Chasing the Light

by Jesse Blackadder

  ‘But you still had the feeling of being on land no one else had visited.’

  ‘I try to remember that. But it’s the problem with being an explorer. If you’re not first, then you’ve failed by definition.’

  The basket came swinging back across from Falk and landed on the deck next to her. Hjalmar steadied it and offered a hand to help Ingrid climb in. She clambered awkwardly over the side and settled herself down.

  ‘I know things have been a little strange with having us women on board,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry if it’s affected you.’

  ‘It’s not me who’s been affected.’ Hjalmar gave her a rueful smile.

  ‘Some things have been … regrettable,’ Ingrid said. The basket lurched. ‘I hope we can still be friends, Hjalmar.’

  He said something in reply but she was rising so quickly that the words slipped away and then she was airborne. The basket danced in the wind and she felt suddenly free of Thorshavn’s heaviness. Too soon, in just moments, she landed with a bump on Falk’s deck. Lars was waiting to help her out and she took his hand and climbed over the high side, jumping down to land on her feet.

  As Ingrid righted herself, the Mikkelsens stepped forward. She could feel their hesitation and wondered what Lars might have said to them while she was being lifted across.

  ‘Captain Mikkelsen,’ she said, holding out her hand. ‘And you must be Caroline.’

  Klarius bobbed his head, not knowing, it seemed, if he should bow, kiss her hand or shake it. His colour was high.

  Caroline drew back her hood and Ingrid knew at once why Klarius wouldn’t leave her at home. The blonde waves of her long hair were drawn back softly and her eyes were an extraordinary shade of green. She had the kind of devastating beauty that would turn any man’s head and she was clearly innocent of it.

  Ingrid blinked and realised she was gaping. She stepped forward and reached for Caroline’s hand.

  ‘Mrs Mikkelsen, congratulations.’

  Caroline took the proffered hand and Ingrid could feel her trembling. She glanced over at Klarius, who was fiddling with his cap. The two of them no doubt regretted the impulse to make an unscheduled landing on the continent.

  She let go of Caroline’s hand and turned to her husband. ‘Captain Mikkelsen, you’ve done such valuable work in charting these coastlines. Lars has told me many times of your discoveries and what they mean for the fleet’s safety. We’re in your debt.’

  ‘Thank you, Mrs Christensen.’ He put his cap back on his head. ‘It seems our latest discovery has been rather unfortunate.’

  Ingrid waved her hand dismissively. ‘Not at all. We’re so proud that the first woman to land on Antarctica was part of my husband’s fleet.’

  ‘You ladies are still the first women to see Antarctica,’ Klarius said. ‘My wife only saw it for the first time at our landing, after you’d seen it yourselves.’

  Ingrid shrugged. ‘It doesn’t matter. Anyway, you’ve found a landing place for us – that’s excellent news. We haven’t yet found any other area where we could put ashore, so we’re most grateful.’

  Caroline’s pretty face flushed and Klarius coughed. ‘I wish that were the case, but last night’s storm has shifted the pack ice,’ he said. ‘We sent some men out in the catcher earlier but the lead in to our landing place has closed up completely. I’m afraid there’s no way we can get there, even in the lifeboat. We had to shift the factory to get out of the way when the ice started to move.’

  Ingrid’s heart sank and she looked at Lars. His face was set. ‘A great pity,’ he said.

  ‘Mrs Christensen, there’s something that may make up for it.’ Caroline’s voice was as innocent as her face. ‘We wanted to tell you ourselves.’ She glanced at her husband and he nodded for her to continue. She turned back to Ingrid and smiled nervously. ‘The last time he discovered new land, Klarius named it after your husband. But this place he’s named for you.’

  Ingrid stared at Caroline. ‘What?’

  Klarius made an expansive gesture with his arm. ‘We’ve named this entire region “Ingrid Christensen Land”. It’s on the proclamation we buried at the landing site.’

  Ingrid felt the blood rush from her head. Lars took her arm and she leaned on him, trying to compose herself.

  ‘What a lovely idea,’ he said. ‘I’ve been looking for something to name after Ingrid, and a whole region is most appropriate.’

  The irony of the situation wasn’t lost on her. Just minutes ago she’d told him to put aside his own anger. Now she had to do the same. How dare they apply her name to something so beyond human understanding? Her name was her own, a personal thing. Klarius and Caroline had taken it from her and made it public. She hated the idea of it.

  Klarius gestured over the railing. ‘There is a good stretch of clear water further out. Perhaps you could ask your pilot to show you Ingrid Christensen Land from the air.’

  Lars squeezed her arm. ‘Excellent idea. It’s about time Qarrtsiluni made a flight.’

  Ingrid forced herself to smile and nod.

  ‘Oh, and we have a gift for you,’ Klarius said. He nodded to a crewman nearby with a cloth-wrapped bundle. Klarius took it from the man and handed it to Lars. ‘To celebrate the growth of our industry. Careful, it’s fragile.’

  Lars unwrapped the bundle, revealing a sealed glass canister with a wooden base. Inside, in clear fluid, a perfect pale-skinned whale floated, its eyes closed.

  ‘A blue whale foetus. Rare to find one so well formed at that size,’ Klarius said. ‘There wouldn’t be another three like this in the world, I’d say.’

  Lars held the canister aloft and the creature bobbed up and down. ‘A most memorable gift,’ he said.

  Some response was expected from her, Ingrid felt. She reached out her hand and her fingertips brushed the glass. It felt cool and slippery. She hoped, with all her being, that there’d been no hiccup in her cycle. The sight of the foetus made her feel sick.

  She waited till they were by themselves before telling him. She’d make this flight without him, without the other women, by herself. Hjalmar would pilot Qarrtsiluni, but the other three seats would be empty.

  Lars hadn’t understood. He wanted them to go together for this first flight over the continent and she’d struggled to find words to explain why she had to be alone when she laid eyes on the land that now carried her name.

  ‘Just give me this,’ she said to him. ‘You made me wait twenty years before coming to Antarctica. I want to see this land alone. It’s mine, isn’t it?’

  She expected they would fight, but instead Lars looked hurt and turned away from her.

  ‘I don’t understand you any more,’ he’d muttered. ‘Go then.’

  Some fundamental difference had opened up between them. When Lars’s name had been given to Antarctic land, it became bigger than him and he expanded to match it, accommodating the breadth of the land within who he was. But Ingrid felt robbed. Applied to a slice of the continent, her name ceased to be hers. From now on it would be written on maps, read by people who had no idea who she was, and who’d wonder, if they gave it a thought, what she’d done to deserve the appending of her name to such a place. She hadn’t even landed there. It was shameful to only fly over it, she thought, but less shameful than not seeing it at all.

  Lars couldn’t understand that she needed to be alone to relinquish her name to something so much bigger. She had to see it without the weight of his presence beside her, and surrender something of herself. She didn’t expect to enjoy it.

  Everyone on Thorshavn came out on deck to watch Ingrid and Hjalmar climb into the plane. It was sunny, but a breeze reminded Ingrid how quickly Antarctica could turn cold. Lillemor, who was pale and red-eyed, pressed her Beau Brownie into Ingrid’s unwilling hands and turned away abruptly. Mathilde just smiled, making no attempt to speak to her. Lars, his face expressionless, gave her a small Norwegian flag weighted by a heavy metal flagpole with a point on the bottom.

  ‘I hope you can
bring yourself to throw it down and mark your land,’ he said.

  She took it without making a promise. It was the last thing she wanted to do, but to refuse would just increase the distance between them. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek, a kiss so devoid of warmth that she wished he hadn’t done it.

  ‘Come back safely,’ he said, and stepped back.

  Hjalmar was already inside the plane. He extended a hand and helped her up the ladder and into the cockpit.

  ‘I suppose you know your way around,’ he said with a smile. ‘Would you like the co-pilot’s seat?’

  She sat down and handed Hjalmar the camera. ‘I’ve no idea how to use the thing. Could you take a snap or two, to please Lillemor?’

  He nodded. He’d said nothing about Ingrid being the only passenger on this flight when Lars had instructed him. But she somehow felt he understood.

  He tugged at the seatbelt to check the catch and then clambered into the pilot’s seat and ran through the pre-flight safety check. Then the plane shifted as Hjalmar gestured for the bosun to lift her from the deck with the crane and lower her into the water. Ingrid was sorry, suddenly, to have hurt Lars. Part of his reluctance to let her go first was fear. Qarrtsiluni hadn’t been airborne in more than a year and no insurance company in the world would cover her to fly down here. There’d only been a handful of flights ever made in Antarctica, not all of them successful.

  It occurred to her that she might not come back. Ingrid Christensen Land would truly earn the name if Ingrid met her death there and she shivered. Her hand dropped to her seatbelt and for a moment she was so close to changing her mind that her lips began to move. The plane lurched and settled on the water, and before she could speak, the crane had been released and they were on their own.

  ‘Let’s go,’ Hjalmar said, with a sideways glance. As the propeller started to spin, the roar drowned out any possibility of speech. He began to taxi the plane away from the ship into clear water for takeoff. He raised his thumb and then Qarrtsiluni began to move with purpose, shuddering as it accelerated. Ingrid saw the spray flying back past the window, until with a final bump they lifted from the ocean and were airborne.

  In a few moments Thorshavn and Falk fell away below them, like toy ships. The people were insects and the dead whales crushed between the ships were herrings. The change in perspective was dizzying.

  Beyond the little world of the ship lay Antarctica in her might. Hjalmar tilted the plane into a turn and a long, rocky shoreline came into view. Ingrid could see the ships were quite close to the land, but blocked from it by the pack ice and bergs. The sun sparkled on the ice-free areas of water, and she saw how easy it would be to become lost. She stared down, her heart beating, wondering how they would ever find the ship again amidst the floes of ice and icebergs. Who had thought to paint Thorshavn white?

  The plane bounced and Ingrid gripped the armrest. She’d flown before, but in larger planes. Qarrtsiluni felt tiny, and every part of the machine shook with the effort of keeping them in the air. The ships had disappeared and there was nothing to give her perspective. The land below them was on such an enormous scale that it hardly looked real and she blinked and shook her head slightly.

  Qarrtsiluni straightened out of the turn and Hjalmar dipped the plane’s nose. Ingrid had expected the view of Antarctica to be ice and snow, white receding into an unfathomable distance. In the far edge of her vision she could see the ice plateau as expected, a white expanse disappearing into the sky. But before them was a jagged, rocky shoreline rising to low brown hills, criss-crossed with vivid black lines like some giant had dragged charcoal across the ground. Lakes of different shades of blue dotted the rocky hills and the pale blue sea ice that remained around parts of the shoreline was veined with fractures and freeze marks. Dozens of small bays and a confusion of islands traced the shore, making it difficult to see what was land and what was outcrop or archipelago. It was a modest land to be named after, some might say. There were no big mountains here, no majestic ice falls, no headlands that could be seen for hundreds of miles. It was also unexpectedly familiar.

  Hjalmar scribbled and passed over a piece of paper. It said Looks like the Vestfold! and Ingrid smiled. She’d never seen their home county from the air, but even so she could tell the resemblance was striking.

  They rose over the last line of hills before the plateau and then they were above white. This was what she’d expected from Antarctica and Ingrid pressed her face close to the window.

  The wind had scoured the snow on the glacier into lines of sastrugi and she saw that, under the white surface, Ingrid Christensen Land was ice the colour of the sky. The long curve of the ice plateau sloped gently down until it became a glacier, carving its way through the old rocks and emerging at the dark blue edge of open sea. They were flying over ancient brown rocks criss-crossed with black dolerite veins, the sea ice in all shades of eggshell blue and the ice plateau striped with snow drifts.

  It mattered nothing what it was called, Ingrid knew. She wiped her eyes, hoping Hjalmar wouldn’t comment. He turned and caught her in the act and she saw in the look he gave her that he understood. She stopped trying to hide the tears then. She could give up her name for such a place.

  CHAPTER 41

  Mathilde felt the wind freshen on her cheek. Something about Antarctica drove you inside, she thought, and it wasn’t only the snap of the cold’s jaws at your extremities. It took a strong will to resist the seductive warmth of cabin and saloon and stay out. It was the immensity of the place that made you want to retreat to the safety of an enclosed space. An iceberg could look less than ship-size and not far off. Then a speck of penguin would appear beside one and its vastness would leap into relief.

  The plane, by contrast, had turned gnat-sized within moments of leaving the water and she’d watched it for some minutes, a speck in the blue sky, hovering over an unimaginable wide land, before it disappeared from view.

  Lars stayed out on the deck watching and though Mathilde felt her fingertips and the end of her nose becoming painful, she stayed too, ensuring she wasn’t near him. The land was over there behind the ice, apparently, but Mathilde could see no hint of it. Their surroundings were the same as those of the past days: blue sea, brash ice shuttled back and forth by wind and wave, bergs looming towards them or standing so still that they looked like islands themselves.

  One thing had solidified in her as she watched Qarrtsiluni pick up speed across the water, the spray flying from its skis until it achieved a miracle and lifted off. She’d not go anywhere in that plane. She’d let them think it was female timidity, but in her bones she felt the weight of its name. Qarrtsiluni had to carry not just one whale soul but thousands of them, all of those killed this season perhaps, or at least all those whose oil lay in the tanks below her feet. Those souls would draw the plane back down to join their brethren in the deep. She hoped it wouldn’t be today, or any other time Hjalmar was in the pilot’s seat.

  She glanced over at Caroline, standing close by her husband’s side. Compared to their own journey, Caroline had faced a far more gruelling experience, living on board the factory ship amidst the dismemberment and boiling down of the whales, without another woman to keep her company. There was no destination to her journey, only the drive of industry to kill enough whales to fill the ship’s tanks with oil. By rights, Caroline should be begging to come home with them.

  But she looked content with her lot. She held her husband’s arm and Mathilde watched them exchange a few words. He smiled at her as if he couldn’t believe his good fortune and she smiled back with an expression that seemed to light up the air around her. Mathilde wished Caroline was coming with them. A fourth woman could break the stranglehold of the triangle, the shift and play of loyalties that seemed to have trapped them.

  She looked back at Lillemor and sighed. No, of course it wouldn’t be so simple. Lillemor had turned away to the railing to watch the plane take off and manoeuvred herself far away from Caroline. She�
��d managed a grimace of a smile and a few strangled sentences when they’d been introduced, but Mathilde couldn’t imagine her ever forgiving the woman.

  Mathilde looked up again to see if she could spot the plane, and Caroline caught her eye with a hesitant smile. Mathilde smiled back and Caroline slid her arm out from her husband’s and came over to join her.

  ‘Mrs Wegger, how have you enjoyed the trip so far?’ Caroline’s voice was accented by her native Danish, adding, if it was possible, even greater charm to her demeanour.

  ‘It’s been very interesting,’ Mathilde said. ‘But nothing compared to yours! How have you managed?’

  Caroline waved an arm, encompassing the ship and all that surrounded them. ‘It’s so lovely! I’ve grown used to the smell. Now I just notice the beauty.’

  She looked incapable of subterfuge and Mathilde believed her, though she couldn’t imagine such an uncomplicated relationship with the whole business.

  ‘What was it like to land?’ she asked.

  Caroline’s face lit up. ‘We rowed for an hour to get through the ice leads, so far that we couldn’t see Falk any more, nor smell it. I loved to feel land under my feet again. There were many penguins there and it was rocky all the way up to the hill from the bay where we landed. I couldn’t stop smiling, Mrs Wegger. I’ll never forget it.’

  Her expression changed. ‘But we have disappointed you ladies and I’m very sorry for that. Mr Christensen, I’m sure, thinks my husband did so deliberately and it’s unfortunate, for there’s no man more loyal. He didn’t know you ladies were on board. He said to me, in Antarctica when a chance comes you must take it, for it might never come again.’

  Mathilde laid a hand on her arm. ‘Never mind. Nothing can be done about it now. And you named it for Ingrid. I’m sure she appreciated that.’

  ‘I thought she would too,’ Caroline said, frowning. ‘But she seemed angry. I don’t understand.’

  Nor I, thought Mathilde, but didn’t say it. She cast around for another subject. ‘Do you have children, Mrs Mikkelsen?’