The Falling Sky

by Pippa Goldschmidt

  The Death Star shuffles his papers and clears his throat before starting the meeting. ‘Jon won’t be here today. He’s taking a few days off.’ He glares at Jeanette as if this is her fault. I didn’t make it explode, she thinks. You can’t blame me. But she’s aware of the other lecturers looking at her too, as if the answers to all their questions are visible on her face. She stares down at her pad of paper.

  They get on with the tedious business of the meeting, and nobody mentions Jon again until the end. Just as they’re standing up to leave, the Death Star says, ‘Has anyone seen Jon’s student, Clara? I need to speak to her.’

  People shake their heads. Jeanette remembers Clara in her reading group sessions and hanging around the lab.

  Back in her office, and still nothing from Maggie. She’s wondering what to do, wondering how she can possibly work, when the Death Star sticks his head around her door. ‘Jeanette. A word.’

  She’s fed up with his words, but then he adds, ‘No, it’s about Jon.’

  He comes into her office and tells her the full story. Not just the bit he told everyone at the meeting, about Jon asking for a few days off to recover from the shock of the launch failure. He tells her that just after he spoke to Jon, Jon’s wife phoned. She hadn’t seen him since the disaster of the launch, which she only knew about when she saw it on TV. Jon had disappeared. Did the Death Star know where he was? No, he didn’t.

  The Death Star pauses significantly before continuing. The wife phoned again, a few hours later. Jon had contacted her to say he’s leaving her. He’s having a relationship with one of his students. Clara.

  Jeanette is fascinated, horrified. She doesn’t remember ever noticing Jon and Clara even talking to each other. She can barely breathe as she tries to put the pieces together in her mind. Jon has always been so upright, so straight. How could he have done something like this? Did he know himself he was capable of it? Jeanette knows his wife was a teacher. They both believed in doing good, in helping people.

  How can you understand the world if you can’t understand people? If you can’t predict the way they’re going to behave? She realises she needs to know. Did Jon know in advance what he was going to do? Or was it the shock of the rocket blowing up? If he at least knew that there was the possibility of this happening, then however reprehensible that is, it makes the whole thing more understandable.

  Her mind veers towards Paula and away again, as if she’s in a car trying to avoid a crash. At least she’s always been aware that Paula was capable of betraying her. She’s never been under any illusions there.

  ‘And now it seems that Clara has disappeared too.’ The Death Star looks at her. ‘I know you know Jon. Do you have any idea about where they might be? Presumably they’re together.’

  ‘I don’t know anything at all. He never mentioned this to me.’ Suddenly she’s angry.

  After the Death Star leaves her office, she escapes the Observatory and stands outside, trying to phone Jon, tapping at her mobile. No signal. She wanders further away, still no signal. She’s in the trees now, not really paying attention to where she’s going, vaguely aware of a shape, perhaps a dog walker ahead on the path.

  Soon the shape is in front of her. It’s Jon, looking tired and crumpled. He seems to be alone.

  ‘What are you doing here? Are you coming to work?’ But even as she speaks, she realises how daft this is. He’s not coming to work. The memory of him in the lab, surrounded by his ordered equipment, belongs to some ancient time. This version of Jon standing in front of her has not shaven, or washed. But it’s more than that, he’s changed in some more fundamental way. It’s as if there have been two Jons leading different lives in parallel universes, and the one that Jeanette has been friends with has been replaced by the other one. Does an affair make that much difference to someone, she wonders. Perhaps.

  ‘How could you just walk out? Just leave everything behind you?’

  He rubs a hand over his eyes and she sees that he’s crying. ‘Jeanette, it was the only thing I could do. Everything else was — gone. There was nothing left.’

  ‘Just because the rocket exploded? You’ve got other work…’

  He doesn’t reply and they continue to stand there in the trees, facing each other, until he finally says, ‘Look, if you buy me a whisky, I’ll try and explain to you. Ok?’

  She is a scientist. She needs information. ‘Ok.’

  They go to the grotty pub at the bottom of the hill. She hates this pub, always associates it with the ice woman. But it seems an appropriate place for Jon to sit and gulp whisky and cry.

  She waits until finally he’s able to speak. ‘I loved my wife. I still do. But we used to sit in the same room and it would be as if we were on top of distant mountains. She’d say something and it was in a foreign language. I didn’t understand her. She didn’t understand me. It was exhausting. Physically tiring. I’d come home from work, feeling ok, and half an hour later, I’d be shattered. She was too. She’d sit in the bedroom to get away from me. She’s fine without me. Much better.

  ‘Clara is…’ He looks away as if examining an image of Clara on the wall of the pub before continuing, ‘Clara is more real. She makes other people seem two-dimensional, like photos.’

  Jeanette winces; this is how she feels about Paula. She waits to find out more, trying not to look at his face. He’s aged since yesterday. The creases around his mouth are deeper, his skin is greyer. Time has sped up for him. Perhaps he prefers it like this, after the years of stasis with his wife.

  ‘I remember telling you about my great-grandfather, Crommelyn.’

  She nods, a bit surprised.

  ‘I always thought he did the right thing, you know. He performed that experiment to the best of his ability even though he wasn’t particularly interested in what it might prove or disprove. He was the proper impartial observer. Unlike Eddington, who wanted a certain result.’

  She nods again. Of course.

  He carries on, ‘There’s a saying in our family that comes from Crommelyn. “The shortest route is not necessarily the quickest.” Apparently they were trying to find the best place to position the telescope on Sobral and they were lugging it up this mountain. A local man was guiding them and he warned them, “The shortest route is not necessarily the quickest.” ’

  He shakes his head and they sit there for a bit in silence before he continues, ‘All he meant was that they should take the slower, shallower mountain road rather than try to save time by going a steeper route through the jungle. But afterwards, when Crommelyn told this to Eddington, he noticed the analogy with their experiment. Light takes a curved route around a massive star because that’s the quickest path, even though it doesn’t look like it to an observer. To us.’

  Jeanette’s not sure what she’s supposed to be learning from this, until Jon leans forward and she sees the dried tear tracks on his cheeks. ‘I feel like I’ve crashed off the road, and into the wilderness. And I don’t know what the shortest or the longest path is, or even where I’m supposed to be going. She — Clara — crashed into my life. And I thought about what sort of route I was taking, and perhaps it was possible I didn’t know what the right one was, anymore.’ He wipes his eyes, but somehow this just makes his whole face look blurred. ‘I thought I knew the right way to live, but what did I know? I wasn’t exactly happy. Neither was my wife.’ Saying this last word makes him cry again.

  The chronology of events is still not clear to Jeanette. ‘So why did you disappear after the rocket blew up?’

  He passes a hand over his eyes. ‘This is going to sound stupid but it seemed like a sign. You know in medieval times, people used to believe that the sky foretold the future. Well, they still do, I suppose. But things like comets or supernovae were harbingers of doom. That’s what the exploding rocket was like for us.’

  Us. Jeanette notes how casually he uses that word to refer to himself and Clara. She has never managed to bracket herself and Paula together in that way.


  ‘It seemed to signal to us that we couldn’t carry on in secret. That we had to make a decision. Hell, it even offered us a way out. With no instrument, and no data to analyse, I’m not tied here anymore, not professionally anyway.’ His cheeks are flushed now, there’s more energy to his voice. For the first time she can actually believe that he and Clara will just go away.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’

  He shrugs. ‘We’ll probably go abroad, Clara can finish her PhD somewhere else. I’ve been offered posts in the States before now.’ But he still looks terrible. His life’s been wrenched apart, Jeanette realises. All that talk of being upright and good, and now this. How do you balance rightness against love? Doing what is right for other people as opposed to what is right for you? He’s just realised what he’s capable of, the hurt he can inflict on other people, and his understanding of the world has been shattered.

  He’s gripping his empty whisky glass. She has to say something. What do people say in these sorts of situations? ‘It will work out, Jon.’ But she doesn’t think she sounds particularly believable.

  He looks at her, ‘How do I know what the right route is?’

  ‘You’ll figure it out.’ She hopes this is true.

  Back in her office. Finally a reply from Maggie, but it offers no comfort. It doesn’t mention the rocket explosion, it just says:

  I’ve started a new project here which will take up all my time, and so I won’t be able to come on our next observing trip. Take care.

  She’s been professionally dumped. Maggie doesn’t want to be associated any more with such a problematic result, and the explosion was the final straw. Professionally, she’s on her own, now.

  Later that night, and yet another pub. The place where she is meeting Richard is not the usual astronomers’ drinking den. As Jeanette walks through the darkening streets towards the evening, she realises she is heading in the direction of the art college. Fear and desire almost make her stumble on the pavement. Paula won’t be here, surely? But when she walks into the pub, she sees a familiar leopardskin coat in action by the bar.

  She’s able to watch Paula surreptitiously for a moment. Her face is powder-white, her lips are jam-sticky red, and she’s wearing black leather, the leopardskin coat draped over one shoulder. She’s a cliché, and Jeanette almost feels some relief that the woman she made love with so many times seems to have disappeared. Or perhaps she never existed at all.

  Jeanette finally walks over and receives an air kiss. ‘Darling! What a surprise to see you here!’ But Paula doesn’t actually look at her. They stand at the bar, and Jeanette’s grateful to have the cocktail menu to study. There are too many mirrors in here, she thinks, as she keeps catching sight of her and Paula. Paula looks fine of course, she’s designed to look good under artificial light. But Jeanette looks bleached out, even smaller and paler than usual, almost not there at all. They look odd together. They don’t match. Certainly nobody would guess they had ever been lovers.

  When Richard arrives, with some sort of friend in tow, it turns out not to have been a coincidence after all. Richard’s friend wants to go to art college and so Richard phoned Paula to ask her along too.

  Richard calls Paula ‘Venus in fake furs’ which makes her laugh, although she doesn’t like the word fake.

  ‘Don’t be so pedantic,’ she says. ‘You just need to use your imagination.’

  ‘I have to be accurate,’ Richard replies, ‘I’m a scientist.’

  ‘So you never wear rose-tinted glasses?’

  ‘No. Just beer goggles. But I’m not wearing them now.’

  Jeanette, unnoticed, watches them smile at each other.

  A band starts playing in the pub, and it becomes too noisy to talk. Jeanette knows she should leave, knows that whatever happens that evening won’t be good. But she still can’t bring herself to walk away from Paula, even if this is not the right version of Paula. At a break between songs, Paula turns to her, and says too loudly, ‘Are you enjoying yourself, my love?’ There is an exaggerated emphasis on the last two words. Paula isn’t above flirting with her as a proxy for flirting with the men.

  She can’t find the right words to reply, and Paula shrugs. Out of the corner of her eye, Jeanette can see Richard grinning at Paula. She can’t stand it anymore. She manages to shove her way between the clumps of people out onto the street. Leaning against the wall of the pub, she breathes in the dank night air and shuts her eyes for a moment. Perfect, peaceful blackness. She can hear faint noises coming from inside, but it’s quiet out here.

  But it’s not enough. She feels something settle next to her and opening her eyes, sees Richard also leaning against the wall.

  ‘I need some air,’ he says.

  She stays silent. She doesn’t have to validate his actions.

  ‘Are you ok?’ He’s fishing around for his cigarettes and matches. She feels a great weariness. Now that she’s leaning against this wall she wants to stay there forever. She can feel the wall supporting her, giving her strength.

  ‘I’m fine. Why?’

  ‘Doesn’t look like it.’

  ‘Richard…’

  ‘Is it to do with her?’ He’s struck his match and the flame burns for a moment like a small piece of hope, before he drops it onto the ground.

  ‘Her?’ Has he guessed? How could he?

  ‘Paula.’

  When he says her name, it makes a gash in the night. She feels like crying; her eyes prickle when he looks at her, but she stays silent.

  Perhaps she should try to tell him about Paula, get it out into the open, drain the poison out of her body. She notices the way he’s smoking with his usual precision, the ash forming a neat mound on the pavement. She has a horrible feeling that she does not quite exist in the same way that he does. There is a balloon inside her, filled with helium. Perhaps she should float up into the night sky and disappear, rather than continue with this.

  ‘Yes.’ The word is a sigh, not much more than air escaping from her. But he hears it and as they look at each other, she can tell he’s feeling something like sympathy for her. They’ve both had a shit time lately, he with his job applications, she with Paula.

  He smiles at her, ‘Ah well,’ and stubs out his cigarette. ‘Think of the future, Jeanette. There’ll be others.’

  She’s spent years studying neat little space-time diagrams in lecture courses on relativity, with particles predictably moving along the time axis from the past to the future, but her own future just feels like a dense black fog. She can’t believe in it. Perhaps he sees his future as a sunlit hill dotted here and there with women lying on the grass like daisies waiting to be picked by him.

  There’s nothing else to do but follow him back into the pub. She’s not even that surprised when he flings an arm around Paula and says, ‘What a lovely couple the two of you make.’ There’s just a dull thump of pain inside her, an old bruise being hit yet again. She wonders why he’s brought this out into the open. Is it just a desire to see what happens? Does he have an ambition to be the catalyst for some sort of experiment between her and Paula?

  Paula laughs, ‘What couple?’

  ‘You and Jeanette.’

  Paula’s eyes flicker over her as if she’s an inanimate object before finally replying, ‘We’re only flatmates, we’re not an item.’

  Betrayal. The splendour of their past has been kicked into dust. She puts her hand over her mouth, afraid of what she might say, because she knows now that words are dangerous. This can only end in blood.

  Richard looks puzzled. ‘Oh, I must have misunderstood something Jeanette said.’ Only now can she hear the purr of malevolence in his voice. For him, this is payback. How stupid has she been? How many actions has she misinterpreted?

  ‘What.’ She can just see a hint of gleaming teeth as Paula speaks. She sounds as if she’s biting off a chunk of meat. ‘After all, I’m not really Jeanette’s type.’ She tries to laugh, but the laughter is metallic. ‘And she’s certainly not min
e.’

  ‘Stranger things have happened,’ Richard laughs as well, as if a mistake has been made, a small and rather humorous error that they can all joke about. His friend just looks puzzled.

  ‘I’m not seeing anyone just now.’ Paula gives great emphasis to each word.

  ‘Really?’ says Richard, ‘What a coincidence. Neither am I,’ and he laughs his easy laugh again.

  She manages to leave the pub, knowing what’s going to happen, and somehow gets home. There, she sits up for the rest of the night, not bothering to go to bed because she won’t be able to sleep, and stares out of the window at the streetlights. Fake stars. If she moves her head quickly, the tears in her eyes blur the lights into great smudgy arcs. There’s really no difference between the metal structures emitting light, and the bands of light in front of her eyes. They’re both real, or false. She’s not sure about the difference.

  She no longer believes her memories of Paula, she’s not even sure there is anything inside Paula, apart from a set of Russian dolls with identical red lips and black eyelashes. The other version of Paula, the one that belonged to Jeanette, seems to have gone.

  She tries not to look at the clock, tries not to think about what they’re doing right now in Richard’s flat. The whole night is right now, a single moment of time. Perhaps she is stuck in this moment for ever. Outside, cars sweep by rhythmically, the thump of their engines rattling the windows of the flat. She wants to go outside and lie down on the tarmac, be run over again and again. Anything to stop this pain.

  Night is replaced by grey dawn and the streetlights are turned off. She can’t remember how to move now, so she remains sitting, waiting. Only when the phone rings is she startled out of herself, able to stretch an arm and pick up the receiver. But she still can’t speak.

  ‘Paula?’ It’s a man. She remains silent. ‘Are you there? Paula? Damn, sorry, I must have the wrong number.’ He rings off, but she carries on holding the receiver to her ear, its incessant whirr like some high-pitched electronic heartbeat.