but now she brought her hands up to rub at the sleeves of her hooded top.

  ‘I quite like it,’ he admitted. ‘It’s helping to wake me up.’

  Max had a spare jumper in the small rucksack on his back, but for now he was still in a T-shirt as well as long, baggy combat trousers. Alice was zipped right up to the chin in a plain purple top and black leggings, and she’d tied her hair back in a high ponytail. She looked about fifteen, thought Max with affection, save for a few fine lines around the corners of her eyes.

  ‘It’s going to be a hell of a lot colder at the top,’ Jamal warned, and they all looked up to where the flickering lights gave way to real stars. Max knew the maths, knew that it was only four miles from where they were to the top, a distance that he could have done without breaking a sweat, once upon a time. But staring up there now, as Adam’s Peak glared majestically back down at them, it felt far higher. He would make it up there, though, pain or no pain. He had to.

  They passed a large statue of Buddha encased behind glass, and crossed a bridge over what sounded like fast-flowing water, but which they could not see through the gloom, before joining the back of a short queue of people waiting to start their pilgrimage. A Sri Lankan couple stood silently just ahead of them, a young boy between them who Max guessed must be their son. He couldn’t be any older than six, but he looked just as pious and purposeful as any of the adults around him. All three were barefoot, and Max’s eyes flickered to his own feet, one full of bones, muscle and flesh and the other an expertly crafted lump of wood and urethane foam. He was wearing a fresh prosthetic sock made of wool for the climb, which he hoped would help to ward off any excess sweat and keep the residual limb as comfortable as possible. Given the amount of work he was asking it to do, however, Max did not have as much confidence as he would have liked, and he knew that there would be some serious teeth-gritting to be done over the next six or seven hours.

  ‘You OK?’ Alice brushed a finger against his arm. She always seemed to know when he was experiencing discomfort – he must wear his worry like military stripes.

  ‘Yeah,’ he smiled at her, nudging her shoulder with his. ‘Just keen to get going.’

  They stepped forwards and slipped some rupees into a donation box. There was a monk dressed in orange robes standing off to one side, and as soon as the notes and coins had been dropped in, he tied a length of white wool around each of their wrists in turn. Max watched Alice’s expression grow serious as she fingered hers, and smiled to himself. This climb clearly meant just as much to her as it did to him, and in that moment, he felt awash with happiness that they would be experiencing it together.

  The dark pathway was already filling up with people, but hardly anyone was talking. The atmosphere was one of silent contemplation, as pilgrims focused on the task ahead and saved their energy for the ascent rather than conversation. Large, wide steps were cut into the dirt, each one a simple hop upwards, but as they rounded a corner and passed a large stall selling plastic flowers, the going gradually became steeper and more taxing. Where before mouths had been closed, now they were open and panting and breaths could be heard. Max himself was not feeling the aerobic burn yet, but some of the elderly Sri Lankans making the climb were already beginning to slow their pace. Alice, who was keeping step with Max almost exactly, looked pumped, and was positively fizzing with energy. Max reckoned she could probably run right up to the summit if she wanted to.

  ‘You seem pretty fit,’ he said, shaking his head as a woman wrapped up in robes and a woolly hat offered him a cup of chai. There were vendors all the way along this section of the path.

  Alice grinned at him. ‘I run a lot,’ she explained. ‘And swim.’

  ‘I used to hate swimming,’ Max admitted. ‘But I got really into it after … Well, what I mean is it’s nice to do something where you don’t have to rely too much on the leg, you know?’

  She nodded again with that smile of hers that Max had come to love eliciting. Jamal and Steph were a few steps behind them now, and Alice turned furtively to look, almost as if she was checking that they weren’t in earshot.

  ‘I’d secretly love to try surfing,’ she said quietly. ‘It’s one of the reasons I’ve always wanted to go to Australia.’

  ‘Why do you keep that a secret?’ Max asked, feeling his forehead creasing with a frown.

  Alice walked up three more steps before replying, her expression unreadable.

  ‘Honestly?’ she said. ‘Because my mum would hate the idea, and I reckon Rich would compile a dossier of every person ever killed or injured while cresting a wave.’

  ‘Killjoys, both of them,’ he declared, but Alice merely lifted her shoulders as if in defeat.

  ‘Do you want to know a secret about me?’ Max asked, and this time it was his turn to check over his shoulder
to make sure Jamal was far enough away not to hear.

  Alice was waiting, her cheeks aglow in the light coming from the torches. They had been walking for around twenty minutes now, and the curved pathway was still going steadily upwards.

  ‘I write poems.’

  ‘Oh?’ Alice’s surprise was evident in her expression.

  ‘I know, right? I told you I was a sensitive soul.’

  ‘What are they about?’ she asked.

  Max explained about his hero and inspiration Rupert Brooke, and how reading his work had led to Max picking up a pen and having a go himself. Alice nodded along in recognition – she had studied Brooke at secondary school.

  ‘The content depends mostly on my mood,’ he admitted. ‘They used to be quite dark, but since being here they have actually become a bit less depressing.’

  ‘That must be a good sign,’ she stated, and Max nodded in agreement.

  ‘Maybe I’ll show you some one day,’ he said. ‘But that’s a big maybe. I have never shown them to anyone before, and if you laughed, I’d probably never get over it.’

  ‘You worry too much,’ Alice replied good-naturedly. Her breath was beginning to shorten now, but her pace was increasing, and Max lengthened his stride to keep up. Behind them, Jamal called out something that sounded a lot like, ‘Wait for us!’

  Max could not quite believe that he had just voluntarily admitted this to Alice. Writing poetry was not a particularly unusual thing for a person to do, but it meant a great deal to him. For a long time now, it had been the primary outlet for his emotions, and writing about the way he was feeling helped him to make sense of it. During long nights in Selly Oak Hospital, when he couldn’t sleep because of the pain in his stump, Max had scribbled away in the patient diary beside his bed – the same one that had come with him all the way from Camp Bastion, where first the Medical Emergency Response Team, and then the medics on the ground, had added updates on his condition.

  Writing about his agony had made it more tangible somehow, something to be overcome rather than a state of being. Then later, after he had struggled through the early stages of rehabilitation, Max began to deal with the resentment that had clobbered him, and the impotent rage he had been left with. Every emotion he felt, he tried to put into words, and when Faye left he took strength from raging against both her and himself in his poetry.