Page 17 of See the Stars

I have loved the stars too fondly to be fearful of the night.

GALILEO GALILEI

A lice stood in the kitchen the next morning, her hands wrapped around a cup of herbal tea as she looked out at the garden.

It was early still, the sun just beginning to overpower the light from the more distant stars.

Basalt sat on the windowsill next to her in his new favourite spot, unperturbed by the paint peeling from the window frame.

Zelda would have, along with the exact chemical composition of the mineral samples he’d collected on the moon.

She tried to distract herself from thoughts of Zelda. She watched Basalt instead. He’d spotted a bird hopping along the lawn and was making a funny cackling sound at it through the window. Alice stroked his head, but he refused to be distracted.

‘I want a cigarette,’ she told him. ‘But I’m going to have another look around the shed instead.

’ He turned away from the bird to look at her, his face hopeful.

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean with you, I’m afraid,’ she added.

‘You still need to stay inside.’ He jumped down from his perch and strode to his litter tray to express his disgust, looking her straight in the eye all the while.

‘I just don’t want you running away,’ she explained.

‘You might get lost.’ He turned 180 degrees so his back was towards her as he finished his business.

Alice made her way out to the shed. It was one of those cold, clear winter days where she could almost taste the freshness of the air.

Snowdrops were peeping up through the dewy grass, woken from their wintry slumber by the bright sunshine.

She stood for a moment and looked at the view.

Her mother’s garden stretched out in front of her, and she could see the hills beyond, brown and green and punctuated by sheep, looking like bundles of cotton wool in the distance.

She liked the view from her balcony back in London; the river provided a natural break in the buildings, giving a sense of openness and a better view of the sky.

But it was nothing like this.

She took another breath of the chilly air, then stepped inside the shed.

Its smell was different, the comforting aroma of wood and moss and old books.

She felt a pang of excitement that wasn’t fuelled by nicotine as she looked at the telescope.

There wasn’t much she could do for it until the parts she’d ordered arrived.

She gave it a small stroke instead, as if it were Basalt.

Instead, her eyes found her grandfather’s logbooks, lining the bookshelves on the wall.

There was one missing, as Berti had pointed out, but there were still thousands of pages of records.

She took an early one and opened it. Page after page was covered in her grandfather’s notes, meticulously handwritten.

Alice smiled. There were a few lines where he’d let her record her own findings.

She must have been six or seven, judging from the odd backwards letter.

They’d been tracking something that they hoped was a new comet, but close inspection of the star atlas showed that it was one that had already been discovered on a previous visit.

She settled down to have a read of the logbook she had open.

Each page had a set template: date, times, position of the telescope and type of magnification used.

Then, when it looked like he might have found something, he’d also included the rough magnitude, coma diameter and details of the tail.

And always a sketch of the sky with notes on his observations.

He’d even marked when she’d been out with him.

This was an early one: her grandfather was clear, methodical, and she could almost smell his love for the stars pouring from the page.

She read on, closing her eyes when she reached the pages when he’d said she was there, trying to remember what it felt like all those years ago.

Back when she believed she’d travel to the moon, maybe even Mars. When anything seemed possible.

She could tell when he’d been most excited – he pushed harder with the pencil when he thought he’d spotted something.

In this case, he had seen something that appeared faint and fuzzy, a potential comet, but he couldn’t tell if there was movement and he’d noted to check against known objects in the sky.

When she turned the page, she saw the next few nights had nothing except a note cursing the cloud cover.

She smiled, remembering. He’d got in trouble with her mum for swearing in front of the kids when thick clouds stopped his observations.

She turned another page, the memories coming back to her in each careful line of notes.

She settled in, forgetting everything else, and began to lose herself, feeling more at peace than she had in a long time.

‘Have you had breakfast?’ Alice looked up at her mother standing in the doorway to the shed.

‘Not yet.’

‘Most important meal of the day, they say. I’ll do toast and eggs, with a fruit salad.’

‘Maybe in a bit,’ said Alice, stretching.

‘Are you looking at Grandpa’s old books?’ Her mother came into the shed.

‘Yes, Berti got them out last night,’ she said.

‘He’s a funny boy.’ Sheila started to dust off the shelves with her fingertips. ‘I should clean in here, if this is where you’re going to be spending your time.’

‘I like him,’ said Alice.

‘Your brother likes that mother of his.’

Alice laughed. ‘He’s not subtle.’

‘Pretty girl. She’d do well with him. He’s a good man, your brother.’

Alice looked back at the book. ‘It looks like Grandpa was on to something,’ she said, pointing to the page. ‘See?’

‘Means nothing to me, I’m afraid,’ said her mother, picking up Alice’s cold mug of tea and dumping the contents on the ground outside. ‘You know what he was like by the end.’

‘This one is from the nineties,’ said Alice. ‘He was fine then.’

‘He had his ups and downs.’

‘You remember that Christmas before he moved into the home? He said something about a comet. The same path as this one.’

‘He said lots of things,’ said Sheila.

‘I think he might have been on to something,’ continued Alice. ‘It was a textbook comet path.’

‘He probably copied it from a textbook then. I did take him to the library still, when he was up to leaving the house. It didn’t always go well.

He’d keep posting the books through people’s letter boxes on the way home.

’ Sheila reached out for the logbook. ‘Shall I put it back with the others?’ she asked.

‘No,’ said Alice. She looked at the notes again. ‘I’ll hold on to it for now.’

‘Suit yourself,’ said her mother. ‘Now. Scrambled or boiled eggs?’

‘I’ll do it,’ said Alice, getting up. ‘You must be sick of making food for me all the time.’

‘I like it,’ said her mum. ‘Reminds me of when you were a little girl.’ She smiled. ‘You were a funny one too.’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘I remember when you were ten, I tried to take you shopping for a new dress for your birthday. I’d saved up so we could buy something special, but all you wanted to do was go to the bookshop. We ended up with an encyclopaedia instead!’

‘I liked books,’ said Alice. ‘That’s not funny. And I buy plenty of clothes now.’

‘I know,’ said her mum. ‘And you have some beautiful ones. I knew you’d grow out of that funny stage. Took you a bit longer than some, but you’re plenty normal now.’ She smiled. ‘Now, scrambled or boiled?’

Her mother had given Alice an idea. In the afternoon, she’d asked Sheila to drive her to the library again, with the relevant logbook in her bag.

And now she sat with a stack of books in front of her and the logbook laid open on the table.

She looked at the numbers. At this point, her grandfather was starting to decline.

The writing was a little shaky and a few of the fives and threes were hard to decipher.

He’d included the odd physical description that made Alice chuckle to herself.

Like a cat chasing its tail , he’d written about the Hale– Bopp comet.

Basalt never indulged in such pointless behaviour and would be insulted at such an idea.

But then her grandfather couldn’t be blamed.

He was dead long before Basalt had honoured the earth with his presence.

‘Hello.’

Alice looked up and grinned. ‘Hi, Berti,’ she said. ‘It’s good to see you. How are you?’

‘I was hoping to find you here,’ he said. ‘Why were you laughing?’

Alice fished around for a moment for an explanation.

‘Sorry,’ he said, before she could say anything.

‘You asked me how I was. I’m fine.’ He sat down next to her.

‘My mum told me I need to answer people’s questions, even if they’re boring, or they won’t want to talk to me.

Usually I don’t mind if people don’t want to talk to me, because they are infinitely boring. ’

Alice nodded.

‘But you are interesting,’ he added. ‘So I’ll tell you I’m fine. That’s the answer people expect to hear, even if you’re not fine. Silly, isn’t it? A waste of time. But there we go. Social conventions.’

‘You’re interesting too,’ said Alice.

‘I am,’ he replied. Alice couldn’t help but smile. His confidence reminded her of Basalt. ‘Are you going to answer my question?’ he continued.

‘What question?’

‘You’ve forgotten already. Never mind, I’ll remind you, because I want to know the answer.’ Berti sat down next to her. ‘Why were you laughing?’

‘I was laughing at what my grandfather wrote about this comet,’ said Alice.

He scooted closer to her and leaned over the book. ‘The logs!’ he exclaimed. ‘I’m even more pleased to see you now. Can I look again?’

Alice nodded, and Berti practically snatched the book from her.

‘What’s that?’ he asked.

‘That’s a drawing of the position in the sky of something he thought was a comet,’ she replied.

‘Was it?’

‘I’m not sure. I was just looking to see if it corresponds to anything in these books.’

‘Won’t it all be online?’