I walk past the inexplicably French “Jardin des Sports” and towards the “Subtropical Swimming Paradise.” In the middle of the park, I spot a sign with the least exotic of all the place names on it: “The Venue.” The building ahead is wooden and angular, in keeping with the rest of the architecture at Center Parcs. However, other places I’ve passed have been decorated with colourful canopies and bright outdoor furniture. This place has none of that stuff. It means business.
I have one last attempt at smoothing out the creases of my outfit, and head towards the entrance.
Outside, a few people are smoking. Are any of them fellow space hopefuls? If so, are they trying to quit, or will they break the habit once their seats to Mars are secured? Perhaps their plan is to go cold turkey at lift-off. I used to know a saturation diver called Bill who smoked twenty cigarettes a day. He had to go without them every time he went into the chamber. “Don’t do me no harm,” Bill would say, shrugging his broad shoulders, but we could see him, jiggling his legs up and down, sticking on patch after patch, counting down the days until he was set free. Last I heard he’d given up diving and had become a children’s entertainer.
As soon as I enter the building, I see a metal stand with a piece of A4 in its frame, displaying the words “Mars Conference.” I’m tempted to pull out my phone and take a picture, but I hear voices close behind me.
A woman says: “It was either this or go and work for Elon Musk in LA.”
A man replies: “Yup. Yup. Yup. I know what you mean.”
I walk briskly in the direction of the arrow until I come to a table full of badges.
“Name,” says a man in a tweed jacket.
I tell him what he wants to hear, and he hands me a badge.
“Cloakroom on your left. Refreshments yonder.”
Some people might call this man abrupt, but I admire his efficiency. Rather than waste his time with words, I thank him with a nod and head for the snacks.
I’d been half expecting space food to be served here: tubes of applesauce or freeze-dried eggs. I’ve heard that NASA is currently developing 3D-printed food. A 3D-printed fry-up would sort my hangover right out. Still, a croissant and coffee will suffice. I help myself, then find a chair. The coffee tastes okay. Coffee is normally a reliable first indicator. If the coffee’s good, you can be optimistic about the rest.
There must be about fifty of us in the foyer so far. A few look as if they’re about to be interviewed for slick finance jobs. Others don’t. I can count eight NASA T-shirts from where I’m sitting. Someone has a Ziggy Stardust flash over his right eye, and there are a couple of steampunks over in the corner, wearing trench coats, top hats, pocket watches, and mechanical accessories. I look down at my boring outfit and wonder if the mundane, practical look might be exactly what the organisers are after.
The male-female split is roughly fifty-fifty. That sort of thing shouldn’t be a shock, but perhaps because I’m the only woman on my dive team, I mistakenly assumed I was going to be outnumbered here too. Normally it spurs me on, being among men, feeling like I have to prove myself. Here, there’s no way I can coast through to the next round of the contest by being “the token woman.” I need to find a way to stand out.
There’s a red-haired woman picking up a pain au chocolat at the refreshments table who’s clearly pregnant. Must be at least seven or eight months gone. She’s wearing a floral dress, and she looks very feminine and, frankly, very out of place. I wonder if she’s an administrator or one of the speakers. I blush as she looks over in my direction, but she hasn’t caught me staring. She’s spotted the empty seat beside me, and heads over. We eat our pastries side by side, and I focus on other things: the teenage girl manning the coffee machine, the various levels of polish on delegates’ shoes, the faux chandelier above the refreshments table.
After a few minutes, the door to the Major Oak Suite opens. I want to make sure I get a good seat, so I put down my empty cup and plate, wipe my greasy hands on my trousers, and head in.
The room is impersonal: rows of black chairs facing a stage, on which there is a podium, a screen, and a large speaker system. No space paraphernalia. No to-scale model of the pod that the first humans on Mars will be residing in. Nothing to give away the momentous nature of today’s event, other than another piece of A4 paper, with “Mars Conference” printed across the middle of it in black ink.
I opt for the third row: keen, without being too eager. Two young women in tinfoil hats make a big fuss of squeezing past me, irritated that I’ve picked an aisle seat. I don’t really care. I’m damned if two girls wearing tinfoil are going to have a better view than I am.
One of the final stragglers to enter the room is the pregnant woman. She takes a seat at the front.
There’s a crackle on the speakers, and Bowie’s “Life on Mars?” begins to play. Everyone falls silent, as if we’re at church listening to the organ while we wait for the coffin to be carried in. Bowie sings to us about sunken dreams and saddening bores, and then, as the music dies down, I hear the woman in the tinfoil hat next to me hiss to her companion: “As a matter of fact, that song has nothing to do with Mars.” I miss her friend’s response,
