‘Shall we go?’ I asked.
‘If you’re done? I could carry on, but the heat is getting a little intense.’
I looked up at the sky again, shielding my eyes from the sun. It was the start of summer and the temperatures were soaring.
‘I love summer,’ I said, without thinking.
‘Me too.’ Andrew slid up to me and also looked into the sky. ‘Are we looking for something?’
‘Not really.’ A thought popped into my head. One of those random ones that I always felt compelled to share when they came to me.
‘Do you believe in UFOs?’ I asked.
Andrew stepped back. The move was so sudden and decisive that it caught my attention immediately.
‘What?’ I asked quickly.
‘You’ll think I’m talking crap.’
‘No, I won’t. What?’
He paused for a moment and looked at me solemnly. As if weighing something up. ‘Okay, I’m not making this up. I’m being serious.’
‘I believe you,’ I replied.
‘So, I was doing a night flight to Cape Town a couple of years ago and we were flying over the free state – I remember exactly where we were. We’d just flown past Beauford West in the Karoo and . . .’ He paused for a moment and closed his eyes, as if trying to find something in his mind. ‘There was this light. It looked like it was on the horizon, which I thought was really odd, because I knew there were no towns or settlements there. We were flying over the open desert. I looked down at my instruments for a moment, and when I looked back up, the light had moved. But it had moved kilometers in a few seconds. Impossible, right? No plane I know can move that quickly, not even a military jet.’
‘Did you call ATC to see if there was anything on radar?’
He nodded. ‘Nothing. They said there was nothing there.’
‘Which is impossible,’ I added, as the hairs on the back of my neck bristled.
‘Look, I don’t know what it was. I’m not saying it was an alien spacecraft from another galaxy, but it was definitely an unidentified flying object.’
‘Huh.’ I looked back at the sky thoughtfully.
‘What would you think if you saw something like that?’ he asked.
I looked back at him and thought about it for a while. ‘There are a hundred billion stars in our galaxy. One of them, the sun, supports life. There are possibly two hundred billion galaxies in our universe, and one galaxy, the Milky Way, supports life. Unless our solar system is a total anomaly among hundreds and hundreds of billions, then I doubt we are alone in this universe. Whether other life forms possess the advanced technology for intergalactic travel, I can’t say. But if you’re asking me if I think it’s possible that what you saw may have been a visitor from another planet, then I would say it’s definitelynotimpossible.’
‘So you don’t think I’m crazy?’ he asked, looking genuinely relieved.
‘I think it would be crazy to discount what you saw, and crazy not to investigate whether or not there was a scientific answer for it.’
The sun was directly in his face, and it was hard to make out what his gestures were doing in the harsh glow, but I was sure that he was smiling at me.
CHAPTER14
An hour later, after a cool and contemplative car ride, during which I’d googled stories of pilot UFO sightings and relayed them to Andrew – they happened far more often than I thought – we arrived at the aquarium. I was so excited again and, this time, I didn’t hold back and broke into a speedwalk to get to my favorite place. And when I was there, I did what I always did: I pressed my face to the glass and stared into the waters of the enormous tank.
Its interior was designed to mimic one of the underwater kelp forests that were common in the oceans around the Cape. Huge tree-like structures of brown kelp swayed in the water. The slow, repetitive movement, left to right, left to right, was hypnotic and, watching it, I felt this immediate sense of relaxation. This was what I loved about fish and being underwater: everything was slower and more rhythmic there, governed by repetitive patterns that were predictable and reliable, the current and the tides. The underwater world was also less sharp, less bright, less frantic and certainly less noisy.
A number of different fish moved slowly through the watery forest, weaving in and out of the giant swaying plants. They glided, as if not putting any effort into their movements at all. Their languid, smooth moves mesmerized me, and I wanted to submerge myself in the tank with them. The tank was huge; it filled the entire amphitheatre and was open to the sky above. This allowed sunlight to trickle into the water and, because most of the fish were silver, the light danced off their scales. Much prettier than a diamond ring, if you ask me. I put my hands on the side of my face, blocking out any peripheral vision I might have of the people around me, so all I could see was the water and the fish and the dancing, dappled light. I felt Andrew move closer to me and was vaguely aware that he too had put his face up against the glass. We stayed like this in total silence. The chatter and movement of the other people in the room disappeared. I loved this. This moment right here. The calm. The silence.
‘I can see why you love this,’ Andrew whispered, just loud enough for me to hear.
‘It’s relaxing,’ I whispered back.
