Work?
Yes, at the IAO. They’ve got a direct imager and they’ve just installed a spectrograph. We’re trying to find exoplanets — planets from other solar systems — to see what we might learn from them.
He wouldn’t be interested; she knew that. But she kept on, regardless. If we can actually get images of them, not just measurements, it would make an incredible difference, she said. I’ll be coordinating one of the teams.
She wished it were her mother she was telling.
That sounds really impressive.
From the way her father shifted forward in his chair, making an effort to pay attention, Lotte knew he wished it were Helen she was telling, too.
Yes, it should be good, she said. Anyway, how are things with you?
With just one comment she fanned his interest away, sure that it was insincere. When was the last time she had spoken to him? Six months ago. If she left this afternoon, she’d be back in Canberra before midnight. Duty would be done, and Vin would be pleased with her efforts.
She’d not been listening. Her dad had told her something important; he was staring at her in anticipation.
Sorry?
Her name’s Alison. She was in your mother’s book group.
I don’t remember her.
She remembers you. I’m sure she’d like to see you again. I’ll invite her to dinner. You will stay for dinner, won’t you?
He got up from his chair, taking Lotte’s empty mug from her hand.
Is it that important?
Her words halted her father on his way to the kitchen.
You don’t have to, he said. I thought it might be nice if you met.
So Alison knew Mum?
Yes.
Isn’t that weird?
What do you mean?
Well, she knows the woman she’s replacing. The one she’s competing against.
It’s not a competition, Lotte. It’s been four years.
He said it as though that was a long time.
Are you going to marry her?
She was ashamed by how quickly she’d turned into the petulant teenager, trying to elicit a boundary from him, to know how far he was going to take this new relationship. But it was absurd. What did he need a wife for?
Of course not, Lotte. It’s nothing like that. He loaded the mugs into the dishwasher, and crouched down to turn it on. Look, I’ve got to get some things done in the garden before I go away, he said when he stood up. You can help me if you want?
He was edging toward the door, even as he said it.
I might go catch up with some friends, Lotte said. It’s been a while.
Okay, that’s great. Come back for dinner; I’ll tell Alison.
And he was out into the backyard, pulling the sliding door hard behind him, taking the steps two at a time, and disappearing around the fuchsia bushes to the garage.
Lotte recalled one wet spring when her school had run a father-daughter games night. Amongst the celebrity heads and charades, the teachers had organised team games like tunnel ball, tag, and tug of war; games that demanded too much from cripplingly self-conscious fourteen-year-old girls, who were no longer able to fling their bodies about with abandon. The fathers were eager to demonstrate their jokey friendships with their daughters, and they clowned about enthusiastically, ribbing each other about their middle-aged bodies, reminiscing about their days on the football field. Standing side-by-side in the gym, Lotte had shared a look of alarm with her dad, and then a furtive smile. She had rolled her eyes and her dad had winked, and then, together, they had slipped out of the gym and run across the oval to where the car was parked on the basketball courts. They’d stopped at the McDonald’s drive thru on the way home and they ate their food parked by the lake, the sweet, sticky smell of the burgers filling the car. It was relief she’d felt, more than anything else, as they drove home, her father not complaining when she switched the radio to Triple J. He does like me, she’d thought, as they trooped back into the house, ready to tell Helen about the sheep-like behaviour of the other fathers and daughters, and their own daring escape. But the living room was empty, the television silent in its corner: her mother wasn’t home. And her dad had gone straight to his study, closing the door behind him, without even saying goodnight. Why did she think things were going to be any different now?
As a family, they brought to Lotte’s mind Methuselah, the oldest known planet and part of a bizarre triple system. Deep in the Scorpius constellation, this ancient planet circles a pulsar and a white dwarf, the three bodies keeping discordant harmony. The system is destined to trail into the globular cluster in which it lives and encounter, too closely, another star, which will throw the system off balance. As the lightest of the three, it will be Methuselah that is unceremoniously ejected and left to wander through space alone, a rogue planet with no star to answer to. As a child, Lotte had always thought it would be her father who would eventually disappear — drifting unnoticed to a place Helen and Lotte’s mother-daughter indifference could not reach. She always suspected that he hoped it would be her. Neither of them thought it would be Helen, and could barely believe it when it actually happened — father and daughter left to play at being a family, long after her departure.
Lotte knew she should be heading back to the house. She had spent the afternoon walking around the lake, lingering in cafes and checking her phone for any kind of distraction. She had no friends to visit; she just didn’t want to be making conversation with her father while he looked longingly at the garden or his watch. She ordered another drink. The bar was massive, a converted pub on the main street; voices bounced off the floorboards, while table numbers sprouted from amongst bowls of chips and plates of lurid-orange tandoori chicken pizza. Having bought one glass of wine and finished it too soon, she’d ordered another within minutes of sitting down. Couldn’t she just stay here for the evening? The night’s crowds were trickling in; posters on the wall proclaimed Christmas drink specials. Two-for-one Vodka Cruisers and Coronas! Six boys arrived in their new check shirts, hair swept across their foreheads.
What do you order in a bar where the average age is eighteen? No, make that seventeen.
With her phone pushed to her ear, Lotte watched the girls teeter in, clutching at purses and phones, lifting their stacked shoes high, stiletto spikes causing them to waver and bump up against each other like seahorses.
A dry martini, laughed Eve. Without a doubt. Where are you? At Mooseheads?
God, that place was awful.
Just the name of the dive all the uni students used to drink at was enough to bring back the smell of old beer in carpet and the feel of soggy cardboard coasters.
No, I’m in Ballarat, said Lotte. I’m visiting Dad.
At a dodgy bar? Eve sounded sceptical.
No — but I had to escape, said Lotte. I’ve been avoiding going back to the house all day, and now here I am in some kind of school holiday hellhole. Where are you?
Down the coast. I found a really nice campsite not far from Merimbula. Beach views, bike tracks — what more could a girl need?
Sounds alright, even to me.
One day I’ll get you on a bike, laughed Eve. So what’s up with your Dad? How come you’re there?
Vin guilted me into it after Christmas at his parents. Said I should see Dad before I go to Chile.
So you told him?
Yes.
And?
He was pretty peeved. But he’s okay now. He knows I have to go, Lotte said. This kind of career opportunity doesn’t come twice.
Ah Vin — he’s always been such a sweetie.
Lotte took a sip of her wine and didn’t answer. She watched as three girls leaned into one another at the bar, peering at a cocktail list. Behind them, a group of boys stood self-consciously, each with one hand wrapped around the reassurance of a beer, the other thum
b-swiping at a phone, and all of them talking past one another, not making eye contact for more than a moment, instead keeping an eye on the girls at the bar, or on the door for new arrivals.
Did your dad ever see other women? asked Lotte. After your mum?
No, said Eve slowly. I don’t think he even considered it. But he barely left the house. Why?
Dad has a girlfriend. Alison. She actually knew Mum — can you believe it? They were in a book club together.
Lotte tried to imagine her dad taking Alison on a date. Where would they go in a town like this, a place of cafes and nightclubs and not much in-between? And what on earth would he talk about? His boring job at the council, drawing up maps? His garden?
I guess it’s a small town, said Eve. There’s probably not a huge dating pool. It must be weird though, to see him with someone else.
I haven’t met her yet, said Lotte. We’re having dinner tonight; it’s going to be awful.
She might not be that bad.
I just don’t know how he could be ready to see someone already. It’s only been a couple of years. It still feels like Mum is around, you know?
She’ll always be around; Alison won’t change that.
I know, said Lotte, her voice small.
Eve had been like this throughout her mother’s illness. Solicitous and reassuring. Vin’s sympathy was unwavering, but it was Eve who offered the hours of conversation Lotte needed to come to terms with what was happening. When she complained about her mother reading excerpts from a prayer book, or confessed how repulsed she was by her mother’s disappearing body, Eve didn’t shy away. Instead, she asked questions, pushed and pulled the conversation well into the night, letting Lotte dissect it from every angle before finally putting it aside.
Summer-evening shadows sidled up the main street, a landscape so familiar it almost felt as though her mother might turn up, and Lotte realised she would never be privy to what her mother would have made of Alison. Inexplicably, even years after her mother’s death, Lotte could still be shocked by the absoluteness of it. Her mother was never coming back; she did not exist any more. Lotte could conjure up Helen’s face effortlessly: the expressive mouth, the fine lines around her eyes. She remembered the way her mother had laughed, hooting almost, eyes dancing, and the way she’d run her fingers along strands of her hair, from the base to the tip, when she was concentrating. She used to eat yoghurt for breakfast, with a sliced banana on top of it, though in winter it was porridge instead. And she’d often left cups of tea, half drunk, all around the house, never satisfied they were hot enough. Lotte knew all of these things, but she would never know what her mother thought of Alison. This didn’t seem possible.
The voices paused in their conversation as she came down the hallway, then picked up again as she ducked into the bathroom. She ran the tap, splashing her face with water, drinking some of it greedily from her hand. She shouldn’t have had that last glass of wine, but the walk home had done her good. She could do this; she could find out what her mother might make of it all by asking the very same questions that Helen would have asked.
You must be Alison.
Lotte rushed in to the living room, where her father and a woman were seated on the couch, a platter of cheese and biscuits in front of them on the coffee table. Too late, Lotte realised she hadn’t dried her hands, grabbing at Alison’s arms and feeling the skin slip as she bent in to kiss her on both cheeks. And because it seemed strange not to, she bent and kissed her father, too, the smell of his aftershave the same as she remembered.
It’s nice to see you again, Lotte.
Alison smiled at her, nervously tucking her blonde hair behind her ear, anxious lines dipping in the middle of her forehead. She was wearing a white T-shirt striped with navy beneath an emerald cardigan with cropped sleeves. Lotte did remember her. She used to wear pearls, all the time. Dropping her children off at school, doing the supermarket shopping, playing tennis. Helen had thought her pretentious.
It was all Lotte could manage to carry on the conversation, so caught up was she in watching the way her father and Alison treated each other. He was attentive — filling up her wine glass, going to get more biscuits, including her in his answers — and in return, she was gracious. Is this how her parents had been together? But her mind kept coming up blank. Memories of each of them abounded, but always separate from one another. When the conversation flagged, Lotte encouraged Alison with questions about her job as a speech therapist at the local hospital; she asked where Alison got her hair cut, and admired the gold bracelet that encircled her wrist. A gift from Lotte’s father, as she had suspected.
How did the two of you meet?
She’d waited until they’d moved out to the deck before she asked, her dad firing up the barbecue, Lotte and Alison sitting in the light-fall from the lounge room, looking out at the shadows of the yard, the vegetable garden a smudge across the lawn.
We knew each other through your mother, of course, said Alison. But we were reacquainted through a social night at the gallery. A speed-dating night.
She giggled at this, apologetically. Everything about this woman was muted and polite. Answers calibrated to not offend, giving just enough response to move the conversation along, but not so much she might actually direct it anywhere. Her voice went up at the end of every sentence, as though she wasn’t sure of anything she was saying, and her hands fluttered about her face, smoothing down her hair, checking her necklace was sitting right, dusting her chest for dropped crumbs. It surprised Lotte that her father had gone looking for this after someone like Helen. Lotte pictured him sitting at a long table, a name badge stuck to his chest, hoping against hope that there was a woman in this town who might be right for him.
And you hit it off?
She barely bothered hiding the disbelief in her voice.
Yes, we seemed to.
Alison looked fondly over at Lotte’s father, as he went back into the kitchen to get something.
He’s a nice man, your dad.
What do you remember about my mother?
Alison smoothed back her hair, took a sip of wine.
Helen was a lovely woman. I didn’t know her that well, just from the book club, and school. But she was fun to be around, wasn’t she? Vivacious, I suppose you’d call her. It’s terribly unfair, what happened. I mean, we were all shocked. She was always someone who was so very much alive.
And now she’s not. Which is quite convenient for you, isn’t it?
Alison giggled nervously then pursed her lips, lines appearing again across her forehead. She didn’t say anything more; she wouldn’t bite. Lotte watched her dad come back to the deck balancing a plate of uncooked meat, wondering what Alison saw in him. As the meat hit the barbecue in a sizzle, she continued.
You’re divorced, I’m guessing?
Alison nodded.
There wouldn’t be very many eligible men of your age in a town like this, would there? I mean, you’ve really hit the jackpot, haven’t you?
That’s not very fair.
Alison spoke softly but firmly, enunciating every word. A speech therapist trait?
I remember my mother coming home from meetings of that book club, said Lotte. And she’d have us in hysterics with her stories of all you women, dressed up and with your best baked goods on show as though you’d just rustled them up in five minutes. Trying so hard to be literary, searching out themes in the novels as if they might actually mean something.
What are you two talking about?
Her dad came over from the barbecue, tongs in hand, and gave Alison’s shoulder a squeeze.
Should only be a few more minutes, he said.
We were just discussing our favourite novels, said Alison.
Books?
He laughed at this, heading back to the barbecue.
Lotte must be pulling your leg, Al, she doesn’t re
ad; she doesn’t have time for what she thinks is a load of rubbish. Do you?
Reading make-believe stories? No, I don’t.
It was an old argument, and Lotte slipped easily into the role her mother had also played. Helen was forever reading books and lambasting them for trying so hard to be realistic when they were so obviously a construct — why couldn’t they just admit to being an art, a plaything?
Why read fictional stories when you could be discovering useful facts? Ways to make the world a better place?
She means space, her father called out from the barbecue. That’s the only thing Helen thought worthy of consideration, and Lotte’s just as bad. They take it very seriously.
Even with his back to her, she could hear the amusement in his voice.
Think about a novel, said Lotte. It’s about made-up people going about their made-up lives. What does it really teach you about anything you don’t already know? People can be nice, they can be awful, bad things can happen. End of story. But think about space, about the cosmos. You start looking there, and you really have to think about things. About where we come from and where we’re going. Useful things, things that can actually change our understanding of the world, not just how we feel about it.
So art and personal experience are of no use, is that it? Her father flipped the steaks onto a plate and delivered them to the table. Despite all the meaning they give us, the sustenance and language to express our emotions and share our human experience. Pointless, all of it?
Not pointless, replied Lotte. Just not important.
Her dad winked at Alison, passing her the salad.
And I suppose you think what you do is very important? Looking for planets too far away for us to even reach. Planets we can’t get to, we can’t live on, we can barely see … That may as well be make-believe for all the difference it makes to this.
He included both of them in his gesture. The good life, his open arms were saying.
You know it’s worthwhile. Take Alison’s job as a speech therapist, said Lotte, including Alison with a generous smile, but directing her comments to her father. She teaches people to communicate after a stroke, and she knows what’s effective because of science. And your job, Dad — drawing maps. It’s practical and useful. That makes it worthwhile. At least, it was before Google took over.
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