Epilogue
A YEAR LATER
At number sixteen Orion Close, a small, three-bedroomed house tucked into the corner of the Observatory Field development, and a stone’s throw from the woodland that the new owner had explored as a child, the champagne cork popped and fell a long way short of the back fence. Cheering followed, almost as swiftly as the small black and white cocker spaniel, Comet, did after the cork.
‘Congratulations, Thea.’ Lorelai raised her glass, which was the first to have been filled, in her granddaughter’s direction. ‘This has been a long time coming, but I wish you every success in your new home.’
‘Thanks, Gran.’ Thea passed a glass to Charlotte, who was standing off to one side of the patio table with Tristan, and then filled her own. ‘I can’t believe we’re finally here!’
Thea had been one of the first owners to move into her new home on Observatory Field. The house, big enough for herself and the two children as they grew into teenagers, was part of a tasteful development that her brother had overseen from start to finish. The garden, while not enormous, was substantially bigger than the small courtyard plot she’d had in her rented property, and ensured that Dylan could practise his penalty kicks for the Lower Brambleton Under-9s without fear of losing his ball to the road or the house behind. Cora, who’d loved the woodland since she was old enough to walk, now spent a great deal of her time exploring the surrounding countryside, and had a chart on her new bedroom wall which detailed the different kinds of British wildlife she might expect to find. She’d ticked off many of these already.
The estate, still in the process of being built, was welcoming new residents regularly, and a community was beginning to form. In a few years’ time, it would ensure the survival of this charming little Somerset hamlet.
Charlotte looked over at Tristan, who was sipping his champagne and gazing out over the garden, seemingly lost in thought.
‘You OK?’ she murmured, slipping closer to him.
‘Absolutely,’ he replied. ‘You know, it’s nice to think about the changes that have happened here and just be happy.’ He shook his head. ‘I don’t know what that says about me, that I had to watch a building being razed to the ground to feel that, but that’s how it happened.’
Charlotte smiled up at him. She knew what a concession that was for him to admit out loud, even though they’d had a lot of discussions about it over the past year. Losing the observatory but gaining a sense of peace about the past had been a worthy exchange, not just for Tristan but for his whole family. A family that now included Charlotte, unofficially at least.
Charlotte herself had seen out the academic year in her flat in the halls of residence, but had been pootling up and down the A roads between Bristol and Lower Brambleton on a regular basis to visit Tristan, and almost as regularly, Lorelai. Still not quite ready to take the plunge and move in together, Charlotte had commandeered a space in Tristan’s study for some of the days during the university vacations when the students had gone home and she couldn’t be bothered to drive back to her flat, and they’d been moving their relationship along slowly, giving each other the time and space they needed to progress at a pace that suited them both.
Things had been getting more serious lately, though, with more of Charlotte’s possessions finding their way into Tristan’s house, and Tristan quietly rearranging them whenever she went back to Bristol. Despite Thea’s none-too-subtle hints that Cora was desperate to be a bridesmaid, Charlotte and Tristan were content with their own timeline, for now.
While Tristan had now moved on to mastermind the next Flowerdew Homes development, Charlotte still worked in the North West Wessex archives, where she was putting together a research paper proposing that the Volucris Binary’s German name be given an additional identifier called the ‘Ashcombe Formation’. From across the Atlantic, Todd had been her research partner and was even now using the vast resources of his university’s astrophysics department to provide up-to-date calculations of the pair of eclipsing stars, to ensure that, unlike thirty years ago, Martin and Laura’s discovery would not be forgotten. Even if the identifier never took, their names would be recorded as the first astronomers to have observed and noted the discovery.
The small housewarming gathering at Thea’s had been the perfect excuse to get friends and family together, and along with Lorelai, Thea and the kids, and Charlotte and Tristan, Thea had invited Annabelle and her husband and Nick Saint, too, who, having just split with his girlfriend, was pleased to get out for a chat and a drink. Nick spent most of the afternoon saving Dylan’s goal kicks, and Annabelle was heard to remark to her husband that it was good to see him smiling again.
After a little while, Tristan stood from the patio chair he’d been sitting in to drink his champagne. ‘I could do with stretching my legs,’ he said. Charlotte saw him glancing at her. ‘Do you fancy a quick walk?’
‘Sure,’ Charlotte replied. She went to put down her glass, but Tristan had refilled it.
‘Bring it with you,’ he said. ‘I’m sure no one’s going to grumble about street drinking if we’re subtle.’
Charlotte shook her head. ‘Who are you, and what have you done with Tristan?’
Both clutching their glasses, they headed out of the garden gate and walked along the newly tarmacked footpath that snaked its way through the development, past saplings that had been planted on sympathetically designed patches of green space, and towards the centre of the site, where the Lower Brambleton Observatory had once stood.
‘That’s better,’ Tristan said as they walked. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I love them all, but if I sat around any longer, Dylan would have been subbing me for Nick and I’d have been saving penalties all afternoon.’
‘What, you’re not up to throwing yourself around in a goal?’ Charlotte teased. ‘You must be getting old.’
Tristan grinned down at her. ‘I’ll remind you of that when it’s your turn to take a shift!’
They’d reached the centre now, and they paused. One of the things that made Observatory Field unique was the fact that Flowerdew were very aware of the site’s history and heritage. Some of the touches felt a little arbitrary: there were road names that seemed to come out of the Junior Encyclopaedia of Space , of which Orion Close was definitely the least cringe-inducing, but something Tristan had been clear had to be included, reinforced by Lorelai’s wishes, was a subtle memorial to what had hitherto stood on the site. In the end, a well-known design company had created a plaque, inset into the ground where the centre of the observatory had been. Its simple yet poignant inscription read:
This plaque is dedicated to the tireless efforts and passion for discovery of the members of the Lower Brambleton Astronomical Society.
In 1994, Laura and Martin Ashcombe, esteemed members of LBAS, made the remarkable discovery of an eclipsing binary star, expanding our understanding of the cosmos. Their dedication and contribution to the field of astronomy continue to inspire future generations of stargazers and scholars.
‘Per Aspera ad Astra’
Through hardships to the stars
‘It’s good to know there’ll always be a part of them that’s remembered here,’ Tristan said quietly. He’d seen the plaque at all stages of its design, and he and Thea had stood together with Lorelai when it had been installed. It had been a deeply emotional moment for all three of them, but it truly felt as though it was the perfect footnote to round off the history of the place.
‘I think they’d have been really happy to see how pleased Thea is with her new home,’ Tristan said as they sipped their champagne.
‘It’s the perfect memorial,’ Charlotte replied. ‘And I think you’re right.’
‘So, now I’ve brought you out here, there’s something I wanted to ask you,’ Tristan continued. ‘I, er, wanted to do it somewhere that I know became as special to you as it did to my parents.’
Charlotte’s heart began to race as Tristan knelt down and placed his still half-full glass of champagne down next to the plaque. When he didn’t immediately get back up, her heart raced even faster.
‘I never thought I’d be asking this of anyone,’ Tristan began as he reached into his pocket and pulled out a ring, ‘but then I never thought I’d fall in love with someone as special as you. Charlotte James, will you at least think about being married to me?’
Charlotte looked down at Tristan, and at the exquisitely cut pair of diamonds in the slim white gold band, and, silently thanking the stars that had brought her to Lower Brambleton, she responded with a very enthusiastic, ‘Yes!’
And somewhere far above them, at least one set of binary stars moved in perfect harmony.
* * *