Red Shift

“Swearing’s not nice.”

“Inadequate vocabulary would be a better description,” said Tom. He walked towards the lounge.

“Don’t diminish yourself in there,” said Jan.

Tom nearly smiled. His father moved with him, but Tom stopped. “No, sergeant-major. This is a solo. Go help Jan.”

His father wavered. “Sex,” he said.

“What about it?”

“It’s a terrible thing.”

Tom walked endlessly towards the lounge. His mother was hunched before the gas fire. For the first time he saw that she was old. He put his arms around her shoulders. She was light to raise: he held bones. Her face rested on his shoulder. He could not tell whether her crying was real.

“I’m sorry for that,” he said. “But you were, and are, wrong.” She shook, too, as he had shaken, and through it, within her, he felt his own strength, and was alert.

“I thought – that you – and she.”

“There’s no ‘she’. The name is Jan.”

“I thought you’d been – intimate.”

The obscenity, but he held on. Words. Which to use now to end now?

“You thought we’d had relations.”

His mother nodded.

“Only our parents,” said Tom, “and that should be a joke.”

His mother sobbed again. The strength did not move.

“You have to face up to the existence of Jan, you know.”

“Your father and I would prefer it if you waited till you’d finished your studies before you had anything to do with girls.”

“That could be ten years!” He was laughing now.

“Soon enough.”

“Jan’s a help: and their house.”

“It’s not our fault we can’t do better than this. It’d be worse in Married Quarters. I’ve had some! She should wash her mouth out with carbolic.”

“Stop before you start,” said Tom. “And listen. What you said to Jan tonight was not only untrue, it was humiliating.”

“Humiliating!”

“Will you apologise?”

“To her? To that kind of language? If you tell me you’ve not been—I’ll believe you.” Generosity, thought Tom, is infinite. “But I’m not apologising to someone who uses foul language in my home.”

“Wait there,” said Tom. He lifted his hands from his mother’s shoulders. The cotton dress was tacky and clung to him. The prints of his palms and fingers were clear. He went to the kitchen. Jan and his father had cleaned up the glass and were putting hardboard over the window.

“My mother’s upset by your swearing: so am I. Will you take it back?”

“Go on, love,” said his father. “Sticks and stones—”

“Sorry,” said Jan. “I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done.”

“I needed to know,” said Tom.

“How are your hands?” said his father.

“Right as rain,” said Tom. “I’ve remembered: it was Plautus.”

“What was?”

“First said ‘right as rain’. Stay there until I’ve settled my mother.”

He went through to the lounge.

“Jan doesn’t feel very accommodating. And I can see her point.”

“Then she’s not welcome here,” said his mother.

“Suit yourself. I’m going over to ‘The Limes’ with her now, neither to be intimate, nor to have relations, but to work.”

“Your hands are bleeding.”

“I’ll survive,” said Tom. “Hey, turn the sound up on the telly: there’s a commercial for removing biological stains.”

“What we want,” said Tom, “is a communications satellite.” He walked with Jan through the wood. It was a clear moon. The M6 was like a river, and the Milky Way a veil over the birch trees. “I suppose any would do. How’s your astronomy?”

“Non-existent.”

“You must know the basic constellations.”

“They never fitted the pictures in the books. I like that kite, though.”

“Where? Kite? Kite? That’s not a kite, you goof, that’s part of Orion. Those three stars are his belt.”

“Well, I’ve always liked them.”

“OK. We’ll have Delta Orionis: over there on the right. It’ll be with us all winter. We’ll be together at least once every twenty-four hours.”

“How?”