François tells the babysitter he would like to read to himself in bed, and he selects the world atlas from the tall bookshelves in the study, climbing up on his child’s plastic stepladder to reach it.
The sitter doesn’t seem to know what to do, watches on to check that he’s safe while he ignores her and carries his atlas down to the table, carries the stepladder back to the kitchen; politely wishes her a good night from the top of the stairs.
Goodnight, François, she says, turning back to the sitting room and marvelling at how a ten-year-old can make her feel too young to be a babysitter.
In bed, François opens up his atlas to the page he was up to: Indonesia, it says, and he traces his finger over the tiny dots of land that decorate a blue-and-white sea. Sangkapura, he says, rolling the consonants on his tongue, Belitung, Masalembo. The land here is drawn green and yellow and orange and he thinks that means there are mountains, rising up from the sea. Thirteen thousand, six hundred islands, it says, under Geography. He tries to think of something else with a number that big, but he can’t.
Severine and her date go for drinks after dinner, rich red wine in a dark candlelit bar where they flirt over what the future will bring. Slim buildings of glass that stretch to the clouds, a colony on Mars where people will live in the orangey glow of starting over, cities built on the crisp water of melted ice caps. His hand on her knee. A glass nearly spilled, then saved. But this is not real life, and underneath the flirting Severine knows it.
On the walk home, it happens: a shiver of warmth, a rush of relief and Severine is not alone any more.
I’m sorry, she says to the man beside her whose name she’s already starting to forget. You can’t come any further. But thank you.
As he walks away, confused, she pulls her shawl over her head, around her neck; a smile already building somewhere in her chest.
The ghosts walk beside her, their steps turning to skips and bounds as their casual greetings become a flurry of words and questions and playful amusement.
By the time she reaches home, there are five of them; by the time she has paid the sitter and made her way upstairs to François’s room, there are eleven. Henri from the 1750s is here, the sisters in lace dresses, and Great-Great-Grandma Bélanger with her wet hair in curlers. Behind them all a soldier boy shimmers out of view, and the laughter, the relief is bubbling inside her because they are here, and she is surrounded by family.
François is woken up by voices and at first he is afraid. He sits up in bed, listens hard and hears his mama – he thinks it is his mama – but she sounds different, and she’s not making any sense.
You daft old man, she’s saying. You think you can be funny now, do you?
And then she’s laughing, and François is opening his bedroom door quietly so he can see who’s there, see who it is that’s making his mama sound so young and happy.
As he tiptoes to the banister he sees her, but he rubs his eyes, doesn’t understand, because she is talking and laughing with no one at all.
Granny, she calls, arms wide.
François looks for his grand-mère but she’s not here, and if she were then his mama would be talking in a different kind of voice, he’s sure of that.
We’ll watch it tonight, she is saying, quieter now, as if she’s remembered he’s sleeping upstairs and is trying not to disturb him. And I’ll always be here, I’ll stay in this house, I’ll listen to your stories – but please leave François alone.
He sits on the top stair, hidden behind the banister, and shuffles down, a step at a time.
I don’t want her scaring him, his mama says, and perhaps for the first time François does feel really scared, with the kind of worry that sits in your stomach and makes your throat go dry.
He pushes the door to the kitchen open and stands there in his pyjamas, looking at his mother, his toy tiger trailing from one hand.
Mama?
She smiles, a big open smile that looks like it shouldn’t be hiding anything.
Do you want to go on an adventure? she says.
He stays by the door, unsure at first, not understanding, but his mama’s eyes focus on him now and she kneels down beside him and says, let’s go on a midnight adventure, just you and me.
OK, he says, his smile widening.
They open the cupboard, search inside for François’s red tent, the one he got for his ninth birthday. It’s more of a tepee really, light wooden poles holding up a triangle of red fabric with a door flap at the front that zips down; a red sleeping bag to match.
They make up flasks of coffee and hot lemon cordial – François’s favourite. Bring the home-made pain au raisin left over from the shop (François was hoping there’d be some left for him) and a selection of fruit, clementines and pears.
François carries his rucksack on his back with supplies while Severine carries the tent and binoculars. He thinks perhaps this is going to be a good adventure after all. His mama was just being silly before.
Severine turns to check that her granny is still there, and she is; she is following them, she is smiling.
The night is clear, spring-fresh, clouds floating past the moon and carried on the wind. Even though it’s a public garden, the gate’s now locked – but it’s not high. François wants to go first. He wants to be an explorer, like his mama said he would be when he was younger. He climbs easily, jumps down the other side.
Hurry up, Mama!
Severine gathers her dress up and ties the hem round her waist so it won’t catch, climbs over and then they run through the gardens, searching for the perfect spot – over by the trees? Near the lake? François is excited now, his laughter carried on the night air.
And they find a space in the open, an oasis of grass bounded by trees for shelter and a clear view of the skies. They set up the tent and sit on the grass in front of it, flasks at the ready.
François likes it just the two of them, it’s how it is at home most of the time anyway, except when his grand-mère comes by and brings him dried apricots and ginger. His grand-mère says that when he grows up he can be anything he wants to be, so he’s thinking about that. He likes watching the chefs on television, and he likes drawing. But mostly he wants to discover new lands.
Severine likes that they’re all here today, every one she’s ever seen and heard of; it feels like at last the whole family is united. It hasn’t been easy, waiting here in Bayeux – she is well aware of what she is giving up to have them here. They’re sitting in a wide circle in front of François’s small tent and she listens to their chatter without replying, not wanting to show how much she is enjoying herself; just wanting to protect François. She thinks her granny understands – in among their chatter she is quiet, watching Severine.
You don’t have to worry about Brigitte scaring him, she says eventually, underneath the banter of the others, when only Severine can hear. François won’t be able to see us. Not yet, anyway.
How can you be sure? Severine asks quietly.
He hasn’t lost anyone yet, she says, and moves to put her arm around Severine’s shoulders.
THE STREETS OF BAYEUX ARE golden in the evening light; the rivers reflecting the sunset, fading to black as they wind in and out of the petite arched bridges. It is so different to Scotland. A smaller city than Róisín usually wants to live in, but there’s something about it that fits. Perhaps it was just a name she had always heard, wondered about, and it is charming, the way its history seems to blend with its present. Róisín stops on a bridge towards the edge of the main town, thinks of taking a photograph looking down to the bustling medieval high street, but doesn’t. She’s not a tourist here, she’s going to make this place her home. For a while.
She positions her telescope to point out of her Velux window. There is no observatory at the Université de Caen Basse-Normandie, not like there was in Edinburgh or even on the rooftop at Imperial. But here she can study Planetary Sciences, the Earth as seen from the universe, not the other way round. It was time for a
fresh perspective. That’s what brought her here to Normandy.
Every few years Róisín moves, unlike her friends who are starting to settle down, from Ireland to London, London to Scotland, and now to France. She likes it here; she likes the pathways by the river, the old waterwheels that no longer spin, the spires in the distance that rise, modestly, above the homes and narrow streets. Ten years of looking away was enough, it was as if looking up for too long was starting to make her lose balance. But, as if to compensate, she has her telescope, enhanced over the years, as money allowed, shipped from city to city with her. It isn’t ideal – it is too light here, she can’t see anything too distant, no faraway galaxies. But it is hers, and she has created it for a night like this.
It matches, she thinks, it works, for this comet was discovered by an amateur in Japan searching the sky through his binoculars. She likes how that makes it personal, how one man, standing alone, could find something so rare.
She’s left a message on the crackling answerphone at the farm, but Liam hasn’t called her back. It has become what they do to each other now. One phones, the other backs away. She wishes he had returned her call tonight, just this once, but a part of her is glad he hasn’t; perhaps it’s more honest this way. She thinks he never really cared, that much, about the comets. Not when compared to the farm.
So she tells herself, but then she reaches for the phone again, knowing it’s going to be spectacular. She doesn’t want him to miss something so beautiful, and so surprising – two comets in the sky tonight, one still distant, just approaching the inner solar system, and one so bright; the unexpected eclipsing the anticipated. There’s a certain poetry to that.
The phone rings four times then clicks over to the answerphone.
This time she doesn’t leave a message.
She puts the kettle on.
The kettle is whistling downstairs. Liam’s never wanted an electric one, until today. That whistling, calling him away when he doesn’t want to leave.
He dips the flannel in cool water again, twisting it before folding it into a neat strip. The windows are rain-dappled and dark. He draws the curtains closed, as quietly as he is able.
Behind the house where Róisín grew up, Adele, Neil and Conall wait outside in the garden. Róisín told them to look; said this time was special. The adults have the binoculars that she gave them two Christmases ago. Conall has the pair he was given for his fifteenth birthday. He keeps turning them the wrong way round. He is cold, so he stamps his feet.
Róisín remembers a time when they lay outside on the grass, watching the sky; she remembers how much she wanted Liam to understand, to appreciate what she was showing him. It was unfair, to be so frustrated at his nature when he was so young, but it also made his indifference easy to forgive.
Not so when he told her, stroppy as a teenager, she’d best be getting back to wherever she was living these days, or when he hadn’t read her first paper, or when he said manned space flight seemed like a waste of money.
It’s harder to forgive a grown man, even when really they’ve done nothing wrong.
Clouds spill into her field of view and she tells herself that she must be patient. She knew that there would be clouds, but there is also wind. She heads downstairs to make a cup of tea, fills it with sugar. She doesn’t want to sleep tonight.
She hears something happening in the street. A group of students, perhaps, coming back from a bar or on their way to a party – she doesn’t know what. She hears voices shattering the night, a collage of tones and timbres, laughter, a shhh, the click of heels on pavement and a jangle of bracelets and then, something that sounds like a child. At first she thinks they’re just passing but she hears them again, moments later; realises they are sitting in the garden over the road. They must have climbed the gates. Róisín wonders why they’ve done that. Then she forgets about them.
Liam’s dad is sleeping now. Liam’s propped the door open so he can hear if he’s needed, and he’s sitting in the kitchen on his own, accounts and letters covering the table. The farm is struggling. He thinks he’ll have to sell some of their land, maybe some livestock too, downsize, focus on organic produce he can take to the farmers’ market in town. His head is aching. The drone of the microwave seems like a constant in his life, even though it’s only been on for three minutes. When it pings, after four, he pours tomato soup into a bowl and the warm smell of it fills the kitchen, soothing him for a moment.
But the longer the quiet lasts the more he is unable to move; Liam is anchored to the table just like he is anchored to the farm. His soup is finished and there is a red blotch of tomato on the tabletop that he’s not ready to wipe away. He plays her message again. It is all comets and stars and galaxies; it is all Róisín. She doesn’t even ask after his dad. His bowl clatters into the sink. He deletes her. He knows that upstairs his father has stopped sleeping; he will never wake up.
Róisín scans her telescope away from the clouds. There is only so long you can stare at what is in your way. Beyond them, and to the east, she can see Beta Andromedae huddled close to NGC 404. She says their other names aloud, rolling them on her tongue: Mirach and Mirach’s Ghost. A giant star and a galaxy, so close they could almost be touching. Between them are 2.2 million light years of empty space. Her tea has gone cold; she thinks about making more while she sips it anyway.
She hears the people in the garden again, moves away from her telescope to look out of the window. They’ve put up a tent. She was right – there is a child with them, a boy, the only person she can see now. He’s pointing at the sky.
She tries to hear their voices but not much reaches her, despite the open window; only snippets of conversation, a moment of laughter, the wind catching a loose flap of the tent’s fabric.
It is red, their tent, only big enough for two. It reminds her of childhood, of something far away now and out of her reach.
She purses her lips, refocuses her telescope.
Liam climbs the stairs slowly. At the door, he waits. It is peaceful; there is that.
When he’s sitting by the bed he starts to talk. He didn’t know there were things he wanted to say, but it turns out there were, and now he’s started saying them. He talks about the time he saw his dad arguing with his mum’s ghost out by the stable after the last of the horses had been sold. He talks about why he was so upset when his dad gave his old red tent to the Kelly kids, who splashed it all over with leftover paint from the big For Sale sign on the wall of their barn. He talks about Róisín, how she’d left him behind to find a bigger world – bigger than the farm, so much bigger – and how she keeps on moving; always somewhere new. And someone new. He cannot ask her to come back. She never did what he asked her to do anyway.
He says he wishes he were a different kind of man, that he found it easier to speak, though now it’s too late the words won’t seem to stop coming. He talks about how the farm is his now, only his, and it is empty; how he knows it has become irrelevant to the world but at the same time knows it is all that is left of his home.
He wonders if this means he is being set free. Perhaps Róisín would see it that way. But freedom was never what he needed and besides he can feel the weight of his heart, just like his father’s, that is tying him to a place and a past that was happy, once; that will not let him leave.
Do you want to see, Conall?
He is stamping his feet.
Here, I’ll help you, if you want? Conall?
Adele holds the binoculars close to his face without touching, and he starts to shout. His arms knock into his sides, the flask of tea topples over. Neil bends to pick it up – no harm done. Everything’s grand, you don’t have to look.
The binoculars are removed. The shouts quieten down.
Conall stamps his feet.
Adele smiles. Not everyone has to watch the comet, she says. There’s more to life, so there is.
Conall stops stamping his feet. He’s seen a fox, at the end of the garden.
A mom
ent later, it is gone.
Inside, the phone starts ringing.
Liam doesn’t know who else to call.
SEVERINE TAKES OUT THE BINOCULARS and tries them out herself first, locating the comet, its tail and its nucleus, so she can help him find it; help him see.
You need to adjust them for your own eyes, she says, and he bends the eyepieces closer together, immediately getting the hang of it.
She watches his expression as he moves the binoculars to point all around the sky. He looks at the moon, at Orion, straight overhead like he’s trying to see the top, the very top of the universe, until he loses balance, almost toppling backwards before catching his fall and letting the binoculars swing around his neck.
And that’s what the strap is for, she says. Already he’s holding them up to his eyes again.
To François, it is like looking at a new world, more foreign and magical than anything he has seen so far in his atlas. The moon has craters and mountain ranges, dry lakes that spread between skyscrapers of rock. And there are patterns in the stars, pictures that he can see how to make, like in the join-the-dots drawing book he had when he was still a little boy. He spins around, not afraid of falling again – why should he be afraid of falling on grass? – and then he sees the tops of buildings, magnified into the homes of giants, and then a window. And a woman.
Mama, look.
He points up to the open window.
What’s she doing?
Looks like someone’s got a telescope, Severine says, gently pulling the binoculars from his eyes. They’ll get a beautiful view of the comet from there.
Can we get a telescope too?
Severine smiles, passes him a clementine.
You and I don’t need one, she says. We’ve got special powers.
When his mama’s not looking, François points the binoculars to the window with the telescope again. The woman is standing next to it, adjusting something, perhaps, and looking at the sky but never down to the park. He thinks at first that she’s wearing a red dress just like his mama’s, but then he sees that it’s a scarf, wrapped around her shoulders. Her dress is black, like her hair that is tied back in a ponytail with wisps left loose and free around her face.
The Comet Seekers Page 9