“Speaking of recording, may I take a copy of that page before I go?”
“Yes, of course, by all means. I don’t have a scanner here in the house but I’ll go and find you some paper and a pen....” David provided Hamish with the necessary items and left him to copy out the names and dates on the page. He stuck his head back around the door a few minutes later just as Hamish was finishing. “Would you like to stay for a late lunch? I have a selection of Christmas leftovers that my daughters were kind enough to leave me when they went home, so we shouldn’t starve.”
They feasted on cold turkey and ham sandwiches, garnished with cranberry sauce and salad. While they ate, Hamish recapped on the events of the past twenty four hours for David’s benefit. “So,” David reiterated thoughtfully, brandishing his fork like a conductor’s baton as he spoke, “she takes food and she leaves you floral tributes? A fair trade, I suppose, as long as you are content with it? I think the sooner you find her the better, though... the weather forecast is slightly better for the next few days, but it’s predicted that we may get another fall of snow towards the end of the week and it’s not the best time of year to be living outside. Interesting, isn’t it, that ‘global warming’ has resulted in us getting these extended cold periods and these heavier falls of snow. I bet whoever thought up that phrase is wishing they’d called it something else.” He gave a short laugh, “And you’ve ended up with the village swans? Good on you. You’ll no doubt be lauded by the villagers for that. Poor old Attila had become something of a nuisance, but I think he’s just misunderstood, Robyn and Grant Watson retired down here from London a couple of years ago and thought it would be picturesque to have swans in their garden, but there’s more than one person in the village that will be happy to see the back end of those birds. Last summer, you know, Attila took it into his little bird-brain head to commandeer the pond on the green and wouldn’t let anyone near it for weeks. Some of the children sail their boats and play around in the water and they were too terrified of the swans to go anywhere near it. Then old Arthur Blaine, who likes to sit on the bench under the yew there on sunny days threatened to shoot him if he wasn’t moved, so it all created a bit of a stir ...I think the Watsons were at their wits end. Like a lot of city-dwellers, they came to the countryside with some rather unrealistic ideals of what life should be like here and got themselves into strife with the locals. And let’s be honest, Arthur can be a bit of a curmudgeon at times, I’ve had a few run-ins with him myself in the years I’ve been vicar here. You’ve met his daughter Sara?” Hamish nodded and David continued, “She was always a delightful kid, full of youthful high spirits and energy ...but she seemed like a round peg in a very square hole, if you know what I mean.”
“She’s already filled me in on some of her ‘history’, about leaving home and all.” Hamish was reticent to say more as although Sara had said she was quite open about her past he didn’t feel that it was his right to divulge any of her private life to others. But from David’s next statement it was clear that he knew all the details and had his own opinions about them.
“Yes, it was a sad time all round ...by the time I arrived, she was already in some minor trouble and I don’t think Arthur was the most enlightened father on this earth. He could be pretty repressive at times, and she didn’t respond well to it. She fought back by wagging school and hanging out with the worst friends she could find. Then, a year after I got here she left without saying anything, no note, no forwarding address, nothing. Arthur was gutted. She was his only child and he had no idea where she’d gone. He had an idea she might have taken off for London, but how do you find one person who may not want to found in a city of over ten million souls?”
“Yes …I know how easy it is to be anonymous in the city, even when you’re not trying to disappear. I almost got lost in it myself.” said Hamish. “And I, for one, am glad to be out of it.”
“Ah, you sound like a proponent of ‘God made the country, and man made the town’.” David said. He leaned forward, “Those are William Cowper’s words, not mine. I understand the sentiment, Hamish, but the English countryside is, I would say, a far cry from what it was when God made it. You haven’t exactly transported yourself to Eden, you know? We’re not exempt from any of the problems that plague our current age…broken relationships, abused children, theft, murder …they all happen in the country as well as the town.
Hamish paused and thought about his reply before saying, “I understand what you mean David, ...the countryside as it is may not be perfection personified, but it’s still better, as far as I’m concerned, than where I came from. It came to him in a moment of clarity. “It’s not that I hate London or any city for that matter. I just needed space to get away from people…it may sound a bit trite but I needed to find myself again.
He got up to leave. “Thanks for lunch, ...I’ll think I’ll go home and check out the bookshelves there to see if I can find anything on Virginia, Julianna, Briar, …whatever her name is.”
David said goodbye and Hamish left, taking the woodland shortcut back to White Briars. He checked in on Attila and Nefertiti in the pool glade. The swans were preening themselves by the water and Attila, apart from a rather feeble hiss, for the most part, ignored Hamish as he went by, giving the birds as wide a berth as the space allowed. Considering the ominous tales he’d heard about the male swan, Hamish took this as a promising sign. He scattered a generous handful of grain near the pool before carrying on to the house. The afternoon was spent indoors, fruitlessly searching the shelves for anything that might tell him more about Briar ...since the house had probably been named after her; he opted to settle on that one name for the time being. By six o'clock, he’d had enough.
***
The sky remained clear into the gathering dusk of the evening. Once it was dark Hamish rang Sara with an invitation for her and Matthew to come over to try out the telescope. As he spoke to Sara, he could hear Matthew in the background, saying, “Say yes, mum. Please say yes. ...Please, please, please.”
“It’s pitch black outside already, the air is still and there’s no moon so conditions are ideal. I’m here all evening so anytime would be fine,” Hamish said, adding, “You might want to remember to wear something warm ...we’ll take the telescope outside and it’s a wee bit nippy. Oh, and would you mind bringing some drinking chocolate mix with you if you have any ...I seem to have run out.”
“Weeell,” Sara said, laughter in her voice, “Matthew’s not all that keen, but...” Hamish could hardly miss the indignantly loud, “Mu...um!” She continued, laughing outright now, “looks like I’m gonna get lynched if I keep that up. We’ll be over in, say, half an hour? We’re just finishing up the dishes.”
True to her word, Sara and Matthew arrived thirty five minutes later. Hamish had lit the fire in the living room and spread a large star chart out on the floor. He and Matthew knelt down to look at it, Sara peering over their shoulders.
“O.K.,” he said, after finding out that Matthew knew none of the constellations spread before them. “Maybe it would be best if we concentrate on just two or three constellations this time. I could point out heaps of them once we get up there, but it’s better, I think, if you learn a few at a time and then you can build on that, otherwise it all gets horribly confusing. Hopefully, this way you’ll be able to remember them.” He pointed to the chart. “See here, this is Polaris, the North Pole star. It’s an important star because it’s almost directly in a line above the North Pole and all the other stars appear to revolve around it. It used to really important for navigation before everyone had GPS,” he said wryly, continuing “it’s a part of a constellation called Ursa Minor, -that means ‘little bear’. That’s a good one to start with - then …we can work our way over to Draco, the dragon, here,” he traced the line of the constellation with his finger, “see, there’s his head and see how his body wraps around Ursa minor, ...then from there we’ll be able to find Ursa major, over here.”
“Dragons and bear
s –cool. So if Ursa Minor is the little bear …Ursa Major must be the ‘big bear!’” Matthew trumpeted.
“Dead right,” Hamish said encouragingly. “I can see you’re going to be easy to teach. What you have to remember, though, is that when you’re looking up at the night sky, there’s none of these convenient lines joining the stars together to make constellations like there are on this chart and none of the pictures of the shapes either. It can all look pretty confusing when you first start to try and work it out. That’s why we’ll start with some of the brightest stars ...like these,” he pointed to seven, “This is called the plough, or the big dipper, see,” he pointed again, “there’s the handle and there’s the ploughshare or the cup. Or, you can think of it as the saddles on the bear ...see.” Hamish sat back “That’s enough of looking at the chart. Let’s go and check out the real thing. Coming?”
“Yeah, you bet ...are we going to go back up to that cool tower again?” Matthew enthused.
“Yes, I leave the telescope up there. But we’ll take it out onto the widows walk, so you’ll need your warm hat and coat and scarf ...and gloves, because it’s freezing up on the roof.”
“It’s alright,” Sara said, “the Sherpa’s got all the necessary gear.” Her arms were full of both her and Matthew’s extra clothing that he had thrown off when they had come into the house. “You can put these back on before you climb the ladder,” she said to her son. “I don’t want to be trying to climb up that thing with all this stuff in my arms.”
“I might be easier for him to climb without being encumbered by bulky clothes, Hamish said. “How about you give me Matthew’s clothing and I’ll give you this torch to carry,” he suggested to Sara. “I’ve been up and down the ladder more often and I’ll be less likely to trip.” Without waiting for Sara to refuse help, he took the pile of jackets and woollens out of her arms, handing her a small torch with a red filter over the lens. “We’ll need that. There’s no electric light up in the tower and anything else will just confuse our eyes.” Sara slipped her own jacket on and stuck the torch in a pocket.
In no time they were all assembled in the small tower room, warm gear on and ready to brave the outdoors. “Just watch that opening,” Hamish warned, pointing to the gaping black hole in the floor behind them, “I’ve got plans to build a railing around it, but in the meantime I don’t want to lose anyone down the hole.”
“This place isn’t really designed with children in mind is it?” Sara said.
“You’re the second woman who’s pointed that out to me.” Linda had said something similar. “I hadn’t really noticed, but I suppose not.” replied Hamish. “There’s only one bedroom really, if you discount the alcove. Maybe there have never been children in the house? Jonathan Kendal didn’t appear to have had any, but I can’t find any written histories on the place before then ...and believe me, I’ve been looking.”
“Has my dad been telling you his tales about White Briars?” Sara queried.
“Perhaps, but how about we talk about that later, right now we have some star gazing to do. Right, Matthew?”
“Right, Hamish!”
“That’s Right, Mr McAllister to you.” interrupted his mother. “Manners matter.”
“Right mum!” he said, saluting smartly. She cuffed him gently round the head. “Get outside you two.” She followed them through the low door.
Hamish had the telescope set up outside in minutes, then started to point out the constellations that he and Matthew had looked at on the chart.
“Phew, you’re right,” Matthew said, looking up and around, a note of respect in his voice. “There’s gazillions of them. How can you ever tell which one is which?”
“It’s like I said, start with one that’s easy to recognise and work from there. Follow my finger, see …there’s Polaris ...got it?” after a moment, Matthew nodded. They spent the next minutes completely absorbed in finding Draco, Ursa Minor and then Ursa Major; until Hamish was satisfied that Matthew could find them for himself. Sara, standing quietly in the background enjoyed the scene of her son being patiently instructed by Hamish.
“O.K., now that we’ve found the constellations, how would you like to take a closer look at them?” Hamish asked.
“Fly up there, you mean? Where’s the space ship?” Matthew grinned and looked around at his mother, pleased with his own joke.
“Ha-ha …I meant the telescope,” Hamish said, “but if you don’t want to ...”
“Oh no, please...” Matthew was at his winsome best.
“O.K., come over here then ...stand here and put your eye up to this,” Hamish pointed to the eyepiece. Matthew quickly did as he was instructed.
“What you’re seeing is a double star,” Hamish said. “I’ve stayed with Ursa Major for tonight ...that’s a star called Mizar ...it’s in the bend of the dipper’s handle. The reason it’s so bright is that it’s really two stars very close to another star called Alcor and they’re only eighty eight light years away.”
“What do you mean, eighty eight light years away?” Matthew asked, not taking his eye from the telescope.
“A light year is the distance that light travels in one year ...without getting too technical, that’s a very long way. What it means to us, looking at that star, is that the light from it has taken eighty eight years to get here ...so in reality, we’re looking at something that happened eighty eight years ago, tonight. Get it?”
“Wow ...so you mean it’s like we’re looking at the past?” Matthew said.
“Sort of, I guess. Except all these stars are different distances away from us.” Hamish swept his hand to include the whole night sky. That’s why some look brighter than others ...hang on a minute and I’ll set up the telescope to show you something else. You ever heard of a nebula? No? Well, see that star at the base of the pot? That’s Merak. It’s a beta star ...that means it’s the second brightest star in that particular constellation, the alpha stars are usually the brightest ...but we won’t get into that right now or I might just start to confuse you. Anyway, have a look through this now...” while he had been talking Hamish had adjusted the telescope. He moved aside to allow Matthew to see what he had trained the ‘scope onto.
“What’s this?” Matthew asked, intrigued, “It looks like two black blobs in a fuzzy white blob.”
“That’s a perfectly valid description,” Hamish said. “It’s called the owl nebula ...those two black blobs are supposed to be the owl’s eyes. Nebula is just the Latin name for a cloud ...it’s a new star forming.”
“You mean, like a baby star?
“That’s right ...and next to it, between the owl and Merak there is another galaxy, probably a lot like ours, called M108. Not a very exciting name is it? You know what our galaxy is called?” Matthew shook his head. “No? Well it’s the Milky Way. You know ...like the chocolate bar. Every star you can see up there without a telescope is in the Milky Way. But what I wanted to tell you was that that galaxy with the boring name is thirty five million light years away ...imagine that. And there are supposed to be billions of galaxies out there, Matthew …there’s so much going on above our heads ...comets, black holes, planetary nebulae ...it’s a regular three-ringed circus up there...”
“Wow!” Matthew was awestruck.
“I think we should call it a night now, before you start to get too cold.” Hamish didn’t want to overload the boy with too much information and he could see Matthew shivering. “Let’s go down and make a hot drink. It’s a good thing you brought the drinking chocolate, otherwise we might have to have coffee or tea ...or hot jelly.”
“Hot jelly sounds yum!” Matthew wasn’t put off by the idea but his mother made a face.
Hamish prepared the drinks, hot chocolates for Sara and himself and hot lime-green jelly for Matthew, who said it looked like goblin snot, which made it all the more enjoyable. Hamish laughed, and Sara retorted that she was sending their next dentist bill his way. Hamish and Sara sat with theirs in front of the small study firepl
ace while Matthew stretched out on the banquette seat behind the kitchen table, pulling out an iPod from his jacket pocket and plugging tiny headphones into his ears.
“Thanks very much for tonight,” Sara said, hugging her warm mug in her clasped hands while staring into the flames. “You were great with him, explaining all that stuff. I really appreciate how patient you were ...I know he can be a bit of a handful sometimes.” Her brow furrowed in a worried frown as she watched the dancing flames.
“I wouldn’t say that,” Hamish objected. He thought privately that she needed to learn to relax a bit but kept that thought to himself, saying instead, “He’s a perfectly nice normal boy...and he’s a pleasure to teach. He’s interested and he learns fast. He picked up a lot of information in a very short time tonight.” He prodded her lightly on the shoulder closest to him. “It’s you who’s doing a great job. You should be proud of him.”
“I am, believe me ...but I do worry. I don’t want him to make the same horrible mistakes that I did when I wasn’t much older than he is now.” she sighed heavily, “Please don’t take this the wrong way and think I’m hitting on you , ‘cos I’m not,” she sighed again, “…but he needs a man’s influence. It’s been hard enough bringing him up without a father this far ...and I’m getting the feeling that it’s about to get a lot harder. Mattie’s starting to push his limits with me all the time and it’s getting to me. My dad tries to help, bless him, but he’s getting old and his natural inclinations are to be as hard on Matthew as he was on me, ...and that doesn’t sit at all well with me.”
“Well, I’m happy to help anyhow I can. Matthew’s welcome to come over here as often as he likes ...I’m not painting at the moment but I have to start again soon. I’m starting to miss it and that’s always a sure sign that I need to get the paint brushes and palette knives out –so I won’t be able to spend as much time as I have been in the garden ...perhaps he could help around the garden if he wants. And there are a LOT more constellations to find if he’s interested, not to mention the moon and a few planets we could look at. I’d forgotten how much I used to enjoy looking at the stars ...London has too many bright lights to make star gazing much of a possibility. It was hopeless. I had an old telescope that I’d had since I was a boy but I gave it away after the first year. One of my cousin’s children up in Scotland has been making good use of it. This new one is much fancier though ...we’ll be able to see a lot more, and there’s a small private observatory down near Tenterden that I know of that I’m sure I could arrange to take Matthew to. If you think he’d like that?”
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