Star Gazing

by Linda Gillard

  ‘Is that you, Mr Harvey?’

  Silence and stillness.

  Then, ‘I thought you were supposed to be blind? Are you working some kind of benefit fraud?’

  ‘I am blind.’

  ‘And a seer? Or just a mind-reader?’

  ‘What, might I ask, are you? A stalker? You’ve been watching me, haven’t you?’

  ‘Only because I was trying to work out if it was you, then whether you’d mind being disturbed. You seemed deep in thought.’

  ‘I was listening.’

  ‘To the birds?’

  ‘To the trees.’

  He sits beside her. ‘How did you know it was me?’

  ‘Smell. I was down-wind of you.’

  ‘Smell? I showered this morning. Very thoroughly.’

  ‘I didn’t mean a bad smell. It’s probably your cologne.’

  ‘I don’t wear any.’

  ‘Shampoo, then. Or maybe it’s just your natural smell. My nose is very sensitive. I recognise people by voice and smell. I’m pretty good at it, but it’s not a lot of help with judging character. It’s harder for the blind, meeting new people. You have to be… cautious. You never know what you’re getting.’

  ‘It’s always a blind date.’

  ‘Exactly. You aren’t a six-foot rabbit, are you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, that’s a relief.’

  ‘I’m six foot two.’

  ‘And furry?’

  ‘Only in the usual places.’

  ‘I could hear you were tall.’

  She hears a sound pitched somewhere between laughter and astonishment. ‘How?’

  ‘Where your voice comes from. You must get bored looking at the tops of people’s heads.’

  ‘Not as bored as they must get looking up my nostrils.’

  ‘Something else I’m spared. So just how furry are you?’

  ‘Not very. Ears normal length too. Well, for a rabbit… What did you smell? I’m fascinated.’

  ‘Oh, hawthorn blossom, I think.’

  ‘You’re kidding me?’

  ‘No. It’s a good masculine smell. Sharp. Exotic, in an understated way.’She lifts her head and he watches her profile as her delicate nostrils flare, like an animal scenting danger. ‘I think it’s you, not the shampoo. I can smell a soapy, chemical scent on top of the hawthorn. What were you photographing? Not me, I hope.’

  ‘How did you—? Och, you heard the shutter! I was photographing trees.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I compare what I see this year with what I saw this time last year. I make notes, keep a record. I’m tracking climate change.’

  ‘Is that your job?’

  ‘No, just an interest of mine.’

  ‘Do you live in Edinburgh?’

  ‘No. But I sometimes work here. And Aberdeen. Sometimes abroad.’

  ‘Where’s home?’

  ‘Wherever I happen to be.’

  ‘I get the impression you don’t like personal questions.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Not particularly.’

  ‘Another thing we have in common.’

  ‘Apart from a love of opera, you mean?’

  ‘Aye, and a love of trees.’

  ‘How do you know I love trees?’

  ‘Folk who sit here on a cold winter’s day must love trees. There’s little else to look—’He pauses. ‘Ah.’

  ‘You fell into the trap. Don’t worry. You lasted longer than most before making your faux pas.’

  ‘So was I wrong? About you and trees?’

  ‘No. I do love trees.’

  ‘Even though you can’t see them?’

  ‘I can hear them. You can hear the bare branches tapping against each other in the breeze. Listen! … It sounds like me, feeling my way along the pavement with my cane. I listen to trees. And I feel them.’

  ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes. I lay my hands on them. Feel the texture of their bark and leaves, try to gauge their girth.’

  ‘You touch wood.’

  ‘Yes, I touch wood. Primitive, isn’t it? But very satisfying. Are you superstitious, Mr Harvey?’

  ‘Keir. Aye, I suppose so. I’m from the islands. A healthy respect for the supernatural goes with the territory.’

  ‘Do you believe in an afterlife?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Neither do I. I sometimes wish I did, but I don’t. I think this is it, don’t you? We get one crack at life and have to make the best of it.’

  After a moment he says, ‘You lost someone.’

  It’s not a question and she is thrown momentarily. ‘What makes you say that?’

  ‘Folk talk like that when they’ve been through the fire. Death concentrates the mind.’

  ‘Yes, it certainly does. That’s about all that can be said for it.’

  The conversation languishes and she shivers. He looks down at her ungloved hands. ‘You’re not married?’

  ‘I was. Many years ago.’

  ‘Divorced?’

  ‘Widowed.’

  ‘I’m sorry. You must have been quite young.’

  ‘Twenty-seven. My husband was only thirty-three.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I don’t talk about it.’

  They are silent for a long time, then the peace of the garden is shattered by an ambulance siren approaching, then receding. She hears him change his position on the bench, then clear his throat.

  ‘Would you prefer to be on your own? I was gate-crashing anyway and I seem to have effectively killed the conversation.’

  ‘Oh, you’re still there, are you? I thought you might have vanished again, like you did at the opera. You know, I blithely introduced you to my sister, then felt a complete fool.’

  ‘I’m sorry. I saw someone. Someone who shouldn’t have been there. Someone I really didn’t want to see… But that’s no excuse. My behaviour was very rude. Civility is not exactly my strong suit. As you may have noticed. Would you like me to vanish now?’

  ‘No. I mean, if you want to leave—’

  ‘I don’t.’

  ‘Then stay. I’m enjoying your company – though you might think I have a funny way of showing it. I sit here for hours on my own while my sister writes. If you can call what she does writing. I think monkeys on typewriters might come up with similar stuff. Blind monkeys. But it pays the bills, so I mustn’t sneer. What do you do?’

  ‘I’m a geophysicist. I work in oil and gas exploration.’ Standing abruptly, she says, ‘You know, it’s really too cold to sit here. We’ll catch our deaths. I need a coffee. Better still, a hot chocolate.’She puts a hand up to her eyes, masking them, but not before he has seen tears.

  ‘Are you OK? What did I say? I’ve upset you.’

  ‘No, it wasn’t you, I just wasn’t expecting…’She turns away, her head bowed.

  He senses the muscles bunched in her shoulders, knows she would run if she could. Extending an arm he gently lifts the chilled fingers of one of her hands. He places them between his palms and she feels warmth radiating from his rough skin, restoring the circulation. ‘Come on, let’s get some coffee. Will you take my arm?’

  She looks up but doesn’t face him. ‘My husband was an oil man too… He died. In 1988. The sixth of July.’

  She hears the faint whistle of breath between his teeth. ‘Piper Alpha?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Marianne, I’m sorry.’

  ‘That’s why I don’t talk about being widowed. What, in God’s name, is there to say? Maybe I’ll talk about it one day, when I’ve come to terms with it. Give me another fifty years or so and I might be able to take a more philosophical view. But for now, I’m still angry. Incandescently angry.’

  Marianne

  It was – still is – the world’s worst-ever offshore disaster. The flames could be seen for sixty miles.

  One hundred and sixty-five oil workers died in an inferno when the Piper Alpha oil rig exploded. The sixty-one men who survived did s
o by leaping hundreds of feet into the sea, despite serious injuries and the rubber in their survival suits melting in the heat. Two heroic crewmen died attempting to rescue workers from the sea by boat. The bodies of thirty men – including my husband – were never recovered.

  It was, apparently, an accident waiting to happen. The Cullen inquiry concluded that the management had been grossly deficient. The platform was in poor condition. There had been cutbacks in maintenance. Major refurbishment was taking place without production being interrupted. The day shift neglected to talk to the night shift and when the night shift activated equipment that had been partly decommissioned by the day shift, all hell was let loose. Literally.

  It was a corporate massacre, but no one was ever prosecuted.

  There’s a memorial in Hazlehead Park in Aberdeen. It’s surrounded by a rose garden. The names of the 167 victims are engraved on a granite plinth. I can read Harvey’s name with my fingers, but I can’t see it, of course. I can’t see the rest of the memorial, can’t even feel it. The three bronze figures of oilmen in working gear and survival suits are mounted above head height. To give visitors a good view, I suppose.

  I’m told the memorial – designed by a woman – is very moving. The three figures face north, east and west and their symbolic gestures and details of their appearance are a sort of coded statement about the oil industry, life, death, the universe and everything.

  Sorry if I sound cynical. Bitter, even.

  I am.

  I spend some time every July sitting in the re-named, specially dedicated North Sea Rose Garden, facing a memorial I cannot see. (The roses smell nice.) Then I take a taxi to the seafront and sit on a bench facing out to sea in the direction of the marker buoy, 120 miles north-east of Aberdeen, which marks my husband’s grave.

  They tell me there’s a light so the marker buoy is visible day and night, especially from Piper Bravo, the new platform that was built just 600 metres away from the site of Piper Alpha.

  I can’t see the marker. I can’t see the sea. But I face them both every summer, believing they are there, believing that it matters I am there, trying to believe that somehow Harvey knows I’m there.

  God, I hate July.

  * * * * *

  ‘I think outside Scotland people have practically forgotten. Well, it’s not the sort of thing you want to remember, is it?’ In the café Marianne sips hot chocolate, warming her hands on the mug. Keir hasn’t spoken for some time, but she’s heard him exhale, sensed him sink into the chair beside her, oppressed by her story. ‘I didn’t just lose my husband… I was pregnant.’

  ‘Are you sure you want—’

  ‘Oh, yes. The only people I ever talk to about it are people I don’t know and will probably never meet again. You’re performing a sort of service – if you can bear to listen.’

  ‘Aye.’ He touches her hand briefly, as if to reassure her of his physical presence. ‘If you can bear to talk, I can bear to listen.’

  ‘I was three months pregnant when Harvey died.’

  ‘Harvey? Oh, Christ, I’m really sorry—’

  ‘Don’t worry about it. I like rabbits. The idea of them anyway. And I think I like you… First of all people told me the pregnancy was a blessing – I’d have something to remember him by. Then when I lost the baby, people said that was a blessing too. I could marry again, unencumbered. I used to wonder if I was on the receiving end of more than the usual amount of crass insensitivity, simply because I was blind. Some people do actually speak more slowly when they realise you’re blind. That’s one of the reasons I go to such lengths to disguise my disability. To avoid being patronised.’ She sighs and takes a mouthful of chocolate. ‘Oh, let’s change the subject. I’d rather talk about your furry ears. Do you have any other anatomical abnormalities?’ He is silent. ‘Keir, are you still there? I’d hate to think I’ve been unburdening myself to thin air.’

  ‘I’m still here. Would you like me to describe myself to you?’

  ‘Would you tell the truth?’ ‘I’d try. But I can’t say I ever give my appearance a great deal of thought.’

  ‘How refreshing. Something else we have in common.’

  She hears him shift in his chair. ‘I’m forty-two. Tall. A big guy, I suppose. Big bones and a fair bit of muscle. My hair’s dark. Very short.’

  ‘Eyes?’

  ‘Two.’

  ‘Both in working order, presumably?’

  ‘Aye. One’s blue and one’s green.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Aye. They’re different colours. Most folk don’t notice. Or they notice there’s something odd about my eyes, but can’t work out what it is.’

  ‘How extraordinary. Go on.’

  ‘What more is there to say?’

  ‘Well, would you say you’re attractive?’

  ‘Dogs seem to like me. And old ladies.’

  ‘You’re dodging the question.’

  ‘How would I know?’

  ‘Oh, come on! Men always know if women find them attractive.’

  ‘I’m not sure that I do. Do you?’

  ‘Do I what?’

  ‘Find me attractive?’

  ‘I can’t see you.’

  ‘You can’t see anyone. It’s a level playing field. Voice and smell, I believe you said.’

  ‘And touch. But that comes later.’

  ‘It needn’t. You could read me with your hands and answer your own question.’

  She is still for a moment, in apparent contemplation of her empty mug, then she turns towards him. Raising her hand towards his face, she finds it, then spreads her fingers, tracing the lines and planes of his brow, cheeks, nose and – lingering a moment – his mouth. She places both hands at the sides of his head and smiles as she feels short, spiky hair, sleek like an animal’s coat. Leaning back in her seat she extends a palm until it meets his chest, registering a soft woollen jumper and hard shirt buttons beneath. She moves her hand across, feeling the undulation of muscle, until she finds his upper arm which she follows downwards, arriving at a large hand resting loosely on his thigh. She sketches his hand with her fingertips then moves them to his thigh where she lets them rest for a moment, exerting just the smallest pressure. Withdrawing her hand, she leans back.

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘Well. That was… stirring.’

  ‘It was also very informative. I think you sold yourself a bit short in the physique department. Not so much a rabbit – more of a bear.’

  ‘So did you answer your own question?’

  ‘If the colour of your hair were a smell, what would it be?’

  ‘Impressive diversionary tactic. A smell for a colour? That’s a tough one. It’s a rich brown. Goes a bit red in the summer.’

  ‘Useless. I need smells.’

  ‘Walnuts. Walnuts when you crack them open at Christmas.’

  ‘And your eyes?’

  ‘Which one? The blue or the green?’

  ‘The blue.’

  He is silent for a moment, then says, ‘Juniper.’

  ‘And the green?’

  ‘The smell of… autumn leaves. Decaying. That November smell. Smoky.’

  ‘Lovely! You’re good at this game – I can see you now. You aren’t a rabbit at all. Or even a bear.’ She extends a hand again and places her palm on his chest, leaving it there. ‘You’re a tree.’

  Chapter Three

  Louisa

  I have to confess I didn’t really notice any change in Marianne. I was very busy with the final stages of one book and the birth pangs of another. My GP says I should spend less time on creation and more on recreation. My publishers, on the other hand, seem quite happy for me to work myself to death, death being actually quite good for business as it stimulates interest in your backlist.

  It had struck me that Marianne seemed more cheerful. She perhaps took more care with her appearance, even asking me to advise her about accessories. I should have twigged, I suppose, but she never mentioned anyone and I never saw her wit
h anyone. It’s not as if she ever brought anyone home and introduced us. (Admittedly she did try.)

  Marianne had been single for so long that, frankly, I didn’t ever think of her in relation to men. Not that she’s unattractive, more uninterested. Her eyes are a little disconcerting of course, but they’re large and an unusual blue. Her blonde hair is going grey now, but she has a reasonable figure, I suppose because she eats very little and walks a lot. I tend to sit at the PC, nibbling, so the less said about my figure, the better. I thought about hiring one of those hunky personal trainers but the truth is, I don’t really have time to exercise and when I do stop work, I’m exhausted. I just want to put my feet up with a large G&T. And possibly a personal trainer.

  Marianne eats sensibly, walks for miles and never misses an opportunity to tell me I’m a heart attack waiting to happen. I take no notice. I know it’s just her rather warped way of saying she worries about me.

  Perhaps I should have worried more about her. If I’d been less preoccupied with my own affairs I might have realised she’d found a new interest in life and I might have guessed what it was. But the irony was (I say irony because Marianne is, of course, blind), it appeared she was being courted by The Invisible Man.

  Marianne

  He said he supposed we’d run into each other again. I said I hoped so. It was one of those awkward conversations where no one actually issues an invitation. Well, what sort of invitation would seem appropriate? I’d told him half my life-story; he’d told me nothing of his, but he’d let me run my hands over him, as if he’d wanted to be known. I’d felt his lips, his eyelashes, even the muscles in his thigh, but I didn’t know where he lived and clearly he didn’t want me to know.

  I asked for his mobile number but he said he was about to go away. I said, ‘Anywhere nice?’ He said, ‘The Arctic Circle.’ He didn’t ask for my number. We stood on the pavement outside the Botanics, sheltering under my umbrella, the enforced intimacy at odds with the stilted conversation. Eventually I said, ‘Well, you know where I live,’ and he said, ‘Aye, I do.’

  I assumed I’d never see him again.

  Two weeks later, when I’d almost forgotten about the conversation in the café (almost, but not quite), I received a padded envelope containing a cassette. Louisa sorts the post and she’d left mine on the hall table, as usual. I tore open the envelope, felt for a covering letter, but couldn’t find one. Lou had gone out to the hairdresser’s so I couldn’t ask her to read the label on the tape. I took it into my bedroom, dropped it into the cassette player and pressed ‘Play’.