There’s a bright light in my face, and an American voice behind it. It’s difficult to keep my eyes open. I feel tired, deadly tired. I just want to sleep. The screaming’s still in my ears, and the beat of the helicopter blades. I’ve got nothing left with which to fight. I just want to give up and stop, stop breathing, stop thinking, run away to silence.
‘Adam.’ It’s Birdie. She puts her hand on my face. ‘Tomorrow,’ she says. ‘Tomorrow’ll be fine.’
‘Where are we?’
‘The American base.’
‘How long have we been here?’
‘A couple of days.’
‘I can’t remember getting here.’
‘You don’t need to remember. Go back to sleep. I’m here, I’ll always be here.’
Dreamless sleep takes me. A blank. More lost days.
The next time I wake, I manage to sit up. ‘Birdie?’
‘Yes?’
‘Are you really OK?’
She nods. She’s in jeans and a baggy jumper. ‘They brought our clothes over from the other base.’
‘Why aren’t you hurt?’
She shrugs. ‘I don’t know. The cold didn’t touch me.’
‘Why?’
‘Because they didn’t want to hurt me?’
‘Who?’
‘All of them. They’re all there, you know. Kathleen, too, and Amundsen, and Johansen.’
‘That’s mad.’
‘Ghosts? No one’ll believe you.’
‘No, not ghosts, just echoes. And who says I’m going to tell anyone? It’s our secret.’
‘But they tried to take you away.’
She shakes her head. ‘No, they didn’t. They just sang their song, and I followed it.’ She kisses me on the cheek.
The days don’t have a chance to drag, because I doze through them. I feel my strength coming back every time I wake, every time Birdie talks to me, every time she puts her hand in mine, every time she looks at me and smiles. A week after the blizzard, I’m strong enough to get up.
The next day, I’m allowed to leave. We walk out of the hospital into the bright sun, climb into the warm car, and twenty minutes later we’re back, back where this all started.
We meet in the lounge at base. Nev sits down under Scott’s lamp.
‘Ah,’ he says. ‘Good to have you back.’
None of us says anything, just stare out of the window to the south. The canteen’s deserted. You could hear a pin drop.
‘What about the grave?’ I say when the silence becomes uncomfortable.
‘We know where it is,’ Nev says.
‘Are you going to tell anyone?’ Birdie says.
‘D’you think we should?’ Nev says.
Birdie turns to look out of the window again, and shakes her head. ‘It seemed like a good idea back in England,’ she says. ‘To find them and to let the world know where they are. But not now. It would be sacrilege to let people know exactly where they are, to have tourists stomping around above them. Let them be in peace.’
‘So we’re no closer to finding out what happened in those last ten days,’ I say.
‘I think I’ve got a good idea now,’ Birdie says.
‘Really?’ Nev says.
‘I don’t think there was a real blizzard,’ she says. ‘Just like ours wasn’t real, not to me anyway. I mean, I didn’t get hurt like Adam did. I think they died because they wanted to. They chose to stay. There’s no mystery. I’d have stayed if Adam hadn’t come to find me.’
‘Then why didn’t Amundsen die?’ Nev says.
‘Because he saw nature as a threat, something to be vanquished, not embraced?’ she says. ‘He saw the unexpected as evil. Maybe they saw death as benign and gentle, come to save them.’
‘Is that what you think?’ I say. ‘That death would be benign? Is that what Scott’s face said to you?’
‘I ask myself every day what death would be like, and try not to be afraid. Does pain matter if it’s only temporary, if it’s the only way to cross the threshold into the next life?’
‘Do you wish you’d stayed?’ I say. I’m shaking. I don’t want to lose her.
‘No,’ Birdie says. ‘There’s too much for me to do before I come back here.’
‘What about the pendant?’ I say.
Birdie rummages in her pocket, pulls the pendant out, dangles it from her hand.
‘Have you opened it?’ Nev says.
She shakes her head.
‘Do you want to open it now?’ he says.
‘I’m not sure. I’m not sure I should ever open it.’
‘Why?’ I say.
‘It might disappoint me, might make everything I’ve experienced here seem less real.’
‘What are you going to do with it?’ Nev says.
‘I was going to ask you a favour,’ she says, smiling her sweetest smile.
‘Which is?’
‘To get us back to the grave, so I can bury this again.’
‘Bury history?’
‘I shouldn’t have taken it in the first place,’ she says. ‘I realise that now. But I was just crazy for it, wanted to see what was down there with them.’
‘You’re impossible,’ he says.
‘But loveable,’ she says.
‘He can’t go yet,’ Nev says, looking at me.
‘I’ll be fine.’
He shrugs. ‘But there’s a price.’
‘Another painting?’ she says.
‘No. Open the pendant. I’m sure Henry wouldn’t mind. If you’re going to bury it again, let’s at least know if he kept something in there.’
She takes a deep breath. ‘OK.’ Her fingers envelope the ornate gold, push into one side. It opens with a click. There is a photo in either half of it. ‘His mother and sister,’ she says. ‘That’s it.’
‘Anything behind the photos?’ Nev says. He hands her a handkerchief.
‘I’m not sure I dare.’
‘It’ll be fine,’ he says.
There’s nothing behind his sister’s picture. When she takes out his mother’s, a piece of paper, white, falls onto the table. She picks it up and soundlessly unfolds it. ‘God, it’s his writing. Exactly like in his diary.’ She shows us.
‘Can you read it?’ I say.
She squints at the tiny piece of paper. ‘This is the end. We have done all we can, and we will find no earthly path forwards from here. There are three of us left. We have been soothed by the songs of the wind, playing outside our tent, keeping us company on our march. The days are dark and cold, and even the gods can no longer keep us warm. There is a beauty in this place beyond our wildest imagining. May it preserve us for all time. HRB 27th March 1912.’ She folds the paper back together, puts it in the pendant, clicks it closed. ‘I think I was right.’
Nev nods into the silence. We stay like that until clouds cover the sun and make a new evening.
We scrunch our way into the igloo under a blue sky. It takes Birdie a couple of hours to put the pendant back where she found it. We drag out the gear, take down the tent, dump everything in the helicopter. Finally, we collapse the igloo over the drill hole, stand around the mound of snow, our heads bowed. Nev says a short prayer, a brief eulogy. In the distance ahead, a plume of snow drifts from the highest peak. Behind us, the weak sun struggles against the advancing season. Birdie takes my hand, puts it on her belly, under her coat.
I understand now. We are always surrounded by the souls of all those who have ever lived. Nothing we do is done without them. But theirs is a different world, a different place, a different life. They are not us.