Star Gazing

by Linda Gillard

  Marianne struggles to grasp the meaning of his words. ‘Are you saying you can read minds?’

  ‘No. It’s not like that, I just… pick things up. Hear things other folk don’t hear. It’s like when you get a hunch about something. I get hunches. Lots of them. Really strong ones. And they’re always right.’

  ‘Always?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘So you didn’t actually hear me?’

  ‘No. It’s a kind of… radar, I suppose.’

  ‘Does it only work with people you know?’

  ‘No. I knew you were in trouble when we first met. Before we met, in fact. That’s why I stopped. I sensed it walking along the street. Some folk give off really clear signals. You’re one of them. I suspect it’s something to do with being blind. You transmit as well as receive. Like bats.’

  ‘But you can’t actually read my thoughts, can you?’ she asks anxiously.

  She feels his chest move again and senses silent laughter. ‘No, it’s not that specific. It’s more… moods. Emotions. Like music. It’s like picking up music on long wave radio. Faint. Crackly. Then it comes over loud and clear for a wee while.’

  Marianne is silent for a moment, then says solemnly, ‘That must be terrible. I can’t imagine feeling that… vulnerable.’

  Keir struggles with a mixture of emotions: relief and something he can’t quite place, which he thinks might be gratitude. ‘Och, I think you probably can.’

  ‘Do you pick up big things? Earthquakes? Tsunamis?’

  ‘I do in my job. I look and listen for geological hazards. And I predict when and where they might happen.’

  ‘But you do that using state-of-the-art equipment, don’t you?’

  ‘Aye. And by following some very unscientific hunches. So yes, I do sometimes pick up big things.’ She is silent again and he feels the question form as her body tenses. ‘Aye… I saw Piper coming.’

  Marianne says nothing, then turning in his arms, exclaims, ‘But if you saw –’

  ‘If I saw it coming, why didn’t I say something? Do something? I’ve lived with that question for eighteen years now and I haven’t come up with a satisfactory answer. I saw it coming, but I’d no idea what it was! So what could I do?’

  ‘I don’t understand!’

  ‘No, neither do I. Look, this is all going to sound crazy, but you’re alive because of it. I don’t talk about it, except sometimes to local folk who… accept it. If you came from these parts, you’d know what I’m talking about.’

  She clutches at his broad hand spread on her tummy. ‘You have second sight?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Oh my God… How awful.’

  ‘Well, I’m glad I don’t have to explain that part! As you seem to realise, the sight’s not a gift, it’s a burden. You know something’s going to happen and you know who it’s going to affect, but you don’t know when and you don’t know exactly how. And you see it, you receive it until… until it’s over.’

  He is aware of Marianne’s fingers moving gently on the back of his hand, as if reading the complex data of skin, tendon and bone. The sensation soothes him and he’s overwhelmed with a desire to sleep.

  ‘Keir, did you know about Mac? Before it happened.’

  ‘Aye… You remember when we met at the opera? We were talking. And I disappeared.’

  ‘You told me you’d seen someone you knew. I remember now, you said something rather odd. You said you’d seen someone… who shouldn’t have been there. Oh, God –’

  ‘I saw Mac. Standing in the middle of the bar in his working gear, with his helmet smashed in and his face covered in blood. So I went to make a call. In a hurry. I phoned Annie. Mac wasn’t even offshore. So I knew it wasn’t something that had happened, but something that was going to happen. But I didn’t know when.’ She lifts his hand and, in a gesture that almost unmans him, lays the palm against her mouth. He feels her lips move, then she replaces his hand on her waist. Swallowing, he continues softly, ‘I always pray I’m going to be wrong. I used to hope I was just… mad. Hearing voices, seeing things. But I knew. It’s not uncommon in the islands. My grandfather had the sight too. My family just accepted it, but didn’t talk about it. You don’t. What is there to say? What’s for you, will not go by you.’

  ‘Did Mac know you’d seen –’

  ‘Och no, I never tell folk! Nobody knows about it except my family and a few folk on Skye. I told a woman once… Someone I felt a lot for. I thought we’d maybe marry, so I decided I’d better tell her about… my wee problem. She was completely spooked. We lived together for a while but it didn’t work out. She couldn’t handle it. Said I was a living memento mori. It was like living with an undertaker, she said, only worse. At least an undertaker would know when the funeral was and who was to be buried. I could see her point. You’d be for ever asking yourself, “What has he seen? Who’s next?” Och, it’s no way to live! So I never talk about it. And I don’t get involved with women, except on a pretty casual basis.’

  The room is dark now. Being careful not to lift the duvet off Marianne, Keir sits up in bed. The stove needs attention but he’s loth to move. He feels the flutter of Marianne’s fingers on his naked back, reaching for him – a touch that, for the first time that afternoon, travels straight to his groin. He turns away from her and swings his legs out of bed. ‘I’ll make us a hot drink and see to the stove.’

  ‘Keir, you said you saw Piper Alpha… before it happened.’

  He sits hunched on the edge of the bed. ‘Aye. But I didn’t know that’s what it was. I’d seen it for years. I’d grown up with it. My parents told me it was a recurring dream, a nightmare, but I knew it wasn’t. I only ever saw it when I was awake.’

  ‘How old were you?’

  ‘When I first saw it? About eight or nine, I suppose. It didn’t make any sense to me. The picture I saw. It was just… an impression. I never knew what it meant, just that it was bad. Very bad. By the time I was in my late teens, I sensed it was something that would happen, but I didn’t know what, or where, or when.’

  ‘What did you see?’

  He doesn’t answer. She lays her palm on his back and, after a moment, she feels the hard ridge of bone retreat as his spine straightens.

  ‘I saw the sea… and it was on fire.’

  Marianne sits up, searches with her hands for his face, for his eyes, finds the eyelids tight shut, the lashes wet. She takes him in her arms and he lies down beside her, not moving, not speaking, for in the end there is no need for words.

  Spring 2007

  Chapter Twelve

  Louisa

  Keir delivered Marianne to the door late at night. She looked even paler than usual, apart from a bruise on her forehead where I suppose she must have collided with something. Keir looked hollow-eyed with tiredness. Remembering with a flush my recent wakeful night and the cause of it, I wondered if his exhaustion was a positive sign, but his face looked drawn, the lines much deeper than I remembered. His smile was warm enough, but it didn’t reach those strange, inscrutable eyes, which barely met mine. He wouldn’t come into the flat, claiming his boots were too muddy, that he was jiggered and needed his bed.

  Marianne didn’t kiss him goodbye and Keir didn’t kiss her, but I noticed her hand reach for his arm and rest there a moment as they said their brief farewells. After I’d shut the door, Marianne announced that she needed a long hot bath and then sleep. Clearly, girly chats over a nightcap were not on the agenda.

  To be honest, there’s not a lot to be gained from asking Marianne about things she’s done or places she’s been. She can really only tell you what she’s experienced, which is fascinating, of course, but the traffic is one-way. You can’t really compare notes. We went to Venice last year and when we got back Garth asked us for our impressions. I trotted out all the usual Canaletto clichés (well, what is there left to say about Venice?) but Marianne said nothing. Garth turned to her and said, ‘Did you do St Mark’s, then? The Piazza? What was that like?’ Mari
anne thought for a moment, then said, ‘The sound of pigeons’ wings beating incessantly … Like a heavenly host. The air was never still. And there was a pervasive scent… of the sea… and sweat… and limoncello.’ Silence descended after that. (Marianne often has that effect on people.) Eventually she took pity on us and changed the subject.

  It’s not that Marianne can’t enter into our world. Far from it. It’s that we can’t enter into hers. I wondered if Keir had made any headway.

  Marianne seemed very odd once she was home. Quiet or, rather, preoccupied. She also seemed more bad-tempered than usual, but perhaps I was being more irritating than usual. I too was preoccupied with a man and hadn’t yet found either the opportunity or the courage to tell Marianne what had happened with Garth. I hadn’t yet found an opportunity to discuss it with Garth. I was waiting, in time-honoured fashion, for him to ring me, but since I was also his employer, I knew he might have been waiting for me to make the first move.

  I hadn’t a clue about the sexual mores of twenty-five year olds. Perhaps he would pretend nothing had happened? For all I knew, he made a habit of sleeping with lonely middle-aged women, though to judge from his diffident bedside manner, I thought not. In the heat of the moment he’d been enthusiastic and affectionate, but the morning after, he’d seemed subdued. (Thankfully, not embarrassed.) A hangover, plus having to face the world minus his war paint could have accounted for low spirits. (Male Goths don’t seem to travel with their make-up kit. Lack of handbag, I suppose.)

  Marianne simply wouldn’t be drawn on the subject of Keir. She told me about his home, the tree-house, the clever ways he found to share his world with her, and she told me about his family (although I gathered she hadn’t actually met any of them). I asked her about the bruise on her forehead. Her face clouded over and she said she’d been for a walk in the garden on her own and bumped into a tree. Well, you didn’t need to be Hercule Poirot to see that she wasn’t telling the whole story. As to her relationship with Keir, whether it was on a new and better footing, or whether everything had gone pear-shaped, I didn’t know. Nor, it would seem, did Marianne want me to know.

  When I helped her unpack I found a pair of muddy shoes in a polythene bag. They were sturdy lace-ups, minus their laces. I said, ‘What happened to your shoes?’ She replied, ‘They got very wet.’ Since I was holding them this was hardly news to me, but I said nothing more. Then I came across a woollen scarf I didn’t recognise – bottle green, a colour Marianne never wears. It was cashmere and I presumed it must have been a gift from Keir, but I thought it best not to enquire. I was beginning to realise that the topic of Keir was off-limits as far as my sister was concerned.

  I left her putting things away and went to make some tea. When I passed her open bedroom door a few minutes later I happened to glance in and saw Marianne reflected in the wardrobe mirror. (She wouldn’t have known I could see her. Not surprisingly, Marianne has never really grasped the concept of mirrors and reflections.) She was sitting on the bed with her face buried in the scarf. I thought for a moment she must be crying and was about to go in when she raised her head. I saw that she was, in fact, quite composed. She stroked her cheek with the scarf, then buried her face in it once again, inhaling audibly.

  Then it dawned on me. The scarf wasn’t a gift. It was Keir’s.

  Marianne had never been the weepy type. She’d been an adventurous, resilient child, always falling over and righting herself cheerfully. Nor had she ever been prone to self-pity, not even when she lost her husband and baby in quick succession. She said she cried herself out for ever with the miscarriage. (I never asked if some of those tears were relief mixed with grief, but I had my suspicions.) So I was surprised to find her so unsettled after she came back from Skye. The slightest thing seemed to upset her and she was easily moved to tears. I braced myself for what looked like the onset of an early menopause and resolved to broach the subject of HRT the next time she dissolved.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  Keir was back in Norway, inside the Arctic Circle. This much information Marianne had volunteered. She received no phone calls from him (or none that I knew about), but when she’d been back in Edinburgh a couple of weeks she received another of his audio-postcards. I confirmed for her that it was a cassette from Keir and she retreated into her bedroom to listen to it. She was gone a long time and, although I’d heard Keir’s voice at the beginning of the tape, it had soon fallen silent. I wondered if she was having trouble with her ancient cassette player, which was on its last legs.

  I knocked on her door and received an indistinct reply. I went in and found her sitting on the bed beside the machine, clutching a handful of tissues, tears running down her face. The tape was still playing but it just sounded like radio interference. I could hear no words, only whistling sounds and a hissing noise that sounded like rain falling in a forest. There was the odd weird hoot and a sinister whooshing noise that for some reason made me think of a fire-breathing dragon. This racket went on for another minute or so, then Marianne pressed the Stop button and wiped her eyes.

  I sat down and put my arm around her. ‘Is the tape faulty? Oh, darling, how disappointing! Why on earth didn’t he check before sending it?’ Marianne still didn’t speak but felt for the cassette player and pressed Rewind, then when the tape stopped she pressed Play. After a few seconds we heard Keir’s voice.

  ‘Hi, Marianne. This is a postcard of the Northern Lights which I’ve been watching for the last couple of nights and I’m telling you, it’s a grand sight. Did you know some folk say they can hear the lights? Technically, this is impossible because where they’re coming from – about a hundred kilometres above the Earth – it’s almost a vacuum, so sound can’t travel. Nevertheless some folk claim to have heard sounds while observing the lights and the Saami word for them apparently refers to “audible light”. It’s possible, I suppose, though I can’t quite get my head round the physics of it.

  ‘I haven’t been able to record an Aurora Borealis Symphony for you, but what I can offer is a recording made by a magnetometer hooked up to an audio recorder. Try to contain your excitement now, while I explain… A magnetometer measures variations in the strength and direction of the geomagnetic field – variations due to electric currents in the upper atmosphere. The electrons and ions that produce the Aurora also cause these currents, so a magnetometer measures a quantity that is directly related to the Northern Lights. The variation in sound you’re about to hear is the variation in the magnetic field caused by incoming solar particles. The stronger the magnetic variations, the greater the auroral activity…

  ‘Och well, that’s the best I can do for now. Give it a whirl. After a few plays you might find it grows on you. Like Pink Floyd. Personally, I like that “screaming swifts” effect. If you can, listen on headphones and you might get a wee feel of the night sky full of random coloured lights. Like a cosmic firework display…’

  Keir’s voice changed then, as if he was about to say something more personal. Marianne’s hand shot out and pressed the Stop button. I sat not knowing what to say. I hadn’t understood much of what I’d heard and I still had no idea why she was so upset. She blew her nose, sighed, then said, ‘I’m sorry, but I just can’t cope with the kindness of the bloody man. Nor,’ she added faintly, ‘the onslaught of his imagination.’

  Still at a loss for something to say, I decided to tell her about Garth. I thought it might provide us with a little light relief. In a way, it did. Marianne laughed until she cried.

  * * * * *

  Marianne deposits a mug of coffee on the table where Garth is working, then takes her own to the sofa. ‘Louisa tells me you’ve given up the Goth glad rags.’

  He slits open an envelope, scans a letter and places it on top of a pile of correspondence. ‘Yeah. You wouldn’t recognise me now. Well, you would, ’cos me voice is still the same. She didn’t, though.’

  ‘Really? She didn’t tell me that.’

  ‘I turned up on ’er doorstep
with some flowers an’ she thought I was a delivery man. You should’ve seen ’er face! Oh – sorry, Marianne. I wasn’t thinkin’.’

  ‘Don’t be silly – I’m not that sensitive. You must look quite different then.’

  Garth opens another envelope, then drops the contents into a waste paper bin. ‘I do. Me own mother wouldn’t know me. I got me ’air cut, really short, so what’s left is me natural colour. Seemed easier than dyein’ it all. An’ I leave me face natural now. ’Aven’t stopped any clocks with it so far… An’ I did what I’ve been meanin’ to do for ages. Bought meself a suit.’

  ‘Good gracious! What made you do that?’

  ‘Well, Lou’s been sayin’ she wants me to go to business meetin’s. ’Er agent’s been talkin’ about film deals, merchandisin’ an’ stuff, an’ Lou says she’d feel ’appier if I was there, for moral support, though as it ’appens, I do know a bit about the film biz. Me brother’s a cameraman. But I knew she wouldn’t want me there lookin’ like somethin’ out of one of ’er books, minus the muscles. So I decided, what with one thing an’ another, it was time I cleaned up me act. Acted me age, not me shoe size.’

  ‘Well, good for you! How marvellous, to just re-invent yourself like that. Does Lou approve of the new you?’

  ‘Seems to.’ A faint flush tinges Garth’s pale cheeks and, forgetting his embarrassment is unobserved, he bows his head over the pile of mail. ‘She says I look a lot older now. Which is probably a good thing… under the circumstances. She won’t get quite so much stick. About me, I mean.’

  ‘Oh, you don’t need to worry about that. Lou wouldn’t care. She’s very thick-skinned. Has to be, to cope with the scathing reviews she gets. She doesn’t give a damn what people think, never has. But I’m sure from a career point of view – yours, I mean – the transformation will prove to be a good move. People do seem to jump to conclusions about appearances. Sighted people, anyway. But I have to say, I miss the jingling.’