Page 41 of See the Stars

Nothing comes to be or perishes.

EMPEDOCLES

A lice came down the stairs and walked into the kitchen. A night of bad sleep had not made her feel any warmer towards her mother after what she’d discovered.

‘Hi, love. Would you like scrambled eggs?’ Sheila didn’t turn around from the counter. ‘I’ve got some wholemeal bread I’ll pop in the toaster.’

‘Sure,’ said Alice. She sat down at the table, then stood up again.

‘Tea?’ asked her mother. ‘Jennie brought some nice herbal stuff.’

‘OK,’ said Alice. She walked round her and stood by the sink, then peered over the back.

‘Whatever are you doing?’ asked Sheila, a broken eggshell in her hands as she finally turned around.

‘I just can’t understand how a logbook could have ended up in there,’ said Alice, her voice innocent.

‘Your grandpa was up to all sorts by the end,’ said Sheila, turning back to the stove and deftly cracking another egg into the pan. ‘He must have thought it was a letter and the back of the sink a postbox.’

‘You’ve mentioned that theory a few times.

’ Alice reached her hand behind the sink, then removed it and bent down to open the cupboard underneath.

Now that she knew, she couldn’t believe she’d missed it before.

‘This gap doesn’t lead to where I found the logbook,’ she said, her head still in the cupboard.

‘To get it here, someone must have leaned into this cupboard, removed the board, put the book there and then replaced the board.’

‘Really?’ said Sheila. Alice thought she detected a nervous note in her voice.

‘Yes, really.’ She stood up and turned to her mother. ‘Grandpa wasn’t up to getting on his hands and knees and climbing into a low cupboard when he was in his eighties to hide a logbook that he wanted from himself. Was he?’

Sheila slid the eggs from the frying pan onto a plate and turned off the stove. She put the plate on the table. ‘Sit down and eat up,’ she said, as if the conversation wasn’t happening.

‘I don’t think he could have put that book there even if he had wanted to,’ continued Alice, ignoring the food.

‘Nobody likes cold scrambled eggs,’ said her mum.

Alice looked at her. ‘You could have just thrown the book away,’ she said.

Sheila took a breath. ‘I did. But then you started talking about going through the rubbish, so I panicked and hid it back there when you were all in the shed.’

Alice sat down. She still couldn’t quite believe her mother had done such a thing, let alone admitted it.

‘Grandpa had found a comet,’ she said. ‘He’d finally found one, and you took that away. Why would you do that?’

Sheila bit her lip, then sat down across from her. ‘I needed you to see,’ she said. ‘I needed you to see what he could be like.’

‘Me?’ said Alice.

‘Yes, you. I know you loved him, but he was too much for me. Every night I’d spend hours coaxing him into bed, then he’d be up again in the night, over and over.

He’d wander off and the neighbours would call me to pick him up.

And if he didn’t want to come, I couldn’t make him, he was still too strong.

’ Sheila paused and took a breath. ‘He needed professional care.’

‘So instead of arranging that, you pushed him over the edge by hiding his book?’

‘I know you’d never forgive me if I put him in a home. You’d have been angry at me, and you can hold a grudge. I just wanted you to understand what he could be like . . . ’

‘I’m plenty angry now,’ said Alice. She stood up, feeling heat rising in her face. ‘He was nothing but kind to us all, and you punished him.’

‘It wasn’t a punishment,’ said Sheila. ‘And I loved my father, don’t get me wrong, but he wasn’t always kind to me .’

‘Of course he was,’ said Alice.

‘I know you only saw the best in him, but he was far from perfect.’ Alice put her hands to her ears, but her mother carried on talking.

‘I wasn’t as bright as you. There was no comet the day I was born.

He was a fantastic grandfather to you and I’m pleased about that, but he wasn’t the best of fathers. ’

‘He didn’t deserve what you did to him,’ said Alice, unwilling to hear what her mother was saying. ‘You took his dream away.’

‘I didn’t think he’d found a comet,’ said Sheila. ‘I really didn’t. He talked about it all the time, but he’d never found one, even before the dementia. I’m sorry, Alice, I know it was wrong. But I didn’t feel like I had a ton of options.’

‘You could just have told me,’ said Alice. ‘You could have tried.’

Sheila put her head in her hands. ‘It wasn’t easy, you know,’ she said. ‘Raising you two without your dad.’

Alice stood and watched her. Sheila had found a little crack in the wood of the table and was scraping it with her fingernail.

‘Being a single parent wasn’t what I signed up for,’ she continued.

‘I did my best with you both. I wanted you to feel supported, in the way I never was. I wanted to be the best mother I could be. But I wanted to do it with your father . . . ’ She looked up at Alice, then back to the table.

‘When he died, your grandpa stepped up, and I was grateful. But it wasn’t how I wanted my family to be. ’

Alice said nothing.

‘I know you and your grandpa were close. He liked you so much more than he ever liked me. You had a bond; the type of bond there normally is between a mother and daughter.’

‘ We have a bond.’

‘But you two were closer. You’ve never really been that interested in me. Not in the same way. You even took his name over your dad’s.’

‘It’s not a competition,’ said Alice. She thought again of the shed on the last night she’d seen him, when he had been so hopeful and she’d been so unkind. The next day she was going to apologise, to spend time with him. Maybe she’d have looked properly at the logs, and seen that he’d been right.

Her mother had taken that from her.

She’d taken it from both of them.

‘I’m going to my room,’ she said. ‘I’ve got a call with my boss.’ She left the kitchen. Home didn’t seem like a sanctuary any more.

Alice sat at her computer screen looking at the Zoom link staring out at her from her calendar. Catch-up, the meeting invite said. Catch-ups were never good things. It was what people put in the diary when they wanted to complain about their workload or a colleague’s behaviour.

Or what HR put in the diary when you were going to be fired.

I asked for this meeting, Alice told herself. She needed to talk to Angus. Her extra two weeks was almost up, but she hadn’t found the comet.

Not quite.

The time at the bottom of her computer screen changed: 10.01.

She had to dial in.

Trying to breathe deeply and quell the rise in her heart rate (surely imaginary?), she pressed the link.

Angus’s tanned face appeared on her screen.

Alice fumbled for a minute, accepting computer audio, turning on her video.

He was already talking, his mouth moving but no sound reaching her.

She hunted for the volume icon on her screen and slid up the dial, then wished she hadn’t as his voice boomed through her speakers.

‘Missing us, eh?’ he said, not giving her a chance to reply.

‘I’ve got another call, so I’ll be brief.

I bet you can’t wait to get back. We can’t wait to have you back, to be honest. It’s not been a great time.

Tough markets, miserable clients. Could have done without you taking those extra weeks. See you Monday, eight a.m.’

‘Actually,’ said Alice, trying to get a word in before he hung up again, ‘I think Monday isn’t so good.’

‘You’re taking the piss now,’ said Angus. ‘Excuse my French. Still, I’m a reasonable man. Tuesday it is. Final offer, because we value you.’

‘I need another week,’ said Alice, speaking quickly before she could be shouted down. ‘I’m still not feeling well. I really think that one more week will do it . . . ’

‘No way,’ said Angus. He paused, looking at her. ‘We’ve been more than fair. You’ve had your statutory leave and then some.’

‘I thought you said I was worth waiting for.’

‘And I did wait, but my patience is wearing thin.’ His eyes seemed to pierce through the screen. ‘And I know when I’m being given the runaround. You’re not coming back, are you?’

‘I am,’ said Alice, but she bit her lip.

‘You’re trying to draw it out to keep getting paid, but you’ve got another job lined up. I can tell when someone’s heart isn’t in it any more.’

‘My heart is in it,’ lied Alice. She needed this job. She had responsibilities. A wedding to plan.

She just wanted to put them off while she had one final look for the comet.

‘Prove it then,’ said Angus. ‘Eight a.m. Monday.’

‘Like I said, just one more week.’

‘Eight a.m. Monday or your P45 will be in the post. Don’t be late.’

He ended the meeting. Alice sat and looked at her computer. Her eyes flicked to the bottom of the screen again.

She had three days.

Maybe it was still possible. If the stars aligned.

And if Boxley cooperated.

Alice had her overnight bag and Berti in tow as she boarded the train to Edinburgh, feeling full of optimism. Boxley had called, telling her to come up. He’d ‘found something’ in the data apparently.

‘What do you think it is?’ asked Berti.

Alice knew Boxley would be impressed by her grandfather’s notes, and she enjoyed a moment of familial pride. ‘Something of interest in the logs,’ she said. ‘Although I can’t imagine it’s anything we haven’t already spotted.’

‘We are very thorough,’ said Berti.

‘We are. Perhaps there’s been some new research on periodic comets that I haven’t seen yet. He might know more about what type it is, which could give a better indication of when we’ll see it.’

‘And we think soon.’

‘We do,’ said Alice. That was why she’d packed her bags and got permission from Berti’s mum for him to leave school early on Friday and potentially stay overnight. Just in case Boxley let them use the telescope that very evening. She hoped that was why he’d suggested another in-person meeting.