The Comet Seekers: A Novel (18 page)

He sees her through the window in the kitchen door, looking in; a smile spreads across his face, his arm rises in a wave. She looks serious for a minute, but he runs up to her, lifts her inside and spins her in his arms with a laugh.

You’ll not guess what I’ve done, he says.

She raises her eyebrows, follows him to the turntable sitting proudly on the kitchen table.

He points to the record, holds his arms round her waist as they both listen to it playing smoothly.

I fixed it, he whispers in her ear, before kissing her neck.

She turns to face him.

Was it broken? she says.

If she had known, she would have bought him a new one for Christmas.

1997

Comet Hale—Bopp

FRANÇOIS CROUCHES OUTSIDE THE DOOR
, some instinct making him feel more hidden if he is low down. Inside the room, his mama is talking to herself again, and he has decided that he needs to know what it is that she keeps saying.

Why did you make the shed? she says.

Does she mean the shed in their garden, the one that is his den?

You knew, didn’t you?

François backs away from the door, crouches in the corner.

You wanted to escape, too.

He hears footsteps, thinks about running for the stairs, but then her walking stops and her voice softens.

I do understand, she says. That’s the trouble. I understand just fine.

He creeps downstairs, keeping to the far side by the wall; he doesn’t want the steps to creak the way they do, sometimes, in the night, when his mama heads down to the garden, imagining him to be asleep.

In the shed, François pushes his toys to one corner – toys he hasn’t played with since he was little, model figures and storybooks and even a child’s bicycle that he has outgrown. He hasn’t come in here to play for a long time, a long time in his world, not since he was at l’école primaire, at least; not since he grew up, as he has done this year. There are boxes stacked around the walls, some made of cardboard, others plastic; some covered under blankets so he could sit on them, pretend he had his own sofa in his own den, when really there was no actual furniture in there.

But there is some furniture. One piece of furniture. There is the old cupboard at the back that looks so dusty and boring that he’s never bothered looking inside. Only now he reaches for the handle.

The door opens easily. There’s no lock. No secrets. And inside there are mostly books. The top half is lined with shelves, the shelves crowded with old-looking books in dim colours with thick spines. The bottom half has no shelves and contains a suitcase that he vaguely recognises. It is their suitcase, the one they used to take on holidays when they still went on holidays, when he was a child.

He pulls it out from the cupboard and lays it on the floor.

The flimsy padlock comes off the zip easily – it’s not a real lock, it is like a child’s toy intended only to stop the zip from winding free in the baggage hold, not to stop the contents from being disclosed.

Upstairs, Severine and her granny sit side by side on the bed. They do not want to fight. Her granny looks older now, which is odd – most of the ghosts appear like younger versions of themselves.

It’s not a good thing, Severine says, that we are all tied to our ancestors like this.

It’s not so simple, her granny says.

Then tell me.

Her granny looks past her, as if looking beyond the camera’s lens to something outside of the scene they’re in.

It was wonderful, she says, to see him again, you see. He was still young, when he died.

Great-Grandpa Paul-François?

He said it was up to me, if I wanted to see him, and I didn’t even have to think about it. I said yes, yes, yes. I didn’t want to be alone, in this house.

You had Mama.

She was a child. You know what company children make?

She does; Severine knows that well enough.

I didn’t even realise that I was staying in Bayeux for him, her granny says. I stayed here because it was my home. At first, anyway.

What happened later?

I didn’t want to let him go. It was . . . she shrugs. It was too much fun. And I was too lonely without him.

There was a moment in the hospital, as her granny was dying, when Severine had felt the loss more than at any other time; a moment before the ghosts had appeared and offered her hope. It still returns, that feeling, bites into her like cold reality after a dream.

In the case, there are clothes. New clothes that he hasn’t seen before – clothes for his mama and for himself. He pulls them out, lets them scatter on the floor around him as he searches deeper, and finds passports, birth certificates, money – why is there money hidden in this cupboard in his shed? – maps, maps of France, driving maps, timetables of trains and boats, maps of
Europe, money in currencies that he doesn’t recognise, that looks like fake money, but somehow he knows this is not pretend. Everything they would need to start a new life, away from Bayeux, is in this case.

It is strange, her granny says, to realise that you have another chance, but that it is slipping away.

I don’t understand.

It can’t last; I know that now. We have a generation left, perhaps, that’s all.

And then what?

She shrugs her shoulders then looks up to the sky, waves her hand as if inviting Severine to look from one edge of the universe to another.

Don’t worry, she says, anger can’t last forever.

You’re talking about Brigitte now?

It controls her, that’s the trouble. She’s not ready to leave yet; she finds it too difficult to let go.

François repacks the case, and does the zip back up, although the padlock is broken now and won’t secure properly. He puts the toys back to where they were, scattered about the den, and tries to make it look as if he hasn’t been here. Then he reconsiders.

He had a toy, a tiger, that he loved when he was younger. He used to carry it everywhere, stopped when he became embarrassed, when the teasing of other kids made him ashamed. He finds it in one of the other boxes, stacked in with a multicoloured xylophone for a two-year-old and a wooden yo-yo – he has no need of them – and carefully pulls it out, trying to tuck in the loose thread that is coming undone from the seams.

He unzips the suitcase and places the tiger inside, along with the clothes and maps and money, and puts the suitcase neatly by
the door of the shed so it will be ready, when his mama is. Ready for when they will leave.

While they cook dinner, François keeps grinning at Severine, as if he has a secret, and he looks so pleased about it that she’s going along with it. She lets him crush the garlic – one of his favourite jobs in the kitchen – laughs as he climbs up onto a chair so he can lean down on the garlic press with all his weight.

She’s accidentally laid three places at the table – one for her granny – but she pretends the serving mat is for the hot casserole dish, and she thinks she gets away with it. François doesn’t tell her she’s made a mistake. He just smiles.

Is it good? she asks.

You have outdone yourself, Mama, he says. How grown up he sounds sometimes! And he continues: You know Luc, from school? He says he calls his mama and papa Julie and Pierre. Do you think that’s funny?

I think it’s OK, she says, parents are people too.

Can I call you Severine then?

Yes, she smiles, I suppose you can.

François thinks this is something of a turning point now. He is a grown-up, not a child any more, and he and Severine are going to go somewhere far away. He’s just got to wait till she tells him where.

I want to go to South America, he says.

Why South America?

We’re doing South America in Geography. The rainforest is the last untouched wilderness.

Severine thinks about that for a minute.

What about Antarctica? she says. That’s untouched, and it’s certainly wild.

His eyebrows furrow. He hadn’t thought of that. They’ve never done Antarctica in Geography.

Can we look it up in the atlas?

After dinner, she smiles.

He stands beside his mama, beside Severine, and they both stare at the page. It is different from every other page in the atlas: a pure white land of ice in the blue sea – a world of two colours – and miles of empty space.

Who lives there? he asks.

Penguins, she says, and after a minute, maybe sea lions as well. And some birds, I think.

What people?

I don’t think there are any people, she says. I told you it was untouched.

No people at all?

François likes the idea of a snowy wilderness even more than all those trees in South America. Though he can’t imagine a whole continent with no people – he didn’t know there was such a thing.

Will you come with me, if I go as an explorer? he asks his mama.

A smile warms her face.

You’re not too old, are you? he says.

She laughs. I’m only thirty-five, François. Then she pulls her son into a hug. And of course I will.

Brigitte is different that night. She perches on the end of Severine’s bed, quiet and soft.

Severine is tired like she’s never been before. She’s had nightmares every night since the comet arrived last year. Every day she takes François to school and runs the shop and cooks dinner and
listens to all the other ghosts, but tonight she is going to try to stay calm despite her exhaustion and listen to Brigitte.

Do you want to tell me your story? she asks.

Brigitte is staring out of the window at the black of the night.

Maybe I can help?

Someone was taken from me, Brigitte begins, and stops again abruptly.

We’ve all lost someone, says Severine. Perhaps it’s time to let it go. We all have to let go eventually.

And Brigitte can’t help it. She thinks about the fire and it catches light around her, thinks about the screams and the room is filled with noise that she can’t stop, even though Severine is covering her eyes and burying her head in the pillow and stifling a scream of her own and it feels like the whole room is alight, the house collapsing into rubble, and then it stops.

Brigitte is gone.

Severine sits up. Enough. It has to be today. There is nothing she can do to help Brigitte, nothing she can do to change the past, but she can make a new future for herself – and for François. A future with new places to explore and no ghosts to haunt them.

François hears a knock on his door. He thinks, as he wakes, that it wasn’t real – just a house sound, like the noises that always appear in the night. But there it is again, three knocks, and the door handle to his room turning.

François, his mama whispers.

Mama? he says, and then sits up. I mean, Severine?

You should get dressed, she says.

What time is it?

Dawn.

Why are we getting up now?

We have to get to Paris.

This is it. The time has come, sooner even than he thought it was going to.

What are we going to do in Paris? he says, eyes wider. She is smiling now, peeking out of his curtains.

We’re going to get a flight.

To South America? Or Antarctica?

London first, she smiles, lets the curtains fall back but puts the bedside light on. Then, anywhere you want to go.

When François gets downstairs his mama is waiting in the hall with the suitcase from the shed. She doesn’t mention his tiger, maybe she hasn’t even opened it yet. It feels like an adventure, this night-time leaving. Although, it’s not really night any more – the outside is brightening, it looks fresh and clean, and colour-tinted from the stained glass in their front door.

They take the train to Paris, watching the sun rise higher through a hopeful sky, François gazing out of the window as they race by fields of cattle and orchards of apple trees, his eyes flicking back and forth as he follows the scenes.

What is this village called? he asks, with each station they pass through, and Severine smiles at how much she doesn’t know, even this close to home.

Then there is a long bus to the airport, François climbing up the last few steps to sit on the high seats at the back, by the window again – looking out until the early morning catches up with him, and he closes his eyes, drifts back to sleep, his head nodding against his mama’s shoulder for a moment before waking with a jolt, straightening up to stare outside some more.

A plane!

It is low in the sky, only just taking off. They are close.

And then they are inside the terminal building, queuing to check in their luggage, François watching as it wobbles along the conveyor belt then disappears from view.

His mama is holding their passports now, and their boarding cards. They are queuing again to get through security. François is impatient, wanting to run through the empty doorway of the X-ray machine, wanting to see if he makes it beep.

Severine stands beside him in the queue. She’s not excited by the X-ray machine. She wishes the queue were longer, finds to her surprise that she is dragging her feet, looking over her shoulder.

They both pass through. Their bags are not searched.

Someone offers perfume to her in the duty-free boutique; she shakes her head, repelled by the scent.

Come on, Mama! François calls, his energy sending him running between the aisles of bottles and chocolates, just bold colours to him. The lights are so bright he wants to jump and shout.

Severine has stopped. He runs back, takes her hand.

But now, she is looking for them. Her granny would come, surely, wave her off to show her that it’s OK, that she understands and that she is happy for her. But her granny is not here. And Great-Grandpa Paul-François, he’ll arrive at the last minute, she thinks, he has to. He’ll be there by the gate, lounging against the end of the row of neat seats with pale blue cushions, laughing at the way François runs between them, scrambles through the rows in his excitement. But they arrive at the gate and Great-Grandpa Paul-François is not there. She sees a man with dark hair, a walk she recognises, a way of swinging his arm, and she rushes towards him until a woman appears carrying two coffees and passes one to him. This is not Antoine, this is just some man, some stranger to her. She even looks for Brigitte, angry Brigitte, with her blackened skin and her seeping blood, even that, even the horror of that, would mean that they care.