The Comet Seekers: A Novel (20 page)

Instead, they let themselves become who they were, side by side in their childhood hut that was always a bit too small, even before
they grew too big. She lets her cheek brush against his, feeling his stubble like she used to; he lets his lips brush against her shoulder, her stomach, as cautiously as if he were a boy, and they return to a moment when this was all that mattered.

They wake shivering, the cold a more thorough cover than the warmth of the sleeping bag they share. Liam puts his arms around her, holds her close as she buries her head in his chest. She is shaking.

Here, I’ll warm you up, he says, but she’s shaking her head as well.

Let’s go, she says, getting up. It’s time.

Liam feels a stab of loss, mixed in with longing, and can’t explain why it seems so familiar.

WHEN SEVERINE AND FRANÇOIS GET
home the ghosts are not there. François stands quietly by the door as his mama rushes from room to room, calling out to no one. I’m back, she shouts, I’m here. He sits down cross-legged on the floor in the hallway and pulls over the suitcase – abandoned by Severine as soon as she stepped inside – and sets it down in front of him.

The zip makes a slow, grating sound, and he doesn’t rush; he feels like something in him is changing although he couldn’t say what it is. He opens the top, holds it in his hands for a moment, then throws it backwards to make a quiet thud on the carpet behind, and he looks down into the muddle of clothes and maps and shoes and his old tiger and feels like he is looking into his childhood from beyond it. He pulls out the tiger, leaving a trail of clothes tumbling out of the case, and stands up.

Severine rushes up the stairs – she had thought they would be here, waiting for her return, ready to congratulate her on making
the right decision, but perhaps that is a scene that would only happen in her imagination. She slows, checks a bedroom, stands outside Great-Grandpa Paul-François’s study. Surprising herself, she knocks on the door.

Inside, Antoine is curled up under Great-Grandpa Paul-François’s old desk, but when he sees her he crawls out – younger now, a boy, François’s age – and looks at her with his head tilted to one side.

You wanted me to leave? she asks.

He brushes down his T-shirt, stands straight.

No, I wanted me to leave.

Severine thinks she can see Brigitte shimmering into view, but she vanishes again, and instead of searching for more ghosts she kneels down beside Antoine, remembering what this room looked like from the viewpoint of a girl.

Well, how’s this: I set you free, she says.

Oh, that’s sweet, he smiles, but not how it works. If you get one of us, you get us all. Besides, there’s someone else I’m waiting for.

She looks up to see Great-Grandpa Paul-François sitting behind the desk, a book raised in front of his face, a chuckle already resounding around the room. Henri from the 1750s is looking through the shelves, pointing out the books he likes to the sisters in lace dresses, and others appear, their clothes reflecting different centuries, and her granny – her granny calls her name so she stands and turns and sees her granny as a young woman, with dark curls and a knowing smile: Welcome home.

When François gets to the top of the stairs, his tiger trailing from his right hand, he sees all the doors have been thrown open except for one, and he knows that is where Severine will be. He walks towards it, raises his left hand to the handle, but stops; finds himself again on the outside listening in. He can hear his mama’s voice, chattering away to no one, describing the journey, the airport, the
return, then skipping on to conversations that make no sense to him: something about U-boats and oceans – he turns the handle and steps inside – something about tabby cats, and Severine’s laughter rings out and she doesn’t turn, doesn’t see him there.

He remains where he is for long enough to see that she is happy, and that the conversations she is having with herself are more captivating than the ones he wants to have with her. Then he turns, leaves the room, walks quietly down the stairs into the kitchen, opens the bin with the foot pedal, drops the tiger inside, and thinks about making some soup for dinner.

You all look different, Severine says; you are younger.

Her granny smiles.

We knew you were thinking about leaving, she says, and Severine’s eyebrows rise and fall again.

I thought I’d hidden it well.

You didn’t need to hide it—

Apparently I couldn’t.

That chuckle, those laughter lines.

I tried to tell you it was a choice.

And now?

You have made up your mind.

Yes.

Severine thinks it is strange, how much comfort can come from a decision once it has been made. She looks around the room, wanting to sit down, but the only chair is occupied by Great-Grandpa Paul-François, so she sits down on the floor, cross-legged, and the ghosts sit down with her.

So, who is going first? Severine says. I want to hear everything. I want to know where I have come from.

It started long before us, says Great-Grandpa Paul-François, finally looking up from his book to join the conversation.

Before Ælfgifu our family lived in England.

Before that maybe Rome.

How do you know?

Just guessing.

There’s a good chance we’re Romans.

But why start there? Severine teases. Before we were Romans we must have been something else.

And they talk about the movement of great continents, about volcanoes and earthquakes and the start of humankind, the first boats, the first fire, what it must have been like to journey through an ice age, and by the time they have stopped talking it is dark outside and it is late, and Brigitte is there again – she is calmer now she knows that Severine is staying in Bayeux. She might have time, she thinks, after all, even though the world is changing.

You’ll be back tomorrow? Severine asks as some of the others start to disappear. I’ll make dinner – family dinner – and that’s when she remembers that François must be downstairs on his own. She stands up, knowing that she has to go just as Brigitte has appeared, but she can’t help that.

I’m just going to check on my son, she says.

Brigitte doesn’t reply, but Severine thinks she sees a hint of jealousy in the way Brigitte looks at her, before she blends back into the air.

Walking downstairs, Severine thinks she will suggest chocolat chaud for tonight, but when she reaches the kitchen François is not there. He’s not in the front room either. She checks the clock – it is later than she thought. She has lost track of time. But she will make it up to him tomorrow.

She finds François upstairs in bed. He’s sleeping, so she backs quietly out of the room and turns off his light.

Brigitte is waiting for Severine in her bedroom.

Are you ready now? she says.

And Severine sits herself up in bed, pulling the covers around her shoulders because there is a cold draught coming from the window and, for once, Brigitte does not burn.

I’m ready, she says, I want to hear everyone’s story. Are you ready to tell me yours?

Mine’s not a happy one.

Pas possible.

Severine smiles, kindly, she hopes, though Brigitte is not one to laugh at quiet jokes.

Travelling is not the only way to see the world, Severine says, and this is something that has been slow in appearing to her, but it is no less powerful for that. She doesn’t say any more, she just waits as Brigitte settles herself down on the edge of the bed and begins, at last, to tell her story.

In the afternoon François sits in the front room with Severine and his grand-mère, who is sipping her brandy.

I’m going to go to Antarctica, he says, and his grand-mère raises her eyebrows as if she thinks that is a bit too ambitious.

South America? he tries. To the rainforest!

And she laughs. Maybe we’ll try somewhere in Europe first, she says, for a holiday?

She starts talking about Italy, describing ancient monuments and vineyards and how she’s always wanted to go, and François thinks that it would make a good start to his adventures.

Can we go, Severine? he asks. Please, can we go?

But Severine’s head is centuries away, in a France as foreign as any country, filled with battles and angels and crackling with fire. If she could just close her eyes she would be able to see it, Brigitte’s world. To breathe it all in.

Well, what do you say? her mother insists, and she is dragged back to – not reality, that would be the wrong word.

Sorry, Mama?

Shall we go, the three of us?

To Italy?

Well?

I can’t go away, she says, I don’t want to leave Bayeux. But you could take François?

He doesn’t understand why she won’t come, even for a holiday, and for a moment he wants to cry but he won’t. What would be the point when she’s already made up her mind?

Well, then, says François’s grand-mère. You and I are going to see the Colosseum – Yes, he says, refusing to be sad and clambering up on the sofa – and the Circus Maximus – Yes! – and perhaps we will travel south, she says, to the Sibyl of Cumae. François’s eyes widen and he jumps as he says Yes! and tumbles down onto the cushions and grabs his grand-mère in a hug that nearly, but not quite, spills her brandy.

Later, while Severine and her mother are standing together preparing the dinner, she says: Be careful what you listen to, Severine. I don’t want to lose my child to this nonsense as well.

Severine sighs. I fixed the lights in the shop, Mama, she says. I’m running a good business, I look after this house, what more do you want?

Perhaps you should make some friends, go out . . .

I don’t have time for friends, she snaps.

And what about François?

But before Severine has the chance to reply François has arrived and is saying – Mama, why have you laid too many places at the table?

As she looks up, she can see the ghosts have quietly appeared and are sitting around the large dining table, each at the place
she had subconsciously laid for them. She thinks, briefly, about laughing off her son’s query and taking their mats away but she can’t do it. It would seem dishonest. She doesn’t like hiding things, and she’s certainly no good at it; besides, keeping secrets is no way to protect a child even if you are scared of losing him. So instead three living members and five of the dead members of her family sit down together for dinner, and she knows that when the ghosts start to fade again, one by one, she’ll tell them that she no longer longs to see the world and promise that she’ll be here in Bayeux for their next visit – and her granny will smile, and softly say, I know you will.

RÓISÍN STANDS OUTSIDE THE BAKER’S
, trying to work up the courage to go in. A man passes her on the street, someone from the village. She doesn’t recognise him, although he nods at her as he passes. She avoids eye contact.

Her fingers crush into her palms. She tells herself it is ridiculous. It is almost autumn, that is all. This chill is nothing more than the autumn air, the anticipation of damp leaves decaying underfoot.

The bell makes a ding-dong sound as she enters. There is no one else in the shop, and for a moment she thinks the sign should have read closed, but then Keira appears from the back. Her eyes don’t know where to settle.

Just a baguette, Róisín says. And, perhaps, the coffee-and-walnut cake.

She doesn’t move forwards to the counter, keeps her distance as if she were talking to an animal in the wild.

Keira smiles, puts her baguette in a paper bag.

Just the one slice of cake?

No, two.

The slices are boxed and paid for. Róisín finds herself standing out on the street again, lost for breath, a fine trickle of sweat gathering at the rim of her hat. It is too soon for winter accessories, she thinks, leaving the hat in place, turning from the village again.

She hears a shout – her name – and looks round to see Keira waving to her from the corner. The urge to run takes her by surprise; she’s not a child, she shouldn’t have to flee from her choice or be scared of what this woman might think. Keira doesn’t matter. The people in this village don’t matter. Róisín turns and walks towards her, head held high.