Star Shot (18 page)

The spike in usage, though, explains Luke, is definitely temperature-related, so the constituency is not quite the same, more fluid, perhaps less meaningful: they use the benches like pools, dipping in for a few minutes to cool off, they don't stay long, especially if they come in groups or pairs, because of not being able to talk through the silence. And we've finally attached the special thermometers, the ones they ordered last month, to the designated Key Benches, so we can start monitoring the temperatures properly now: most are down to around 5-7 degrees, did you know? And we might even get the viscosity device sorted, if they ever sort out the communications problem with Physics.

They're standing outside the town library, and Luke has been talking non-stop for ten minutes when Teddy wakes and starts to fuss. Dan makes a helpless gesture with his hands, and Luke looks concerned.

I, ah, we don't need to stand here, I could get you a coffee? You could see some of the stats on the iPad.

But Dan just stands there, on the brink of anger, furious with Teddy for waking up, and with Luke, whom he has not seen in days, for wrecking his carefully planned hour. He is also, though he will not admit it, hungry, and tired from not sleeping. His voice is tight.

I'm sorry, he says, I've got three days before we're evicted, and I haven't found a place that'll take us yet. I need to check my emails and try and find some more numbers to ring. And now – he pulls the pram to and fro with slightly too much force, which only makes the child yell louder – and now he's woken up. They're going to love us in there, aren't they?

He turns and pushes the buggy into the library foyer; Teddy is writhing in his straps. Luke is aghast, and runs after them, reaches out for the handle.

Man, you should have told me … about the house … I thought it would have been sorted by now.

I did tell you, a fortnight ago. Nothing's changed.

Teddy's yells get louder. To his great surprise, Luke finds that he has taken control of the buggy and is heading back out to the street.

Come on, he says to Dan, over his shoulder. Come on. We're going to check your emails on my iPad and get some food and, ah, sort you both out.

Dan stands there, breathing hard, and watches them disappear down towards the arcades. Luke doesn't look back again; he has no choice but to run after them. Luke grins as he catches up. Handles like a dream, he says, above the yelling.

Have you seen Lina on your rounds at all? asks Dan.

56.

She is in a big blue sky, looking down on a dark blue sea, and she is spinning so fast it is as if she is not moving at all. She smiles beautifully, confident of keeping it all together; her constituent parts, a hundred, possibly a thousand spinning spheres have coalesced to create her lovely form. If even the smallest one of the spheres, she thinks, were to spin off course, were to be tugged into deep space by a body with a heavier gravitational pull, with an orbit more forceful than the willpower holding her together, then she would disintegrate and the spheres would scatter and travel alone for perhaps centuries before another force in a different part of space pulled a new set of spheres together to make a new form. But she is in equilibrium, she is perfectly balanced, and there will be no question of collapse.

Awake, when she is not practising walking, she knits furiously. The scarf is now absurdly long, but this is the last ball of silky silver wool, so it will have to stop soon. She has lost all inclination to read, and Theo's books stay stacked on the bedside table. His absence defeats her. Ten, eleven days in, it has become uninterpretable, and all she can do is retract like a creature in a shell, for protection. She is very good at not thinking about things, she has had a lot of practice, and it is not hard to divert her thoughts back to the building, which she revisits incessantly, its steps and columns bright in the summer sun. When she can walk again, she thinks, she will sit on those steps in that sun and eat fruit salad. It won't be long now.

And Lina is safe in her flat, and the flat, she thinks, must be glad to have her there. The little tree was dead, of course, but the fridge, she said, wasn't bad at all, and she has opened the windows and let the air in and cleaned the kitchen and the bathroom. You shouldn't be cleaning, said Myra, not after cleaning the way you do all day. This is different, said Lina, this is so very different you have no idea. And they had both cried, and laughed at each other for doing so. This week, though, Lina is doing another ward, so she doesn't see her as much. There is a nice Polish girl with a wide smile who comes most mornings instead.

The huge gull watches her through the window as the nurses come and go, bring tea, bring medicine, bring the dull food, take her blood pressure. The walking must be tiring
her out because she sleeps and sleeps. On three separate occasions this week the duty nurse has come into her room with a phone in her hand, and found her so deeply asleep it would, she tells the voice on the other end, be wrong to wake her. And yes, she says, she'll say who phoned, don't worry; we'll make sure she gets the message.

57.

He puts the tea down carefully and stands with his hand on her thin shoulder, looking at what she's done. Huge sheets of paper cover the table. The lines she draws across them dance and curve, a dozen or so sketches on every page; some are discrete and clear – faces, birds – but others cluster into scenes, small landscapes with foreign-looking buildings, groups of figures in conversation. Others are more abstract, or perhaps just unintelligible. Beautiful, Mam, he says, these are really lovely. She smiles and reaches up to touch his hand as he squeezes her shoulder gently. He wonders where they come from, whether she carries the shapes in her head all the time, or whether they only happen at the point of contact. He didn't get that gene.

He pulls out one of the finished sheets from the back of the table and holds it up to the window. Round the edges are mostly faces and long-legged birds – she was quite well-known for her birds, at one time – but in the centre, evoked in a very few lines, is the shape of a woman, naked and lying on her side. She is staring straight ahead; an indistinct figure hangs over her, it is not clear who or why. He recognises her, and goes hunting through other pages and finds her again, twice, lying much in the same position but seen from slightly different angles. He would like to see her face closer, he thinks; he wonders if she will draw her again
.

Who's this, Mam? he asks, without much expectation of a reply. She looks briefly at the picture, and then goes back to her page.

Galatea, she says. Poor girl.

He goes into the hall and phones the hospital one more time. This time it rings and rings and nobody answers at all.

Have you had enough drawing, Mam? he asks after a while. Shall we try and walk a bit in the garden? Be good for your leg, and we could do with some fresh air.

It shouldn't be too hot now, he thinks, late afternoon, the sun has relented. She acquiesces smiling, as she does to almost everything now, it is as if all volition, of body and mind – to eat, to drink, to stand or sleep – must come from him, and everything he suggests she performs willingly, gratefully, as if pleased to have delegated all decision- making to someone else. She forgets to stop, he thinks, she would go on making lines on the paper until she fainted or wet herself. How could he possibly leave her for more than an hour at a time? No one else, no stranger come in to mind her, would be able to know the way he knows what she might need next. Ten, eleven days in, with a routine in place and some of the fear gone, he feels more confident that they could manage this together, day by day; but only if he pulls in his horizons to fit hers, if the house and the pond, the marsh and the woodland are the extent and limits of their shared world. He wouldn't have minded, three or four months back; when most of the few people he has any time for came to him, and the prospect of endlessly shuttling in and out of the city filled him with irritation. The group is experienced enough now for him not to have to do all the pond drops; they're managing OK, he thinks, and from home he can at least deal with the orders, plan the locations, and do what he likes best: the preparation of the tanks, the planting and thinning, the management of the land. Retreat.

But it feels worse than that.

The woman holding onto his arm is as light and thin-boned as a bird. Walking requires the full concentration of both. He guides her to the roses, passionate red. Smell these, Mam, he says, can you smell them?

58.

They pound down the river-path for the third time that day, stopping briefly to admire the heron standing on a stony patch near the weir.
Dak-dak
, says Teddy. Big one, says Dan. Teddy is riding shot-gun on a footplate at the back of the buggy, which holds two black bin-bags full of clothes and saucepans, stuffed toys, plates and mugs and bundles of cutlery wrapped in tea-towels and clothes. The last run.

Mercifully, it rained in the night. The air is breathable again and the entire city feels less irritable. Luke had insisted on getting them a taxi for the main load of boxes, the books, the ancient cd player, the still-unopened box of Jane's things, the dismantled highchair, but Dan was stubborn
about doing the rest himself. Three journeys down the path along the river and through the park, past the white buildings of Cathays and through to Luke's new, larger, emptier office where all this stuff can be stashed. Temporarily. Till they find a place. Luke has sent a request round on the University staff list, in case anyone has rooms they're not using. For now, they can have the sofa in his tiny flat. It's a plan. Dan knows that two or three nights with a hyped-up restless toddler in the living room will be enough; Teddy does not go to sleep willingly.

Near the castle they stop for the third time to say hello to the JCB and Rhod, who finds their unconventional method of moving house amusing. What are you doing all this for? asks Dan.

Keeping the water under control, he says. They want it away from the walls; they think it's damaging the foundations.

Dan looks at the ugly, emptied moat. And is it?

Course not. It's a daft idea. And there's plenty else happening round here; haven't you seen they're mending the railings, right round the park?

Dan thinks of his gap into the dark starry fields closing up. They say goodbye to Rhod and leave the park; pushing hard and fast through the wall of cold on the way out. As they pass the museum Teddy hops off the back and runs along the lower steps. His chatter does not stop; the thick channel of silence must still be up nearer the top.

Most of their stuff can be pushed under the desks and tables hard up against the walls round the edge, but the office, nevertheless, looks quite a bit smaller and less empty. Black bin bags are never a good look, he thinks. More cardboard boxes would have been less conspicuous. Luke comes in balancing two cups of coffee and a beaker of milk and some digestives and tries not to look too alarmed. It won't be long, says Dan. I promise.

While they are talking and Dan is offering to cook supper there's a quick knock and the door opens. The professor looks surprised. I'll come back later, he says, withdrawing. Apologies.

No, no, says Luke, going slightly red, I'm not, ah, busy. Shall I come and find you in your office? Five minutes? The professor nods and looks with courteous curiosity at Dan and Teddy, who seem familiar.

Ah, this is Dan, says Luke, and ah, Teddy. They're in the middle of moving house, and this is just temporary, I thought it would be OK, in the office here, you know…