The Comet Seekers

by Helen Sedgwick

  Tylissa is lifted onto a stretcher.

  She is taken to hospital.

  Róisín goes with her, then returns to their hostel for the evening.

  Zach asks how she is coping.

  She’ll be OK, Róisín says. But it’s a broken ankle. It’ll take time to recover.

  He looks down, as if checking his own legs are still in one piece, still fully operational.

  She’s upset that she’s not going to be able to come to Antarctica, adds Róisín.

  I guess that means we’re going to need a new chef, he says, and Róisín can’t decide if she dislikes him for his lack of empathy or for the fact that he said what she was already thinking but not wanting to say out loud.

  FRANÇOIS SAYS: I’M NOT LEAVING, Severine.

  But you must.

  We’ll get through this. I know it’s going to be hard—

  I’ve planned your journey for you.

  So we’ll see the new specialist on Thursday—

  Do you want to spend time in the desert?

  Have you even read the latest letter?

  It was addressed to me.

  François lets the letter drop from his hands.

  There are other things they can do now, Mama.

  There are things you can do.

  There are new drugs, and—

  Foreign lands, jungles, waterfalls . . . You could go to Malaysia – the Bukit Lagong Forest has a canopy walkway thirty metres high in the trees.

  And there’s surgery, if it comes to that.

  I found some information for you, she says. Here, you can travel round the Norwegian fjords in a fishing boat for six months.

  But there are more things we can try first, he says. Mama?

  Look at this, she says, handing him a piece of paper that he automatically takes. It says they need a chef urgently, to go to Antarctica.

  For a moment François stops speaking. He is not interested in a holiday – he needs to talk to her about the possible treatments. But despite himself he looks down at the job advert that his mama has printed out. This is not tourism that she is suggesting for him, it’s a whole different life.

  Severine sits up, taller in the bed, realising she’s on to something; tries to think of the aspects of Antarctica that would be different to any other experience he has had.

  You would stay all through the winter, she says, twenty-four hours of darkness for months, but the sky, imagine what you could see in the sky – the stars would be brighter than the world!

  And it would be cold, he smiles.

  The kind of cold that turns the landscape into sheets of frozen satin.

  He laughs. Less romantic, I think, though he’s imagining it now, the way it would feel to stand alone on a plateau of snow that stretches to the horizon, to be reminded of how small we are, in a world of such extraordinary contrast.

  But how could he, when his mama is ill, when she needs support?

  You need me here, Mama.

  No, François. What I need is for you to leave, while you still can.

  She remembers her granny’s words: François won’t be able to see the ghosts. Not yet anyway, she’d said, he hasn’t lost anyone yet. So it is now that he needs protecting from them. She will not lose her son by sending him away, she will save him. François, the world – her hands are wide, outstretched, as if holding the globe – there is so much world for you to see.

  He looks at the space between her cupped hands, imagines a globe revolving between them, lit with sun on one side and dim with starlight on the other.

  I’ll have whatever treatment they suggest while you’re away, she says. But please.

  Please what?

  Please go and see the world for me. Before it is too late.

  François has been doing his research. He doesn’t want to give false hope, but he doesn’t want to give none either. He’s been to talk to doctors he knows, friends from university who are practising now, his own GP, surgeons at the hospital; at first it was frantic, a search for information as if there was an answer he could find, some way that he could save his mama.

  She’s too young, he wants to scream, she needs to see the world; and that is when the guilt comes, crippling him into a ball as he hugs his knees into his chest. Perhaps she would have gone herself if it wasn’t for him, he thinks, if it wasn’t for having to raise a child. All these ghosts that she sees, imaginary conversations that she has had, inventing a world around her, all because she wanted to be free and couldn’t be, because of a mistake she made when she was young. Her hallucinations make sense, in a way – it was family keeping her here. It was a baby.

  Hélène cries when he tells her, making him weaken despite his resolve to be strong, to show there is hope. She holds him, but not for long enough; she doesn’t know what to say. She knows she has to keep other things secret.

  I’m here, she says pointlessly – of course she is here, but she can’t always be, and she knows it, and he knows it too.

  He sees signs around her apartment, an extra toothbrush in the bathroom where he goes to splash cold water on his face, to pull himself together. He doesn’t ask her about it – what does it matter now? But it changes something nonetheless; makes him believe that he can’t stay here, that this is not the place to find help.

  After he leaves, Hélène allows herself to cry more, full-bodied sobs that she’s glad no one is there to hear. She doesn’t understand why it went wrong, she only knows that it wasn’t right for her.

  In the night, she holds Stefan as if he is her only connection to the world, holds him so tight she knows he will never sleep, and the guilt of having him there makes her cry harder and the gratitude of having him there eventually allows her to rest.

  You can write me letters, says Severine; amazing letters, letters describing things I have never seen. Tell me about snow crystals and white cliffs stretching up beyond the clouds.

  She is propped up with three pillows in a private room of the hospital, and François is by her bedside.

  She looks the same, he thinks, her eyes still have their sparkle as she talks about faraway places, describes her imagining of layers of snow so thick it’s hard to believe there is solid ground underneath. But when she takes his hand, he feels his body begin to shake; he will never leave her, he wants to stay, he will sleep here and she will see him as soon as she wakes, every day, until she is better.

  François, she says, it is wonderful that you are here, but don’t you see?

  You need to get some rest, Mama. Please.

  I don’t want you to watch me die.

  He feels a knot in his throat, cannot make his voice work to reply. The doctors moved fast, so fast there was no way to deny how serious it was. And then they stopped.

  There’s not much time, believe me, I know about these things – I too have sat in a hospital room, refusing to leave, and I know what followed.

  He shakes his head.

  The ghosts will come, François, I know you don’t believe me but they will, and that will be your life.

  There are no ghosts.

  His voice is a whisper now.

  I might even come too, though I will try not to. I don’t want you waiting for me, year after year.

  I’m not leaving you.

  It would make me happy.

  If she could lead him onto the plane she would. She knows he loves her, that is enough.

  But he’s not even listening now; he is bent double, his head resting on her hand over the bedclothes.

  It’s OK, she says.

  He doesn’t know why he goes to Hélène’s instead of to his own apartment, but that is where his feet lead him and he doesn’t have the will to disobey. And there is Stefan at the door, not even a surprise, not really. Their words glide over his head like sheets of ice and he stumbles backwards, away from the front door.

  François—

  Hélène calls out in a voice that is kind and sorry and wants to help, and she follows him outside, closes the door
behind her, tries to apologise though there is no reason to, nor any need. She wants to explain, she says, then can’t find the words to do it. She shivers in the cold.

  And there are things that he doesn’t say, as well. It would be pointless now to tell her that he was restless, not for a different person, but for a different kind of life.

  You’ll be OK? she says, at last, as he stands beyond the door.

  His smile surprises her, as he steps closer again, kisses her on each cheek before stepping back from the threshold of her home.

  Don’t worry, he says, I’m going to be OK. And you’re going to be OK.

  And he turns and walks away, and doesn’t look back.

  It’s the right thing to do, don’t you see? Severine is sitting up. I don’t want you here watching the end, I want you out there – in the world.

  The determination is back in her voice, and for a second he allows himself to believe that she will recover, that this is not the end – that she will be home again, cooking, singing, quarrelling with her ghosts.

  Then another second passes, and François knows that it is true; his mama doesn’t want him to watch her die. She was always so proud, he thinks, and however much he wants to be with her, she wants him to remember her alive.

  Severine sees his expression and knows what he’s thinking – he is listening to her at last, and she is grateful. Perhaps she is being selfish, perhaps she should let him stay with her, for the time she has left. Perhaps it is important to be with someone at the end, but there is something more important: she wants him to have the chance of a new beginning.

  They say I can go home, she says. Help me go home. And then . . .

  OK, Mama.

  So you’re going to go?

  They need a chef, in Antarctica, he says, just like you told me they did.

  Oh, François!

  I’d have to leave for the training course next week. Then fly out straight away after that.

  Her smile lights up her face, and she swings her legs out of the hospital bed with the energy of a girl.

  François is making dinner; slicing onions, frying aubergine in olive oil. They play music while they cook, sip red wine. What does it matter now? she says. I can have all the wine I want.

  You have always had all the wine you want, he says.

  Now that is true. And I don’t regret it a jot.

  His last days at home will always come to him in snippets of jokes, her boisterous smile, the smell and scent of the kitchen – basil and ripe tomatoes, hot lemon cordial, his mama’s perfume, coffee with cinnamon and a fleeting memory of rosemary. He will travel across the world and take all this with him, share it with others. This, and not the other things he has seen – not the smell of disinfectant and hospital food and the hum of the machine that dripped clear fluids into her bloodstream. Those memories he doesn’t want to keep.

  She shimmers around the kitchen, dancing to music from days before she was born.

  Your great-granny used to play this, she says, she taught it to me on the piano.

  I’ve not heard you play.

  It hasn’t been tuned for years.

  So?

  Right enough, I will play for you later. From Mozart to ‘Mr Moonlight’.

  They sing together: Mister-er-er-er Moonlight.

  He’ll always remember that, too.

  They set the table for family dinner, and François doesn’t try to stop her. What does it matter now? If she wants the ghosts to join them for dinner, who is he to object?

  Shall we put Granny at the head of the table?

  Of course, he says. Great-Grandpa Paul-François beside her?

  And you beside him. He is your namesake, after all.

  What was he like?

  Oh, he’s a foolish old man, she chuckles, he’s full of stories. Young though, sometimes, like when he was in the navy. He sunk a submarine, you know? He was in the papers.

  And she reaches for more cutlery, more table mats, as she rings off the names he has heard so many times: Antoine and Brigitte, Ælfgifu and Henri, and Mama, his own grand-mére, whom he thinks about often.

  I think we are ready, says Severine, shall I be Mama for a change?

  He smiles. It is usually him that serves the food, pours the wine.

  You be Mama, he says, tucking a napkin into his collar. Knowing it will make him look silly and make her laugh.

  Now, she says, a little more wine. And she holds up her glass, and he follows her gesture, tipping it to clink gently with hers over the table set for a feast. But she is subdued, all of a sudden.

  You are the last of our family, she says.

  Probably not, he smiles – you go back far enough and you can see that everyone in the world is family.

  Well then, she says, holding her glass up again. To our family.

  The next morning, before he leaves, she asks him to take her to the Bayeux Tapestry.

  It’ll be full of tourists, he says.

  Not this time of year.

  They’re here every time of year.

  Humour an old lady, she smiles.

  So he helps her out to the car and drives to the visitors’ car park, parks close to the door so she won’t have too far to walk.

  I’m OK, she says, I can manage. But he asks for a wheelchair at the front desk anyway – just in case, he says, and she must agree with him really, because she sits down in the chair and immediately begins wheeling herself through the shop and towards the museum door.

  There’s something you need to see, she says.

  We’ve been here many times, Mama, I know it well.

  Look! Did you know there was a green horse?

  The horses are all blue and whi—

  But she is right, and he can’t help laugh at her triumph as she points it out, the other-worldly green horse in a panel surrounded by foot soldiers and spears and shields and the threat of war.

  Of course I’m right, she says. Now, follow me.

  And she is off again, enjoying the mobility now, as she glides from wall to wall.

  Halley’s comet—

  Looks more like a sun, doesn’t it?

  And see these soldiers watching? That one, there. Ælfgifu loved him, I think.

  How do you know?

  She showed me.

  Who?

  Look!

  And he is standing in front of a small panel that he hasn’t noticed before, despite all those visits, with school and with his grand-mére, even with Severine – she used to bring him here, but never told him what he was supposed to see.

  But close to the glass now he can make out each stitch: a woman, eyes looking out from the pale background, her hair in a red shawl. Behind her, an older man clasps her face in threat: Ubi unus clericus et Ælfgyva. Ælfgifu. It’s her. The ghost his mama always talks about; she had come from the tapestry.

  But there is something about the proud look in her eyes – Ælfgifu is not cowering before this man. She is turning away, looking not at the man beside her but out, to the world, to him. There are pillars either side of where she stands, almost like a door frame she is looking out of, and that is when he remembers, for the first time in years, the day they camped out in the park to watch a comet but saw instead a sunrise. And that woman in the window, with her telescope pointed at the sky, and her eyes looking straight at him. Is that who this woman reminds him of?

  And he looks away, over to Severine by his side, and he sees the same haughty eyes looking back at him, the same red shawl covering her head – though she is not young like Ælfgifu was when she was captured in thread and gold.

  She looks like you, he says, eventually.

  Yes.

  And he kneels down beside her chair and puts his head on her shoulder.

  I’m tired now, she says. Time to be going?

  OK, Mama. He takes her hand. OK, Severine.

  She squeezes his arm in return. Thank you. Really.

  And her eyes search his as she tries to tell him now how grateful
she is – that he came to see the tapestry, that he is going to see Antarctica, that he has been in her life.

  Then she lets him wheel her back out to the car.

  Outside, it has begun to snow. This time it is for real, he knows, as he stands in the hall, his suitcase by the door. He is finding it difficult to leave, trying not to break down, not to make things any harder for her, so he stands still for a minute and just watches the snow fall. Then he kisses Severine goodbye, gently brushes tears from her eyes and his own, and steps out into the cold.

  1965

  Comet Ikeya–Seki

  As the needle of the turntable lifts and returns to its starting point, Ariane stands at the window looking out towards her grandfather’s old shed. She never knew her grandmother, but she remembers her grandfather from when she was a child. She remembers being shown the medal that he won during the First World War, and how he would brush away his embarrassment, preferring instead to dance around the room with her and Antoine.

  She turns back to the room, more sure of herself. It isn’t easy, this decision she has made, but her husband is a man who can’t stay in one place. She knew this when she married him, when they dreamed as teenagers about the places they would go. But she also knows that she can’t leave, that she needs to stay with her daughter, and her mother, because too many members of this family have gone and her mother’s mind is breaking under the pressure.

  She holds Severine in her arms, rocks her gently as she stirs from her sleep. The love she feels for her child is stronger, she knows, than any she has felt before. It makes her want to forgive her own mother, too, for being strict, for pushing her – for seeming disappointed in her, but she knows now that can’t have been the case. She can’t imagine ever being disappointed in her child.

  I told him to go, Mama, she says, preparing herself for a scolding.

  Ariane’s mother will have things to say. Well, of course she will have things to say – she’ll happily talk to anyone she sees and sometimes people who aren’t there at all. But Ariane doesn’t know what to expect now.

  Have you looked at the sky? her mother says, with a look of awe on her face as she bends down to kiss her granddaughter on the forehead. It is called a sungrazer, that comet to the east. Beautiful, isn’t it?