Bright and Dangerous Objects Read online

  BRIGHT

  AND

  DANGEROUS

  OBJECTS

  ANNELIESE MACKINTOSH

  TIN HOUSE / Portland, Oregon

  For Apollo and Socrates

  To light a candle is to cast a shadow. . .

  —URSULA K. LE GUIN, A Wizard of Earthsea

  PART ONE

  1

  “It’s incredible,” I tell James. “I’m sitting here with you, but I’m looking light-years away.”

  We’re at St. Agnes Head, one of the best Dark Sky sites in Cornwall. “Some of these stars no longer exist,” I say. “They’re already dead.”

  James takes a swig of whisky.

  The moon is in its first-quarter phase. If I keep the binoculars steady, I can make out grey patches on its surface. They’re lava plains, but early astronomers mistook them for oceans, so they’ve got wonderful names: Sea of Serenity, Sea of Crises, Sea That Has Become Known.

  “This place is so quiet,” James says. “Hard to believe how much has happened on the ground under our feet. You know, St. Agnes Head was once an artillery range?”

  “Wow,” I say. “I’ve found Mars.” Somehow, in spite of my interest in space, I’ve always managed to miss Mars. But here it is, completely unmistakable, a tarnished two-pence piece in the sky.

  James walks away from me.

  “Don’t you want to see it?”

  “In a minute. You know, this heathland is an ideal habitat for spiders.”

  It’s almost pitch black, so I’m not sure how James is expecting to see spiders, but he gets like this after a few drinks. Finds himself a preposterous mission to embark on. I suppose we’re alike in that respect.

  I point the binoculars southwards again, but Mars has disappeared. It doesn’t help that I’m shivering, and when the lenses shake, the sky looks like television static. I take a bottle of peppermint vodka out of my pocket. I first tried this when we visited the Arctic Circle two years ago. It’s become our tradition when we go stargazing now: James with his whisky, me with my mint vodka.

  “Do you remember that trip to Finland?” I ask. “When we saw the Perseid meteor shower?”

  “I do.” James heads back towards me. “I wonder how many meteors we saw that night. One, two hundred? We ate reindeer.”

  “I’d forgotten about the Rudolph steaks.”

  James sits beside me, on the rug we’ve laid down in a gap between the gorse bushes. “Where’s this planet, then?”

  “I’ve lost it.”

  The fleece of James’s collar brushes my neck. “You’ll find it, sweetheart.”

  I could suggest we take our clothes off, right here and now, in the freezing January night. We could get horny and hypothermic.

  “Shouldn’t have taken my eyes off it.” I’m not sure why my brain makes me say this. Why it doesn’t suggest sex.

  “I’m pleased with these.” James taps the binoculars. He recently inherited them from his great-grandfather. A relic, originally used on a German U-boat in the Second World War. Last year, we went to Bodmin Moor with a telescope so complicated we spent the entire time gazing at an instruction manual.

  “Wait. I’ve got it.” I can’t see any of the features, obviously— the craters or polar caps—but I can see enough to make me feel light-headed. Without moving, I ask, “Do you think there’s life up there?”

  James sniffs. “It’s entirely possible there’s some bacteria.”

  “I hope we discover that bacteria in our lifetime.” “Discover it? We’ll be living alongside it.”

  “Do you really think so?”

  “Well, there’s that competition. Where the prize is to go and live on Mars.”

  “Liar.” I elbow James in the ribs.

  “I’m serious. Heard a thing about it on the radio. The winners are flying out there in a few years—but the catch is that they can never come back.”

  “Why not?”

  “Money. Technology. Sensationalism.”

  I blink, trying to get Mars back into focus, wondering how it might feel to call that place home.

  “James,” I say, with an urgency that surprises me. “Don’t you think it might be fun to enter?” I unscrew the lid of my vodka. “We could end up living on Mars together! It’d be so romantic.”

  “Ha,” James responds. “I’m not sure that’s my idea of romance.”

  I screw the lid back on my bottle, suddenly not thirsty. “Yeah. I was just kidding.”

  “We should head back to Falmouth soon,” James yawns. “Before Bolster eats us for breakfast.”

  Legend has it that Bolster was a murderous giant from these parts. One day, he fell in love with a young woman called Agnes. Agnes was aware of Bolster’s cruel nature and decided to play a trick on him. She told him to prove his affection for her by filling a hole in the clifftops with his blood. What Bolster didn’t know was that the hole had a crack in it, which ran all the way down to the sea. He took a knife and sliced open his veins, spilling his vital fluids into the unfillable chasm until, finally, he bled out.

  “Solvig? Are you ready to go?”

  “I will be,” I say. “Very soon.” I take one last look at the planet, then pass James the binoculars. “Go on. It beats spiders.”

  As James scans the sky, I can feel the blood draining out of me, flowing towards that red dot in the sky, then spilling out into the darkness.

  2

  “Welcome to Go Ape,” says the man behind the desk. “How many are in your party?”

  “Oh,” I tell him, “it’s just me. I’m going ape alone.”

  The man studies my booking reference. “That’s one gorilla, then.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You’re a gorilla. Baboons are under fifteen. Gorillas are sixteen and over.”

  I look at the primates in the queue behind me. “I’m scouting out the place for a work event,” I say. “That’s why I’m here on my own. To check if it’s suitable.” I scratch my nose. “For my colleagues.”

  The man behind the desk looks neither sceptical nor interested. “Fill in this paperwork,” he says, handing me a clipboard, “then we’ll get you kitted out.”

  I head to a bench running along one side of the cabin, listening to the crinkle of my waterproof trousers as I sit. I tick the “no” box for every question on my medical history. It feels good to let a stranger know I’m in peak condition. I sign the form with a flourish and then hand it back.

  The man behind the desk barely looks at it. “You’re in the yellow group, Ms. Dean. Wait by that door to collect your equipment.”

  I loiter by the closed door, wondering who’ll be in my group. I’m not sure how Go Ape works—whether it’s a competitive thing. I feel competitive.

  I switch on my phone and go to Safari, to look at a site that I’ve visited several times since James and I went stargazing last week. On the home page is a big red button that says: “Join the Mars Project.” For the umpteenth time, I press it.

  The rules of the competition are simple: fill in the entry form, tick a box saying that you understand that if you’re chosen for the mission, you’ll never return to Earth, and then wait. There will be interviews, activities, and even some kind of online vote to select the crew.

  I can’t believe there’s nothing in the eligibility criteria that excludes me from entering something like this. There are certain guidelines, like: “In reasonable health . . . Good-natured individual . . . Fast learner . . .” But everyone in this hut right now would probably describe themselves in those terms. Still, it makes you think.

  “Morning, lads and lasses!” says a woman emerging from behind the door. “Can all the gorillas come forward, please? You need to pick up you
r harnesses.”

  I’m first in the queue. I look back at the other gorillas, casting them a quick, hopefully not-too-smug smile. Most are too busy communicating with their baboons to notice me.

  “Small, medium, or large, pet?” asks the woman. Behind her is a storeroom full of belts and buckles.

  “Large,” I say, straightening my spine and revealing my full six feet to her.

  She stares at me. “Reckon you’re only a medium, sweetheart.” She hands me a harness. “All about your waist circumference, see.” She motions to the person behind me. “Are you two together?”

  “No,” I tell her. “I’m here on my own. Scouting out the place for a work event.”

  “Pop it on over there, please.”

  I’m going to be honest for the rest of the day. Why shouldn’t a grown woman attend Go Ape on her own? I’ve been wanting to come here for ages, but James has always called it a “glorified kids’ playground,” and it’s definitely not Anouk’s sort of thing. Besides, she’s been more or less off the radar since becoming a mum. With James at work, and nothing to do on this drizzly day, I jumped in the car and drove here by myself. No shame in that.

  I go back to the bench and put on my equipment.

  “Tricky,” laughs a woman in an orange anorak beside me, as her harness falls to the floor. She snorts with amusement. I move to the other end of the bench.

  “Hi, team.” A guy of about my age approaches us, with a ginger beard and a can-do attitude. He’s wearing a black puffer jacket with the company logo on it, and his harness is already attached. “My name’s Matty, and I’ll be taking you on your Treetop Adventure today.”

  Matty checks our harnesses and talks us through some basic safety stuff, then leads us out into the forest. I walk directly behind him, hoping that he’ll make conversation with me. He merely looks back every now and then to check that we’re all present. Eight gorillas, five baboons, and two hard-to-tells.

  I listen to the squelch of my boots in the mud. You wouldn’t know that we’re so near to Exeter. I love being in places where all you can see is nature in every direction. Here, we’re surrounded by trees and hills. It’s a wilderness of sorts.

  Matty comes to a stop and does an about-turn. “Who’s ready for some fun?” he asks, pointing to a rope ladder. The rope ladder is not much taller than I am. “It’s time to practise climbing!”

  As Matty explains the colour-coding system and how to deal with a fear of heights, I get out my phone and take a surreptitious look.

  “If you want to win this competition,” it says on the Mars Project site, “you’re going to need to be able to fly into the face of danger.”

  I wonder what sort of training you’d need to do to go to Mars. Would rope ladders be involved? Probably not, but you’ve got to start somewhere. I put my phone away and concentrate on what Matty’s saying.

  Ten minutes later, we get to the zip wires, and I glide weightlessly through the air, with nothing but a small hook to keep me anchored. I feel ready for anything.

  3

  “I’ve discovered my passion,” James announces, as we walk along Gyllyngvase Beach.

  We’re throwing an inflatable red ball back and forth. It was lying on the sand this morning, a gift from the ocean.

  “Your passion?” I hold on to the ball for a moment.

  “It’s sourdough,” says James. “I’m going to make a starter culture and keep it going for years. I’m going to eat sourdough from the same starter when I’m a hundred.”

  Aside from the red ball, other things that have washed up on the beach recently include: three dolphin carcasses, a Lego pirate, and innumerable shards of coloured glass. Flotsam and jetsam. Frothy words, making an ocean in the mouth. They’re types of marine debris. Flotsam is normally the result of a shipwreck. It floats on the water after an accidental spillage. Jetsam has been thrown into the water intentionally. Most likely it was chucked over the side of a sinking ship to lighten the load. People always forget about lagan and derelict. Lagan is attached to a buoy so that the owner can find it again. Derelict sinks to the seafloor.

  “Solvig?” James asks. “What do you think? About my bread idea?”

  “Eating sourdough. When you’re a hundred. Yum.” I throw the ball back. My arms are still aching from Go Ape.

  The flotsam and jetsam of a relationship. It sounds like a nice phrase, but that would make the relationship a relationship wreck. That’s not the way I see me and James. Better to say that I have my own flotsam and jetsam. Things that have fallen away by accident, and things that I threw overboard, abandoned to lighten the load, many years ago. Things that float to the surface when the cracks appear.

  This time, I miss the ball. As I pick it up, James points at the sand.

  “Look, a sea raft,” he says.

  Is that another new tattoo on his wrist? Looks like an ouroboros. Tail eater. Constantly leaving, constantly returning.

  “That’s unusual,” he muses. “It’s a by-the-wind sailor. From the Porpitidae family.”

  It’s a glutinous disc of cobalt blue. Size of a Ritz cracker. There’s a flap of clear gel on top.

  “That’s the sail,” James says. “It blows wherever the wind takes it.”

  “A life of freedom,” I respond.

  James shakes his head. “Completely at the mercy of the elements. A kind of prison.”

  I kneel down, as if to inspect the creature. I find myself inspecting my trainers instead. The sole is peeling away from the left shoe.

  “Don’t touch it,” James warns, “because of the nematocysts. Neat, aren’t they? Living at the intersection between air and water. Sails on top, polyps underneath. Organisms that live in and out of water at the same time are—”

  “Amphibians.”

  “No. Pleuston.” James buys nature books with Latin words in them. He watches programmes narrated by David Attenborough and Chris Packham. At work, he spends his days etching marine life onto people’s skin: a squid on the biceps, a koi carp on the thigh, a stingray on the sacrum. This fetishisation of the sea. Thalassophilia, as it’s known. Try spending ten hours on the seabed, people, I always think, and then tell me about your love of the velvet dogfish.

  James has already moved on. “I’m going to capture the wild yeast in the environment.” He’s gesticulating a lot. I think he’s plucking imaginary yeast particles from the air. “I’m going to use it to naturally ferment my bread. Good, eh?”

  We trudge towards Gylly Beach Café to warm up. Before we go in, James hands the ball to a little girl in frog-shaped wellington boots. Then he sits with his back to the window, so that I get a view of the sea.

  “I can’t believe this is our last day together,” he says, once our drinks have arrived.

  “It’s only for a month,” I tell him. “It’ll whizz by.”

  “I wanted to do something special. I wish I didn’t have to work this afternoon.”

  I lift my cup to my lips and take a sip of black coffee. “This is special.”

  We’ve been together for nearly three years. Every time I go it’s the same. James is a romantic. But he wouldn’t be in love with me if I were the sort of person who didn’t go away regularly. And I wouldn’t love him if I stayed. That’s how this works: I get time to myself, and James gets a break from my dark moods before they grow unbearable.

  “I’ll make it up to you later,” he says, taking his cup and gently nudging mine.

  “A normal night in will be fine. I like our normal nights.”

  Just then, a plate smashes beyond the swinging doors, in the kitchen. A crackle of jealousy runs through me as I imagine the waiter sweeping up broken crockery.

  James studies me. “It’s happening again, isn’t it?”

  It feels like my bones are being crushed. I nod.

  “You get like this every time now,” James says, “right before you leave. I’m worried that your job is putting too much strain on you. I mean, you went to Go Ape the other day. You’re spiralling.�
� He smiles with his mouth but not his eyes.

  James is wrong. My work isn’t stressful—it’s the opposite. I love it. I live for it. The longer I go without it, the more frustrated I get. After an idle week or two, a voice will pipe up. What are you doing with your life, Solvig? Is this it? Do you merely exist to drink Americanos and eat avocados and talk about the weather? Once the voice grows deafening, that’s when the physical pain starts. Sore throats. Migraines. Indigestion. The only cure is to get back to the grindstone.

  Unfortunately, legally, I have to take at least a month off between jobs. And even if I could go back sooner, chances are there’d be no work for me. I can go half a year between assignments. Poor weather conditions, seasonal demands, plans changing at the last minute . . . if I didn’t love what I do so much, it’d be my worst nightmare.

  Tomorrow I’m flying to Aberdeen. I’ll enter a pressurised chamber on board a ship on the North Sea. This will be my home for a month. Every day, I’ll climb out of a hatch in the chamber into a diving bell and plunge to a depth of around 130 metres. The proper name for my job is saturation diving. Saturation diving is my medicine. Hopefully, once I get back to it, I’ll stop obsessing over the Mars Project.

  “I wonder if it’ll rain today,” I say.

  The waiter heads out of the kitchen holding our breakfasts: full Cornish for James, waffles with winter berries for me.

  James starts to eat. As I glance at his throat, which is one of the only places—save his face—that isn’t tattooed, I see a pulse beneath his skin. I feel the need to touch my own neck, first on one side, then the other. I don’t think I have OCD. That sounds too definite and interesting for what I’ve got. I’ve got a gnawing need for bodily symmetry. I try to ensure both eyelids shut with equal pressure. If I press one knee, I prod the other. When I look at James’s tattoo sleeves, I wish I could pull the peonies on the right arm down a few centimetres, to make them even with the skulls on the left. However, the fact that James is an amputee and is missing his lower left leg has never bothered me.

  “Aren’t you hungry?” James asks. His mouth is full of hog’s pudding: pork, oatmeal, pearl barley.