Gaia screams like a woman on fire. I catch only flashes of her amid the chaos of canine limbs and jaws and fur, her arms braced around her head, knees up in a foetal ball. Within seconds, everyone is there. Anju and Pamuk run straight in, collaring the two lead dogs and shouting in a harsh staccato of admonition. With the dogs pulled away, Craig clears a space around Gaia. Helen takes Marco out of range of Wolf. Dee stands a way off, trying to console Nish, who’s clearly in shock.
I kneel next to Gaia. She’s white as a sheet. Craig has stripped some furs off the sleds and has laid her down on them, but she keeps trying to get up. ‘The dog,’ she’s saying, ‘is the dog all right?’
‘The dog’s fine,’ I tell her, glancing over to where Anju is sitting beside it. ‘They’re tough things, you don’t need to worry about it. Now tell us where it hurts, Gaia, can you?’
She lifts her hand. There’s a puncture wound below the little finger. Blood drips into the snow beside her, but it’s clear that it’s not badly injured. Craig checks her over carefully. One arm of her jacket is leaking a significant amount of white stuffing, but apart from that, she’s miraculously unharmed.
‘Thank God for man-made fibres, eh?’ he says to her, relief creeping into his voice. ‘If that had happened wearing jeans, it would be a very different story. Come on, let’s get you back to the ship and clean that hand up, shall we? You good to walk?’
Gaia smiles weakly, nods. Then she sees Wolf and her face crumples. ‘What was he doing? He could have killed those animals.’
I put a supportive arm around her shoulder and walk with her like that towards the ship.
Fact of it is, he could have killed her. He could have killed any of them.
After a few steps she shrugs me off. ‘I’m fine, I can do it.’
Craig nods and I hang back, letting him walk with her. But when she passes Wolf, Gaia breaks away. Before he has time to realise what’s happening, she’s dropped herself low and tackled him into the ground. His head makes a sickening crack on the ice.
Straddling him, Gaia swings her uninjured arm back and smacks him hard around the face. Hits him again and a third time, before Wolf bucks her off and sends her into the snow.
‘You fucking mad bitch,’ he shouts at her, ripping off a glove and touching his fingers to the corner of his mouth. They come away red. He advances on her, but then Pamuk is there, pinning Wolf’s arms behind him, leading him away.
‘I’m mad?’ she shrieks at his back. ‘Me? You’re the one ploughing a sled into a group of innocent creatures! Pick on someone your own size, you cunt!’
I run over. ‘Take it easy, Gaia.’
‘Get your damn hands off me.’
I back off, hands up. ‘He’s an arsehole, he is. I’m not defending him.’
She eyes me suspiciously, breathing with a primal rage like she’s weighing up letting rip. But then she points at me, right up close.
‘I was told by your man back home that this would be a professional operation out here. A good way to get some exposure for my charity. Which helps people with addictions care for their animals, you understand? Looking after creatures. Not,’ she waves a furious hand towards the receding figure of Wolf, ‘not that. Not endangering them, wilfully.’
‘I’ll talk to him, all right?’
‘No! It’s not all right! I was told we’d be safe, we’d be looked after. And that’s not what’s happening.’ She turns back to the ship and walks away.
I breathe out slowly, then head over to where Dee is talking to Annabel.
‘Can you take them all back, get them some hot drinks?’ Dee asks her, and Annabel scurries away. Dee waits until she’s gone, then says, ‘I talked to Wolf. He basically admits it was a ploy to get himself some more airtime.’
‘You’re kidding me.’
‘Nope. Didn’t like being voted out early. It hadn’t occurred to him, ahead of coming out here, that he might not be the most popular person in any given group.’
The wind has scoured her cheeks red, but her eyes are fierce.
‘I’m sorry I’ve inflicted him on you,’ I tell her.
‘What are we going to do with him?’
But if there was an answer to that, we would have found it by now. We head over to the others, add our voices to the apologies that Craig’s making to our horrified guides. He helps them back up to the helicopters, then Dee and I pack up the gear and say goodbye.
The sun is already dropping as we walk back to the ship.
‘Craig’s doing a good job, though, no?’ I say.
‘For a medic who’s not a medic and doesn’t even notice when someone’s been murdered, yeah. Not bad,’ she replies.
I barely know whether to laugh or cry. For a moment I can almost imagine us walking away side-by-side, laughing at the lunacy of it all.
But then I blink and I see where I am. What I’m trying to hold together. And suddenly the idea of laughter feels a very long way away.