by Beth Corby
‘Or a trip to a spa?’ suggests Lauren hopefully.
I shake my head. ‘No, it’s stargazing.’
‘Interesting. Anything to factor in?’ asks Alec, ever practical.
I look down, realising I can’t explain about Donald’s feelings for Judith with Lauren here. ‘Not really.’
‘Well, that doesn’t sound too hard,’ says Lauren, turning to Alec. ‘Out in the dark, trying to spot Orion’s pants.’ She gives a deep-throated giggle, and Alex gives a small smile. I push down a flicker of annoyance on Donald’s behalf, but then Lauren’s sense of humour never did align with mine. ‘We should go tonight!’ she says suddenly. ‘Look at the sky – it’s completely clear, no clouds. And weren’t you saying, Alec, how you wanted to get through the tasks quickly?’ Lauren gives me a sly glance, and I can’t help but feel stung. Is he that desperate to get rid of me? ‘We could take hot chocolate,’ she adds, turning back to him.
‘I suppose we could go this evening,’ says Alec uncertainly, looking at me for a decision. We all look up at the sky. ‘I do know a good place, but we’d need to drive.’
‘I’ll drive,’ says Lauren predictably. ‘But we might need jumpers. You can lend me one, can’t you Alec?’
Alec’s still waiting for my answer, but I avoid his eyes, staring instead at Donald’s folded-up letter and wondering if Lauren coming along fits with what he would have wanted.
‘Do you want to go tonight?’ Alec asks, his voice soft, and I finally meet his eyes.
I shrug. ‘Let’s get it done,’ I say, surprised to see something flit across his face – irritation, annoyance at my lack of enthusiasm, sadness, hurt? I’m not quite sure which, since he’s anything but an open book.
‘OK, let’s leave at nine. I’ll bring hot chocolate,’ he says getting up, and strides up the steps with Lauren hard on his heels.
I stay where I am and stare at the view, wondering what he was thinking. Was he hoping to spend time alone with Lauren? If so, he should know that won’t happen on a task.
I try not to think too much about the evening ahead. Or Alec. Or Lauren. Donald chose me. That should be enough. But I can’t help hoping that Lauren needs to be back at work soon.
Chapter 18
Parking by a field gate, Lauren turns off the engine and she and Alec get out, leaving me to locate the lever and let myself out of the back. I look up at the night sky and stretch.
‘What a perfect spot,’ sighs Lauren. ‘So romantic.’ Since Alec has his head in the boot retrieving the plastic-backed picnic blanket, her comment is wasted on me.
Opening the gate, we set off up the hill, but we haven’t gone ten steps before Lauren stumbles, giving a little cry of distress. I offer her a hand, but she grabs Alec’s without asking and we set off again with them arm in arm. I follow them, trying not to feel like a third wheel on a bicycle made for two.
We reach the top, and I take in the rolling hills, dotted with farms and hamlets, patterned with field boundaries, and punctuated by dark patches of trees. Above us are a few scattered, wispy clouds sporting moonlit silver-linings. I think there’s a message there.
I turn around to see that Alec has laid out the picnic blanket and Lauren has already made herself comfortable and is lying right in the middle of it.
Alec stretches out on his back next to her. It feels odd joining them, but I need to see the sky, so I lie down on Lauren’s other side, crossing my ankles primly, and adjusting my position so that a hummock doesn’t dig into my kidneys.
‘The North Star,’ cries Lauren, startling me. ‘And the Big Dipper!’ she adds, pointing.
I stare up and try to get my bearings.
‘Ursa Minor,’ offers Alec.
‘Where?’ asks Lauren, shifting over to follow the line of his arm.
‘There – coming off Polaris. Your turn, Hannah.’
‘Milky Way.’ It’s a great stripe of stars across the sky. ‘And there’s a satellite,’ I add, pointing at the slow-moving dot of light.
‘That’s not fair, it’s my turn and you just had two,’ says Lauren reproachfully. There’s a long silence as Lauren scans the sky, making irritated little huffing sounds. I clamp my lips together, careful to keep anything else I spot for my turn. ‘I can’t see anything,’ she says finally. ‘Alec, do you see anything?’
‘Orion’s Belt?’ offers Alec quietly.
‘Well done!’ says Lauren. ‘So, I suppose I can have the rest of Orion?’ she asks, giving a flirtatious laugh and snuggling up to him. I wish I could see if he’s as keen to cuddle up to her, but I have a lot more room now, so I suppose that’s one positive. I make myself more comfortable, carefully ignoring what that means, and focus on the constellations – trying to pick one out.
‘Hannah, it’s your turn,’ says Alec after a few minutes.
‘Unless I’m allowed the moon, I haven’t got anything,’ I say.
‘I can’t help thinking we should know more constellations than that,’ says Alec after a while.
‘It is a bit disappointing,’ I agree.
‘Hang on.’ Lauren props herself up on her elbow and takes out her phone. She studies a webpage and reads out the descriptions of Cassiopeia, Canis Major and Taurus, and we all lie back again, waiting for our eyes to adjust.
I’m staring hard, desperate to spot them before Lauren . . . and then stop. What am I doing? This isn’t my task. My task is to understand how Donald felt stargazing with Judith, and imagine how blissful this might be with someone I love, not play pin-the-name-on-the-star with Lauren.
I stop searching the sky and let my eyes relax. I take in the magnificence of the cosmos wheeling above me, trying to comprehend the great depth between the stars, and remembering that the points of light are suns in their own right. I envisage the endless universe domed over me, travelling from the start to the end of time. It takes my breath away and yet, amazing as it seems, a few moments ago I was blind to it. I almost want to laugh at how utterly absurd that is. Maybe that’s part of what Donald wanted me to understand with this task: perspective.
‘Cassiopeia,’ shouts Lauren triumphantly.
Let her win the naming game – it isn’t important. I don’t even care that I’m marooned over here as they snuggle, because above me is infinity and beneath me is the entire planet Earth. I’m poised between the two, balanced. I almost want to hold someone’s hand in case I skitter off. I feel a pang of regret that I can’t, but I’m happy that Donald could.
I imagine his hand resting gently in Judith’s, the two of them lying there, staring up at the sky, excited by each other’s proximity in the privacy of darkness. There would have been no desperate competition to throw out names, just wonderment and then velvet, sensuous kissing against the extraordinary backdrop of the night’s sky. Perhaps even the sky disappeared in that all-encompassing moment as they only had eyes for each other—
‘Taurus!’ calls Alec on Lauren’s other side, then points out what he thinks might be Gemini, but they have to check on Lauren’s phone, and we’re all temporarily blinded.
As I wait for my night-vision to return, a quote from Oscar Wilde’s play Lady Windermere’s Fan – one of my favourites – comes to mind. ‘We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.’
A tiny streak of light zips across an inch of sky.
‘Shooting star!’ Alec and I call out together and laugh.
‘Make a wish,’ I add quietly.
‘I wish I weren’t so cold,’ complains Lauren, bringing us back to Earth with a definite bump.
‘Time for hot chocolate?’ suggests Alec, propping himself up on one elbow. Somewhere out in the darkness a fox gives an eerie yelp, and Lauren answers with a little cry. Even I shiver.
‘Definitely,’ says Lauren, and Alec gives us both a hand up. I fold the blanket, noticing that Lauren hasn’t let go of his hand, and she keeps a determined grasp on it all the way down. I follow at a discreet distance and, seeing another shooting star, make a very quiet w
ish of my own.
I’m lying on my bed fully clothed and reading, when there’s a tap on the door.
‘Come in!’ I call, expecting Lauren, but it’s Alec.
‘Next one,’ he says, holding up Donald’s letter. He puts it on the bed next to my brushed cotton pyjama bottoms and stares at them. I hope he isn’t comparing them with Lauren’s red nightdress.
‘Thanks,’ I say, leaning over to pick it up and disturbing his perusal of my pyjamas, but as I read Donald’s writing I feel a pang of unhappiness. ‘Task six already,’ I say sadly.
Alec looks at me questioningly.
‘I just wish we didn’t have to race through them so fast,’ I explain, watching closely for his reaction.
‘I know what you mean, but unfortunately, what with Mrs Jennings . . .’
‘We have to rush,’ I agree. ‘But I still want to do them justice.’ I wish I could explain how difficult this seems with Lauren tagging along.
Alec perches on the edge of my bed, his eyes searching mine, and I wonder if he can read my thoughts. ‘We could always go stargazing again sometime.’
I look down, discomfited by how much I want that. ‘After we’ve done some research – our knowledge of the constellations was woeful,’ I say, trying to inject some humour to hide that I’m imagining being out in the dark under the stars with him.
‘Yes,’ he says very quietly. ‘Perhaps we could go when there’s a meteor shower? It would be good to see that.’ He smiles, leaning just a tiny bit closer, and I can feel the air crackling between us.
The hall floor creaks, and the moment, like a fairytale glass slipper, shatters into a thousand pieces. I look down, almost hating him for casting the spell.
‘Goodnight,’ I say firmly, and give him a nod of dismissal.
He stares at me for an uncomfortably long moment, a crease forming between his brows, then sighing, he gets up. ‘Goodnight, Hannah,’ he says, and as he opens my door, I catch a glimpse of Lauren dressed in a cream lace negligée. How much sexy nightwear has she packed?
‘Are you coming to say goodnight to me, too?’ she asks Alec.
‘I wasn’t really saying goodnight to Hannah, just giving her the next task.’ Why is he trying so hard to reassure her? ‘Goodnight, Hannah,’ he says again, and closes the door.
I sit very still for a few minutes, then I sit down at the desk and pick up my pen, hoping to recapture the sense of wonder that assailed me when I was lying beneath the stars. But only words like ‘idiot’, ‘fool’ and ‘dickhead’ spring to mind. I sigh and put down my pen, giving it up as a bad job for tonight. I slowly change into my pyjamas. Taking my toothbrush and toothpaste, I open the door into the hall and stop dead. Lauren has her arms wrapped around Alec’s neck and she’s kissing him. Alec has his back to me, but he’s not pushing her away.
Everything slows down and my heart stops. The door knocks against the wall behind me, acting like the play button on a movie and everything starts up again. Alec flinches from Lauren and turns to stare at me, Lauren smiles triumphantly and I turn on my heel, closing my door quietly behind me.
I stand with my back to it, staring up at the pendant light and struggling to breathe.
Someone knocks on the other side, and I move to perch on the bed. There’s a giggle from Lauren and, unable to get enough air, I transfer my attention to the floor. It almost feels like I’ve been winded.
‘Hannah?’ calls Alec, and knocks again.
‘Good night,’ I force out. ‘I’m going to sleep now!’ There’s a long silence and then the floor creaks as they walk away.
Left on my own, I count to slow down my breathing. It was just the shock, I think, because though I guessed they were having some sort of fling, or relationship, or whatever, I’m coming to realise that knowing is very different from suspecting. Apart from anything else, knowing seems to involve nausea and light-headedness.
Donald’s letter crinkles under my hand and I look down, still seeing Lauren wrapped around Alec as if it’s imprinted on my retina. I blink away the image and pick up the envelope. Wasn’t I desperate to find out what happened to Judith? Wasn’t I curious to know why they didn’t end up together? I climb into bed and struggle to get the letter out of its envelope. Then I take a deep, steadying breath, and start.
My Dearest Hannah,
Did you feel it? Did you feel the stillness, the beauty and the enchantment? Did you sense the universe revolving quietly around you, and feel yourself being tugged gently back towards the Earth’s core? Did you see more stars than you have ever seen in your life? Was it amazing?
If so, I’m glad.
If not, don’t worry. Perhaps the weather wasn’t good, or maybe my feelings for Judith heightened it all. Love changes everything. I’m told artists chase that view of the world via mind-altering drugs, and having experienced it, I can see why. So while Judith did it for me, I have no doubt someone will do the same for you. So promise me that, when you do fall in love, you will take them stargazing. And for now, at least, you have a baseline from which to understand the difference someone as important as Judith can make to how you see the world.
Back to my history. After that day at the river, Judith became my entire world. I spent my days working like an automaton in my father’s shop, which sold everything from tools and hardware to material, ribbons and cotton, and I spent every other waking moment I could with Judith. We had to meet in secret because our parents wouldn’t approve – her family being higher up the social scale than mine and Judith being older. But these matters didn’t bother us. We lived for the moments we were together, which were wonderful and precious.
Inevitably, our time together never seemed enough, and we began to take greater risks. Then, one day, Betty and her friends saw us. I’m guessing we were in the distance, as I never saw her, but she recognised us and told her friends. That night she teased me at the dinner table right in front of our parents, and in a moment of pure malice, revealed I was seeing Judith. I remember Betty drinking in their shock and dismay, and languishing in my horror.
‘Betty. Room. Now!’ growled my father, and Betty swaggered out.
She knew I was in trouble, but I often wonder if she knew how much. You see, from my parents’ perspective, I was committing social suicide, not just for myself, but for our whole family. Judith’s family were considered high ranking in the village, and were good customers, too. They received deferential, almost reverential, treatment from the rest of the community, and they expected Judith, their only child, to marry well. I wasn’t even on their radar for her, and if I ruined Judith’s reputation, her parents would bury mine.
I know that now, but at the time I could see only how unfair they were being. I told them they underestimated my feelings, and I ranted at them for not believing I was good enough for Judith. I told them Judith and I would rather die than be separated (very Romeo and Juliet), and they went very quiet, and sent me to bed so they could discuss our fate.
It was an hour later that my mother came up and sat on the end of my bed. She told me our best hope was to try and contain the matter. In her words, they had to ‘nip it in the bud’, before the matter became known. They hoped to ‘sweep it under the carpet’ and never speak of it. After she left, I lay in the darkness, furious and bewildered.
But Betty had told her friends, and they had told their families, and by the next morning the whole village knew that Judith was seeing the shopkeeper’s son. Nothing could keep a lid on the story and my parents decided we had to brazen it out. I was made to work in the shop that day, with my father saying it was better if they got the gossip out of their system. It was awful. I watched the clock, playing the part of the dutiful well-turned-out son, being meticulously polite and carefully deaf to everyone’s comments. I held my temper and worked quietly until I could escape to meet Judith.
I had to talk to her. I had to tell her what they were going to try to do. I rushed to the river, terrified her parents wouldn’t let her come. I was overjoyed wh
en I saw her waiting for me by the water. I ran and held her tightly in my arms, but after a moment, I realised her arms had not wrapped around me. I let go and stared at her.
‘Secret’s out,’ she said, smiling regretfully.
‘Betty saw us,’ I told her.
Her face showed a flicker of annoyance, almost pain, and then she shook it off, like a horse shaking off a fly. ‘It couldn’t last. It was only a summer fling,’ she said, smiling once again.
I still remember the shock as her words hit me – ‘summer fling’. In that moment I understood that I had simply been her bit of rough, or whatever posh households call it, and her resignation told me that, while I had cherished images of us growing old together, she had always known she would marry someone else. In a ridiculous turnabout, I was her childish thing to put away. She would now grow up and marry someone else, while I stayed by the river.
‘But I love you,’ I said – one of the few times I have ever used those words – and she petted me like a dog.
‘They said I could come and say goodbye, but now we have to move on, do as we were intended.’ I listened as her parents’ words poured from her mouth. ‘It’s over.’
I tried to stay upright as I realised she had no intention of fighting for us; she had no thoughts of us running away together. It was just over, as she had always known it would be.
She kissed me one last time and I stood, frozen, as she walked away. She never looked back. I have since wondered whether she was crying, but at the time I thought she was as hard as nails and I almost hated her. Almost.
After that, life had to return to some semblance of normality. I went back to working in the shop. She went back to her life. Her parents steered clear of us, never using our shop, and no one mentioned that we had ever been so much as friends. It was painful, but I continued to work, though now I did so like a machine. I read in my spare time and walked a lot on my own. I thought of her, but never sought out news about her, as each new piece of information was a penetrating wound.