The January Stars

by Kate Constable

  ‘The obvious solution would be that he moved in with Timothy and the rest of your family … No?’

  ‘Our apartment is way too small,’ said Clancy. ‘I’m even sharing a room with Bruno.’

  ‘I see …’

  Then Clancy had a blinding idea. This was why Nan had led them to Antonia! ‘He could live with you!’ she cried. ‘How cool would that be?’

  ‘Sh!’ Tash glowered at her and Clancy guiltily clapped a hand over her mouth as Pa stirred in his sleep; but he didn’t wake.

  Clancy gazed hopefully at Antonia, but she was shaking her head. ‘I wish I could help, my dear, sincerely I do. But I’m afraid these premises are hardly suitable. Strictly speaking, I’m breaking council regulations by living here myself. I don’t even have proper bathroom facilities. It’s a lick and a promise for me most days, I’m sorry to say. No, I don’t think Godfrey would be at all comfortable here.’

  Clancy sank back in disappointment.

  ‘We’re open to ideas,’ said Tash. ‘We’re getting kind of desperate, to be honest with you.’

  ‘Let me consider.’ Antonia folded her hands, closed her eyes, and sat quite still. Louis’ rhythmic purrs and Pa’s gentle snoring filled the silence.

  ‘Whenever you’re ready,’ said Tash.

  Antonia raised an imperious hand. ‘Quiet, please! I’m cogitating.’

  Thinking, mouthed Clancy.

  I know! Tash mouthed back. They glared at each other.

  The room was very still. Outside the bolted door, beyond the shelter of the arcade, the city seethed and baked in the afternoon heat. But the cave of The Magpie Bookshop was hushed and still.

  Clancy had once done a school project about an ancient priestess called an oracle, who lived in a cave. People had travelled from the ends of the world to hear her prophecies. Even if Antonia couldn’t be their saviour, perhaps she could be their oracle. As long as she hadn’t fallen asleep too …

  Clancy was just leaning forward to check, when Antonia’s eyes flew open.

  ‘Godfrey and Stella have five children, correct?’

  Tash nodded. ‘Polly’s the oldest, I think, then Dad, then Mark, then the twins.’

  ‘Are any of the others in a position to assist? What about Pauline?’

  ‘Polly’s house has too many steps,’ said Clancy. ‘And she and Pa would drive each other crazy. Polly’s neat. Pa gets bored when things are too organised.’ Tash was staring at her. ‘What? It’s true.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe,’ murmured Tash doubtfully.

  ‘And Mark?’ asked Antonia. ‘Has he relocated permanently to New Zealand?’

  ‘Unless he gets deported,’ said Tash. ‘But he’s probably in jail. So he’s useless.’

  ‘We never see Dad’s family,’ said Clancy. ‘We hardly even know them. I’d never been to Polly’s house till the other day.’

  ‘They all used to come home for Christmas – to Rosella, I mean,’ said Tash. ‘But that hasn’t happened since Nan died. Obviously. They’re all over the place.’

  Antonia nodded. ‘Yes, Stella always was the glue that held the family together.’ She tilted her head. ‘The twins were born somewhat later than the rest, were they not? But if you two are so grown up, they must be almost adults by now?’

  ‘Oh, totally adult,’ said Tash.

  ‘They’re like, really old,’ Clancy assured her. There was no distinction in her mind between her parents’ age (forty-something) and her twin aunts’ (thirty-something).

  ‘Old enough to share in some responsibility for caring for Godfrey? Although I expect they are busy with their own lives.’

  Tash looked at Clancy with sudden hope. ‘I never thought of Bee and Pip.’

  ‘Do we know where they live?’ said Clancy, doubtful.

  ‘Godfrey would know, surely?’

  ‘He can’t spell anymore,’ said Tash. ‘So even if he does know, he can’t tell us and he can’t write it down.’

  ‘Could he point on a map, maybe?’ said Clancy.

  ‘There may be a simpler way to find out.’ Antonia scraped her chair back and vanished into the shop. A few moments later she returned with a fat book printed on very thin paper.

  ‘The telephone directory,’ she said, seeing the girls’ blank looks. ‘I suppose these are almost obsolete by now. As will be books in general soon, I fear.’ She sighed. ‘Let me see, we’ll begin with Beatrice, shall we? Sanderson, Sanderson … Oh, dear, there are quite a few …’

  ‘I could have done this a lot quicker if I still had my phone.’ Tash scowled at Clancy.

  ‘It was an accident.’ Clancy got up to peer over Antonia’s shoulder. ‘Well, we know it’s not Mr B Sanderson – that cuts out a few of them.’

  Tash leaned over Antonia’s elbow. Suddenly her finger shot out to jab the page. ‘That’s her! I’m sure that’s her, in Docklands. Didn’t she buy a flat there? Remember Dad saying we could watch the New Year’s Eve fireworks from there? Not that we ever did.’

  ‘But – that’s not far from here, is it?’ said Clancy.

  Tash straightened up, her eyes bright. ‘Yep. We’re nearly there.’

  The next step, clearly, was to call the number, which Tash did, on Antonia’s telephone at the counter in the shop. But Tash only listened for a moment, then hung up.

  ‘What? Was it not Bee?’

  ‘Disconnected. But that doesn’t mean anything,’ said Tash determinedly. ‘Who has a land line anymore?’

  Clancy thought of something else. ‘She’d be at work now, anyway.’

  ‘Good point. I think we’ll have to go round there and wait.’

  Clancy’s stomach clenched. She’d just started to feel safe in The Magpie Bookshop and now Tash was going to rip that away. ‘Now?’

  Tash considered. ‘Maybe Friday night isn’t the best time to drop in,’ she conceded. ‘She might be going out. Or she might be too tired after working all week. Tomorrow morning would be better.’

  Now Clancy had something new to worry about. ‘Have we got enough money for a hotel?’

  But Antonia came gliding past in time to overhear her. ‘You’re welcome to spend the night with me, my dears, if you don’t mind roughing it. I have plenty of bedding to spare.’

  ‘That’s really kind, thanks,’ said Tash, at the same time as Clancy said anxiously, ‘We don’t want to be any trouble.’

  Antonia waved away her worry. ‘It gives me such pleasure to have you all here, Clarice. It reminds me of old times. We used to have a thriving community in the arcade, but one by one they all sold up and moved out. I’m the last one left, and I suppose I will be departing myself before long. They’ve offered me a considerable sum – developers, you know – but to be perfectly truthful, I can’t face clearing out the shop. And I’m content to stay here a little longer … especially when friends still drop by.’ She clasped her hands and smiled. ‘Enough melancholy! Shall we go and see if your grandfather is awake?’

  Pa was awake. He was bent over the table, deftly sorting through photographs with one hand. ‘Sp-sp-sp!’ Triumphantly he held up another picture of Nan to show Antonia.

  ‘Ah, yes, that’s Stella, and that is my friend Verity Wainwright, who owned the camera shop in the arcade. I believe Stella was one of her best customers. Do you know—’ Antonia laid the photograph on the table as a thought occurred to her ‘—it was Stella who alerted me that this shop was for sale when I was first searching for suitable premises.’

  ‘You mean, you only bought this shop because of Nan?’ Clancy felt a click inside her brain, like a jigsaw piece slotting into place, or the moment when she guessed the plot twist before the end of a movie. Suddenly she became aware of a very faint aroma of lily-of-the-valley. If she turned around, would she see a shadowy figure in the corner of the room, watching them with love?

  ‘What happened to Verity Wainwright?’ asked Tash.

  ‘Oh, she closed her shop and retired to Queensland … took the developer’s money and ran, you might say.’ Anton
ia sighed. ‘Perhaps I should join her, who knows?’

  ‘And if you sell up, what happens to the arcade?’

  Antonia waved her hand. ‘It will vanish in a cloud of dust, and like a phoenix from the ashes, a new building will take its place. That’s the way of the world, the old makes way for the new. It’s inevitable.’

  Entropy again, thought Clancy; old buildings falling into ruins or being knocked down. It took much more energy from the universe to put together a complicated structure like a house, or a book, or a wheelchair, than it took to destroy them or let them fall apart.

  It made Clancy sad to think of the lovely old arcade being bulldozed and some boring office block replacing it. Wiped out, as if it had never existed. Would the ghost of the arcade haunt the new building? The city must be full of phantom buildings … big Victorian hotels and theatres, old shops, back and back to the very first houses of the white settlers, and before them, the shelters of the Wurundjeri people who had camped and fished beside the river for thousands of years … Clancy shivered. She hoped all the ghosts were friendly ones, like Nan.

  It must be making Nan’s spirit happy to see Pa and Antonia laughing together, sharing memories. Even Clancy could remember how happy Nan had been at Christmases, when everyone was together, joking and reminiscing and eating roast potatoes and turkey. Nan must have been so sad that all her children had drifted apart, like stars drifting away from each other, out into the cold vastness of the universe.

  Could the same thing happen to her and Bruno and Tash one day? It was a shocking thought. Annoying as they might be, she couldn’t imagine not seeing her sister and brother every day; it had been weird enough without Bruno for the last few days. She definitely couldn’t imagine not even knowing where her siblings lived, the way Dad hadn’t known that Mark was in New Zealand. Cold fingers seemed to close around her heart.

  Antonia said they could make beds on the floor of the shop out of sofa cushions. ‘But you must solemnly vow not to betray my secret to the council. I wouldn’t care to be evicted at this late stage.’

  ‘Of course not!’ said Tash indignantly.

  ‘We’re outlaws, too,’ Clancy reminded her.

  Pa zipped his hand solemnly across his lips, which made them all smile, because he couldn’t have told anyone even if he wanted to, though Clancy thought it might have been interesting to watch him try.

  ‘What about Pa?’ she asked suddenly. ‘He can’t sleep in the chair again, and he can’t sleep on the floor. With his wobbly leg, he’d never get up again.’

  ‘My sofa folds out into a perfectly adequate double bed,’ said Antonia. ‘If Godfrey doesn’t object to sharing with an old friend.’

  ‘Pfft!’ Pa waved away any objections.

  ‘We’ll go and visit Bee tomorrow,’ Tash told him. ‘In her flat at the Docklands. I bet she has an amazing view. Are you excited?’

  Pa nodded emphatically, and pressed his hand to his heart.

  But later, when Tash and Clancy were making up beds between the bookshelves in the shop, where Pa couldn’t hear, Clancy whispered, ‘Why did you tell him we were just going for a visit? I thought we were checking out if Pa could move in with Bee forever?’

  ‘We are. We will. But I don’t want Pa to be too disappointed if she says no. But,’ said Tash, ‘it’ll be that much harder for her to say no to his face.’

  ‘Okay,’ said Clancy doubtfully. As usual, Tash seemed very confident. And perhaps this was the answer Nan had been leading them toward all along. She guessed there was only one way to find out.

  That night Antonia made them noodles in mugs for dinner, and another microwave cake, this time with strawberries and cream, for Tash and Pa. Clancy had chocolate pudding again, which Tash made for her, but despite Antonia’s encouragement and Tash’s jeers, Clancy still didn’t dare to try making it herself.

  Antonia said, ‘You are welcome to use my telephone, Thomasina. I would hate to think of your parents being anxious about you.’

  ‘Well, I’d like to ring them,’ lied Tash. ‘But I don’t know their numbers. You know what it’s like – well, maybe you don’t – all the numbers are just in your phone, you can’t remember them.’

  ‘I see. And you don’t have them written down somewhere?’

  Clancy could tell that Tash was trying really hard not to roll her eyes. ‘Yeah, I do. On my phone.’

  Clancy jumped in to defend her sister. ‘That’s how it works. That’s just life.’

  Antonia and Pa exchanged a shrug, and Tash and Clancy looked at each other, united for once, one generation against another.

  After dinner, Antonia and Tash helped Pa wash and get ready for bed, while Clancy unfolded the sofa and spread out the sheets. As the others settled Pa into bed, Clancy wandered to the back of the room and peered through the single window, set high in the wall. She could just glimpse a slender slice of the night sky, with the crescent moon suspended in it.

  ‘Aww!’ cried Tash, as Louis jumped onto the bed, curled himself on Pa’s feet and began to purr. Pa gave everyone the thumbs-up, and Antonia ushered Clancy and Tash from the room. Pa’s eyes were closed before they were even out of the door.

  ‘Pa sleeps heaps more since he had his stroke,’ Tash whispered in the doorway. ‘His poor brain gets so tired.’

  Antonia nodded. ‘I understand. I daresay an early night will do us all good … But do feel free to explore the shop at your leisure, won’t you. Help yourselves to anything you like. Good night, my dears, and sleep well.’

  Tash wandered around the shop, pulling out the odd book and flicking through it, then placing it back on the shelf. She was not a great reader, and before long she threw herself down on the cushions and closed her eyes.

  But Clancy saw so many tempting books, she couldn’t decide which one to look at first. She found an entire shelf of astronomy books, including one by Neil deGrasse Tyson himself, and the companion book to the original Cosmos series back in the 1980s. The two books she finally selected to take to bed were a large square atlas of the southern sky, and a slim volume of Aboriginal stories about the constellations. But she wasn’t reading for long before she found her own eyelids growing heavy.

  With the lights off and the blinds drawn, Clancy lay next to Tash, surrounded by books in the dark. She could hear Antonia talking to Pa in the back room – at least, she could hear the murmur of Antonia’s voice, and an occasional noise from Pa that might have been a drowsy chuckle or a snore. Once she thought she heard the same throaty laugh that she’d heard back at the house in Rosella … not Antonia’s laugh, not Tash’s laugh. The noise from the back room sounded like three old friends chatting quietly in the dark.

  After a while, she heard the gentle rhythm of snoring, though whether it came from Pa, or Antonia, or both of them, she couldn’t tell.

  ‘Night,’ mumbled Tash, and soon Clancy heard her sister’s breathing slow and deepen, and knew that she was sleeping, too.

  But Clancy lay awake, listening to the muffled noises of the city that seemed so far away, even though they were right in the midst of it all: sirens and traffic, and the whirr and clicking of pedestrian lights. Friendly shadows tiger-striped the inside of The Magpie Bookshop.

  This was the weirdest place Clancy had ever spent the night, with shelves of old books rearing up the walls on every side. Muddled thoughts drifted through her mind, of the thousands of stories, poems, pictures, facts and words folded away inside the closed books … all those words, and still the number of words on all those pages wouldn’t be as many as the number of stars in the universe … all those stars … and something about the moon …

  Clancy knew that she was overlooking something important, but she was too foggy with tiredness to work out what it might be. In the end she decided that it must be bothering her that they hadn’t been able to contact their parents all day, not even by text. Still vaguely troubled, she rolled over and closed her eyes.

  A soft noise, a rustle of turning pages, made her shiver awake.
She whispered into the darkness, ‘Nan?’

  Silence.

  Which was, on balance, less scary than receiving an answer …

  But a feeling of comfort and wellbeing wrapped around Clancy like an old dressing-gown, the darkness soft as feathers and faintly lily-scented. I know you’re there, Nan, thought Clancy, and she was sure she could hear Nan’s voice inside her head, whispering to her to go back to sleep.

  She snuggled down and sank into a strange dream where the books stirred, their pages whispering, and her grandmother crossed the night-striped floor to open the door so that they could spread their covers and flutter out. Nan stood in the doorway, moonlight silvering her curly hair, watching as the books soared out like bats into the star-filled sky.

  The moon.

  It was the moon.

  Clancy’s eyes flew open. The bed of sofa cushions had split apart in the night and her hipbones were resting uncomfortably on the floorboards. She sat up. ‘Tash!’

  Her sister burrowed deeper into the bedding. ‘Mmmph.’

  ‘It’s the moon, Tash. When we were at Rosella, it was full. But last night, it was only a crescent.’

  ‘So?’ mumbled Tash.

  ‘So, the moon doesn’t work like that. It can’t jump from full to crescent in one night.’

  ‘Well, you must be remembering it wrong then.’ Tash sat up, pulled out her ponytail and crossly rubbed her hands through her hair. ‘Maybe you dreamed it.’

  But Clancy was sure she hadn’t been dreaming, not last night, or the night before. ‘Did you notice what the moon looked like?’

  Tash looked at her. ‘No, I did not notice what the moon looked like. I had more important things to think about.’

  Clancy was vaguely sure that this was important, but she knew she wouldn’t be able to convince her sister. She pushed the question of the moon’s strange behaviour to the back of her mind; but she didn’t forget.

  An antique medical textbook was lying open on the floor at the foot of their makeshift bed; Clancy almost tripped over it. Not the bedtime reading she would have expected Tash to choose. Clancy slotted it back on the shelf.