AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Two and a Half Years Before I Do
‘You know you just turned north?’ Audrey said, as Josh turned his car the wrong way onto the motorway.
‘Damn,’ Josh said, drumming his hand against the wheel. ‘I’d hoped you weren’t going to notice that.’
‘Why, where are we going?’
They’d driven to Yorkshire for the weekend to meet Josh’s parents and the formidable Granny Parker. Now they were supposed to be driving home to London.
‘I wanted it to be a surprise, but I need the satnav to get me there.’
Audrey leaned forward in the passenger seat. ‘Are we running off to Gretna Green?’ she asked, conspiratorially.
‘Do you want to run off to Gretna Green?’ he asked, glancing across to the passenger seat.
‘We’ve established your family would never approve of a marriage, since I’m not from Yorkshire, so I think Gretna Green is our only option.’
Clearly, she was joking. It had been six months; they were hardly about to elope. It was going well between them, disconcertingly well, but Audrey hadn’t even said ‘I love you’ yet. Josh had said it to her. They’d been walking hand-in-hand across the Millennium Bridge one evening. They’d stopped in the middle to watch the sky reflected in the Thames, and Josh had turned to her and said, ‘I love you, Audrey.’ She had said, ‘Thank you.’ Thank you? What was wrong with her?
She loved him too, of course she did. She’d never been in a relationship that made her feel this way, as though the lights on the stage of her life had finally been turned on, and she was no longer stumbling around in the dark. Her initial attraction to Josh had been a slow burn, so too had the depth of her affection. The first bloom of infatuation had grown roots, as she got to know him, as she came to trust that he wasn’t going anywhere. His guileless affection made her feel secure and valued, it was helping her challenge some ingrained feeling of unlovability. So why couldn’t she tell him all this?
‘We’re not driving to Gretna Green, but my parents loved you, so don’t worry on that count,’ Josh said, thrusting his arm forward to change gears. ‘I’ve already had four texts from my mum, all telling me how charming she thought you were.’
‘Well Granny Parker did not find me charming.’
‘Granny Parker doesn’t find anyone or anything charming.’
‘Don’t keep me in suspense then, where are we going?’
‘It’s an early birthday present,’ Josh said, and she could see in his face he was pleased with whatever it was he had organised. ‘We’re going to one of the darkest places in Europe,’ he added mysteriously.
‘To murder me?’ she laughed, changing the radio station again.
‘No, though if you keep changing the station, I might. You’re always saying there’s too much light pollution in London, that it’s not great for seeing the stars. So we’re going to stay in a dark sky park, nowhere near any cities or towns. There’s no light pollution so you’ll be able to see your stars properly.’
‘Are you joking?’ Audrey asked, grabbing his arm in excitement, then quickly letting go, since they were currently travelling at seventy miles per hour on the motorway.
‘No,’ he laughed.
‘Eeee!’ Audrey squealed, but then her face fell. ‘But I don’t have my telescope.’
‘Don’t worry, I think there’s one there,’ he said, reaching out his hand and squeezing her knee.
They drove deep into the Northumberland countryside, through the dark spruce forest of Kielder, skirting around a huge reservoir, then winding their way gradually up the Black Fell. Looking at the landscape around them, Audrey felt that Josh had found her spiritual home. Above them was a pristine sky, and as the light began to dim, she could sense what a clean view of the stars it would offer them. They drove out onto a high clearing of land and ahead of them was a strange, box-like wooden structure.
‘What’s this? Is this where we’re staying?’ Audrey asked.
‘It’s an observatory,’ said Josh. ‘I booked us a private sky tour with one of the guides.’
Audrey stared in wonder at the huge open shutters of the building. An observatory, all the way out here? Josh’s eyes sparked with pleasure at her reaction.
They were welcomed in by Phileas, a retired astronomer and volunteer. He explained a little about the dark sky park, and then showed them up to the telescope. For the next few hours, Audrey found herself in her personal heaven. She had visited the Royal Observatory in Greenwich many times, but always as part of a tour group. Here, they had the place to themselves. As she put her eye to the lens of the huge telescope, the sight left her momentarily speechless. The fog of light, which normally dulled her view, was gone. It helped that tonight’s sky was cloudless, with a new moon, and the heavens were a blanket of ebony dotted with the brightest diamonds of light. To Audrey, it felt like putting on glasses for the first time; now she could see everything as it was supposed to be seen.
‘Do you want me to tell you what you’re looking at?’ Phileas asked.
‘Oh, there’s Altair,’ Audrey sighed, ‘and Alpheratz... and, oh, I can see the rings of Saturn so clearly!’ It soon became apparent that Audrey didn’t need telling anything.
‘Oh Josh, you have to see this, the Milky Way is so unbelievably clear,’ she said, and she didn’t even need the telescope to show him. ‘Look, this band of light, you see that glow across the sky? That’s the combined light of four hundred billion stars, and these dark patches are cosmic dust, that’s the edge of the galaxy we’re living in.’
