‘That’s rather a grim way of looking at the statistics, isn’t it,’ I replied - after I finally managed to tot them up. ‘How do you know your twin didn’t just give up the ghost and die of her own accord? She could have taken a quick look out and thought: sod this for a game of soldiers, I’m staying put. Or she may have got the wrong century. Either way, it wouldn’t mean you killed her.’
‘Indeed. And that is not what I meant. But how do you know, I wonder, that my twin was a she?’
That threw me. ‘Er, well, I don’t, Bill, of course; but regardless of gender, what do you think your twin would have been like?’ I asked this, I’m sure, half-hoping to receive a list of characteristics I could happily claim as my own: kind-hearted, absent-minded, creative, perhaps? But he wouldn’t be drawn. He couldn’t possibly have any idea of his twin’s personality because he or she, being merely an embryo, had not yet formed one; therefore he could not know; he could only feel the absence.
‘All along here,’ he said, as he drew his hand the long length of his body: all his life, he’d had this sense of something missing.
I don’t know - he didn’t tell me and I didn’t ask - whether Bill missed me when our relationship gave up the ghost and died as Jupiter gave way to Neptune. Not that it ended as such. Rather it simply petered-out, getting thinner and thinner each day during the summer I began my search for Dorothy; rather a difficult period as I recall.
Yes, yes, I know, I should have seen it coming, but I didn’t. Well, that’s not strictly true, I got a whiff of it, let’s say, but I didn’t look very carefully. I saw the, ‘big guns,’ Saturn and Mars approaching my Sun and Midheaven and thought, maybe I’ll get a promotion at school. I saw Neptune and wondered if I might start painting again. I saw Uranus poised to strike my Descendant and thought, maybe Bill will take up Astrology; that’d be a shock. Yes, well, it would have been. It would have been one hell of an almighty shock, but that’s not what happened.
What happened was this: - my mother suffered a massive stroke; my skin broke out in eczema; and Bill became depressed.
At first, I didn’t pay much attention to Bill’s unhappiness. He’d been depressed before, I reasoned: this was his Philosopher’s Melancholy. Sooner or later, he would resurface and things would carry on as before. Meanwhile, I carried on as before: teaching, shopping, nursing my mother, casting my charts and ignoring all the signs that our relationship was ending. And yet, because there wasn’t an ending, I kept it in mind, imagining, what, that it had just gone off on holiday somewhere - which was how I had coped when my father died. I had coped then with images: images of unpacked suitcases; buckets and spades propped up in the hall; Cheap Day Returns which would never expire. Likewise with Bill, with our relationship: a tartan blanket stretched across an empty expanse of sand. Ah, well, the weather hadn’t been too good lately: sooner or later, he would emerge and we would all just carry on as before. But as the weeks turned into months with still no contact, I began to worry. He wasn’t answering his telephone. I hadn’t seen him out and about. Friends had nothing to report. At last, I consulted my Ephemeris.
Sure enough, he had some difficult transits going on. And as I pondered the symbolism, my imagination took a turn for the worse. For Saturn rules endings and Neptune rules the waves. It wasn’t beyond the bounds of possibility that like his stoical great grandfather, the captain of a North Sea trawler, Bill was choosing to go down with his ship.
Friends sought to reassure me: Bill’s a survivor, they said. Fellow astrologers advised me to look at my own chart and desist from worrying his. And they were right, for I too was labouring under a similar alignment: - but worrying unduly, as it turned out. In my anxiety, I had overlooked the most obvious manifestation of a Neptune Venus transit: the urge to lose oneself in another, to transcend mundane reality in a dream of love. He wasn’t going down with his ship; he was coming out of his house with a tall and slender blonde dressed from top to tail in black.
‘It was a woman,’ Eleanor insisted as I pushed my foot down on the accelerator. ‘It wasn’t one of his students needing comfort. It was another woman. Honestly, Mum, when are you going to wake up?’
Yes, well: good question. If only I had noted the time, I could have cast the Horary Chart: ‘My Neptunian Mother When Will She Wake Up?’ But this wasn’t a Horary Moment. I didn’t look at my watch. I didn’t clock the time on the dashboard. Nor did I check the positions of the planets when I got home. I did, however, pay a lot more attention a few days later, when I awoke from a powerful dream.
I had fallen asleep on the sofa and dreamed that Bill was in an underground tunnel gathering snails while I splashed around in the shallow water behind him, trying to attract his attention. This failing, I followed him out of the tunnel along a familiar street, then into the staircase hall of a large Edwardian house. Here, he was warmly-greeted by the same young blonde, now wearing gold not black, who took him into her arms beneath an enormous crystal chandelier.
Any minute now, I thought, that chandelier’s going to come crashing down and we’ll all be shot to pieces. So I took myself out of that scenario, landing in Bill’s study instead. Here, I unearthed a horoscope (not one of mine) which had the glyph for the sign of Taurus stamped on the front. It all but obliterated the chart. What could this mean, I wondered; could this be Bill’s Ascendant? But before I could answer that question, I woke up. And, when I woke, I knew that if I left the house at that very moment then I would see him.
Now, this isn’t like me. Without stopping to inform Eleanor; without checking on my mother, dowsing the ashtray or pulling out the plugs - and pausing only to note the time - I sped through my house and into my car, and drove off in the direction of the street I had seen in my dream. Sure enough, there he was. He was just about to turn the corner when I saw him and flagged him down.
Close up, I barely recognised him; he looked so different. Oh, he had always been handsome: tall and dark with deep brown eyes and cheekbones to cut your teeth on; but when we were together, there had been a greyness about him which seemed to blur his edges. Now he looked sharper, cleaner; animated. His hair was cut short; his clothes were pressed; his fingernails were trimmed: he was in love.
Her name was Maddy, he told me, short for Madeleine; and yes, I was right: he was on his way to see her; and, yes, she did live in one of the large Edwardian houses nearby. Furthermore, he was very interested to hear of my dream because they had quarrelled that very afternoon, and he took this as a sign that they would surely be reconciled.
‘Funny things keep happening to me at the moment,’ he said, ‘the Cosmos keeps giving me presents.’
I believe my mouth may have fallen open at this point: could this be the same rational, sceptical man, or was I still asleep? I looked down at my feet. No, I wasn’t still asleep, I was standing on the pavement in a pile of old chip wrappings.
‘Are you all right?’ Bill asked.
‘Oh, yes, I’m fine.’ This could well have been true: I was still marvelling at my dream.
Bill’s tone, however, had darkened. ‘Hmm, but what are you really doing here, I wonder?’
‘It’s exactly as I said,’ I replied. ‘I had this dream, and when I woke, I knew that if I left the house at once then I would see you. And here I am. And here you are. Well, don’t you think that’s extraordinary? Aren’t you surprised?’
‘I’m not surprised, no, that you’re more interested in your dream than in reality.’
‘Oh, but it’s the same reality - sort of. Oh, well, never mind, I had the dream so now I know.’
‘Know what?’
‘That you’ve met someone!’
‘You knew that already.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Yes, you did. You saw me, or Eleanor did. You drove past in your car and Eleanor saw me. And gave me a filthy look, I might add.’
‘Did she? Oh, I’m sorry. But, the thing is, I didn’t realise. I mean, I hadn’t taken it in. But now I have, so that’s all r
ight.’
‘You’re sure about that, are you?’
‘Yes, I think so – although I was wondering when you met her.’
‘Ah, of course,’ he brightened again. ‘You’ll want to do the chart.’
‘No, I’m not sure that I do, Bill. In fact, I think I probably don’t. No, I was wondering whether you met her while you and I –’
He moved in quickly to reassure me: ‘No, no, not at all. It’s not what you’re thinking at all. We met a fortnight ago - give or take a day or two on either side. Well, I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, but you know how it is.’
I wasn’t sure that I did know how ‘it’ was. It all sounded very strange to me. But I listened very carefully to his account of how it was for him:-
She was a Godsend: his Redemption; and he had never felt this way before. For she was everything he had ever dreamed of: bold, spirited and fiercely, ruthlessly honest. Better still, they had so much in common: they enjoyed the same tastes; shared the same beliefs and came from the same northern neck of the woods. They even shared - now, this would interest me - the same birthday: different years, of course, but the same glorious February day. So, what did I make of that?
Not much, I thought, but decided against offering the benefit of an astrological consultation at this point. By now, I was beginning to feel upset.
‘Sounds like you’ve met your twin,’ I said at last.
‘Oh, I have. I have.’
I swallowed hard as I watched him draw his hand all the way down his body.
‘All along here,’ he said, beaming. ‘All along here, it finally fits.’
‘Well, perhaps we can say goodbye now, Bill. We should have done so earlier, really.’
But his expression darkened again as he pondered the word, ‘goodbye,’ rolling it around on his tongue. ‘No, I think not.’ As if I had been trying to palm him off with faulty goods. ‘I will never say goodbye to you, Gwendolen. I still love you and I always will. Nothing changes that. You know me, I never let go.’
And with that; with a business-as-usual wave; he turned on his heels and resumed his journey.
* * * * * *
‘Well, I don’t know, Dorothy,’ I said when I got to the churchyard. ‘It’s a fine-sounding word, isn’t it, Love, but what does it really mean?’ And I stooped to run my fingers along the inscription. ‘What do these words you’ve got here, which sound so beautiful, really mean? I wonder.
Forgive me, Dorothy, but could it have been guilt, or even pity? You were dying. Peter felt sorry for you. Maybe he let you down in some way? He may even have betrayed you. So, it could have been for himself and not for you that he cast this inscription. Out of guilt, or pity, not love. He may never have loved you at all.
I’m sorry, Dorothy, and I hope you’ll forgive me if I’ve got it all wrong, but I really need to know the truth. So, what do you think? Would it be all right with you if I tried to find out?’
I had been crouching beside the grave, supporting myself with one hand on the headstone. Now, as I moved to get up, I toppled over. The sun had long gone down but the earth was still warm. I scooped up a fistful and held it tightly. It felt good. It felt like making a pact.
Pluto
Looking through my Ephemeris now, I can see why I began my search for Dorothy during August 1999, though I wasn’t exactly monitoring it astrologically at the time. Believe it or not, I rarely consult the Heavens before I act, partly because I forget, but mainly because I prefer to observe events through Astrology as they unfold. And I now observe that Pluto, Lord of the Underworld, was transiting a key point in my Conception Chart when I began my search. Yes, thanks to my mercurial mother’s meticulous record keeping, I have the precise date, location and prevailing weather conditions of my conception: July 11th 1956, Blackpool; at 11:56. p.m.: ‘Hot and Misty’. She felt a, ‘ping,’ apparently.
Ping, and all the lights went on in Blackpool. Ping, and I announced my intention to incarnate. Ping, and my mother reached for her Good Housekeeping diary: - and all on the anniversary of Dorothy Browning’s death.
Had I been aware of this coincidence, I wondered, when I first found Dorothy’s grave? It didn’t strike me as likely. I wasn’t remotely interested in the laborious contents of my mother’s Good Housekeeping diaries before I took up Astrology; and one thing is for sure, I must have found Dorothy’s grave before I discovered Astrology – otherwise I’d have dashed straight back home from the churchyard and done the chart.
I looked up at my mother, enthroned on her Parker Knoll chair. ‘Not much of an entrance, was it?’
‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘I felt an explosion when I conceived Eleanor. And I had a dream the same night of a baby girl; and the initial letter, E, all lit up.’
‘Oh yes, well, you always have to do better than anyone else – or the opposite. If I’d said mine was an explosion, you’d have said yours was a ping.’
‘No, I wouldn’t.’
‘Yes, you would. I should have called you Mary - Mary, Mary, quite contrary - but even if I had done, it would still have been a ping I felt. I know my own body.’
‘Yes, but you might not have been ovulating.’
‘Of course I was, or I wouldn’t have caught for you would I!’
‘Well then, couldn’t it have been some kind of muscular spasm?’
‘No.. It wasn’t a spasm, it was you. I ought to know, I was there and you weren’t. Not for another nine months. And even then you were late. One of these days, you’ll arrive somewhere on time. I just hope I live to see it.’
I arrived on the 19th of April 1957 during the lunch hour, in a nursing home run by Anglican nuns. Why my mother, a lapsed Welsh Baptist; and father, an agnostic with Zen sympathies, chose such a venue, I can’t imagine, especially since my father thoroughly disliked organised religion and used to delight in sending Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses round to the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Wales who lived next door.
‘Now, I know someone,’ he would say, ‘who would be very interested in your ideas.’
Meanwhile, my mother surely regretted her choice of Anglican nuns as midwives because when it came to the crunch - as she so delicately put it - they were nowhere to be seen. It was Good Friday so they were all down in the chapel praying which meant she had to deliver me herself. Knowing her, this wouldn’t have been too difficult. She’d have approached it in her, ‘Dig for Victory,’ manner then given the nuns a very bad time for putting spiritual concerns above practical realities. Perhaps that’s unfair; but it’s certainly how she approached me: -
‘I was hoping you’d find something more useful to do with my diaries instead of rooting around in them for your Astrology,’ she complained, ‘I told you, I want you to donate them to the Imperial War Museum.’
‘I don’t see why I should, they’re a family heirloom. Besides, what would the Imperial War Museum want with your Good Housekeeping diaries?’
‘I didn’t mean them, I meant my War diaries. Oh, but you’ve never been interested in my war. It was always your father’s war with you. Well, mine lasted longer than his.’
‘Yes, that was hardly his fault, Mum. Anyway, I am interested in your war. It’s just that - at the moment - I’m more interested in your Good Housekeeping diaries. Tut, if only I’d told you about Dorothy’s grave at the time I found it - because then you’d have written it down, wouldn’t you, saving me a lot of bother.’
‘I would have,’ she replied, looking very pleased with herself. ‘Well, perhaps you’ll see the value of it now and start becoming organised. You would never listen to me but you might just take the hint from Dorothy Browning.’
I smiled, watching her drift off to sleep. By now, for all her pragmatism, she too had become intrigued by Dorothy’s inscription, keeping a copy inside her wallet along with the last letter she received from her Great Love, Jimmy, the officer she’d met while nursing in North Africa during the War. Every so often, she would take out this missi
ve and hold it up to the light, as if trying to read something different into those final words: Not Goodbye, Please. She would then bring out Dorothy’s inscription and gaze at it thoughtfully, as if it contained the antidote. Not that she believed in Life after Death. Her only surviving brother, Glenville, however, did. And, as if to make his point, he expired within days of receiving his copy of the inscription, having taken it as a sign, (or so he told my mother in his thank you letter) that he would surely be reunited with his Dorothy: his wife who had died young.
After this, although she would never condone it, my mother became less hostile to my Astrology; although she still got considerable mileage out of my inability to tell her whether she was a Leo or a Virgo.
In vain I would protest: ‘You’re on the cusp.’
‘Oh, yes, you’ll have worked it out, I suppose, by the time I’m gone. And then I can look forward to a horoscope on my headstone.’
It’s hard for me to write about my mother as another anniversary looms, yet I know that if she hadn’t decided to return to Wales that summer, and enter a nursing home, I wouldn’t have made much progress with my search for Dorothy: I wouldn’t have had the time or the energy. If it hadn’t been for Bill too; if he hadn’t met his twin in the same fateful period, I very much doubt that my Pluto transit would have found me, as a member of my Sixth-form once so aptly put it: ‘Stalking the dead again, Miss.’ This time, in Oxford Central Library.
To You The Stars Page 2