When all the children have had their turn at the telescope, Lotte steps up. Jupiter is tiger-striped in red and beige, and in a straight line, three to the top and one to the bottom, are the bright spots of the Jovian moons. Everything in its place: Jupiter’s four lovers, trapped in an eternal orbit. It was their discovery by Galileo that hinted the Earth was not the centre of the universe: here were four moons orbiting a planet, begging the question, what might the Earth be orbiting? She recalls her mother’s descriptions: Io, her surface potted with lava-spurting volcanoes, was the most protective and jealous of the four. Europa, much more composed, a smooth layer of ice trapping forever an enormous sea and the possibility of life. Ganymede, larger but lighter than Mercury, the biggest of all the moons in the solar system. And Callisto, that crotchety old aunt, a face of craters and a heart of rock and ice; she is out of step with the three other moons, who all orbit their king with a neat resonance, a family devoted, one being unable to move without the others following. Lotte cannot tell which is which from the telescope, each one just a pinprick of light.
If you look to the outer part of the eyepiece, not the middle, the image will be clearer. Simon’s voice taps her on the shoulder.
You need to use your peripheral vision, he continues, because the rod cells towards the edge of the retina are better suited to night viewing, though they’re not so good on colour—
I know, she cuts him off, taking one last look before relinquishing the telescope to a child who wants another go.
Lotte?
Simon sticks out his hand, and she shakes it.
I didn’t recognise you — you’ve grown up. He stares at her face as though trying to place her. Or trying to place somebody else. I’ll just finish up things here, and then we can talk.
He gives a final speech to the group and passes around a baseball cap for tips, patiently answering all of the children’s questions. The families trail down the hill toward the carpark, children quiet with tiredness, parents buzzing with the satisfaction of an outing complete.
So.
He tips the coins into his hand and folds the cap in half, stuffing it in the back pocket of his jeans.
Would you like a cup of tea?
Despite the warm night he wears a navy-blue polar-fleece vest, the Southern Cross embroidered on the breast, a single silver thread linking each of the stars. Simon leads Lotte to one of the old brick buildings ringed in footlights, its dome disappearing into the night so that it looks oddly stumped. Inside is a boardroom, a large polished wooden table ringed by chairs. He stops at a panel of light switches, turning them on one by one, a quiet buzzing emanating from each wall.
You should take a look; we’ve had them restored. He disappears into a side room to make tea. Black or white?
White.
The room’s windows flicker brilliantly into view, lit by fluorescent tubes fixed in the window frames. One of the windows is fringed with gum leaves, a stained glass kookaburra and a magpie against a setting sun, while in the sky above, Saturn frolics with two other planets. In another window, an owl reposes to one side of a globe, blue birds perching on the other, as opposite as night and day. A third window features duelling telescopes, each one pointing across the view of the other. The pictures are like a child’s colouring book, thick guiding lines and strong blocks of colour.
It’s been almost nine years, hasn’t it? Since Helen …
He hesitates, glancing at her to see if he is required to say the dreaded word.
Died, says Lotte. She remembers now, seeing him at the funeral. Hunched shoulders as if he could hide his height, a brand new shirt that still bore the creases from being folded in its plastic sleeve. She’d been surprised he was there; she hadn’t seen him for so many years, she thought he must have moved away.
Simon sets the tea on the table. I was surprised to get your message, he says. I didn’t suppose you’d want to talk to me.
Why not?
He pauses, takes a sip of his tea.
No reason. I guess I just meant it was a surprise to hear from you. Kind of out of the blue.
I was just curious, says Lotte. About my mother. In my memories, she was always busy, running around and trying to get things done.
Simon nods. She was the driving force for a lot of the stuff we did here, he says. Most of the committee were more interested in the telescopes themselves, you know, men who just wanted to get them restored, wanted the place recognised as something special. For them, the observatory was a monument. But Helen wanted to invite people in — kids, families, school groups. The committee thought she was being too inclusive, that she was at risk of dumbing down the importance of the place. But she’d give as good as she got, asking them what good a monument was if there was no one to see it.
Did she seem impatient to you? Lotte asks.
Impatient? I don’t know if that’s the word I’d use. Adamant, perhaps. Once she made a decision, she stuck to it.
Lotte looks around at the stained glass windows, the museum atmosphere of the room. She can hear the bitterness in Simon’s voice, and attributes it to workplace politics. He wouldn’t have been the first person her mother butted heads with.
But did she ever seem like she wanted more than this? Lotte asks. Did she ever want to really study astronomy, to be a scientist?
If she didn’t have a child, she wants to add. What might her life have been if it weren’t for the arrival of a daughter? An alternate reality where Helen excelled at her passions, where Lotte never was. She wouldn’t hold it against her mother.
Helen? No. Simon says with certainty. No, this was her hobby. She never wanted it to be a job. Astronomers — the ones at research facilities, universities, that sort of thing — it’s a job to them. It’s all about the physics, the science. They’re so busy writing papers and chasing grant money that they don’t have the time to actually look up there and see what’s going on ...
He trails off, taking in Lotte’s amusement.
You studied astronomy, didn’t you? I remember now.
Lotte nods. I just came back from five years at the IAO.
Well, you’d know what I mean then, says Simon laughing.
They talk then, about the planet-hunting projects Lotte has worked on and some of the more recent discoveries.
Do you still hold those stargazing parties? Lotte asks. I remember Mum taking me to your place out of town.
She recalls the unfettered enthusiasm of the astronomy club members, their friendly competitiveness as they set up their telescopes, comparing specs and prices.
Sometimes, says Simon, smiling. Helen loved it out there. She would have been happy—
He stops himself, gulping down his tea.
What were you going to say? Lotte’s curiosity is piqued. You don’t think she was happy?
I’m sure she was. But I didn’t see her after she got sick.
He gets up, holding his hand out for Lotte’s mug, signalling the talk is over. I better get going, says Simon. Got the dogs at home.
He heads into the kitchen.
I don’t think there’s anything else I can tell you, he calls out. You know, it’s been about fifteen years since I last saw her. She stopped volunteering here a long time ago. She didn’t come back after she was sick; she stayed at home with your father.
Simon appears in the doorway of the kitchen, tea towel in his hands.
He was never interested in astronomy, says Lotte. And I suppose Mum no longer had the energy.
Something like that, says Simon. I better lock up here. But you go ahead. It was nice to see you, Lotte.
They shake hands for a little longer than necessary, before Simon turns back to the kitchen. Lotte wants to step up behind him and give him a hug; his misery is palpable. Tell me, she wants to say. But she doesn’t want to know.
She walks through the car park and
along the shoulder of the road. Just before she comes to the main road a ute passes her, slows, then pulls ahead into the roundabout, taking the exit that leads out beyond the suburbs.
Walking back to her father and Eve’s, she thinks about those stargazing parties. The astronomy group members with their layers of rain jackets, and woollen jumpers covered in dog hair; their plastic containers of homemade food, which they offered round incessantly; thermoses of tea and bottles of cordial. At sixteen, Lotte had found it completely uncool, and she’d expected her mother to be the same. Yet there was Helen, in the thick of it all, listening with rapt attention as two men compared filters, later helping a uni student set up his tripod on the rocky ground. As the night wound on, Lotte had found herself enjoying the easy camaraderie of the group, their commitment clouding out the knowledge that others might not find it all as fascinating as they did. It was this freedom that Lotte saw reflected in her mother: something had been released in her; she was no longer striving. It was only in its absence that she could identify the nervous energy she always associated with her mother, energy that kept Helen just ahead and out of reach.
The only other time Lotte has seen that same calm descend on Helen was when she had accompanied her to church. Only a handful of times, and only then to be of use — carrying a pillow for Helen to sit on, driving when she felt too tired — never thinking of it as something they might be doing together. Once, they’d gone to the cathedral in the centre of town, and Lotte sat beside her mother in the pew, considering the burnished-gold eagle that adorned the pulpit, the hanging lanterns and elaborate tiled floors. Too much in the aid of so little. A polished golden tabernacle, a silver chalice of wine: gratuitous riches for a god who’d apparently invented the very metals they were formed from.
She preferred it when her mother wanted to go to the small church where the funeral was eventually held, because, after the first few visits, Lotte would leave her mother at her prayer and go walking along the lake foreshore. Lotte felt an entirely different reluctance at that small church than the grand cathedral: it felt immoral to accompany Helen into that simple, honest space, unadorned and encouraging of the kind of self-reflection that Lotte did not want to engage in. In the end, it made the funeral all the worse: back in that same space again, reminded of all the times she had left her mother there, so eager to get away and have some time to herself. After each visit Helen seemed content, as though she had lost her manic efforts at living: the crossed conversations with multiple friends; the ransacking of the house for keepsakes from the past. Instead, she was happy to sit quietly with Lotte in the car, paper cups of hot chocolate in their hands, watching the black swans glide about on the lake’s surface, looking for the one bird whose red beak had somehow faded to a dull pink.
She hopes the house will be in darkness by the time she returns, but the lights are on. She quietly walks down the hallway and slips into the study. There on the bed lie two dresses — one of her own, and a much smaller one. Two red dresses, just like she had promised Mina they would wear. She forgot all about her promise to be home for dinner. She should go out and apologise for being late, but she feels so suddenly tired. Surely Eve was just being polite, trying to involve Lotte in a family she is no longer a part of.
She will leave tomorrow, and find a place to stay in Sydney for when the surgery is over, and before the chemo starts. A bolthole to hide out in until she is ready for all of this again. She remembers her mother once describing the complications of family as a solar system: each person like a planet, keeping their moons spinning close and influencing the paths of their companions. They grab at anything that comes near: a free-spirited satellite, a comet, a space shuttle. Drift too close to another and you risk falling down a planet’s gravity well, being destroyed on its surface; stay too far away and you risk being cut loose, discarded into the ever growing reaches of outer space. Helen had been cut loose long ago; maybe it was Lotte’s turn. After the treatment she will get a job at one of the observatories over in Western Australia, or South Africa. Somewhere new and just far enough away.
10
EVE
AUGUST 2015
Are you alright?
Her body has no edges. She cannot feel the hands on her shoulder, the sand beneath her head. Len’s face appears in front of hers, eyes brown, flecked with hazel. No, Mina’s eyes were a steely blue, just like Tom’s. The paramedic had opened one of her eyes, shone a torch in it, the pupil flooded with black. Mina had not flinched at the intrusion. She had been loaded in to the ambulance, Tom scrambling behind. Tom not looking back to see if Eve was following him.
It’s Eve, isn’t it? You’re cold, you’re shaking, we’ve got to get you inside. What were you …?
But he doesn’t finish the question, because he’s not sure he wants to hear the answer.
There is sand in her mouth. Her tongue recoils, she spits, again and again. Teeth pass against each other, and the crunch of the sand between them roars in her ears.
Come on, let me help you up. We’ll get you inside.
Dad, what about the stuff?
There is a young boy standing nearby his head encased in a helmet, a puffy jacket ballooning around his chest. He’s holding a fishing rod, and the fly dangles, catching the sun.
Leave it, Jordie. We’ll come back for it later.
They stumble up the beach, past an esky and bucket. Rather, Eve stumbles, and Len stoops so his weight is under her arm, pushing her up. Wet jeans rub at her legs, and her feet seem to take steps.
You’ll be right in a minute. It’s a bit cold for swimming, isn’t that right, Jordie?
She should have a wetsuit, Dad. He speaks with confidence, his small feet lifting high above the sand and stamping down. It’s winter. The surfers have wetsuits in winter, I’ve seen them.
When they get to the road, Eve doesn’t feel the asphalt beneath her soles: her feet bump across the road, heavy with numbness. Wind slips its clammy fingers beneath her shirt; her jeans sag at the waist, so she has to clutch hold to stop them from falling down.
There is a house behind the camping ground office. Inside, it’s warm and dim, and Len directs her to sit on the couch. How wrong her wet jeans and her sandy feet are; how inappropriate. The pamphlets had mentioned ‘inappropriate’ behaviour; how to spot if someone is too sad, or if they have grieved for too long. She wants to sleep. They had told her — reinforcing the point with a pamphlet decorated with photographs of dew-dropped flowers — that denial is a stage of grief. That acceptance is one, too. But every time she thinks about these stages, she pictures the Tour de France, the dense peloton like rainbow parakeets flocking up the mountain, thinning through hairpin bends, and dripping over the finish line, one at a time. Each stage mapped out with an elevation profile, the steep gradients like a heart-rate monitor soaring skyward, then plummeting to the level. But each of those riders gets to finish the stage. Yellow jersey or not, they complete, rest, and move on to the next, until they scoot across the finish line, bumping over the cobblestones and past the Arc de Triomphe. They choose to race.
I’m sorry. My tent. I’ll be okay. I’m just cold.
That’s alright, there’s no rush, we’ll get you sorted. Len disappears through a doorway. The boy is watching, his hair sticking up between the ribs of his helmet.
Were you going fishing? She feels an adult’s need to fill the silence.
He nods, then looks towards the doorway, visibly relieved when Len comes back bearing a towel, a blanket, and a dressing gown.
Here you go. You get those wet things off, and wrap this about you. We’ll just be in the kitchen. He puts the pile next to Eve on the couch. His caterpillar eyebrows scurry towards one another.
Will you be okay?
Yes, thank you. I’m sorry.
Come on, mate, Len says as he shepherds his son out of the room. Let’s get some breakfast.
But what about the
fishing?
In a minute — we’ll go back in a bit.
She rubs the towel against her face, her tongue, gagging on the sand that refuses to leave. Manages to unzip the hoodie, but her fingers are too thick to undo the jeans. She pulls at them but they snag on her hips, which don’t lift when she tries to move, so she gives up, folding herself down over the towel.
This is what it would have felt like. Mina: still alive, but her body refusing to be told what to do. When Mina was a baby, Eve had expected her to lie so still and quiet that she might worry about whether she was still breathing. But like all babies, Mina was rarely still, woken by her own snuffles and sighs, her arms and legs flying about, involuntarily waving, accidentally whacking herself in the face before she learnt to control her limbs. As Mina grew, Eve was consistently surprised by her strength: her ability to hold up her head; to crawl at speed; to pump the pedals of a tricycle. Perfectly normal milestones for any child, but ones that Eve observed with fascination, still able to see the tiny newborn shadowing the girl. When Mina first pulled herself to her feet, and, soon after, lurched from the coffee table to the couch, Eve was astounded. But Mina herself had seemed accepting, satisfied with the way of things.
How often had Eve begged her to sit down or sit still, or wrestled her squirming and resisting body into the pram or car seat? And then, so suddenly and without complaint, she had become still. Too still.
•
The key was on the stand in the hallway — she remembered that clearly. But before that? And afterwards? All of it had disappeared. It was there, she knew it was, but recalling those moments was like looking through frosted glass: colour, movement, muffled sound. She had picked up the key. Even now she can see, very clearly, her hand reaching out and closing around the pineapple keyring. How many times had she wished she never picked it up, that it was still lying there, ignored amongst the other keys and loose coins? The feel of it was familiar in her hand, the plastic brush of the spiky foliage, the rubber softness of the fruit. It was Lotte who had bought that keyring for her: a memento from one of their camping trips to the Sunshine Coast. Eve doubted Lotte remembered buying it, so why did she?
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