Thebrigh Hteststar
Ryan was hunched over his phone. He snatched his eyes away only long enough to grab a biscuit from the plate Marion was holding out. “Thank you,” she said, her jaw tightening.
The boy remained focused on his game. Marion leaned down and snatched the biscuit back.
“Hey!” Ryan, his mouth comically open in surprise, looked up at her.
“Yes?” Marion said levelly, holding his gaze.
The boy looked back at her mutinously, but there was going to be only one winner.
“Let’s start again, shall we? Would you like a Hobnob, Ryan?”
“Yes.” He blinked furiously.“please.” Honestly, the fuss he was making. All she was asking for was a modicum of politeness.
She extended the plate.
“Just one,” she said as he went to take a handful.
“Mum wouldn’t mind,” he mumbled.
“Well, Mum’s not here, is she?” No, Mum was relaxing with some friends for a long weekend in a spa hotel, getting a well-earned rest and some peace and quiet.
Leaving Ryan, poor, unhappy Ryan, here for four days of his half-term break with his gran.
Marion knew the strain Katie experienced as a single mother, a strain made worse by the constant battle to extract maintenance and child support from Ellis, now working in Saudi Arabia, far from his son and responsibilities.
She knew, too, how desperately Ryan missed his dad and that his rude behaviour was the only way he had of registering his misery.
She loved her grandson with a fierce protectiveness, but he didn’t make things easy for himself. Or anyone else.
Katie worried about his schoolwork; Marion suspected he had few friends and was possibly being bullied. But the one time she’d tried to raise the topic, he’d muttered that he was fine.
Ryan was very far from fine. Marion stood at the window looking out blindly into the garden, wishing with all her heart that she could scoop the damaged little boy into her arms and take away his pain.
“Gran,” he said suddenly, startling her.
She spun round. Ryan was holding out his phone to her. For a heady moment, she thought he was ready to relinquish the little monster that seemed to dictate every moment of his life.
“Battery’s flat. Needs charging,” he said.
Marion waited.
“Please,” he added with ill grace. Sighing, she took the wretched thing and plugged in the charger, then turned brightly back to her grandson.
She checked her watch – 8.30, another hour until bedtime. In her day he would have been tucked up in bed, lights out, long before this.
But she had given up the battle on this subject, supposing that it just made life more difficult for Katie in the long run.
“So!” she said with forced cheer. “What would you like to do now? Shall we read one of those books you brought with you?”
“Telly,” Ryan replied, economical as ever.
“Really?”
Marion rapidly ran through in her mind what was on offer at this time on a Monday evening, and decided there was nothing she would feel comfortable watching with her grandson at her side.
There was only so much grimness, murder, misery and canned laughter she could stomach.
Just as she was debating fetching one of the books herself, there was a ping in the corner from the standard lamp and the lights went out. Ryan screamed. “Gran!” “It’ll be a tripped switch,” Marion said reassuringly.“that blessed fuse box blows every time a bulb goes. Sit tight.”
She felt her way over to the sideboard, fumbled in the drawer for matches and swiftly lit the candle she kept handy for just such an emergency.
She cursed the day she had allowed the electrician to persuade her into a full rewiring of the bungalow.
Shadows leaped on to the walls as the flame took hold. Ryan gave a little whimper; even in the gloom, she could see the terror in his eyes.
She turned off the torch. Moonlight cloaked the garden
“Now, now,” she soothed.“no need to be scared. I’ll get this sorted in a jiffy.”
She felt about in the drawer. Where was that blessed torch?
Then she remembered: she’d popped it in her bag the week before when she’d nipped down to the pillar box late one evening to post a belated birthday card.
Her bag was in the kitchen.
She picked up the candle. “Just got to fetch my torch. Won’t be a minute.”
She started to move towards the doorway, but Ryan grabbed her hand. “Don’t leave me in the dark!” She pulled him to his feet. “Come along, then, and we’ll go together. Mind yourself, though.”
She led the way into the kitchen at the front, pulling Ryan in her wake, located the torch and turned it on, then stopped abruptly by the sink.
“Hurry up, Gran,” Ryan begged. “Switch on the lights!”
She shushed him and put an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close.
“You daft happ’orth, there’s nothing to be frightened of. And nothing to be done, by the looks of it.”
She leaned over the sink and peered up and down the cul-de-sac. Not a light to be seen anywhere, save for the wavering flicker of candlelight in the few bungalows whose curtains remained open.
“It wasn’t that bulb or the fuse box, I reckon. The whole street’s out.”
The boy shivered at her side. “You mean we’re in the dark for ever?” His voice was scratchy with fear.
She hugged him tighter.
“Just until they fix the problem. I’m sure they’re working their socks off to get it sorted this very minute.” He buried his face in her jumper. “Don’t like it,” he mumbled. An image of Stanley came into her mind.
He had been a great one for coming up with distractions when disaster threatened.
“Tell you what,” she said, stroking the boy’s head.“let’s have a little adventure.”
He looked up at her suspiciously. “Adventure?”
Not for the first time Marion mourned the fact that Ryan had never got to meet his grandfather. Stanley would have known exactly how to handle him.
There had never been a creature, human or animal, that her sorely missed husband hadn’t been able to manage and charm.
She took hold of the boy’s hand. “Come on.”
She blew out the candle, despite the boy’s protests, and by torchlight they made their way to the back door.
Ryan tried to pull away as she opened it and stepped out into the garden, but she held on tight. He stumbled over the threshold to stand beside her.
She turned off the torch. Moonlight cloaked the garden in velvet, the leafless trees in silhouette swaying gracefully in the slight but chilly breeze.
A bat flitted low across the hedge and Ryan stiffened.
Marion put her arm around his shoulders.
“Look up,” she whispered. Timorously, the boy raised his head. She watched his face flower with wonder.
“Wow!” He pointed excitedly at the moon, full and clear in the night sky.“it’s so bright!”
“No light pollution,” Marion explained.“you wouldn’t be able to see the stars so clearly normally. There are some advantages to power cuts, you see.”
Ryan’s finger swung across the sky. “What’s that?”
One star shone diamond-bright, eclipsing all the others.
Marion racked her brains. The brightest star in the night sky . . .
“Sirius!” she cried in triumph, remembering.“the Dog Star, your grandad used to call it.”
“Doesn’t look anything like a dog!” Ryan scoffed. Marion noticed his muscles relaxing under her hand. “Why is it called that?”
“I can’t remember, but there are some books of your grandad’s somewhere; we could check. It’s not just white like most stars. It has little flashes of colour, like a rainbow.” Ryan squinted.
“It looks white to me. Oh, no, I see it! Maybe it’s not a star at all, Gran. It might be aliens signalling to us!”
“Wouldn’t that be something? Little green Martians, what d’you reckon?
“But I promise you, it is a star. Your grandad could have told you about it. You could have looked at it through his telescope.”
Ryan looked up at her. “A telescope? Cool.”
In the darkness, Marion smiled. What would Stanley have thought of being cool?
Puffing out his chest with pride, she’d bet.
“What happened to it? Gran? Gran!”
“Sorry, love?” She’d been miles away, lost in memories.
“Grandad’s telescope. What happened to it?”
“Oh.”
She thought for a moment, experiencing afresh the agonising weeks after Stanley’s death until she had finally felt strong enough to start disposing of his clothes, his shoes and the boxes of tools in the shed.
Katie had tried to persuade her to get rid of the telescope, her father’s most treasured possession.
“Let’s face it, Mum, astrology’s not exactly your thing, is it?”
“Astronomy,” Marion had corrected her.
She had stood firm for some reason, packing it up carefully and – now, where had she put it? Yes! Beside the wardrobe in the spare bedroom.
“It’s tucked away in your bedroom, love.”
Ryan’s head was still tipped upwards, eyes darting across the heavens.
“Can we have a go with it, Gran?” There was a pause for a millisecond, then he looked up at her, his eyes shining.“please?”
Marion went to take his hand. “Come on, then.”
“No, you go, I’ll stay out here.” Marion smiled in the dark.
“I’ll have to take the torch with me.”
“OK.” The little boy stood tall and fearless in the night.“i don’t mind.” “Be back in a tick.”
“And, Gran, see if you can find Grandad’s books, too, will you? Maybe we could look at them tomorrow.” A beat.“please?”
Picking her careful way by torchlight towards the bedroom, Marion paused.
“Thanks, my love,” she whispered to Stanley’s photo.
There was a long, long way to go, but she had a feeling she and Ryan had just taken the first faltering steps on the road to the future.