Page 24 of See the Stars

‘It’s a bit like being a detective,’ offered Jennie. She looked at the telescope and pulled at a bit of tape.

‘We need that,’ said Alice.

‘Oh,’ said Jennie, trying to unstick the tape from her fingers. ‘Really?’

‘It holds the focal knob steady.’ Alice put the tape back where it had been. ‘Just until the spare parts arrive tomorrow.’

Fix telescope , she wrote.

‘Matt is very good at fixing things,’ said Jennie, her eyes on Alice.

‘No he isn’t,’ said Berti. ‘You asked him four times to fix the vacuum cleaner and he still hasn’t.’

‘It would be really good for him,’ continued Jennie. ‘I can already see the change in him since meeting up with you again. He’s carrying less tension in his jaw.’

‘If he’d like to join us, he’s very welcome,’ said Alice, hoping he would. ‘There’s a lot of work that needs to be done on this old thing.’ She tapped the telescope affectionately.

‘Don’t you have lots of money?’ asked Berti.

‘Berti!’ scolded Jennie.

‘Your mum said you made lots of money,’ continued Berti, unperturbed. ‘You could afford a new telescope. I like this one, but if we had one each, that would definitely be better.’

‘Alice isn’t going to buy you a telescope,’ said Jennie. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she added to Alice.

‘We need the calibration on this one,’ said Alice. ‘It marries up to all my grandpa’s notes. We just need to fix it.’

‘Let’s do it now.’

‘We don’t have everything we need yet,’ she said. ‘The parts are due to be delivered in the morning.’

‘But a new telescope would give a different perspective,’ persisted Berti. ‘We could use this one, then compare.’

Alice nodded, conceding the point.

‘And if the comet has got further away, or fainter, this one might not pick it up.’

‘I’ll think about it,’ said Alice, making a note.

New telescope.

The words felt treacherous, so she added a question mark.

She looked at them both. ‘We have a plan,’ she said. ‘And we’ll start tomorrow.’

Alice opened her eyes. Something felt different. She turned her head. Basalt was next to her, fast asleep, curled into the shape of a comma, his warm back nestled into her neck. He was sleeping later too, now that he had the chance to explore outside and wear himself out during the day.

But the difference wasn’t just a cat in bed with her. She felt a lightness in her chest, a space in her jaw.

She was relaxed.

She didn’t want a cigarette and she had slept peacefully through the night. The sun was streaming in through the window, already risen. It must be after ten, she decided, from the angle and quality of the light.

But she didn’t have to hurry. No trains to catch, no markets to analyse. Not even a sleeping fiancé to tiptoe around.

The telescope parts would arrive at any moment. A pleasurable day stretched ahead of her, making repairs and plotting the theoretical path of the comet before her side of the earth spun away from the sun and her observations could begin.

She stretched like the day and snuggled into the bed. Basalt emitted a gentle chirrup at the movement and made a tiny adjustment to his own position.

Was this what well-being felt like? Perhaps she should take up Jennie’s offer of a yoga class.

A shrill tone interrupted her thoughts. Her phone. Alice reached to answer it, more to make the noise stop than because she wanted to speak to anyone.

It was Hugo.

‘Hello,’ she said. Even her voice sounded different in her ears.

‘You sound funny,’ he said.

‘I’m still in bed,’ said Alice, stretching again. ‘I’m convalescing.’

‘Beats my morning. One of the Year 7s has already been sick all over the Bunsen burners.’

‘You didn’t catch it in a beaker in time?’ teased Alice.

‘That’s the stuff of dreams,’ said Hugo with a laugh. ‘No, it put the flame right out. And put me off my bacon roll at break.’ He paused. ‘I miss you.’

‘I miss you too,’ echoed Alice. She said it automatically, but when she heard the words, they made her think.

She hadn’t actually thought about him that much.

But still, she’d had a lot on her mind. Just because she didn’t think about him every minute of the day didn’t mean she didn’t miss him.

She loved him. ‘I love you,’ she told him, reassuring herself.

Basalt rolled over and looked at her, his ears pushed back in annoyance at the sound of Hugo’s voice. He was the one who hadn’t missed Hugo. She smiled at her cat and tickled his ears.

‘I love you too,’ said Hugo. ‘Are you getting bored out there yet?’

‘Actually, I’ve found something to do,’ said Alice.

‘That sounds ominous.’

‘Berti found something in my grandpa’s old logbooks. One of the comets that he thought he’d seen might be periodic.’ She sat up, excited to hear the words spoken out loud again. ‘If so, it could be coming back!’

‘Who is Berti?’

‘I met him in the library.’

‘Is he one of your grandpa’s old buddies?’ asked Hugo.

‘No,’ replied Alice. ‘He’s much younger.’

‘Younger?’

She realised what he was thinking. ‘Are you jealous?’ she teased.

‘Should I be?’

‘No,’ laughed Alice, deciding to put him out of his misery. ‘He’s thirteen.’

Hugo laughed too. ‘God, you had me going for a minute there.’

‘I’m going to stay here for a bit longer,’ said Alice. ‘To see if I can find this comet.’

‘I can’t believe you’d voluntarily spend time with a thirteen-yearold boy. I’m around them all day and they are the absolute worst.’

‘He’s different,’ said Alice. ‘He reminds me of . . . ’ She stopped herself.

She’d never spoken about Zelda to Hugo. ‘Someone I used to be friends with,’ she finished.

Berti was different to Zelda, of course he was.

Both of them totally unique. But there was a passion there, a razor-sharp intelligence, that made her think of her friend.

There was silence for a moment. ‘I need to go,’ lied Alice. She didn’t want to talk about Zelda. ‘My mum’s calling.’

‘Say hi to her from me,’ said Hugo, his voice bright at the mention of her mother.

‘Will do.’ Alice ended the call. Basalt was looking at her.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘You heard right. We’re staying.

’ He jumped deftly from the bed to the windowsill, then turned round to look at her.

‘Good idea,’ Alice told him. ‘It’s time for you to go outside again.

But for the good of that blackbird, let’s get you breakfast first.’

Berti sat on her grandfather’s old chair in the shed, Basalt rubbing his face against the boy’s nose and purring like a jet engine. Berti had come straight over after school to help with the repairs.

‘Can you get your cat off me?’ he asked, trying and failing to encourage Basalt to jump to the floor. ‘I want to see what you’re doing.’

‘Sorry,’ said Alice. ‘If Basalt chooses you, he chooses you.’ She smiled. ‘Here, see if you can figure out how this bit goes. You’ll just need to hold it where the cat can’t reach.’ She passed him the new lens.

Basalt sniffed at the pieces for a moment, dismissed them as boring and settled down on Berti’s lap, closing his eyes. Berti began trying to assemble them, leaning awkwardly over the cat.

‘Don’t break anything,’ warned Alice. ‘Those parts are hard to find.’ She hadn’t quite worked out how everything fitted together.

She used to be as familiar with her grandfather’s telescope as her own body, but that was a long time ago now.

Years of working with spreadsheets had left her less dextrous with tactile objects.

She placed her hand on the telescope. The body of it was still solid, and it felt cool to her touch. If she closed her eyes, she could almost see her grandfather pottering around the shed, scribbling in his beloved notebooks . . .

‘You’ll never fix it with your eyes shut.’

She flicked them open again, back to reality. ‘Fair point,’ she said. ‘How are you getting along?’

Berti presented her with the lens triumphantly. ‘I probably could have done that with my eyes shut,’ he said. ‘Though it would have been a pointless challenge. What’s next?’

‘These parts need cleaning,’ said Alice, passing him a soft cloth and the solvent. ‘Careful not to scratch anything.’

‘I will be,’ said Berti. He got to work. Alice watched him. He had a steady hand.

‘Your uncle didn’t want to join us?’ she asked.

‘He didn’t get out of bed today,’ said Berti. ‘Sometimes he doesn’t.’

Alice looked at him. ‘What happened?’ she asked. ‘What was the accident?’

‘A grenade blew off a bit of his leg,’ said Berti in a matter-of-fact way. ‘I don’t really know why everyone calls it an accident, because clearly someone did it on purpose.’

Alice put her hand to her mouth. She knew it must have been something awful, but that was so violent, so terrifying. She thought about the sporty, confident boy she had grown up with, and the man she was starting to get to know again now. She had nothing but admiration for him.

‘Only a little bit of the leg came off,’ added Berti. ‘You’ve seen him. He can still walk and stuff, he’s just a bit wobbly, and they didn’t want him on active service any more after that.’

‘Poor Matt,’ said Alice, though it felt like an understatement.

‘Mum says it’s the emotional damage that’s worse,’ said Berti. ‘And that we must be kind to him even when he’s annoying. Which is often.’

Alice and Berti continued in silence, Alice thinking more about Matt and what he’d been through. She couldn’t even imagine.

‘I’ve never looked through a telescope before,’ said Berti, with a sudden change in subject.

‘What?’ Alice put down what she was doing, relieved to have a distraction from her thoughts. ‘But you like space. Hasn’t anyone taken you to an observatory?’

‘Mum said she would, but she hasn’t got round to it. And my dad is in America. I don’t even really remember him any more.’