She’s all edges, although she’s wrapped in one of my jumpers and tracksuit bottoms. Edges that wake me. She talks in her sleep, shouts names I know nothing about. She writhes, screams, and kicks angrily. Then she’s calm and gentle. Until I begin to fall asleep again. And then the cycle starts over again. I’ll be black and blue by morning.
Not that I can really sleep, anyway. This could be the first big adventure of my life. How do you go through so many years without any excitement, or anything significant to remember? It’s depressing. I lie in the dark and try to fathom my insignificance, my loss, and my failures. Does any of it make sense, any of what is now past and lost? How many men look back on their life at some point or another, only to realise it’s been wasted? Such disappointment. And what then? What can we do to repair our old weaknesses?
I look at her shadow. Is she my redemption? That’s silly. She doesn’t even love me. She’s just here because she feels like it, not because some overriding emotion compelled her to be. What is it with love that always makes us believe in something higher, makes us think there’s some noble purpose, some greater meaning? Why do we think love or religion can save us? What if there’s nothing out there, no salvation, no gods, nothing but emptiness? Our eyes close, as they all will. Our hearts stop, as they all will. Finished. How could love change that? How could faith? No, there’s nothing. That’s all there is to it.
So why does it have to be forever, Birdie and me? Is it just my age? Or is it me hoping she’ll fall in love with me? Why am I filled with feelings that make me respect her? Even that’s a first for me. I can’t get it out of my head that this all started with a stupid coincidence, a quirk of timing and nature, that our lives could have totally passed each other by. We’d never have known. It wouldn’t have mattered. Life would have plodded its standard course towards my demise. Who’ll remember me, anyway?
‘D’you know you snore?’ She’s leaning on her side, those eyes right by mine, those lips parted, warm breath from her on my face, her hair fuzzy, not spiked anymore, the grey light of morning behind her.
‘What?’
‘You don’t sleep very lightly, do you?’
‘What do you mean? I hardly slept. You kept me awake with your shouting and cursing and endless moving around.’
‘I can’t have done. You were asleep every time I woke up.’
‘You’re weird.’
‘So are you.’
‘I’m normal and boring.’
‘No, you’re not.’ She reaches out and strokes my hair, for some odd reason. ‘I’ve got to go.’ She jumps out of bed.
‘It’s Sunday.’
‘So?’
‘What’s there to do on a Sunday?’
‘Enough.’
She starts to get dressed. I turn away.
‘You can look if you want,’ she says.
‘No.’
‘Why?’
‘Because I can’t.’
She jumps onto the bed, half naked. ‘Look at me.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Look at me.’ She puts a hand either side of my face, turns my head towards her. ‘It’s normal to look,’ she says.
I stare at the ring through her belly button. She pulls me towards her. I can’t resist her warmth. Nuzzle her stomach. Feel the hard muscle against my lips.
‘Higher,’ she whispers.
‘I thought you had to go.’
‘It can wait.’
‘So can I.’ I break out of her embrace. Sit up. Catch a glimpse of her tiny, perfect breasts.
‘See. It’s not that difficult, is it?’
I grab her arms and throw her onto her back, kneel over her.
‘No, it’s not that difficult, Birdie.’ I kiss her. ‘But I want to resist.’ I kiss her again. Make sure I don’t touch her naked torso. ‘And I will resist until I’m ready.’
She laughs at me.
‘How strong you are, Adam. How powerful.’ She pretends to try to wriggle out from under me. ‘Do it to me. Now.’
‘No.’
I get off the bed. She turns onto her stomach and stares at me while I pull a pair of jeans on.
‘You’re not even changing your boxers? Yuk.’
‘I’ll shower when you’ve gone.’
‘Are you cross with me again?’
‘Not particularly.’
‘Not particularly. Nah, nah, nah.’
‘Honest.’
‘Why?’
‘I must be getting used to you and your extremes.’
‘Good.’
Ten minutes later she’s gone, back to London. And I’m so frustrated I’m throwing books against the wall.
Spring comes and goes.
I tell the people I work with that I’m going on a six-month sabbatical in September. No one questions me. No one insists I can’t go. So much for being indispensable. I don’t tell anyone where I’m going. But then none of them ask. We’re all islands, really, all alone.
Birdie. Birdie. Always back to Birdie. Always back to trying to figure her out. I give up, because there’s no working her out. She’s unique, unpredictable, tiring, and trying. Some nights we’re together, more not. We don’t ask each other about the nights apart. I’ve got nothing to tell. And what she does is none of my business.
It’s a quiet time, this. There’s no rushing around, just a quiet sense of anticipation. She keeps herself in check. I keep reading, try to figure out what to do with all the data she’s given me. I double-check the figures and try to find more info on the net. She carries on painting. It’s not always the Antarctic, not always about her obsession. Sometimes it’s the graffiti, when she comes back with spray paint on her clothes. Sometimes it’s just what’s in her mind, when she’s compelled to throw a picture into the open from her thoughts. When I go to her house and look at the new canvases, I can see some sense of calm in them; deeper, richer colours, lines less jagged, less abrupt.
It’s a lazy time, too, for me. I start turning down work when summer comes. I play more cricket. Who knows when I’ll play again? I enjoy standing in the sun, revel in the banter, the carelessness of it all. There’s an unreal paradox in chasing a ball around a field when the world’s in turmoil, when a friend of mine is killed in Afghanistan and others are losing their jobs, when I’m about to go away for over half a year to the coldest place on earth. Maybe it’ll be my last season. I ache for days after every game. I might want to stay south once I get down there. If they let me.
The best part of it is that I’ve got a secret at last, one I tell no one about. Of course people ask me about Birdie, because that’s what people in villages do – ask about everything. It’s not really nosiness; it’s just them keeping themselves informed about what’s going on in their village. I tell them she’s just a mate. We make up a name for her – Jasmine; let people think she’s some dippy middle-class wannabe. It fits in with the way people probably think of me, too. So all prejudices are satisfied, all stereotypes observed. It’s nice and clean that way.
It’s a hot summer. I sit in the sun and read Scott’s journals. I notice how he grows from someone who uses words in an awkward, almost childish way, into a man who knows how to use his words to the best effect. The power of his writing takes me by surprise, overwhelms me at times. And, in the end, it moves me.
I try again to work out exactly where the tent might be. I come across hypothesis after hypothesis, published paper after scientific paper, and, then, finally, something useful. The ice moves northwards at about 800 metres a year, one kilometre maximum, they think. The tent was located at 79 degrees 50 minutes south, according to the records. Assuming one kilometre a year, it’ll be 94 kilometres further north than when it was found. But did it move in a straight line? The thing is, no one knows exactly, and climate change has taken the certainty out of science.
What about the depth of the snow? I still can’t figure out why Birdie might ever think of uncovering the thing if we should find it. It would take lots of people and machines to do this. I read on through what I’ve found. It gets worse. Some people reckon that there’s an average 30 centimetres of snow a year, but that the pressure of the weight compacts the layers further down and turns them into ice. So the tent would be encased in ice, not snow. Hard, blue ice. Bollocks. That makes it impossible.
The day after my last game of the season, and my last big – too big – drinking session with the boys, I phone her, shaking with the hangover and depression.
‘It’s impossible,’ I say.
‘You sound like shit.’
‘I feel like it.’
‘Shouldn’t drink so much.’
‘No booze on the Ice.’
‘You’ve told me before.’
‘Is that it?’
‘I said it’s impossible. Even if we find them, we won’t be able to get to them.’
‘But do you think you’ve worked out where they might be?’
‘To an area of about five kilometres in radius.’
‘Can’t you get it any more precise?’
‘I’m not a miracle worker.’
‘Try.’
‘I’m sick and tired of going through the same thing over and over.’
‘One last try, and then I’ll let you come and see me again.’
‘Oh, you’ll let me?’ I have to laugh, even though it makes me feel sick.
‘Yes. I’ll let you. You know what I mean.’
‘Whatever … Do you really need me to go through the calculations again?’
‘It’ll take a week or two to search the area, even if it’s down to two kilometres. And I’m not sure how much time we’ll have.’
‘OK. Just this once. But no more after that. And not today.’
‘Fine.’
‘And you’re ignoring the fact that they’ll be frozen into the ice.’
‘Doesn’t matter.’
‘What do you mean, it doesn’t matter?’
‘Exactly what I say.’
‘There’s no point if we can’t get to them.’
‘Let’s find them first. Don’t be so bloody anal.’
‘I’m not. I just don’t see the point.’
‘There is a point. There will be a point. Just leave it. You’re getting hung up over nothing.’
‘Thirty metres of ice is nothing?’ I say.
‘I’ll deal with it, I said.’
‘Fine. Bye, then.’
‘Bye.’
I put the phone down. Back to the spreadsheets and programs, even though I said I wouldn’t, back to staring at a screen in a darkened room. Life hasn’t changed that much really, has it? I can feel yesterday’s sun still burning on my skin, the booze sweating out through it. I should leave the curtains open, really, to let in the sun. Summer won’t last forever. But I can’t stand the light right now. Strange how happiness leads to excess and regret.
It takes me over a week to get the calculations to point us at a smaller area. And it’s all guesswork. Who knows how the ice flows, really? We’re not real scientists, not glaciologists. And even they wouldn’t know. They don’t watch every part of Antarctica all the time. The change in the world’s temperature is unpredictable. All this is based on is generalisations and theories. We’ll be lucky to find anything.
The sugar beet harvest has started and the leaves are turning red. I like this time of year. Harvest always makes the village seem more alive, reminding me I live in a place where the land is still worked, where the weather determines most people’s work cycle, and there’s a harmony between nature and people. It makes me a little melancholy.
But I decide, with absolute certainty, I’m going. I’m more nervous than I thought I could be. And I don’t know why. This is the twenty-first century, and we’re not explorers. We’re tourists, and if anything happens, there’ll be lots of people and technology on hand to get us out of trouble. So there’s nothing to worry about.
When I get to Birdie’s house, she’s not there.