Page 23 of See the Stars

The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but mankind cannot stay in the cradle forever.

KONSTANTIN TSIOLKOVSKY

‘ S o,’ said Berti, as soon as she opened the front door. ‘What’s the plan?’

‘What plan?’

‘The plan to find the comet, of course,’ he said, stepping past her. ‘We don’t know when it will reappear, so we need to get started at once to reduce the risk of missing it. Or even worse, someone else finding it first.’

Jennie was standing behind her son. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘I know we’re early. You don’t mind, do you? We were passing, and he’s just so keen . . . ’

‘Berti is right,’ said Alice. ‘We do need a plan.’

‘I’d like to spend some more time with the logbooks as a first step,’ said Berti. ‘What if there’s even more there that you’ve missed?’

‘Berti!’ said Jennie. ‘Remember what we said . . . ’

‘That people don’t like it when I point out their mistakes,’ said Berti.

‘I don’t mind,’ said Alice. ‘Peer review is all part of scientific rigour.’

Berti grinned at her. ‘See, Mum? I told you.’

‘You go out to the shed and get started on the logs,’ said Alice. ‘I’ll feed Basalt, then come join you.’

Berti wasted no time, shooting out through the kitchen to the garden shed. He stopped briefly to greet the cat, who rubbed his face on Berti’s leg with glee then entered the kitchen and gave Alice a meaningful stare. He was hungry.

Alice looked at Jennie. She was watching her son through the window, her long plait hanging down her back. She managed to look elegant even in Lycra leggings and a loose cotton top. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’ Alice offered as she reached for the cat food.

‘Something herbal would be lovely,’ said Jennie. She turned to Alice, then put her head to one side like a bird that had spotted a worm. ‘You are holding a lot of tension in your shoulders,’ she told her. ‘I could give you some stretches to help with that.’

‘Maybe,’ said Alice, flicking on the kettle and spooning food into Basalt’s bowl. She bent down to pop it on the floor, pulling herself back up using the countertop as a lever.

‘Actually, I think there are a few poses that would really help you,’ said Jennie. ‘Your movement looks a bit stilted.’

Alice reached for the mugs, suddenly feeling self-conscious about how she was moving her arms.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Jennie. ‘Here I am telling Berti not to criticise people and then I come out with something like that. But I would be happy to do a yoga session with you, if you’d like? It’s the least I can do after everything you’ve done for my son.’

‘He’s the one helping me,’ said Alice. ‘He’s quite brilliant.’

‘He is, isn’t he?’ said Jennie, clearly pleased.

She accepted the tea Alice offered and sat down on a kitchen chair, curling herself around the hot mug like a cat.

‘It’s nice when someone else sees it. I like to think I can tell who the very best people are,’ she continued, ‘by how they are with Berti.’

Alice took a sip of her own tea, unsure what to say. ‘He’s a good kid,’ she replied.

‘He is,’ agreed Jennie. She leaned forward, as if she was about to confide a secret. ‘He’s not always the easiest, but I wouldn’t change him for the world.’

‘Of course not,’ said Alice. ‘Why would you?’

‘They used to try,’ said Jennie. ‘With people like Berti. Medical professionals. They’d try to force them to be more like everyone else. It must have led to so much unhappiness – trying to be “normal” and failing.’

Alice nodded, remembering her friend.

‘It was even harder for girls,’ added Jennie. Alice looked up sharply, wondering if Jennie had read her mind. ‘Almost all the studies are about boys, and of course it’s different for girls. They tend to mask more to try to fit in, and the pressure can be almost unbearable.’

‘It must have been,’ said Alice, her voice light, as if she didn’t know exactly what Jennie was talking about.

‘But now, things are different. I’ve been told to make little adjustments to our world instead of making Berti fit ours. I want him to embrace his specialness and his talents. Wouldn’t life be boring if we were all the same?’

‘It would,’ agreed Alice. ‘I’ve always liked people who are a bit different. They are just so much more interesting than run-of-themill people.’

Jennie beamed at her. ‘I completely agree. I do try to coach Berti a little, though. I don’t want to be pushy or make him something he isn’t, but I want him to have friends.

Some kids need extra help with reading, some with maths, but what he needs is a bit of support in how to interact with people. ’

‘He’s so confident,’ said Alice. ‘And happy.’ She watched Basalt lick the bowl and then stride over to the sofa and proceed to clean himself, using his paw like a sponge for his face. ‘I respect him for that.’

‘It’s so nice to talk to someone who appreciates him,’ said Jennie.

She hesitated a moment. ‘Even his dad didn’t really get him,’ she continued, her voice almost a whisper, although it was just the two of them in the kitchen.

‘He was a research scientist at the hospital where I was a nurse. So, so clever. But when Berti was a toddler and things started to get difficult, he took a post in America. He sent back child support, but I was alone with a challenging job and an interesting child, and God, it was so hard.’ She took a breath and glanced at Alice.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘That was a massive overshare.’

‘It’s OK,’ said Alice, wondering what to say. ‘He is very interesting,’ she managed finally.

‘Oh, I know he is,’ said Jennie, seemingly encouraged to continue.

‘And I knew I had to give him more of my time. Then when we inherited the house, I came back here, retrained as a yoga teacher and here we are. I was so pleased that Matt agreed to move back too, eventually. He was brilliant with Berti before the accident, when he’d visit us on leave.

And they’re starting to warm to one another again now. He’s one of the best.’

‘He is,’ said Alice. ‘My brother is a decent guy too,’ she said.

‘I can tell,’ replied Jennie, with a smile. ‘He’s kind. It’s one of the best qualities a man can have.’

They sat in silence for a few moments, contemplating each other’s brothers.

‘Let’s go out to the shed,’ said Alice, standing up. ‘I’d like to get on with the comet planning.’ She looked at Jennie. ‘Would you like to join us?’

‘I don’t want to be in the way,’ said Jennie.

‘You won’t be,’ said Alice with a smile. ‘I can tell.’

Alice sat down at the small table in her grandfather’s shed, pen in hand and paper in front of her. Her grandfather always used to tell her that people used more of their brain when they physically wrote something down, compared to when they just sat and thought. More synapses were activated.

Her brain needed all the help it could get. Even before her TIA, she’d felt as though she’d only used a portion of her mind in her job, challenging as it was. The rest had rusted from disuse after she’d stopped her studies.

‘Where shall we start?’ asked Berti.

‘So, finding a periodic comet,’ said Alice. ‘In a way, it’s like finding anything else.’

Jennie smiled. ‘First you look for it where you last had it.’ She glanced at Berti. ‘You don’t get a boy ready for school every day without picking up a few tips.’

‘Exactly,’ said Alice. ‘And we don’t know where it last was, because of the missing logbook.’

Find grandpa’s lost logbook , she wrote.

‘I bet you’ll never find it,’ said Berti, helpfully. ‘I never find anything I’m looking for.’

Alice crossed out the word Find and wrote Look for. It was worth a try, but perhaps she could manage without. ‘We’ll extrapolate if we have to,’ she said.

‘That means guess,’ Berti told his mum.

‘I know what extrapolate means,’ said Jennie, giving her son a playful nudge. ‘I’m a yoga teacher, not an idiot.’

‘We can definitely study the logs we do have,’ said Alice, writing it down.

‘Berti, you’ve already spotted a pattern no one else did.

I should be able to make a rough calculation, based on the magnitude and motion, and decide what a reasonable level of error could be.

Then we’ll know how long to search for, and whether we have a chance of finding the comet in the next two weeks. ’

‘Why two weeks?’ asked Berti.

‘Because then I have to go back to work,’ said Alice. ‘My leave will be up.’ She thought guiltily of Hugo, on his own in their flat. She missed him.

‘You can’t go back,’ said Berti. He started to tap his fingers on the table, marking out a nervous rhythm. ‘What if we haven’t found the comet?’

Jennie gently put her hands on his. ‘Alice has a life back in London,’ she said. ‘Adults have responsibilities.’

‘Nothing can be more important than this,’ said Berti. His voice was raised, tense, and he shook off his mother’s hand.

‘Let’s continue the list,’ said Alice.

‘But—’

‘I’ll figure something out.’

‘What?’

‘Something,’ said Alice. She couldn’t think of a better answer, and it worried her.

Her old life already seemed so distant, as if it belonged to someone else.

How was she ever going to go back to it?

The constant emails, the pressure, the way she could never see more than a small patch of foggy, polluted sky.

‘I suppose I could carry on looking without you,’ suggested Berti. ‘It won’t be the same, though.’

‘Let’s not worry about things that might not happen,’ said Jennie. ‘You could find it before then.’

‘Exactly,’ said Alice, trying to take that advice herself.

She took a breath and concentrated on her list again.

Revise comet knowledge , she wrote, as the other two peered over her shoulder .

‘There’ll be some things I’ll have forgotten,’ she explained.

‘We can look into previous comets and see how close they came to the sun, their size and how often they returned.’

‘That will give us more clues,’ said Berti, seemingly calmer again now they were refocused on a task.