The Comet Seekers: A Novel (23 page)

FRANÇOIS AND HÉLÈNE STAND OPPOSITE
his mama’s house, on the other side of the road. She is nervous, and he doesn’t really understand why – he’s been looking forward to this.

She’s not like other parents, he says – trying to make her feel better. Hélène is the first girl he’s introduced to his mama; he thinks they will like each other.

No?

No, really. She’s fun and young and we cook together, make up new recipes and . . . oh, she was the one who told me about the comet.

I forgot to look! Oh merde, I’m sorry.

Hélène glances over her shoulder, as if she’s thinking of running, but he puts his arms around her waist.

Do you need to go for a drink first?

She hits him gently on the chest.

Hélène is so keen to make a good impression she’s promised herself she’s not going to drink at all – something she reminds him of now.

Yes, but that may not work with Mama . . . He leans in closer and is pushed away.

Stop trying to kiss me and let’s go, she says, marching across the road ahead of him, her scarf blowing out behind her in the wind.

François greets his mama with two kisses, bending down to reach her cheek. He’s not an especially tall man but she’s a small woman, petite in every way. She’s had her hair cropped short and dyed rich brown, and she’s wearing elegant trousers and a shirt, a slim gold chain with a twist running through it.

She spreads her arms wide. See, she says, I made an effort – special occasion.

Mama, this is Hélène, François says, a smile playing about his lips. Hélène – Severine.

We meet at last, Severine says, kissing her cheeks.

François turns to his girlfriend, takes her hand; I knew it would be OK, he thinks.

I’ve made Sunday lunch, Severine says. But first, try this new red. It is divine.

She turns away, looks over her shoulder and laughs at something they can’t see.

There’s a second’s pause that feels longer than that, to François.

That’s a white, he says quietly, all the nerves he hadn’t felt before hitting him.

Yes, like I said, a new white, laughs Severine, her hand waving quickly around her head. Here, Hélène, come in. Let me take your coat.

They sit in the front room and François relaxes again as Severine talks about cooking; how she had learnt to bake from her granny when she was just a child, sharing recipes for pain au chocolat and madeleines. How she stocks the widest range of spices in Bayeux – boasting about her shop now – spices from all over the world, she says. What are your favourite countries, Hélène?

Hélène is studying Spanish and Portuguese at university, she tells Severine, accepting a second glass of wine.

You want to travel? asks Severine, eyes alight.

Hélène smiles. Actually I want to be a teacher, she says, but Severine doesn’t seem to hear.

You should take François to the rainforest, she says. He always wanted to see an untouched wilderness – remember? She laughs. Remember, when you were little? I was very proud of you.

François feels himself going red.

And then you decided to explore Antarctica, she continues, because it is so remote, I think – but you were only ten so you said it was because there were no people there, only penguins.

But François loves being around people! Don’t you? says Hélène, suddenly sounding nervous again, looking at his hand as though she wants to take it but isn’t quite sure if that’s allowed.

I’ll get the next bottle, he says, stepping through to the kitchen to avoid more stories. But then he looks at the dining table and something twists uncomfortably in his stomach. Hélène has followed him through. She slips her hand into his.

François quickly re-lays the table while Severine is still in the other room; it sounds like she’s talking on the phone now. There
were six places set, inexplicably, so he packs up three. He hasn’t seen her do that since he was a child. Hélène looks like she’s going to ask a question but he shakes his head; he doesn’t have the answers anyway. What could he say to her – that occasionally, when he was a child, his mama could hear voices? No, he cannot share that. She has been better for years now. It would embarrass her.

And anyway, the lunch is perfect.

You’re the real chef, he says, as they move on to the second course, not me.

Tell your fancy restaurant they should hire a woman, instead of all you men.

Hélène laughs.

François is proud that his mama’s still so feisty.

I’ll tell them, he says. Believe me.

I just don’t understand why they’re so late.

The restaurant?

No, the others. My granny said they’d be right through.

François feels another prick of worry, before Severine laughs at herself – what am I talking about? she says, looking around the table at the empty seats – and he smiles and drops the issue even though he is struck by a memory that he can’t shake off for the rest of the day.

Hélène takes a sip of the wine, gently steers the conversation round to her own granny’s seventieth birthday while François seems lost in his thoughts.

And Severine – she knows that look she saw on his face, remembers it too well from the day she found his tiger in the bin and watched him from across a table full of ghosts that he couldn’t see while he politely, perhaps kindly, ate his dinner and didn’t make her feel ashamed.

Later François and Hélène walk home from the station along the Seine. They are quiet now, talked out from the day with Severine; François likes to be quiet, sometimes, and he likes that Hélène seems to understand, for now at least.

But his mind is not quiet, it is filling with memories that had almost been lost; a holiday to Italy with his grand-mère that his mama refused to join, an argument he didn’t understand about relatives he had never met. And then, as he gets older, the memories solidify; Severine laughing at a parents’ evening when the teacher told her he was dreaming in class instead of concentrating, taking out his report card when they got home and writing over his C with a big red A+; climbing up to the roof together when he turned fifteen to look out over Bayeux with a bottle of red wine for his second birthday celebration that year (the first being with his friends – Severine had the grace to stay well away from that one); teaching him the recipes she had learnt from her granny, and how to adapt them, how to create. It was as if, when he was a child, there was a moment when she seemed to be slipping away and then she returned, became his mama again and, as he grew up, his friend. But now . . .

François?

He looks up to realise that the rain has started, and Hélène has pulled her coat over her head.

Your place is closer, she says with a suggestion in her eyes. Come on—

He takes her hand and they run the rest of the way to François’s apartment.

But as the door closes behind them, and Hélène slips her arms around his waist, she says: That was a bit weird, with the table . . .

She laughs. He can’t.

I mean, how many girlfriends does she think you have?

And François finds himself pulling away, walking through the kitchen to the window where he looks out through rain-patterned glass.

François?

He doesn’t reply.

I’m sorry, she says, I didn’t mean to make fun.

Here, look at me. He turns, sees that she is wearing his red bobble hat that he hasn’t worn in years – it looks ridiculous. He can’t help but smile.

Where did you . . .?

Severine gave it to me.

She takes it off, pulls it over his head instead.

Looks good.

He raises his eyebrows.

I liked her, she says. Really.

And François returns to the playful man she knows as he carries her to the bedroom, bobble hat still on his head.

RÓISÍN REWRITES HER CV
,
AND
then writes it again; planets to binary star systems to galaxies at the furthest reaches of the universe – she wants to see it all. She fills out the job application form, requests references from her old jobs and her current one: Toronto, Amsterdam, a recommendation from Bayeux. She has always longed to see New York, and the fellowship there would be perfect.

She watches the universe from a laptop screen showing realtime satellite images. Her fellowship, if she gets it, will be looking further away still; further away than she’s ever looked before. The oldest galaxies in the universe, now, and she’ll be studying them when they were young, when they were children – when they were still forming into what they would become.

We can see what’s happening at the very edges of the universe, she thinks. What an incredible thing to do. By looking far away we can look back in time; we can see the birth of galaxies.

She adds some finishing touches to her covering letter, prints it out, signs it, reads it over again. She hopes that she has captured her experience, her commitment, her patience and meticulous research.
And also, she hopes that she has conveyed how much she loves what she does; the universe is pretty miraculous, she thinks, and that is not something that she wants to get lost among the detail.

Liam takes a stall at the farmers’ market in town. Everyone else seems to be going to it these days, so he figures he should give it a try. He hopes it might bring in some money, although with the cost of reserving the place he’s not convinced it’s going to work. He has beef for sale, different cuts of meat, sausages and burgers, and he stands there, from 8 a.m. until 1 p.m. watching the crowds arrive and mingle and eventually leave again.

He covers his costs, just about, he thinks, counting up what he has sold as the nearby stalls start to pack up and the winter sun finally breaks through the clouds. He isn’t expecting any more customers, and the child’s voice takes him by surprise:

Sausages and chips, Mum, please . . .?

He looks up to see a little boy, maybe three, maybe four years old – he’s not sure, he has never really been around kids since he was one and he can never tell their ages. The boy has a mess of blond curls and hazel eyes, and is clutching onto his mother’s hand to pull her back to the stall that she had been walking away from.

She turns, the recognition crossing her face a second before her smile catches up.

Hello Liam, she says.

Rachel.

He had heard that she’d got married, though he didn’t know she had a son.

She laughs, a little nervously, says, well, I think we’d like to buy some sausages for lunch.

Her son picks up packet after packet, looking for what Liam isn’t quite sure.

How are you? she says.

Grand, yes, thanks. And yourself?

Oh, she sighs, you know, exhausted, busy, sure – and a laugh again – good, she says. Very well, things are . . .

You look well, he says, smiling, then turning to the boy. Found some you like the look of?

He shakes his head at the offer of money; a gift, he says.

He has this strange urge to speak to the child, to run with him through the last of the stalls, chasing patches of sun through the shade.

But then mother and child are leaving. Good to see you, Rachel says, as she turns. Take care, Liam.

And they are gone, and the market is over, and Liam packs up the last of his produce and makes his way to the car.

There is a heaviness in him that he can’t really explain as he drives home, out of the town, past the villages, back down the single-lane track that leads through frosty fields to his farm. He hasn’t made enough money to make it worthwhile. He won’t go back.

He never discussed having children with Róisín, it never seemed to be what she wanted and besides, perhaps it would have been wrong. But now, as he walks up to the back door, lets himself in to a silent house, imagines how different it would be if he could have had that life, he realises that he would have loved to have had children with Róisín. The picture of it, the imagining of it, is so strong that he sits down at the kitchen table, rests his head in his hands, and allows himself to feel the emptiness.

Róisín recognises the university postmark and rips open the neat white envelope – a letter from Dr Joshi at NYU.

We are pleased to say . . .

Impressed . . .

New satellite data . . .

She contains her excitement – only allowing herself a smile before setting off to the shops. Conall will get Reese’s Pieces today; his new favourite.

Later she phones her mum with the news. There are congratulations and shouts to the rest of the family, Neil calls out – knew you’d get it! – and there’s the sound of music and a bottle of wine being opened.

So you’ll be moving to New York?

The phone line crackles; she can almost hear the distance between them.

For three years, she says.

And you’re happy, pet?

Oh, Mum, Róisín says, already imagining the new city she will get to explore.

We’ll have to come for a visit, her mum says, you’ll show us round the university?

VIP tour, she laughs.

She knows that her mum is proud of her.

Have you seen the comet? Neil calls.

Neil wants to know if you’ve seen the comet, her mum repeats.

Róisín pauses, tries to remember the name.