Small Moving Parts. Sally-Ann Murray

what there was to sing about, her father said, buggered if he knew! In Nora’s repertoire, around the time of her first pregnancy, was the hit of the moment. Rock Around the Clock, by a certain Bill Halley and the Comets.

      Oddly enough, she’d seen it spelt sometimes one ‘l’, Haley, and at other times two, Halley.

      So who cared, you couldn’t hear in the song, trumped Mark. Or even know from the radio announcer’s voice.

      But you could, Nora insisted, as only Nora could insist, attuning Mark’s ear, making him mindful of the consequence of spelling and pronunciation.

      But these ephemera – words, spelling, enunciation, listening – he couldn’t grasp these, or not easily; they were enough to drive him mad.

      So Halley’s name, whether one-legged or two, however it tripped or hobbled along: Well, people, it wasn’t his fault.

      And certainly not hers.

      Like many another child before her, Halley set out through this gnarled linguistic quagmire on a quest to find her real name, the one she was meant to have. She knew it was out there somewhere, if only her parents had looked hard enough, long enough. With enough dedication. Forget the happenstance of hats!

      Even if they hadn’t had the energy to go out hunting after the one true name, how Halley wished they’d listened. That they’d just sat quietly in the lounge and waited for the sound. To enter. To fill the void. Because maybe it might have come, even to the corporation flats.

      Mournfully, the spirited girl imagined her name as an intended, wandering around like a restless spectre, sad and searching. For her. A home in which to settle. When I’m calling youooo oo oo oo, oo oo oo. Like the song.

      But what would it call her? Halley wondered anxiously. And if she didn’t know what she was being called, even that she was being called, how would she answer to her name?

      At least Halley knew that her name would never be Ruth, because she, Halley Murphy, was merciless; or Arlette, which was too small and sheer and frilly to cover anything. And not Tammy, either, again because of that goody two-shoes actress. It was . . . possibly . . . Ursula. Not Ur-soo-la, but pronounced boldly: Urshla.

      Urshla was suitably contradictory. A sexpot filmstar a virgin martyr a natural wild streak that could forage in the wilderness for food. Halley’s real name would come out of the water dripping, both sleek and shaggy, having caught a shining salmon with a single sweep of the paw. Sniff the air at night and find berries, and pinpoint the bear in the starry sky, standing in its naked fur, up on its hind legs, ready to face down the fierce hunters when they came close enough within its short-sighted range.

      But hard as she tried, her real name didn’t come to her, and she couldn’t find a way to go to it, although she closed her eyes and concentrated, whispering with spirited devotion.

      So she changed her mind.

      Names! Oh, rubbish! Please, they were only things given. By and to and away. Which meant not only gifts, but germs, or old clothes. Unwanted attention. A thing called cup was near as nuts a mug, and ‘Halley’ was close enough to any other name you thought you might better deserve.

      But if she was stuck with Halley because other people were already stuck on it, then her best recourse was creative recasting. To take her name out of the hat once again and re-configure it in a narrative of her choice. Inventively feathered or flashed, the wide brim dashingly turned, but with some plausible elements in order to persuade people of its truth.

      So using the base facts of Mills, and Bill, and having looked for possible links under H in the compact encyclopaedia, she came up with the skelly story that her great-great-great she wasn’t sure how many generations but far back, way on her mother’s side, she was related to the world-famous astronomer Edmond Halley.

      Ye-es! she nodded as she told, great news, wasn’t it, emphasising that the appropriate response would be awe. And when people looked at her blankly – her own father only snorted Edmond! – she prodded them further, bright, tenacious girl that she was.

      The comet, you know?

      Until it dawned on them, Oh. Yes. Halley’s Comet. Fancy that!

      And she studied their faces, not convinced they looked suitably impressed. Whenever she could, though, she put it about that she was indirectly named after an incredible heavenly body. An exceptional phenomenon.

      Listen, she said, Hal, emphasising the peculiar sound of her name, not Hay, like straw. It’s got a double ll, see.

      Which to her meant like the comet, with a distinctive, remarkable streak.

      And it did come to be a distinction, of a sort, even if the elliptical comet were to be visible but once in her lifetime, and then rather indistinctly, and though the times seemed barely to register, never mind take notice, when to the watchers there appeared a mackle of blurred printing across the southern skies.

      No fabulous spectacle or great shakes. People had been warned to anticipate nothing much. But there it was regardless, Halley’s Comet.

      And Halley Murphy found something comforting in the brief collective ken of faces turned skywards. She was happy to catch even the faintest glimpse, ever hoping, from the uncertainty of earth, to see as it is in heaven.