Just wondering where we should go next, she says.
He doesn’t believe her. She was hardly listening to the man talking about the castle and when he got ice cream on his face she didn’t even notice. He had to wipe it off on his sleeve, and he doesn’t like doing that.
Let’s sit down in the gardens, she says; the gardens used to be a loch in the middle of the city. That used to be where they dunked witches, she says, and then she stops talking suddenly.
Is that a story you’re not supposed to tell a child? he says, and his mama looks surprised and maybe a little bit like she’s going to laugh.
I’m going to tell you a secret now, she says.
His eyes widen.
OK.
My granny told me when I was little, she says. And now I’m going to tell you.
François doesn’t believe in Father Christmas any more. He doesn’t believe in magic either; he is eight years old! So he scrunches up his nose at his mama’s story of ghosts, and waits for her to tell him the real truth.
Well, you were named after your great-great-grandpa Paul-François, she says, do you believe that much?
Of course, he says, I’ve seen a photo of him, so I know that he was real. He’s just dead now.
And of course that’s when Great-Grandpa Paul-François decides to appear.
We need to talk, he says, fading in and out of vision.
Severine shakes her head.
I know, not now. Later. In the night. We can’t stay long here. It’s too far . . .
He’s gone again.
Severine frowns.
The bagpipe player starts up again, and François clasps his hands over his ears and squeals. Shouting over the noise, he says, you know, Mama, there’s no such thing as witches, and there’s no such thing as ghosts.
IN THE FIRST SECONDS AFTER Róisín wakes she doesn’t know where she is, and she loves it. She looks over to the curtains – red and gold, thinner than expected – up to the ceiling with its ornate plasterwork and old-fashioned charm. Voices, traffic, laughter, unexpected sunshine. Her flatmate is making coffee. She knocks; passes it in.
Skies look clear, she says. You’re going up to the observatory tonight?
Tammy sits cross-legged on the floor as they chat. She is studying French and Spanish; says it means she can live in pretty much any continent of the world.
But after she’s left the flat and Róisín is on her own again Liam appears in her mind; every morning there is this moment, the flash of a different life, his face the last time she saw him, the shadow beneath his eyes, before he is brushed away. The sea is keeping them apart, the distance. It’s for the best. She did the right thing; she’s out in the world.
She rolls onto her side, decides not to get up just yet.
She doesn’t have to work today. The party is planned for this evening.
The predictions are for the comet to explode in the atmosphere of Jupiter, in the early hours of the morning. A comet this size, colliding with a planet; it’s the stuff of Armageddon.
That is what she wants to see, in her life. The power of something extraordinary.
Eventually she pulls on leggings and a jumper; changes the jumper for a T-shirt when she looks out of the window.
Below her flat there are people on the street, some waiting at the bus stop, others walking past the grocer’s on the corner. A mother and son, hand in hand, are standing by the flowers and vegetables on display outside. She pushes open the window and French voices reach her on the air; she almost calls out to them before she catches herself – people in Edinburgh don’t wave to strangers the way people in the country do. Still, the sun in Scotland can make people do unexpected things.
She checks the news on her computer for any preliminary observations. Nothing from NASA so far, just promises that the best is yet to come.
She closes the window; the people below have moved away. It makes her feel strangely alone.
Róisín decides to climb the hill a bit later than the others; she knows they’re all going to be there together, at the observatory, and she feels like making her own separate entrance. She takes her time with the day, letting the anticipation build as she does some washing, as she listens to a radio play, as she thinks about phoning her mum but doesn’t lift the receiver to make the call. Simple everyday things on a day that is not everyday, on a day that is once in a lifetime.
Patience.
Another hour slips by; the comet will know it cannot escape now, will be feeling the rush of the outer atmosphere as it edges closer to its fate.
She paces her flat, pulls on her shoes.
It is nearly time for sunset.
In orbit, telescopes orient themselves towards the stormy gas giant; in deserts, on mountains, terrestrial observatories prepare to record the collision in all wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. There have been great comets before, but this is something special. Earth knows it, for once; the planet is at a safe distance, but it knows where to look, and it’s learning how to wait.
Róisín is learning to wait, too; she’s trying to stop cheating, to stop expecting something new to feel as powerful as something old. Things with Liam, they couldn’t be the same; that couldn’t continue, not as adults, not when they had lives to lead. A secret like that would fester.
And so she’s gone home, twice a year, like she promised; has visited on Boxing Day and called in to the farm each summer, and they have gone back to being cousins, if not best friends – they are a long way from that. But cousins is something. Cousins is what it should be.
She shakes her head. Pulls on her coat, grabs a hat from by the door. It could be chilly, on the hill.
Tonight, Róisín will wait all night if she has to, for that perfect moment of destruction when the comet will split and burst, crash through the atmosphere and turn from ice to fire.
Some people say that comets seed life on lifeless planets. That will not happen today; nothing can survive on Jupiter, not even ice and dust and rock.
When she arrives, Sam is already there; he glances at her as she walks from the stairs to join the group, his eyes lingering a second longer than if there was nothing to say.
How’s it looking? she asks.
Clear night, he says.
There are several other postdocs there, PhD students and one of the junior lecturers leaning over the computer’s keyboard. We should get some good measurements from here, he says without looking up.
Róisín thinks about saying she is more interested in the view, then realises how unscientific she sounds.
Sam turns away.
Róisín thinks about Liam, then promises herself she will stop.
Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 was trapped a long time ago, caught in orbit around Jupiter, never able to break free from the storms. Some planets collect comets, shielding the smaller fragile worlds from their impacts; that is what Jupiter does for Earth. It’s a comet catcher. The solar system’s best line of defence. You have to forgive its toxic atmosphere and raging hurricanes, when you know what it does. Jupiter is a self-sacrificing sort of a king.
Róisín’s memories come to her uninvited; she is looking through the telescope, focused on Jupiter’s southern hemisphere, and she is thinking about the touch of his stubble on her chin; the taste of his skin where she once licked fresh water from the crease inside his elbow; the way his thumb brushed her lips outside the school gate.
Sam has fuller lips, is capable of growing a far thicker beard, and wears glasses that accentuate his eyes. There is nothing unpleasant about him.
Sometimes Róisín feels the lack of love so acutely her eyes burn.
Someone has brought a bottle of wine, someone else some crisps and chocolate. Snacks fit for a children’s party and drinks for an eighteenth birthday. They’ve planned to stay here for the night. They’re going to watch the collision in the observatory and then go outside, drink and play music and spend a night on Blackford Hill.
Not just one bottle of wine: ma
ny. They’ve all brought at least one, some more. Someone has whisky. Someone, peach schnapps. They started with little plastic cups but soon they are taking swigs out of bottles.
The sky is black at first but after enough wine they can see it as purple, turquoise; a deep glowing blue that’s filled with something more than darkness.
It’s ready, someone says.
They cluster around the telescope, wanting to see with their own eyes; the computer display is inadequate for the mood they want to capture.
Sam looks at Róisín, steps back from the crowd.
They see a burst of golden-yellow red, a bright fireball igniting within the atmosphere of the gas giant. The comet has fractured into pieces, and this is the first of them, the bravest, letting go of its orbit and agreeing to burn. It lasts for a while; there is nothing immediate about this particular form of ending. It is not the miracle she was expecting.
Róisín looks through the eye of the telescope, imagines Liam doing the same. His binoculars made a quiet thud on the ground, the last time he saw a comet. He was angry. Perhaps he still is. That must be why he won’t hold her gaze.
She feels a hand on her shoulder; someone takes her wrist.
Come outside, Sam says.
They step out into the dark, stumble along the muddy path and over the crest of the hill.
SEVERINE IS WOKEN UP BY a terrible pain in her stomach. Something has happened, and she’s no idea what it is, but it feels like something in her is breaking apart, something that should be whole is fracturing into pieces.
Didn’t you realise? says Great-Grandpa Paul-François. He looks different, diminished. If you want to see us, there are conditions, he says. Your granny told you.
Severine clutches her stomach and her eyes close over.
She had lost consciousness, but she wakes again and a different ghost is there: Brigitte is standing at the foot of the bed. There are burns on her arms and legs; her skin is a raw mess of blackened wounds.
What are you doing here? Brigitte says.
Severine doesn’t reply; she mustn’t wake François, he must never see this, feel this horror.
Did we not make it clear that you have to stay in Bayeux? Otherwise we can’t . . .
She remembers her granny’s voice, her words from years ago.
But, surely, only when there’s a comet in—
All the time.
Always? Severine thinks of all the places she wants to see, of the continents she has never visited, of the landscapes she wants to show François. She can’t give that up.
She sits up higher in the bed, looks to the window and remembers; was there something on the news about a comet?
I’ll go wherever I want, she starts to say, but when she looks back, the room is empty.
François is asleep, but Severine is wide awake now and her mind is racing.
To demand that she stay in Bayeux – it is ridiculous. They can’t send burning strangers to threaten her into giving up her own life. She wanted to see her granny again but she never agreed to angry women appearing in her hotel room at night.
In the corner shadows Great-Grandpa Paul-François has come to check that she is OK. It is difficult for them to appear this far from Bayeux, it takes a force of will and uses up too much of their energy – they can’t stay for long.
See that? Severine’s granny says, shimmering in beside the bedside cabinet. She’s missed the comet – she didn’t even look through the binoculars.
She didn’t miss anything, you daft old woman, he says. She felt it; I know she did.
We felt it. But not Severine, she’s strayed too far. Her heart is . . .
She understood.
She’ll be too late getting home now. We have to go.
It’ll be different next time.
What if she stops wanting to see us?
Don’t fret, he says, she won’t stop. And besides, would that be the worst thing? You don’t need to see something, to know that it’s there.
LIAM LIGHTS CANDLES, SETS THE table before she arrives. He can hear Rachel’s car approach. The farm is the only thing for miles, her car the only car.
And yet he waits for her to ring the bell, not wanting to seem too keen or too in need of company.
The bell doesn’t ring.
A minute later he hears a knocking on the back door that leads into the kitchen.
He looks up, expects to see Róisín smiling at him through the dappled glass of the door. But it is not Róisín. Of course it is not Róisín. It hasn’t been Róisín for years.
She has brought a bottle of expensive wine with her. The sight of it makes him feel more empty than he can say.
So instead he says, thank you.
She seems to find his formality endearing.
Lipsticked lips are pressed to his own; they miss slightly. He spends the evening with a smudge of maroon to the left of his mouth.
He fumbles with the buttons on Rachel’s shirt, aware that he is being clumsy because he is self-conscious. He knows this is something he could stop; he’s not even sure why he’s still going.
Let’s go outside, she says. He wonders if she’s remembered his dad lives with him.
He nods OK; he prefers to be outside anyway. They go out through the back door from the kitchen, walk towards the old barn then turn left, towards the river instead.
Here’s grand, she says.
He stops, surprised. It would be a nice view, he supposes, if there were light enough to see by.
She’s brought a blanket he didn’t even know he had. He guesses it would spoil the allure if he asked where she found it.
She’s laying it out on the ground.
Her name is Rachel. So different from Róisín; so close that it makes him ache.
Rachel’s lips explore his body; he feels like he’s watching it happen even though his eyes are closed. He imagines himself as a younger man, a teenager, understanding for the first time what certain words mean; amo, amas, amat, he whispers.
What?
He doesn’t reply. He thinks about asking her to stop.
When he opens his eyes he finds himself by the riverbank; he doesn’t remember how he got here, only that he had walked through the dark in search of something that he couldn’t find. And there beside him, Rachel’s face is of concern, an earnest desire to help.
Liam, are you OK?
He almost laughs at the absurdity of the question: of course he is not OK. He stopped halfway through; mumbled that he couldn’t focus, that he needed to go and see the river – the real question is what’s she still doing here?
Maybe I could help, she says. If you tell me . . .
He just wants it to stop. Wants her sweet, genuine eyes to turn to frustration, her bare legs to walk away – he’s not sure what happened to her tights, but her legs are now bare beneath her pleated skirt, which stirs a memory in his mind.
Your skirt, he says, and she smiles, not expecting a compliment but taking it as one anyway.
This is a man she would quite like to save from his demons. She’s not sure what they are yet, but even at school, as teenagers, she could tell there was something. Why don’t we sit down here, she says, by the river.
He does as he is told; feels a step closer to Róisín and feels an emotion he had forgotten.
I’m surprised you’re still here, he says.
She reaches in for a kiss then gives him a smile.
Sure and we can take all the time you need, she says.
He feels ashamed; thinks of another time, another body. Undoes her skirt.
THE OTHERS FOLLOW RÓISÍN AND Sam outside; they are not alone, they are all on the hillside looking out at the sky, looking down at the city.
Sam whispers something in her ear. She doesn’t catch the words.
There is laughter behind them, another bottle opened.
I want to be barefoot! someone cries, finding themselves hilarious. I want to feel the mud between my toes!
Over here, Sam whisp
ers, leading her away. Beyond the crest of the hill there’s a view down to the river, away from the lights of the city. She likes the fact that it’s too dark to see his smile. Liam didn’t smile all the time; there was something serious in his eyes. Something that made her need more.
Sam is sitting down, pulling her down too.
Come here, gorgeous.
She cringes; imagines a different man, a different moment. She’s not even sure why she’s doing it, but she doesn’t really have the energy to stop.
He’s laughing now; his eyes are aglow with a perceived danger, a sense that they are doing something forbidden. Róisín wonders if her heart should be racing, if she should be looking over her shoulder to check that they are alone, if her breaths should mirror the risk they are taking, but instead she closes her eyes and imagines herself in a childhood hut with no notion of danger, with no sense that they could be discovered. For her, exhilaration comes from something else; it’s nothing to do with love being forbidden.
She finds she is crying, and is so embarrassed she has to pretend she’s had an overwhelmingly good time.
I didn’t hurt you, did I? he asks.
It’s so ludicrous her tears are masked by laughter.
Of course not, she smiles, giggles. It was grand.
In a quieter moment, later, she’ll remember the sound of that fake laughter and feel ashamed. But, for now, she doesn’t have time to reflect on it because the others are shouting. Someone’s realised what the hour is. Another fragment is about to collide.
It’s time, now—
Come on—
What were you two—
Quick—
They all run back into the observatory, drunk enough to feel like they are about to witness something extraordinary, to believe that something extraordinary can be experienced together.
Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 has a spectacular death as it splits and fractures and splits again and one by one the fragments catch fire in the atmosphere of the planet. They take turns watching through the eye of the telescope; there is no rush to see. It is spectacular but slow. The fragments burn for a long time – beneath them, they are causing a storm more violent than any on the planet.
The Comet Seekers Page 7