Three Things You Need to Know About Rockets

by Jessica Fox

  The stone monument, lit by moonlight in the frosty field, stared at me as we approached. As Euan undid the small gate, and we stepped into the solitary circle around the large stake, I could clearly feel a vibrating magic. Something about this spot was special, whether it was the openness of the landscape, the vast sky above or the single, humble stone itself. The energy tingled my skin and I stood there, well aware that I alone might be feeling this sensation. I looked at Euan, who stood smiling down at me, seemingly only aware of my presence and the wind.

  Euan took out a red folded lantern from his bag, and let the thin paper fill with air. As it ballooned, to my delight, it took the shape of a heart. He reached into his pocket for a lighter.

  “Where did you get this?” Iasked, feeling properly swept off my feet.

  “From some website. I thought after New Year, I could perhaps put some effort in.” Euan looked at me knowingly.

  I couldn’t help smiling. This relationship had not been as smooth as some from my past, nor as rocky either. It was more as if we were running a marathon. Sometimes we hit our stride together, only to find at other moments we were out of step, struggling to keep pace with one another. Perhaps this was how things worked. We were still learning about each other and trying in earnest to meet each other’s needs – what else could you ask for from a relationship? As Euan struggled to keep the lantern lit in the wind, I felt incredibly happy.

  Euan let the paper balloon fill with hot air, then let go. He grabbed my hand, and we watched anxiously as the lantern lifted a couple of inches off the ground, swinging towards the monument, then sinking into the long grass.

  “I think it’s going to crash.” I could hardly look. “Please, please go up,” I whispered, worried the grass would be set alight. The lantern teetered and the burning centre blinked tentatively. Then a gentle breeze suddenly reignited the flame and the red heart glowed brightly, pausing mid-air, and slowly rose into the night sky.

  And we have lift-off. My mind travelled back to the last time I had seen a launch, on the sunny, hot shores of Florida. I shivered, looking around the dark, cold night in Galloway. That trip to Florida felt like another world, so different and distant that it could have been a dream.

  “I love you,” I said, leaning into Euan, and waited for the predictable “you’re so American’” to come back to me. Instead, I felt his arm wrap around my shoulder.

  We watched, our necks craned, as the lantern shrank to no more than a spec above us. My eyes closed, and as if about to blow out a birthday candle, I made a wish. I wished for everything to turn out well, because in the labyrinth of my feelings, I wasn’t sure that it would. Despite my current happiness, there was an undeniable crack between Euan and me, which had first appeared this winter. It was as small as a pea, but just like the princess who slept atop the layers of mattresses, even a pea can be enough to cause incredible discomfort, for there is always the potential that it might grow.

  I opened my eyes, but wasn’t convinced that they were open for all I saw was the cold, inky-black night sky. I peered deeper into the blanket of clouds. Behind them would be a myriad of twinkling stars and the thick band of the Milky Way. I searched the sky for light, but nothing. The lantern was gone.

  Chapter 37

  “…a director cannot help projecting his own state of mind on to the stage.” Peter Brook, THE EMPTY SPACE: Drama section, the Garden Room, second building out the back.

  Vincent was a tall, thin man, whose gentle manners were better suited to a knight in shining armour than a mechanic in blue overalls. He was stooped, like a willow tree, after years of bending over cars, and the effect was that he looked like he was constantly taking a humble bow.

  I adored him. The screenwriter in me wanted Vincent, the golden-hearted bachelor and Cambridge graduate, to be a spy – perhaps a sleeper agent sent into the backwoods to be the eyes and ears of the country. And yet the possibility that Vincent was south-west Scotland’s James Bond was as unlikely as pirates still existing in Wigtown’s now drained bay. Piracy and political intrigue in Wigtown were things of the past – as deep and buried as the Bookshop’s foundations – and belonged to a time when there were troubles in Northern Ireland or even further back, when the Isle of Man was notorious reputation for smuggling.

  Vincent silently guided me around his garage, the side garden of which was littered with cars from various eras. I explained that I needed to find an automatic car to rent or a cheap one to buy – something that made Vincent lean back onto his heels, and ponder.

  This was a harder mission than it sounded. Automatic cars were not easy to come by, especially in Wigtown, so Euan had tried to teach me how to drive stick shift, using his red van. My driving had been like riding a bucking bronco, until finally I had hit my stride going three miles per hour. Tears had streamed down my face. I’d been terrified. This was Euan’s work vehicle, critical to his livelihood – what if I damaged it? On the right side of the van, a man who had been walking his dog passed us.

  “A pedestrian just overtook you.” Euan hadn’t known whether to laugh or cry himself.

  “What if I hit them?” My heart had beat out of control. “I want to get out, I hate this.”

  Euan had started laughing. “You’re doing fine, Jessica. I bet you can put it into a higher gear.”

  The car stalled again, and lurched forward. The burning smell of transmission reached my nostrils. My voice increased in volume, hysterical. “I’m going to wreck your van. This is stupid.”

  “No, it’s not, the van is fine. Try again. Try driving home.” Euan was patient, encouraging.

  “I hate this!” I shouted back.

  I turned on the engine and started off slowly.

  “You’re doing so well. Now bring it into a higher gear.”

  The main road into Wigtown loomed before us. Left. Left. Left. I had kept on chanting, not trusting I’d know which side of the road to pull out on.

  “Now you’ll stop before pulling out, okay, Jessy? And put on the handbrake.” Euan started to relax but I stiffened. The road up to Wigtown was a steep hill, and I pictured myself stalling, slipping backwards, unable to stop and squashing anything in my path.

  When we approached the crossroads, the car slowed and stalled. We lurched forward again and Euan screamed, “Handbrake!!” My right hand grabbed for the handbrake and instead I got the door-handle. Euan jumped to the rescue, and lifted the handbrake himself.

  “I told you,” I said. I quickly turned off the engine and leapt out of the car.

  “Where are you going, Fox?” Euan shouted out of the window. “Come back, try again!”

  “I’m walking. It’s faster!” I yelled, and found a tree to sit under and cry.

  Vincent shoved his hands into his pockets, leaning against a car, half overgrown with grass and rust. “So, you’re living in Wigtown permanently then?”

  “I hope so, as long as I stay far away from Euan’s kitchen.” I smiled. His expressive eyebrows rose.

  When I told Vincent about my various cooking disasters, his usually neutral expression melted into a large smile. He laughed, his sloping shoulders bouncing in amusement. “Now don’t worry about that,” he said, patting me on the back. “Euan should be making you candlelit dinners every evening.”

  As Vincent wandered ahead to inspect a small blue car for me, I looked after him affectionately. Suddenly I knew exactly what Vincent was – this shy, bachelor who lived quietly in a cottage outside town wasn’t a spy at all: he was a romantic.

  *

  Being the daughter of an engineer, it was thrilling for me to just pick out a car and drive off without the lengthy headache of checks and research and inspection. My hands proudly gripped the steering wheel of my not-so-new dark blue Citroen Saxo, the heat blasting in the cramped front seats and a cold chill coming in from the sun roof, which didn’t shut all the way. Vincent had suggested he inspect the car before I road-tested it, but I said no, despite my father’s voice echoing words of caution i
n my head. Gail Sheehy, in her book Passages, would say that those parental voices, as we mature into adulthood, should be replaced by our own judgements as we learn from experimentation and experience. Buying this potential blue death trap was my experiment – my belated teenage rebellion – and it felt fabulous.

  I had fallen in love with the car the moment I laid eyes on its small retro frame. Besides having a sun roof, it was automatic, a hatchback, and had a new CD player, plus the most important feature: it was inexpensive. Vincent had generously said I could rent to buy, offering a price that was affordable as long as my bits of consulting work continued in the States.

  Wigtown’s winding streets challenged my little Citroen Saxo, and it shook as it gripped the steep curves. I had decided to test-drive my new car with a celebratory shopping mission to Dumfries and was now regretting the ambition of my first Scottish drive. Dumfries, the largest city near Wigtown, was about an hour away.

  I slowed, chanting “left, left, left” as cars to my right passed at terrifyingly close distances. Driving on country roads was unlike anything else I had experienced. There was barely enough room for two small cars to pass each other, and it was a mystery to me how Euan’s van, like an American football player training in ballet, could so easily manoeuvre the close impasses with grace.

  At my first roundabout, my heart thudded so loudly in my ears that it drowned out any noise. It felt counter-intuitive to follow the cars clockwise. My muscle memory was resisting driving this way and my shoulders were tense.

  “Left, left, left,” I chanted as I gripped the wheel and sped around three quarters of the circle. The car carefully followed the outside kerb and pulled out onto the A75 exit. To my relief, the road quickly widened here and became comfortably straight. I was driving abroad, in my own car and, after panic, I felt a wave of pride. With the long stretch of highway before me, I considered this mission practically over and a roaring success.

  The sound of a phone buzzing filled the car. I looked down and saw Euan’s old mobile, which he insisted I carry with me, flashing. I scrambled to reach it while my eyes were glued to the road. I grabbed it, flipping it open.

  “Where are you?” Euan’s voice echoed from the phone’s small speaker. He sounded concerned.

  “I’m on my way to Dumfries,” I gushed. Euan had left for a book deal early that morning and hadn’t been privy to my trip to Vincent’s, or around when I returned with my new blue car.

  “When you say ‘on your way’,” Euan said slowly, “do you mean in a car, and you’re on the road driving?”

  “Yep.”

  Euan’s voice became louder. “In what car?”

  “In a car I just bought off Vincent.”

  “Oh God.”

  “Look, I can’t talk, I’m driving.” I emphasised the last word for dramatic effect.

  “Okay, fine, but please call me if you need anything.”

  I hung up quickly and dropped the phone onto the neighbouring seat. My fingers fiddled with the dials on the radio, and BBC Radio 4 finally blasted out loud from my new garish speakers and subwoofer as my car made its way along the A75.

  *

  I was down the road from the major Dumfries roundabout when I heard the explosion.

  I had turned off the radio and slowed, preparing to enter a supersized roundabout. This would be the first of many in short succession, and I had taken a deep breath. When there was a break in the traffic, I quickly pulled out into the first of the four lanes, and began circling around the track, unable to remember where I was supposed to exit. Euan and I had done this route many times before, and I had tried to pay attention, knowing one day I’d end up in this situation, but now everything felt different. Finishing one circuit slowly, with cars beeping behind me, I panicked and pulled out into the nearest exit. Luckily, this exit turned out to be the right one.

  That’s when the explosion happened. It came from underneath the back of the car – like four guns going off – the bang so loud that I screamed and let go of the wheel. My limbs felt weak, my mind blanked and I could feel a tingling sensation in my gums, something I hadn’t felt since I was eight years old and frozen in stage fright at my first piano recital. I tried to keep on driving but the engine now sounded like an angry lion and I could hear the dull scrape of metal against concrete. Cars whizzed by, honking, and I realised I was on the wrong side of the road.

  Another small roundabout was now just feet ahead of me. I pulled out from the wrong lane and would, like a bowling ball, have taken out several cars had I not luckily found the circle empty. Heading anti-clockwise, I took the closest exit and hung onto the car as it sputtered and leapt. Another small explosion sounded, this time closer to the front of the car, and automatically I pulled into the driveway of a McDonald’s, a fact that still today makes me feel slightly grateful to an otherwise loathed food chain. As I headed over a speed bump, just inside the parking lot, the car slowed with a painful loud grunt and died.

  It was only in the silence that followed that I realised I had been crying. I sat there shaking, thinking it could have been much worse, as my mind filled with the angry faces I had witnessed on the drivers. I had only once been in an accident previously, when I was sixteen, and that wasn’t even close to the near catastrophe this could have been.

  It had been my first day driving with my brand-new licence and to celebrate the occasion my father allowed me to drive his car to school. In the late afternoon, I had felt so cool walking out of Lexington High School, keys in hand, telling my friends I would see them later because I was driving home. My boyfriend had run up to me and asked for a ride. New drivers, as I well knew, weren’t allowed to take passengers, unless accompanied by an adult. But my boyfriend had often taken me home in his car and, though nervous, I felt it was only fair to reciprocate.

  Not wanting to be caught, I offered him a ride home on the condition that he hid in the back. Surprisingly, he accepted. As I pulled out of a side street on my way to his house, into a four-way intersection, I suddenly panicked. Cars flew by on both sides, passing faster than bullets. No one slowed to let me through, and as I inched my way into the middle of the road, cars swerved around me. Shaking, I put the car into reverse. And then, backing up onto a side street, without looking in the rearview mirror, I crashed. I had turned to see a massive white SUV sitting there, waiting to pull out onto the main road.

  The SUV had been fine, not a scratch on it, while the back of my father’s car was dented and his light was broken. The driver had waited as I got out, crying hysterically, and had tried to calm me down. His empathy had turned to shock when he looked up to see a young teenage boy jump out from the crushed boot and run down the street.

  My trembling hands adjusted the Citroen’s rearview mirror. Tears poured down my cheeks and I tried to quickly wipe them away. I glanced behind me to see if any cars were waiting impatiently to get their fast food. The driveway was empty, but, to my horror, strewn across the McDonald’s parking lot and on to the road, were pieces of my car.

  It was as if the innards of my car had instantaneously burst and splattered across the road. I walked along the sidewalk, passing pipes, bolts, cylinders and odd pieces of metal. Across the way, a large man in a hooded sweatshirt came running over. He was unfit and panted as he approached, speaking in a friendly, thick local accent.

  “You okay, pet?” he asked kindly.

  My mouth was numb. I could hardly speak. “I don’t know how this happened.”

  “Here,” he said, bending down to grab one of the pipes, “I’ll help you.” He wrapped his large hand around a piece of metal and screamed, throwing it back down and yelling obscenities. “It’s hot, it’s fucking hot!”

  Two more men came over and carefully lifted bits of car onto the side of McDonald’s carefully mulched and manicured lawn. Though my car had let me down, my faith in Dumfries and Galloway only grew in the next few hours. I was so well looked after by these strangers on their way to work that I ran inside and bought them e
ach an Egg McMuffin. My heroes gratefully accepted their rewards and reluctantly, I called Euan.

  “My car exploded,” I breathed.

  There was a pause. “What do you mean, exploded? Where are you?”

  As I told him what happened, he gave me Vincent’s phone number through fits of laughter.

  “I’m glad you’re finding this all very amusing.”

  “You’re obviously fine, Jessy. Adventure seems to find you. On the bright side, you can still go shopping. There’s an auction house right down the road from where you are.”

  When I walked into the Bookshop later that afternoon, it felt as if I had been gone for months. Vincent, my knight in shining blue overalls, had picked me up in Dumfries and promised to have my car sorted in days. He was horrified that I had driven it to Dumfries without getting it properly looked over.

  “Then these nice men helped me put the bits of my car on the sidewalk,” I said, standing in the cold kitchen, leaning against the table as Euan slid a roast, covered in onions and roasted potatoes, into the oven.

  “Pavement. You mean pavement, not sidewalk.” Euan shook his head. Whenever Euan was annoyed about something, he would turn into Henry Higgins. His corrections of my speech were like pulling the plug on a bath: all the energy drained from what I was saying, leaving me little desire to continue.

  “What’s that sound?” I asked, wandering over to the window. Outside, in the darkness of the garden, I could hear an other-worldy low rumble.

  “Frogs,” Euan replied, handing me a stack of warm plates. “In the pond.”

  I had never heard a sound like it – like a gurgling baritone chorus. “I thought it was the pipes in the bathroom.”

  “The bathroom? Do you have a bath in the downstairs loo?”

  “The restroom then.”

  “Do you go there to have a rest?”