The train rips through Nottinghamshire, Beth’s home county. Pylons string electric cables across gentle hills. I’ve always thought that pylons are the ultimate measure of how adaptable human beings are. We’ve got these gigantic steel monsters marching through our countryside and not only do we not run screaming, we don’t even see them any more.
We stop for no apparent reason near Newark. The train’s silence lays bare a looping whisper in my head: You shouldn’t go. My conscience has my wife’s voice and mannerisms, as well as most of her convictions.
I check my phone. Nothing from Laura, which I hope means she’s gone back to bed. I roll through the screens. Yesterday I added three pages of new icons, shortcuts to every eclipse-chasing blog, chatroom and forum I could find online. I want to be able to measure the official weather reports against the rumours.
Then, checking over my shoulder out of force of habit, I dip into the secret Facebook page I’ve hidden in the ‘utilities’ tile, behind a dozen other apps I’ll never use. Laura would kill me if she knew about this, but there’s no better place than Facebook to find out what’s happening, and I’ve made myself as anonymous as possible; made-up name, an avatar that doesn’t show my face and all the location services turned off. I only access it on my phone or my PC in the study, never on the shared tablet. There was a near miss a couple of years ago when a woman calling herself ShadyLady (I guess two can play the fake name game), her picture a shapely silhouette before a crescent sun, sent me a private message saying, Are you Kit McCall? I blocked her, then deactivated the account for twelve months, and she’s never bothered me since I came back.
On the group’s wall, the mood ranges from cautious optimism to unbridled woe. New worries cloud out the old, and by the time my train pulls into Newcastle Station, my thoughts are only of the sky.
‘Chris!’ There’s a satellite delay of half a second, as there always is when anyone uses my public name.
‘Richard!’ He’s underneath the clock, resplendent in his Faroese jumper. His backpack is smaller than mine and he’s carrying a little crate of Newcastle Brown Ale. He waves it in salute when he sees me, and we shake hands; it isn’t a hugging sort of friendship, although that might change after four days sharing a berth. He worked in my lab a few years ago, and after discovering a shared affinity for cult fiction, we went out for the odd drink after work. He’s more of a telescope astronomer than an eclipse chaser, but when it became clear that Laura couldn’t travel to Tórshavn, I asked Richard, not just for the company but to cover her half of the fare; we are counting every penny now. Richard doesn’t know I was ever Kit McCall and he certainly doesn’t know about Beth. Laura wondered once if he would be in any danger as my travelling companion, but why would he?
‘It’s bright orange,’ he says, gazing in wonderment at my beard. We fall into step on the way to the pick-up point, where a minibus waits with its motor running.
In our seats, the conversation takes a meteorological turn, and as we move on to the nerdy intricacies of thermal fronts and planetary alignment, I feel like I’m slowly being lowered into a warm bath. There’s no need for either of us to stop and explain a theory or phenomenon. Laura’s got the eclipse-chasing bug, but there’s only so much science she can absorb before her eyes start glazing over. For her, it’s enough to stand and observe in awe. I’ll never understand that, although I’ve learned to respect it. But the way I feel now, discussing celestial mechanics with someone on my level, I can only liken to how it must be like living in a country where no one else speaks your mother tongue. You can get by in the foreign language, you can communicate, but the pleasure of speaking to those who understand every subtlety and nuance must make you want to cry with relief. There’s an objectivity too in these debates. Even in smooth marriages, conversation is never neutral; everything you say carries the weight of every conversation you’ve ever had. Pure science is respite precisely because there’s no inherent morality in fact. Everything I say to Laura is picked up and examined for an ethical content that baffles me more often than not. You’re on safe ground with knowledge, with quantifiable data. Opinions on the other hand, are shifting, baseless things. Sometimes I think I don’t have a true opinion about anything except Laura.
‘Got an awesome geolocation tracking app on my tablet,’ says Richard, showing me a screen with statistics superimposed over a world map. ‘Total, partial, annular, it’s all there.’ I suppress a stab of irritation; I’m supposed to be introducing him to the experience.
‘You boys know your stuff,’ says a middle-aged man seated in front of us. ‘Ever done anything like this before?’
I can’t help but puff out my chest. ‘This is my twelfth total eclipse.’
All eyebrows rise in unison and I feel like a god among mortals.
‘I’m an eclipse virgin,’ says Richard cheerfully.
‘Us too,’ says the man, gesturing to his wife.
‘It’s been a long time since I was a virgin,’ she says, to cackles all round.
I call Mac and check he doesn’t plan to stray too far from our neighbourhood while I’m away. If there’s an emergency I want to make sure it’s Mac who takes her to hospital. I want her to be with family. Ling can’t always control when she works, my mum would only flap, and Laura’s dad won’t be able to get to her in time.
‘I promise,’ he says. ‘I won’t leave the Ladder till you come home. Don’t worry, I’ll look after her.’