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Belinda, books, Father O'Way, fiction, Gordon O'Donnell, humour, RUDOLPH, Sandy, short story, Space travel, travel, writing
A Place For Us—A melancholy musical episodic intro to the Father O’Way Chronicles
FATHER O’WAY
Apollo Mission I
Space.
There are words which improve considerably when somebody else is involved.
Space is one of them.
I had no objection whatsoever to space.
I thought space was magnificent.
I supported space.
I had looked at photographs of it.
I had watched documentaries about it.
I was entirely in favour of other people going there.
“I’m not going,” I said.
Gordon nodded.
“That’s understandable.”
“Good.”
“You’ll need to bring some clothes.”
I looked at Billy.
“He does this a lot?”
“Constantly.”
Gordon put his fingers to his mouth.
He did that whenever he was thinking.
Unfortunately he thought quite a lot.
“I suppose three shirts would be enough.”
“I said I’m not going.”
“And underwear.”
“Gordon.”
“Probably more underwear than shirts.”
Billy nodded.
“Sensible.”
“You can both bugger off.”
Merv placed another beer in front of me.
“Travelling, Sandy?”
“No.”
“Right.”
He put a second beer beside it.
Merv had known me for some time.
The following morning Gordon was sitting at my kitchen table.
I had not invited him.
Belinda had.
This was disturbing.
More disturbing was the fact that she appeared to like him.
Gordon had covered the table with papers, diagrams, notebooks and something with flashing lights which was occupying the space normally reserved for toast.
Belinda put tea in front of him.
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome.”
I looked at her.
“You made him tea?”
“Yes.”
“He wants to send me into space.”
“I know.”
“And you made him tea.”
“He asked nicely.”
This was how betrayal entered the modern home.
I sat down.
“All right. Explain.”
Gordon brightened.
This was a mistake.
Never tell an academic to explain.
They take it personally.
“I’m studying the universe.”
“Yes.”
“For my PhD.”
I waited.
“That’s it?”
“Essentially.”
“You’re God.”
“Gordon.”
“Your initials are G.O.D.”
“That’s unfortunate.”
“You apparently come from another dimension.”
“Yes.”
“You can appear and disappear.”
“Within limits.”
“You know things that haven’t happened yet.”
“Sometimes.”
“And you’re doing a PhD?”
Gordon looked mildly offended.
“One needs qualifications.”
“For what?”
“Academic credibility.”
I stared at him.
Somewhere in the universe, apparently, there was a university prepared to tell God that his understanding of creation required peer review.
I found this enormously reassuring.
“What’s the thesis?”
Gordon shifted some papers.
“Well…”
There was the word again.
I looked at Belinda.
“That ‘well’ always costs me money.”
Gordon produced a graph.
Across the bottom were numbers.
Up one side were more numbers.
A red line wandered through the middle without displaying any obvious desire to arrive anywhere.
“This,” he said, “represents the relationship between cricket and the fundamental structure of the universe.”
I looked at it.
“No, it doesn’t.”
“It may.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes.”
“What relationship?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Excellent thesis.”
“Which is why I need data.”
He pulled out another sheet.
“This is the average score in one-day cricket.”
I looked again.
“And?”
“This is the average number of baked beans in a four-hundred-and-forty-gram tin of baked beans in tomato sauce.”
Silence.
Belinda leaned over my shoulder.
“There’s a difference.”
“Yes,” said Gordon.
“How much?”
“That’s what I’m trying to establish.”
I looked from one to the other.
“Has anybody considered simply counting the beans?”
Gordon stared at me.
Belinda stared at me.
I had apparently said something scientifically naïve.
“You can’t just count them,” Gordon said.
“Why not?”
“Sample error.”
“Buy another tin.”
“Brand variation.”
“Buy several.”
“Regional variation.”
“Buy them in different places.”
Gordon smiled.
“Exactly.”
I realised what had happened approximately three seconds too late.
“No.”
“I need a field researcher.”
“No.”
“Someone capable of travelling.”
“No.”
“Observing local customs.”
“No.”
“Collecting samples.”
“No.”
“Writing reports.”
“No.”
“And understanding cricket.”
I hesitated.
Belinda sighed.
Gordon saw it.
“There.”
“There what?”
“That.”
“What?”
“You hesitated.”
“I like cricket.”
“Excellent.”
“It does not mean I want to spend the rest of my life travelling around the universe counting baked beans.”
“We may count other things.”
“That doesn’t help.”
Belinda picked up the graph.
“What am I doing?”
I turned to her.
“You’re doing nothing.”
Gordon said, “I was hoping you’d come too.”
“No.”
Belinda ignored me.
“As what?”
“Research assistant.”
“No.”
“Logistics.”
“No.”
“Documentation.”
“No.”
“And Sandy management.”
Belinda considered this.
“What does that pay?”
“BELINDA.”
She looked at me.
“I’m negotiating.”
“There is nothing to negotiate.”
Gordon pushed another piece of paper towards her.
Belinda read it.
Her eyebrows rose.
“Accommodation included?”
“Yes.”
“Meals?”
“Yes.”
“Travel?”
“Obviously.”
She looked at me.
“We’re going.”
“No, we are not.”
She tapped the paper.
“Free accommodation.”
I stopped.
Gordon knew his audience.
The bastard.
Three days later I was standing in a field.
I had expected Cape Canaveral.
I had expected rockets.
I had expected gantries, technicians, enormous tanks of fuel and somebody called Houston.
Instead we were outside Inner Cyberia beside a shed.
There were sheep.
One of them looked at me in a way I considered unnecessarily judgemental.
“Where’s the spacecraft?” I asked.
Gordon pointed at the shed.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“That’s a shed.”
“It looks like a shed.”
“It has CORRUGATED IRON on it.”
“Camouflage.”
“Against what?”
“Council inspectors.”
That made considerably more sense.
Gordon opened the doors.
Inside was a spacecraft.
I would like to describe it accurately.
I can’t.
Partly because I am a priest and not an engineer.
Mostly because Gordon seemed to have designed it during several unrelated periods of enthusiasm.
Bits of it were smooth and futuristic.
Other bits looked as though they had been purchased from an electrical wholesaler on a Friday afternoon.
There were lights.
Screens.
Switches.
Dials.
A lever marked DO NOT MOVE.
Another marked MOVE ONLY IF NECESSARY.
And one small switch labelled:
PROBABLY IMPORTANT
Belinda climbed aboard.
“It’s bigger inside.”
Gordon smiled.
“Yes.”
I remained outside.
“No.”
Belinda leaned back through the hatch.
“Oh, come on.”
“No.”
“You’ve travelled further for worse reasons.”
“Name one.”
“France.”
Fair point.
Gordon stood beside me.
“You’ll enjoy it.”
“Have you ever noticed that everybody who says that is standing somewhere safe?”
He climbed aboard.
I looked at the field.
The sheep.
The blue sky.
Inner Cyberia.
Earth.
Earth had faults.
Quite a few.
It contained bishops.
Committees.
Television advertising.
Religious conferences.
People who stopped suddenly in supermarket aisles.
But it had gravity.
I was very fond of gravity.
“Sandy!” Belinda called.
I climbed aboard.
The hatch closed behind me.
I immediately wanted it open again.
Gordon sat at the controls.
Belinda was beside him.
I was strapped into something which resembled an airline seat designed by a chiropractor with a grievance.
“Where are we going?”
Gordon checked several instruments.
“Initially?”
I disliked that word.
“Yes. Initially.”
“The Moon.”
I relaxed slightly.
“The Moon?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not too bad.”
“It’s quite close.”
“Exactly.”
“Relatively.”
I stopped relaxing.
“How relatively?”
Gordon flicked a switch.
Something deep beneath us began to hum.
“Gordon.”
“Yes?”
“One final question.”
“All right.”
“Have you done this before?”
He thought about it.
“With this spacecraft?”
“Yes.”
“No.”
I reached for the straps.
Belinda was already tightening hers.
“Gordon.”
“Yes?”
“Why is this called Apollo Mission One?”
He smiled.
“Tradition.”
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
The humming became a roar.
The shed disappeared.
The field disappeared.
The sheep disappeared.
For one remarkable moment I could see the entire curve of the Earth beneath us.
Blue.
White.
Beautiful.
Silent.
I forgot Billy.
I forgot baked beans.
I forgot cricket.
I forgot that the man at the controls was an interdimensional postgraduate student who had never flown his own spacecraft before.
I simply stared.
Belinda took my hand.
Neither of us said anything.
Then Gordon looked at the instrument panel.
“Oh.”
I turned slowly.
“What does ‘oh’ mean?”
“Probably nothing.”
A red light began flashing.
PROBABLY IMPORTANT
I looked at Gordon.
He looked at me.
Belinda looked at both of us.
And somewhere behind the wall, something said:
“Good afternoon.”
I froze.
“Gordon.”
“Yes?”
“Who was that?”
Gordon smiled nervously.
“Ah.”
The voice spoke again.
“Would the new passengers like to meet the crew?”
I looked out at the Earth rapidly getting smaller behind us.
Then at Gordon.
Then at Belinda.
Then at the wall.
Apparently we had a crew.
Nobody had mentioned a crew.
And that was how Apollo Mission One began.
Not with one small step for man.
Not with the triumph of human exploration.
But with me strapped into a spacecraft built by God while travelling towards the Moon to count baked beans.
In retrospect, the warning signs were quite clear.
