The Shooting Star Club

by Peter Miller

“Hang on a tick, the ol’ legs aren’t what they used to be.” Mac eased down onto an uprooted tree trunk at the side of the path.

“We used to run up this hill, you know” Bryce said, hitching the pack and eyeing the climb up into the pines. He hoped the mist wouldn’t come down thick like it had a couple of years back.

“Yeah, yeah, right. Off you go then, I’ll see you at the top.”

“Want some water?”

“Nah, I’m OK. Think Patty and Ben are here?”

“Well you know Ben will be here. I’d bet my last remaining penny on it. I’m guessing that sporty number in the parking area is his. Not sure about Patty, haven’t heard from her since last year.” She’d be here, he thought. She’d only missed a couple of years when she’d had the kids. Ben would’ve made the climb an hour ago, lugging the telescope as usual. The man was nothing if not determined. And in good shape, better than him or Mac.

“Come on you old codger” he said. “It’s going to be dark in an hour or so and I want to see the sun go down.”

Mac rolled his eyes and rose with exaggerated complaint from the old stump.

“Whose idea was this anyway?”

“Well, originally yours, as I recall.”

Mac, flopping onto the grass exhausted from the run. Helena and Addy sitting on the wooden picnic bench smoking rollies. Bryce spreading a tartan rug on the hillside.

Ben sprinting up through the trees.

“Beat ya.” Mac says, sitting up, grinning broadly.

“I’ll give you the telescope next time smart-arse.” Ben shrugs off the pack and rummages around for his water bottle

“Boys.” says Addy. “Why can’t you just have a pleasant hike up like normal people?”.

“Hey, we brought a picnic,” Helena says, “and coffee to keep us warm.” She smiles, radiant, catching Mac’s eye. Mac winks at her and she stretches languorously.

I wonder how long that’s been going on, Bryce thinks.

“And I’ve got some extra warmth for the coffee,” says Mac, brandishing a little metal flask. It seems somehow wicked and they all laugh.

They spend an hour or so setting up the telescope, unpacking the picnic and arguing about which way is north. No-one has thought to bring a compass. Patty and Alex come up the path chatting loudly, hefting a swag of sandwiches. And Frag, last as always, manages to sneak up on them all as it gets dark, frightening Patty and Helena into a screaming laughing fit. The smell of the pine trees, of rotting leaves, of the scent-trails of invisible animals, settles on the hill. The night is clear and cold. And soon enough, Addy cheers with delight as the first bright Perseid scores its fizzing trail across the night.

To the east, the cliffs of White Dog Ridge were burning bright magenta. Ben had the telescope pointed out towards Venus in the west. He was standing on a fallen tree, smiling, his hands in the pockets of a checked woollen jacket.

“You know, you guys make an awful lot of noise for slowpokes,” he said jumping down.

Mac grasped his hand, laughing. “Bryce was trying to make me run. I told him my insurance wouldn’t cover it if I keeled over with a heart attack.”

Bryce dumped the pack down on the picnic table.

“Hey, new table.”

“Yeah, someone finally decided that old one was a public nuisance. Didn’t it have termites in it last year?”

“I hope it didn’t collapse with someone dancing on it,” Bryce said.

“Do people often dance on the tables here?” Ben asked, grinning at Mac.

Mac shrugged, “Whaddya want, we were young and in love.”

Frag pushing an old beer bottle into the ground, spout pointing to the sky. Alex rummaging through the pack for matches. Ben and Bryce and Patty arguing about Chinese politics. Mac and Helena slow dancing on the picnic table, under a brilliant starry sky.

“Don’t break that thing,” says Bryce. “It’s the only dry place to sit.”

“We got any glasses?” says Frag.

“There’s some aluminium cups in the picnic basket,” Alex says.

Patty finds them and Bryce pours whiskies all round.

Frag puts the skyrocket in the mouth of the bottle.

“I’m lighting the blue touch paper — stand well back,” he declares.

The rocket screeches up into the heavens spattering gold stars across the night. As if on cue, the first of the Perseids answers back brilliant and spectacular, arcing over the wet pines.

Everyone raises their cup.

“To Addy,” says Frag.

“To Addy,” everyone answers.

“Rest in peace,” says Mac.

The twilight had faded to deep shades of Prussian blue by the time Patty arrived with the picnic basket. The deep grooves of habit had long since worn into ritual: the girls brought the picnic, the boys brought the whisky, Ben brought the telescope.

“We thought you weren’t coming,” Mac said.

“Can you believe it, I got lost,” Patty said “They’ve made the Creek Road a No Right Turn and I wasn’t paying attention. Drove right past. I went about ten K before I realised. I’m going nutty in my old age.”

“Ah, come on, you’re saner than all of us put together,” said Mac. “Also a lot greyer.”

She whacked him with a tea-towel.

“But not as bald. I made us turkey and ham sandwiches, and there’s boiled eggs, cheese and pickles. And the coffee’s strong espresso.”

Patty, noticeably pregnant, spreading out a checked blanket. Helena looking through binoculars at Venus. Mac and Ben trying to fix a broken screw in the telescope leg.

“So you heard about Frag?” says Alex. He and Bryce are gazing out to the north where hundreds of acres of pines have been cleared. The mountainside is barren, damaged. They know it’s a plantation but their spirits are darkened.

The setting sun is feeble and watery.

Alex has put on a lot of weight. His eyes look tired.

We’re getting older, Bryce thinks, for the first time.

“Yeah, his brother rang me. I didn’t know what to say. I mean, I was never really close to Frag. That bloody motorbike.”

“You know it wasn’t the motorbike.”

“Yeah, right,” Alex says. He runs his hands through his hair and sighs.

“At least no-one else got hurt.”

Helena bringing them coffee.

“I guess they’ll cut down the rest of the trees eventually,” she says.

A strong smell of pine resin drifts over them.

“I’m not supposed to be drinking this,” says Alex, and drinks it anyway, whisky and all.

“You OK?” Ben walked over to where Mac was standing on the edge of the clearing, hands in pockets, staring out to the east where the stars were picking out bright points.

“Oh. Yeah. You know. Just thinking about Helena.” He shuffled. “It’s sort of OK most of the time, but every now and then she sends her ghost to stand beside me. What can I say?”

“Do you believe in ghosts?” asks Helena.

“I don’t know,” says Patty “Maybe.”

Patty, Helena, Mac, Bryce and Ben, waiting for the first Perseid. It’s very dark, there’s no moon, only stars. A bottle of champagne, unopened, and eight glasses.

“When we come here now I always think that the ghosts of Frag and Addy and Alex come here too, somehow.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean,” Mac says. His arm is around Helena but he draws her closer. “One day there’ll just be eight ghosts up here. Eight ghosts and a sky full of shooting stars. Sounds kinda pretty.”

They all laugh, and, on cue, a thin feather of brightness skids across the sky.

“Champagne!” says Ben, and pops the cork.

“You can really get a feeling for how fast those pines grow.” Ben looked out to where the moon was setting. “A couple of years ago you couldn’t even see them against the ridge and now that whole hillside looks pretty much the same as it did when we first came here.”

“Just as well they’re not oaks,” Mac said, topping up his coffee, “I read that oaks take three hundred years to reach maturity. Was it Oxford University, somewhere, when they originally felled the oaks to build the main hall, they planted new ones so that when the time came to replace the beams, in three hundred years, they wouldn’t have to cut down any additional trees. That’s planning ahead.”

“Lot of good it did,” Bryce said, eyes off to the north.

“At least they thought about it back then” Patty said. “I don’t think anyone plans ten minutes ahead these days, let alone three hundred years.”

A bright streak flashed across the sky.

“Aha!” Mac said, “thar she blows.”

“Here’s to Numero Uno,” Ben said, passing around the flask.

They sat in silence, every now and then exclaiming with pleasure as the Perseid shower unfolded into the early hours. Not the spectacular display of last year and fewer in number, but, even so, every shooting star a brief, bright, sparkling trail scorched across a sky impossibly dark.