Dark Matter

by Michelle Paver

  Algie shrugged. ‘Bit small. Though it’s a pity to waste it.’ He glanced at me. ‘Want to take a look inside, Jack?’

  I didn’t, but I couldn’t think of an excuse.

  I’ve never liked confined spaces, and as I crawled in after him, my spirits sank. The cries of gulls fell away. All I could hear was the wind keening in the stovepipe. The smell was thick in my throat: rotten seaweed, and something else. As if something had crawled in here to die.

  The walls were black with soot, the ceiling too low to stand without stooping. In one corner, a rusty iron stove squatted on short bowed legs. Against the back wall, a wooden bunk had collapsed beneath a mound of storm-blown debris. Rooting around, Algie found a mildewed reindeer hide and a battered tin plate. He wrinkled his nose. ‘Beastly. Hopeless for the dogs.’ He crawled out. I stayed. I don’t know why.

  For the first time since reaching Gruhuken, I thought about the men who were here before us; who built this hut from logs dragged up from the beach, and lived through the ‘dark time’, and then left, leaving nothing but a tin plate and a blizzard of bones.

  What must it have been like? No wireless, maybe not even a companion; at any rate only one, in a hut this size. To know that you’re the only human being in all this wilderness.

  Moving to the front window, I scraped the broken glass off the frame and poked out my head. No sign of Algie or Gus. The bear post dominated the view. Beyond it the stony beach sloped down to the sea.

  Suddenly, I felt desolate. It’s hard to describe. An oppression. A wild plummeting of the spirits. The romance of trapping peeled away, and what remained was this. Squalor. Loneliness. It’s as if the desperation of those poor men had soaked into the very timber, like the smell of blubber on the Isbjørn.

  I crawled out quickly, and inhaled great gulps of salty air. I hate all this pawing over ruins. I want Gruhuken to be ours. I don’t want to be reminded that others were here before.

  11th August

  I know I’m right. Whatever Mr bloody Eriksson says.

  The ship got back as scheduled, and we spent two days unloading. Finished today, and would’ve made a start on the cabin if it hadn’t been for him.

  While he was away, we’d decided on where to build it. Which took about five minutes, as it’s completely bloody obvious: where the old hut is, at the western end of the bay. It’s conveniently near the stream, and the boulders give shelter from the winds off the icecap, and it’s far enough from the bird cliffs to ensure that my radio masts get decent reception.

  But oh no, none of that matters to old Eriksson. As far as he’s concerned, we need to be east, practically under the bloody cliffs. And we should leave the trappers’ hut well alone.

  ‘I think that’s nonsense,’ I said. ‘That hut’s no use to man nor beast, it’s got to come down.’

  ‘No,’ Eriksson said flatly.

  ‘Why?’ said Gus.

  Eriksson muttered something about the dogs.

  ‘I told you,’ Algie said wearily, ‘it simply won’t do for them.’

  ‘It won’t do for my wirelesses, either,’ I said.

  Eriksson ignored that. ‘You’re leaving the mining ruins alone, you should leave this too.’

  ‘The mining ruins aren’t in the way,’ I said. ‘That hut most definitely is.’

  ‘Not if you build the cabin further east,’ he said – which brought us right back to where we’d started.

  It went on for hours. Eventually he was forced to agree that it would be better if we didn’t have to trudge the length of the bay to fetch water, but he remained adamant about not touching the hut. Algie gave in first, suggesting we use it as a storehouse. Then Gus conceded that maybe we could build our cabin alongside it. That’s when I lost my temper. Did they want to preserve a ruin, or did they want wirelesses that actually work?

  But if I’m honest, I want that hut gone because I simply can’t bear the thought of it. Some places drag you down, and that’s one of them. Maybe it’s the poverty and the loneliness: a reminder of what I came here to escape. Maybe I just don’t like it.

  Anyway, I won.

  Next day

  It’s gone, though we had the devil of a job tearing it down. For some reason, none of the crew wanted to touch it, so we had to pay them double; and Eriksson had to have a stern word with them in Norwegian.

  They worked in sullen silence and we helped, dragging the timbers away and chopping them up for firewood. Nothing’s left of it now, except for the bear post, which Algie told them to leave, as he wants to use it as a flagpole. I pointed out that we haven’t got a flag, and he tapped the side of his nose and said, not yet. God, he can be irritating. Why Gus should regard him as his ‘best pal’ I’ve no idea.

  It’s been an exhausting day, and we turned in early. Gus and Algie are already asleep. Gus is frowning in his dreams. He looks young and noble, like the first officer over the top at the Somme. Algie is snoring. His thick red lips glisten with spit.

  An hour ago, the weather broke, and a freezing wind came howling down from the icecap. It’s still blowing, sucking and smacking at the tent. The icebergs are grinding in the bay, and now and then one breaks apart with a crash. Eriksson says that if this wind keeps up, it’ll clear them away, so I suppose that’s something.

  This evening after dinner, when it was still calm, we strolled over to admire the site of our cabin. It’s perfect. We’ve even cleared it of most of the bones. But I wish Algie hadn’t kept that bloody post. Gruhuken seems to have had a dismal past. I don’t want any of it poking through.

  And of course, he had to go on about how the wretched thing works. ‘Apparently, it comes into its own in winter, when the pack ice gets near the coast and brings the bears. They’re attracted to tall, standing things, especially with a slab of blubber dangling from the top. So all you’ve got to do is stay in your cabin with your rifle poking out the window, and wait till a brute comes within range. I confess I’m rather keen to give it a shot.’

  ‘Algie old man,’ said Gus, ‘I don’t think that’s on. We don’t want bears prowling around camp.’

  He and Algie wandered off, amicably bickering, and I strolled down to the beach.

  Crossing the stream, I found my way on to the rocks. It was nearly midnight, and the great sloping pavements gleamed in that deep, gold, mysterious light. From a distance, they appear to shelve gently into the shallows, but in fact they end in a nasty four-foot drop. The water’s deep, and you can see right down to the bottom, to huge green boulders and undulating weeds like drowned hair.

  Crouching at the edge, I watched the waves slapping, and the chunks of ice jostling and clinking. I heard that peculiar crackling as it talked to itself.

  I thought, if I fell in, I wouldn’t be able to climb out. I’d try to swim round to where it’s shallower, but the cold would get me long before then.

  As I was heading back, a shaft of sunlight struck the bear post. The wood was bleached silver, except for a few charred patches, and some darker blotches which must be blubber stains. I found it hard to believe it was once a tree in some Siberian forest.

  On impulse, I drew off my glove and laid my palm against it. It felt smooth and unpleasantly cold. I didn’t like it. A killing post.

  And yet I think I now understand the impulse which drives men to shoot bears. It isn’t for the pelt or the meat or the sport – or not only those things. I think they need to do it. They need to kill that great Arctic totem to give them some sense of control over the wilderness – even if that is only an illusion.

  *

  Just now, a shadow sped over the tent, and I got such a fright I nearly cried out.

  Steady on, Jack. It was only a gull.

  The wind is blowing hard, and the dogs are howling. They’re restless tonight.

  6

  15th August, the cabin at Gruhuken

  The cabin is finished, and we’ve moved in!

  It went up in three days, as everyone worked like Trojans, and it’s beautiful
. Black all over: walls covered in tarpaper, roof in felt, with the stovepipe poking a little drunkenly from the top, like the witch’s hovel in ‘Hansel and Gretel’. The two front windows are such different sizes that they resemble mismatched eyes.

  Between them there’s a small enclosed porch, above which Gus has nailed a pair of reindeer antlers: a nice baronial touch. If you turn right and go round the corner, you find the outhouse, which Algie pompously calls the lavatory. At the rear, the eastern half of the cabin is backed by a lean-to of packing cases and wire netting for the dogs, while the western half abuts the boulders. The whole cabin is surrounded (except for the doghouse and the boulders) by a boardwalk about two feet wide. When you’re inside and someone treads on this, you can hear the footsteps, and feel the floor vibrate – as Algie is all too fond of demonstrating.

  My radio masts stand a few feet to the west, and beyond them is the Stevenson screen for the meteorological measurements. We’ve fenced that in to keep out the dogs, and set a line of posts with ropes slung between them all the way to the porch, as Mr Eriksson says we’ll need this in bad weather. The emergency storehouse is way off near the cliffs; and we’ve planted the dogs’ stakes in front of the cabin, so that we can keep an eye on them.

  Before we were even half unpacked, I ran a test on my wireless equipment. It works. Thank God. My heart was in my mouth as I started the petrol engine for the big transmitter. When the valves began to glow, the sweat was pouring off me.

  Shakily, I tapped out our first message to England. It’s childish, I know, but I did enjoy impressing the others. See? Good at it, aren’t I?

  With head-phones in place and the receiver switched on, I took down our first communication from the outside world. MESSAGE RECEIVED STOP WE HAVE 5 MESSAGES FOR YOU STOP. Seventeen hundred miles through the ether, and clear as a bell. The Times and the RGS; Hugo, sportingly wishing us luck from Tromsø; Algie’s girlfriend; Gus’ parents and sister. Algie crassly asked why there was nothing for me, so I told him. Parents dead, no siblings, no friends. I think he wishes he hadn’t asked.

  The small Gambrell transmitter also works perfectly, as does the Eddystone receiver, which I got going in time for the BBC National Programme. George Gershwin is dead, and the Japs have bombed Shanghai. It all seems very far away.

  Or it would have done if Algie hadn’t blathered on about Mr Hitler needing a jolly good thrashing. Gus told him sharply to shut up. He’s like me, he doesn’t want to think about another war. He told me the other day that he comes from a line of soldiers stretching back to Crécy, so the whole thing’s rather hanging over him. Which you’d have thought Algie would have remembered, as he’s known Gus since they were boys.

  Still. All that’s over now, and we’ve been settling into our new home.

  It’s thirty feet by twenty, which sounds a lot, but is actually pretty cramped, as we’ve got so much equipment. When you enter the porch, you have to squeeze past a tangle of skis, snowshoes, shovels and brooms. Then – and I’m told this will be crucial in winter – you shut the front door before you open the one to the hall. (Mr Eriksson calls this the First Rule of the Arctic: always shut one door before opening the next. Especially in a blizzard.)

  With that door shut behind you, you’re in darkness, because the hall – which is narrow and extends along the frontage – has no window, only gun racks and hooks for waterproofs, and a cupboard which Gus calls his darkroom. There’s also a hatch into the roof space, which is our main food store.

  Having groped your way down the hall, you open the door to the bunkroom – and fiat lux, a window! The bunkroom occupies the eastern end of the cabin, and is mostly bunk, with shelves made of packing cases on the opposite wall. We only needed three bunks, but it was easier to build four. I’ve got the bottom one at the back. (The one above me is empty; we use it as a dumping ground.) My bunk is nearest the stove in the main room, which is good; but it’s got the doghouse directly behind.

  From my bunk, you can see straight into the main room, as that doorway has no door. To your right as you go in, there’s the stove, water barrel, and shelves which make up the ‘kitchen’ (no sink, of course). The main room is dominated by a big pine table and five chairs, and against the back wall are shelves crammed with books, ammunition, field glasses, microscopes and provisions.

  The western end of the cabin, on the site of the old trappers’ hut, is my wireless area. It’s packed with receivers and transmitters, the Austin engine, and the bicycle generator, which faces the west window, so that I can see my wireless masts. My work bench is at the front, under the north window, overlooking the bear post. As the wireless area is farthest from the stove, it’s noticeably colder than the rest of the cabin. But that can’t be helped.

  After hours of unpacking, we were too exhausted to cook a proper meal, so I made a big pot of scrambled eider-duck eggs. (We bought a barrel from the crew, who gather them in their thousands and ship them back to Norway.) They’re twice the size of hens’ eggs, with shells of a beautiful speckled green. Delicious, although with a lingering fishy tang. I can still smell it.

  I’m writing this at the main table, by the glow of a Tilley lamp. Outside it’s light enough to read, but in here we need lamps, as much of the room is blind: there’s only the small west window at the end, and the north one to the front.

  Before we lit the stove, we could see our breath in here, but it’s warmed up now. We’ve left the stove door open, and the red glow is cheering. I can hear rain hammering on the roof and the wind moaning in the stovepipe. Yesterday the weather turned squally. In the morning, the dogs’ water pails were coated with ice. When I remarked to Eriksson that it’s turning wintry, he laughed. He says that in Spitsbergen, winter doesn’t begin until after Christmas.

  It’s eight o’clock, and we’re safely inside for the night. I say ‘night’ because although it’s still light outside, it does feel like that. This evening, we saw the first faint stars.

  Gus and I are at one end of the table: I’m writing this journal, and Gus is smoking and doing his notes for the expedition report. At the other end of the table, Algie has set up the Singer treadle, and is making dog harnesses. He’s whistling some inane tune, and when he’s not whistling, he’s breathing noisily through his mouth.

  So what with Algie and the treadle, it isn’t exactly quiet. Added to which, there’s the noise from the dogs. They’re all related to each other, which is supposed to minimise fights, but you wouldn’t think so to judge by what’s coming from the doghouse. Growls, snarls, yelps. Scrabblings and gnawings. Bouts of oo-oo-woos. When it gets too loud, we shout and bang on the wall, and they subside into hard-done-by whines.

  As usual, Mr Eriksson and the crew have gone back to the ship to sleep. It’s their last night at Gruhuken, and I get the impression that they’re relieved. Tomorrow we’ve giving a lunch in Mr Eriksson’s honour. Then we’ll say a fond farewell to the Isbjørn, and be on our own.

  Later

  I’ve moved to my bunk, because Algie is using his collapsible safari bath, and I’d rather not watch. All that wobbly, freckled flesh. His feet are the worst. They’re flat pink slabs, and the second and third toes protrude way beyond the big toe, which I find repulsive. Gus saw me staring at them, and flushed. No doubt he’s embarrassed for his ‘best pal’.

  Sometimes, though, I wonder why I’m finding it quite so hard to tolerate Algie. Maybe it’s because we’re so cramped in here. We’re all getting hairier and dirtier, and the cabin smells of woodsmoke and unwashed clothes. You’ve got to duck under lines of drying socks, and pick your way between the gear. Algie’s simply making it worse. He never puts anything away. And every morning he shakes out his sleeping bag and leaves it draped over the bunk ‘to air’.

  I never thought I’d say this, but I’m quite glad that we didn’t get rid of the dogs. Of course I still don’t like them, and that’s not going to change, despite Gus’ best efforts. Yesterday he tried to introduce me to his favourite, a scrawny russet bitch na
med Upik. She fawns on him, but when I approached, she growled.

  I shrugged it off, but he was disappointed: with Upik, and maybe also with me. ‘I don’t know why she did that,’ he said. ‘You’re not afraid of her, I can tell.’

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘but I don’t particularly like her, either. I bet she senses that.’

  He looked so downcast that I laughed. ‘Give up, Gus! You’ll never make me a dog-lover.’

  Right now, I can hear them yowling and scratching at the wall behind my bunk. To my surprise, I don’t mind the sound at all. In fact, I like it. It’s reassuring to know that just behind my head, on the other side of this wall, there are living creatures. Even if they are dogs.

  16th August. Midnight. First dark.

  The Isbjørn has finally gone, and we’re on our own.

  My lamp casts a little pool of yellow light, and beyond it are shadows. Just now, I went to the north window. I saw the lamp’s golden reflection in the panes, which are dark-blue and spangled with frost. When I cupped my hands to the glass and peered out, I saw a sprinkling of stars in an indigo sky, and the charcoal line of the bear post.

  Nothing is wrong, but I want to set down what happened this afternoon. To get it straight in my mind.

  Around noon, some of the crew rowed ashore, and we gave them a crate of beer as a thank-you. They’ve worked hard, even if it was because they’re desperate to leave and get in a few weeks’ sealing before the winter.

  Then we had lunch with Mr Eriksson. Guessing that he’d appreciate a change from ship food, we gave him tinned ox cheek and curried vegetables with Bengal Chutney, followed by Californian pears and Singapore pineapple, then Fry’s chocolate and coffee. He enjoyed it immensely, although at first he seemed intimidated by the Royal Doulton. But then Gus opened two bottles of claret and a box of cigars, and he became quite jolly. Told us how to make the trappers’ speciality, blood pancakes, and gave us advice on getting through the dark time.