Star Shot (19 page)

He nods again. I think we must have met, he says, and smiles.

Dan says nothing, but smiles back and shrugs. He lifts Teddy up onto the desk beside him and holds him tight round the middle.

Dan's been helping out with the, ah, benches project? says Luke, making it sound like a question. He collected a lot of stats for me a while back, and he's been keeping an eye, you know?

It's BenchMarks I want to talk to you about, says the professor. There is something in his tone.

Not Lina, thinks Dan, in a sudden rush of fear. Please, not Lina. He bundles Teddy into his arms and stands up.

We'll go and get the stuff for the curry, he says. See you later. He nods at the professor, and leaves them to it.

59.

The silence has claimed its first fatality. The red-haired boy, too drunk or wasted to feel the cold, had gone to sleep on a bench too close to the castle, with his head pillowed on his rucksack, and had not woken up. Perverse, really, to die of hypothermia in August. It had taken quite a long time for anyone in the flow of people hurrying past to realise; someone with a medical background, apparently, had eventually noticed the colour of his face and done something about it.

But there is nothing he can do about it. Worse, the things that were being done, the connections made, the useful partnerships with the science departments, the energetic efforts of his own team, all seem to be failing or thwarted or breaking down. When he had finally cornered the reluctant VC she had said it was out of her power now, that they had been obliged to back off, and that backing off was the right thing to do. And when he pushed her, gently, insistently, she had sudden tears in her eyes. The park, she said, the playing fields; they made it quite clear they could revoke the agreement, or push up the price we pay on the student swipe-cards, and then there are the leases in Cathays…You know as well as I do they could bring us to our knees in months. I said you would back off, what else was there to say? And there's an injunction of some sort on your maps. God knows. You have to leave the castle alone, they said; the silence isn't their doing, they've got their own people working on it, and they don't want that kind of publicity. She shook her head abruptly as if trying to shake something out of it, and held her hands up in front of her face for protection.

So he is looking out of the window of a train at five in the morning, heading for breakfast with Meg in Crewe. Beyond that, a long way beyond, the Highlands, and a weekend at the Lodge, courtesy of the old lady, he isn't even quite sure which one, who had taken a violent fancy to him at some public event or other. More power, apparently, in her crooked little finger, than all the phoney Boards and Trusts put together. Desperate measures, he thinks, god, these are desperate remedies. Poor kid. Though it would doubtless have happened anyway, as Luke said, he never looked terribly likely to be a survivor. He scrolls down his phone to find Meg's last message. She will come as far as Crewe, she says, and no further, no time, with the kids still off school and the troupe rehearsing furiously for September. He has a glimpse of her in the huge vaulted granary, the ropes and lights like a crazed web from floor to ceiling, as ruthless as Rodin with her performers, twisting their beautiful bodies in the air. And grins to think of her, an unlikely trainspotter, implausibly quick to find him the times and itinerary all the way to Fort William: do it now, she says, or it will be too late. Who would have thought it, in this day and age, that you could still get all that way, that there would still be trains. He stretches the vertebrae in his tired back like a cat and watches the pale grey morning wash the trees and fields with a delicate light, and wonders when it might be possible to get a coffee, however unpalatable, and wonders if he has the necessary strength of mind to get what he needs from the weekend ahead.

She looks five years younger than the last time they met. Seven. Perhaps the light is better here than in St Pancras, he thinks; but he knows with a pang of envy that it is the month in the mountains, curative, restorative, home. Not his, for such a long time now. He does not like to be reminded of what he is missing.

Look how tired you are, she says with her hands, accusingly.

Entirely your fault, making me get up at four.

Oh but it'll be wonderful, the train beyond Glasgow, you'll see. Worth it.

And then. He shudders. What then?

Be cool. Do as they do. Tell them what you want in pieces, unravel it gently. And do the same with what you have to offer; give it to them bit by bit.

She hands over the file, and pulls a face. Here, she says with her eyes; and then taps the rest onto the screen. The tailored version: a performance for the castle, site-specific, one-off, a private viewing, at my lady's pleasure. See if she bites.

Oh, I expect she bites, he says grimly. He takes the file and flicks through the first few pages, then looks up at her and smiles. Hey, he says. Hey.
Diolch
.

60.

And now, the corridor. It stretches from the door of her room into impossible distance. But there are waymarkers, targets to aim for; a few strategic posters, doors off to other rooms, and a little way down, the entrance to the lift. Cruelly, no chairs. She must not overdo it, she thinks. She is perfectly aware of the lure of walking in straight lines.

To help keep her balance, she focuses her mind on walking another line, the long polished stone wall marking the edges of the museum, low and broad and easy for a child to run along, the pale building rising on one side, her mother keeping pace on the other. Even harder, no doubt, for a brittle young woman in high heels. She hasn't tried it recently. But she remembers leaves dropping around her, back when she was the living twin of the pensive little girl in bronze. Falling leaves would unbalance anybody, she thinks. All those directions, none of them yours.

Exactly as predicted, and distracted by the falling leaves, she lets the polished stone wall take her much too far. She stops defeated just short of the lift, waiting for her legs to crumple and leave her ignominiously on the floor of the corridor until a rare nurse, or a rarer visitor, comes along and helps her to her feet. But then the lift lights up and thrums into life, travelling upwards, clunking to a halt. The door slides open and the first thing out is the cleaning trolley, and the second thing out is Lina, who is alarmed, and then delighted.

Well look, she says, look at you!

Too far, says Myra dimly, glued to the wall.

Come on, says Lina, gently supporting her thin waist and guiding her to the trolley; help me push this thing back to your room, it's not so far, and look, I've made you a cake.

Once Myra is sat up against her pillows, and Lina is busy cleaning round her, they catch up. The guy in the shop opposite, says Lina, keeps giving me free fruit; look, two more lemons. I think he likes me. Myra laughs out loud through a mouthful of cake, not him! she says, it can't be the same guy – he's a grumpy sod.

Not with me, says Lina primly, picking up a letter in order to clean the surface of the bedside table. You haven't opened this, look. When did you get it?

It's her work address. Myra looks puzzled, then frowns. I thought that was a dream, she says. Since people stopped coming to see me I tend to dream them instead. She must have been real that time. Work colleague. The difficult one.

She reaches for the envelope and looks at it dispassionately. Oh, I remember this now, I know what it says; we're supposed to apply for our own jobs, except there are fewer of them. Like musical chairs.

And will you?

She shrugs. I have no idea, she says. I can't imagine much outside this room.

Well the corridor's a start, says Lina, turning to go. You'll have to take it from there, bit by bit. I have to go now, but I'll try and find someone to get you a cup of tea. She doesn't sound particularly hopeful.

Lovely cake, says Myra, thank you.

Your oven took some getting used to, says Lina, the first one was a mess. Get some sleep now; you'll be worn out, all that exercise.

But Myra has thought of something, and is sliding out of bed trying to find her handbag. Lina goes back over. What is it now, she says, here, let me help. The phone, says Myra, fishing it out and putting it in Lina's hand; it is cold and heavy, old-fashioned, quite dead. There must be a charger in the flat somewhere, she says, in a drawer in the kitchen. Or still plugged in by the bed. Can you find it? Wake this thing up? We could swap numbers, at least, you and me.

Lina looks at the phone in her hand, and shakes her head. Mine's gone, she says. I can't find it anywhere. I think the girls in the hostel took it. It was no good anyway. No one from my family had that number in the first place, so they would never have found me, even if there is anyone left to find me. She looks across at Myra and smiles. But you should start talking to people. Lots of people. I'll find that charger.

If he were ever to come back, thinks Myra, settling back into the pillows and closing her eyes, then I would make quite certain he knows how to find me again.

61.

They travel through space together. The universe rushes past them on either side. Teddy wriggles in his father's lap, and waves his hands as if conducting: stars coming, he calls out, stars coming stars coming stars coming. They stay just long enough for the earth to take shape and form in the void, and then leave the rest of the audience, two patient Japanese girls and an elderly German, to find out what happens next. They know what happens next, and it is not half so interesting, not to them. Nappy change, then coffee in the main hall so Teddy can climb the sweeping white stairs, up and down, up and down. It is nice, thinks Dan, that he still hasn't discovered the shop. At the top of the main flight of stairs the bronze statue of Labour, a pretty young man leaning wearily on his hoe, looks into middle distance and does not pay them much regard.

Dan wonders, with subtle regret, why Teddy doesn't seem to need a nap after lunch these days, even after toddler group this morning, their first time back in about three or four weeks, the pair of them, inevitably, much fussed over. But the move has changed so much, their old routines are gone. And there is not much point, he thinks, in trying to settle him into new ones, since they'll have to be moving again soon. If he can find somewhere. Though Luke insists he doesn't mind. Their evenings are enjoyable, the child curled up asleep in a duvet-nest in the corner and them talking over beers, swapping music, films, and Luke reading out good bits from books he likes, until Dan thinks that it might, one day, be possible to read for pleasure again. The slow Californian drawl reciting sections from that crazy man Fort, stars and planets and impossible conglomerations of objects, showers of frogs and little fish raining periodically from the sky. Spinning worlds up there in space and Fort's own life by then so tightly circumscribed you can count the steps: home, library, home. To boxes and boxes of cuttings and clippings where all the anomalies are stashed. Poor man, he thinks, he would have loved databases as much as Luke does. Retrievable knowledge.

The coffee today is another pleasure. He is beginning to relax, the anxieties retracting their sharp little claws from his heart. Only the thought of Lina really nags at him now; they had gone straight to the Blaschkas this morning, even before Jane's stars, and walked around them several times, as if performing a spell. She hadn't materialised. Have you seen a woman in a headscarf, he had wanted to ask the attendant, as if women in headscarves were so very rare you would have to notice, but he had not had the courage. She is never on her bench, and the number he had for her rings meaninglessly: texts fly off into nowhere, bringing nothing back. If she has moved on, he thinks, we will never know. And if it is worse than that. Luke told him about the ginger-haired boy, and he is intermittently wounded by the thought of those blank eyes. I should have tried to talk to him, he thinks. But I was frightened.

He drinks the coffee slowly, and watches Teddy on the steps. He isn't looking forward to having to move again, it's all so cumbersome, but he is less angry now at the loss of the little terraced house with the blue door. They'll find somewhere. And he's nearly ready again to think about doing some work for Theo, the digging would be good for him, and the company, and they could do with some proper fresh air, and there'll be new creatures in the pond for Teddy to examine. Theo might have seen her, he thinks, of course. They might be working on something together. He hunts back through his phone for the number and wonders what he should say.