The Last Man in Space

He caught her eye again this morning, a touch of stardust playing around the iris.

Mark smiled awkwardly, cursing the day Baldwin and Black rearranged the office so their desks were now facing each other. Before that, he could just see the back of Emma's head, their eyes occasionally meeting on the return trip from the drinks machine. Sometimes there were fumbling attempts at conversation, a few words shared about tenancy agreements or the rank filter coffee. Nothing substantial, but enough for Mark to scurry apologetically back to the safety of his swivel chair. Now they were locked in a perpetual face-off, the constant reminder of her existence invading the boundaries of his universe.

Emma had only been with the firm for a couple of months, and on her arrival had been swiftly deployed to the Maintenance Department alongside Mark. Maintenance was the training ground for letting agency employees, and a graveyard for those who lacked the bottle to become fully-fledged property agents. Mark was in his mid-thirties and had yet to learn how to drive, so he was relegated to answering calls from irate tenants. He didn't care much for the job, but his shyness made him happy to stay in mission control while others took the risks of setting foot on alien terrain.

Emma, on the other hand, was a bold emissary exploring the frontiers of Baldwin and Black's universe. She shadowed Mark's line-manager, Peter - a jobsworth whose pursuit of excellence in property upkeep wouldn't have seemed out of place in Prohibition-era Chicago. Mark was just happy to get Peter out of the office for a few hours, and if it meant taking Emma with him then all the better. But even on those occasions, Mark's eyes would drift to her empty chair and the clutter of personal effects fighting for space on her desk: amongst them a framed photograph, a Dalek toy and a coffee mug bearing the legend 'Who Needs A Man When You've Got The Bean!'. He felt a strange sensation, similar to when he was a child and looked underneath his sister's bed, or took a crafty peek at the copy of Mayfair his older brother found in the bin behind the supermarket. But this curiosity was now tinged with unease. No matter how much Mark tried to resist, he was being pulled further into Emma's orbit.

 

Knock-off time was six o'clock, and Mark was glad to exchange the stuffy claustrophobia of the office for the refreshing pinch of a winter's evening. Emma passed him on the steps leading down to the street. She was muffled in a thick scarf, a soft beanie hat pulled over her ears. She hesitated and turned back to him.

"Cold, innit?" she shivered.

"Yeah!" Mark replied, finding himself drawn into her gaze. "You doing anything tonight?"

"Dance class," she chuckled. "But when it's like this-"

"I know!" he said nervously. "See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow," she said cheerfully. "Have a nice night!"

"Yeah," Mark grunted, and began the short walk to the bus stop, looking over his shoulder just in time to see Emma look back at him.

 

Mark gazed out of the bus window at the stretch of darkness above the thin canopy of clouds. A radio fizzed with static. The bus transformed into a command module and, with a roar of liquid nitrogen, was soaring clean out of the Earth's atmosphere. His fellow passengers melted away and he was free. Free from the trappings of everyday life, floating in the void beyond; a wider universe untouched by lease-holdings, coffee machines and - those eyes.

A ringtone suddenly echoed in his ear, and a chatty 16-year-old with a Jafaican accent joined him in the cockpit. The smell of stale tobacco smoke made him turn round to find a balding middle-aged man reading a copy of The Sun. A pinging noise echoed through the cramped command module and the wall-mounted central computer displayed the word 'STOPPING'. An elderly lady climbed through the airlock, propped herself against the driver's booth and asked if he stopped at Wisbeach. Mark sighed and turned to look out the window again.

 

Mark's fridge was full of ready meals. He fork-pricked the plastic skin of a lasagne, set the microwave timer and opened a can of lager. When the meal was ready he wandered towards the front room. The curtains were wide open. Framed pictures of Alexey Leonov, Yuri Gagarin and Michael Collins were carefully arranged on the mantlepiece. He sat by the window and ate his supper, reflecting on whether or not astronauts used microwaves.

The finer points of space exploration eluded Mark. Only the duller parts of The Usborne Book of Space, his childhood bible, were taken up with facts and figures. He was drawn more to the garish illustrations, particularly that of a space-walking astronaut; a tiny white speck on a flex of wire, showered in the light of distant star systems. He wanted so much to be that astronaut, but circumstances decided against it.

 

Next morning at Baldwin and Black, Mark was called into the branch manager's office. Emma stood by Mr. Fuller's desk. Mark froze, his mind racing through all their brief glances and conversations, trying to recall if his behaviour had been inappropriate. She smiled at him and he relaxed. Fuller offered a few shallow pleasantries and informed them that Peter had phoned in sick. Unfortunately for Baldwin and Black, this posed a problem as Peter was due to attend a series of property inspections. Since the company had sent letters to tenants informing them of their arrival, Fuller decided the inspections should go ahead. As Emma was still in her probationary period, Fuller chose Mark to act as her supervisor.

Mark felt a sudden wave of nausea, a cross between the apprehension and exhilaration that Leonov must've felt when he took his first tentative steps outside the Voskhod. Leonov, however, was about to embrace infinity - not climb into a Vauxhall Corsa and poke his nose into other people's living arrangements. Three properties, six apartments in each; eighteen private universes, boxed up and cut off from the wider continuity of the cosmos. On top of that was the prospect of spending a whole day with Emma, making his usual ham-fisted attempts at small talk.

The walk to Emma's car seemed to take place in slow motion. Mark broke the silence to comment how cold it was. Emma agreed, adding that at least it wasn't windy. Mark thought for a moment and asked if she went to dance class. She couldn't as her mum was ill, and no one was available to look after Charlie. That's her little boy. He's big on Doctor Who apparently, which means Emma has to be. She asked Mark if he watched it. Mark shrugged that it was kid's stuff, trying to forget that his heavily sellotaped copy of The Usborne Book of Space still took pride of place on his bookshelf.

The first two properties were Edwardian semi-detached houses converted into bedsits. Emma and Mark let themselves in. They knocked on the door of the first apartment and a middle-aged woman answered. Emma asked if there were any maintenance issues to report while Mark checked out the flat's condition.

It was a standard one-room bedsit with kitchen facilities and dreary beige wallpaper. There were a number of paintings mounted on the wall, abstract images composed of thick, richly-coloured oils. On the bookshelf were biographies of Malevich, Kandinsky and Auerbach. Mark was tempted to ask the woman if she'd painted the works herself but decided against it. What struck him was how they obliterated the cramped, joyless feel of the room. He reflected on the barrenness of his own living quarters, his astronaut heroes mocking him with self-satisfied grins. When they finished the second block, he suggested to Emma they should have lunch.

They pulled into a greasy spoon and ordered toasted sandwiches. Mark tried to qualify his earlier statement about Doctor Who, softening his opinion to say that it's okay for what it is. Emma said she preferred watching documentaries, which Mark enthusiastically concurred with. He asked if she'd seen Carl Sagan's Cosmos and began jabbering about black holes. She didn't seem bored, Mark noticed; she held him with her gaze the whole time.

The conversation inevitably drifted to Baldwin and Black. Emma asked Mark how long he'd worked there. He replied that it was about ten years before intimating he had other things in the pipeline, but wasn't sure if they were going to come off so he couldn't really talk about them. Emma smiled.

"You're very guarded sometimes," she said. "Like Charlie when he doesn't want to show me his school report."

"No," Mark said defensively. "There's just a load of other stuff I'm thinking about doing." Then he caught the warm beam of her eyes again. They started laughing. Mark watched as Emma raised a hand to cover her mouth.

"What do you want to do?" Emma said, recovering herself. Mark shifted uncomfortably in his seat.

"What, like a job?" he asked.

"If you could do anything," Emma offered. "I always wanted to be a dancer, but then I got pregnant with Charlie and..." She bowed her head for a moment. "Oh, but I love him to bits," she continued. "I wouldn't change that for anything."

Mark asked if she was married. Emma shook her head. Charlie's dad was a boyfriend from college, and when she got pregnant he didn't want to know. She gave up her studies to become a full-time mum. When Charlie reached school-age, she worked at a supermarket and took evening classes. After graduating, she applied for a hundred jobs before Baldwin and Black came along. She said she liked it but thought Peter was a tool. Mark mentioned the tedious anecdotes about the T.A.. Emma said he was probably the cleaner. They laughed again.

"So go on," Emma said, leaning closer across the table. "What do you really want to do?"

Mark made himself look Emma straight in the eye and told her how, as a child, he wanted to be an astronaut; told her how his dream broke apart after leaving the launching pad. How it crashed into the ocean to float on the waves forever. He told her about the family holiday when he was eleven, the trip to Florida he was so looking forward to. How he got airsick, and had to endure the taunts of his brother and sister calling him "Barfy Marky". For the first time, he was putting all this in context. And he was laughing. Emma's smile grew warmer with each chuckle. Then there was silence, the pair looking at each other in quiet reflection.

 

It was late afternoon when Mark and Emma returned to Baldwin and Black. They filed the reports, called the appropriate agencies for repair work and dealt with the backlog of emails and phone messages. Mark asked Emma if she wanted a refill from the drinks machine. On his way back, she showed him the framed photograph of her and Charlie. When it got to knocking-off time, they left through the front entrance together.

"I'd give you a lift but I've got to pick Charlie up from Andy's," Emma said. "He's a schoolfriend," she added suddenly.

"No worries," Mark said. "See you tomorrow."

"See you tomorrow," she said. "Have a good night."

"You too," he replied. They lingered for a moment, taking each other in. When Emma left, Mark waited to see if she'd look back. She did.

The dark winter evening was drawing in. Mark stared up at the cluster of stars twinkling in the cavernous depths of the universe. They seemed so cold and distant now. He closed his eyes and made believe he could feel the steady spin of the Earth beneath his feet. Another spin, another day. And when he woke up tomorrow, he'd know exactly where he wanted to be.