Page 45 of See the Stars

‘Do you miss me yet? I miss you. And the telescope and the stars. I asked your mum if I could come round and she said yes, but Matt said he didn’t want to come with me and I feel funny going on my own, which is weird as usually I like being on my own, but somehow, it’s different now I know what it’s like to be with someone who I really like. ’

‘Hi, Berti,’ said Alice with a smile. ‘I miss you too.’

‘It’s half term, but I’m so bored without you.

There’s nothing I really want to do. Even the library doesn’t seem as appealing.

’ Berti paused for long enough to take a half-breath.

‘How’s your boring job and boyfriend?’ he asked.

‘Have you realised what a terrible mistake you’ve made yet and decided to come back? ’

‘Job and boyfriend are OK, thanks,’ said Alice. ‘Hugo is making me dinner right now.’

‘That’s late to eat and I bet you’re tired,’ said Berti. ‘Your mum would have made sure you’d been fed hours ago. It’s much better for your gut biome to eat early and then get a good rest overnight.’

‘Yes, she would have,’ agreed Alice, though she was too angry at her mother to eat anything she’d cooked. She hadn’t told Berti, or anyone in fact, about what Sheila had done. She was still too furious to talk about it.

‘Did you tell all your work friends about the comet we almost found?’ asked Berti. ‘I bet they were excited.’

‘I mentioned it,’ said Alice, vaguely. ‘But it’s not really their thing. My colleague Frieda thought I’d been to the Bahamas,’ she added. The thought lit something in her brain again, but she couldn’t quite reach it.

‘Dinner’s ready,’ called Hugo.

‘I have to go,’ said Alice. ‘Thanks for calling.’

‘The Bahamas,’ said Berti. Alice felt she could hear his brain whirring. ‘The other side of the world.’

‘Not quite,’ she said.

‘Come on, it will get cold.’ Hugo poked his head around the door.

‘Just a sec,’ said Alice.

‘Why didn’t we think of it before?’ exclaimed Berti. ‘We’re the cleverest people we know, but we’re idiots. Is there still time?’

‘Still time for what?’

‘No time, it’s getting cold,’ said Hugo. ‘Come on.’

‘I’ll be right there,’ snapped Alice, not wanting the whirring that had finally started in her own brain to stop.

Basalt looked at her in surprise, his ears back.

She hardly ever raised her voice to Hugo.

Hugo lingered in the doorway, and Basalt took his chance, pouncing at his legs.

Hugo howled, shook the cat off and beat a hasty retreat from the room.

Basalt sat down as if nothing had happened and proceeded to clean his foot, spreading his little paws as if they were elegant fingers covered in jewels.

‘If the date was wrong, that means that other calculations would change too,’ said Berti. ‘The orbital path would not be what we predicted.’

‘Yes,’ said Alice. ‘But it doesn’t matter. We’ve missed it.’

‘No,’ said Berti, excitement rising in his voice. ‘It does matter. Because we mapped the trajectory based on that date, and that meant it would pass us by at this latitude and then carry on, away from earth . . . ’

‘But if the trajectory were different . . . ’ Alice suddenly understood. The earth was a sphere. The comet had already passed their position in the UK. But if the date had been wrong, the trajectory would be wrong too. And they still had the southern hemisphere . . .

‘It could still be passing earth,’ said Berti, excitement flooding from him as he echoed her thoughts. ‘Not here, it’s too late here. But . . . ’

‘ . . . it could still be visible, potentially, from somewhere else. We’d need to run the calculations,’ said Alice.

‘Of course,’ said Berti, sounding so happy he might pop.

‘It might still be gone.’

‘It might not be.’

‘And there would need to be the right conditions.’

‘And the right telescope,’ Berti added.

‘We might be too late,’ said Alice.

‘We might not be,’ countered Berti.

‘It’s a long shot.’

‘But it’s a shot.’

Alice grinned. ‘It is,’ she said. For a second, she closed her eyes, taking in the possibilities. Then she got to work. ‘I’ll start running the numbers,’ she said. ‘Berti Beechwood, you’re a genius.’

‘I am,’ said Berti. ‘But we knew that already.’

Alice sat at the dining table, scooping food into her mouth while she pored over the laptop. ‘Can you move the flowers? There isn’t really space for my computer.’

‘This isn’t super romantic,’ said Hugo, moving the vase.

‘It’s delicious,’ said Alice, looking up from her screen to give him a smile. ‘Thank you.’

‘Could you maybe come off the laptop for a bit?’ asked Hugo.

‘Sorry,’ said Alice. ‘The comet could be moving across the skies of the southern hemisphere as we speak.’ She looked up. ‘In fact, I think it is. The trajectory calculations are so different now. It’s unreal what just that little date change could do.’

‘Great,’ said Hugo, with no enthusiasm.

‘Don’t you see?’ said Alice. ‘It’s a do-over.

I get to not miss the comet after all. I just need to work out where it will be, and then get there as quickly as I can.

’ She had often wished that she could go back in time and change what she had done.

Usually, it was impossible. Time only went one way, at least on their planet, as far as they knew.

But this? This gave her a second chance.

She had to take it.

Hugo blew out the candle. ‘You’ve just got back,’ he said. ‘This is our first evening together. You’ve had a stroke and now you want to fly around the world chasing something that probably wasn’t there in the first place.’

‘I know it might seem a little crazy,’ she admitted. ‘But this could be my chance. My last chance for nine years. For ever. It could have vaporised by then.’

‘Alice,’ said Hugo. He took her hand. ‘You’re not thinking straight. What about work? They won’t let you go on leave again, not when you’ve only just got back.’

Alice remembered her day at the office. It was day one, but it had exhausted her. The thought of continuing to do that day after day, year after year just seemed impossible. She couldn’t believe that it had been her life for almost a decade.

And now. Now she had a chance to do something that she cared about. For someone she had loved so very much. Maybe afterwards she could make herself go back.

Maybe not.

But suddenly it didn’t seem so important.

‘They’ll understand,’ she said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. ‘I won’t lie to them,’ she added. ‘Not exactly. I wouldn’t do that. But perhaps if I just say it was too much for me, too quickly . . . ’ That wouldn’t be a lie. It just wouldn’t be the whole truth.

‘For goodness’ sake, Alice,’ said Hugo. He let go of her hand and slammed his down on the table, making the pepper grinder fall over.

Alice and Basalt both flinched. She finally looked away from the screen.

‘What if they don’t? We can’t afford this place on just my salary.

We have a wedding to pay for too, if you remember? ’

‘Yes,’ said Alice. Usually she’d give in when Hugo was like this, which to be fair to him was rare. But not this time. Too much was at stake. ‘But there are other jobs. Grandpa only saw one comet.’

‘You’re not seriously going to give up a six-figure salary to look for a comet with a thirteen-year-old boy based on the notes of an old man with dementia?’

‘It was his dream,’ said Alice, willing Hugo to understand.

‘It’s my dream too. And yes, that is absolutely what I plan to do.

’ She righted the pepper grinder and looked at him.

He frowned back at her, clearly not understanding at all.

‘Dinner was delicious, thank you. It was thoughtful of you, and we’ll spend some proper time together soon.

But now I must get back to these numbers.

I want to double-check them before I book the flights. ’

‘But it’s such a risk!’ objected Hugo. ‘It’s not like you.’

Alice looked at him. He was right, in a way. It wasn’t like her. Not now, not how she’d become. But was this really who she was?

‘Maybe it is like me,’ she said. ‘Maybe I want it to be like me again.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘It’s not just the comet. I don’t want to take the sensible option, the safe option. I’ve done that for years, but now I’m starting to feel like I could do something different. Something hard. But something that means so much.’

‘I don’t understand,’ said Hugo. ‘Where will you even go?’ From his voice, she could tell he’d given up trying to persuade her. ‘The Bahamas?’

‘That would be a coincidence,’ she said. ‘But from the way these figures are shaping up, it could be somewhere even better.’ She took a final bite of chicken before she spoke. ‘Hawaii.’