by Joe Heap
It seems strange that one day she will know the answer to this question – whether her interpretation is right or wrong – but won’t be able to come back and tell the version of her who is now standing at the window. She won’t be able to rewind.
When the sun has truly set, she allows herself to sit down on the sofa. The flat is dark and quiet, and Kate is waiting.
Three
THE CAFÉ IS NOISY and Nova can tell it is dimly lit. The pastel haze that she sees in bright light has faded to nothing. She can smell cheap candles and bitter coffee.
She’s sitting at a table somewhere near the door, with a cup of green tea. If she weren’t waiting for someone she might put her headphones in and listen to an audiobook or music. She knows that sighted people will often sit in cafés, doing nothing more than gazing out of the window. They enjoy it. They call it ‘watching the world go by’. But Nova must wait, in the dark, listening to the clamour of conversations around her, unable to pick out any words.
Nova is not jealous of sighted people. Not acutely. She used to be; as a teenager, she thought constantly about how everything would be better if she weren’t blind. All her problems would be solved. But over time she came to realize that this wasn’t true. Sighted people were not intrinsically happier than blind people. They had their own things to be unhappy about.
She is thinking about this when a pair of hands lands on her shoulders, making her jump.
‘Ha-ha!’ A voice cries, triumphantly.
‘Fuck! Rebecca, you know I hate it when you do that!’
‘I know.’ The hands withdraw, there is a wet kiss on her cheek, and Nova hears Rebecca sliding into the chair across from her. ‘That’s why I do it.’
Nova sighs, smiling in spite of herself. ‘You’re late.’
‘I know, I know, I’m sorry. I had to wrap up some science-y stuff.’
‘You’re a theoretical physicist, Becca. Nothing was going to explode if you left early.’
‘You don’t know that.’
‘No? What are you working on then?’
Rebecca clears her throat. ‘Semi-classical Virasoro symmetry of the quantum gravity S-matrix.’
‘Ah, of course,’ Nova deadpans, feeling unexpectedly awkward.
Rebecca reaches out and touches her cheek. A shiver runs down Nova’s back before she moves out of reach.
One of the questions that Nova is asked most often is how she knows she’s gay, when she’s blind. Sighted people tell her that a lot of attraction is based on looks, and Nova shrugs. She doesn’t understand this, any more than she understands why a slice of apple pie looks tasty, but she knows what it smells like and how it tastes. She has early memories of feeling different in the company of girls – she liked the soft tone of their voices, their perfume, the way they were gentle in their play. But anything more than that is a mystery – it’s just the way she is. Rebecca has soft hands, and a soft voice – low alto, smoky with cigarettes.
‘How are you?’ Rebecca asks.
‘I’m okay. Tired.’
‘You don’t look tired.’
‘How do I look?’
‘Pretty. Pretty as a picture!’ Rebecca sing-songs. Nova hears her pick up the cup of tea and slurp.
‘You’re in a good mood …’ Nova leaves the sentence hanging.
‘What are you implying?’ Rebecca asks. Her tone is still jokey, but she knows exactly what Nova is implying. Still, Nova needs a sofa for the night, so she can’t afford to piss Rebecca off too much.
‘Nothing. I’m just tired.’
‘Sure … So, what brings you back to these parts? You were pretty vague on the phone.’
‘Just catching up with old friends.’
‘I’m an “old friend” now, am I?’
‘I wasn’t talking about you. I went to see John Katzner earlier.’
‘Oh, really?’ Now Rebecca’s tone sours. Though they have never met, she and John do not like each other. It was John who told Nova to break things off with Rebecca.
‘Look, Becca, I have news. There’s an operation … I might be able to see. To not be blind any more.’
There is silence from the other side of the table for a long time, and Nova starts to wonder if Rebecca has simply walked away. This is something that sighted people do from time to time, forgetting that she can’t know they’ve left. It is something Rebecca has done frequently, just to fuck with her.
‘Becca?’
‘Wow. That’s really something.’ She sounds more earnest than Nova can ever remember. ‘So, when are you going to do it?’
‘Well, that’s the thing – I don’t know if I’m going to do it.’
‘Why not?’
Nova thinks about how to explain it to her. She thinks about giving the same spiel she gave to Alex, about the radio waves and the ultraviolet, all the fizzing light that goes unseen. Instead, she dips her head and says, into her chest, ‘Because I’m scared.’
Rebecca doesn’t say anything for a long time.
‘Do you remember that time you asked me what I imagined, when I was doing physics?’
Nova tries to remember. ‘Maybe …’
‘We were in the laundrette, eating ice pops and waiting for our clothes to be dry.’
‘Oh yeah, I remember that.’ Nova hasn’t thought about that day for years. She’s amazed that the memory has existed inside her all this time, that it hasn’t withered away.
‘You asked how I pictured something that was a particle and a wave at the same time. Or how I pictured four dimensions, or eleven dimensions, or whatever bollocks I was talking about at the time.’
Nova is strangely touched that Rebecca has remembered her words, carried them around with her all this time. She didn’t make an effort to forget her – it was like something her body had done for her, like fighting a virus. Her immune system had rejected Rebecca.
‘And I said that I pictured this or that – sometimes lots of ping-pong balls, or a slinky toy …’
‘Okay?’ Nova questions, not sure where this is going.
‘But the point is – none of those things that I’m picturing in my head are real. I can never know what those things look like, even though I think about them all day. Those are just pictures that help me think about the problem I’m trying to solve. And I bet every single person in my department has different pictures. But if you gave me the opportunity to see those things for real …’
She trails off.
‘What?’ Nova asks. ‘What if you had that opportunity?’
‘Then I would take it,’ Rebecca says, and Nova can hear her shrug. ‘And I bet it would be really scary. I bet it would drive me a bit crazy. But it would be worth it. It would be worth it to understand all that extra stuff.’
Her hands reach out and take Nova’s. Her hands are big and cool, and Nova doesn’t pull away. They sit in silence for a long minute.
‘Wow, Becca, that was like, a real thing.’
‘Meaning what?’
‘Meaning it was very sincere, for you.’
Rebecca chuckles, and squeezes her hands. ‘I can be sincere! I’m a very sincere person these days.’
There’s a heat in Nova’s chest that is taking her by surprise. Rebecca’s perfume smells like coconut.
‘These days?’
Rebecca is silent for a moment. ‘I’ve missed you.’
Now Nova does pull her hands away. ‘I thought you were being sincere?’
‘Don’t be mean. I have – I’ve really missed you. My supernova.’
Nova softens, smiles at the old nickname.
‘I’ve missed you too.’
‘So, do you want to get a drink? Other than tea, I mean?’
‘I don’t know if that’s such a good idea …’
Nova leaves it unspoken. They both know what she means.
‘I’m different these days.’ Rebecca leans closer, so Nova can hear her. ‘I’m not like that any more. Just one drink. For old time’s sake?’
The nex
t morning, Nova wakes on Rebecca’s sofa. It’s Friday, and she needs to get back to London for her early shift tomorrow. She regrets staying, a little, but at least she’s on the sofa. She remembers kissing Rebecca and winces. Still, her head is clear and she didn’t do anything really stupid.
She opens her eyes wide,
wide,
wide,
letting in all the light that can be let in. It isn’t much. She’s lying on the sofa facing the front windows, through which the morning sun is streaming – she can feel the warmth on her face. But the most that Nova sees is a grey haze, like a misty morning.
This is the most she has ever known, so it should seem ordinary. But for the first time in years, Nova peers intently into the gloom, willing it to reveal the shapes of things on the other side. She wills the mist to dispel. If she could just have a glimpse – a sneak peek – she could make her decision.
The warmth of the sun fades, and Nova hears the patter of rain on the window. She knows the shape of rain from a book she had when she was a child – it had a shape made from silky fabric, curved around and pointed at one end. After a long time of feeling the shape, running her fingers over the soft fabric, she had asked her brother what the shape was.
‘That’s a drop … a drip. Like rain. Or when you cry.’
Nova still does not understand how tears and rain look alike. She closes her eyes again, shifts until she is comfortable, and sleeps a little longer with the blanket pulled over her face.
There is a harpsichord playing as Kate eats her breakfast, from the kitchen stereo that Tony got her for Christmas. Handel’s Messiah. Kate likes classical music. Tony doesn’t care much about music, but doesn’t mind stuff without words. She’s eating marmalade on toast, with a coffee recently magicked out of a golden plastic pod.
Her head is throbbing, both the spiky harpsichord and the acidity of the Seville marmalade prodding at the ache like needles. She skips a few tracks to something with just strings and dilutes each bite of toast with a swig of milky coffee. Tony appears, smelling of two-in-one shampoo and shower gel, fastening his tie. Not a real tie, of course – the sort that pulls off if you grab it, like a gecko’s tail.
‘Anything going on?’ Tony asks, spotting that Kate is reading the news on her phone. He pecks her on the cheek and sits next to her.
‘Just the usual.’ She puts the phone down for a moment and squeezes his knee.
‘Are you wearing that to work?’ He points to her outfit, a navy-blue T-shirt with tiny cactuses printed over it and a pair of jeans. She hasn’t worn the T-shirt for months.
‘Oh, I spilled something on my blouse. You don’t like?’
‘No, it’s just, maybe … not for work.’
‘Okay, I’ll change into something else. I think my cream blouse is clean.’
Tony is checking his own phone now. ‘Mm. What are you doing today?’
‘Job over in Borough. The office I told you about.’
He nods, though she’s not sure he’s remembered. Why should he?
‘What are you doing?’ she asks him – an old joke, since the answer is always the same.
‘Catching criminals. Saving the world.’
Kate nods sagely at the stock answer. Sometimes Tony comes home with cuts and bruises. He’s had black eyes and a fractured radius in his left arm. Often, he won’t say anything, but Kate will notice him limping or catch him wince when she hugs him.
She’s met some of his friends on the force and gets the impression that Tony has a reputation for doing crazy things – chasing people down single-handed, jumping into the line of fire – but they clam up when she asks for details. It worries her, but Kate always knew Tony was a thrill-seeker – skydiving and bungee jumping at university seeming like placeholders in his life for something genuinely scary.
The pain in her head turns up a notch, and she decides she needs to take something. She gets up and rummages in the cupboard over the tea and coffee area, where there are various boxes of pills, jars of vitamins and bags of loose-leaf tea.
‘Feeling off?’
‘Just a headache.’
Tony doesn’t respond. She’s been having headaches since the day she hit her head. She should probably go to the doctor, she thinks, but he’d only give her paracetamol, and she can’t take time off work. She finds a box of pills and pushes a couple through the foil.
‘What time are you home? Tony asks. ‘We could rent a movie.’
‘Sorry, hun, I’m seeing the electrician at the new flat after work. I’ll probably be back late.’
They’ve owned the new flat for a couple of months now, but it was a wreck when they got it, the only sort they could afford. Kate wanted something she could make her own. She has stripped it back to almost nothing, knocked down an unnecessary wall, and raised all the floors with sound insulation. It’s still an empty space, but once the electrics are done, she will make a start on decorating.
‘Okay.’ Tony nods, drinking his tea. ‘How much longer do you think until we can move in?’
Kate swallows the pills with her coffee and turns, resting against the worktop. ‘I don’t know. A couple of months? Depends how much time I spend there.’
Tony nods slowly, and Kate senses where the conversation is going.
‘That’s a long time …’ he says.
‘Well, we’re comfortable here, aren’t we? There’s no rush.’
‘That’s not what I meant.’ Tony sighs.
No, Kate thinks – I know what you meant. The subject of children keeps coming up recently. She doesn’t want to argue about it now, with her head throbbing.
‘Look, I’m happy to start trying as soon as we get into the new place.’
Tony puts his head down as though examining his shoes. ‘I don’t see why you need to wait.’
‘Because I’m renovating the flat. Because I have work to do!’
Tony looks up and his eyes narrow. ‘There’s always work to do.’ He spits out the word ‘work’ as though she’s mentioned the name of a lover.
‘Just … can we talk about this later? I don’t see what the hurry is.’
Tony stands, pulls on his jacket, takes one last look at her and leaves the room without saying anything. Kate hears him moving around in the hallway, gathering his things. She hears the front door open, winces as it slams shut.
She hunches over the sink and cradles her head in her hands, willing the pills to find their target. She watches water from the tap going drip … drip … drip …
She knows already that the next time she sees Tony, she will agree to try.
Kate has always wanted kids. She repeats this fact to herself through the day, standing in the shower or sitting on the bus, as though trying to convince herself of its truth. As though it is a prayer. These are just nerves, she tells herself. She has a good life, a good job, and soon she will have a good home – the risk of upending everything is what makes her pause. Once she has made the decision, the nerves will vanish, and she will feel excitement.
Pretending hasn’t occurred to her yet, but the possibility is there. It will be easy to justify to herself – just for a while, until she has finished renovating the flat.
The pills are not difficult to hide.
He’ll never know.
Four
April
‘SIT UP PLEASE, MISS. It’s time.’
Suppose a man is born blind, Nova thinks, remembering Locke’s ‘Essay Concerning Human Understanding’. Suppose he learns, through touch, to recognize two objects – a sphere and a cone. Now suppose, years later, that the man is cured of his blindness, by science, or a miracle. Would the man then be able to tell the sphere and the cone apart, just by looking at them?
Alex would call this a mind game, a riddle. But mind games are all she has, as Nova prepares to find out the truth behind the story.
Stories meant everything to her. When she was young, she would learn Dr Seuss and Edward Lear, first by listening to her father, then by lines of
Braille in a ring binder too heavy for her to move. Later, when Alex became religious, she read the Qur’an out of curiosity. She read the sura that says ‘He makes you in the wombs of your mothers in stages, one after another, in three veils of darkness’, and thought – when I was born, one of those veils remained. People imagined blindness as darkness, but for Nova, the world was a mysterious shadow-play behind that veil.
Her pillows are rearranged. Several people enter the room unannounced, plastic shoes squeaking on the plastic floor.
‘Close the blinds.’
As she grew, Nova learned other things, like Shakespeare, when he has Romeo say – ‘he that is strucken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost’. She hadn’t been ‘strucken’, but she felt a loss. Nova imagined that words were her compensation, learning languages by tape, memorising poetry. She was not Romeo, but the world of romance was not closed off to her. More than one young man had explained her beauty to her, as though confirming what she could not confirm. Not that Nova was interested in young men.
‘Are you ready?’ a female voice asks.
‘Lady, do I look ready?’ Nova quips. The doctors laugh. Out of a sense of occasion, or because of her silent audience, Nova searches for something more to say – a quotation to introduce the magic act she is about to perform. But she finds herself dried up. Her mouth is dry; her tongue feels too big. How can she be ready when her mouth is so dry?
‘Okay, here we go.’
Fingers tug at the bandages around her head, unknotting and unwinding. The cotton pads fall away. From darkness, she becomes aware of soft light, still familiar. Her eyes are shut.
‘Try …’ the doctor begins, but she is already trying. Pain rushes in, as though her eyes are fresh wounds.