The Need for Better Regulation of Outer Space Read online

  This was my first time in all the time at school that I had been invited into that office, and I thought it was very beautiful. The walls were a clean pale blue, as if the summer sky had been allowed to enter and take up residence. There were two china cups set on a wooden table, the headmistress and Mr Storey must have had tea together. The rest of the school was full of chalk dust and inkblots and little girls crying, but in here I felt a million miles away from all of that.

  ‘I saw you waiting and watching,’ was the first thing Mr Storey said to me, so I was embarrassed and realised that perhaps I can be seen even when I think I cannot, ‘what were you waiting for?’

  ‘You, sir,’ which was a bit forward, and I didn’t know why I said that. But it was true, I was waiting for him to decide something for me. And it worked because he laughed.

  ‘This is one of our best girls,’ said the headmistress. ‘Her mathematical abilities are outstanding.’

  Mr Storey nodded his head. ‘And would you like to earn a shilling each day?’

  I said yes.

  ‘Good. That’s settled then.’

  But I had no idea what it was that they wanted me to do for the shilling, and they didn’t tell me.

  The day I started working at the Observatory I sat on the bus and arranged my dress very carefully around me so as not to crease it, and I peered out of the window the whole journey so I would not miss my stop at Blackford station. I walked up the hill slowly, I did not know what was waiting for me at the top and still nobody had told me. Of course I could see the Observatory towers, with their green metal tops, anyone can see them from the centre of the city. When I got there, I saw that beside the towers and the long building connecting them, there was also a large villa off to one side. As I stood at the Observatory’s entrance waiting for Mr Storey, a maid came out of the villa with a basket of wood. She saw me and stopped, and for a moment I wished I was her so that I would know what to do and where to go. And then that feeling went. I am an adult now, I told myself, and I will have to get used to not knowing things.

  And at first when I was shown the photographic plates it all felt very odd, and I was very aware of every little thing that I was being asked to do, but I should think anything is odd after so many years at school. Being married would also feel quite odd.

  By the time the other girls started a few days after me, I knew the routine. I knew to handle the photographic plates only by the edges to avoid touching the emulsion, I knew to set them down on the table so that north is pointing up and east is to the left. I even knew why that was so: compass directions on the sky are a mirror image of those on Earth and everything is facing the wrong way. Mr Storey told me this on the first day.

  The photographic plates are like nothing I have ever seen before. They are big square pieces of glass, but so thin that they can bend under their own weight. Because they are negatives, the sky is white and the stars are black. There are usually about a handful of stars on each plate, but they do not look like proper solid objects because they have been smeared out into black lines by a prism in the telescope. Mr Storey told me that each black line has its own characteristic, it may be thicker or thinner than its neighbours, it may swell at one end or it may even show white gaps. I think of these as gaps in the black fences of the stars.

  Mr Storey oversees us, which is some feat because he works many nights and then comes to this office in the morning as we remove our coats and make our cups of tea (we have a kettle for the fire). He sets out the plates for us and decides what we look at, what is important and what is not. He teaches us how to position the eyepiece over the plate and focus it so that the stars become clear and sharp. At the beginning Mr Storey stood behind me as I tried to work the eyepiece. When I couldn’t do it he would reach around me and taking my right hand he would ease it round the dial. ‘Gently,’ he would say, ‘just gently.’

  ‘That’s why we hired you girls,’ he said, ‘because you have the right touch.’

  I have never been that near to a man before and at first it didn’t seem right to have him close enough that I could feel his breath on my hair and cheek. Hear him whisper those words at me, ‘Gently, just gently.’

  ‘A boy couldn’t do it. You need a lady’s fingers on those controls,’ he would say.

  He always has his shirtsleeves rolled up so I can see the smooth skin on his arms. I never knew men looked like that.

  Now I know how to do it, so he doesn’t need to stand behind me anymore. Flora still has problems though, and he still helps her. My mother didn’t like it when I told her about Mr Storey helping us in that way, so I stopped telling her.

  Sometimes when my neck hurts from looking down at the plates I allow myself to glance up and away, out of the window. You can forget about the greenness of grass if you stare at black lines all day. Outside children play and the Astronomer Royal’s wife stands nearby gazing up at the sky, as if trying to estimate whether it will be clear tonight and whether her husband will be eating his supper with her and the children, or working on the telescope.

  I don’t think she can see her husband very often, for he teaches the university students during the day, and works at the telescope at night. I wonder if she hopes for cloudy nights and then feels guilty.

  She is good to us, she gives us bread and jam sometimes and asks our opinion of it, it seems she is writing a cookbook about jam and is trying different recipes. I enjoy them all so cannot really advise her. We do not have much jam at home, so I would like to buy a pot from her but I am nervous about suggesting it. She might not like the idea.

  She has the groceries delivered to the Observatory twice a week, and I feel sorry for the horse making its way up that steep hill, laden with goods. The hill starts off gradual and then becomes harder and harder, like a mathematical test.

  Sometimes I look at the maid wrestling the sheets onto the line and am grateful I am not her. The maid stays up here at the Astronomer Royal’s house but she must be exhausted by night-time and in her bed before the stars are out.

  There are three of us computers; myself, Flora and Jeanie. Flora is my age and Jeanie is a bit older. She has been a teacher but thinks this is better work, quieter and more peaceful. She says the children gave her dreadful headaches. Flora finds it difficult to walk up the hill, and arrives red-faced and perspiring each morning. When it is warm outside, she has a strong smell about her by the end of the day. But they are nice girls and we do well together in our little room, with Mr Storey to guide us.

  I asked them what would happen when we finished looking at all the stars and they laughed at me.

  ‘The stars do not end,’ said Jeanie, ‘they go on forever.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Flora, ‘they must end, but there are still so many of them that we will have enough work for the rest of our lives.’

  Even though they could not agree on the number of stars, I was very relieved at the thought of being able to stay here, for I do not know what else I could do apart from teaching. Or even worse, being a governess. My friend from school, Agnes, is a lady’s companion now and she said it is quite agreeable but the lady does go on at her so about her manners and style. She is not required to do much other than accompany the lady to other ladies’ houses and sit silently while they gossip about yet more ladies. It sounded deadly dull to me, but when I tried to tell her about my work, she said looking at black lines all day was very peculiar and would make her feel faint.

  I do not think it is peculiar. The stars must be so far away that it seems remarkable to me we can look at them and turn them into black lines, and then into numbers. It is like magic. Except this is science, which is supposed to be the opposite of magic.

  I asked Mr Storey if we could look at the planets in the same way on our photographic plates but he said no. I was asking him because I wanted to have a proper scientific conversation with him, the way that I have overheard him talk with the Astronomer Royal, although I am not even sure what a planet really is. But sometimes when I
walk home down the hill in winter and the stars are already out (although it is very cold and I wrap up my face against the east wind) I can see Jupiter – a big yellow ball.

  Mr Storey takes away our books once a week. I would like to know what he does with them. It seems odd entering all these numbers for someone else to read and understand. I wonder if the Astronomer Royal himself studies our books. He does not talk to us.

  On the bus this morning I saw a man reading a newspaper and on the front was a photograph of a large fire reaching up to the sky. I could not see the headline of the newspaper so I asked the man what had happened. He was very young and nervous-looking, otherwise I would not have dared speak.

  ‘The racecourse at Ayr was set on fire.’ He spoke so quietly it was little more than whispering, so I smiled to encourage him. ‘It’s a disgrace, that’s what it is,’ he added, still in a whisper.

  ‘What is?’

  ‘These suffragettes. All this damage. They all ought to be locked up, every single one of them. They cannot be real women.’ He didn’t once look at me as he spoke, but kept his eyes downwards, looking at the photograph of the fire. His hand was clamped around the newspaper so firmly that I saw the knuckles were white. Perhaps he was worried that the photograph might escape and set fire to something else. And it struck me that I look at fire every day, for Mr Storey told us that the stars are great globes of fiery gas.

  This morning as I walk up the hill I see a puff of smoke in the distance, in the north of the city. And then another, nearer. And then a bang, as if someone has let off a firework, but there are no sparks, just smoke and everything else is still and silent. Up here you can see all the greyness of Edinburgh spread around in front of you. It is a heavy city, there is no lightness in the buildings.

  So I wonder if this smoke is from a fiery dragon walking the streets and eating small children and I smile to myself, thinking that Jeanie will be amused by this. Why are women supposed always to like children, or to want them? And have to spend all their days, unless they are rich enough to avoid it by employing maids, taking care of children, whether it be at home or in a school?

  I am the eldest in our family so I have had more than my share of mopping mouths smeared with food and wiping sticky fingers and dealing with soiled nappies. That is why I am not so concerned about courting and young men. They cannot tell me about the stars or help me learn new ways of seeing things.

  Flora and Jeanie think otherwise. ‘You do not really want to be a spinster,’ they say.

  ‘Why not?’ I pour the hot water into the teapot as we wait for Mr Storey to appear and tell us which plates to work on. ‘Many of us will be spinsters anyway, there are not enough men. And you have forgotten about the children. If we are married there will have to be children.’

  The Astronomer Royal’s children are running about the hill right now, as I wait for the tea to brew. We all like it strong. I can hear them screaming, they scream a lot.

  Flora and Jeanie don’t answer that. I stir spoonfuls of condensed milk into each cup of tea. This is a good time of day, for I always hope I will find a different sort of star, one with its gaps in a different place. Nearly all the stars have the gaps in the same place, they are just big or little gaps. I asked Mr Storey why the gaps were in the same place and he could not answer. He said that it was a good question but he did not know. Perhaps stars are like faces and they need their equivalent of eyes, nose and mouth in the right order.

  Normally he is so steady, but when he arrives today he looks a bit flustered. ‘Did you hear the noises, girls?’

  We nod.

  ‘Bombs, that’s what it was.’

  ‘Bombs?’ I can’t imagine what he was talking about. ‘What do you mean?’

  The word itself feels heavy on my tongue, like something slipping beneath the surface of dark water. Not at all to do with fire and smoke.

  But he doesn’t answer me properly, he just says, ‘I fought in the war and I know the sound of explosives. I never thought I would hear that sound at home.’

  He busies himself with his tea and I wonder which war he means. Probably the second Boer war, which was when I was very young. Nobody talks about it much now, even though there was all that excitement over Mafeking and Baden-Powell. People do forget things very quickly, or maybe they are just waiting for the next war. For there will be one soon, as everybody knows. Perhaps this is it.

  ‘Are the bombs the start of a new war?’ I ask him, ‘are we at war?’

  ‘Silly girl, you don’t know what you’re talking about,’ he puts down his teacup rather too quickly and the handle breaks off on his fingers.

  I stare at that loop of china made all blurry by the tears in my eyes. He has never called me silly before. But men are funny about their wars, they act as if they own them, and perhaps they do, for I don’t think women ever start them.

  ‘Which plates are we to measure today?’ I ask him, trying to sound efficient. I have never had to ask him this before, and he looks around him as if trying to work out why he is there.

  He lays the broken handle on our work table, ‘I do not think there are any plates today,’ he says slowly, and I feel very afraid because I think that I have been right all along and we have been too quick in our measuring, me and Flora and Jeanie, and come to the end of all the stars and will lose our jobs. I begin to regret working so quickly, but I wanted to please him. And the Astronomer Royal.

  ‘Last night’s plates are not yet developed and there are no others. Look – why don’t you have a day’s holiday? We will pay you as usual and you can do what you like, go look at the shops.’

  Flora and Jeanie seem delighted at this, but I just think, well I have walked up the hill and am not so keen to walk down it and take a bus into town to look at things in shops that I cannot afford. And I don’t want to go home and help with the children again.

  They are already putting on their coats and looking ready to leave but I say, ‘Is there nothing else that I can do that might be helpful to you?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ and he looks like he might almost laugh at my enthusiasm so I feel a bit blurry around the eyes again. I don’t want him to see so I fetch my coat.

  Flora and Jeanie go off to Jenners to see the new spring hats. I do not care about hats so I wander into the Old Town. I am keen to learn more about this morning’s explosions. And soon I find a building which has holes where its windows once were, and there is a neat pile of glittery glass on the pavement. I peer through the window holes, inside it is very dark and scorched-looking, with black soot marks spreading up the walls, and pictures hanging all crooked. A policeman is standing by the pile of glass so I walk over to him.

  ‘What happened?’

  He looks at me suspiciously, ‘and why would you want to know, Miss?’

  ‘I heard the noise this morning. Was it bombs?’

  This last word seems to be the right one for he flushes deep red. ‘Away with you,’ he says and flaps his hand at me, ‘off you go, young lady.’

  The building itself seems to be a ruin now. It’s impossible to imagine that it was ever anything else. Perhaps bombs are machines for speeding up what time always does anyway. For making us travel from the past into the future.

  The next morning when I get to the bottom of the hill and prepare myself for the daily battle with its curves, I am surprised to see another policeman.

  ‘Where are you going, Miss?’ he asks me.

  ‘Up there,’ I gesture at the towers, ‘I work at the Observatory.’

  He raises his eyebrows, ‘A maid? Go on, then, they’ll be expecting you.’

  ‘No, I’m not a maid,’ I mutter but he doesn’t hear and I am so curious about why there should be a policeman standing guard by the arch that I get up the hill in record time.

  As I round the bend near the top, all is commotion. The children race around, as normal, but the Astronomer Royal and Mr Storey are also pacing back and forth, pointing at the West Tower and at the ground. I walk
over to the two men, picking my way across some broken bricks and masonry which are scattered all over the grass. A large crack has appeared in the brickwork at the base of the tower so that anyone can look in, at pieces of twisted metal and smashed glass. It is like peering into an animal’s insides, and seeing everything all exposed. Somehow it is worse than the exploded building in the Old Town. Nearby is another policeman, writing something in a notebook.

  Mr Storey is the first to notice me, ‘Hullo! Look what has happened to our tower!’

  ‘What caused it?’ I ask, but I already know. There is the smell here too, the smell from yesterday. Something violent has happened here.

  The Astronomer Royal turns around and sees me, ‘Who are you?’ he asks and he doesn’t look very friendly. I always imagined having a conversation with him about the stars and our work, but before I can reply, he says, ‘I need to inspect the damage inside. I fear the clock may have taken the brunt of it.’

  I watch him walk away, and he seems to stumble over something lying on the ground, and then he kicks it. I see a flash of light as he sends a bit of broken glass flying through the air before it hits the ground again and breaks up into even smaller fragments.

  Behind Mr Storey I can see Flora and Jeanie struggling up the hill. They are still some way off so I will have a few moments alone with him before they arrive. ‘What happened?’ I ask.

  ‘Our work is destroyed,’ he glares at me, ‘all destroyed by the actions of stupid women.’

  ‘Do you know why they did it?’ I am keen to understand the reasons behind this action. I know the suffragettes are bombing railway carriages, slashing paintings in galleries, and destroying postboxes. I know they are doing this because they want the vote. But why did they come up here, to the Observatory? But my question just makes him even crosser.