by Karen Swan
‘. . . ot so much but we do general maintenance and any repairs that need doing, over.’
Meg chuckled. ‘You must be handy around the house then!’
She waited.
And waited.
‘Hello, Commander. Jonas? Can you hear me? Over.’
‘. . . Sierra Sierra . . . osing you. It’s the busiest time . . . py me? . . .’
Voices interrupted them like a crossed line on the phone: nameless, faceless people, some of them trying to speak to him themselves, saying his call sign – she knew it by heart now – others just chatting, yet more still calling out to the ether, reciting obscure codes she couldn’t understand.
She pressed her left cheek to the window glass, her eyes raking the dusk for the bright amulet, only just finding it as it sped away, growing fainter and fainter until finally it was out of sight again, chasing the sun.
‘Hey.’ Lucy turned from her spot at the stove and smiled as Tuck came in, his jeans muddied on the knee, his bike helmet in one hand. ‘Good ride?’
He nodded but the movement was brusque and she felt a pip of anxiety at the surly expression on his face.
‘I made fish pie. Thought we hadn’t had it for a while. It takes so long to prepare I usually don’t—’
‘Don’t bother on my account,’ he said, tossing the helmet onto the table and walking over to the fridge. He pulled out a beer, opening it with a fluid, unthinking motion of his hand on the cap as he positioned it at the edge of the counter. She had found it sexy when they first got together.
‘Oh, but I wanted to,’ she said quickly. ‘It’s your favourite and I thought we both deserved a treat.’
He looked perplexed by the sentiment. ‘Why?’
‘Well, the last couple of months have been hard, obviously and—’
Her voice trailed off as she saw his eyes flick over her – was that disgust she saw in them? – before he put the bottle to his lips and swigged.
‘I’m not that hungry,’ he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and sinking against the formica worktop.
Lucy opened her mouth to say something but stopped herself and went back to stirring the white sauce. He’d be hungry when she set this down in front of him, she thought to herself. He often said he wasn’t hungry when he was. He just didn’t know himself as well as she did, that was all.
The kitchen filled with a silence that wrapped around them both like a cat curling around their legs. She glanced over at him and gave a small smile.
‘I’m going to have a shower,’ he muttered a moment later, putting the almost-empty beer bottle down and walking out.
Lucy stopped stirring as she heard the water come on, the sound of his belt buckle hitting the floor. She looked up into the sky, trying not to cry. It was a cloudy night, no moon to see by, and she felt upset that he hadn’t noticed her new top or seen that she’d done her hair and put on some make-up for once. Sometimes she felt he didn’t even see her, except to criticize.
But then she remembered the day in Room 32, the way he’d taken charge and looked after her and she shook her head, trying to banish her negativity. No. Didn’t he often cheer up after his shower? He was like most men coming in after a long day, needing some time to himself when he came in from work to recalibrate to family life.
The pie now browning in the oven, she was sitting at the kitchen table fifteen minutes later flicking through a gossip magazine when he walked in again, his wet hair slicked back, a grey waffle-knit jumper thrown over some checked baggies. She felt her spirits dive further. He looked sexy as hell, of course – he always did – but couldn’t he see that she’d made an effort tonight? What was she doing, dolled up and cooking his favourite meal, when he just sloped in effectively in his pyjamas? This wasn’t how she’d envisaged tonight going. And where was her little present?
‘Smells good,’ he said, coming over and planting a kiss on her forehead.
Lucy brightened, looking up at him in surprise. ‘It’ll be ready in about twenty minutes.’
‘I’m starved,’ he said, wandering over to the fridge again and pulling out another beer. She didn’t frown. Instead, her smile widened. She knew him so well.
‘So tell me about your day,’ she sighed, leaning one arm on the table and resting her chin in her cupped hand, all the better for watching him.
‘Not much to tell. I took a few calls about the Toronto Snow Show, spoke to a supplier about a polycarbon material I’m interested in.’
‘Oh, yeah?’
‘It’s got more flex.’
‘Great,’ she said brightly. ‘Mitch was always saying the one you had was too . . .’ Her voice faded out. She hated saying his name in front of Tuck now. It had a visceral effect on him, closing him up, folding him down like an origami square repeatedly made into a smaller version of itself. She changed the subject. ‘I saw Meg earlier. She was talking about starting up her own graphic-design business.’
‘Really?’ A sneer curled his lip.
‘I know, that’s what I said. A whole lot of aggro and for what? I tried telling her she doesn’t need the stress.’
But Tuck wasn’t listening; he was leaning back against the counter in his favoured spot, one ankle crossed over the other, his expression distant.
‘What are you thinking?’ she asked.
He glanced at her, as if realizing she was still there, then sighed. It was almost as though talking with her, just being with her, was wearying. ‘Nuthin’. I got a prelim layout today for Toronto and I’m not happy with where they’ve put us. I want a better spot. No one else has got anything like Titch in the market and thanks to Aspen, we’re flavour of the month.’
‘Well, you’re always my flavour of the month,’ she smiled, making sure to squeeze her elbows in and inject her already-impressive cleavage with even more oomph.
It worked and she marvelled that it really was like training a dog. Tuck’s eyes travelled over her as if for the first time this evening, noticing the new tenor of their dinner. ‘Is that new?’ he asked, his gaze on her décolletage but referring, she knew, to the more general vicinity of her blouse.
‘Perhaps,’ she said coyly, sitting back now and pulling away. He also loved it when she played hard to get.
‘It’s nice,’ he replied, always at his most handsome when his eyes began to shine like that. It had been the thing she’d never been able to resist – even when she’d wanted to. It had been such a cliché to fall for him. All the girls at school had and – stuck with her best friend dating his – Lucy had seen it as a badge of merit to remain impervious to his charms. To bemoan his immaturity had been the only way she had been able to think of undermining his cocksure arrogance, to deflect attention away from the humiliating fact that he’d never tried it on with her, and she’d made it a point of honour that she would never make a move on him. But that didn’t mean she hadn’t made her moves – he’d been the one she’d worn that dress for to the Prom, and that moment when she’d seen him notice her like that, had been the best of her life, better even than standing at the altar with him and saying, ‘I do.’ She’d felt like she’d really achieved something, getting him to fall for her.
‘I thought you’d like it. I felt like something new.’
She waited, pleased with herself for having teed up the perfect opportunity for him to reveal his purchase. ‘Yeah? I got you something new too,’ he’d say and then he’d scoop her up (well, no, maybe he wouldn’t pick her up at the moment, he’d need a winch) and they’d fall into the bedroom—
The kitchen timer beeped suddenly, making Tuck jump and shattering the moment.
‘Oh,’ she said, getting up to turn it off. ‘Is it that time already?’
‘What time?’
‘Seven eleven. Apparently—’ And she leaned forward, craning her neck to see out the window. ‘We should be able to see the International Space Station flying over now.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘But I can’t see a thing with these damned clouds.’
&
nbsp; ‘Space Station?’
‘Yeah, you remember that astronaut sent Meg the poem? Well, they’re quite the pen pals now and he said they’d be doing a fly-past tonight.’ She shrugged, giving up on the blanketed sky and peering through the glass oven door to see how the pie was browning instead.
‘Ten more minutes,’ she murmured, casting her husband a sultry look that was intended to convey how they could fill the time, but he wasn’t looking at her. He was examining his right hand.
‘Oh, what’s happened?’ she frowned, catching sight of it and holding it up for a better look – there was a nasty graze to the side of the hand and his wrist seemed swollen.
‘Nothing. I just fell earlier on the trail.’
She nodded but didn’t say anything – she knew it had been a bad ride. ‘Let me put some ice on it.’
‘It’s fine.’
‘Tuck, it looks nasty. It must have been a bad fall.’ She knew he hated her mothering him but she was right about this. ‘What were you doing?’
‘I said it’s fine. Leave it,’ he snapped.
Silence dripped down the walls like condensation and Lucy realized she was holding her breath. She had his hand in hers but it wasn’t the bruising and the swelling that had caught her eye. It was what was missing that held her attention.
She stepped back, heart jack-hammering as she turned and slid her hands into the oven gloves. The pie needed another few minutes to get a really good golden colour but she had to busy herself, to think through what she’d seen. Because if she was wrong . . .
He stepped out of the way as she lowered the oven door and lifted it out, the potato topping still blond but the aroma curling appealingly around the kitchen.
‘Where’s your watch?’ she asked lightly, glancing down at his left wrist in case he should be in doubt about what she was referring to.
But he missed the cue. ‘What?’
‘Your watch, you’re not wearing it. I know it’s not in the bedroom because I was in there earlier, tidying u—’
As she’d thought. An innocuous comment was nothing of the sort when he was in this mood, when he was guilty.
‘What is this, a freaking inquisition?’ he yelled. ‘Do I have to run everything past you? Do I need permission to take my own watch off? I just had a shower, for Chrissakes! I took it off, OK?’
‘OK,’ she said quickly. ‘I wasn’t accusing you.’
He double-blinked. ‘You weren’t accusing me? What exactly weren’t you accusing me of?’
She swallowed, the pie feeling heavy on her arms now as she stood there, the heat from the dish beginning to radiate through the gloves and burn her hands.
‘I wasn’t accusing you of losing the watch,’ she said carefully.
But she couldn’t help herself. Although she said nothing, she couldn’t hide that she knew what she knew, and she saw him realize that he had said too much; he had dropped himself in it and now she knew what had happened as surely as if she’d seen it with her own eyes – because that watch was waterproof; she’d bought it for him.
She remembered the crunch of glass underfoot by the bed, the fact that he’d found her in the room even though the door was shut with a Do Not Disturb sign on it. It had never occurred to her to ask why he’d gone there. But now, as the pie went careering into the wall and down the fridge, they both knew exactly what had happened in Room 32.
Chapter Thirteen
Monday 22 May 2017
Hi Jonas,
It was so exciting to see you pass overhead the other day! I felt like I was in a sci-fi movie. I really hope your spacewalk went well. It sounds terrifying to me – one mistake and you could drift off into the galaxy? No, thanks!
I keep wondering what the stars must look like up there. We spend so much time down here, gazing up at them and pinning our wishes onto them – wouldn’t it be terrible if they were utterly unremarkable up close? Like meeting a beautiful actress and discovering she’s really very plain and it’s all down to the make-up.
I keep rereading the poem you sent through – ‘High Flight’? I googled the poet, John Magee. Did you know that he flew for the Royal Canadian Air Force and he died in a mid-air collision? The definition of irony surely, but I think it makes it feel even more poignant that he should have died in the air – as though, in his death, he got to live what he wrote in his poem: ‘I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth . . .’ I like to think that Mitch is living the poem too; that he’s ‘dancing the skies’. I imagine that’s why you sent it to me?
Much of it must apply to you too, though – being out there, in the sky, dancing above the clouds. What’s the line? ‘The high, untrespassed sanctity of space . . .’ I guess that must be why you knew it?
Anyway, maybe I’m reading too much into it. I probably am. But it’s helped me, that poem, more than you could possibly know, so thanks again.
On a lighter note, I heard a joke the other day that made me think of you, so here goes.
Q: Where do astronauts park their spaceships?
A: On a parking meteor!
Sorry, I know it’s quite bad!
Write if you get a chance, but you’re really busy so if you can’t, that’s OK too.
Best wishes
Meg
PS But actually, if you could just answer me this – why were you laughing so much when we spoke on the radio the other day? Am I doing something wrong?
Tuesday 23 May 2017
Hi Meg (or rather, Dog-Dog-Elephant),
Bad? That joke was truly terrible! I tested it out on the crew at dinner last night and they all agreed it was the worst astronaut joke they ever heard. Now this is an astronaut joke:
Q: How do you get an astronaut baby to sleep?
A: Rocket.
See? Funny!
Talking of funny, the reason I was laughing at your call sign on our last radio contact was because your adaptation of the Nato Phonetic Alphabet, which we commonly use for radio transmissions, is somewhat . . . unique. But very sweet too, so don’t feel you need to change it. For one thing, it makes it a lot easier for me to find you in the airwaves!
How’s the weather down there? It’s looking very green from here; almost all the snow’s gone now, even from the mountaintops? Make the most of the sun. We passed over a big typhoon in the Pacific heading towards the west coast. It’ll lose power when it hits land but I imagine you’ll still get a few days of heavy wind and rain, which sounds great to me – missing running water so much has been one of the biggest surprises up here. I’d love nothing more than to have a hot shower or to stand in the rain right now. Simple pleasures.
Write back,
J
Wednesday 24 May 2017
J,
On the contrary, I think your joke was appalling – far, far worse than mine, which I had tested specially on my friend Lucy before sending it out to space for you and she doesn’t smile for just anything, you know. It sounds to me like you’ve all been in space for far too long and lost perspective on what’s funny any more. It wouldn’t be a surprise – after all, who would want to willingly stand out in the rain? You must have all gone mad.
Yes, the weather’s glorious down here now. It’s always a bit of a relief when the snow goes, everything becomes so much easier. Just keeping warm in my house requires so much effort – old trees need to be identified, felled, chopped, stacked, stored, brought in, fires set . . . It’s so great to be able to get out of bed in the morning and not have to pull on twenty layers first. Plus I’m always grateful for the longer days. My cabin is in a nature reserve up a mountain so it gets really dark and quiet here. I don’t feel frightened because I’ve got Badger, my dog, with me but a bright sky stops it feeling quite so isolated.
How much longer are you going to be up there for? Do you ever get bored with it, or would admitting that go against the Astronaut Code? I think I’d miss Earth too much to leave for any period of time. Ha! I can barely leave Alberta as it is. My sister wants me to visit her in Toro
nto but even that’s too far for me!
Meg (aka Dog-Dog-Elephant)
PS
Q: What is an astronaut’s favourite computer key?
A: The space bar!
Thursday 25 May 2017
Dog-Dog-Ellie,
It’s your sanity I’m worried for if you think that joke was an improvement on the last. I couldn’t even bring myself to read it out to the crew last night in case they staged an intervention and had you sent off to the Funny Farm (*).
In spite of your worrying taste in jokes, I do completely get what you mean about the snow and short days being hard work. I’m Norwegian and although my village – Stavanger – is in the south of the country, we’re still significantly north of you and temperatures regularly stay below minus 20. Further north, near Tromsö, they have two months of the year in Polar Night, when the sun doesn’t rise above the horizon at all, and in the summer, they have Polar Summer, when it never sets. Funnily enough, it’s the 24-hour days that are harder for most people to endure than the endless nights. And up here, we have sixteen dawns and sunsets a day, so it’s like walking through the rooms of a house and turning the lights on and off. Sometimes I look up from a task only to find I’ve gone from mid-day in India to midnight in Hawaii in half an hour.
Why aren’t you going to visit your sister in Toronto? You absolutely should. Your cabin in the woods sounds great but if there’s one thing I’ve learned being up here, it’s that there’s more beauty and adventure in our world than we could ever hope to see in one lifetime. Go play!
I’ve got just over another two months up here; in fact, I’m well over halfway through the expedition now. We launched at the beginning of February and we’re coming home via a Kazakhstani desert in late July. I’m nervous, I’ll admit – not particularly at the prospect of us all being burned up as we re-enter the atmosphere, but because it’s tradition and protocol to do a press conference in Kazakh traditional dress immediately afterwards. Given your skewed sense of humour, I should imagine that will prove very amusing for you and a ripe opportunity for you to make jokes at my expense.
