‘Awake, lover girl?’
Mathilde’s eyes flew open. Lillemor was standing beside her with a mug of coffee. She was still dressed in her evening wear, hair wild, mascara streaked.
‘You seem surprised.’ Lillemor put down the mug. ‘Expecting someone else?’
To Mathilde’s relief Lillemor turned away and sat at the dressing table. She opened a jar of cold cream and began applying it to her face.
Mathilde propped herself up on a pillow and took a mouthful of warm coffee. The distance between their cabin and the galley ensured that coffee in bed was never hot. But Lillemor had loaded it with sugar and the sweetness was delicious.
She had a memory that was equally sweet and she wanted to hug it to herself. She couldn’t bear Lillemor to turn it into something cheap.
Hjalmar had taken her arm when they left the saloon the night before and his touch was so comforting that she’d found herself leaning on him as they walked along the catwalk. He hadn’t seemed to mind; in fact he’d squeezed her arm and held it more tightly as they walked.
They’d stopped to admire the sky. Although the sun was down and the light was deep blue, it was still quite bright, a state called civil twilight, Hjalmar had explained, with still enough light to read by.
Then he’d pointed out to the black water. ‘Penguins. Emperors by the look of it. We call that porpoising, for obvious reasons.’
Mathilde followed his finger. The penguins looked more like fish than birds as they dived in and out of the water. What would it feel like to move in such a way, she wondered, effortlessly leaping from water to air and back?
A squabble broke out among the huskies on the forecastle and there was a flurry of snarls before they fell quiet.
‘We’ll be meeting Norvegia in a few days,’ he said, keeping his eyes on the horizon.
‘I suppose you’ll be taking all the dogs?’
‘They’ve got work to do.’
‘That’s a pity,’ she said. ‘They’re the most uncomplicated creatures on board. I’ll miss them.’
‘I’m sure they’ll miss you too.’ He took out his pipe. ‘There’s not much softness once they’re on the ice.’ He glanced at her sideways, the stem sticking out of his mouth. ‘Do you mind?’
She shook her head and he struck a match and held it to the bowl. The smell made her think of the factory ship and she wished the association was more pleasant.
‘I’m worried for your wellbeing on the way back,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘Don’t be.’
‘I heard what they did. Unless Mrs Rachlew was trying to stir me up.’
Mathilde felt calm. ‘It won’t happen again.’
‘How do you know?’
Mathilde took a deep breath. ‘I’m not afraid of them any more. I think it makes all the difference. And Lillemor seems more disposed to look out for me.’
He snorted. ‘Don’t trust her.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Hjalmar,’ she said.
He puffed again. ‘I wondered if I should take you with me. Only, it might cause you even more trouble later.’
Mathilde felt a small smile creep up on her and she turned her head slightly so he wouldn’t see it. ‘That’s kind of you. But I really will be fine. I just want to get back to my children.’
A gust of wind swept over them, blowing sparks out of Hjalmar’s pipe. Mathilde shivered at the sudden chill. ‘I’d like to go to my cabin.’
He took her arm again and they hurried out of the wind. At the door he stopped as she reached for the handle.
‘Mathilde?’
She opened the door and turned back to him. ‘You’ve been a good friend to me, Captain Riiser-Larsen.’ She held out her hand.
He looked at her for a long moment.
She could sense there was an invitation there, and it was tempting, but some other part of her held to an unswerving resolve.
‘Goodnight, Hjalmar.’
He reached out for her hand, bent and placed his lips on her knuckles. ‘If there’s anything I can do …’
She smiled. ‘Nothing. But thank you.’ She slid her fingers out of his grip and stepped back.
‘They say Antarctica changes you,’ he said.
She had closed the door and a moment later heard his footsteps retreating. He was wrong. Antarctica hadn’t changed her at all. She felt more herself than she ever had, more solid, more present, less afraid. She’d undressed and climbed into her bunk. Its embrace had felt as warm as a lover’s and she’d snuggled down under the covers, feeling suddenly, unexpectedly, happy.
She’d seen Antarctica and in truth it was even grander than they said. Back home, she’d thought her grief for Jakob boundless. It was the biggest thing in her world, dominating all else, crushing her. But here, in the face of Antarctica, she knew her grief was really a small thing. It was human-sized. That thought had followed her into sleep.
Lillemor finished cleaning off her makeup and swivelled around to face her. ‘I stayed away so you could have some privacy. I hope it was worth it.’
Mathilde smiled. ‘I had a very good night, thank you.’
Lillemor eyed her closely. ‘Good. I’m pleased to hear it.’
She was waiting, Mathilde knew, to hear more but she sipped her coffee and smiled. Let Lillemor think what she wanted.
‘We might see land again,’ Lillemor said at last. ‘I’m going up to the bridge. Want to come?’
‘Love to,’ Mathilde said, and threw back the covers.
They stopped just outside the bridge to watch the huskies cavorting in the snow on the forecastle. Babyen tilted his head on the side, looking so comical they both laughed. Mathilde was still laughing as they pushed open the door, laughter that spilled out of her easily, as if it had been hidden there all along.
Her laughter trailed off. There was a furious silence, though the bridge was crowded. Mathilde saw a row of grim faces and, in spite of her brave words to Hjalmar the night before, she felt a shiver of fear. Something had happened. ‘What’s the matter?’ Lillemor asked.
There was a pause and finally Nils, the peacemaker, spoke up. ‘Ah, Mrs Rachlew. We’ve just had some rather unexpected news from Falk.’
Mathilde wished she could flee. The happiness she felt suddenly seemed a fragile thing and she’d rather not have it snatched from her so quickly.
‘Oh?’ Lillemor responded.
‘Captain Mikkelsen and his wife landed on the continent yesterday.’
Mathilde could feel Lillemor stiffen beside her and without thinking she reached out and put a hand on her sleeve. Under her touch, Lillemor’s arm felt like steel.
‘His wife?’
Hans Bogen walked over to them. ‘Something of a surprise,’ he said, stopping in front of Lillemor. ‘No one knew his wife was travelling with him.’
Lillemor made a small, choked noise. Mathilde saw that Ingrid appeared surprisingly calm.
‘We’ll be meeting Falk by dinnertime if all goes well,’ Horntvedt said. ‘Now that we know conditions are suitable for landing there, I’m sure it will be possible for you ladies to go ashore.’
‘And if it’s not,’ Hjalmar said, ‘then I’ll take you up in Qarrtsiluni.’
Mathilde gave him a small smile.
CHAPTER 39
Just like that it was over.
In the distance Lillemor could see the outline of the last factory ship, the one captained by that damned Klarius Mikkelsen, a triumphant Amundsen-like figure, while they, like Scott’s tragic party, had arrived too late.
Her eyes blurred again and she wiped her nose with her glove. Crying was inconvenient when the tears froze on your eyelashes. She didn’t want to go inside, not yet. In a few hours they’d be making fast to the side of the factory ship and meeting Klarius and his wife. There was only so much pleasant conversation she could make today, and she had to save that for when it was needed.
Having yesterday become the second – or third – woman to see Antarctica, Lillemor had imagined she knew so
mething of what Scott had felt, approaching the South Pole and seeing the black tent and the Norwegian flag appearing over that featureless horizon. But she realised now she’d had no idea.
Seeing a mountain through the window of Thorshavn’s bridge a few minutes earlier or later than Ingrid was more of an anticlimax than anything. She’d consoled herself with imagining them finding a landing place where she would leap from the landing boat the way both Carsten Borchgrevink and some junior officer claimed they’d done on Henrik Bull’s expedition, stealing his glory and forever confusing the claim for first footstep on Antarctica. But now even that fantasy, silly though it was, was dead. A woman had landed on Antarctica a matter of hours before Lillemor could make the attempt. It would have been one thing to get off the boat a few moments after Ingrid, at least being in the first party of women. But Caroline Mikkelsen’s separate landing put her squarely at the front of this race, such as it was.
Lillemor had wanted to leave the bridge at once and go somewhere to be alone with her disappointment. The brutal cold would have been a suitable companion. But she was curious to know how Lars’s own employee could have beaten him to the moment and so she stayed to hear the details.
Lars’s loyal Captain Klarius Mikkelsen and the factory ship Falk had been out of wireless range and hadn’t made contact. While Lars and Ingrid had kept their plans to take women south a secret until Cape Town, Klarius hadn’t thought to mention to Lars that he was bringing his own wife along for the trip. Apparently he’d given no thought to the implications of putting her in the landing boat that set out for the continent. Caroline had gone along for the ride and become the first woman to land on Antarctica by accident. Some chit of a thing, still in her twenties, had beaten them all.
Lillemor didn’t believe for a moment that Klarius was innocent of what it meant, and she was pretty sure Lars wasn’t buying it either, but the truth or otherwise was immaterial. It was done; the foot had been placed. They’d laid a depot, raised a flag and even had a picnic and a cup of coffee. Didn’t know the significance? Rubbish.
Lillemor wiped her eyes, trying to regain her self-control, but she couldn’t seem to stop crying. She looked up at Qarrtsiluni. She wished she could hide inside and stay there through the whole of their stop at the factory ship. Would anyone really notice?
‘There you are.’ It was Mathilde coming up behind her. Lillemor swallowed hard and sniffed, trying to bring her trembling lip under control as Mathilde came to her side.
‘Oh, Lillemor,’ she said, and put her hand on her arm. ‘Did it mean that much to you?’
Lillemor swallowed again and shook her head. ‘It was silly anyway. It’s not as if we got here under our own sweat. We’re of no significance. So what does it matter if we get to land?’
‘That’s right,’ Mathilde said. ‘It doesn’t matter at all.’
Lillemor looked up at the plane again. ‘It’s just I wanted to do something special, something no other woman had done before. Why is that such a terrible thing?’
‘I don’t think it is,’ Mathilde said. ‘But maybe it’s got to be something you can do yourself, without relying on others.’
‘And how, tell me, can a woman get to Antarctica herself?’
Mathilde shrugged. ‘I have no idea.’
‘Exactly. Do you know how hard I tried? Do you think I would have come as a passenger if I could have gone as an expeditioner with Mawson or even Hjalmar? He was this close to taking me, he’d agreed on it, and …’ she stopped.
‘And?’
Lillemor lowered her voice. ‘He’d agreed to take me as a photographer. But Lars forbade him, so his own wife could be the first. It damn well serves them right that Caroline’s beaten them to it. I could have come here as an equal, with a job. Not like this.’
‘I’m not sure about that, Lillemor,’ Mathilde said. ‘I think you’d never be an equal on a boat full of men.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Men can’t keep their eyes off you. And you encourage them.’
Lillemor was glad she hadn’t told Mathilde about her seduction of Hans. ‘I wouldn’t need to attract their attention like that if I was an expeditioner with a proper job.’
Thorshavn’s horn blasted and they both jumped. ‘Time to meet the Mikkelsens,’ Mathilde said. ‘Will you be all right?’
Lillemor shrugged. ‘No. But what choice do I have?’
‘None of us seem to have many choices,’ Mathilde said.
‘Aren’t you wise all of a sudden?’ Lillemor snapped.
Mathilde stepped back. ‘I’m just trying to help.’
Lillemor regretted her words, but couldn’t bring herself to apologise as Mathilde turned away.
‘Don’t forget,’ Mathilde said over her shoulder, ‘if you behave yourself, you might get to be on the flight with Hjalmar. I doubt Caroline will get an invitation.’
She walked off. Lillemor stood still, watching Falk loom larger as they approached. Amelia Earhart had only been a passenger on her first famous flight. Perhaps there was still a chance to salvage something.
CHAPTER 40
The two ships drew slowly together, pushing at the inflated whale corpses chained to the side of Falk to buffer their joining. It was windy and the inevitable stench wafted over them. This time Ingrid hardly noticed it. She stood beside Lars on the prow of the ship feeling an unexpected lightness. She’d wanted to feel Antarctica, feel space and purity and wilderness, feel herself alone on the ice. The roar of Thorshavn’s engines and the babble about discoveries and landings and the squabbling and disagreements between the three women had driven it from her mind.
Emotions had run high after the news of the Mikkelsens’ landing. Lars was furious, not only that Ingrid had missed out on being first, but that his own employee had snatched the honour from them. Lillemor appeared devastated. Hjalmar, perhaps remembering his own disappointments, had been his old kindly self towards Ingrid all morning.
Lars expected Ingrid to be as disappointed as he was, but in truth she was relieved. Now when she did land, it would be for the pleasure and wonder of it. She’d have the chance to feel Antarctica on her own terms, not pretending she wanted to land first, not trying to claim it or name it.
For they were hungry to name things, these men, and she realised now that the urge came out of fear. A named mountain could be marked on a map and found again. Moving, as they were, through seas covered in pack ice, dotted with icebergs many times the size of the ship, over a sea floor that dropped and fell like a mountain range beneath their hull, was frightening. There was nothing to grasp. She had been oblivious to the constant undertow of fear on board. No wonder Horntvedt was perpetually curt. He, Atle, Hjalmar and Nils were perhaps the only ones who understood the level of danger they lived with each day. Of course they wanted to name everything they saw; of course they wanted to chart landmarks on the maps and know when they were likely to meet them again.
The crew tossed heavy cables across the bodies of the whales to pull them close. Ingrid strained her eyes to see Caroline Mikkelsen. Klarius had married his much younger Danish wife fairly recently and Ingrid remembered the gossip that he kept her close, jealous that she might attract male attention.
‘There they are,’ Lars said, his voice still heavy with anger.
Ingrid followed his gaze. She could see a large man standing on the deck, heavily bundled in warm clothes. Beside him, a slight figure who must have been Caroline. The man raised an arm and waved and Lars, after a moment, waved back.
‘Don’t be too hard on him,’ Ingrid said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘Of course it matters!’
‘Look at it this way. The first women in Antarctica have all come this season on your fleet.’
He shook his head and for a moment the disappointment on his face was that of a boy. ‘I wanted you and I to land together and you to be the first woman.’
‘We can still land together.’ Ingrid raised a hand to wave and after a moment the sma
ller figure waved back. The ships jostled together, the corpses packing close into a solid mass between them. The wind was picking up, cutting through their clothes, though the sky was clear.
‘Don’t make a fuss of it,’ Ingrid said. ‘You’ll just embarrass us.’
‘I think we’re pretty embarrassed already, aren’t we? Beaten to the goal by my own employee. How foolish we look.’
The ship jerked and they staggered to regain their balance. Ingrid was glad that the moment was broken. The basket was already rigged up to swing them across to the factory; they wouldn’t be picking their way across the whales’ bodies in such a wind. As soon as the two ships were fast, the first mate called out to them to come down on deck.
Hjalmar was waiting to help them, but Lars waved him away, climbed into the basket and sat down awkwardly. It was an uncomfortable way to be shifted from one ship to the next, like a piece of cargo, and Ingrid could see it was adding to his humiliation. She stepped to the side, leaned in and kissed him on the cheek.
‘Be generous,’ she said softly and stepped back.
His eyes were on her as the basket rose in the air, rocking in the wind. She waved and managed a smile. He didn’t smile back, but she thought his face softened a little. She hoped the short journey would be enough for him to calm down. He was the most powerful man in Sandefjord, and with such power came the responsibility not to terrify those beneath him.
‘How are you bearing up?’ Hjalmar asked.
Ingrid turned away from the sight of the basket in the air. ‘What?’
‘You’re hiding your disappointment well,’ he said. ‘Lillemor won’t even show her face on the deck.’
‘I don’t really care, Hjalmar. I’d just like to land somewhere.’
He gave her a smile and it seemed the first one for weeks. She remembered how much she liked him, and how she’d missed his friendship.
‘If that’s true, then you’re a better person than I,’ he said. ‘I still remember the disappointment of getting that cable from Lars on my last trip saying I couldn’t claim that land for Norway. Being the first man on it was incredible, but that spoiled it.’
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