2

Star

Q

uietly, so I don’t wake Nigel, I slip out of bed. I tie my robe, lift my phone off the bedside table, and go downstairs. In the kitchen I switch on the coffee machine and set the dining table for two before pulling open the heavy curtains.

Outside daylight is beginning to appear and I sigh with pleasure. The garden always looks best at this time of the year when the honeysuckle, freesia, sunflowers and roses are all out. I open the French doors and go out into the cool, fresh air. This is my favorite time of the day. When Nigel is asleep upstairs, the air is filled with the sounds of birds, and my mind can plot out my storyline. My phone rings. I take it out of my pocket and look at the screen.

“Hi, Nan.”

“Good morning, Love,” she greets brightly. Nan is like me. An early bird. Sometimes she’ll get up at five in the morning and start cleaning out the garden shed. It drives my granddad crazy.

“You all right?” I ask.

“Other than my dodgy knees and your granddad’s dodgy mouth, I’m just fine. I swear that man has moved me to thoughts of murder more often than I’ve had cooked dinners.”

I smile as I turn around and go back into the house. “Are you going to see your father today?” she asks. “Of course,” I say as I step into the kitchen.

“I’d like to come with you. Will you drop by and pick me up, then?”

I pour some bird seed into a small container “Sure. I’m going before lunch. Is about ten o’clock okay with you?”

“I’ll be ready, Love.”

We chat a little more as I tear some bread into small pieces and add it to the bird seed. Finishing the call, I go out into the garden and toss the mix onto the roof of the shed. I go back inside, and to my surprise I hear Nigel’s footsteps in the bathroom above.

How strange. He never wakes up this early on a Saturday. Nigel works very long hours during the week, and the weekends are the only times he gets to relax a little. In fact, I usually get hours of writing time in before he wakes up.

If he’s awake I know he’ll be down in about fifteen minutes so I start to prepare eggs and toast for two. Neither of us are big on breakfast. Nigel appears in the doorway as I am cracking the eggs. His hair is tousled, and the sight puts a big, sloppy smile on my face.

“Good morning, you gorgeous Sex God you.”

Nigel is not a morning person, but even so his expression is particularly mournful as he returns my greeting. “Morning.”

“Breakfast will be ready in five minutes,” I tell him. “I’m not hungry, Star.”

My smile slips a notch. Nigel is not a man to skip breakfast. “Fine, sit down, and I’ll get your expresso.”

He forces a smile and, turning around, heads towards the dining room. Now I know for sure: something is very wrong. Abandoning the eggs, I make his expresso the way he likes it, and follow him into the dining room. I place his coffee on the table, and take the seat next to him. He thanks me quietly, but does not look my way.

For a few moments neither of us speaks.

I clasp my hands in my lap and watch him sip his coffee. All of this is so unlike Nigel. He is a man on the go. He wakes, showers, gets dressed and eats breakfast whilst he reads the morning paper or checks his emails. When he’s running late he’ll shout down the stairs for me to make his coffee, down it in one hit, peck me on the cheeks and disappear out the door.

“What’s going on, Nigel? Why are you acting so strangely?” I ask quietly. He shakes his head the way someone who has lost everything would do. “What’s the matter? Don’t you feel well?”

“I feel sick to my stomach with what I’ve done.” My stomach drops. “What have you done, Nigel?”

He slaps his hands on his cheeks and looks at me, his eyes distraught. “I have to tell you something, Star,” he says, his voice cracking.

In a split second two scenarios cross my mind. He’s lost a lot of money at the brokerage, or, oh God, he’s got another woman. I’m strong enough to handle the money thing, but not the other woman.

“What is it?” I ask nervously. “I’m in trouble.”

“What kind of trouble?”

“Big trouble,” he says swallowing a large mouthful of air. “I’ve been such a fool, Star. Such a colossal fucking fool.”

For a moment, the horror of anticipating what he is going to tell me, dumbfounds me. In my mind I hear him saying I cheated on you, Star. It was just a one-night stand. Or worse. I’ve fallen for someone else and I’m leaving you.

I just stare at him, hardly daring to breathe.

He opens his mouth. “I owe money. A lot of money.”

My breath comes out in a rush of sheer relief. Okay. This, I can deal with. I take a few shallow breaths and straighten my spine. This I can definitely handle. “Do your bosses know yet?”

He frowns. “Bosses?”

I stare at him. “At work?”

He shakes his head slightly. “This is not work, Star. This is my personal debt.”

“A personal debt?” I ask. I feel confused and frightened suddenly, as if I am standing on shifting sand. “Why did you need a personal debt, Nigel?”

He doesn’t answer me straight away. Instead, he stretches out a hand to cover mine. “Nigel?”

He removes his hand, and my skin feels cold and empty. My mind goes blank as I watch him buy time by swallowing the last cold coffee dregs.

“I’m a gambler, Star. I owe four hundred and fifty thousand pounds.”