Star Shot (25 page)

But not, he says softly, in a good way?

No, she says. In a frightening way.

Why?

I dream things, and then I see them; as if I've made them happen. That's not right.

Tell me.

She describes the frozen star in the book on the table. I dreamed it exactly, made of glass, weeks ago, in the hospital. It was terrible. What is it doing here?

Lina's Radiolaria, he says, reasonably. Beautiful things. Why was it terrible?

She won't say; she shakes her head impatiently. And then I come downstairs, she says, and I see your mother's drawings on the table, and there's the woman lying naked, and the face all made of spheres, and I dreamed them too, in the hospital, and that can't be right, and so I'm going mad, and I'll have to go back there, or worse, and I thought it was all, suddenly, going to be so much so much so much better… She is sobbing now, a whole evening of tension released in tears. He holds her tight and strokes her cropped hair and her wet cheeks and lets her cry.

You, he says, are not even eighteenth-century mad. You are far and away the sanest person I have ever met.

Later, as she lies curled up fast asleep in the small room off the study he sits and thinks, and searches through his mind for clues. And after a long while he remembers the name, Galatea, and he sets off hunting through the internet, chasing lines of text and images out in the far reaches of cyberspace.

76.

He calls in discreetly at the office to copy files from a computer, and then at his flat to change and shower and pick up clean clothes and nappies and Teddy's manky old rabbit, who is sorely missed. Then he heads down to the station, and waits for the next train with a coffee and a sandwich, feeling the gathering energy inside him as his ideas gather shape.

He had slept on the sofa at the professor's flat, and made him a Californian breakfast, piles of fresh fruit with granola, and yoghurt and honey, and a small strong coffee that visibly shook him awake. Then, while the older man showered, he had changed the sweat-soaked sheets and made up the bed again, opening windows, letting in the bright air. They had continued last night's conversation, and after looking through maps and hearing more about the situation in the university, the professor had finally been persuaded to face some of the messages piled up inside his phone. Between them, for over an hour, they had worked out an immediate strategy to get round the lock-down on their project. Luke had shown him, in more detail, Theo's map with all the ponds; and the professor had told Luke, very briefly, and before a new rush of fatigue had sent him back to bed, about the unofficial deal with the castle.

We have about a fortnight, he said. God, I need my strength back for this.

Luke stares with some interest at the electronic noticeboard and notes the number of trains delayed and cancelled, and wonders if this is a new development, or an old one worsening, and whether the interference is involved here too. He can ask Theo, he supposes, he would know. Looking down to check that both of his bags are under the bench, he sees the rabbit's ears poking out of his knapsack. Feeling slightly self-conscious, though no one at all is watching, he pushes them further in.

A couple of hours later the rabbit is the first thing to be pulled out of the bag; the sheer force of Teddy's mute delight makes them all clap and shout.

Though why, says Luke, it is a rabbit and not a bear I still don't know.

Oh there were bears enough when he was born, says Dan, pouring him a glass of wine; but it'd be confusing to have another Teddy around.

Isn't Theo one? says Luke, I mean, aren't you both named after Roosevelt? Theodore?

Nope, says Dan. Ted Hughes.

Theophilus, says Theo.

Bloody hell.

I know. Don't tell anyone. Family name. A proud line of obsessives.

Myra is on the sofa, shaking with laughter.

You can't possibly…

I can, he says. And I am.

They cook and eat, and afterwards clear the table for a council of war. Theo fetches the big wall map down from his study, and spreads it out, pinning down its corners with half-drunk glasses and coffee cups and mugs of peppermint tea.

Well, he says. Tell us.

And Luke tells them, carefully and slowly, everything he now knows and everything he has thought of since yesterday. Theo looks at him in admiration.

That, he says, is one hell of a plan. I was only halfway there; I can't believe you've got us access.

Are you sure, says Dan, about the deal with the castle? I mean, do you know if the Scottish lot really have any power? I thought ButeCo was pretty well just a corporate entity; I assumed they'd bought, or you know, just retained, the use of the name… Can they really grant access? If the official line is so dead set against anyone even mentioning the castle?

Luke shrugs. The professor wouldn't say much about what, ah, happened up there. Just that he's been, and that they do have access, for this performance, those three days. One to set up and rehearse – it's complex stuff, apparently, and then some kind of, ah, special showing, on the second night for them, for the family and anyone they care to invite. And then a day to take it all down.

It is complex, says Myra, incredibly complex; I saw them in London about ten years ago, they were astonishing. She was still dancing then. Do we get to watch too? Have you met her?

Luke shakes his head. No, he says. Never. But I don't see why we shouldn't get ourselves invited.

So suppose, says Theo, pulling them back to the problem. Suppose we do have access, for those three days. What then?

Luke laughs. Ah, you know what then, he says. You know perfectly well what then.

Lot of work, though, says Theo, shaking his head. But then we won't get another chance like this.

Dan looks at them both, and again at the two maps, and suddenly gets it. He grins triumphantly round the table.

Teddy and I, he says, know a man with a digger.

77.

There were not so many messages, in the end. She is too proud to persist, he thinks, to keep flinging herself at my inbox. Fair enough. She doesn't do melodrama. The unread texts cluster at the bottom of the list; ten days ago, a week. Then nothing at all. There doesn't seem much point in reading them now.

He does not know what to think, or what to do. Apologise. Make excuses. I was protecting you. I didn't want to infect you. I was ashamed. Of course he wishes he had woken out of the nightmare to coffee and yoghurt and piles of fresh fruit and sunlight and her. But he is a realist, and hardly such a fool as to think that a handful of unanswered messages might bring her running the length of Wales, leaving her performers dangling in mid-air from their silken ropes.

Although, he thinks, I could have thrown myself off Ben bloody Nevis a week ago and you, my love, would be absolutely none the wiser.

Nonetheless, he has to know if she is still coming.

He shaves, and glares at the man who emerges. The man glares back. He dresses properly, for the first time since staggering home from the station. Then he makes himself a coffee and cuts a slice of fresh bread, blessing Luke for the hundredth time, and sits at the kitchen table wondering what on earth to say that will not sound trite or self-pitying or off-hand. In the end all he does is write her name, Meg, and press send. Then he pushes his hands hard against his eyes to try and stop tears forcing their way through the closed lids.

When he opens his eyes again there is a response.

Yma.

He smiles in spite of himself. No you're not, he thinks. But this will do.

He asks if she is still coming. Yes, she says, yes, it's shaping now. They will travel down on the nineteenth; they need accommodation for seven people and parking for two lorries. And can the university or the castle supply the seating?

He cannot tell her how far he is from being able to organise anything. That he is as weak and directionless as an animal that has lost pints of blood; that he knows now for certain he has no power at work anymore; a brusque email from HR has confirmed his suspension. But he thinks of Luke, and Luke's friends, and promises her that these things will be done.

Diolch
, he adds, after a while.
Diolch
.

There is silence from her end, and then she asks:
Ti'n iawn?

He sips his coffee and thinks about the question.

No, he replies. Not really.

I thought not.

They leave it at that.

78.

There are indeed, he finds, discreet, almost beautiful rolls of tiny metal spikes woven all along the tops of the railings and the mossy stone walls. He hunts out the old places, where the bent and buckled metal used to let him in and out, and finds only lines of neat, straight bars. The gates and doors have new swipelocks fitted. They really have been busy, he thinks, this last month or so. But thank god they are not finished quite yet: there is one last place where Luke can climb over later on. He's nervous, of course. Afraid he'll fuck up the controls, run amok, wake the neighbours: police cars
and
diggers, imagine how thrilled Teddy would be. Wishes he had Theo to defer to. But they've all agreed this is the best chance they'll get, before the Parks work is done and Rhod moves on. The machines themselves are still around, clustered for the night up near the offices, behind the big information display set up by the Parks and Gardens Charitable Foundation, who have gone to no end of trouble to engage with the public and explain in words and pictures, in numbers and diagrams, how vastly improved the Citizen Park Experience will soon be.

They had all come in earlier that afternoon in the van, dropping Myra at her flat to collect more clothes. She would stay in town tonight, she said, and sort a few things out. Theo had finally persuaded his mother to try the wheelchair, and with Lina pushing Teddy in the buggy they had walked along the river in a rich yellow light and had tea in one of the cafes, and admired the massed bright daisies and the scented roses. Then they had found a spot behind the castle, far enough away to be out of the cold, and spread out a couple of blankets, settling down to read and nap and unobtrusively explore the area foot by careful foot, translating the maps and the sketches made that morning into features on the ground. Luke, in a high-viz jacket, had produced a clipboard and scrambled down to take pictures of the emptied external moat. Dan and Teddy went off to look for Rhod.

Digger!
said Rhod enthusiastically, holding Teddy on his lap so Dan could climb up to join them.
Yellow digger!
You're driving it, mate! Look at you go now – go on, say
digger
, then, there's a lad.

He's not saying anything these days, said Dan, and told him why.

Bastards, said Rhod, with non-specific disdain. What's a little man like that ever done to them?

He fished a key out of his jacket pocket.

As promised; got you this. It's a copy. All yours. And the pipes are in the back here. I'd do it myself but my job's already on the line. You know what to do? You got help?

Yes, said Dan. I know what to do. And I have got help. When's best, do you think?