A Mother's Mission

It was two days after my seventh birthday when my Mother set out on the mission to Mars. She hadn’t seemed able to quite make her mind up how to frame it to me, as the day came nearer. One minute she would say that it was a huge adventure for her and one I might make myself one day – except in my case it would be an even longer and more thrilling voyage. But the next she would say that missions to Mars were almost commonplace now – well, at least it was the fourth one. Later on I found out it was technically the fifth one, but there was the one that wasn’t mentioned, especially to children. 

     “Now you be a good girl for your Daddy and your Auntie Ruthie,” she said, “and remember I’ll be in touch. And the time will go very quickly, you mark my words.”

     I found it hard to believe that. I tried to think about a year ago and it seemed I had just been a little kid, one who had only just learnt to read and write properly and now I was already reading chapter books.

     I overheard Auntie Ruthie (who was really my mother’s cousin but I called her Auntie) saying worriedly to my father, “Do you think we ought to let Valentina see the launch?” I was called Valentina after the first woman in space. I thought it was a nice name, but I didn’t make a fuss if folk called me Val or Tina! 

     “Of course we should,” Dad said, firmly. “Why not?”

      “You perfectly well why not, Neil,” she said (my Dad was also called after a famous astronaut!). I presume she meant it was because she thought I might get big-headed and full of myself. Auntie Ruthie was the kindest woman you could imagine but was irritated by folk who got “full of themselves” – and it applied just as much to adults.

     Anyway, Dad had his way, and I watched the launch, though only on TV. I had expected that. We had said our own goodbyes in our own house and I didn’t want to be surrounded by people asking questions and making silly remarks. My mother was the pilot of the landing module and her moment of glory (though she hated words like glory) would come months later when they arrived on Mars.

     Most of my schoolmates were very good about it. Warned by Auntie Ruthie, I didn’t boast, though I couldn’t help being proud, of course, and Mummy was quite a hero, though quite a few kids at our school had parents who were involved in the space programme in one form or another.

     But to use one of Auntie Ruthie sayings, there’s always one. In fact, there’s often more than one, but the particularly grating one was my classmate Gaynor Groves. She once told me that her Mum had told her that feminism was all well and good but women with children had no business going on dangerous missions. I had some idea what feminism meant (we were that kind of family!) and repeated what my Mother had often said, “So why don’t you say that MEN with children have no business going on dangerous missions? You’re just being silly!”

     At this point (wisely or unwisely? I’m not sure!) our teacher Ms Linley, who had heard the conversation, decided to intervene and tried to be very even-handed! “Valentina, you shouldn’t call other girls silly, and you know it. We expect courtesy and good manners in this school! But Gaynor, though of course you must respect your Mother, our space programme just couldn’t operate without women, and there’s no reason why it should try to!”

     The one thing that Gaynor and I might have agreed on was that if you try to please everyone, there’s a distinct risk you end up pleasing no-one. 

     “Well, she HAS to say that,” Gaynor said, “Anyway, I don’t want to argue with you ‘cos I feel sorry for you. Fenimism “ (yes, that was how she pronounced it and blushed straightaway afterwards, her piqued expression plainly saying I got it right first time!) “Can lead to MISERY and if you don’t know why, then ask someone in your wonderful famous family about Rebecca Hollander!” 

     I didn’t know what to do. I was curious, but I didn’t want to show her that much fun. I did ask Auntie Ruthie and she flushed red and wrung her hands and then said that she didn’t really know. But I wasn’t to pester her with questions like that again. It was that kind of crossness that is only a hair’s breadth away from being upset and I didn’t want to upset Auntie Ruthie. Anyway, she had promised me some of her home-baked lemon and honey cookies and if she were cross OR upset I might end up not getting them. 

     It was that very evening that I broke a rule. Now there are rules and rules, as I knew perfectly well. I was not supposed to eat ice-cream on school nights, or to have my light on in bed reading after 9.30 at night, but of course I did, and the heavens didn’t fall in. I was not supposed to feed our cat Luna titbits under the tablecloth, but of course I did, and Auntie Ruthie did, too! 

     But other rules were different, and one of the strictest rules was that I was not supposed to use the computer unless somebody else were in the room. I had my own tablet with educational stuff on it where I had a bit more latitude (and luckily they interpreted educational fairly loosely and I could get away with Dora the Explorer and Sesame Street, though I decided I had really outgrown them and was both smug and sad at the thought!). But I was not to be allowed my own computer with my own access to it until I was at least ten years old and even then, I don’t doubt they planned all manner of parental parameters!

     The chance almost seemed to scream out at me. I told myself it was meant to be and would do nobody any harm. Dad was working later at the lab than usual as he was seeing a VIP instead of a colleague who had been taken ill, and Auntie Ruthie had been distracted by her dahlias, that definitely seemed in need of some TLC. As I had discovered to my cost, Auntie Ruthie was not generally an easy person to distract, but when it came to her garden, it was another matter. And they hadn’t logged out so I didn’t need the password! I had a fair idea what it was, but didn’t want to risk it. So I fed Rebecca Hollander into the browser. Of course, there was a plethora of persons bearing that name, including someone who ran a massage parlour (I wondered if I ought to mention that to my Grandma, who was troubled with her back!) and a dog groomer. But I knew straightaway that they weren’t the ones Gaynor was referring to. 

     Rebecca Hollander (1999-2031) had been one of the astronauts who perished on the Magnum 1 Mars Mission. It never got anywhere near Mars, not even anywhere near the moon. It exploded in fragments of flame over the ocean. I was horrified and trembling, and yet I had to read on. I discovered that Rebecca had a daughter – only a year or so older than I was. She had seen the disaster on television, and nobody who heard her scream ever forgot it. It seemed as if I were screaming that scream myself. 

     I was so obsessed with what I was reading, and so desperately and pointlessly wishing myself back to a few minutes ago, when I hadn’t read it, when Auntie Ruthie came back into the room. I didn’t have time to hide my wrongdoing, and to be honest, I don’t know if I’d have tried to. Auntie Ruthie sat down in a hurry and muttered, “It’s okay, child, you’re not in trouble. Anyone in your position would have done the same. We tried to protect you but …” she suddenly burst into tears. “”Auntie Ruthie, that could happen to Mummy!” I exclaimed. “Okay – maybe not exactly that, not with the launch over but – something horrible and she might not come home!” We were both weeping now.   “I’m not going to lie,” Auntie Ruthie said, through her tears, “Yes, it could, though nothing in this life is totally safe.”

     “So how – how can she love me?” I realise now the effort that it must have taken for Auntie Ruthie not to break down totally again and tell me I must never say or even think such a thing. She also didn’t say it was something children couldn’t understand.

     For a few more days we went through some utterly unconvincing pretence of normality. I understood without needing to be told that I must not mention it to Mummy when I spoke to her. 

     We weren’t expecting company, so I was surprised (or would have been, had I been thinking normally about anything at all) when there was a ring at the doorbell, and Auntie Ruthie answered it, and said, “Oh, Theresa, I’m so glad you could come!”

     She came into the living room with a tall girl who I guessed to be about 15 years old. I was uneasy around people that age. They weren’t kids to play with, but weren’t adults to be in a position of authority or have any wisdom either. “Given time you’ll be aching to be a teen!” Dad had once laughed when I made my scorn known. Still, even in my automaton state, I knew better than not to mind my manners, or at least put on the façade of it. When Auntie Ruthie introduced the girl I returned the greeting politely – and then all manner of things like being polite, or my less than complimentary view of teenagers went entirely by the wayside. She was called Theresa Hollander. “But most folk call me Tess,” she said. 

     “I’ll leave you two young ladies to visit,” said Auntie Ruthie in the cute old fashioned way of speaking she sometimes had. 

     “You’re Rebecca Hollander’s daughter!” I exclaimed. The more I weighed her up, the more I could see the family resemblance, too – the determined set of the chin, the mischievous hint of a twinkle in the hazel-green eyes, though at the moment they were pensive and sympathetic. 

     “I am,” she nodded, “And I’ll tell you this, I wish to goodness there wasn’t this conspiracy of silence about her!” I hadn’t heard the word conspiracy before, but guessed at the meaning and didn’t want to interrupt. “I WANT to talk about her, and for other people to talk about her, especially someone like you.”

     “That scream,” I muttered. I had heard it without physically hearing it, and it hadn’t left my head.

     “Yes,” she said, “I screamed. Of course I screamed. It was – and it always will be – the most horrible moment of my life. A moment I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. Do I wish my Mother had never gone on that mission? Of course I do! But I have come to realise that it never meant she didn’t love me. She – left a note, Daddy showed it to me a little later, when I was calmer, saying it was because she loved me so dearly, and wanted me to the best woman I could be, that she was being the best woman SHE could be. I was only to read it if – the worst happened. I hope and pray you will never read it, but I bet your mother has left a similar note. All the women and men on the space programme do and they very, very rarely, have to be read.” Well, thoughts were still swirling and fermenting in my head. These were fine words, and yet they still didn’t entirely make sense. Yet the way Tess said them did. “Would you go into space, Tess?” I asked. She paused. “I might. My main career ambition is to be a doctor, but if I had a chance to go on a space programme as one, then I very well might.” 

     Tess and I carried on seeing each other. Though she had enough tact to avoid the word, she sometimes babysat me. 

     And my Mother came home safely. As I flung myself into her arms, the year seemed suddenly to shrink and to become insignificant. She was introduced to Tess, and they got along famously. When we were all gathered in the lounge (and yes, there were lemon honey cookies!) she said, “This is still supposed to be secret, but I can’t see why I shouldn’t tell you folk here! We have laid the foundations for a medical centre on Mars – both to attend to the health needs of the astronauts and to do experiments and research that will hopefully help people on earth. Finally, we’ve unanimously agreed that it’s all wrong that the Magnum 1 Mission is being treated as if it doesn’t exist. It is to be called the Rebecca Holland Memorial Centre. Of course it’s a long-term project.”

     Another mission was launched today, and one of those on it is one of the new generation of space physicians. Her name is Theresa Hollander.