Nina Allan [Allan - The Art of Space Travel

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Magic spells are chains of words, nothing more. Words that help you imagine a different future and create a shape for it, that help you see what it might be like, and so make it happen. Sometimes when I read about our struggle to land people on Mars, thats how the words seem to melike an ancient incantation, and as deeply unfathomable, a set of mystical words, placed carefully in order and then repeated as a magical chant to bring about a future we have yet to imagine.

The Edison Star Heathrow has sixteen floors, 382 bedrooms, twenty private penthouse apartments, and one presidential suite. It is situated on the northern stretch of the airport perimeter road, and operates its own private shuttle bus to ferry patrons to and from the five terminals. We have a press lounge and a flight lounge and conference facilities. As head of housekeeping, its my job to make sure things run smoothly behind the scenes. My job is hard work but I enjoy it, by and large. Some days are more demanding than others.

It was all just rumours at first, but last week it became official: Zhanna Sorokina and Vinnie Cameron will be spending a night here at the hotel before flying out to join the rest of the Mars crew in China. Suddenly the Edison Star is the place to be. The public bar and the flight lounge have been jammed ever since the announcement. Theres still a fortnight to go before the astronauts arrive, but that doesnt seem to be putting the punters off one little bit. Its cool to be seen here, apparently. Which is ironic, given that we werent even the mission sponsors first choice of hotel. That was the Marriott International, only it turned out that Vinnie Cameron had his eighteenth here, or his graduation party or something. He wanted to stay at the Edison Star and so thats whats happening.

I guess they thought it would be churlish to deny him, considering.

The first result of the change of plan is that the Marriott hates us. The second is that Bennys on meltdown twenty-four hours a day now instead of the usual sixteen. I cant imagine how hes going to cope when the big guns arrive.

Perhaps hell just explode, says Ludmilla Khanshes the third-floor super. A dreamy expression comes into her eyes, as if shes picturing the scene in her mind and kind of liking it. Spontaneous combustion, like you see in the movies. The rest of us running around him flapping like headless chickens.

She makes me laugh, Ludmilla, which is a good thing. I think theres every chance that Benny would drive me over the edge if I didnt see the funny side. Bennys a great boss, dont get me wrongwe get on fine most of the time. I just wish he wasnt getting so uptight about the bloody astronauts. I mean, Jesus, its only the one night and then theyll be gone. Fourteen hours of media frenzy and then were last weeks news.

Probably Im being mean, though. This is Bennys big moment, after all, when he gets to show off the Edison Star to the world at large and himself as the big guvnor man at the heart of it all. Theres something a bit sad about Benny underneath all his bullshit. I dont mean sad in the sense of pathetic, I mean genuinely sad, sorrowful and bemused at the same time, as if hed been kidnapped out of one life and set to work in another. And its not as if he doesnt work hard. Hes beginning to show his age now, just a little. Hes balding on top, and his suits are getting too tight for him. He wears beautiful suits, Benny does, well cut and modern and just that teeny bit more expensive than he can really afford. Benny might be manager of the Edison Star, but you can tell by his suits that he still wishes he owned it. You can see it every time he steps out of the lift and into the lobby. That swagger, and then the small hesitation.

Its as if hes remembering where he came from, how far there is to fall, and feeling scared.

My mother, Moolie, claims to know Benny Conway from way back, from the time he first came to this country as a student, jetting in from Freetown or Yaound, one of those African cities to the west that still make it reasonably easy for ordinary civilians to fly in and out.

He had a cardboard suitcase and an army surplus rucksack. He was wearing fake Levis and a gold watch. He sold the watch for rent money the first day he was here. He still called himself Benyamin then, Benyamin Kwame.

When I ask Moolie how she can know this, she clams up, or changes her story, or claims she doesnt know who Im talking about. I dont think its even Benny shes remembering, it cant be, or not the Benny Conway whos my boss, anyway. Shes confusing the names, probably, getting one memory mixed up with another the way she so often does now.

Either that, or she just made it up.

Benny slips me extra money sometimes. I know I shouldnt accept it but I do, mainly because he insists the money is for Moolie, to help me look after her. It must be tough, having to care for her all by yourself, Benny says, just before he forces the folded-over banknotes on me, scrunching them into my hands like so many dead leaves. How he came to know about Moolie in the first place, I have no idea. Theres a chance Ludmilla Khan told him, I suppose, or Antony Ghosh, the guy who oversees our linen contract. Both of them are friends of mine, but you can imagine the temptation to gossip in a fish tank like this. I take the money because I tell myself Ive earned it and I cant afford not to, also because maybe Benny really is just sorry for Moolie and this is his way of saying so, even though Ive told him enough times that its not so much a question of looking after Moolie as looking out for her. Making sure she remembers to eat, stuff like that. Its the ordinary stuff she forgets, you see. During her bad patches her short-term memory becomes so unreliable that every day for her is like the beginning of a whole new lifetime.

Its not always like that, though. She can look after herself perfectly well most of the time, she just gets a bit vague. She cant do her work anymore, but shes still interested in the world, still fascinated by what makes things tick, by aeroplanes and rivers and metals, the rudiments of creation. Those are her words, not mine the rudiments of creation . Moolie used to be a physicist. Now she sounds more like one of those telly evangelists you see on the late-night news channels, all mystery and prophecy and lights in the sky. But when it comes down to it, shes interested in the same things shes always been interested inwho we are and how we came here and where the bloody hell we think were going.

If you didnt know her how she was before, you wouldnt necessarily spot that theres anything wrong with her.

Its all still inside, I know iteverything she was, everything she knows, still packed tight inside her head like old newspapers packed into the eaves of an old house. Yellowing and crumpled, yes, but still telling their stories.

For me, Moolie is a wonder and a nightmare, a sadness deep down in my gut like a splinter of bone. Always there, and always worrying away at the living flesh of me.

The doctors say theres nothing to stop her living out a normal lifespan but I think thats bollocks and I think the doctors know its bollocks, too. Moolie was fifty-two last birthday, but sometimes shes bent double with back pain, as bad as a woman of eighty or even worse. Other times she burbles away to herself in a made-up language like a child of four. Her whole system is riddled with wrongness of every kind. The doctors wont admit it, though, because theyre being paid not to. No one wants to be liable for the compensation. Thats why you wont find any mention of the Galaxy air crash in Moolies medical file, or the sixteen lethal substances that were eventually identified at the crash site, substances that Moolie was hired to isolate and analyse.