‘Look up!’
Mathilde squinted obediently into the sun, blinking. Above them, Lillemor was silhouetted, bending her head to look into the viewfinder of the camera. Next to her, Ingrid patted her hair and adjusted her beret.
The ship began to tilt to the side and Mathilde took a tighter grip on the railing. Lillemor had already spent considerable time setting up the shot, posing them so that the mid deck stretched out behind them and she could get the ocean into the background.
‘The wave’s coming,’ Lillemor called down. ‘Hold on and smile.’
‘This feels so silly,’ Ingrid said.
Mathilde looked up at the bridge, looming above Lillemor, and was grateful that at least they were posing behind it rather than in view of the captain. A wash of spray flew across the deck, splashing them as the ship rocked. Mathilde shivered. They were well into the fifties latitudes now and the air temperature was close to freezing. Thorshavn ploughed south, so heavy and unswerving it seemed nothing could knock it from its course. Against the resistance of the ocean and wind it seemed unstoppable.
‘Are you done yet?’ Ingrid called up.
Lillemor raised her head. ‘There’s one more wave coming. Just stay there another minute.’
Ingrid’s hair was blowing loose and Mathilde watched her try to tuck it back out of the wind’s way. The ship started to ride over the next swell and they smiled at Lillemor with fixed grimaces as the spray showered them from behind.
‘Done!’ Lillemor called. ‘You look fabulous. Very adventurous. What about a round of rummy to warm up?’
‘Good idea,’ Ingrid said. ‘Coming, Mathilde?’
‘I’ll just say hello to the dogs,’ Mathilde said. ‘I’ll be up soon.’
She waited until Ingrid had climbed the stairs and the two women had passed out of sight before she turned to the huskies.
For the past days the scenery had been unchanging; grey and rough. The winds blew and the waves swelled under them, pummelling the ship and tossing it as if from hand to hand. In bed Mathilde slid from one end of her bunk to the other, gripping the edges till her knuckles whitened. In the saloon they clung to their plates and cups, and the mess boys dampened the tablecloths to stop the crockery from crashing off.
Time was starting to hang heavily on all of them and playing cards, with Nils or Hjalmar or Hans making up a fourth, helped it pass. But Mathilde was lonely. She and Lillemor, by unspoken agreement, left each other largely alone. Lillemor would sit up late talking to Lars and Ingrid, or flirting with whatever men were around – Hjalmar by preference, Mathilde thought, but it seemed any of them would do. Mathilde watched, sometimes amazed. Didn’t men realise they were being played for fools? But Hjalmar became animated in Lillemor’s presence, laughing and joking, matching her move for move, quip for quip. Nils tried to compete with him, cutting in with poorly planned jokes that fell flat, but he was such a nice man that everyone laughed anyway and Mathilde hoped he didn’t hear the edge of pity in their voices. With Lars, Lillemor was serious, discussing business and economics with a surprising grasp of details. Hans Bogen developed a stammer whenever he was with her, and picked at the skin around his nails until they bled. She’d even succeeded in prising a smile or two from Horntvedt, in itself a miracle.
Mathilde watched Ingrid and Lillemor together, and thought that any observer would conclude that theirs was a long and established friendship. It threw her own isolation into sharp relief. She didn’t know how to make normal womanly chit-chat any more, she thought.
If it weren’t for Hjalmar, Mathilde would have made no impact upon the life of the ship. She was resigned to it, would have tolerated it, but then he’d pass her on the catwalk, or stop and talk to her when she’d crept away to play with the puppies, and she couldn’t recall when she’d last had conversations like those, not since Jakob had died of course, but perhaps not before then either. Hjalmar talked to her easily, without any suggestion of the flirtatious tone he took with Lillemor. They might have been friends, in fact, the way they conversed, about dogs and music and the sea.
When she could be sure no one was looking, Mathilde spent her time with the huskies, which had been moved to a corner of the forecastle below the line of sight from the bridge. The dogs were uncomplicated: happy to see her, glad of attention, philosophical when she left. The puppies were a different matter, with their intense feelings and wants. Catching sight of her approach they’d cry out for her to hurry up, wagging their tails so hard their whole bodies wriggled. In her arms they’d squirm with pleasure, and if she left them, they’d cry out in sorrow.
She had a favourite. Babyen, the smallest of the litter, the one Hjalmar had let her hold on the first day. A little male marked in black and white, his tail already curling up over his back. Unlike the bigger pups, he’d lie in her arms for hours, drowsing while she stroked him. She always made sure she was alone with them; such tenderness was a vulnerability she didn’t want to show. Lillemor seemed to have an unerring instinct for spotting weaknesses and storing them away with a knowing smile, and the thought of what she might do with them later was frightening.
But Mathilde was sleepy after a rough night of sliding around the bunk, and the sun was warm in the corner of the forecastle where she’d tucked herself with the weight of the pup on her lap and she let herself drift, her back pressed against the ship’s metal side, her body vibrating pleasantly with the engine. Her eyes were closed; she could feel herself slipping into a doze, a delicious dropping down, her muscles loosening, relaxing.
The sounds of the ship took on a musical quality. Thorshavn creaked and groaned around her as it moved through the sea, every joint and seam, every piece of the ship that touched another piece making a musical connection, with the underscore played by the ocean, a steady swishing as the ship’s prow carved through the waves.
‘Mathilde?’ The voice was soft and deep, almost a part of the sleep she was sliding into. She was dreaming it, surely. Was it Jakob’s voice?
‘Mrs Wegger?’
Her eyes flew open. Hjalmar was standing there, leaning against the railing looking down at her. She sat up, jolting Babyen, who woke and stretched, his paws extended, his tongue curling, finishing with a doggy squeak before shaking his head.
‘You startled me,’ she said, hoisting the pup into her arms and scrambling to her feet so quickly that her head swam.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to,’ he said. ‘You’re wanted for cards. But first I have something to show you.’
She looked at him inquiringly but he put his finger to his lips and shook his head. He took the pup from her, deposited him on the deck and gave him a little shove to send him back to his kennel mates. He took her around underneath the bridge to the other side of the ship and stationed them in the lee of the wheelhouse, a spot that Mathilde already knew was invisible from above.
‘Can you see it?’ he asked.
She stared out at the horizon, squinting. The temperature difference between her sheltered spot out of the wind and facing straight into it was extreme, and her eyes watered. The boat rose and fell, the horizon was jagged, there were deep troughs between the swells. At first she couldn’t see what he meant. Then she glimpsed something at the far range of her vision, pale, almost ethereal in the distance.
‘The first iceberg,’ he said. ‘It’s good luck to spot it.’
‘But you saw it first,’ she said.
‘I don’t count,’ he said. ‘I want you to have that bit of luck.’
She kept her eyes trained on the horizon. ‘Don’t give it away so easily, Captain. You might need your luck when the ship’s iced from stern to aft and the wind’s strong enough to sweep you off the deck and there are growlers everywhere.’
He chuckled and she smiled to hear it. He had a nice laugh, open and warm. Lillemor’s laugh made her shiver, as though she were executing some exquisite cruelty.
‘You could do with some luck, Mathilde,’ he said. He only called her that when they were alone, but she wished he wouldn’t. You couldn’t ever be sure, on this ship, that no one was listening.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ she said lightly.
He stepped a little closer to her until their sleeves were almost touching and she fancied she could feel the warmth of his body.
‘Mrs Rachlew is ruthless,’ he said softly, turning his head to speak close to her ear, but not too close. ‘Be careful of her.’
Mathilde felt cold fingers of wind find a crack between her scarf and her coat and work their way inside. She shivered. ‘I’m of no significance to her.’
‘She’s very ambitious.’
She shrugged. ‘She can achieve whatever she likes. I don’t care to stop her.’
‘You’ve spotted the first iceberg. Discoveries can happen as easily as that. The right place at the right time, a bit of luck and there you go.’
‘Then don’t do me any more favours,’ she said. ‘Just ignore me.’
‘Is that what you’d like?’
She should have answered at once, without hesitation, but she paused and he saw it.
‘You need a friend on board,’ he said. ‘I’d like to be that friend.’
‘Why?’
It was his turn to pause. ‘Mrs Rachlew will probably get her wish and land first,’ he said at last. ‘Ingrid will get her name on something, no matter who sees it. There seems to be no one looking out for you.’
‘That’s kind of you, Captain, but I don’t need your pity,’ she said.
He didn’t answer and she regretted it then, but his open favour would only cause trouble and she was better to discourage him.
They heard a shout from up on the bridge and both turned towards the sound.
‘They’ve seen it now,’ he said. ‘We’ll keep it our secret, who really saw it first.’
‘I just want to get home safely to my children.’
‘You’re making history. Don’t you care?’
She laughed then, but it was bitter. ‘I’m not the kind of woman whose name will appear on maps.’
‘I’d like to name something after you,’ he said. ‘Some strong little headland or promontory.’
Mathilde didn’t trust herself to look at him. How should she respond to such a thing? ‘You could name one of the pups after me,’ she said, and risked a glance.
She’d been joking, but he wasn’t smiling. He looked at her and in his expressive face she saw concern and regard. She knew him capable of acting with Lillemor’s skill, having watched him banter with her. Could she ever trust him?
‘I’m going up,’ he said. ‘It looks like a good one, that iceberg, and we may pass it closely. Enjoy it.’
She didn’t watch him go, but she could hear his footsteps quite clearly clanking across the deck and echoing up her legs, the way she could feel everything on the ship as a vibration through metal. She’d wait, she decided, down there. It was only a piece of ice after all. What was the fuss? There’d be plenty more coming and she’d seen enough white frozen stuff in Norway to last her a lifetime.