A Kind of Compass Read online

  Caitriona pushes her hand into the vending machine flap, then into her cardigan pocket, hoping to conceal the absence of any bottle. She shuffles away quickly and this time they do not pause as she passes.

  ‘Somehow I’m not scared,’ says the girl, leaning in close. ‘It’s like it’s my destiny, you know? It feels right. I have told them already I want to be the first mother on Mars. Mother of the first Martian. It will happen. I know it.’

  ‘They’ll send you in one of the later groups, then. Not the first group anyway … There’s bound to be teething problems. And who knows what the radiation will do to our fertility?’

  The corridor is still lit. It takes three swipes before the key card opens the door. In the dark, she puts her mouth under the bathroom tap.

  Settled into oblivion in some cave of her mind, bypassed for years by the circuits and synapses that keep things going, is a pool of facts that her father left there for her:

  Mars is a wandering planet.

  Jupiter is a ball of gas dense as water.

  Pluto – Pluto, which was once her favourite planet, a pretty little orb out there at the end of the sequence, Pluto is all ice and rock, a cool marble mottled blue and yellow like a bruise, and it orbits the sun, spinning faster and slower as the aeons pass in a cycle that takes millions of years.

  ‘Imagine all the lives that pass in one cycle,’ her father said. ‘Imagine all the work that goes into each of those lives. All the harvesting and skimping and counting to make ends meet and keep food in mouths, and coats on backs, and bring babies to adulthood. You can’t imagine it, can you? Me neither. You would have to be God.’

  There are infinite possibilities, life on Earth is all a coincidence of gasses and heat and time that could as easily never have been.

  They were rare moments that her father could sit with her and point out all the planets in a large coloured hardback. He had bought it with the help of tokens saved from Blue Moon biscuit packets. It stayed in the small good room with the Reader’s Digests and the grandly dressed china doll that her mother had been given as a child. Her father drove a bread van and when he wasn’t doing that he cleaned the gutters or windows of wealthier houses. He resoled his children’s hand-me-down shoes with strips of leather he had soaked overnight, teeth clenched while he worked, lips drawing back to pull tight the stitches. Then with his tongue between his lips he positioned the glue and firmed down strips of old tires for grip.

  Ashamed of living in a council estate, he wanted to own a house. When Caitriona was fourteen he had managed it.

  ‘You can do anything, Trinny,’ he told Caitriona. ‘My Trinny can do anything. Don’t let anyone do you down. Not for being a girl or a bit heavy – don’t mind that. Hold your head high.’

  It was her sister who was with him when he died. She phoned from the hospital, voice like a paper bag tossed hollow in the wind. Caitriona said ‘OK’ as though consenting, and got off the phone as quickly as she could. She was surprised at how little she minded. While she waited for her husband to get in, she finished the washing up and checked on the baby and made a cup of tea to sip on the couch and wait. As soon as she sat it reached up from her gut, a small, sore cry. She thought of the empty house and all the carefully shelved Reader’s Digests with the slippery pages and wondered if there was a way to make them mean something.

  She could not finish the tea, but that night sleep came easy. She slid into the gas planet as thick liquid with nothing hard to kick at. She recognised the feeling – a place where contact is impossible because nothing is divided. All yield and push, self dispersed into all matter and all of it in her. She woke in a sweat, ears and toes rippling with a queer nostalgia. She knew she must have dreamt it before.

  Jupiter is the God of everything.

  Sometimes she is on the red planet itself. Blood-tinted sky and the heat pressing like flesh against her face. Wind and sand ahead, wind and sand behind, and no way of knowing what way to go. Stretch of dark. Blind hand looking for touch. Spear puncturing the surface and she feels the hurt of it in her breast somehow. A little flag but with what name on it?

  She made the audition tape alone on her laptop, a sort of prayer. It felt strange to declare her name. ‘I am Caitriona Dawson. I dream of exploring space.’ She must have expected to be chosen, some blessing from the dead, perhaps, because when she received the email she wasn’t too surprised. She knew she would pass the Skype interview. ‘There’ll be plenty of interest in you,’ said her liaison officer. ‘Out of one hundred chosen candidates across the globe, you are the only mother. You’ll get a lot of coverage.’

  ‘After the next round,’ she told him. ‘If I get to the next round, then OK. Then I’ll tell my family and I’ll do all the interviews and stuff then …’

  There were qualities they saw in her, the liaison said, qualities that a new world will need; the honesty and the compassion and the fire that they were looking for.

  She knew then that yes, this was what she was for. She could do anything, and no one was to do her down.

  When morning comes she discovers that there is a way to unplug the television, by reaching in behind. It is a relief to see the little lights blink away. The sliding door by the desk, which she thought was a wardrobe, in fact conceals a second sink, with a sticker saying Potable Water. Beside it there is a small kettle, and two black teacups, a black wicker basket with teabags, sachets of instant coffee, individually packaged biscuits and thimble-sized portions of UHT milk.

  She makes a cup of tea, the wrong colour, and pours a second dose of milk in after the first slides to the bottom. She eats two counterfeit Jammy Dodgers, sitting at the desk, dipping them in the tea while it cools. As it turns out, the tea is not too bad. The cups are rather shallow and the conference is not for another two hours, so she makes a second cup.

  She had an outfit picked for today. She bought it specially – a smart blouse and a waistcoat – but she knows now that she cannot wear it. It is a costume for a circus master. She will blush all through the day, squirming the clothes to comic crookedness. She brought a grey jumper dress for the flight home. The dress she wore on the way over is better – a quiet green colour and a way of cinching the waist – but she won’t be able to remove the smell of plane and her own frowsy sleep from it. The grey jumper dress then. She sponges the stains from her leggings. There is nothing to be done about the socks.

  According to the website the first talk is called ‘Why It’s Time To Go’. The event page showed a picture of Earth with patches of blue and red and black, the surface blistered and peeling like scorched skin – something about the ozone layer. She tried to read about it at work, but she was so afraid of being caught that the blood started to pump too quickly behind her eyes and she couldn’t string the shapes into letters, the words into coherence. She knew how they would all laugh at her: the open-mouthed guffaws of her manager, the stiff snorts of the front-of-house girls.

  The e-vite said to come early for a chance to chat with experts and meet the other candidates.

  The front entrance opens into a round room with many doors in its curved walls. Slim women with ponytails are meandering slowly through the crowd, offering something hot from large silver pots. There are more people than Caitriona expected. Some are talking in tentative pairs, but most are standing apart, flicking through pages in red pocket folders, trying to avoid the terrible quietness of the place. There is a pillar in the centre and all around it a ledge where miniature bagels, and miniature Danish pastries, and bites of marmalade-glazed toast the size of postage stamps are presented on silver platters. The walls are lined with information stands displaying bits of rock and large glossy photographs of the galaxy.

  ‘Excuse me,’ a man no older than twenty with very yellow hair touches her elbow, ‘you need to register before you can enter.’

  ‘Oh …’ Caitriona says.

  ‘Are you here for the conference?’

  He points to a banner reading Mission Mars Orientation and Regi
stration. Below it, a second young man with an identical hairstyle is sitting at a long table. He is a little broader than his colleague, but he has the same look: disconcertingly symmetrical features set stiffly in an unlined face. They are both dressed impeccably: black suit, black tie, wound-red shirt and, on the lapel, a red enamel disc ringed with gold.

  ‘Welcome to the first European Mission Mars Candidate Conference,’ says the broader man. ‘Can I see your ID?’

  A machine no bigger than her phone prints her name onto a rectangular sticker. He peels it off and hands it to her on one fingertip. The other man hands her a red pocket folder fat with stapled papers, a Mars One pen, and, wrapped in a clear envelope, a pin like theirs, the sharp gold point poking hopefully at the packaging. The object has a pleasing, tight weight to it, like the smooth, old bullet her father kept in a tobacco box over the bookshelf. Caitriona hooks it into the fine-knit dress, worrying immediately that she has placed it exactly where her nipple is and that people will notice it jiggling stupidly. Too late.

  The two men open their palms in tandem towards the room. ‘The conference will begin in two minutes,’ says the slimmer one. ‘Good luck, Caitriona.’

  The first half of the day is made up of a series of lectures that Caitriona struggles to follow. There is quite a lot of science, but the lecturers repeat that candidates mustn’t worry; they don’t have to understand it all yet. A big projection shows the houses they will live in – a row of silver domes on a crimson terrain. There is one lecture called Our Galaxy; Our Neighbourhood, where they are given brief summaries of the other planets in the solar system.

  Someone puts their hand up. Caitriona can’t hear the question but the lecturer repeats it through his microphone. ‘This lady is asking about Pluto, about why it is no longer a planet …’ He explains that it never really was, but it is a good question because soon they – the men who do these things – will send a probe to take measurements and photos and find out more about Pluto. So there might be some hope for Pluto after all, thinks Caitriona, to have a place in the galaxy; to be remembered again. A colour picture of Pluto is projected onto the wall. The lady murmurs again, and the speaker repeats her question for the audience:

  ‘Would it be possible for them to find something that would make Pluto a planet again?’ He laughs. ‘No, sorry, that’s not how it works, I’m afraid. Right: any more questions before we wrap up for lunch? … No? OK, chosen candidates go with Pearse. Make sure you have your ID. All other stakeholders please come with me.’

  Pearse is a tall man with a whey complexion and long, milky fingers. He stands at the front of the hall while the candidates form a flock. He counts the heads: twenty-five. Then he leads them out into the main auditorium and off down a corridor to a smaller, cooler room with a whiteboard and collapsible chairs pushed back against the walls.

  There are three cardboard boxes on a desk, and a water dispenser sitting awkwardly in the middle of the room. Pearse stands by the boxes and congratulates them all on being chosen. He warns that this is only the beginning of a long, hard quest for a new world.

  The boxes contain their lunch – a selection of protein bars. These are samples of what they will be living on for the seven-month voyage. Pearse says there are three flavours – strawberry, chocolate and vanilla. All three are the same muddy colour and wrapped in the same red greaseproof paper. They smell like rotting wood, but the taste is inoffensive. ‘Some people find they taste like pineapple,’ says Pearse. While the candidates eat, a nutritionist called Camilla explains that the bars are made from tiny green sea vegetables and contain a full spectrum of vitamins, proteins and trace minerals. They will need to take fat supplements on board too, and lots of water.

  After lunch the water cooler is wheeled into the adjoining room, and they are asked to help fold the chairs properly and stack them in a corner. Then they are told to form a circle. One by one they must announce their names and tell the group something about themselves.

  ‘I am Caitriona Dawson,’ says Caitriona, ‘and I work in hospitality.’ She can feel the heat in her face and she can’t figure out what to do with her hands, so she fiddles with the Mars pin, taking the back off and pinching the little wings to open the hole and put it back on. She has an urge to push the point into her palm. Her response isn’t the worst though. One woman tugs fiercely at her cuticles with her teeth and when it comes her turn she says, ‘I am Delia, and I have three cats and six goldfish.’

  Somebody sniggers and Pearse says, ‘No laughing at other candidates please. Anything at all about yourself. Thank you Delia.’

  Next they are organised into groups of four. Caitriona is asked to choose a group name and she says ‘Pluto,’ before she has time to think. They are each given a big round blue sticker and they write their names on it, and the name of their team: Caitriona Dawson – Pluto. There is one man in the group, a skinny fellow from London who says he works in a hospital but doesn’t disclose his role there. She noticed him earlier because he has been wearing the black version of the Mission Mars cap all through the day. The more merchandise you buy, the more Mars points you get. You get points, too, for blogging, more if you interview with journalists, and there will be a documentary with the chosen candidates. They explained all this in the interview. They need publicity for funding, they said; the mission depends on it.

  Also in her group are the oval-faced girl from last night, and an older lady from Scotland with big jewellery, very small hands and an enormous bosom. The lady touches Caitriona’s elbow and winks warmly. ‘Good name,’ she says, ‘I always had a soft spot for Pluto.’

  Pearse sits on a high swivel chair at the top of the room; one foot tucked in his crotch and one dangling. He rotates slowly from side to side, making the hinge yelp. Their first task is to explain to each other why they are volunteering. ‘Be completely honest,’ Pearse says. ‘This is only amongst ourselves.’

  Caitriona huddles into her group. The hospital worker says his name is Eric and that he will speak first. He removes his cap to reveal a slick of thinning hair. Then he flips open a sleek black wallet to show a photo of his son, a round-eyed child with a frightened mouth.

  ‘This is Blaze,’ he says, ‘my son.’

  He slides the picture out and passes it around his three teammates. There is a pause while they each take a moment to look at Eric’s son. ‘How sweet,’ says the Scottish lady, and Eric nods sadly. He takes a deep breath and returns the cap to his head. Then he begins to speak very fast, eyes pecking at the faces of his audience. His ex is a psycho, he says. She is always cutting access, always trying to make him do all the running. The courts have ordered him to give her thirty-five quid a week, which she blows on nail polish and cappuccinos. ‘Thirty-five quid a week. For the privilege of seeing my own son,’ he says, staring hard at Caitriona now. ‘I’m going to show them all I am a dad to be proud of. He’ll be able to say “my dad is a spaceman,” and then she’ll be sorry. Boys love rockets.’

  When he is finished speaking Eric looks exhausted. There is a silence into which the Scottish lady sighs, ‘Well I might as well go next …’ Then she gives a deep, sad chuckle. While she speaks Eric lowers his head, but his eyes still dart about as though he wasn’t quite finished. The woman rocks on her heels, hands clasped at her belly. She punctuates each utterance with a little laugh, like relief after pain. ‘I just want to be remembered. That’s all. That’s all really. To make a mark.’

  The white-haired girl quickly takes over. She makes Caitriona nervous. She says she is an astrophysics student and she lives in Stockholm. She began her studies in marine biology, she says, but she soon decided that the answers were not on this earth. She is either mad or extremely clever, with lots of words that Caitriona has never heard before, spoken with strange authority in that alien accent. ‘The next war will be the end of life on earth,’ she says. ‘Someone has to find a new planet or human life is finished.’

  When it comes her turn Caitriona doesn’t know what she will say
but the words come very quickly. ‘My dad died last year. He wanted me to do something extraordinary but I never knew what it should be. So … yep. That’s why I’m here.’

  The groups are assigned tasks; a number of computer-simulated crises which they will have to manage together. At first Eric has a lot of opinions – ‘Look girls, what we need here is to think outside the box. Who’s to say plants can’t pull the water from the atmosphere?’ – but he soon lets the astrophysics student lead.

  On the e-vite it said the conference would finish at six, but when six comes, Pearse asks them to follow him. They arrive in a dimly lit room where there is a scattering of fine black dust under a long glass case. The case is in the centre of the room and they are allowed to walk around the exhibit and peer in through the viewing panels on the side. This, he says, gesturing with both hands to the stretch of glass, is a new metal that copies itself over and over, and when it copies itself it creates a gas. One of the purposes of the mission is to take this substance up to Mars. Once it begins, the stuff will keep copying itself until, after millions of years, it has created an ozone layer around the planet. Then they will start filling the atmosphere with air. This is called ‘terraforming.’

  ‘Imagine all the lives that pass in those millions of years,’ her father once told her – but did he? Or are these the things she is inventing now, to make him real, to remember a person about whom there is very little to say?

  After they have looked for a while at the metal Caitriona expects that they will finish up, but instead Pearse says that each group has half an hour to come up with a presentation on the best way to multiply the metal on Mars.

  She waits until seven before slipping out of her workshop group. ‘Sorry Pearse,’ she says, ‘I’ll have to excuse myself …’

  For a moment Pearse’s face loses all expression. He keeps his eyes on her while his voice goes up like a siren, ‘Excuse me everyone. I need your attention for a moment!’