Chapter 43
43
Perfect timing, as ever , Charlotte thought crossly as Todd appeared by the table. Couldn’t the guy take a hint? Research buddy or not, now was not the time to gatecrash. She’d been on the verge of telling Tristan that Todd was in Lower Brambleton and the possible discovery she’d made about the eclipsing binary, and now Todd had obviously taken it upon himself to intervene.
‘Forgive me,’ Todd said, giving them both his best apologetic smile. ‘I don’t mean to interrupt, but I just wanted to let you know, Charlotte, that I’ll be heading out on the next flight from Heathrow. If you wanted to talk anything through in person before I leave, we could meet at the observatory this evening?’
Charlotte glanced from Todd to Tristan and back again. The intimacy of the last few minutes had vanished if Tristan’s expression was anything to go by. He was looking at her expectantly, clearly waiting to be introduced.
‘Tristan, this is Todd,’ Charlotte said quickly. ‘He, er, he’s been assisting me with some of the archive work up at the observatory.’
‘I thought you were working alone?’ Tristan’s brow wrinkled.
Charlotte’s face began to flame. She didn’t like the intersection of her private and professional lives one bit.
‘Todd’s been looking into a few anomalies for me. I was going to fill you in when I was sure about what we might have found.’ God, this was awkward. She didn’t want to reveal Tristan’s family links with the observatory to Todd, who had no idea that Tristan was Martin and Laura’s son. And she certainly didn’t want to divulge the specifics of the binary star discovery to Tristan like this.
‘Yeah.’ Todd continued to smile, although Charlotte could tell he was somewhat surprised by his introduction as ‘research buddy’. ‘Charlotte contacted me to come on board with the archive project in an advisory capacity. We just need to tie up a few loose ends before I head home.’
‘And where’s home?’ Tristan asked. Charlotte didn’t miss the tighter quality of his voice. She sensed that Tristan might be putting two and two together.
‘Atlanta,’ Todd replied. ‘I’m currently working for Georgia State University.’
Tristan’s quirked eyebrow in Charlotte’s direction told her it had all clicked. ‘Fascinating work,’ he said. ‘Funny… we were just talking about you.’
‘All good, I hope!’ Todd’s smile became more fixed.
Tristan didn’t grace him with a reply. He glanced at his watch. ‘I’d better be off,’ he said. ‘I, er, promised I’d look in on Thea and the kids this afternoon.’ He made to stand but Charlotte tried desperately to delay him.
‘What about the bill? We should split it.’
‘No need.’ Tristan gave her a brief, guarded smile. ‘I’ll take care of it. I’ll, er, leave you two to discuss your research. No time like the present.’
‘Hang on.’ Charlotte rose to follow him. ‘Let me walk you out.’
Todd stepped back from the table, and Charlotte was sure she spotted a flicker of triumph in his eyes. Tristan reached out a hand to shake Todd’s briefly. ‘It was good to meet you,’ he said.
‘You too,’ Todd replied.
Then, in a formal gesture that spoke volumes, Tristan leaned forward and kissed Charlotte’s cheek. ‘Lunch was great,’ he said. ‘Text me when you’ve finished discussing your research.’
Charlotte felt a pinprick of frustration at the back of her neck. Why was Tristan the one to walk away? The last thing she wanted was for him to leave, and to be stuck with Todd until he buggered off to get his flight. Taking a deep breath, she turned back to Todd. ‘I’m sure whatever you’ve found out can wait,’ she said. ‘Or even better, be put in an email. I’m busy right now, as you can see, and I was enjoying a pleasant lunch. Why don’t you contact me when you’re back in Georgia and we can discuss things further. You did say you needed to check a couple of things?’
Todd was the one looking surprised, now. A man unused to being given the brush-off, his face assumed an irritated expression. ‘If that’s what you want,’ he said, after a beat.
‘It is,’ Charlotte replied. Nothing Todd could have discovered was worth leaving Tristan with an incorrect impression about her and her relationship with her ex. She kicked herself for not being up front with Tristan at the start of lunch and making it clear that, although Todd might be in Lower Brambleton, it wasn’t because she’d invited him. She’d have to make sure that he knew that now. Without pausing to say anything else to Todd, she hurried out to the bar area, where Tristan had finished paying the bill and was heading for the door.
‘Tristan!’ she called as she crossed to follow him.
Tristan stopped, but Charlotte could tell he was reluctant. His posture was stiff, mannered, as if he was trying to act as though he hadn’t been bothered by meeting Todd, but he couldn’t quite pull it off.
‘It’s OK, I got the bill,’ he said, going to walk out of the door.
‘That’s not why I stopped you, and you know it,’ Charlotte replied hurriedly. ‘Look, I know you said you’ve got to get to Thea’s, but can we talk?’
Tristan’s eyes flickered past Charlotte, clearly to see if Todd was still lurking. ‘Yes, all right. Why don’t we leave the car here and walk off some of that apple pie?’
Charlotte felt the first stirrings of relief at his response. She smiled. ‘That sounds good.’
There was a public footpath across the road from the pub that many Sunday dog walkers used to burn off the excesses of their lunch so without further ado they headed out towards the path.
‘Look,’ Charlotte said when they’d crossed the road and were out of potential earshot of any other walkers. ‘I’m sorry about what just happened. I should have levelled with you from the start that Todd had decided to make an unannounced detour from Greenwich to come and see the Lower Brambleton Observatory.’
‘And you, presumably?’ Tristan added.
Charlotte glanced up at him, but his face gave nothing away. She felt another pinprick of frustration that he’d put what she was beginning to realise was his ‘game face’ back on. She’d thought they were past that. They had been until this lunchtime. Taking a deep breath, she realised that she had to be honest.
‘I emailed Todd recently,’ she said. ‘I wanted a second opinion about something I’d found in the observatory’s records. My boss at North West Wessex, Professor Edwin, was my first choice, but he’s on annual leave and I didn’t want to bother him. Since time is of the essence, I decided to swallow my hurt feelings and contact Todd. Despite the way things ended between us, I still respect his scientific opinion. I sent him some anomalous data that I’d uncovered, and the next thing I knew, he’d rocked up here.’
‘Convenient that he was in Greenwich at the time you emailed him,’ Tristan observed.
Charlotte didn’t like the implication. ‘He wasn’t until a couple of days ago. And I didn’t know he was there, just to be clear.’ She stepped around a fallen branch on the footpath. ‘As far as I was aware, he was still in Atlanta. I thought it would just be a quick email exchange: I’d send him the information; he’d give me his opinion and that would be it. I was shocked when he turned up at the observatory on Friday.’
Tristan’s head shook slightly, and if Charlotte had been looking ahead of her, she’d have missed it. ‘It’s true, Tristan, I promise you.’ She didn’t like having to repeatedly justify herself and was growing frustrated by his apparent scepticism.
‘So, you knew he was here. Did you know he was staying at the Star and Telescope?’
Charlotte drew in a quick breath. ‘I did. But I thought he’d checked out on Saturday. I saw him in the bar just before you arrived, and I should have mentioned it to you straight away that he was here, but I just didn’t think it was worth it. He’s going back to Heathrow later, and he’ll be back in Atlanta by the end of tomorrow. Apart from communicating about our research, I don’t anticipate seeing him again.’
‘So, what are these findings?’ Tristan asked, clearly keen to get off the touchy subject of having an ex-boyfriend sprung on him.
Charlotte took a moment to consider her next words carefully. She still didn’t really know how aware Tristan was of the relative historical importance of the Lower Brambleton Observatory. It would be a fair bet, given how young he and Thea were when their parents were killed, that unless he’d made the effort, his parents’ astronomical work would have remained a fairly abstract, distant concept for him. Lorelai might have enlightened them both over the years, but she was no expert, and given the somewhat parlous relationship between Lorelai and the only other member of the family, her brother Philip, who had also been an astronomer, she wondered how much Tristan would really understand. All the same, she knew she had to try to explain things to him: she would need to explain to all the surviving family members eventually, if what she suspected did indeed turn out to be true.
Charlotte waited until a young family, complete with chocolate-brown Labrador, had passed, before she turned back to Tristan.
‘While I was sorting through the observatory’s records for the last quarter of 1994 I came across something that surprised me.’ She proceeded to explain, in as clear a way as possible, the observations made by Tristan’s parents about the eclipsing binary and the fact that there had been no reference to its discovery before or in 1995.
Tristan looked deep in thought as she recounted the story, and as she paused, he took a seat on a nearby tree stump.
‘So, what you’re telling me is that my parents should have been credited with the discovery, but due to the rather inconvenient event of their sudden deaths, that didn’t happen?’
Charlotte’s heart gave a lurch at the strange tone of Tristan’s voice: a tone she couldn’t interpret and was struggling to understand. ‘Well,’ she ventured, ‘I wouldn’t quite put it like that.’
‘Then how would you put it?’ Tristan sprang up again from the tree stump. ‘You’re the expert. Do tell me.’
‘I’m trying to tell you.’ Charlotte tried to keep her voice as calm as she could, but she suddenly felt as though Tristan was telling her off again, like the first time they’d met. ‘I don’t know why this wouldn’t have been documented at the time.’ She reached out a hand and tried to touch Tristan’s arm, but he stepped away from her, out of reach. ‘There should be at least a footnote in a journal, a reference to your mum and dad in relation to the discovery, but there’s nothing. The professor who was at North West Wessex at that time, Professor Jacobson, should know more. Your dad emailed him back in the day, to ask for his assistance in corroborating the potential discovery, but then the trail ends there. It doesn’t make any sense. Todd’s going to try to track him down as he moved to an American university and had tenure until he retired a couple of years ago. He wants to work out why the paper trail went cold after that email from your dad.’
Tristan stood stock still, his expression unreadable as he took in what Charlotte was saying. Eventually, he broke the rather uncomfortable silence that had descended between them.
‘I appreciate that this is important to you,’ he said. ‘And perhaps, if I’d spent the past few weeks immersed in the project as you have, I’d be champing at the bit to find the answer to what’s clearly a bit of a puzzle.’
‘It’s more than that!’ Charlotte couldn’t disguise her irritation at Tristan’s understatement. ‘It’s a significant discovery that potentially should have been attributed to your parents. Aren’t you even a little bit excited or energised by that?’
‘Do you want the truth?’ Tristan asked, and Charlotte immediately noticed a different, more brittle tone in his voice.
‘Of course I do,’ she said, trying to keep her own tone calmer than she felt. ‘Tell me, Tristan, please.’
Tristan’s eyes met hers for a long moment before he averted his gaze to look down the long, straight track of the next stage of the woodland path. There wasn’t anyone on the horizon, and for a moment, it felt to Charlotte that if there had been, Tristan might not have been so honest.
‘I’ve spent my life trying to move on from what happened to my parents,’ he began quietly. ‘I wanted to manage the Observatory Field project because, to my mind, razing it to the ground was the best way to get away from the stranglehold it has on my family. And now, when we’re literally days away from the final phase in that process, you’re telling me that the book might not be closed, after all?’
Charlotte’s shock at his words must have registered on her face, because before she could respond, Tristan continued. ‘Thea, my grandmother, and I have all rebuilt our lives after what happened to my parents. The last thing any of us needs right now is for an over-enthusiastic archivist to go digging about in the past, raking up memories that we’ve all tried to move on from. When Mum and Dad died, we all needed to put some distance between ourselves and the observatory. Even though the bloody place stayed in the family so long, what was left of the family needed the space. Gran’s brother didn’t make that process easy; he blocked every attempt she made to sell the land and I never really knew why. When he finally died and left his share to Gran, we discussed what should happen next. Painful as it was on some levels, it was agreed that the best thing to do was to sell it. Everyone made peace with it, and although Gran was determined to ensure its contents were preserved for future academics to study, none of us had any intention of becoming immersed again in a past that was so painful for us.’
This time, when Charlotte put out a hand to touch Tristan, he let her. ‘I understand what you’re saying,’ she said gently. ‘And I can’t even imagine how difficult and traumatic this final stage of the observatory’s history has been for you. For all of you.’ She paused, considering her next words carefully. ‘But wouldn’t you rather know that your parents got the credit for the discovery that they deserve? If it does emerge that they found the binary first, their names should go alongside it.’
Tristan shook his head. ‘Can’t you see, Charlotte? It doesn’t matter. So what if they found this eclipsing binary thing first? It doesn’t bring them back. Even if they do get credit for it, it’ll be just another footnote in a scientific journal that no one will bother to read. It means nothing.’
‘Are you telling me to just forget about it, then?’ Charlotte retorted. ‘Because at the end of the day I’m an astronomical historical archivist, and spotting things like this is part of why I do what I do.’
‘I can’t tell you to do that.’ Tristan’s tone was gentler now, and his eyes were locked on Charlotte’s, pleading with her to understand. ‘But please… tread carefully. The last thing my family needs is to be dragged back into the past. We’ve tried to escape it for so long. If you can’t leave it where you found it, then at least grant us the courtesy of not involving us.’
Charlotte nodded. ‘I can try not to.’ She gave a brief smile, trying to reassure Tristan. ‘Besides, all of this was before the internet became commonplace… there might not be anything more to tell.’
‘Does it sound awful that I hope there isn’t?’ Tristan asked. He suddenly looked incredibly tired and vulnerable, and Charlotte thought she saw a trace of the small boy who’d lost his parents all those years ago. ‘I’ve spent the best part of thirty years trying to get away from the horror of what happened that night. I’m not sure I’m ready to revisit it.’ He stepped forward and Charlotte was enveloped in a warm embrace. She rested in his arms, a combination of relief and frustration battling within her. Her heart told her to respect Tristan’s strong wish for her potential discovery to be abandoned, but her head and all of her academic training were screaming at her to keep following the trail. Tristan’s feelings were one thing, but sometimes emotions had to take second place to science. She still didn’t know which territory this particular conundrum could claim to be in.