Bright and Dangerous Objects Read online

  Mars-obsessed Ambitious R esilient

  Trusting/trustworthy

  Inquisitive

  Adaptable

  Nice

  Sense of humour

  “That’s right, you need to be Martians!” Fabienne says this as if she’s just delivered her coup de grâce. She then talks us through each of the qualities listed on the screen.

  When she reaches the final line on the acrostic, she announces: “And now we come to the big one. If you want to go to Mars, you’ve got to have a sense of humour.” For some reason, everyone laughs when she says this. Are we laughing at the notion of jokes in general? Do I lack a sense of humour because I can’t understand what’s so funny?

  20

  Honestly though, what makes me laugh?

  There was that biology lesson at school, where we learnt the scientific name for a European badger: Meles meles. My friend Alana and I got the giggles. It was the repetition that got to us. When the teacher told us that the name of one of the badger subspecies was Meles meles meles, we were beside ourselves. Kept daring each other to try and say meles three times in a row without laughing. These days, I think I could say meles indefinitely.

  I step out into the midday sun, looking for a place to eat lunch. My brow is furrowed. What’s my sense of humour like? Hidden under a mass of anxiety.

  The steampunks are sitting at a picnic table, along with a couple of people in suits. One woman’s jacket has shoulder pads. Near a sign saying “Dog Exercise Area,” I spot the pregnant woman. She’s perched on a tree stump. I find myself gravitating towards her.

  “Mind if I join you?”

  “Mmm, please.” She wipes sandwich crumbs from the corner of her mouth.

  I sit on the stump too and say: “Nice to get a bit of fresh air.” I feel instantly silly. I’m here because I want to live on Mars for the rest of my life, never again feeling the wind in my hair, or a lick of breeze on my cheek.

  The woman laughs, and I wonder if that means I just made a joke. “It’s all getting a teensy bit intense in there, isn’t it?”

  “It’s good to get a breather from the Bowie stuff for five minutes,” I say. A small thrill runs through me for daring to come so close to a criticism.

  The woman strokes a strand of hair away from her face. Her eyes are green, and her features are unapologetic. It could be because she’s expecting a baby. A pregnant belly seems to me to be the greatest expression of female confidence there is. Growing something so huge and extraordinary before everyone’s eyes.

  “Thirty-two weeks tomorrow,” says the woman. She’s caught me staring. “Not too much longer now. Have you got kids?”

  “No, not yet.” My cheeks flush. Even saying that—“not yet”—makes me feel strange. The idea that I could be planning to do something as radical as become a mother seems so entitled. I think I’m good enough for that, do I? And—at the same time—I reckon I’ve got what it takes to be an astronaut? Wow. I must really rate myself. I pick up a sandwich triangle.

  “Evelyn,” she says, giving her name badge a quick glance. “Evie.”

  I’m eating, so I point at my chest.

  “Solvig,” she says. “Scandinavian heritage?”

  I put my hand to my mouth to conceal the food I’m still chewing. “My mum just liked the name. Said it reminded her of a bowl of soup.”

  Evie laughs. I made another joke by accident. “It’s a Norse name,” Evie tells me. “Something to do with the sun. My husband would be able to tell you more about that. He’s a medieval studies professor.”

  “What is it you do?” I ask.

  “I’m a forensic botanist in Birmingham. Previously I worked in biotechnology, at a germplasm resources lab.”

  I raise my eyebrows, as if I have not only understood the information but also found it compelling. I reach for another sandwich triangle. “What does being a forensic botanist entail?” I venture.

  “Well, quite!” She gives me a conspiratorial look. “It’s a relatively new discipline. There are different branches to it. I’m involved in palynology. That’s the study of pollen. If there’s a rare plant growing near the scene of a murder, for example, then pollen presence on the suspect can provide a strong case for prosecution.” She pauses. “My botanical skills could be used differently on Mars. That’s where the biotech comes in. I’ve created a synthetic Martian soil in my greenhouse at home. Not a perfect replica, I grant you, but I’m using it to develop plants that are well suited to the Martian environment. I’m getting some promising results with radishes. Good news for space tacos! Anyway, listen to me rabbiting on. What about you, Solvig?”

  For a moment, a nasty thought creeps into my mind: maybe Evie will die in childbirth, eliminating her from the competition.

  “I’m a saturation diver,” I say. “North Sea-based. Oil stuff.” I decide to say something self-deprecating about my job, as a form of self-punishment, something about how there’s no oil in space, but then I remember that there is. Instead, I say piteously: “Pollen is more interesting than oil.”

  “A saturation diver?” Evie says. “How marvellous.”

  Before I have the chance to denigrate myself any further, I’m saved by a bichon frise, who bounds over and starts sniffing my paper plate, trying to snatch up my final piece of ham and cheese sandwich. I jerk away the plate but give the dog a pat on the head as consolation. It’s a shame Cola isn’t here. He’d love to lollop around a place like this, but the journey would literally kill him. At least he’ll be dead by 2030, so I won’t have to worry about leaving him behind.

  I hear shrieking over by the picnic table and see that the steampunks are sharing some moment of great hilarity with the girls in tinfoil.

  “Do you have to be crazy to want to go on a mission like this?” I ask Evie.

  She follows my gaze. “Was Ranulph Fiennes crazy when he set off for the North Pole? I mean, I suppose he’s a bad example, because he cut his own frostbitten fingertips off with a fretsaw. Imagine that!” Evie winces and places her hands protectively over her stomach. “Solvig: if craziness means being brave and ambitious and spirited and even a little foolish, then yes, we are crazy to have applied for a mission like this. But thank God for insanity.”

  “He cut off his own fingertips,” I say, crossing my arms.

  “Look, when people started volunteering for the first manned space missions, everyone thought they must be suicidal or mentally ill. Or trying to escape some darkness within themselves.”

  My skin prickles.

  •

  “Okay, guys. Listen up. This is where things get serious.”

  A man in a red cap is standing at the front of the room. His name, which he’s told us three times, is Brodie. He’s got an English accent but with American intonations, as though he’s binge-watched too many episodes of Friends.

  “This afternoon’s activities are going to last two hours, okay? You’ll be working with the people at your table.” There are six tables in here. Ours has five women and two men at it. I was hoping that Evie would be in here too, but she’s not.

  “You’ve been assigned groups randomly, so no ulterior motives. I’ll be making notes while you’re doing the exercises. Make sure I can see your name badges, okay?”

  As he speaks, Brodie strides around the room, never quite making eye contact with us, glancing furtively at the tables, the backs of our chairs, our jumpers. He’s desperate to be comfortable in this environment, and we’re desperate for him to be comfortable too. Unfortunately, he’s beginning to sweat. The sweat is gathering beneath the peak of his cap.

  “The first exercise of the afternoon,” Brodie explains, “is a humorous twist on the classic balloon debate.” He freezes and points at the ceiling with a terrified expression. “Beware!”

  Startled, I follow his gaze. I see an air-conditioning unit and a strip of fluorescent lighting.

  “The transit vehicle that you and your group are travelling on is about to crash,” Brodie says.

&n
bsp; I exhale, realising that we are only in imaginary peril. Some people laugh. I laugh too, in case I’m somehow being monitored.

  “The only way to avoid certain death is to lighten your vehicle’s load. That means throwing people out of the craft, to wither and die in the infinite void.” Brodie mimes the discarding of a human body as if pitching slop out of a window. “The vehicle will only comfortably hold four, so you’re going to need to lose three people. Or four, if you’re at the table of eight. Think about what skills everyone in your team has to offer. Remember: you’re going to be the first four people colonising a new planet. What’s the best combination you can come up with, to give you a fighting chance of making it on Mars?” Brodie twirls his finger as if he’s a conductor, instructing his orchestra to start playing. “Twenty minutes. Then report back.”

  I once read a Mental Floss article about what happens if you suddenly find you have been spewed out into space without adequate protection. You will suffer horrific sunburn, while at the same time being subjected to an agonising chill. You will fill up with gas bubbles and double in size. The moisture on your eyes and in your mouth will boil. If you hold your breath, your lungs will rupture. If you don’t, you’ll suffocate.

  I turn to the people at my table, scanning name badges. Who do I want to kill? There’s a guy with a white goatee opposite me called Yuri. There’s no way that’s his real name. I instantly hate him. We should chuck him out first.

  Before I have the chance to poison the group against him, the woman on Yuri’s left, Carol, who has short grey hair and a kind face, takes a deep breath and says: “I volunteer to die.”

  What? Is this how we’re meant to play the game? The people who are willing to sacrifice themselves are the ones who get to take part in the most ambitious space project known to man?

  Yuri looks at Carol, takes her hand in his, and says, “I also volunteer to die.”

  Bloody hell. At this rate, we’ll have nobody left.

  I lean forwards and lock eyes with Yuri. “I’d very much like to stay on the vehicle,” I declare forcefully. “I want to live.”

  A couple of people at the table fidget, and then, shamefaced, they murmur: “Me too.”

  “Excellent,” I say. “Well, let’s see who’d work best with me.” With those words, I’ve become the leader.

  Yuri and Carol remain eerily quiet throughout the ensuing conversation, no doubt feeling that their martyrdom has already proved far more than words ever could. I, on the other hand, become supremely, uncharacteristically loud. I use words like determine and subset and perfunctory. When Brodie comes over with a clipboard to observe us, I even make a joke.

  “You think we need a chef on Mars?” I say to Angelika, the woman next to me. “Your food had better be out of this world!”

  Brodie, whose cap says “You rocket” above the peak, laughs. After he’s finished laughing, I catch him looking at my name badge. Oh yes. I can do this.

  After Brodie walks away, I turn to Raissa, the one person in our group who hasn’t said anything yet. “What about you? What do you do?”

  “I write haikus,” she replies shyly.

  “You’re in,” I tell her.

  At the end of the exercise, we’ve whittled our crew down to a robust four. I’m on the crew, naturally, and there’s also: Katie (an endocrinologist), Landon (a molecular biochemist), and Raissa (a poet). Rejected are Angelika (a chef), Carol (a Christian missionary), and Yuri (a painter).

  “Interesting choice,” says Brodie when it’s our turn to report back to the room. “What made you decide to take the poet?”

  Raissa bites her lip and I speak for her. “It was a toss-up between taking her or a rocket scientist,” I say. “Just kidding.”

  Everyone chuckles. I’m really getting the hang of this.

  Now, I clear my throat. I tell Brodie that we decided it was important that we document such a momentous occasion. I tell Brodie that nobody knows exactly what’s going to happen when we get to Mars. I tell Brodie that it’s vital that such a significant milestone for the human race be communicated with heart.

  Brodie holds out his clipboard, and he writes something down, slowly and deliberately.

  “Time for the next activity,” he says at last. “This one’s called ‘The Point of No Return.’”

  21

  As I’m about to break free of the conference room, Brodie calls out: “Don’t forget to line up in the foyer for a photograph!”

  “What’s the photograph for?” I ask the girl filing out of the room ahead of me.

  “Apparently, they’re going to put our pictures online; then the public have to vote for who they like the best.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s how they get it down to a shortlist of one hundred. It’s going to be high-key amazing.” The girl looks barely eighteen. She’s wearing false eyelashes.

  “So, our success in this competition is based on a photograph?”

  “Lol,” says the girl. “Not just our pictures. They’re putting up our essays too.”

  “Jesus.”

  The girl takes a lip gloss out of her pocket. “You coming to the activity centre after this?” she asks as we shuffle forwards. “A group of us are going to Laser Combat.”

  “Maybe,” I lie.

  Naturally, the photographer is incredibly photogenic. She’s wearing leggings and a vintage jumper, looks about twenty-five, and has poker-straight hair. “Stand here please,” she instructs me through a lens.

  I imagine her uploading my image onto her computer later tonight. She’s surrounded by mid-century modern furniture and sampling a chilled white wine as she clones bits of my “good skin” from anywhere she can find it, then pastes it liberally over my wrinkles, eye bags, moustache hair.

  “It would be great if you could smile,” she says. “Think about how much you want to go to outer space.”

  Maybe this trick has been working on some of the others, but I feel like a patronised child. How much I want to go to outer space? This isn’t a joke. I’m not a five-year-old lying under a rocket-themed duvet cover, dreaming of becoming the next Neil Armstrong. This is my Big Dream. The only thing I want in life.

  Oh no.

  This is the only thing I want.

  “Never mind,” says the photographer. “That’ll do.”

  I rub my temples and head for the exit. It’s only 4:30. I don’t really need to stay here an extra night. I could be home by 1:00 a.m. I call James as I walk through the forest.

  “What are you up to?” I ask. I’m supposed to be on a regular diving job, not a sat dive, so thank heavens I don’t have to fake a high-pitched voice.

  “Waiting on my last customer. A Polynesian sea turtle.”

  “You’re giving a turtle a tattoo. Ha.”

  “How’s Liverpool?”

  I look around me, at the log cabins, dog exercise areas, and play parks. “Busy, but good,” I say. I’m walking up a path that runs alongside a lake. “Water stuff is going well.” “Water stuff”? Can’t I bring myself to use the word diving?

  “I’m looking forward to seeing you tomorrow,” says James.

  “Hope Cola’s behaving.”

  “I’m sorry we didn’t get more time to talk after you started your, you know, your period. We’ll get there, Solvig. It’s a gamble. We’ve only got a 25 percent chance in any given month.”

  “Twenty-five seems high,” I say, plucking a leaf off a bush. As it happens, I know that the figure is more like 10 percent for someone of my age, but even that feels high too.

  “Better go,” James says quickly. “I can see my customer heading up the street. Call me tonight if you have time. Anouk and I are taking Nike surfing after I’m done here. Good waves today.”

  “Right,” I say. “Speak later, then.” I hang up, feeling inexplicably annoyed that my boyfriend and best friend are going surfing together. And with a kid too. If James can’t have a baby with me, then he’s putting together a backup family.

>   Obviously, that’s nonsense. Anouk is James’s friend and physio. She was the one who encouraged him to get back into surfing after the accident, and even helped him source a custom-made wetsuit.

  The crash happened six years ago. By the time I met James, he seemed like he’d come to terms with it. He told me it couldn’t have been a more Cornish crash: he was meandering around a narrow country road, five miles per hour over the limit, when he came face-to-face with a combine harvester. The combine had broken down, but its lights weren’t working. James swerved to avoid it and went face-first into a truck, which happened to be carrying St. Austell Brewery’s signature Cornish pale ale, Tribute. The truck was barely dented. James’s Mini crunched up like a used Coke can. James suffered a fractured pelvis, a shattered tibia and fibula, a torn artery, and three severed tendons.

  Turns out, James’s left calf had been home to his only tattoo: a crucifix. As a lapsed Catholic, James enjoys telling people that the car crash was God’s revenge. Ink-free after the amputation, James decided he wanted a new tattoo. It was the first tattoo he ever drew himself: a three-toed sloth, the slowest mammal in the world. Underneath, the words “Steady does it.”

  I’m still holding the leaf, scrunched tightly in my fist. I let it fall to the ground.

  •

  I end up beneath the great glass dome of the Subtropical Swimming Paradise. There are palm trees and plastic chairs, and an entire clientele (apart from me) dressed in bathing gear.

  I buy a pint of 6 percent hard cider from the poolside bar, then seek out the driest place to sit. The cider is vinegary and expensive, but it’s good to have a drink. That’s two days in a row I’ve had alcohol now. I can feel my fertility draining away with each mouthful.

  A week ago, I might have told people I was desperate for a baby. Yesterday morning, I might even have said the same. But how can you ever know for sure that you want to do something as huge as create a human? When I was a kid, I used to ask my dad how I’d know when I’d found the right person to settle down with for the rest of my life. “You’ll just know,” he’d say, with a mysterious wink. Well, I still don’t know the answer to that question, let alone the one about having a baby. I think an easier question for me is whether I want to get pregnant. I mean, I don’t look forward to being pregnant. But I know that I want to get pregnant. I can’t bear not achieving my goals.