‘I went to Scott Polar,’ she says over breakfast.
‘Find anything new?’
‘I got hold of Henry’s diary. It was exciting.’ She glows. ‘I wish I could’ve shared it with Dad.’
‘Didn’t he ever think of going to SPRI himself before you were old enough?’
‘Oh, but he did go, ages ago. It’s not the same, though, reading his notes. I wanted to hold that diary myself, turn the pages, sniff it.’ She sighs. ‘But even so, it was a bit disappointing.’
‘Why?’
‘It’s just a load of loose pages, not notebooks, not like Scott’s. I think Dad got more excited than me.’ She shrugs. ‘It’s like Henry’s got more charisma in other people’s stories than in his own.’
‘He wasn’t a writer.’
‘I guess not.’
‘Where are your dad’s notes, by the way?’
‘At the house. I just didn’t get round to showing them to you.’
‘You mean you couldn’t bring yourself to share them, really, don’t you?’
‘I suppose so.’ The glow turns into a blush.
‘It’s all right, you know.’ I reach across the table, flatten my fingers on the cool, smooth wood. ‘Nothing wrong with having feelings.’
‘It’s weak,’ she says. ‘And mean sometimes. I don’t want to inflict what I feel on people, despite how I seem.’ She plays with her spoon. ‘And now you think I don’t trust you.’
‘Rubbish. I can understand why you’d want to keep your dad’s things to yourself. They’re a part of you. They’re the bond between him and you. Simple, really.’
I get up to put the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. It’s bright outside.
‘Anyway, what did Henry’s pages smell of?’
‘ Museum. Nothing more exciting than that. Unfortunately.’
‘Anything else?’ I sit down again, strangely at home in this odd kind of domestic bliss.
‘I saw that letter of Wilson’s everyone keeps going on about. The one with Henry’s note on the back.’
‘The one Huntford thinks proves he was the last one to die?’
‘Yes. Although I don’t think it proves anything.’
‘Neither do other people. Huntford doesn’t actually mention it in his book. Just surmises on who was the last to go, with nothing to support it.’
‘No. And, anyway, I’m not really that interested in who died last. What I want to find out is why they were stuck in the same place for ten days. The blizzard explanation just doesn’t cut it for me.’
‘Come on then,’ I say. ‘Explain to me exactly what you think did happen.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘You must have some idea.’
‘I told you when we met. If we find the tent and the bodies, we’ll be closer to finding an answer.’
‘But how are you going to find the tent?’ I ask. I hold my hands up to stop her interrupting. ‘And if, by some fluke, you do find it, how are you going to uncover it?’ She’s bursting to answer, but I hold my hands up again. ‘And have you got a permit from the authorities to get anywhere close to where you think it might be?’
‘I don’t need one.’
‘What?’
‘There’s no Antarctic government. Theoretically anyone with enough cash can just go out there and do what they want.’ She looks round the kitchen. ‘Within reason, I suppose.’
‘Yes, but you’re there courtesy of the New Zealand government. They’re bound to put restrictions on you.’
‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.’
I shake my head. ‘You’re unbelievable. You’re going to lie to them, aren’t you?’
‘Maybe,’ she shrugs. ‘But, listen … finding the tent. That’s where you come in.’
‘What?’
‘I’ve got hold of some numbers on how quickly people reckon the ice moves, has moved, since 1912. I’ve also managed to get hold of all the weather records that exist.’
‘OK.’
‘So we’ve got the numbers. We’ve got the 1912 positions of One Ton depot and of where they died, so couldn’t you write a program to work out where the tent would be now?’
‘Someone must have done that, surely.’ I don’t tell her I’ve started working on it already, just to keep myself busy. And I’ve done research into temperatures, ice flow, all that lovely science.
‘Not that I know of.’
‘It must be relatively easy to do.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘But there are a lot of imponderables, too.’
‘Like what?’ she says.
‘OK. How do you know there haven’t been any massive freeze-and-thaw cycles in the time when nothing was recorded? They’d affect the flow of the ice. And the snowfall. The tent could’ve dropped down into the ice during a thaw, and then have been frozen into blue ice during the winter. And if parts of the tent froze or thawed at a different rate, the whole thing, including the bodies, could have been ripped apart.’
‘Yuk.’ She pretends to throw up.
‘Very funny,’ I say. ‘But it screws up your idea.’
‘Not really. It just means everything’s possible. And, anyway, I don’t think that would have happened. The tent’s too small an area for bits of it to freeze at different speed.’
‘Is it?’
‘It doesn’t matter, Adam. We’re still going.’
‘I love your certainty.’
‘So do I.’
‘OK, OK. Assuming I can write the program you want, assuming the tent is found –’
‘We will find it.’
‘Assuming you get to where my program says you should go.’
‘We should go …’
‘Whatever. Taking all that as read, how are you going to shift twenty or thirty metres of compacted snow?’
‘It won’t necessarily need shifting.’
‘Eh?’
‘It might not need to be shifted,’ she says.
‘Why?’ She’s in dreamland again, I think.
‘If we’re going to use ground-penetrating radar to find it, any pictures we take of it might tell us everything we need to know.’
‘How d’you work that out?’
‘I didn’t. I’m just guessing.’
‘That’s not very scientific, is it?’
‘I’m not a scientist. I’m a painter.’
‘That doesn’t mean anything.’
‘Look, Adam, it’s not important. I can feel we’re going to find what we need to find.’
She stares at me. That stare challenges me. She gets up and walks round behind my chair. I don’t move. She puts her arms round me, burying me in her warmth. Kisses the top of my head.
‘About last night,’ she whispers.
‘You shouldn’t be.’
‘Shouldn’t I? It was just that I couldn’t –’
‘You could,’ she says. ‘You could. You just didn’t want to.’ She hugs me again. ‘In a good way, though.’ There’s doubt in her voice, for once.
‘What?’
‘You did the right thing. I can’t promise to love you forever, I can’t even promise to love you. But you didn’t make me feel bad. And you wouldn’t, never would be able to. You made me feel good instead. It’s like …’
‘Like?’
‘Like I’m more than just a thing. Men I’ve known, they’ve just treated me like a toy, something to have, to play with, to own for themselves.’
‘You’re not exactly backward in coming forward. And don’t take this the wrong way, but they’d probably say the same.’
‘I’d never thought of that.’ She laughs. ‘It’s more difficult than you think. When I paint, when I’m in that mood where nothing can stop me, I can’t control my tempers. They’re automatic, instinctive. But love isn’t an instinct. Not for me, anyway. It scares me. I don’t mind losing control, but I’m afraid of hurt and blame and the regret they bring.’
I unhook her arms from my shoulders. I stand and turn, put my arms around her. She buries her face in my shirt. She’s trembling. She’s a frightened little child. Does my strength of affection frighten her? Right now, I’d do anything for her, anything, just not that. It’s not what she needs. It’s not what I need. I hold her as tightly as I can. We stand like that for what seems like a lifetime.
‘I will come with you,’ I finally say. ‘And this time I mean it. I was wrong to walk out on you like that. It was unkind. I’m sorry.’
‘I’m the one who should be sorry,’ she says. ‘It’s me who was unkind and thoughtless. But I can only think in one dimension sometimes. Not like in my pictures. My mind can go off in any direction there. That’s when I’m free. Things make sense in them. Nothing makes sense out here. It’s all too confusing and complicated. Too real and dangerous. And in my pictures there’s silence. Total and utter silence. Nothing to disturb me. Nothing can hurt me.’
‘Shhh … shhh.’ I stroke her face with the palm of my hand. ‘There’s nothing here to hurt you either.’
‘I know that. I know.’ She looks up at me, tears rolling down her face.
‘You’re safe here,’ I say. ‘You always will be.’
‘But I can’t love you back like that, not so totally.’
‘That’s not important now.’ Although I wish she could. ‘There’s time. To be here for you is enough. That’s all you need from me right now, nothing else.’
I can’t help thinking she’s going to forget what she’s said and snap back at me any minute. That she’ll forget the tears and the need for comfort, and bite back at me with that insane Birdie grin and sharpened voice. But she doesn’t. She just nods and hugs me back, and doesn’t let go. Until she pushes me away.
We go for a long walk under a sun that promises spring. We talk about everything and nothing, about the trip, about the scent of the wind, about the huge skies of Suffolk and their cathedrals of clouds. We laugh and shout, run around like children. We hold hands. We walk apart. We watch birds wheel and drift in the blue shards of sky. We say nothing, and walk without words. That’s enough.
Back home, we sit on the bench in my tiny back garden.
I ask her, ‘Why can’t you always be this relaxed?’
‘Because the weather’s not always this nice. I know I was born in November, but I hate the winter here. It’s too damp.’
‘I know what you mean.’
I breathe in. It’s good when it’s like this.
‘Listen, Adam …’ Her voice wavers slightly.
‘I’m listening.’
‘There’s just one more thing …’
‘Yes?’
‘About this trip.’
‘Spit it out.’
‘It’s not quite what I made it out to be.’
‘What?’
‘That artists’ programme … well, it’s only for artists from New Zealand. I sort of used it as a ruse to persuade you to come with me.’
‘What does that mean, exactly?’ I’m not really surprised. She’s capable of anything.
‘It means I persuaded people over there to let us make the trip. I mean, the medicals were still necessary, but it’s not like we’re on an official project or anything like that.’
‘Does that change anything?’
‘Not really-ish.’ She screws up her face and makes strange little hand movements. Tries to suppress a grin. Not very successfully.
‘You’re funny,’ I say. I reach out to her and lace my fingers with hers.
Darkness comes again too soon.