The Ecliptic (32 page)

‘Pardon me?’

‘Who told you I could help?’

‘I’m sorry. The librarian thought—’

‘She
knows
. I told her fifty times. It’s my day off.’

‘Oh. Then why are you here?’

‘Because I’m trying to do some research of my own.’

‘Snap,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you.’

‘It’s all right, it’s all right.’ He sighed. ‘You might as well have a seat. I can take a few minutes out of the tedium, I suppose.’

‘You’re very kind,’ I said. ‘Thank you.’

There was an uncomfortable moment in which I thought he sniffed my hair as I sat down at the nearest table, but it was only his peculiar way of breathing. ‘Excuse my hay fever,’ he
said, standing over me. ‘Tell me what you need.’

I laid out the reference book, pointing to the extract I wanted him to clarify. He leaned in, placing a hand at the back of my chair. ‘What I don’t understand,’ I said,
shifting away, ‘is how the line is imaginary.’

‘It’s imaginary in the same sense as the equator and the celestial sphere,’ he replied. ‘Simple.’

I blinked back at him.

‘Oh dear. You’d better shift over.’ Wearily hooking his glasses back on his ears, he sat down in the space beside me. He turned back his sleeves. ‘All right. Astronomy
for naïfs, lesson one. The celestial sphere.’ He talked very quickly and flatly, as though dictating a letter: ‘The way we envision the stars is by imagining they’re attached
to a giant invisible sphere surrounding the earth. It’s a total fiction, really—just a construction we came up with to help us get our heads around the complexity of it all. And, of
course, we can only see half of this sphere at any given time. So, you could say it’s more like a dome, or a semi-sphere, but we prefer not to call it that. Our prerogative.
Anyway—’ He tapped the page: one heavy clop of his index finger to get my attention. ‘The ecliptic, put simply, is the plane of the earth’s orbit around the sun. But since
we all live here on earth, we observe the sun to be moving along this plane instead. Why? Because what would be the point of looking at things from the perspective of the sun? That’s no use
to anyone. And it’s important to have a governing system.’ He nudged closer, wetting his lips. ‘Ergo, it’s an
imaginary
circle, as it’s only a part of our
human construction of the cosmos. To call it a genuine circle would be quite incorrect. But to avoid confusion, we say that the sun moves in a circular path through the stars over the course of the
year. We can observe it going eastwards through the constellations along a sort of line. That line is what we call the ecliptic. It’s not actually there, of course. In fact, it’s a
complete inversion, because it’s really the earth that’s moving, not the sun. But to all intents and purposes, it’s a bloody great circular line in the sky made by the sun
throughout the year.’ His brow was crumpled now. ‘It seems I’m quite incapable of explaining this succinctly. Shall I draw you a picture?’

Perhaps the only way to describe the cosmos was by analogy. The archivist took out a notebook and a pencil. ‘Imagine the sun is on top of this maypole, here.’ He made a line with a
head like a matchstick. ‘And you’re the earth, dancing round it. For the sake of time, let’s forget about the fact that you’re tilted at twenty-three and a bit degrees to
the pole—it only complicates things.’ He drew a wobbly circle and marked it with a cross, then added a dotted line to show my viewpoint with a smaller cross on the opposite side.

He moved the pencil slowly in a clockwise loop. ‘So, from your point of view, keeping your eyes on the tip of the maypole as you go round, it seems to track out a circle against the
celestial sky. That circle would be your ecliptic. It’s not actually there; it’s just the way you perceive it. Really, it’s
you
that’s going in circles. The maypole
stays where it is. Understand now?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘The picture helped.’

‘Oh good. Welcome to basic astronomy,’ he replied. ‘Now you’d better let me get on with wasting my day off.’

‘What are you researching, if you don’t mind my asking?’

‘I’ve been trying to write a biography of Eddington for a while now.’

‘Edison?’

‘
No
. Good gracious, why does everybody say that?’ He closed my reference book. ‘One day, people are going to stop asking me that question. They’ll say, “Ah
yes, Eddington, of course
.
” And I shall have a good old laugh about it. Until then—’ He slid the book to me under the tow of his middle finger. ‘Best of
luck.’

I never got the chance to thank him properly. He was already on his feet, browsing the shelves.

When I got back to my studio, the stars in my mural seemed dimmer. I could not see a way that I could include the ecliptic or the equator in the form that I had originally devised. To present
imaginary lines as ropes—solid, tangible things—felt insincere. But to show them as candy-striped tracks, as Jamieson had done, seemed equally wrong. How could I represent things that
were themselves just representations of other people’s representations? And how could I make them fit the themes of my design without contriving them? I could not continue with the painting
until I had resolved these issues in my mind. And so it stayed on the stretchers, half-made.

For a time, the telephone did not ring at all—nobody cared where I was or what I was doing. But, after a week or so, the calls became more frequent and more difficult to ignore. I left the
phone unhooked and, when the bellyaching noise started to bother me, I cut the wire.

The problem seemed to be in the materials themselves: oil paints were versatile, but they could not give me the illusory qualities I wanted. Graphite on paper was so categorical, ink so
permanent. Gouache was flat, acrylic like toothpaste. I was aiming to show lines that were not really there, and felt limited by the tools at my disposal. There were tricks of perspective I
attempted: re-ordering my scrapyard of ships so that the arc of their upturned hulls, the shadows of their masts, the limits of their sails were subtly aligned and, from a certain angle, alluded to
an arcing line. But doing this ruined the balance of the image: what had been an ordered jumble became a clot of pieces, too conveniently manoeuvred into position.

I thought of masking certain areas of the painting, using vacancies in the drawing to suggest a lurking presence. This worked fine on paper, but when I came to transfer it to the canvas, the
image looked skeletal, dead. I needed to find some method of getting the paint to vary with the light or decay over the course of time. Ripolin might well have worked, but I did not know where to
acquire it or if it was still being manufactured. I mixed various types of glue into the paints I had—no luck; it hardened them or glossed them or turned them lumpy. My telephone was broken
so I could not ring around to ask the dealers for their suggestions. And what would I have said? ‘I want something to make my lines look more imaginary.’ ‘
Ah,
yes—I’ve got just the thing. When can you come and collect it?’
‘Don’t you deliver? I can’t go outside.’ ‘
No, you’ll have to come and
get it. Our delivery boy is sick.
’ ‘But, I can’t leave the flat.’ ‘
Why not? What’s wrong with you?
’ ‘I can’t leave my work,
that’s all.’ Going outside was simply not possible. It was foggy out there. Full of noises. I had stapled the curtains. Nothing could get in. The water was brown when it came from the
taps, but I was still drinking it. So what? Work my way through it—that was the best thing. Just like my parents. Get my head down. No complaining.

The phone rang.

Paul Christopher.

No.

Someone was buzzing. Down there, on the street, at my door.

A startling racket.
Bzz-bzz
,
bzz-bzz-bzz
. I could not see out the window.
Bzz-bzz-bzz-bzz, bzz-bzz.
It did not go away until I pressed the button.

Different feet this time, not Dulcie’s. The thumping on the stairs was deeper. A man’s. I looked through the spyhole.

Victor Yail. He was in a cricket jumper, but he still had his briefcase. As he leaned in to knock, his face bent and swelled. I undid the latch.

He stood on the landing, peering into the flat. ‘Thought you’d like some fresh air.’

I shook my head.

‘Just a quick walk to the corner and back. We shan’t go far.’

I did not move.

‘OK. Then would you please let me in?’

I held the door open for him.

‘You missed your last few appointments,’ he said, surveying the room with tightened eyes.

I closed all the locks.

‘Is this the mural? It’s enormous.’

‘Don’t touch it,’ I said.

He turned sharply, looking for a clean spot on the floor to set his case down, and settled for the milk crate near the kitchen counter. ‘Is it all right if I look around a bit? I promise I
won’t move anything.’

‘What are you doing here, Victor?’ I asked.

‘Well,’ he said, piloting a route between the obstacles around him. Boxes, jam-jars, soup cans. ‘If you drop off the radar for several weeks without a word, people get
concerned.’ Bottles, paper, tin foil. Clods of paint and drips of ink. ‘Dulcie got in touch. She said she’d tried to phone but you weren’t answering.’ Dishes, plates,
and parcel tape. Paint rags, clothing, bits of wire. ‘Happened a few times now, she said. So I thought I’d come over.’ Knives and forks and spoons and spatulas. ‘I’m
very glad I did. What’s
this
?’ He pointed to the bench where I had been working on my pigments.

‘A mortar and pestle,’ I told him.

‘I can see that. What’s inside?’

‘An experiment.’

‘Did it work?’

‘Not yet.’

‘Uh-huh,’ Victor said. And, when he turned back to me, he was holding something in his hand: a brown glass bottle with a torn-off label. In a kind of pantomime, he turned it upside
down to show me it was empty. ‘Where are they?’ he asked.

I shrugged. I was not exactly sure I could account for all of them. Some were skinned over in the cans about his feet, some congealed on scraps of paper, some had made it to the small test
canvases in stacks under the window—the firewood pile, I liked to think of it. The rest could have been anywhere.

‘Ellie, how long have you been grinding up your tablets like this?’

Again, I was not sure. But I answered, ‘A week or so.’

‘I gave you a month’s supply. Are they all gone?’

I shrugged again.

Looking earnestly into my eyes, he said, ‘Well, this is quite a setback, Ellie, I won’t lie to you.’ He tossed the bottle onto the couch. It made an oddly noiseless landing.
‘We need to get you back on those right away. You can’t just suddenly stop. It’ll shock your system.’ He went to his briefcase, treading without care. A rag stuck to his
shoe. In the top compartment, he found his prescription pad and filled out a sheet. ‘As soon as the pharmacy opens tomorrow, take this, do you hear me?’

I sat down. The muscles in my legs felt hard as metal.

‘In fact, here—’ He drew something from a different pocket of the case. Another bottle: plastic, rattling. He made to throw it, then decided not to. ‘These are
Jonathan’s. He takes them for his bedwetting. It’s Tofranil, the same as yours but a very low dosage.’ He pressed them into my hand. ‘I keep them with me for emergencies.
Take them. They’ll tide you over till tomorrow.’

‘What for?’ I asked. I was so tired.

‘Don’t worry what for. You’d better have something in your stomach first,’ he said. ‘How long has it been since you ate?’ He went rummaging in my kitchen. The
fridge door opened, the fridge door closed. ‘Crikey,’ he said. ‘Fish paste and sweetcorn. No wonder you look malnourished.’ And he rolled up his sleeves to muck out my sink.
‘Is there someone who could stay with you tonight? A friend, a neighbour? I don’t think you should be alone at the moment.’

‘No.’ I looked down at the bottle. ‘No one else.’

‘What about the people downstairs?’

‘I don’t know them very well.’

‘Your parents?’

‘Miles away.’

‘Dulcie, then.’

‘You must be joking.’

Victor heaved out a sigh. He wiped his forehead with the crook of his wrist, soapsuds clinging to his arm-hairs. ‘I’ve a spare room at home,’ he said. ‘I don’t want
to insist, but I can’t let you stay here alone. It’ll just be for the night.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I can’t leave my work.’

And he repeated the words back to me, slower. ‘You can’t leave your work. All right.’ He surveyed the room, nodding. ‘I’ll stay here tonight then. As a friend. I
just need to use your phone.’ But when he got to the wall, he found the wire had been snipped. ‘Actually, there’s a phone box down the road. Why don’t I bring us back some
fish and chips, eh? My treat.’ He took my door keys from the kitchen counter. ‘Won’t be long.’

He came back a while later in a different set of clothes and without his briefcase. Instead, he had a leather overnight bag and a box of groceries. ‘The chip shops were all closed, so
I’ve brought you some provisions from home.’ Unpacking the box, he showed me everything he had: sardines and mackerel in tins, bread rolls, canned tomatoes, rice, Oxo cubes, an onion, a
pint of milk, some parcelled meat. ‘I’ll get cooking,’ he said, ‘once I’ve cleaned this place up a bit. Why don’t you come and keep me company?’