I give him a glass of water and make him a hot-water bottle, and then I sit at the kitchen table. I listen to the clock ticking for a while. Reminds me that I’ve got my Mars interview coming up. Reminds me of everything.
I creep upstairs; then I sit on my bed and take a folder out of the bottom drawer of my bedside table. This is the folder that Dad gave me: Mum’s stuff.
I pull out the top few sheets of paper and look again at the computer game my mum was designing. “Blue hall.” “Weapons deck.” “Outskirts of village.” “Broken cage.” “Metal floor.” Her handwriting really is manic.
I look again at the letters she wrote beside the lines connecting boxes: P, S, A, F, U, D. Port and starboard, I think suddenly. Aft and fore. I know my nautical terms. But U and D? What could they be? Up and down?
I switch on my phone and go to Safari. In the search box, I type in some of the phrases on the page. The first result that comes up is entitled “Game Solution: Starcross.” The second is a Wikipedia entry. I select that.
It tells me that Starcross was a computer game released in 1982. It’s set in the future, and the player’s character is a lone space traveller on the lookout for treasure in black holes. One day, he finds a mysterious spacecraft and climbs on board looking for answers . . .
I know that it shouldn’t matter that Mum didn’t design this game. I know it’s okay that these are only notes she made for a game that she was playing. A game designed by someone else.
It’s just: I really did think she was a genius. A pioneer. I thought she had grand plans. But the mother I’ve been dreaming about is a mythical creature. My actual mother, the mother I can see here, the mother my dad told me about tonight—she was as confused and scared as I am.
I put the paper back into the folder and hug my knees. I bite my right leg through my jeans. This is a position I’ve adopted ever since I was a girl. I could sit like this for an hour at a time back then. Now it’s not so comfortable.
“Argh,” I say quietly, to my knee. “Argh.”
I sit up straight again and look out of the window at the waning crescent. There’s an urban legend that all twelve men who walked on the moon went mad upon their return to Earth.
At least they were able to return.
33
James has agreed to meet me for a walk along the promenade. A promenade in Penzance. The reality is not as splendid as it sounds. B&Bs, a petrol station, and an enormous Lidl don’t do the seafront any favours. Nor do the Christmas decorations hanging over the roads. Pale Santas and ghostly wreaths loom unlit in the November sky.
For a moment, I don’t recognise him as he approaches. His hair is scraped back into a bun. He’s got a neck tattoo—a neck tattoo! Most remarkable of all, he’s wearing glasses. They’re thin and round, in the “John Lennon” style. As far as I’m aware, James has twenty-twenty vision. But with the glasses and everything else, he looks like a different person, and I imagine that’s the intended effect. If I’ve transformed this much on the outside, imagine what I’m like on the inside. My feelings about you have changed irrevocably.
I didn’t even consider my appearance before leaving the house. I’m just the same old Solvig. Short, unkempt hair, old jeans, faded sweatshirt, parka, frown.
James isn’t wearing a coat. He’s in a navy fisherman’s jumper with the sleeves rolled up. He looks so huggable that I have to keep my hands in my pockets.
He stops before he reaches me. “Good morning, Solvig. Shall we walk?”
Why yes, Mr. Darcy, I think sarcastically. Let’s perambulate.
“I thought you found neck tattoos too full-on,” I say, as we begin to stride.
“It’s the god Khepri.”
“Not a dung beetle, then.”
“He pushed the sun across the sky.”
“Like a ball of dung.” I thrust my hands into my pockets, listening to the sound of the waves. This too shall pass.
“Look, Solvig, I’ve got some stuff I need to talk to you about,” says James. I know it’s not that long since I last saw him—less than two months—but I’d almost forgotten about the way his hands jerk out when he’s building up to disclosing something. I’ve seen him do it a thousand times before, but it seems so intoxicating when accompanied by the threat of never seeing him again.
“I was the one that asked to meet up,” I say. “I need to talk to you. But you go first if you like. I’d like to hear what you have to say.” Actually, I don’t want to hear a word of it. I want to say my piece, and then I want James to hold me until I stop hurting.
“Let’s head onto the beach,” James says, pointing at some steps leading down to the sand. “Don’t tread on anything that looks like a plastic bag. Portuguese man-o’-wars have been washing up lately. Their tentacles—which are venomous, by the way—can be over thirty metres long.”
Even at a time like this, James can’t resist explaining something to me. He must have told me about the Portuguese man-o’-war’s venomous tentacles at least half a dozen times since we met. And how the creature is not even technically an it but rather a they. A colony of organisms working together.
I’ll be sad if James never explains anything to me ever again. I used to see his lectures as a little conceited. Maybe he’s just interested in things, and he wanted to share those interests with me. I wish I’d shared more with him in return.
“I’ve been thinking about what you told me,” James says as we walk towards the sea. “About what
