As Alice climbed to the ground a shaft of pure lemon-yellow sunlight shone through a slit in the clouds, reducing everything that it didn’t touch to gunmetal-grey. She remembered as she heard them again that there were homely, manmade noises here – the clink of metal, the steady thrumming of the generator, people calling to each other, and it made the remote place they had just come from seem even more unreal.
We did it, Alice thought.
A wash of triumph and joy swept over her. She was proud of her survival and happier to be back at Kandahar than she would have believed possible when she first came.
She was sure, now, that she had made the right decision. She couldn’t think of leaving the ice until it was time to go.
At the same time she noticed that Rooker was watching her. He inclined his head in a strange, small nod of collusion.
There were people all around them. She saw Niki’s ruined smile, Valentin’s arms held out wide as if she had just walked in from the Pole itself, Laure who came straight across and hugged her. It was momentarily confusing to see so many faces after the days of isolation.
‘Don’t come too close. I stink.’ Alice laughed.
‘There’s hot water for a shower. I made sure,’ Laure told her.
‘There’s coffee and fresh doughnuts as well. Come on in. The guys’ll unload the helo,’ Russell insisted.
‘Hot water? Doughnuts? Have I died and gone to heaven?’
‘You would have done if I’d been there when you forgot Phil’s First Rule,’ Phil said. ‘Only without the heaven bit.’
It was like coming home to the warmth of friends. Richard and Alice were swept into the hut on a swelling, confusing tide of voices. Inside, there was almost too much to look at and smell and hear. Alice sat down at the table and sipped her coffee. The warm, fatty, sugary taste of the doughnut was so potent that she had to close her eyes as she licked the crumbs off her lips.
When she opened them again she saw someone who looked a little bit like Arturo, except that his eyes were almost invisible in circles of puffed-out crimson and purple bruises, and his nose was a shapeless plum-coloured mass twice its original size. ‘Arturo, whatever happened?’ she managed to ask.
At the same time she saw Richard’s hands come down flat on the table. He stood up, leaning on his arms, and swung his head in Rook’s direction. Obviously, much too obviously, he was assuming that Rook must be the culprit. But he can’t be, she thought. He wouldn’t do that to someone who is only half his size.
Rook said nothing. He stared flat-eyed back at Richard, one corner of his mouth lifted in a semi-smile.
‘My fault entirely. But was an accident, you know. A stupid thing.’ It was Valentin who broke the smouldering silence.
‘Just a game,’ Arturo muttered thickly.
Richard’s face twisted. ‘A
game
? It looks as though it half killed him. Can’t I leave you, can’t I trust you to behave like reasonable people when I am off the base?’
It was the wrong thing to say. A litle ripple of protest went round the table.
‘It looks somewhat worse than it is. A few days, the swelling will be going down and the bruise fading,’ Jochen interjected.
‘Before Lewis Sullavan gets here?’
Jochen stared. ‘Not completely, no.’
No one spoke for a few seconds.
Then Richard collected himself. ‘Are you all right, Arturo? One of you had better tell me exactly what happened.’
Out of sympathy for Richard’s clumsiness Alice swallowed her doughnut and slipped away from the table to the bunk room. A minute later Laure came in after her. The two women looked at each other.
‘He would be a better schoolteacher than expedition leader,’ Laure murmured.
‘I know. But he doesn’t mean it. He just wants very much to do it right, so much so that he does it wrong sometimes.’
Laure regarded her, a shrewd and measuring look. ‘I think you don’t like him so much. After two weeks with him, perhaps you have decided that?’
Alice coloured. ‘I do like him. I admire him. I just think he is like a lot of Englishmen, who feel and believe all the right things but find it hard to express them. Their inhibitions tangle their tongues.’
Peter was the opposite, though. His tongue worked very well, artistically silvering and shining the less palatable truth. She took the Polaroid he had sent her out of her pocket and put it away in the drawer of her locker.
Laure gave a graceful shrug. ‘Then I am glad to be French. But this way of Richard’s is not fair to other people. To Rooker,
par example
.’
‘I think maybe quite a lot of things in life have not been fair to Rooker. I also think that he can look after himself.’
‘Yes.’ Laure nodded. ‘You are right.’
Alice went and took a shower. It was the first time she
had stripped since going out into the field. To be naked felt vulnerable and delicious. She shivered with pleasure as the hot water sluiced over her itchy skin and when she soaped herself she saw with mild dismay that the suds as they swirled away were quite grey. Now, for the first time in two weeks, her hair and hands wouldn’t smell of kerosene. When she was clean she stood for another luxurious minute and let the water cascade over her bent head. Water was precious and hot water was Antarctic gold, but one more minute after two long weeks surely wouldn’t matter.
She pressed her scrubbed hands over her stomach, noticing how it protruded. It felt solid and full, with a purpose, nothing like it did when she had overeaten. Then she examined her hips and breasts. There was no doubt about it, her breasts felt tender to the touch and her hips and thighs were thickening, ready to carry a new burden.
Alice tilted her head back, letting water run into her mouth and eyes.
She had never felt so connected to and yet so in awe of her own body. It was doing what it was meant to do, almost without reference to the Alice who lived behind her eyes, inside her head.
She was strong. Everything would go well. There was nothing physical to be afraid of, only to rejoice in.
For lunch there were fresh tomatoes. A supply ship had called into Santa Ana and the helicopter had brought them down. The colour and the dewy bloom of the skin were more luscious than anything Alice had ever seen. She ate her portion as slowly as she could but it still disappeared too quickly, the sharp sweetness filling her mouth, a thin trail of juice overflowing and running down her chin. She mopped it up before anyone could see, but Rooker’s eyes were on her again.
He said carelessly, ‘Here, do you want mine? I don’t like tomatoes.’
‘Thank you,’ she said, unable to help herself, and ate them too.
After the meal, Richard called for attention. Everyone was present. Richard himself was still wearing the clothes in which he had come in from the field.
‘As you all know, Lewis Sullavan and a camera crew will be arriving in four days’ time. I don’t think I need to explain how important this visit is for Kandahar. Mr Sullavan is our principal funding agent at present, and we have an unexpected and enormously valuable opportunity to show him at first hand the research work we’re doing. For each listed project, therefore, the scientists should be ready to demonstrate in breadth and in detail exactly what is involved in the work. We will take Mr Sullavan and his people out into the near field wherever it is safe and practicable, and I will go through the arrangements for this separately with Russell, Philip and Rooker. The support staff should also be ready to discuss their separate and joint contributions to the various scientific projects – for example, Niki, your monitoring and logging of weather patterns in the local area – as well as their more general role on the base.
‘I know you will all do your utmost to make this VIP visit successful. Are there any questions?’
Russell leaned slowly forward. ‘The party’s going to consist of five people, right? Four men and one woman?’
‘That’s correct. Lewis Sullavan and his assistant, a two-man television crew and a journalist. There will be TV and press coverage of the entire visit.’
Richard couldn’t hide his satisfaction at this prospect.
Alice thought, he’s quite right to be happy about it. He works very hard; he hasn’t even given himself time to shower
and change. And being on television will mean that maybe a few people will know who he is, instead of always asking him if he’s related to Gregory.
‘So where are they all going to sleep?’ Russell asked, ever practical.
‘The assistant in the women’s room, Mr Sullavan in the scientists’ room and the other three men in the support staff’s room.’
Looks were exchanged around the table. Phil chafed his beard.
‘Four of us, therefore, will have to move out into tents for the duration. Arturo is injured. Niki should remain in the hut in case there is a communications emergency. Likewise Jochen for medical purposes,’ Richard continued.
‘In case the old boy has a heart attack, finding himself without an en suite bathroom or room service?’ Phil murmured.
‘Or if he decides to call up the helo and have himself flown straight out again,’ Rooker added.
Everyone laughed, even Richard.
‘Volunteers?’ he asked. ‘I’m happy to give my bunk to Mr Sullavan.’
To volunteer was the correct thing to do. In the old days, for his grandfather and the polar heroes, it was a matter of honour. A matter of course. Alice knew how much Richard wished that he could volunteer for a Winter Journey, for a selfless dash to save another man or to fuel a camp, instead of just to give up his warm bed for a media mogul.
‘Looks like us three, doesn’t it?’ Phil stabbed his finger at Rook and Russell in turn.
‘It’s a kind of volunteering,’ Russell laconically murmured.
Valentin flung up his arms. ‘And I, I give up my place for my leader. I prefer. In tents we have some fun. Some
cards, maybe a glass of my special
rakia
. Better than best behaviour inside, I think.’
‘Well done, Valerie,’ Philip cheered.
It was good to be back.
Alice spent the days that followed unpacking and examining the samples she had collected at Wheeler’s Bluff, making preliminary microscopic analyses in the lab and writing up her notes. The time passed quickly.
She read her accumulated e-mails and wrote back about the field trip. The words came slowly at first as she tried to describe how intense the experience had been, then flooded out as soon as she stopped considering and lost herself in living it all over again.
Margaret replied,
Yes, I remember. That was just how it was. Thank you for bringing it back.
The brief message from Jo was the one she hesitated longest over.
They’ve started to sleep much better. Four and sometimes five whole hours at night, can’t tell you what a difference it makes. Days are still a bit tough. It’s the never having a single hour to yourself that’s so hard. When I think of all those hours, days, I SQUANDERED before they were born…
Flashes of panic at the prospect of motherhood made Alice’s skin shiver, but her alarm alternated with a hungry fascination. She remembered the way the babies had felt in her arms, their milky smell and the fleeting frowns and smiles that had changed their tiny faces. How would it be when she held her own?
She wanted to bombard Jo with questions. It would have been the greatest luxury to have a friend to confide in. But she knew that if she was going to keep her pregnancy to herself for another three months it would have to be
entirely
to herself. No one else should have the responsibility for
keeping her secret. Any information, any medical information she needed, she could look up in her daily half-hour on the Internet. She would have to keep her correspondence short, that’s all.
Richard spent hours combing through the reference books in an attempt to classify his mollusc. It was a gastropod, a type of periwinkle with a shell in the form of a conical spiral, but in significant aspects it was unlike any of the species that had already been described. ‘I think we have got an entirely new form,’ he said. ‘A late Cretaceous rapid evolutionary development, much earlier than I would have expected to see anything similar. Is this the centre of origin for the species? It could affect the developmental dating of Gastropoda from the period.’ His face looked as if a bright light had been turned on under the skin.
Alice made a careful notation of the locale and the rock composition. Only a couple of weeks ago the discovery would have intrigued her. Now, the importance of even this major find seemed less immediate. It was disconcerting to realise that her engagement as a scientist was diminished by the insistent presence in her womb. She bent her head over her notes with extra determination. Even so, in the early afternoons she sometimes found herself nodding off.
Preparations for the visit went ahead. Everyone worked hard. The huts were cleaned and tidied from top to bottom. Russell drew up menus and Niki radioed for supplies to be sent down with the helicopter transport. The scientists chose the best places to show off their fieldwork, and Rooker and Phil plotted how to transport five inexperienced visitors to the various sites without pitching them down crevasses or into the sea.
There was a lot of joking and mock-complaining, but the prospect of critical strangers arriving in their midst made
them work as a team in a way that none of Richard’s speeches had done.
‘If they’ve got to come down here and bother us, we want Kandahar to be the best effing base in effing Antarctica, right?’ Phil said.
On the scheduled day a radio message from Santa Ana announced that the fixed-wing flight from Punta Arenas in Chile had just landed.
‘Not even one hour’s weather delay?’ Russell said in disbelief. ‘Sullavan must be more powerful even than we thought. He must have a direct line straight to God.’
‘Nah. He
is
God,’ Phil corrected him.
In the afternoon, under a fierce sun, they stood waiting. Rooker half expected Shoesmith to line them up like a military guard of honour. They heard the helicopter’s buzz before it appeared against the breadth of blue sky.