Call Me Star Girl Read online

  Call Me Star Girl

  Louise Beech

  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  EPIGRAPH

  1 STELLA

  2 STELLA

  3 STELLA

  4 STELLA

  5 ELIZABETH

  6 STELLA

  7 STELLA

  8 STELLA

  9 ELIZABETH

  10 STELLA

  11 STELLA

  12 STELLA

  13 ELIZABETH

  14 STELLA

  15 STELLA

  16 STELLA

  17 STELLA

  18 STELLA

  19 ELIZABETH

  20 STELLA

  21 STELLA

  22 STELLA

  23 STELLA

  24 ELIZABETH

  25 STELLA

  26 STELLA

  27 ELIZABETH

  28 STELLA

  29 STELLA

  30 ELIZABETH

  31 STELLA

  32 STELLA

  33 ELIZABETH

  34 STELLA

  35 ELIZABETH

  36 STELLA

  37 STELLA

  38 ELIZABETH

  39 STELLA

  40 STELLA

  41 STELLA

  42 ELIZABETH

  43 ELIZABETH

  44 BOB FRACKLEHURST

  45 ELIZABETH

  46 BOB FRACKLEHURST

  47 ELIZABETH

  48 BOB FRACKLEHURST

  49 ELIZABETH

  50 ELIZABETH

  51 STAR GIRL

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  COPYRIGHT

  This book is dedicated to Granny Kath.

  When I got pregnant at nineteen you cried because you wanted me to ‘go places’. It took years and years to ‘go someplace’ and get a book deal, but I finally did it.

  ALSO

  Tyler Benjamin Washbrook-Reynolds

  12th August 2017–29th August 2017

  A Star Boy now.

  ‘Look up at the stars, not down at your feet.’

  Stephen Hawking

  ‘It’s good to have darkness, because when the light comes, it’s that much better.’

  Abel Tesfaye (The Weeknd), about his album Starboy

  1

  STELLA

  THEN

  Before they found the girl in the alley, I found a book in the foyer at work.

  The girl would be found dead, her neck bloody, her body covered with a red coat, and with no obvious clues as to who had left her that way. The book was brand new, unopened, wrapped in brown paper, and had a single clue as to who had left it there.

  A note inside the first page:

  Stella, this will tell you everything.

  After I had picked up the package, unwrapped it carefully and read those words, I looked around the silent radio station, nervous. I’d been about to leave after my show; about to turn off the last light. The nights can be lonely there with just you and the music, and an audience you can’t see. Between songs and commercials, every sound seems to echo along the empty corridors. Every shadow flickers under the cheap fluorescent lights. I don’t scare easily – if anything I love the isolation, the thrill of doing things no one can see – but the book being on that foyer table, where it hadn’t been an hour ago, unnerved me.

  Because no one had been in the building since the start of my show.

  I looked at the front cover, all smoke greys and silvers; intriguing. The man’s face – half in shadow, half in light – was an interesting one. The eye that was visible was intense – its eyebrow arched, villain-like; and the damp hair was slicked back. The title said Harland: The Man, The Movie, The Madness.

  It was Harland Grey. I vaguely remembered the name from news stories. A murderer. Hadn’t he killed a girl on camera, in a movie? Yes. When she disappeared, no one even realised the last scene she filmed had been her death, at the hands of Grey in a cameo as her killer.

  I read the blurb, standing alone in the foyer, but it told me little more than I already knew.

  What did it mean? Who the hell had left it there?

  Why?

  Stella, this will tell you everything.

  Presenters often receive weird things in the post, but someone had been in the building and delivered this by hand. Tonight. How had they got in? I hadn’t heard the door slam. You need a code to enter the building. Maybe it was just one of the other presenters messing around? But why would they?

  The lights buzzed and flickered. I held my breath. Exhaled when they settled. I would not be spooked by a trickster.

  Stella, this will tell you everything.

  How did they know what I wanted to know?

  What was everything?

  I opened the main door, book held tight to my hammering chest. The carpark was empty, a weed-logged expanse edged with dying trees. It’s always quiet at this hour of the night. I waited, not sure what I expected to happen – maybe some stranger loitering, hunched over and menacing. They would not scare me.

  ‘I’m not afraid,’ I said aloud.

  Who was I trying to convince?

  I set off for home. I usually walk, enjoying the night air after a stuffy studio. I’m not sure why – though now it seems profound – but I paused at the alley that separates the allotment from the Fortune Bingo hall. Bramble bushes tangle there like sweet barbed wire. It’s a long but narrow cut-through that kids ride their bikes too fast along and drunks stagger down when the pub shuts. I rarely walk down there, even though it would make my journey home quicker. The place disturbs me, so I always hurry past, take the long way around, without glancing into the shadows.

  I did that night too.

  But I looked back. Just once, the strange book pressed against my chest.

  It was two weeks before they found the girl there.

  Two weeks before I started getting the phone calls.

  I didn’t know any of that then. If I had, I might have walked a little faster.

  2

  STELLA

  NOW

  People listen to music in their cars, in kitchens, in bed, in the bath, at work, and it takes them somewhere else. A familiar tune might return them to the day they first heard it; to a lover who thrilled them beyond words, to a reunion; to a night when their whole life changed.

  I play these songs for people; you could say I play their lives. But tonight is the last time I ever will. It’s my final Stella McKeever Show. I began by telling listeners what they could expect for the next three hours. I didn’t tell them I was leaving though.

  Instead I said, ‘Tonight I want to hear your secrets.’

  I felt devilish. I felt like having some fun, mixing things up. I imagine that what I said came as a surprise to my listeners. It did to me. My late-night audience usually get a variety of hits from all decades, dull requests and tame discussion.

  ‘That’s the theme tonight,’ I said, and then I listed all the ways they could contact me. ‘Don’t be shy. I’ll keep it anonymous. But I’d love to talk about all the things we don’t usually mention…’

  Now I’m fifteen minutes into the show and I’m restless. No one has been in touch yet. Rihanna’s voice fills the studio. I push my wheeled chair away from the desk, shove the microphone towards the mixer and close my eyes.

  My sandwiches have curled already and smell warm; the unappetising odour joins the dusty hum of heat from the equipment. The coffee I bought half an hour ago is so cold its aroma has died.

  I’m alone in the WLCR (We Love Community Radio) building. It’s just me until Stephen Sainty arrives before midnight to read the news. I run repeats from his noon bulletin on the hour. Social media means information gets old fast. Community radio can’t compete with up-to-the
-minute tweets, though it’s rare our mostly older listeners object to the reheated news. Maybe they like the safety of information that only changes twice a day.

  Sometimes I lock the studio door. Most female presenters do on late shifts. They do it to feel safe. I turn the key to put up an impenetrable barrier between the world and me. Gilly Morgan, who does the 3am insomniac slot, said that at least if a killer somehow got in the building he couldn’t get in here because the door is so thick. And by the time he’d figured out a way in, she’d have called the police, her boyfriend, and her mum. Maeve Lynch, the Irish beauty who presents the Late-Night Love Affair between 1 and 3am, said she’d just call the police.

  I’d call my boyfriend, Tom.

  But tonight, I’ve left the studio door open. What’s supposed to happen will happen. I’m not afraid. If I say it enough, it will be true. I know the girls would say I’m reckless, that there’s a killer out there. They’d say, ‘Think of that poor girl in the alley.’ I am; I have. It’s hard not to when I hear the news every hour, her name every evening. But I’ve always believed that if something’s going to happen it will, lock or no lock.

  Someone has been waiting for me after work. For weeks now. Since I found the Harland Grey book but before the girl in the alley was killed. It’s not every night. Usually a Tuesday and a Friday, when I finish just after one. He – it could be a she, I suppose, but it looks like a man – is waiting near the tree in the carpark, hood pulled over head. He pretends to be on his phone, and never looks at me.

  The first time, I went back into the building, locked the door and called Tom to come and walk me home. Since then I’ve shouted, ‘I see you there! I’ve got a key that could cut you up a treat!’ Once I cried, ‘Did you get in here, leave me a book?’ But he disappeared.

  I’m sure I’ve sensed someone following me home a few times. When I turn there’s no one there. I sometimes think I hear a voice, but strangely it’s soft and not very male-sounding. Stella, it says. What are you trying to escape from? Then I refuse to walk faster, to let anyone scare me, even though my feet are itching to run, thrilled that I might be chased.

  I shiver.

  The cool draught from the open door reminds me of Tom’s breath when he puts an ice cube in his mouth and blows on my skin. I close my eyes, imagine it softly clinking against his teeth, his low curse at the chill, my whispery yes. I run a hand over my neck as though it is his. How easily he wanders into my thoughts. How fast my body responds.

  I open my eyes and check emails to distract myself. My heart mimics the drumbeat of the song that’s playing. My hand waits; it knows instinctively where to go when the song dies. I think I’d be able to do my show in the dark. I’d be able to play the reheated news on the hour.

  I remember the headlines the night my show first started. A new factory meant hundreds of jobs. Football fans celebrated a big win. Nightclub shut after massive blaze. Police questioned teacher about missing schoolboy. And there were no new leads on the dead girl. It’s been three weeks since they found her in that alley, and still mostly speculation.

  I check my phone for messages.

  Nothing.

  Then I play ‘A Whiter Shade of Pale’ for Buddy because it’s Friday. Buddy is a sixty-two-year-old man who rings every week and requests the song for his wife, Elma. She died six years ago. During one call, he told me they slow-danced for the first time to this song; that he held her so tightly she coughed for five minutes after. They were married thirty-five years.

  How do people manage it? What’s their secret? Do they still tear one another’s clothes off?

  I slide the microphone fader up and tell the world this one’s for Buddy and his beloved wife. Then I stare at the wall. It’s pale green, chipped where old posters were once tacked, with faded, picture-shaped squares. On a board are photos of Christmas nights out, our trips to the races, interviews with Z-list local celebrities and politicians. I’ve looked at them so many times that our smiles look tired.

  I stand, stretch, my socked feet sinking into the carpet. Radio studios need low noise levels and a high standard of acoustic isolation, so the carpet is fat, the walls thick and the ceiling corked. We’re small, can’t afford the best, but we make do; we improvise. A tiny window allows light in during the day, something I rarely see on my shift.

  Instead, I’ve only the stars.

  Suddenly, the phone illuminates the studio with supernatural sparks. They don’t ring aloud here; they flash blue like tiny immobile police cars. This is in case a listener calls while a presenter is talking live. They ring so infrequently now, once or twice during my three-hour show, that I wonder why anyone bothers muting them at all.

  I sit back down and answer the phone. It’s a woman called Chloe. I know her; not in a relationship sense of knowing, but because I spoke to her twice this month and once the previous month. Each time she couldn’t sleep and wanted ‘that song about Van Gogh’. I have six minutes to speak with her before the record and following batch of commercials finish and I must talk to our listeners again.

  Tonight she says, ‘I keep thinking about the girl they found in the alley.’

  I wonder if she’s going to request a song for her.

  ‘I suppose people get nervous when things like that happen so close to where they live,’ I say.

  ‘Maybe.’ Chloe pauses. ‘Makes you scared to go out alone. It was three weeks ago, wasn’t it, but you still wonder if the killer will strike again. Is he biding his time? I carry an alarm with me now and always let my husband know where I’m going.’

  ‘Understandable,’ I say.

  ‘They said in the paper that it was personal. How did they know that? Because of stuff we don’t know? And surely murder is always personal? Even a serial killer has feelings about what he does.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  ‘I don’t know why your newsreader, that Stephen Thingy, reports the details so coldly,’ she snaps suddenly. ‘He sounds like he’s just talking about the weather or what’s coming up later.’

  As well as reading the news, Stephen Sainty runs the station, and he does it closely, often messaging during our shows to tell us what is or isn’t working.

  ‘I don’t think it’s that he doesn’t care,’ I say. ‘He reads things like that every day. In large doses tragedy is mundane.’ I suppose I sound cold too, but the things we say are not always what we feel. The mouth doesn’t always follow the heart. ‘If he gets too upset he won’t be able to do his job. He won’t be able to be objective and give us the news fairly.’

  ‘I suppose.’ She doesn’t sound convinced.

  ‘Did you want me to tell him?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘That his tone is cold.’

  ‘Oh, no, don’t do that. I was only thinking aloud.’

  ‘“Vincent”?’ I ask her.

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘The song. About Van Gogh. Should I play it?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ she says. ‘Tonight, play it for the poor girl in the alley. Say you’re playing it for Vicky, because no one says her name like that. They either say her full name or call her the girl.’

  ‘And how about your secret?’ I ask.

  She pauses.

  ‘Weren’t you listening earlier?’

  She hangs up. I line up her song for later.

  I’m not a big talker. Friends ask why I work in radio, and I tell them it’s about listening a lot of the time; listening for the beats, to the tunes, to the in-betweens, with the people, in the dark. Listening to the backing vocals in a song to find clues in those blended words. Listening to and counting the chorus repeats, timing the end of one song and the start of another. Talking on the radio isn’t the same as chatting with friends, family or a boyfriend. Even though I’m entertaining listeners, I’m talking to myself.

  Tonight, I imagine locking the studio door and saying aloud all the things that never normally leave my mouth. Tell them, Stella. These words come to me and I’m not even sure they’re mine. I fr
own. Then I picture shocking our sleepy audience, inciting a barrage of complaints, then someone unplugging the power because I won’t stop. I feel anxious, as if I just might do that. I’ve been anxious for weeks.

  So much has happened.

  And it’s my last show; they can’t sack me.

  There’s too much time during the songs to think. I slide the microphone fader up and tell listeners they can expect the weather sponsored by Graham’s Haemorrhoid Cream in five minutes, followed by a classic from The Beatles, then ‘Vincent’, and that Maeve Lynch will be here later with some songs for all the lovers out there. And in the meantime, if they have anything at all they want to reveal, they can call the usual number.

  ‘Come on,’ I say, ‘you can tell me anything. You don’t have to give me your name. And just to be fair, I’ll share something no one knows about me every half hour.’ I pause. ‘How about this?’ I pause again. ‘Tonight’s my final show.’ I wait to feel sad about it, but it doesn’t happen. ‘Yes, my very last one; so how about calling in and making it extra special…’

  Then I play the music.

  I nibble on my warm sandwich but can’t finish it. I should make fresh coffee; there’s time, but I never drink it all. I’ll make a pot before Maeve arrives for the Late-Night Love Affair. I often wonder why love songs are given precedence in a late-night slot. Is romance only for the hard of sleeping, the owls? What if someone is frisky at breakfast? Sentimental at lunch?

  I think of Tom again.

  He’s never far from my thoughts, like he’s standing behind an open door in my head, ready to leap on me every time I close my eyes. Once, when neither of us could sleep, he asked what I was doing in 1991. I reminded him that I was hardly born, that for some of the year I resided in my mother’s womb, lying crossways, according to her grumble about my stretching her in all the wrong places. Tom lit a cigarette as we talked, and I took a long drag and asked what he was doing in 1991. Why was he interested in that year, since he’d only been two then?