Star Gazing

by Linda Gillard

  After a few seconds I heard a wind howling. It was eerie: a constant whine, almost musical in the way it swooped up and down in pitch. Suddenly a man’s voice was raised above it, almost shouting.

  ‘Hello, Marianne. This is a postcard from Keir. I’m in Hammerfest, Norway, seven hundred miles inside the Arctic Circle, and it’s bloody cold. Makes Edinburgh seem balmy. Hammerfest is the northernmost town in the world. They used to hunt polar bear but now the ice is receding, everyone’s looking for Black Gold – including me. It’s another Klondyke up here. Plenty of fights and not enough women to go round. Lots of reindeer though… Guess what? I’m the tallest tree.’

  There was a click followed by the sound of raucous singing and inebriated male laughter. The song came to a ragged, unmusical climax and was warmly applauded by the performers themselves. There was another click, followed by Keir’s voice once again, sounding stern.

  ‘PS. Do not attempt to get that rousing little ditty translated from the original Norwegian. I made some preliminary enquiries as to the subject matter and believe me, you’re better off not knowing.’ He paused, then added, ‘Och, it was kind of catchy though, wasn’t it?… Cheers, Marianne.’

  I don’t know when I’ve been more touched or thrilled by a gift.

  Not since Harvey used to send me taped love letters.

  I carried the tape around in my handbag for a week. I don’t know why, I just liked the thought of it being there, a piece of the Arctic living in my handbag, like Narnia inside the wardrobe. But then I had my bag snatched outside Jenners. (Needless to say, I was using my cane.)

  I think I was possibly more upset about losing the cassette than the contents of my handbag. I hadn’t made a copy or even played it to Louisa. I didn’t think she’d really see the joke and I wasn’t sure how I was going to explain the remark about the tree. But if I’m honest I have to admit I enjoyed the extraordinary luxury of a secret, something I didn’t have to share with Lou, something I didn’t have to experience through her.

  At least, I think that’s why I didn’t tell her. Of course, it might have been because I didn’t trust myself to keep girlish excitement out of my voice, or because I feared I might blush. Whichever way you look at it, it amounts to the same thing: I didn’t want to share Keir.

  *

  I received a second postcard-cassette. It purported to be the sound of a glacier calving, dropping icebergs into the sea: creaks and groans, then a noise like a rifle shot, followed by a tremendous roar. It sounded like the execution and death throes of some Arctic leviathan.

  Keir appeared to be on board ship. I could hear waves and a ship’s hooter. He said very little other than to explain what was happening. At the end of the message he said, sounding quite impersonal, ‘I’ll be back in Edinburgh on the thirtieth. If you want to hear any travellers’ tales, I’ll be in the Botanics café at twelve on the thirty-first. Fortunately you’ll be spared the holiday snaps.’

  And that was it. Not even ‘Cheers, Marianne’ this time.

  If I’d known what flight he was on, I might have gone to meet it, though I’m not sure how you meet someone at an airport if you’re blind. Stand around looking conspicuous, I suppose. But there was no way of letting him know I’d be there. In any case, it would have been a ridiculous thing to do. For all I knew, he’d be met by a girlfriend or work colleagues. I chastised myself for thinking like a lovesick teenager and dropped the tape into the waste paper bin.

  Later that day I went to retrieve it, but our cleaning lady had been and she’d emptied all the bins. I was livid – livid with the cleaner and livid with myself. Livid that I’d thrown the tape away, livid that I’d tried to retrieve it, but mostly livid that I was livid.

  I recited the date and time of the proposed assignation, like a mantra, until I felt calm again.

  Louisa

  Marianne came home one day, all smiles, and said she’d invited someone to dinner: a Mr Harvey. She was irritated when I didn’t know who she meant. She explained and I had to point out that I hadn’t actually met Mr Harvey at the theatre – he’d disappeared before I arrived.

  She said it didn’t matter, she was sure we’d get on. I told her I didn’t want to play gooseberry and offered to go out for the evening but she said it was ‘nothing like that’ and that I should invite a friend to make it a foursome. So I invited Garth.

  Garth is a Goth. Yes, I know, the alliteration is wretched, but his poor mother wasn’t to know. (In case you don’t know about Goths, they dress in black satin with silver chains, wear black eyeliner and white foundation. And that’s just the boys.) When Marianne first met Garth, she enquired where the noise of rattling chains was coming from, but apart from that, she had no problem with him, which might not have been the case if she’d been able to see him.

  Garth is a sweet boy, one of my most devoted fans, and he maintains my website. He looks like one of the living dead but actually he has a very practical side. (Did you know that, according to a survey, Goths have more GCSEs than any other cult?) Garth is thorough and pays scrupulous attention to detail. He’s doing a PhD on the history of witchcraft in Scotland but he also helps me with research. Despite what my critics say – foremost among them, Marianne – I don’t just churn out books. A lot of work goes into them and a good deal of historical research. We can’t all be Shakespeare, but we can be accurate. It’s just a question of doing the necessary research. Or rather Garth doing the necessary research. I don’t really have time – too busy on the creative side. It’s a completely different part of the brain and I don’t think you can just shuttle back and forth from one to the other without suffering some sort of cerebral jetlag.

  We took a lot of trouble over the menu for Mr Harvey. Marianne would have everything just so, but that wasn’t unusual. I didn’t set any particular store by that. I was looking forward to a delicious meal and had starved myself in anticipation, so I wasn’t best pleased when he was late. Garth always looked malnourished and I couldn’t tell whether his subdued manner was a result of hunger or boredom.

  When Mr Harvey was thirty minutes late, Marianne went to the kitchen and turned the oven down very low. (There are blobs of nail polish on the controls, in case you were wondering.) Garth and I had been putting away the gin but the mood still wasn’t very convivial. I was hungry, Marianne was tense and Garth’s small-talk was limited. He and I were comparing Robert de Niro’s Frankenstein with Boris Karloff’s when Marianne suddenly got to her feet and said, ‘Sod it. Let’s eat.’ And so we did. Garth and I tucked in but Marianne just picked at salad and wouldn’t even touch the Orange Meringue Bombe. She looked worn out, poor thing.

  After dinner she picked up the phone for the third time to check it was working. I could have killed that man. There was no excuse for not ringing unless he was lying in some casualty ward. I don’t know why, but I started to wonder… Perhaps because she seemed so upset but, at the same time, she didn’t seem all that surprised. It was almost as if she’d known he wouldn’t show, as if that’s what she’d expected. But perhaps I was imagining things. (That is, after all, my job.)

  As soon as Garth left, Marianne started loading the dishwasher. I could tell from the clatter in the kitchen that she was angry. I know I shouldn’t have said it, but I’d had quite a lot to drink by then and I was tired, not to mention genuinely concerned about our dinner service. (The design is discontinued.)

  She was scraping plates noisily into the bin when I said, ‘Marianne, do you think it’s possible you could have been overdoing things lately?’

  She stopped scraping and said, rather sharply I thought, ‘What do I do that could possibly be overdone? What are you getting at, Lou?’

  ‘Nothing! I just wondered if you might have been… mistaken?’

  She turned abruptly. I should have seen the warning signs.

  ‘Mistaken? About what?’

  ‘About this man. Mr Harvey.’

  ‘His name’s Keir. What do you mean?’

  ‘Well, I mean
it must be very difficult having only your hearing to go by. And everybody knows ears can play tricks on you.’

  ‘Are you suggesting I imagined him?’

  ‘No, of course not!’

  ‘Then what are you saying?’

  ‘Just that it seems very odd. Not turning up. Not even phoning.’

  ‘It’s not odd, it’s bloody rude.’ She bent over the dishwasher and rammed a handful of dirty cutlery into the basket.

  ‘I dare say there’s a reason,’ I said, trying to be conciliatory. ‘Maybe he lost your telephone number. Or had an accident. There could be all sorts of reasons why he isn’t here. Why don’t you give him a ring?’

  ‘I don’t have his mobile number.’

  ‘Well, ring him at home. He might have left a message on his answerphone.’

  ‘I don’t have the number. I don’t even know where he lives. Anyway, he’s not the kind to leave messages on answerphones. He doesn’t do explanations.’

  ‘Marianne, forgive me for speaking so bluntly, but what evidence is there that this man actually exists?’

  ‘You think I’ve made him up?’

  ‘Not deliberately, no. But I think it’s possible that your mind is playing tricks on you. It’s probably all my fault for leaving you so much to your own devices, but with the deadline for Blood Will Have Blood looming, things have been just insane.’

  ‘Is that what you think I am? Insane?’

  ‘No, of course not, my dear!’

  ‘Don’t you “my dear” me!’

  ‘Marianne, calm down! Naturally you’re upset. Nobody likes being stood up.’

  ‘Oh, so you admit he exists, then? Or do you think I’ve been stood up by a ghost? By a figment of my own imagination?’

  ‘I don’t know what to think! All I’m saying is, it doesn’t add up.’

  ‘He sent me a postcard!’

  ‘Did he? Oh, that was nice… How did you know it was from him?’

  ‘It was a tape. A message on a cassette.’

  ‘Where from?’

  ‘The Arctic.’

  ‘The Arctic? Oh, for goodness’ sake! Show me!’

  She started putting crockery onto the dishwasher rack, shoving it in any-old-how. ‘I can’t. It was stolen.’

  ‘Somebody stole a tape?’

  ‘It was in my handbag when it was snatched.’

  ‘Well, it’s hardly evidence then, is it?’

  ‘Who’s on trial here – him or me?’

  ‘Nobody! I’m just trying to establish beyond a shadow of doubt that Keith exists.’

  ‘Keir! His name’s Keir Harvey, he’s nothing to do with the Labour Party and before you ask, no, he is not a rabbit!’

  I laid my hand on her arm. She was shaking. ‘Marianne, I really think you should go and sit down. Take one of my tablets, they’ll make you feel much calmer—’

  She yanked her arm away and yelled, ‘I’m perfectly calm!’

  And that’s when she broke the sauceboat. It hit the worktop. Chocolate sauce went all over the kitchen and Marianne’s cream silk trousers. I was so cross.

  ‘Oh, now look what you’ve done!’

  ‘How can I, you stupid woman? I’m blind!’

  She stalked out of the kitchen, colliding with a chair. I heard her bedroom door slam, then the sound of crying, but I thought it would be best for me to clear up first. I knew she wasn’t crying about her silk trousers or even the sauceboat, but I didn’t think there was anything useful I could say about the elusive Mr Harvey.

  Poor Marianne. She’d even given him the same name.

  Chapter Four

  Marianne

  There had been men. A few. I was widowed at twenty-seven and, for a blind woman, I was not unattractive, or so I was told. In my thirties I went through an interesting period of trying to find a life partner in an abortive attempt to escape from the smothering symbiotic relationship I’d developed living with my sister. I’d gone to stay with Louisa when Harvey died and so she was around for the miscarriage. By the time we’d got over that, we thought it would be a good idea to pool our financial resources and buy somewhere in Edinburgh. I was keen to make a new start. I certainly didn’t want to retain my flat in Aberdeen. Even now the sound of an Aberdonian accent has me fighting off a panic attack. The yearly pilgrimage to Hazlehead Park is all I can manage.

  My period of modest promiscuity probably had more to do with finding a father for a child than finding myself another husband or even just a lover. I failed on all counts and entered my forties older, wiser, childless and celibate. And, it has to be said, slightly relieved. Blind motherhood would always have been a tough option, but I didn’t even get beyond the vetting process. Blind sexual relationships are even more fraught with difficulty than the sighted variety, especially for women.

  Perhaps I should explain. The sort of men you attract if you’re blind fall into one of three categories:

  A. The Romantics. These are men who think there’s something spiritual, beautiful, quintessentially feminine about being blind (for which read helpless). Blindness brings out the Galahad in this type. They charge about being helpful on a heroic scale. Woe betide you if you don’t wish to be rescued and set upon a pedestal.

  B. The Sexually Insecure. These men believe that if you’re blind (i.e. defective), you’ll be grateful for any interest shown in you, even if it comes from a short, fat, malodorous clod so unappealing, a sighted woman would cross the road to avoid him. (In some ancient cultures blind girls were sent to work in brothels, presumably to service clients so deformed or otherwise loathsome that your average working girl would take one look and go on strike. Alternatively, blind girls may have been encouraged to follow this career path for a different reason. See C below.)

  C. The Perverts. There are, unfortunately, a number of men who are turned on by the idea of a blind woman. Whether it’s the Peeping Tom factor or the reputation the blind have for sensory over-compensation, I’ve never hung around long enough to find out.

  What all these men have in common is, they expect a blind woman to be grateful for their attentions. (Perhaps I’m being unfair. Isn’t that what most men expect of women?) That’s what renders me a second-class citizen. Not being blind. Blindness is just a series of practical problems for which one eventually finds a solution. I don’t consider myself handicapped, except by others’ views of me. What constrains me, angers me, demeans me, are other people’s expectations, in particular the universal expectation that I should be grateful for their help, for their concessions, for inclusion in their sighted world, to which I don’t really belong.

  Keir hadn’t treated me like that. He didn’t seem to be Type A, B or C. (Definitely not A or B and if he was a closet C then he’d blown his chance of a fantasy scenario.) Keir had been different. He was offhand, almost rude. He made no concessions to my blindness. It was almost as if ‘sight, lack of’ wasn’t an issue, simply a distinguishing characteristic, like his height. The only person who’d ever treated me like that was Harvey and he learned how to do it over a period of years, the few years we had before he was killed.

  So I was caught off-guard. I was vulnerable. (When is one not, when one is blind?) I was almost forty-six, nearer fifty than forty – an uncomfortable realisation. I’d assumed my sexual organs and appetite had long atrophied through lack of use and was surprised, a little embarrassed, even dismayed to find that this wasn’t so, although to say I felt a sexual attraction to Keir would have been overstating the case.

  All right, it wouldn’t. Who am I kidding? I have only voice, touch and smell to go on and he’d passed with flying colours in all those departments. In addition, he seemed not only an interesting person, but a nice one. I liked his rudeness. It was stimulating. Refreshing. And it was never a result of a lack of consideration or imagination, as was so often the case in my dealings with sighted people. Keir’s blunt manner, his off-the-wall take on things, seemed to be the result of his seeing fairly clearly (for a sighted person) what life was ac
tually like for me. So add empathy to his list of virtues.

  I suppose it’s no wonder my sister thought I’d made him up. So did I at times. Like when he didn’t show up for dinner. I couldn’t forgive Keir for not turning up, for not ringing me the day after, or the day after that. I couldn’t forgive him for disappointing me, for creating his own category – there’s a first time for everything – of Dilettante, a combination of A, B and C, without the staying power of any of them.

  No doubt I’d had a lucky escape, for which I should be grateful. (You see? Gratitude is unavoidable, however hard you try.) But I wasn’t grateful. I was hurt. Humiliated. I was angry.

  I was still angry a week later when I decided to go for a walk in the Botanics. I stood at the sitting room window listening for rain. I couldn’t hear any but decided to take the umbrella anyway. I slammed the door of the flat and set off down the wide staircase, rehearsing exactly what I’d say to Mr Keir Harvey if he had the misfortune to bump into me. But of course he wouldn’t. He’d see me coming and walk the other way.

  My anger flared again as I walked across the tiled hall, footsteps echoing, and opened the heavy front door. I stepped over the threshold, turning, and walked into a wall of flesh and bone. I shrieked and stepped backwards, tripping over the door-sill. Hands caught me by the elbows and pulled me upright again. A voice, his voice, was saying, ‘It’s me. Sorry, Marianne. It’s Keir.’

  A wave of relief overwhelmed me: I wasn’t about to be mugged or murdered. But I didn’t want to feel relieved. Not grateful. Lord, anything but that.

  I opened and closed my mouth, trying to find words to express the cocktail of emotions provoked by the sudden shock of Keir’s presence, his voice, his hands on me. I’d intended, if I ever met him again, to be frigidly polite, dismissive. But what came out was anger.