Page 1 of A Sky Full of Stars
1
If Charlotte James believed in so-called cosmic balance (which she didn’t), today would have reinforced that belief. Call it karma, equilibrium or downright law of sod, there was certainly something at play, throwing objects in her clearly defined path. Not even the sympathetic gaze of Comet, her ever-loyal cocker spaniel, was enough to raise her spirits on a dull Thursday afternoon in her minute office at the back end of the archive of the University of North West Wessex’s Astronomy Department.
Comet himself was a kind of furry testament to the relative unimportance of her role in the department – things were usually so quiet in this part of the building that no one was remotely bothered that Comet accompanied Charlotte to work on the days she needed to be on site. He’d become her unofficial research associate, and the jokey picture of him next to the Morrow Telescope, the impressive device that topped the building where she worked, that she’d framed and put in pride of place on her little desk, cemented that light-hearted view. The little spaniel was sitting proudly in the picture, the white star on his chest shining in contrast with his silky black fur. So long as he kept out of the way of the equipment, and some of her rather less dog-friendly colleagues, no one seemed to concern themselves with his presence.
It was just as well, Charlotte thought, since he was pretty much her only companion either at work or away from it, apart from check-ins by her line manager, Professor Jim Edwin. Archiving could be a solitary process, and of late, for Charlotte, it had become even more so. And to add insult to injury, the first email she’d received that afternoon had been from Todd, the American senior research associate that she’d spent days, nights and most of her free time with for the past year, finally calling time on their relationship.
It wasn’t as though she hadn’t been expecting it: they’d made vague promises to keep things going when he’d accepted the fellowship back at his university in the United States, with even more vague promises that she’d try to find herself a post at the same institution in due course. The trouble was, jobs for historical astronomical archivists were so few and far between, especially in these straitened times for funding, that there had seemed very little prospect of that, even when she’d said it. Even though she hated to admit it, it had really only been a matter of time before he’d met someone else.
So that was one side of the cosmic balance theory, she thought wryly. Perhaps the email that had followed it was the other. Idly, since she had nothing better to do, she clicked it open again and re-read its contents:
Dear Dr James,
We would be delighted to offer you a five-week post at the Lower Brambleton Observatory, to undertake the archiving of the site’s records room prior to the removal of the documentation to the School of Astrophysics at the University of North West Wessex. Your CV was exemplary, and your experience thus far is impressive. The position would be open from mid-July, subject to your department’s approval, and the salary would be at the expected level…
Charlotte drew in a breath as she saw the figure that the email displayed. It was well above the rate she was on now, and for five weeks’ work, over the summer, when things got quiet in the department and the undergraduate students had all gone home, she was more than happy to pack up hers and Comet’s possessions and move.
When she’d applied for the post, late one night after Todd had decamped to America, she’d felt she had no hope of ever getting it. But it seemed that her pessimism had been misplaced. The organisation offering her the job, Flowerdew Homes, was not only offering to pay her a generous salary, but also to cover her accommodation costs for the time she was there. This was the opportunity she’d been waiting for and would certainly go some way to easing the sting of Todd’s betrayal.
Charlotte reached down and ruffled her dog’s neck. Comet, who had been lying in his basket to the right of Charlotte’s chair, sniffed her hand expectantly. Smiling, Charlotte popped the lid off the cookie jar of dog treats that sat on her desk beside Comet’s photograph. ‘I suppose it’s cause for celebration,’ she added as he gently took the treat from her outstretched fingers. Then, feeling a touch peckish herself, she took a double chocolate brownie from the second jar on her desk and allowed herself to luxuriate in its taste. It was the last of a batch that she’d baked to cheer herself up, to a recipe that Todd had given her, and finishing the soft, gooey chocolate confection seemed to put a full stop to that part of her life, well and truly.
Glancing back at the email from Flowerdew Homes, she battled with her conscience for a long moment. Much like the development companies that called in archaeologists before they could build on recently acquired sites, Flowerdew Homes had contacted her department to oversee the decommissioning of the Lower Brambleton Observatory, a building that had been standing for nearly a hundred and thirty years. Although the observatory had fallen into disuse and some disrepair over the past two decades, there had been a resurgence of interest, partly driven by nostalgia and a fair dose of nimbyism from many of the locals, in the old building and its contents. Flowerdew had borne the onslaught, though, and planning permission had been granted to develop the forty-acre site into a housing estate to enlarge the hamlet of Lower Brambleton. As with many of these developments, a new doctor’s surgery and a preschool had been promised, as well as sympathetically created play areas and green spaces. The observatory’s loss would be the village’s gain, eventually.
Charlotte would be lying to herself if she said she was completely comfortable with the demolition of a site of such special astronomical interest, but at least, she figured, if she was in charge of the archiving she’d be able to make sure the contents of the observatory were treated with the respect they deserved. In addition, the prospect of a summer away from Bristol where the University of North West Wessex had its main buildings, in the countryside, did have an appeal, if only to get away from the painful memories of her now defunct relationship with Todd. She was due to move out of her university accommodation for the summer, anyway, as there was yet another visiting professor (this time from CERN, The European Organization for Nuclear Research, no less) who was going to be put up there for the duration of the vacation.
Charlotte was a warden in one of the newly built accommodation blocks for first and second year undergraduate students. She received a small stipend for this, on top of having accommodation in a self-contained flat on the ground floor of the building that she could live in for the duration of each academic year. The arrangement took the pressure off having to finance living in the centre of Bristol, and since there had been a drive by universities across the country to make the welfare of undergraduates, especially those in their first year of study, more of a priority, the University of North West Wessex had adopted the live-in warden scheme a few years back. It meant that students had a permanent point of contact where they lived, and Charlotte could alert the pastoral teams if any issues arose with students who might be struggling to adapt to university life. While she was sure that, eventually, being a mentor and informal ‘parent’ to eighteen-year-olds would lose its appeal, she enjoyed the post and she felt that it was a role that really made a difference to the lives of some of the students. Of course, there were incidents where living so close to undergraduates had been irksome – the drunken singing of a gaggle of teenagers straggling home after a student night in one of Bristol’s many nightclubs had often awoken her, especially when they crossed ‘Hangover Row’, as the patch of green space outside her flat was known. This sometimes caused even the soundly sleeping Comet to grumble, but for the most part the students were courteous and pleased to have her on their turf. The accommodation went with the job, on the proviso that she could be ‘flexible’ when the university needed her to be and this flexibility meant that she often had to move out during the vacations, but this had never been a problem. She was getting a little old to return home to her parents for extended periods, but her friend, Gemma, had a spare room and never minded taking her in as a temporary lodger.
But not this summer. This summer, Charlotte was going somewhere new. It was an exciting prospect, and just the antidote she needed to the dull ache of being dumped by Todd.
‘Well, Comet,’ she said to the spaniel, who was looking hopefully up at her at the possibility of another treat. ‘It looks like you and I are going to the country!’
2
Two weeks later, at the official end of the university’s academic year, Charlotte put the final touches to her packing and prepared herself for the off. Luckily, there was plenty of storage on campus, so she was able to put most of her belongings into boxes to be returned when she moved back into her accommodation at the start of the new term in September. She was used to packing light, having spent a great deal of her time travelling the world for her postgraduate studies. But for the past couple of years she’d been relatively settled in Bristol, where she and Comet had shared the flat during term time and then decamped to Gemma’s or her parents’ house for the holidays. Her mother and father had started to give herthatkind of look though: the look that, roughly translated, meant ‘When are you going to get aproperjob and buy a place of your own?’Not just yet. The life of a researcher and archivist suited her, and Comet was all the company she needed. Of course, for a while she’d thought that she and Todd might settle down together, but clearlythatwasn’t going happen now.
Even if she hadn’t had to vacate her accommodation, a quick look at Google Maps had confirmed to her that she’d have to find somewhere near the observatory to live for the duration of the post, anyway. She’d recently passed her driving test, on the sixth attempt, but she didn’t have the spare cash to buy a car, and finance the astronomical running costs as a new driver, so she still relied on buses and her own two feet while she was living in Bristol. The city was very public transport friendly, which helped a lot. However, public transport to Somerset, especially the remote part of the county where Lower Brambleton was situated, was practically non-existent. This had worried her for a while, before she’d decided to accept the job. Lower Brambleton seemed picturesque, but it was a tiny hamlet almost equidistant, in the centre of a triangle, between the towns of Minehead, Taunton and Yeovil. Buses did run every couple of hours, but there was no direct service to Bristol, and it would take three hours to go from the university to Lower Brambleton. So, instead of having to navigate this, she’d decided to move to the countryside for the duration.
‘Are you sure you’ve got everything?’ Gemma, her best friend, and for today, moving buddy, asked as Charlotte shut the door of the flat. ‘I mean, there’s not a lot here…’
Charlotte smiled. ‘I always travel light. It’s a habit I learned when I was chasing constellations in South America. Comet’s probably got more stuff than I have!’
‘You’re not wrong,’ Gemma replied, wrinkling her nose as the pong of a well-used dog bed reached her nostrils. ‘Might be time to get him a new basket.’
‘He likes that one,’ Charlotte grinned. ‘I’ve tried replacing it, but he just won’t take to any of the others. He’s a creature of habit.’
‘Like his mistress,’ Gemma observed as she started the engine of her VW Touareg. ‘Which makes it all the more surprising you’re upping sticks for this weird job. I mean, I can understand wanting to get as far away from that tosser, Todd, as you can, but since he’s already stateside, why wouldn’t you just bunk with me while your flat’s being occupied? I’ve got tons of room, and I could do with a lodger for the summer.’
Charlotte, who’d reached back to plug Comet’s seatbelt lead into the socket in the back seat, gave her friend a smile. ‘It’s not that I don’t appreciate the offer,’ she said, as she turned back around, ‘but, oh, I don’t know, there just seemed to besomethingabout the observatory project that feels right. Someone should be there to take it all apart, record the artefacts and documents for posterity; someone who actually knows what they’re doing. I mean, can you imagine if they’d just gone ahead and thrown all the star charts and records into a skip?’ She shuddered. ‘I might not usually be on the side of a developer, but at least they seem to want to take care of the history they’re getting rid of.’
‘I get it,’ Gemma replied as they headed south out of the city and for the open road. ‘And you’ve always loved working on your own. I just worry that Lower Brambleton could be a bit isolated, even for you. I don’t like the thought of you all alone in the countryside, licking your wounds after Todd the Twat has done the dirty, with nothing but a manky, mouldy old telescope and an archive of mildewed star charts for company.’
Charlotte saw the concern in her friend’s eyes as Gemma glanced from the road to her, and then back again, and gave her a reassuring smile. ‘I think the telescope’s already gone,’ she said. ‘And besides, it’s better than pining in Bristol, going back to our old haunts and wishing he hadn’t hooked up with some new, better-looking model. After all, there’s nothing I can do about it, is there? Might as well make good use of the summer break and supplement my meagre income as a researcher with this project.’
‘I suppose.’ Gemma’s tone clearly illustrated that she still needed some convincing.
‘Besides,’ Charlotte continued, ‘I’ve got Comet for company, and he’s the only male I want in my life right now.’
‘Even if he needs a bath.’ Gemma’s nose wrinkled delicately again. ‘Promise me that’s the first thing you’ll do when you get there, or your new landlady’ll chuck you both out on the street before you’ve even had the chance to get his smelly old bed in situ!’
