The Need for Better Regulation of Outer Space (3 page)

I do not think it is peculiar. The stars must be so far away that it seems remarkable to me we can look at them and turn them into black lines, and then into numbers. It is like magic. Except this is science, which is supposed to be the opposite of magic.

I asked Mr Storey if we could look at the planets in the same way on our photographic plates but he said no. I was asking him because I wanted to have a proper scientific conversation with him, the way that I have overheard him talk with the Astronomer Royal, although I am not even sure what a planet really is. But sometimes when I walk home down the hill in winter and the stars are already out (although it is very cold and I wrap up my face against the east wind) I can see Jupiter – a big yellow ball.

Mr Storey takes away our books once a week. I would like to know what he does with them. It seems odd entering all these numbers for someone else to read and understand. I wonder if the Astronomer Royal himself studies our books. He does not talk to us.

On the bus this morning I saw a man reading a newspaper and on the front was a photograph of a large fire reaching up to the sky. I could not see the headline of the newspaper so I asked the man what had happened. He was very young and nervous-looking, otherwise I would not have dared speak.

‘The racecourse at Ayr was set on fire.’ He spoke so quietly it was little more than whispering, so I smiled to encourage him. ‘It’s a disgrace, that’s what it is,’ he added, still in a whisper.

‘What is?’

‘These suffragettes. All this damage. They all ought to be locked up, every single one of them. They cannot be real women.’ He didn’t once look at me as he spoke, but kept his eyes downwards, looking at the photograph of the fire. His hand was clamped around the newspaper so firmly that I saw the knuckles were white. Perhaps he was worried that the photograph might escape and set fire to something else. And it struck me that I look at fire every day, for Mr Storey told us that the stars are great globes of fiery gas.

This morning as I walk up the hill I see a puff of smoke in the
distance, in the north of the city. And then another, nearer. And then a bang, as if someone has let off a firework, but there are no sparks, just smoke and everything else is still and silent. Up here you can see all the greyness of Edinburgh spread around in front of you. It is a heavy city, there is no lightness in the buildings.

So I wonder if this smoke is from a fiery dragon walking the streets and eating small children and I smile to myself, thinking that Jeanie will be amused by this. Why are women supposed always to like children, or to want them? And have to spend all their days, unless they are rich enough to avoid it by employing maids, taking care of children, whether it be at home or in a school?

I am the eldest in our family so I have had more than my share of mopping mouths smeared with food and wiping sticky fingers and dealing with soiled nappies. That is why I am not so concerned about courting and young men. They cannot tell me about the stars or help me learn new ways of seeing things.

Flora and Jeanie think otherwise. ‘You do not really want to be a spinster,’ they say.

‘Why not?’ I pour the hot water into the teapot as we wait for Mr Storey to appear and tell us which plates to work on. ‘Many of us will be spinsters anyway, there are not enough men. And you have forgotten about the children. If we are married there will have to be children.’

The Astronomer Royal’s children are running about the hill right now, as I wait for the tea to brew. We all like it strong. I can hear them screaming, they scream a lot.

Flora and Jeanie don’t answer that. I stir spoonfuls of condensed milk into each cup of tea. This is a good time of day, for I always hope I will find a different sort of star, one with its gaps in a different place. Nearly all the stars have the gaps in the same place, they are just big or little gaps. I asked Mr Storey why the gaps were in the same place and he
could not answer. He said that it was a good question but he did not know. Perhaps stars are like faces and they need their equivalent of eyes, nose and mouth in the right order.

Normally he is so steady, but when he arrives today he looks a bit flustered. ‘Did you hear the noises, girls?’

We nod.

‘Bombs, that’s what it was.’

‘Bombs?’ I can’t imagine what he was talking about. ‘What do you mean?’

The word itself feels heavy on my tongue, like something slipping beneath the surface of dark water. Not at all to do with fire and smoke.

But he doesn’t answer me properly, he just says, ‘I fought in the war and I know the sound of explosives. I never thought I would hear that sound at home.’

He busies himself with his tea and I wonder which war he means. Probably the second Boer war, which was when I was very young. Nobody talks about it much now, even though there was all that excitement over Mafeking and Baden-Powell. People do forget things very quickly, or maybe they are just waiting for the next war. For there will be one soon, as everybody knows. Perhaps this is it.

‘Are the bombs the start of a new war?’ I ask him, ‘are we at war?’

‘Silly girl, you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he puts down his teacup rather too quickly and the handle breaks off on his fingers.

I stare at that loop of china made all blurry by the tears in my eyes. He has never called me silly before. But men are funny about their wars, they act as if they own them, and perhaps they do, for I don’t think women ever start them.

‘Which plates are we to measure today?’ I ask him, trying to sound efficient. I have never had to ask him this before, and he looks around him as if trying to work out why he is there.

He lays the broken handle on our work table, ‘I do not think
there are any plates today,’ he says slowly, and I feel very afraid because I think that I have been right all along and we have been too quick in our measuring, me and Flora and Jeanie, and come to the end of all the stars and will lose our jobs. I begin to regret working so quickly, but I wanted to please him. And the Astronomer Royal.

‘Last night’s plates are not yet developed and there are no others. Look – why don’t you have a day’s holiday? We will pay you as usual and you can do what you like, go look at the shops.’

Flora and Jeanie seem delighted at this, but I just think, well I have walked up the hill and am not so keen to walk down it and take a bus into town to look at things in shops that I cannot afford. And I don’t want to go home and help with the children again.

They are already putting on their coats and looking ready to leave but I say, ‘Is there nothing else that I can do that might be helpful to you?’

‘I don’t think so,’ and he looks like he might almost laugh at my enthusiasm so I feel a bit blurry around the eyes again. I don’t want him to see so I fetch my coat.

Flora and Jeanie go off to Jenners to see the new spring hats. I do not care about hats so I wander into the Old Town. I am keen to learn more about this morning’s explosions. And soon I find a building which has holes where its windows once were, and there is a neat pile of glittery glass on the pavement. I peer through the window holes, inside it is very dark and scorched-looking, with black soot marks spreading up the walls, and pictures hanging all crooked. A policeman is standing by the pile of glass so I walk over to him.

‘What happened?’

He looks at me suspiciously, ‘and why would you want to know, Miss?’

‘I heard the noise this morning. Was it bombs?’

This last word seems to be the right one for he flushes deep
red. ‘Away with you,’ he says and flaps his hand at me, ‘off you go, young lady.’

The building itself seems to be a ruin now. It’s impossible to imagine that it was ever anything else. Perhaps bombs are machines for speeding up what time always does anyway. For making us travel from the past into the future.

The next morning when I get to the bottom of the hill and prepare myself for the daily battle with its curves, I am surprised to see another policeman.

‘Where are you going, Miss?’ he asks me.

‘Up there,’ I gesture at the towers, ‘I work at the Observatory.’

He raises his eyebrows, ‘A maid? Go on, then, they’ll be expecting you.’

‘No, I’m not a maid,’ I mutter but he doesn’t hear and I am so curious about why there should be a policeman standing guard by the arch that I get up the hill in record time.

As I round the bend near the top, all is commotion. The children race around, as normal, but the Astronomer Royal and Mr Storey are also pacing back and forth, pointing at the West Tower and at the ground. I walk over to the two men, picking my way across some broken bricks and masonry which are scattered all over the grass. A large crack has appeared in the brickwork at the base of the tower so that anyone can look in, at pieces of twisted metal and smashed glass. It is like peering into an animal’s insides, and seeing everything all exposed. Somehow it is worse than the exploded building in the Old Town. Nearby is another policeman, writing something in a notebook.

Mr Storey is the first to notice me, ‘Hullo! Look what has happened to our tower!’

‘What caused it?’ I ask, but I already know. There is the smell here too, the smell from yesterday. Something violent has happened here.

The Astronomer Royal turns around and sees me, ‘Who are you?’ he asks and he doesn’t look very friendly. I always imagined having a conversation with him about the stars and our work, but before I can reply, he says, ‘I need to inspect the damage inside. I fear the clock may have taken the brunt of it.’

I watch him walk away, and he seems to stumble over something lying on the ground, and then he kicks it. I see a flash of light as he sends a bit of broken glass flying through the air before it hits the ground again and breaks up into even smaller fragments.

Behind Mr Storey I can see Flora and Jeanie struggling up the hill. They are still some way off so I will have a few moments alone with him before they arrive. ‘What happened?’ I ask.

‘Our work is destroyed,’ he glares at me, ‘all destroyed by the actions of stupid women.’

‘Do you know why they did it?’ I am keen to understand the reasons behind this action. I know the suffragettes are bombing railway carriages, slashing paintings in galleries, and destroying postboxes. I know they are doing this because they want the vote. But why did they come up here, to the Observatory? But my question just makes him even crosser.

‘Why?’ Even now, when he seems to be angry with me I notice how very green his eyes are. I wish I could stop noticing all these little things about him because they are no use to me. ‘Why?’ he repeats, ‘because they are not true women. They are false, hysterical. They are not ruled by decency or by sense.’

Jeanie and Flora appear, and they gaze at all the debris, round-eyed.

‘It was a bomb,’ I tell them before Mr Storey can say anything, ‘the suffragettes have done it.’

The Astronomer Royal appears again, holding a large broom. ‘Make yourself useful,’ he says, and he hands me the broom.

He is right, I suppose, we may as well help. So I start to
sweep, and Flora and Jeanie stack the broken bricks into neat piles. As I sweep, the maid appears. She stands on the edge of the drying green with the basket of laundry at her feet and watches. I feel like calling out to her but I don’t know what I would say. I have never spoken to her before now. But it seems she watches us very carefully the whole time we are sweeping, and the laundry is forgotten.

Later, we make tea in our little room. We sit and drink it and talk about what we should do now. I am still hopeful that everything will be put back to how it was, all the damage will be mended, and we will be allowed to continue with our plates but the others are not so sure.

‘There may not be any more plates. The telescope itself may be destroyed,’ Flora gets up and peers out of the window but you cannot really see very much of the rest of the Observatory from our room, so she returns to her tea.

Jeanie is doing calculations on a scrap of paper. ‘I can last three weeks on my savings,’ she announces, and I realise that I have made no provision for the future. I have given my mother nearly all my earnings, and spent the remainder on bus fares and biscuits.

Mr Storey comes in to the room just as we are admiring Jeanie’s neat sums. ‘I need to see your hands,’ he says. We look at him. As usual, his shirtsleeves are rolled up, but even though I try not to look at his arms I can’t help noticing dirt smeared on their undersides. He is usually so clean.

‘Our hands?’ I automatically look down at my hands waiting in my lap for their next instructions, like pale, obliging creatures. ‘Why?’

‘Never mind why!’ he is shouting, and we are not used to this from Mr Storey, he is not being gentle with us now, ‘just show me your hands!’

This is not the way it was, with his hand carefully cupped round mine and both of them moving together around the
dial. Now he grabs my fingers and turns my hands palm up as if looking for hidden sweets. Perhaps he thinks we have stolen something. He is rough with my hands, he squeezes my fingers before dropping them. Then he inspects Jeanie’s. Then Flora’s.

‘Ah!’ he points to something on Flora’s right hand, ‘what is this?’

I look at it, and as Flora stays silent, perhaps because she is too frightened to speak I answer him myself, ‘It is a graze, Mr Storey. A small cut.’

‘Ah!’ he says again, ‘and caused by what?’

‘Caused by the washing tub, sir,’ Flora has found her voice, ‘I cut myself on my mother’s washing tub.’

I am angry now, even as I watch Mr Storey drop Flora’s injured hand and hide his eyes behind his own fingers, as if he is ashamed of what he has just done. ‘Do you think, Mr Storey,’ I say, perhaps a bit too loudly for that small room, ‘do you think that when we are not at work here we simply fold ourselves up in a cupboard and wait for the next day to look at some more of your plates?’

He doesn’t reply and Jeanie and Flora are staring at me. But I may as well continue, ‘When we get home we must all help our mothers, and look after our younger siblings. We cook, we clean, we wash. Why –’ because it really is very odd and now the flush of anger has obviously left him, I can dare to ask him, ‘why are you inspecting our hands?’