Veronica
LOCKET ISLAND
When Dietrich finally declares it is safe to go out again, we tumble through the door, all four of us slightly hysterical with relief. The scenery has changed, the contours of the land softened by an extra feathery coating. A pristine lace skirt has gathered all around the field center. The ground has become a series of deep undulations in whipped cream whites.
We stretch and drink in the fresh air. The three scientists frolic and whoop in the snow. I, too, feel greatly uplifted, but I refrain from whooping or frolicking.
Mike has evidently accepted that Terry is to be his boss in the near future. At least, I presume that is why he is putting a handful of snow down the back of her neck. She retaliates by scooping up as much as she can manage and rubbing it in his face, hard. They all shriek with laughter.
But it’s already time to return to business. It seems that one of the power thingies has suffered from storm damage. Dietrich drags a ladder from round the back and props it against the smaller of the two wind turbines.
“Up you go then, Mrs. McCreedy!” he calls to me. I grant him a smile. Fit and able as I am, we both know there will be no ascending of ladders as far as I am concerned.
“I’ll go,” Mike volunteers, and in no time he is at the top. His good mood rapidly evaporates.
While he is raining swear words down on us, Terry and Dietrich each get a shovel and start digging a pathway up the slope. The snow is far deeper in some areas than others. “It’s treacherous when you can’t see which are which,” Terry comments.
I am impressed by the way they are both applying themselves. She is not afraid of hard graft, that girl.
A visit to the rookery is out of the question until the issues have been resolved, so I wander back inside and make myself a Darjeeling. I note that the scientists have left all the inside doors open again. I diligently shut them.
Half an hour later, Mike appears in front of me, disheveled and sulky.
“We have a problem on our hands, Veronica. The generator is bust and can’t be fixed. Which means we have to rely on just the one.”
“How very tiresome,” I comment.
Unfortunately, he hasn’t finished. “I’m afraid we’re going to have to cut down our energy usage,” he explains. He assumes an expression of authority. “That means boiling the kettle less, for starters. From now on, you are strictly limited to four mugs of tea a day.”
I blanch. This is a travesty indeed. “Isn’t there anything else . . . ?”
“Terry is cutting down on her computer blog time, Dietrich on his CD playing and I’m going to do less work with the light on in the lab in the middle of the night. We can’t compromise on heating or any electricity needed in penguin research, but we need to be economical with everything else. Clear?”
What an unpleasant man! He doesn’t know the meaning of the word “apology.”
“Surely, in this age of space travel, there is some means of repairing a simple generator?”
“No, there isn’t,” he says bluntly. “I haven’t got the right tools.”
I am severely tempted to quote a certain proverb regarding a bad workman and tools, but I resist. Instead I content myself with giving him a hard stare.
I always feel my feathers are ruffled after any dialogue with Mike. The Darjeeling soothes my spirits. I must appreciate every last atom if it is to be rationed in the future.
It is wonderful to see the penguins again but devastating to observe many small rounded corpses among them. The scene prompts a sharp twist in my chest, just underneath where the locket lies.
The living penguins continue with their riotous activities, bravely ignoring the graveyard elements of their community. Despite the losses, new life is blossoming everywhere. Tiny wobbling heads are emerging from eggs throughout the colony. I manage to recover my equanimity by focusing on the antics of a particular Adélie chick. This one is quite charming. He is a fat, fuzzy child running around in tight circles as if chasing an imaginary butterfly. He is delighted with himself and the world.
A huge, winged shadow glides across the snow. I look up and follow the path of the bird, recognizing it as a skua. It dips down into the community of penguins, snatches the very chick I was watching and soars upward again. I gasp in horror. The poor baby penguin is a struggling silhouette against the hard blue sky.
“Let go, let go, you brute!” I shriek at the skua, but my cries are in vain. The chick’s feet kick out for a second, its neck twisted sideways, then it dangles like a rag from the skua’s talons. A second skua wheels in, and together they rip the baby bird apart limb from limb.
My whole body is shuddering in shock. My eyes return to the colony, seeking out the parents, conscious of their pain. I have no idea which penguins they are; they are anonymous among the seething mass of black and white.
Terry’s voice startles me out of my reverie. I am cradling a (now extra precious) mug of Darjeeling while she messes about with a stack of penguin tags across the other side of the room.
I adjust my hearing aid. “Did you say something?”
“You seem sad. Is something wrong, Veronica?”
I didn’t realize it was that obvious.
“Wrong? No,” I answer. No more than usual, anyway.
Her brows are drawn together, her eyes searching my face. “I know something’s troubling you. You can talk to me, you know, Veronica. About anything, in confidence. Things can get to you out here—I know that. Feelings become kind of raw, kind of exposed. But it does help to talk.”
“Does it?” I very much doubt that.
“I won’t tell anyone if . . . if it’s something personal. And, for what it’s worth, I’m not in the habit of judging people.”
A human being not judging another human being? That’d be a first.
“You don’t talk much about yourself,” she adds. “I’d like to know a bit more about you.”
She settles in the chair next to mine with the air of a person who won’t give up. It is an attitude that reminds me of someone.
Yet at the moment, the legendary McCreedy fortitude seems to be crumbling. My limbs weigh me down, and everything I attempt to do is a Herculean effort. My brain feels worn out, too. At times it seems to me that I’m trying to realign things that simply can’t be realigned. I would have thought that by now I’d have shaken off the past, but ever since I read those old journals, I have been acutely aware of it all. It’s still there inside me, stronger than ever, a growing presence like a canker. It is expanding all the time, putting pressure on all my vital organs and poisoning my bloodstream.
I have allowed myself to believe that coming out here might provide some sort of cure or antidote. I have certainly enjoyed being among the penguins. But it isn’t enough. I am beginning to realize that nothing will ever be enough.
“It’s all a big waste,” I mutter, more to myself than to Terry. “My life. All a huge, painful, inexplicable, pointless waste.”
“I’m sure that’s not true, Veronica,” she cries, reaching a hand out to me that I pretend not to see. “I bet you’ve done loads of amazing things.”
“Amazing? Hardly.”
Events happened and I responded to them quickly and impulsively in my own way, right or wrong. Then time passed, grinding onward, year upon year, decade upon decade, silence upon silence. Like the layers of earth and rock and ice that have formed over the surface of the earth. Who would know or care that a fire is burning deep down, right at its core?
“Is it something about Patrick?” Terry asks.
“Patrick?”
“Yes, that’s the name of your grandson, isn’t it?” She has a good memory.
“I suppose, biologically speaking, he is my grandson,” I acknowledge.
“And so . . . you must have children . . . had children? A child?” I register all the patterns and strands of blues and silver grays in her wide eyes.
“No. Not really. Not properly,” I tell her.
She looks slightly spooked. “I don’t know what you mean. You’re a dark horse, Veronica.”
She’s been kind to me. Perhaps I owe her an explanation.
“It was the war . . .”
I stop. I can’t go over it, say it out loud, however much she wheedles. Life is a careful balance of what you let out and what you hold in. In my case it is largely about holding in. Holding in is the only way of holding together.
Anyway, why should I tell her anything? What business is it of hers?
“I’d like to rest now.” I heave myself up and head for my room. I close the door firmly behind me.