Death in the Stars Read online

  ‘Did I say that? I suppose I’m just a little wary about flying. I’m glad you’ll be there.’

  I opened the door.

  The effusive Mr Brockett came along the path to gather up Selina. ‘What a wonderful little wood you have at the back, Mrs Shackleton. Splendid! Splendid!’

  ‘Thank you.’ His warmth of manner and congratulations were such that he might be giving me credit for planting every tree.

  He escorted Selina to the car and then came hurrying back. I glanced at the path to see whether he had dropped one of his kid gloves.

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Shackleton. I know I’m a fusspot. Selina just told me that you’ll accompany her to Giggleswick. I’ll be most grateful if you will protect her. She’s very precious to me, and too kind for her own good. Total strangers make demands on her and she is very bad at batting them off, if you take my meaning.’

  ‘I’ll do my best, Mr Brockett.’

  ‘And do please make sure she returns in good time for a proper rest before her evening show.’

  ‘Yes of course.’

  He thanked me, and turned to wave from the gate. I felt an odd sense of foreboding as I watched the car draw away towards Headingley Lane. Perhaps Mr Brockett was wise in refusing to take to the skies and make for Giggleswick. Perhaps he knew something that I did not.

  It was only later that it occurred to me that she had not mentioned her husband by name. I remembered reading his name once, in a magazine article. Jarrod Compton.

  Three

  Corridor of Darkness

  It was such a privilege to be on the Giggleswick invitation list that I for one had memorised instructions. Over Britain, totality would take place shortly before 05.30 GMT when the altitude of the sun would be only about 12 degrees. We were asked to be present and correct by 4.00 am in order to ensure an orderly procedure.

  I felt excited at the prospect of flying in a chartered plane to such a unique event, as well as being a smidgen daunted to be wearing a mantle of responsibility. The immensely popular variety star Selina Fellini, dubbed The Silver Songbird, and her comedian chum Billy Moffatt had placed their trust in me.

  Everyone else who was setting off for Richmond, for Settle, for Giggleswick or Barden Moor by road or rail had long gone. With numbers expected to be in the millions, and over seventy thousand people converging on the Yorkshire Dales, day trippers needed to allow plenty of time.

  To be on the safe side, Selina, Billy and I left her house at 3.00 am, to meet the airmen.

  The sky was dark and, as predicted, clouds hid the moon. Wet grass gave off a sharp fresh scent. Selina’s house was set back, in a considerable acreage, but as we left it behind, I saw lights twinkling in other distant houses. Nearby, a group of unsteady partygoers, linking arms and singing, called a greeting. It was the kind of night when perfect strangers decided they had more in common than might ever have been imagined. A lone man, swaying his way home, whistled an old wartime tune. Billy Moffatt linked arms, with me on one side and Selina on the other. ‘This’ll be the best part. Camaraderie. Expectation before disappointment. Make the most of it!’ His voice carried across the night air as we took our shortcut across a field.

  The whistling man on the nearby path recognised Billy’s voice. He stopped his whistling and called the comedian’s catchphrase. ‘It ain’t funny! It’s proper sad!’

  Billy called back. ‘Well said, that man. It’s sad and it’ll get sadder.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Folk are easily amused. And they think I’m kidding.’ He shouted into the darkness. ‘I’m not kidding!’

  The whistler laughed. ‘Wait till I tell the wife who I met in the dark.’

  Billy carried a flashlight, holding it steady, which surprised me given how much he had drunk. And it was not just drink. I understood only too well that injury and grief led men like Billy to relieve the pain of wartime wounds in whatever ways they could. The partygoers, out of respect for Selina’s wishes, smoked their cigarettes on the terrace. A smoky atmosphere affected her voice. She had confided that on the occasions when they went for a drink after a show, she would seek out those public houses that catered to the needs of performers, such as the Wrens, which kept a bar free from smoke. Yet other indulging had been quite open during the party. Two of the dancers wore little gold boxes on chains around their necks.

  Billy squeezed my arm. ‘As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted by a member of the paying public, far be it from me to put a damper on proceedings but…’ He stopped dead, raised the flashlight to his face, wiggling his ears, rolling his eyes and pursing his lips to a shush. Suddenly, he shifted the beam and picked out a young fox, its head turned towards us. Held in the glare, the animal did not move. We, too, froze to the spot. Billy lowered the beam. A cloud shifted, revealing the new moon which lit the tip of the fox’s tail as it loped off towards Roundhay Park. Did animals sense what was to come, have some instinct that the world, or at least our part of it, would soon be trapped in a tunnel of darkness?

  A mist wrapped itself around us. We had crossed the first field and our shoes now tapped the pavement. Billy’s boots rang out, steel tips on paving stones. Perhaps it was the sound of our own strides that changed the mood.

  We crossed the road towards the Soldiers Field, so called because that was where soldiers mustered during the last war, and probably other earlier wars.

  My shiver was from a sense of excitement and anticipation, not due to the chill. Miss Fellini, or Selina as I am asked to call her, had wanted to help me into a fur coat, saying how cold it would be on the journey and during our wait in the school grounds. But the fur coat turned me into a brown bear. I stuck with my British wool.

  We lapsed into silence. The ground here was a little soggy. A ferocious cricket match or hobnail boot races had churned up the grass. My feet sank a little into the earth.

  There would not be another such day as this for seventy-two years, the scientists said. The world, strange as it seemed, would by then be going on without us; strange because Selina Fellini seemed larger than life itself with her dark hair and dramatic Italian beauty. Her voice enchanted, her patter left audiences in stitches. She could sing musical comedy and opera equally well. Unlike some performers on the new wireless programme from the British Broadcasting studio in Leeds, she sounded almost like her real self, warm and tuneful.

  Seventy-two years hence, perhaps some echo of that sound on the airwaves might reverberate through the world. By then, Billy Moffatt’s jokes would be long out of fashion. No one would remember his well-known catchphrases that audiences loved. ‘What’s tickled your fancy, cos it ain’t funny.’ ‘It’s proper sad, that’s what it is.’ At that evening’s performance, at the City Varieties, he had made a joke about the eclipse, based on a weather forecast of the probability of cloud. ‘Probability? Probability? Are you daft? This is Yorkshire. We deal in certainties. Course there’ll be cloud. I’ve put me hard-earned brass on it.’ The audience roared with appreciation.

  So he must certainly be there for the eclipse. He already knew what tale he would tell when next on stage. It was rehearsed, he had confided in me, over a special Eclipse Cocktail. He would tell a tale of the tens of thousands flocking to vantage points across Wales and the North of England before dawn, optimists all. He would imitate the chug-chugging trains from north and south, the discomfort of charabanc passengers, the roar of motorcycles and the screaming frustration of being caught in a procession of cars on usually empty roads. Punters turning up to watch the one-night-only special duet of sun and moon, they all had too much hope and imagination. Well that ain’t funny. Folk ought to choose their disappointments more carefully in future.

  I smiled, though it wasn’t really amusing to think all our efforts might be for nought. Perhaps it is the way he tells them on stage, with his actions and his expressions.

  As we crossed the field, my eyes adjusted to a different kind of darkness. There had been some shift in the clouds. The small plane became visible, a strange and lonely
shape waiting in the blackness. A mist rose. Two figures stood near the plane. The tip of a cigarette glowed. A strange feeling came over me, a familiarity with the scene, a memory or a dream.

  It gave me an extraordinary feeling of confidence to know that Charlie and Joe, pilot and engineer, would be flying us to Giggleswick.

  Billy saw them too. He was linking my arm and his grip became tighter, betraying a sudden tension that he covered with a joshing remark. ‘Nah then, Kate, tell me they’ll have kettle on in Giggleswick, or might we expect champagne?’

  ‘I’ve no idea what to expect. If there’s to be champagne it’ll be after the chaps from Greenwich have done their work, and the schoolboys been packed back indoors.’

  Selina laughed. ‘They’ll need more than a kettle, the numbers that’ll be there.’

  Billy came to a sudden halt unbalancing we two on either side. ‘Hang on a minute! Schoolkids?’

  ‘Well Billy, it is a school.’ I wondered if what he sniffed, swallowed or injected impaired his concentration. Did he really think that pupils would be kept indoors on such a momentous occasion? ‘This will be educational! It’s an experience the boys will remember for the rest of their lives. Sir Frank wants to bring in the young and spark their interest in science and astronomy.’

  Billy groaned. ‘You might have told me. Disappointed adults, that’s one thing. Disappointed kids, that ain’t funny.’

  Selina withdrew her arm from his and strode ahead a few yards. ‘We won’t be disappointed, Billy. We’re going to see the eclipse and there hasn’t been one for over two hundred years. Can’t you turn your story around that? The Astronomer Royal wouldn’t have chosen that spot if he didn’t believe we had the best chance there.’

  Billy took his time answering. ‘It ain’t triumphs make a funny routine, Selina, it’s disasters and humiliations, just like in real life.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose I could make a joke of the name. I couldn’t have conjured a better name if I’d made it up. What sort of a place is Giggleswick anyway, when it’s at home?’

  He had asked me this before, earlier in the evening, but since then had slipped away to take whatever he takes, and so I explained again. ‘It’s a village in the Dales, Billy, close to Settle.’

  ‘Aye well it must have no theatre or I’d have played there.’

  ‘Giggleswick School Chapel is on high ground. That’s why the headmaster invited the Astronomer Royal to view the eclipse from that spot.’

  Selina had gone quiet. She was looking at the aeroplane, which loomed large now that we drew so close. Billy relaxed his hold on my arm. He said softly, ‘Never been up in the air.’

  Selina cleared her throat. ‘Neither have I.’

  Perhaps that was why I was with them, a kind of lucky charm, someone who had flown before. I knew Selina to be superstitious because although she had not yet made it clear why my services were needed, beyond booking Charlie, Joe and their aeroplane, she had said something slightly odd during this evening’s party. She mentioned that during the past year there had been fatalities within the company. The deaths were ruled accidental. Her dreams were disjointed and troubling. She feared that ‘something might happen’. Before I could press her on the matter, we were interrupted by tipsy dancers from the Daisy Chain troupe, pressing us to join a conga. The matter of non-accidental deaths hung in the air. I had no further opportunity to ask her what she feared.

  The feeling that she was keeping something back had grown so slowly that it half seemed like my own invention.

  The de Havilland 50, with its stylish slope, snootily pointed its nose in the air, as if it might just decide to take off alone if it felt like it. The plane had the kind of shape a schoolboy might draw, with wings having an extra shelf to them.

  Billy sniffed the air. ‘Is it leaking?’

  ‘It’s Castrol engine oil,’ I answered as memories flooded back. Ever after, the smell of engine oil would also bring back the scent of Selina Fellini’s perfume. I could not identify the underlying notes of that scent, but it was expensive. A dab would go a long way.

  Billy whispered, ‘I won’t mind for myself if the aeroplane drops from the sky. But I’d be sorry about you and Selina. She’s my ally and my closest friend.’

  It had not occurred to me that the plane might drop from the sky. My father had called at the house yesterday while I was out. It was nothing important, he had told Mrs Sugden. He just happened to be in Leeds. They would see me on Sunday, as usual. I should have telephoned him.

  The clouds parted. Lit by the moon, Charlie the pilot, the taller of the two, strode towards us, smiling a greeting. Joe the engineer followed.

  I introduced them to Selina and Billy. Joe, a typical jovial airman, with the familiar small moustache, expressed his delight and for a moment I thought he would kiss Selina’s hand. That would have been far too French.

  Charlie explained how long the flight should take and that we were to land on the school cricket pitch which would be lit for us. ‘After that we’re taking a newspaper reporter and photographer up into the line of totality so that they can describe the event from above the clouds and take pictures above cloud level. When the show’s over, we’ll be flying the Evening News photographer back to London, but we’ll drop you off back here in the field, and see you safely home.’

  Joe looked from Selina to Billy. ‘Now, anyone not flown before?’

  When he had asked that same question some years earlier, I was the one to put up my hand. This time it was Selina and Billy’s turn to receive instructions and reassurance.

  Moments later, I was climbing into the plane. A sudden sense of anxiety spread through my body ending somewhere around my heart, a kind of tightening. I tried to pinpoint the fear, to name it. My fear wasn’t for the flight though I wondered how the pilot would find his way to a remote spot in the Yorkshire Dales in darkness. My thoughts were suddenly filled with ‘What ifs’. A single stubborn cloud might spoil all the work of astronomers and scientists who had laboured long towards this extraordinary phenomenon. The countrywide fever of expectation and excitement might turn into a big national failure, a waste of effort, a squandering of hope with damp and drizzle snuffing out nature’s miracle. A theatrical flop.

  Yet several astronomical camps had been set up by the men from Greenwich, crossing the line of totality that stretched from Cardigan Bay in Wales to Hartlepool in the North East. Someone must come through and successfully record what needed to be known for knowledge to move forward.

  Within moments, the plane was revving for take-off. The engine began to hum. Selina crossed herself. She leaned in close to me and whispered, ‘I’m sorry, Kate. I shouldn’t have put you in danger.’

  ‘We’re not in danger. Charlie and Joe are the most experienced airmen. I’d trust them with my life.’

  For a fraction of a second, the moon lit her face. She bit her lip but did not speak.

  Perhaps out of nervousness, Billy began to spout one of his catchphrases but the noise of the engine drowned his words.

  I was sitting close to Selina and would have been aware had she given off waves of anxiety about this journey, but after crossing herself she sat quite calmly. If it was not the flight she regarded as putting me in danger, then what?

  At that moment, Joe leaned in close. ‘We’re entering what will be the corridor of darkness.’

  Four

  The Eclipse of Death

  It was strange to look down through the darkness to the world below. Long rows of slowly moving traffic were heading towards vantage points. The yellow lights from car headlights glowed like the eyes of a crawling giant snake.

  I could dimly make out the shapes of houses. Selina sat very still, hands clasped as if in prayer. Billy kept up a chirpy monologue, barely audible until he raised his voice above the sound of the engine to deliver punch lines. Although he is extremely entertaining, I wished he would be quiet.

  Suddenly, he made a grab for my shoulder. ‘Look at that!’ He pointed to the land beneath.


  We were above open ground and there was a bonfire below. A group of people moved and swayed, dancing around the fire as if in some strange ritual.

  Billy leaned close. ‘Wild runs the noble savage, beating his drums against the swallowing of the sun. Now peasants rage because the light of the world is to be extinguished.’

  The scene vanished from sight as the plane continued on its course. We were above the clouds now. Billy became silent. For the rest of the journey no one spoke.

  I hugged my arms close, glad to have brought a muff. Here we were in June and my feet felt like blocks of ice. Selina was wrapped in her furs. I thought of the fox we saw as we crossed the field, caught in the glow of Billy’s torch, and of what was sacrificed so that we human beings might enjoy our present comforts. Selina had confided that men made her presents of furs. They expected nothing, only the knowledge that their gift might keep her warm. Sometimes she passed them on, to her dresser, to her family. Of course, she could afford to buy her own furs. It was said that she could command two hundred pounds a week. Yet her present tour of the Northern music halls was a benefit, for the support of those entertainers who had been less successful than herself.