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The soirée is somewhat of an informal yearly tradition. Though this will be only its second occasion, there is already talk in the village of it happening again next year. It is to take place on the anniversary of the Unicorn exhibition in the Maritime Gallery, and will feature space suits and samples of moon rock alongside Tintin’s photographs of the moon’s surface and memorabilia from the rocket.
The maritime gallery, saloon and entrance hall will open up to guests at 7pm. Waiting staff are arranged for, invitations go out to the whole village as well as to select members of the scientific community, handpicked by the Professor. The order of champagne placed is illustrious. The canapés, they are assured, will be exquisite.
In truth, neither of them are quite sure how it happened, but the mayor had called round unexpectedly one evening about a fortnight after they landed back on Earth, and a week or so after they landed back in Brussels.
‘When will the exhibition be held? Have you started to make the arrangements?’
‘Exhibition?’
‘My dear Captain,’ says the mayor, chortling into his whisky, ‘you promised us a repeat of the last time if you had another glorious voyage. I can’t think what would fit the bill better than a jaunt to the moon!’
‘Yes,’ says the Captain, ‘glorious. I hadn’t-‘
‘You were most enthusiastic about the prospect, and the event was certainly a great boon for the village last time,’ he says, and then smiles indulgently at Tintin. ‘And your coverage was very much appreciated too, young man. You’ve been visiting, I understand? Are you here researching your next little article? It must be a blessing for a young man in your position to have such a generous patron.’
Tintin glances at the Captain who looks explosive, about ready to break something, and fights down ill-advised laughter.
‘I’m afraid I lost my tenancy whilst we were in Syldavia. The Captain is very generous indeed, and has invited me to stay at my leisure.’ It is not so far from the truth.
‘So we’ve the honour of having you here until you find another more suitable residence.’
‘In a way,’ says Tintin.
‘Shall we say a year on from the Unicorn exhibition then, Captain? That certainly feels auspicious. And it gives you about a month to get it all together. I’ll put an announcement in the paper.’
‘Just before the election,’ says Tintin. ‘What a fortunate coincidence.’
***
‘Will we ever get a moment’s peace?’ says the Captain, much aggrieved, as he pours himself a generous glass. The Mayor, who’s arrival was in truth rather unexpected, has finally left.
‘Maybe once you’ve satisfied the entire village’s curiosity and won him his seat for a second time.’
‘Ever the optimist, Tintin. Hopefully he’ll lose that dratted election and we shan’t be bothered again. The way he spoke to you! Did I really promise up another one last year?’
‘I’m afraid you’d worked your way through an impressive amount of whisky by the end of the night, so it’s entirely possible.’
***
Last time, Tintin had witnessed the organisation intermittently from Labrador Road. Now, he is afforded a much closer look at the whole affair. The rediscovered weight of gravity is still strange enough to him, let alone all this fuss that has somehow followed them back home. He remembers the silence of the moon’s surface, the perfect stillness of it. The curious lightness of his own body. Hanging like a glass marble above them, the Earth as the only visible colour in the empty sky. The bustle of the village, the fervent interest in their latest exploit, even the wind in the trees seems as uncanny now as the barren surface of the moon had been at first.
Moving over to Moulinsart was a long time coming, and now he is readjusting to a new permanent residence as well as life back on Earth.
It all started in earnest on their journey back from Khemed. Or perhaps even earlier. They had come back from Peru, come back from being imprisoned together for days on end and when they got off the plane, they went their separate ways. Unsure how to say goodbye, they had shaken hands, slightly awkward.
‘Are you sure we can’t drop you back at your flat?’ the Captain had said, Tintin’s hand still grasped in his.
‘It’s no problem to catch the train, really.’
The Captain was glad to breathe the free air to be sure, gladder still to be free from underneath the sword of Damocles and home again in Moulinsart. But Tintin couldn’t help but feel that something was off. He told himself that it had felt strange to rattle around in the flat on his own after being confined for so long. That was it. It made no sense to miss the Captain. He should be sick of anyone after that kind of intensive and sustained proximity. And yet more than once he found himself opening his mouth to voice a thought or read aloud an anecdote from the paper, before realising there was no one else in the room to hear it. More than once he picked up the phone, ready to dial, before putting the phone back in its cradle. He woke in the night and the silence was jarring without the steady rhythm of the Captain’s breath. A new adventure, that was all that was needed.
And as it turned out, he was not given long to reacclimatise to their return to separate existences before the Captain was enlisted. Tintin knew he had sounded alarmed when the Captain rang up and told him the bad news, his worry bleeding down the line. They hadn’t seen much of each other in the brief weeks they’d been back. The Captain must be sick of the sight of him, and rightly so. The ache in his chest doesn’t go away but it’s familiar, anyhow: he is chasing after another story, and the Captain is going back to the sea.
This separation was shorter than anticipated and once the Captain gained his liberty he flew straight out to Khemed to find Tintin. It had felt very wrong, being off on his own again, as if the two of them had never met. It was such a relief to stand before him again, and he saw the same feeling reflected back to him on the Captain’s face.
***
They stayed with the Emir for a while. Tintin felt unwilling to leave. He was never a homebody but more so than usual he could not stand the idea of going back to Labrador Road. There was, however, only so much of Abdullah that either of them could take.
‘Listen,’ he said, feeling uncharacteristically cautious. ‘Let’s not fly back. Why don’t we sail instead?’
The Captain beamed at him, looking almost relieved. ‘That’s a splendid idea, Tintin. I feel in no rush to get back. There’s too much painting and restoration happening to right Cuthbert’s experiments. I can’t stand having the house invaded upon.’
‘We’ll have to make sure we get back once they’re finished then.’
They got the boat back across the Mediterranean Sea on a leisurely route, stopping off in Athens and Rome on the way before docking in Marseille. Tintin appreciates everywhere he visits for their individual beauties and curiosities, but there is something especially close to his heart about the Mediterranean with its myriad islands, startlingly blue ocean, and fine cuisine. The Captain seemed equally fond of it, regaling Tintin with stories of his times spent upon these waters, of fondly remembered crew mates or fighting for life and death with one of the area’s rare tropical cyclones. He was equally keen to hear about Tintin’s exploits, listening eagerly to his stories about the fateful cruise from Nice to Cairo.
When eventually they landed once more in Brussels there was an eerie sense of repetition as Tintin readied himself to get the train back into the city. He stood before the Captain, ready to perhaps shake his hand again in farewell.
’Say, lad, why don’t you come up to the house for a couple of days? You can help me judge the repairs and say hello to old Cuthbert.’
Tintin wavered. It sounded so appealing and there was something in that itself that put doubt into his mind. Surely he must return to real life eventually.
‘Naturally, I understand if you don’t want to. I’m sure you have plenty of things to occupy you,’ said the Captain, turning to leave without even a shake of his hand.
‘No,’ Tintin heard himself saying, ‘That sounds wonderful.’
The Captain grinned at him, a smile that lit up his face. Tintin thought there were few things he could stand to do to bring about the Captain’s disappointment, and fewer still that he would deny him if it meant seeing him smile in such a way. People are often grateful to him, or sometimes in awe of his exploits, but rarely do they offer him uncomplicated joy free of any kind of expectation. He worries sometimes about what this attachment will mean for them. The ways it might fray or be exploited.
Of course, they did not even end up staying one night at the Chateau before being summoned back out to the airport to fly to Syldavia. Once more, Tintin felt a sense of relief. He knows what to do with his hands and his mind when he is busy. Something about Moulinsart seemed to represent a threshold, and he was glad to put off crossing it for now.
***
Their time in the Sprodj Atomic Research Centre felt in some way like another death sentence. They were less confined, less imprisoned, but there was a terrible fate awaiting them at the end. Or so the Captain seemed to think, anyway. He drew up his will and Tintin couldn’t bring himself to hear about it. Though the excitement of the unknown called to him, cultivated his natural restlessness to something finely tuned and excited, there was a keen fear as well. Made all the sharper by the number of attachments he now had to risk. Milou had previously represented Tintin’s sole personal weak spot. Now he found he had many.
When he was hospitalised, the Captain spent most of his time at his side. It was not just the first night he spent on the rickety bedside chair and so Tintin could wake up once more in the night to the sound of his breathing. Sometimes his little room had a view of the moon. He looked at its face, their ultimate destination. It was somewhere so completely other - he wondered what they would mean on the surface of another world. No laws or conventions would bind them except that which they took with them. It was a strange thing, to look up at such a small disc in the night sky and feel so absolutely insignificant in comparison. He looked at the Captain, his head slumped forward onto his chest in sleep, and thought about uncharted waters.
***
Upon returning to Brussels once more, he got off the train, got a taxi back from the station. He was in a daze. Life passed as it had before: the bustle on the streets, the blue of the heavens instead of the black of space. The sun hung in the sky as the Earth had done. It was cloudy in Syldavia, and every night Tintin thought perhaps this will be the first time I shall see it again.
He sat on his bed. Shoes and coat still on, suitcase on the floor by the bed. Milou seemed glad to be home, at least. He was closer to more people than he had been in months, but he also felt more overwhelmingly alone. He’s not sure how long he was sat there before the phone rang.
’Tintin.’ He closed his eyes upon hearing the Captain’s gruff voice down the line. There was still a dull rumble of traffic in the background, but he felt unmoored. He could be anywhere. The rocket, the research centre, an Incan prison cell, the surface of the moon, Moulinsart. Some impossible place. He could hear the static of the Captain’s breathing, the crackle of it against his ear, and could imagine the rise and fall of his chest. The constant of it and the impermanence.
‘Captain.’
Long moments passed as they listened to the little signs of each other’s life down the line.
‘How does it feel to be home?’ the Captain asked, tentative.
Tintin opened his eyes, looked around the small flat.
‘I don’t know. I don’t know that I am, really.’
‘Have you unpacked?’
’No.’
‘Good. I’m coming to get you.’
A pause, and then ’yes, ok.’ Tintin closed his eyes again. He still wasn’t sure what he was feeling, but now it might have been something like relief.
‘You know, lad, I think of Moulinsart as your rightful home anyway. If you wanted, you could make the move permanent.’
Tintin screwed his eyes up, as though he could shut them further, close himself off more from everything except the darkness behind his eyelids and the Captain’s voice down the line. He thinks of the Captain, sat in the saloon at Moulinsart. Somewhere good enough to throw yourself into the void of space to try and get back to.
‘If I hadn’t come back from that blasted rocket, it would’ve been yours anyway.’
The silence was like a draft.
‘If you hadn’t come back, then nor would I.’
This time it was the Captain who didn’t answer.
‘I know it sounds irrational, but I keep thinking that perhaps we all died in that rocket after all. Perhaps they didn’t cut us out in time.’
‘I’m coming for you now. Pack anything else up that you might need. We can always come back for the rest.’
Mindlessly, he did what the Captain said. It did not take long. He had never brought back all that many souvenirs, save from Shanghai. Sitting on his suitcase, surrounded by his belongings all neatly packed, felt like a dream. Was this small collection the sum of his life, collected conveniently and insignificantly together? How did he get here? From his solitary existence to the Captain to the moon and back to Labrador Road. The first few days back at the Research Centre, being debriefed, speaking to the press, handing in their research and giving testimony, had passed by in a blur but an expected one. Surrounded by those who had accompanied him, by the paraphernalia of their trip, it had still felt real.
The door banged open as the Captain let himself in without knocking.
‘Tintin.’
He made his way over, kneeling before Tintin on the floor, taking Tintin’s shoulders in his hands. His grip was rough, as though he were angry and meant to shake some sense into him.
‘Lad, are you alright? Speak to me.’
‘Yes, I’m alright.’
He holds onto the Captain’s forearms, keeping his hold light so as not to cling in the way that he so desperately wants. If their positions were reversed, he thinks, the Captain’s large hands would enclose his wrists.
The Captain stands and pulls Tintin up with him, and into his arms. They often take each other’s arms or clap one another on the shoulder, but this embrace is different. It feels as though he enfolds Tintin completely. He wants to bury his face in the Captain’s shoulder, and so he does.
‘Come on, my boy, let me take you home.’
***
Of all the challenges they had considered with regards to their voyage, the return home had not really been one of them beyond landing the rocket. Tintin certainly had given no thought to how he would feel. Euphoric, he might have assumed. Relieved, perhaps. Certainly both those things were true at first. Are still true, on some level.
It is better at Moulinsart. The Captain throws himself into life at the chateau, and Tintin finds his place. Nestor has so much to do around the house, and Tintin can be of service. The upcoming exhibition makes the Captain grumble mutinously under his breath, so Tintin throws himself into the organisation. It is a task, and he is good at those. If the Captain does not want Tintin’s money in rent, he can earn his keep in this way.
‘You need to learn to relax,’ the Captain chides him one afternoon. He has come in search of Tintin, and found him hunched over his typewriter in the study, surrounded by books of astronomy. They added Tintin’s books to the library together the first morning after he moved in as a heavy shower of late summer rain battered the tall windows. The collection of books was already one of Tintin’s favourite parts of the house, a heady mixture of the titles among the Professor’s volumes on physics and engineering that he does not keep in his laboratory, the Captain’s preference for naval and maritime records and novels, and now Tintin’s ever-expanding selection on geography, history, and anthropology.
Tintin glances up at him. Perhaps he is right. It it certainly tempting to give up today as a bad job.
He has been trying to write his article about their journey since he moved over to Moulinsart, but words will not come. Generally writer’s block is not a problem for him, but there is something about trying to articulate this particular experience that is escaping him. How can he reconcile the isolation of the vacuum? The chateau is of course the same as ever, but before it felt monumental. Permanent. His footprints, the equipment they left behind, will probably still be on the moon’s surface when the chateau is reduced to dust. How can he write about seeing the whole world hanging suspended in the sky? Small enough that it seemed he could close his fist around it if he would just reach out to take it. Everything around him feels fleeting and vulnerable. There is something quaintly amusing about seeing the view out of a commercial aeroplane window, seeing the cars and the streets and the landmasses reduced to the scale of toys, somehow completely unalike to the feeling of being the pilot and experiencing the rush of freedom as the ground falls away beneath. He thinks of endless oceans of sand stretching out beneath him, the dunes like frozen waves below and above him seemingly only the richest blue. The view of the Earth from the moon reduced even the Sahara desert to nothing more than a grain of sand in the grand scheme of things. It was both devastating and beautiful and Tintin feels quite sure that he will never entirely recover from it.
‘Why don’t you take a break? I’m going to walk into the village. We could give Milou a bit of a stretch of his legs.’
Milou lifts his head hopefully, and yips happily when Tintin rises. He scampers around their feet as they make their way downstairs. Milou, at least, seems completely the same since their return. Calculus is busier and more distracted than ever. They hardly saw him before, and now almost never. The Captain is perhaps a little more thoughtful. He seems to watch Tintin more, though that might be more reflective of the changes in his own behaviour.
They are halfway down the marble staircase when Tintin stops. When the Captain pauses a couple of shallow steps below him, they are almost of a height.
‘It was so big.’ It is the most reductive thing he has ever said.
‘Yes,’ the Captain says, gravely, as though Tintin has just said something profound.
‘And we were so small. So fragile.’
‘Yes.’
‘It was magnificent, but I don’t- How do we continue on from it as before?’
‘I felt the same sometimes upon the sea, though that was a mere whisper of the sensation. Let it put things into perspective, lad. Let it guide you, show you the things that really matter,’ he says. ‘It doesn’t have to be the same as it was before.’
‘I’m glad that I’m here. That you asked me.’
And he is. The quiet of the countryside does not overwhelm him like the noise of the city. The late summer rainfall and the early bounty of the orchards are reassuring after the scarcity of water and trees in Brussels in the summer and on the moon’s surface both. But it is not just the house and the land that bring him comfort.
The Captain nods, a curt abortive gesture, before continuing down the stairs. Tintin thinks perhaps he’s not the only one struggling to quantify his feelings.
***
He has not spent much time in the village, all told. When he used to travel to Moulinsart from the city, he would alight at the station if he was on the train, or at the church if he came by bus. Both were on the edge of town a short walk from the chateau. But it seems that the Captain has established himself here. He greets people with nods, or by name. There is some interested talk of the exhibition but people seem largely content not to bother them, to wait for the event itself.
In the square, which is complete with equestrian statue, they find an announcement of the Exposition Lune pinned to the village hall notice board. It features an old photograph of the Captain shaking hands with the Mayor, which Tintin thinks he recognises from the last time the house was opened to the public. Even in the grainy black and white picture, there is the telltale bleariness of inebriation in the Captain’s eyes.
The Captain grumbles under his breath when he sees it, and Tintin thinks he can see him weighing up the possibility of tearing it down.
‘Perhaps you should run for mayor yourself,’ he suggests, grinning.
Tintin alone seems to be able to regularly produce the mixture of amusement and annoyance that chases itself across the Captain’s expression.
‘Oh, yes, delightful. And invite in even more scrutiny and intrusion.’
***
A small cafe sits just off the square with a chalk board proclaiming the day’s specials and several red and white striped umbrellas swaying in the breeze over little round tables. The Captain picks out a table for them, and settles down to light his pipe with Milou curled up at his feet as Tintin heads inside to get a pot of tea.
When he emerges back out into the sunlight it is to find that a man has taken his seat opposite the Captain. He pauses in the doorway, unnoticed, watching the newcomer who is probably somewhere between the two of them in age. He can tell even from his back, from the set of his shoulders, that the Captain did not invite him to sit down.
‘You are Captain Haddock, are you not?’
‘The very same,’ growls the Captain, who as usual does not bother to hide his displeasure at the intrusion.
‘I was awfully glad to receive your invitation in the post the other day.’ He has a wry form of delivery to the degree that Tintin cannot quite discern whether he is being genuine or not.
The Captain seems to feel similarly and there is not a note of challenge in his response. ‘And you are?’
‘Luc Dubois,’ he flashes a grin, and his eyes met Tintin’s over the Captain’s shoulder. His gaze darts back and forth between them. ‘And you must be the notorious Tintin. I hear that you’re cohabiting now? Most unusual, if you don’t mind my saying. I have great respect for anyone with such a cavalier attitude. I just recently moved to the area during your little voyage to outer space.’
Tintin moves over to the table, gently sets down the laden tray, and reaches to pull over another chair.
‘No need, Tintin,’ says the Captain, standing. ‘I’m sure Mr. Dubois was just leaving.’
Dubois rises, a curious smile on his face. ‘Naturally. Good day, Captain. Mr. Tintin. I look forward to seeing you both at the grand exhibition.’
‘What a charming fellow,’ Tintin says mildly, pouring out two cups of tea as Milou puts his chin on Tintin’s lap hopefully. ‘I’m sorry, boy, I don’t have anything for you.’
The Captain does not respond, but watches Dubois’s retreating form with a deep frown etched onto his brow.
***
The night is unseasonably warm, for the cycle of the year is turning once more towards the decay of autumn. Leaves have not yet started to change colour in earnest, but most mornings when Tintin awakes a mist has collected in the grounds overnight which lingers into the late morning when it is finally dispelled by the sun. It is very different to watching the changing of the seasons in Brussels, where the predominant changes are marked in dropping temperatures and the encroaching darkness in the evenings. Here in Moulinsart the earliest forebodings of the year’s end are already written clearly in the landscape.
It is the first full moon since they came back down to Earth, and one of those curious nights where the moon seems unusually large and bright in the darkling sky. Tintin imagines how it would have been to walk on its surface if it produced its own light, actually glowed silver beneath their feet.
***
The exhibition creeps ever nearer. Tintin send their suits off to the dry cleaners and speaks to Mr. Baxter on the phone. He is unable to fly over for the exhibition, but sends his best wishes and reassures Tintin of the timely arrival of all the memorabilia that is being sent over from Syldavia for the evening.
No sooner has he hung up than the Captain calls him out into the hall.
‘Look here, Tintin, your photos have arrived.’
The pictures are already framed, done for him in the city, and he feels a nervous twist in his stomach. This is his first time seeing them and there feels a pressure on these more so than usual. Never before has he photographed something that has not seen before by human eyes.
The Professor’s journals will be on display, of course, but Tintin thinks the photos make up a kind of visual diary for the exhibition. Starting off with photos of the base, the ventilation shaft where he was shot and then the infirmary where he spent weeks of his time in recovery. The window with its view of the moon, hanging distant and harmless among the stars. The rocket, still surrounded by scaffolding and the tiny figures of the people working around it. The sleeping quarters inside. And then there, the surface of the moon itself. As barren and as desolate he remembers. The most striking of the pictures shows the grey line of the moon’s horizon, the inky blackness of space, and there hanging in the sky is the Earth in the shape of a Gibbous either waxing or waning. The only spot of blue in the universe.
The most disquieting pictures are those taken by someone else of the rocket being sawn open, their bodies being carried out. He stares into his own face strapped into an oxygen mask, at the Captain’s prone figure laid out on a stretcher.
***
Finally the morning of the exhibition dawns bright and warm, the summer’s last hurrah. Tintin wakes early as always, and takes Milou for a walk around the grounds before breakfast.
He retires to the study with a cafetière and a little jug of cream to try and work on his article. Cream in his coffee is one of the luxuries he is quickly becoming acclimatised to since moving to the chateau. At first it had felt strange to be waited on by Nestor, and presented with fine homemade food at every meal after fending for himself for so long, and he is trying his best not to get too used to it. The Captain might have earned this after more than two decades of labour upon the high seas, but Tintin reminds himself that he has not.
The article is still not coming along very well, but he is hoping that the exhibition itself might actually help. It will be a closing paragraph at the very least, an earthly context for the whole experience. A happy ending of sorts. And it will give him the chance to speak to the public, hear their questions and gauge their responses to it all.
Hours slip by in the way they always seem to when Tintin is at his leisure before an appointment later in the day, and he quickly finds himself heading to the bedroom that is now his to get ready. When he passes the Captain’s room, familiar muttered cursing meets his ears and he smiles to himself.
‘Captain? Everything alright in there?’
’Blast it all.’
He knocks briefly before pushing the door open. He is met with the sight of the Captain’s back clad in his finest black suit, standing in front of the mirror with a comb in hand as he attempts to wrestle with his parting.
Tintin chuckles.
‘Look, you needn’t be so severe with it. Come here.’
The Captain sighs, his shoulders slumping.
‘Sit down here,’ he says, gesturing to a chair. ‘Give me the comb.’
Even sat down, the top of the Captain’s head is about level with Tintin’s chin. He is wearing a black waistcoats to match his jacket, but his tie is a rich navy shot through with thin threads of orange that makes the blue seem to glow. His hair is still slightly damp and, discarding the comb, Tintin reaches for the pomade sat on the dresser. Taking the barest among, he works his hands through the Captain’s hair. The Captain closes his eyes as Tintin all but massages his scalp as he shapes the Captain’s into a neater rendition of its natural shape.
‘There, you look very handsome,’ he says in assessment. And it’s true. The blue of his tie brings out the colour of his eyes and the jacket fits just right to show off his broad frame.
Their eyes meet and Tintin pauses, catching himself in the act of smoothing down the Captain’s lapels.
‘Tintin-‘
He can feel the sudden tension in the Captain’s shoulders beneath his hands.
‘Yes?’
The Captain’s hands come up to cover his, slowly as though not to startle him and Tintin finds himself feeling unmoored once again. He’d thought that the surreality that plagued him at first upon their return to Brussels had all but gone. Now it makes a dizzying reprisal. Which doesn’t quite track, he thinks absently. It’s as though the world has tilted on its axis, but he doesn’t know why.
‘You’d better get ready, lad,’ the Captain says, gently guiding Tintin’s hands back down by his sides.
He wanders back to his own room, still feeling a little dazed as he pulls on his old tweed suit. Not nearly so fine as the Captain’s black suit, but it’s tried and tested and familiar. He’s worn it to almost every formal event he can remember attending and never before has he thought it so shabby.
***
After wandering through the empty exhibition, he helps himself to a glass of champagne before the guests start to arrive. The strange daze that settled over him has not quite lifted, and his stomach churns with a fluttering mixture of nerves and excitement. He finds he is looking forward to seeing people’s reactions, watching people look upon the barren surface of another world for the first time. It comes back to him now, after a month or so of being overwhelmed by the smallness of everything, that nothing he has done before has ever felt so important, so grand in scale. It will be common place soon, to have seen pictures of the moon’s surface. This is a pivotal moment in its own right, the beginning of the end in some way. Perhaps the burden of knowledge will be lifted from his shoulders a little when he shares his testimony with the rest of the world.
He is taking pictures of the exhibition before it fills up when Nestor says, ‘If I might be so bold, sirs, perhaps a photograph of the two of you might be a nice touch for your article, Master Tintin.’
‘That’s a wonderful idea, Nestor.’ Tintin smiles, pulling the reluctant looking Captain over by the arm. ‘That way the last picture won’t need to be the one of our lifeless bodies being pulled from the wreckage.’
‘Very well,’ the Captain grumbles.
‘Here,’ Tintin placates him. ‘Have a glass of champagne and we can take the picture in front of the house.’
He scoops Milou carefully into one arm so as not to disturb his glass as they follow Nestor out onto the steps that lead up into the entrance hall. There is just enough of the day’s fading sunshine left to take a photograph, the evening light gilding the trees and the pale stone of the chateau with gold.
‘Isn’t it strange to think that the last time we drank champagne we were preparing to leave the Earth,’ he says, watching the bubbles in his glass as they rise unbound by gravity.
‘Cheers to keeping our feet on solid ground, that’s what I say.’
‘If I could please claim your attention, sirs.’
‘Sorry, Nestor,’ Tintin grins. He feels the Captain’s free hand come up to shoulder just before hearing the click of the camera lens.
***
Dubois is one of the last to arrive, once evening has settled in and the drive is lined with fine black cars that gleam in the long beams of light that are cast down from the chateau windows. The Mayor has been commandeering the Captain’s attention for most of the night thus far, and Tintin has taken it upon himself to act as host and mingle with the guests. It is strange that he can pilot planes above the Sahara desert without a license, take mankind’s first steps upon the moon, but it is playing at being the lord of the house that makes him feel most like a fraud. But he has never been one to back down from a challenge and the waves of conversation wash over him, ranging from probing and intelligent enquiries about the exhibition itself, to somewhat vacuous smalltalk.
’Society brings with it its own kind of suffocation, wouldn’t you say?’ says Dubois, during a lull in the continuous claims upon Tintin’s attention. They are standing in front of the final pictures taken of the rocket’s return to the Earth. Tintin stares into his own face, distorted by the oxygen mask. He turns away to find Dubois watching him rather intently. ‘Perhaps that is why you are constantly jetting all over the world? I am not unsympathetic.’
Tintin does not know what to say. He has never felt a part enough of society to try and escape it. Until recently it was just him chasing the latest lead with Milou, who is currently napping in the first floor hallway having taken himself off to bed and away from the ruckus.
‘It cannot be said that you have not landed on your feet here, however.’
‘The Captain is very generous.’ He knows it is true, but there is something about having to constantly repeat the sentiment to people prying into their affairs that is grating.
‘I’m sure.’ Dubois smiles, laden with private amusement, as he takes his leave of Tintin and makes his way back over to the bar.
‘I see you’ve invited Mr. Dubois,’ comes the Mayor’s voice from behind him. ‘An extremely dubious character. I’d keep an eye on him if I were you. You never know what a person such as that will get up to,’ he says in a tone that suggests that the invitation was all Tintin’s idea, as though he might as well be complicit in whatever crime he is imagining Dubois will commit if given the opportunity.
‘Oh?’ He says, surprised by the Mayor’s candour. Usually, his somewhat obsequious manner is fairly unshakeable when it comes to the village residents. He is, after all, gravely unwilling to compromise anyone’s vote.
‘Yes, indeed. His flight with a considerable sum from his parents’ fortune is quite infamous. He’s holed up in his family’s summer residence with his accomplice. Why they don’t press charges, I can’t imagine. They’re a highly respectable family and don’t want to bring more attention to the whole sordid affair, if you ask me,’ he leans in closer to Tintin, conspiratorial. ‘What they get up to, I’d certainly rather not contemplate. But I wouldn’t put anything past the pair of them.’
‘Hmm.’ He silently resolves to keep an eye on Dubois, if he can, over the course of the evening.
‘Have you found anywhere else to live yet, young man? You don’t want to get thrown in with that lot, taking advantage of your gracious betters.’
‘Excuse me,’ he says, not bothering to make up an excuse for his sudden departure. He is starting to tire of listening to some cryptic and some not so cryptic chastisement of his new living situation.
***
The chatter ebbs and flows around him, growing increasingly raucous as the night goes on and the supply of champagne is gradually depleted. The trick, Nestor had imparted to Tintin, was to order just enough that the guests enjoy themselves without allowing everyone to get completely incapacitated or overstay their welcome. Running out of champagne, it seems, will be a good a way as any to signal the end of the night when the time comes.
The Professor has concerned himself primarily with the journalists from the local paper and his fellow scientists, all of whom seem to have varying degrees of bewilderment written over their faces throughout the experience. His decision to stop wearing his hearing aide when they touched back down on Earth was met with bemusement from Tintin and exasperation from the Captain. Perhaps the non sequitur responses to any enquiries that are put his way are why the socialites and local residents seem to be giving him a wide berth.
From inside the well-lit rooms of the saloon and the maritime gallery with their ornate chandeliers and bright electric bulbs, the windows seem to look out onto a vast sea of darkness. It is not a new image in his mind. When he would occasionally stay at the chateau for a long weekend away from his apartment, often to try and meet a deadline, he would stay up late into the night in the library with no company but the pooling glow of the lamp he worked by and the hammering of his typewriter. There is a great conch shell, some memento or other from the Captain’s time at sea, that sits upon the cabinet and he would take it to the window and put it to his ear to hear the roar of the waves as he looked out into the night. Now it is rather as though Moulinsart were hanging suspended in space. A beacon of yellow as the Earth had been a beacon of blue.
He is brought back to the moment when the Captain appears at his side, putting an easy arm around his shoulder.
‘I thought I’d never be rid of him,’ he says, gesturing over to the Mayor, who seems to have taken up the mantel of guiding guests around the exhibit as though it were his own. He takes the opportunity to grab a champagne flute from a passing waiter and drains it. Despite this, he seems surprisingly cognisant. ‘Don’t let me get drunk enough to agree to another one of these blasted things,’ he says, looking at Tintin severely as though it were his fault that the glass is suddenly empty.
‘I’ll try,’ Tintin agrees, knowing that stopping the Captain from drinking however much he desires is much easier said than done. He himself has had only a couple but his head swims a little whenever he turns, his eyesight ever so slightly blurred around the edges. He feels warm with it, a little flushed as he leans in closer against the Captain’s side. ’Did the Mayor say anything to you about Dubois? He made it sound like he was something of a thief or a cad. Said he was holed up with an accomplice. I’ve been trying to keep an eye on him.’
‘Of course you have. I’m sure it’s nothing, Tintin. You know what the Mayor’s like, he’s an interfering swine.’
‘Hello, what’s he doing?’ says Tintin, leaning around the Captain to watch as Nestor approaches Dubois. He offers him a tray, and Dubois, looking slightly alarmed, takes something from it. He opens a piece of paper and scans it quickly, before he drains his glass much as the Captain had and quickly moves out of the room.
‘Come on.’ Tintin takes the Captain by the arm and hastens him towards the door.
‘I say, Nestor,’ says the Captain as they make their way past him. ‘What did you just give to Mr. Dubois?’
‘A young man came to the door asking that I give Mr. Dubois an urgent message, sir. I invited him in if he wished to find him, but he was most insistent on staying outside.’
‘Thank you, Nestor,’ says Tintin. ‘Quickly, Captain. We mustn’t lose him!’
When they make it out into the entrance hall, it is empty. The chatter and tinkling of glass and laughter from the exhibition is muffled in this quiet, in-between space.
‘He must have gone into the grounds. That young man has to be the accomplice the Mayor mentioned. I wonder what they’re up to.’
The doors stand open, spilling light and noise out into the silent estate. At the doorway, they can see a figure making its way over the lawn towards the woods.
They follow, hoping that the cover of darkness and the several glasses of champagne that Dubois has helped himself to will be enough to prevent their discovery. With relief, Tintin watches Dubois head straight for the cover of the trees; but there is a thrill in the chase, the fire of adventure kindling in his heart. Keeping a safe distance, they continue their pursuit into the deeper gloom of the trees. If things go wrong, Tintin thinks, the Captain will certainly be missed sooner rather than later and there is a reassurance in that.
They are headed in the direction of the crumbling section of wall that gives easy access to the country road beyond. Tintin catches voices floating back through the trees. There, not too far before them, sat on the ruined wall, is a young man who must be the one Nestor referred to. Dubois steps out to him, into a patch of moonlight that illuminates them. They creep as close as they are able, taking refuge behind one of the larger trees that lines the estate wall. The Captain edges himself around to peer onto the enfolding scene, and Tintin hauls himself a foot or so up the trunk and finds a knot in the wood to balance on as he watches from between a fork in the branches. Pressed close against his side, the Captain’s hand comes up to steady him and rest warm on his lower back. Tintin always feels sure in these moments that his heartbeat must be audible, a surefire telltale along with the loudness of his breath. But Dubois still seems unaware that he is being overheard as they strain to pick out the words being exchanged.
‘-a bad idea, you fool. I’m sure the Mayor is already suspicious.’
‘The Mayor needs to learn to mind his own business.’
Though they seem to be in the midst of some kind of long running disagreement, Tintin is struck by the lack of aggression. They do not talk to each other the way the criminals he tracks down usually do. Dubois sounds desperate, but not angry. He reaches out to the other man, gripping his arms with a strength that Tintin can make out over the distance.
‘You are purposefully missing the point. We have to be careful. You should have stayed at the house.’
‘You told me that this was my home as much as yours. I’m free to come and go as I please,’ his companion says lightly, seemingly unwilling to meet Dubois’s seriousness in kind but there is a vein of steel running beneath his levity. ‘And besides, we aren’t hurting anyone.’
Dubois almost slumps and releases his arms, but does not stop touching him. His hands settle on the other’s shoulders, his jaw, his hair. There is a kind of tenderness there that makes Tintin’s stomach twist. He watches on, feeling increasingly like there has all been some kind of dreadful mistake. They are intruding on something deeply private here, and he does not think they can get away without being noticed. He feels increasingly aware of the Captain’s body against his own, the warmth of their proximity. The slight ludicrousness of two grown men hiding behind a tree.
‘If I am a fool, Luc, it is all for you,’ says the younger. He has not moved from where he is sat on the wall, his hands on the stone as he merely lets Dubois touch him. ‘And besides, I felt ridiculous stuck there on my own when I missed you so.’
Tintin wants to shut his eyes, block his ears, anything to not be listening in on this, but finds himself unable to move or look away. He has seen intimacy between men and women before. Young couples holding hands, chaste kisses between husband and wife, less chaste kisses on the silver screen. He is familiar with it, but it never seemed to touch him. This is something entirely new, this tenderness between two men. He feels he has stumbled upon a kind of forbidden knowledge that he will have to carry inside him from now on. How it looks to see Dubois run his thumb over his companion’s lower lip, the soft sounds of their shared breathing as Dubois steps in closer between his thighs. Their bodies seem to be one thing together with no space in-between. Dubois’s companion moves now for the first time, pushing his hands inside Dubois’s jacket.
‘I missed you too.’
Dubois’s thumb is still running over the other’s lower lip, gently opening his companion’s mouth so Tintin sees a flash of teeth and tongue before Dubois seals their mouths together. It is utterly alien to Tintin, an unknown world. Something he did not know that he could want until now. I have walked upon the surface of the moon, he thinks, but I have not done that.
It feels like a hunger or a sickness. Something that needs to be put in his body or taken out. He has never felt so conscious of his heart before, the way it not only pounds with exertion but aches with this terrible feeling. The Captain’s hand is still warm on his back as if it could burn him through the thin material of his shirt.
Finally the two men break apart.
‘I should probably go back to the house,’ says Dubois, but his reluctance is tangible even across the distance from their hiding place.
‘I think you should probably take me home, instead,’ says the other, his hands moving on Dubois’s chest. Their bodies are still pressed so close. Somewhat irrationally, Tintin thinks he has never been so close to another person. Perhaps he has never really touched anyone at all.
His companion whispers something in Dubois’s ear, and whatever it is it makes Dubois moan softly and lean in to capture his mouth again.
‘Very well,’ says Dubois when he pulls back. ‘Your alternative sounds infinitely superior, and I doubt I shall be missed.’
They clamber over the low section of wall, jump down into the road, and are gone.
‘We really need to get that wall fixed,’ says Tintin.
The Captain’s hand fists in the back of his shirt, and he pulls Tintin down roughly. He finds himself with his back against the bark of the tree.
‘That’s all you have to say?’ he demands. They are incredibly close. Tintin can feel the anger in the rise and fall of the Captain’s breathing against him.
‘What else is there to say?’ he asks. He feels bewildered, wrong footed. There is no correct response. ‘As they say they’re not hurting anyone. And as you say the Mayor-‘
He is cut off quite decidedly when the Captain pushes forward against him and brings their mouths together. He is stunned, frozen as his heart pounds in his chest so hard the Captain must be able to feel it as his own. It is as though everything he has been feeling since they landed back on Earth - perhaps even before then - has been leading them to this moment, though he has been too blind to see it.
He does not have time to move, to respond, before they break apart, and though the Captain does not pull back far he says, ’I’m sorry, Tintin, I shouldn’t have done that.’
Tintin blinks. ‘Why?’
The Captain looks dumbfounded.
‘Why? Blistering- You ask me why?’
Things have been unlocked within him that he didn’t not even know he had, depths of emotion and need that are truly startling. He is still processing everything they have just witnessed, let alone this. But it is his now, this thing - this feeling that he did not know existed, not really - and already he wants it back. He tries to lean back in, but finds himself pushed away again.
‘Tintin, lad, you must tell me no. I cannot be your everything - your home and your closest friend and your-‘ he cuts himself off.
‘Do you not think it’s a little late for that?’ he snaps. ‘Are we not passed the point of separation? Why not, then? Please, I’m-‘ He doesn’t know whether he’s condescending or begging. He feels both anger and desperation in equal measure.
The Captain doesn’t answer, just stares at him as though he’s been struck.
‘Could you pretend this never happened? I cannot un-know this. Would you have me move out? Go back to our separate existences, always knowing what we might have had?’
‘No!’ His grip tightens on Tintin’s arms. It is almost crushing. So often he does not seem to know his own strength. ’Blast it all, Tintin. Of course not.’
Tintin finds that he does not mind, finds himself hoping even that there will be bruising. A revelation like this should leave its mark on the body. He came back from the moon unchanged, but there is no coming back from this at all.
‘Very well,’ the Captain says, and Tintin can see the moment he gives in, though he does not loosen his grip. ‘But we have to wait. Must I remind you we currently have a house full of guests? That we cannot simply hop over the garden wall without being missed?’
For a moment, Tintin is tempted to protest but he cannot deny logic when he hears it and all the fight goes out of him.
‘You’re right, I suppose,’ he says. ‘Only- will you not kiss me once more before we go back?’
‘You are incorrigible. The most stubborn-‘
Tintin grins at him, overwhelmed suddenly with affection for him and his bluster, the forceful, whole-hearted way in which he lives.
He releases Tintin’s arms finally, framing his face in his hands. He runs his thumb over Tintin’s lips in the way they had watched Dubois just minutes earlier, and the heat flares in Tintin’s stomach. The kiss starts out gentle but soon turns desperate, searching. Whatever he is looking for, Tintin thinks the Captain must find it for he all but snarls into his mouth. Tintin’s hands come up to his hair, dishevelling his own work from that afternoon. Already it feels a lifetime ago.
‘Stop, stop,’ the Captain says, panting, but he is also grinning. ‘That was a terrible idea.’ He steps back, running his hands through the mess that Tintin has made of his hair and trying desperately to smooth it back.
His smile is contagious, and Tintin can feel himself repeating it back to him.
‘You look very handsome,’ he says and it’s still true. ‘Perhaps all the more so.’
‘If I’m to get through the rest of this evening you’re to behave yourself, do you hear?’ There is some kind of threat in his tone, but not one that Tintin finds at all discouraging.
‘Aye aye, Captain,’ he says, starting back off back towards the house.
***
They walk back in silence, exchanging the occasional glance. Tintin can feel himself still grinning like a fool, and the Captain is much the same. He suddenly seems very drunk, has that easy geniality and clumsiness that is so characteristic of inebriation, but Tintin knows it is not the alcohol. He too feels giddy, and his stomach is alight with nerves. Surely, anyone who looks at them must know in an instant.
As they break through the line of the trees, he sees that some of the cars from the drive are gone. That is a good sign, he thinks.
They make their way back up the steps to the open doors. He glances back out, sparing one last look up at the sky where the waning moon hangs amidst the stars, before heading back indoors.
***
There are indeed fewer people left now, but not few enough in his opinion. He lets the Captain deal with them, avoiding conversation where he can as he makes his own way around the exhibition. He looks once more over the pieces of the moon that they brought back with them. They even have some water in a sealed test tube, brought up as the ice he found at the bottom of that ravine, and beside it a printed out analysis of the composition of the minerals it boasts. His gaze lands upon the photo of the moon through the window of the little infirmary room he inhabited for those long weeks. There is a little scar as a reminder of where the gunshot grazed his temple, but nothing more to show. He remembers lying there night after night, restless with lack of exercise, waking frequently when he did manage to drift off. The smell of tobacco, and the glow of the Captain’s lit pipe by his bedside in the night.
He wanders back over to the bar, where Nestor and the night’s waiting staff are starting optimistically to clear things away.
‘Did you catch up with Mr. Dubois, sir?’
‘False alarm I’m afraid, Nestor. Mr. Dubois made his excuses but he had to make his way home.’
‘Very good, sir.’
‘How many bottles of champagne would you say we’re at now?’
‘I believe this is the last of it, sir.’
‘Thank goodness.’
***
‘That’s the last of them, I think,’ the Captain says. He has come to find Tintin, who is stood in front of the photograph he took of the Earth rising above the moon’s horizon.
‘Finally.’
Tintin turns to him. It had been nearly midnight the last time he had checked the time. They are both exhausted, he is pretty sure. He can feel it weighing down his own limbs, no matter the butterflies that have not left his stomach since they returned to the house, and he can see it in the Captain’s face also. They are quite alone and suddenly he feels as though he doesn’t know what to do with his hands.
‘Come here,’ the Captain says, holding his arms out to him, and Tintin comes. The kiss starts out as gentle and as simple as their first, but quickly grows into something else entirely. The first brush of the Captain’s tongue into his mouth elicits a small, desperate noise from him. His whole body is responding, all but trembling and he can feel an answering unsteadiness in the Captain’s arms around him, no matter how strong and dependable.
‘You can still say no,’ the Captain says, all earnestness, though his voice is hot against the shell of Tintin’s ear and as he says it he pulls Tintin in even closer until their bodies are flush.
‘Yes,’ Tintin says, and it’s all but a gasp. ‘Please.’
‘Always so polite,’ he says, his gaze darkening. Their lips brush with the shaping of the words. ’You can’t know all that I want from you.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’ll- I’ll let you.’
The Captain stills, freezes against him as though he senses danger, but does not pull away.
‘Let me what, lad?’
‘Anything. I’ll let you do anything.’ It’s almost like a panic, this desire. Like he’s hyperventilating, or suffocating. He’s like a rocket that’s run out of oxygen, carrying dead men back towards Earth. There is a terrible inevitability about it. ‘We are so very small in the grand scheme of things.’
‘Yes,’ the Captain says and captures Tintin’s mouth again briefly, before: ‘Come to bed with me.’
He takes the Captain’s hand in answer, leading the way.
Before, that knowledge had felt crushing but he thinks perhaps there is a freedom in it now. They are insignificant, fleeting. And they can have this.