We Own the Sky(5)

swan09

Beautiful. Keep up the good work.

The comments are always like that—“Beautiful.”

“Lovely.”

“Take care of yourself”—and always so soon after the image has been posted I assume that the user has set up some kind of alert.

The night is closing in and, before bed, I pour myself another vodka. I can feel the pull of sleep, the anesthetic effects of the alcohol, and I want to hasten it, bring it even closer.

Sometimes, I like to think it is Jack who is commenting on the photos. I know that he will recognize them, because they are all places he has been, views he has seen with his own eyes. Box Hill, the London Eye, a lookout point on the South Downs. And now, Tintagel.

Just to be sure that he remembers, that he doesn’t forget the places we have been, I leave him messages, paragraphs of text hidden in the code, invisible to browsers, readable only to the programmer’s eye—and, I hope, to his. It is, I suppose, the things I would say to him if I could. The things I would say if she hadn’t taken him away.





tintagel

do you remember, Jack, when we got back to the parking lot and you had fallen in the brambles and done yourself an injury. both hands, daddy, both hands, little red welts on your palms. so i kissed your fingers to take the owies away and you wrapped your arms around me, carefully planting two kisses on my neck. i remember, i can never forget. your kisses, like secret whispers. the gingerbread freckles on your face. your eyes, warm like the shallow end.





Part Two





1

“You don’t look like a computer scientist,” she said.

A little tipsy, I had started talking to her at the bar in a student pub in Cambridge. It was in that postexam, preresults purgatory, a lazy, sun-kissed time, squeezing out the last of our student days.

“Because I don’t have a briefcase and a Lord of the Rings T-shirt?”

She smiled, not cruelly, but knowingly, as if this was the type of joke she had heard about herself. As she turned back to the bar to try to get a drink, I stole a glance at her. She was petite with black hair neatly tied back off her face. Her features were sharp but softened by her pale skin.

“I’m Rob, by the way.”

“Anna,” she said. “Pleased to meet you.”

I almost laughed. She sounded so formal, and I wasn’t sure if she was making a joke. “So what are you studying?” I fumbled, trying to think of something to say.

“Economics,” Anna said, squinting at me through her glasses.

“Oh, cool.”

“Actually, you’re supposed to say I don’t look like an economist.”

I looked at her neat hair, so black it was like looking in a mirror, her bag stuffed with books, the strap secured to the leg of the stool she was perching on.

I smiled.

“What?”

“But you do a little,” I said. “In a good way, I mean.”

Her eyes sparkled, and she opened her mouth as if she had thought of

something to say, something that amused her, but then thought better of it.

I knew she was friends with Lola, the person whose birthday we were

celebrating. They seemed unlikely friends. Hippy-dippy Lola, who loved to tell everyone that she was named after that Kinks song and would always sing it on request. Lola, who was known around town as the girl who got naked at the summer ball.

And then this Anna, with her sensible clothes and sturdy shoes. I had seen her around campus, often with a musical instrument strapped to her back. Not casually slung over one shoulder, but carefully and firmly attached. She always

seemed to be walking with pronounced intent, as if she had a very urgent appointment.

“So what will you do with computer science?” she asked.

I was flustered, looked toward my friends at the quiz machine, not sure how to answer a question I thought was normally reserved for people who studied ancient history. There was something almost Edwardian about Anna—her

puckered vowels and pristine consonants. She spoke with the precision and bearing of a character in an Enid Blyton novel. A little bit of a Goody Two-shoes.

“Maps,” I said.

“Maps?”

“Online mapping.”

Anna didn’t say anything. Her face was blank, unreadable.

“Have you heard of this new Google Maps?”

She shook her head.

“It’s been in the news a little recently. I’m writing some software connected to that.”

“So you’ll join a company then?” Anna asked.

“No. I’m going to start my own.”

“Oh,” she said, lightly touching the rim of her empty glass. “That sounds ambitious, although, in fairness, I don’t really know much about such things.”

“Can I see your phone?”

“Sorry?”

“I can show you what I mean...”

Anna looked confused, rummaged around in her bag, and produced an old

Nokia.

I smiled.

“What?” she said, her grin revealing two almost symmetrical dimples on her cheeks. “It does everything I need.”

“I’m sure it does,” I said, taking it from her, my hand brushing her fingers.

“So...imagine in the future, you’ll have a much bigger screen here, perhaps even a touch screen, and somewhere here you’ll have a map. People, anyone, will be able to add things to the map, restaurants, their running routes, whatever they want. So I’m working on some software that lets you do that, where you can add things, customize the map how you want it.”