The Lightkeeper's Wife

by Karen Viggers

  Extra food! I’m breaking all my rules. How could a few slides of penguins do this to me?

  At home, I pour dog kibble into Jess’s bowl and toast a few slices of bread for myself. It’s not much of a meal, but this evening it’ll do. From the hall cupboard I pull out my old slide projector and set it up on a chair in the lounge room. I switch it on and place a couple of books under the legs so the light is at the right height on the wall. Then I insert a pre-loaded carousel and turn off the lights. Jess finishes her dinner by lapping up some water and drops onto her mat to watch the show. It’s been years since we’ve done this together.

  I have tons of slides from my fifteen months down south. Back then, everyone was taking pictures with slide film; we used to develop the film ourselves in the darkroom using special kits.

  It was fun dipping the film in the different solutions and seeing pictures appear like magic. I suppose if I went south again I’d have to update to something digital. Everybody seems to be into it these days. Although I think it’d feel strange to move away from my old manual SLR.

  If someone looked through my slide collection without knowing about Antarctica, they’d think every day was fine during my stay. But when you’re down there for months, you can choose when to take your photos. And nobody takes photos during a blizzard. I took great shots of many things: the brightly coloured station buildings, the folds of the undulating Vestfold Hills, Weddell seals like black slugs on the ice, Adelie penguins tobogganing in lines, icebergs lit pink by the sun, snow petrels fluttering against a steel grey sky. But among all my slides there are five that stop me. These are the ones I linger on now.

  The first is a picture of a newborn crabeater seal pup lying on an ice floe beside his mother. He’s all dark eyes, loose skin and soft brown fur. Within three weeks, sucking rich milk from his mother, he’ll grow into that loose skin. And as he grows larger and stronger, his mother will become smaller and weaker. Nearby a male seal will be watching and waiting. When the mother is too weak to hold off his advances, he’ll separate the mother and pup so he can mate with the mother. From then on the pup is alone. The bond between mother and pup was strong, but short. The pack ice is forever changing. Nothing is guaranteed. Relationships are intense but brief. The impermanence of things in Antarctica.

  The second photo is of an Adelie penguin colony on Magnetic Island, just off Davis Station. It’s taken from the top of the island, overlooking the colony. Beyond, the sea ice stretches into the distance, glinting with silver light and grounded bergs. The scene is luminescent. Somehow the photo reflects the intensity and transience of light in Antarctica. The light is a gift that comes magically; it illuminates your soul and then it is gone.

  The third photo is of a Weddell seal hunched against the side of a breathing hole. She’s using her bulk to create a platform so her pup can climb out of the water. Just before I took the photo, I was drawn across the ice by frantic splashing and braying. The pup was scrabbling at the sides of the hole while his mother tried to thrust him up out of the water. Every time she tried to nudge him up onto the ice, the pup would flail wildly and slip back in, gurgling underwater. Then he’d pop up, braying again, eyes wide. For several minutes, I watched the mother working to get her pup out, until she finally came up with the strategy of using herself as a bridge. Every time I look at this slide, I’m reminded how hard it is to survive in Antarctica, even if you’ve evolved to live there. You can die from misadventure even if you belong. Humans do not belong in Antarctica. It’s important to remember this.

  The fourth picture is of a dead Weddell seal pup lying in an ice hollow. The warmth of its dying body melted out its grave. The body was fresh—mostly intact—but the eyes were already gone, probably gouged out by the skuas and giant petrels that flapped reluctantly into the sky as I approached to take the photo. Death is always close in Antarctica, and once you die you become food for the scavengers. This slide reminds me that there is purpose in death as well as in life.

  The fifth slide was taken among several immense icebergs just off Davis Station. I was exploring the area on skis and had paused to gaze up at the elegant curves of the bergs against the perfect sky. Within the cold blue shadows there was no wind, no movement. Intense quiet settled over the ice. Immersed within that stillness, I heard the sound of silence—a glorious deafening ache that reached to the bottom of my soul. This, for me, was Antarctica.

  I turn off the slide projector and the room falls suddenly quiet. I feel very alone, despite Jess sleeping beside me on the rug. As always, I’m unsure whether Antarctic reminiscence is good or bad for me. It resurrects those tingling sensations of excitement and freedom. It makes my heart beat with the desire to go back there. Then those flooding feelings of guilt return. The pain of not being here when my father died. The fear of being absent should something similar happen to Mum. These are the burdens that have held me in Hobart for so long.

  Looking back over these slides reminds me of the lessons Antarctica taught me. And yet I realise I still don’t know how to use the intrinsic wisdom of that place. Perhaps I learned nothing there about the living of life. And what do I know about death, with the shadow of my mother’s departure hanging over me? Since Antarctica, I’ve marked time. I haven’t had the courage to try again for fear of injuries. It’s difficult to trust when the deepest trust has been broken.

  12

  The phone call came about six months into my stay in Antarctica. The summer season was over, the last ship had departed, and the sea ice had refrozen and locked us in. I had just returned from a long ski around the icebergs near station, wandering out to Gardner Island, barren and quiet now with the Adelies gone and their nests a field of scattered stones.

  Debbie sounded surprised when I answered the phone, as if she’d expected the answering machine. Her voice was distant, tinged with the sense of dislocation that had entered our conversations over the past months. ‘Tom. I didn’t expect to find you in your room.’

  ‘I was just about to go down to dinner.’ The smell of food was wafting up the stairs through the LQ.

  ‘Is it dinner time down there? I keep forgetting the time difference.’

  When Debbie and I talked on the phone, we usually chatted about the small things that made up our everyday lives. Debbie would give me a description of the curtains she’d ordered or the new items she’d bought for the kitchen, the colour she’d put in her hair. She’d tell me about the people that were annoying her at work, how her boss was giving her the creeps. And then I’d tell her what was happening on station. The silly things people were doing. The party that had spontaneously erupted on Saturday night while I was reading in my room. The tedium of work in the shed. The complexities of living in a small insular community. But this time, she was strangely quiet. People were passing my room, heading down to dinner. I got off my bed and closed the door.

  ‘How are you?’ I asked.

  ‘I’m okay . . . Actually, I’m less than okay, Tom . . .’

  Silence spun out, filling with my fear. This was the phone call all winterers dread. Something had happened at home. Maybe Mum or Dad; possibly an accident. I couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Tom?’

  ‘I’m still here.’ My soul was whirling with the wind outside, my eyes fixed on white distance. ‘Are Mum and Dad all right?’ I asked.

  ‘They’re fine. Everyone’s fine except me.’ She sounded mournful. ‘You’re such a long way away.’

  Yes. So far away. A world away over ice. ‘We knew it’d be like this,’ I said.

  ‘Like what, Tom?’ Her voice welled with emotion. ‘Did we know how lonely it would be for me? That I’d be sitting here looking at four walls with only the TV for company while you’re down there with a crowd having a party?’

  ‘I don’t go to many parties.’ I’ve kept myself separate for her. I’ve thought of her constantly, waiting at home in Hobart. The time passing slowly.

  ‘. . . I’ve been so lonely, Tom.’

  Silence agai
n. I felt myself sinking. What could I do? Nothing could change the fact of my isolation. We sat. The quiet stretched awkwardly. Then I found something that barely resembled my voice. ‘Tell me how it is for you.’

  Another awful silence. Then Debbie, tight and hesitant. ‘I just don’t think I can do this anymore. It’s too hard on my own.’

  Warning bells in my head. ‘You wanted this—so we could get ahead.’

  ‘I couldn’t have known it would be this bad,’ she said.

  ‘Isn’t there anyone you can talk to?’

  ‘Everyone’s sick of me. Antarctica, Antarctica, Antarctica—it’s all I ever talk about. How do you cope, Tom?’

  ‘I work.’ Hours in the workshop. Time measuring itself out in the systematic servicing of engines. ‘And I read. And get off station whenever I can. Helping people. I write to you . . .’ Silence. ‘Perhaps you could try talking to the counsellors at the antdiv?’

  Debbie’s disgust hammered down the line. ‘It’s no wonder they have counsellors on tap. I bet this happens all the time. Counselling won’t help. All they can tell me is that a bunch of other wives feel just like I do.’

  Another silence.

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom, but I’ve met somebody.’

  The slow heavy sound of my breathing. The wind outside. The snow blowing. Everything drifting away.

  ‘Tom. Are you there? I said I’ve met somebody. Someone who’s here for me.’

  A hollow sound. My voice, as if from very far away. ‘I’m here for you.’

  Debbie, matter-of-fact: ‘Tom, you’re an impossible distance away. I can’t do this anymore.’

  ‘How long?’ I asked.

  Debbie’s reply was less assured. ‘It’s been a while . . . I didn’t know how to tell you . . .’

  She’d met him months ago, apparently. Two, three, four months. She’d waited until the last ship had left for the season before telling me so I had no escape. No recourse. Why hadn’t I felt her pulling away? Or perhaps I had. Maybe I’d ignored the signs.

  ‘There was nothing I could say, really,’ she continued. ‘I mean, what would I have said? That the distance was getting to me and I could feel myself becoming vulnerable?’

  ‘Something like that might have helped.’

  She paused. ‘It wouldn’t have changed anything. These things happen, you know. Sometimes, you don’t see them until it’s too late. I’m sorry, Tom.’

  The silence of a man drowning.

  Then she hung up.

  She had called me on the cusp of winter and her rejection destroyed me. It was too much to come to terms with. Too much to accept. My wife with another man—my replacement. And our relationship over.

  The last ship was gone. The days getting shorter. There was no way back.

  During those early weeks, I rang Debbie many times. If I found her at home, we talked and she cried.

  ‘What can we do to fix this? I don’t want it to be over.’

  ‘There’s nothing. It’s too late. You’re stuck down there.’

  ‘If you’d just told me earlier . . .’

  ‘But I didn’t. Please don’t blame me. I didn’t want this to happen.’

  ‘But I was doing this for you. For us.’

  ‘I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out.’

  ‘Me too. I love you. I’m your husband. You’re my wife.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Tom. How many times can I say it? We couldn’t have foreseen this.’

  But perhaps we could have. At the pre-departure briefing they gave us the figures on marriage breakup. It was something ridiculous, like eighty per cent for overwintering staff. But you think you’re immune from it. You think your own relationship is different, that you’re stronger than everyone else, and that the figures are just numbers. And then, there you are, just another statistic. The Division of Broken Marriages and Shattered Lives.

  She wouldn’t tell me the new man’s name or anything about him. ‘It won’t help, Tom. It’ll just make things worse. You need to get on with things. Enjoy your stay down there. That’s all that’s left now.’

  She was patient and she listened to my long silences. Often when I called she wasn’t there and I’d sit dialling her number over and over, waiting for the phone to ring out and then dialling again. Her absence meant she must be with him. That man. She must be talking to him. Or making love. He was there, and I was in Antarctica. Trapped by winter. I couldn’t even fight for her.

  Then she asked me not to ring anymore. She said she’d cried all her tears, and there was nothing left. It was best to move on.

  But move on where?

  Nothing consoled me, not even the shimmering auroras that raged across the sky. Walking up to the workshed each day, I’d push myself as fast as I could, inhaling great breaths of freezing air, never quite managing to release the hysterical sensation of breaking apart. During blizzards, I’d force myself to work when others stayed inside. I’d drag myself up the rope that had been rigged from the LQ to the workshop, fighting with needling ice and blasting snow, almost wishing the roaring wind would blow me away. After battling the shed door shut, I’d hide beneath an engine, finding order in symmetry and pattern, the logic of pulling machines apart and putting them back together.

  Alone in the upstairs lounge of the LQ, I passed long hours staring at the light slowly fading from Prydz Bay. Darkest winter came quickly and somehow I was at home in it. The long hours of night matched my internal wilderness. I wanted to suffer. It was as if I had been eaten by darkness and it had seeped into all the corners of my being until there was nothing hopeful left.

  Around me, station life carried on. The two overwintering women fixed themselves in safe liaisons, causing resentment among some of the men. I was only vaguely aware of the friction. Strange antics emerged with the shortening days; none of it made sense to me. One of the scientists started talking to his dinner plate. Names appeared on mugs and people became furious if someone sat in ‘their’ chair. With a party of only eighteen on station there were few choices for friends. Rifts developed.

  Twenty-four-hour darkness brought my worst moments. People moved around me but I rarely engaged. I spent blocks of time in bed without eating or sleeping. By the time the sun appeared I was hollow and empty, eroded by grief.

  It was my job that saved me. The winter cold meant that planning was required to complete any task. A machine that wasn’t housed indoors needed three to four hours of heating before it could be started. If there’d been a recent blizzard, piled-up snow had to be moved first. This meant prewarming the loader or the Bobcat so I could shift the snow and ice. When a machine was finally moved into the workshop after being outside at minus thirty degrees Celsius, the dense steel sucked the warmth from the building. Two more days would pass before the shed and the machine were warm enough to begin work.

  Nothing happened quickly. But it was this step-by-step routine that held the pieces of me together and enabled me to play out the actions of life as Tom Mason had known it. Each morning I showered and walked downstairs, one foot after the other, into the dining room. Food tasted like cardboard. There was a tightness in my throat from all the emotions knotted there.

  When the light returned, I took to walking on the sea ice within station limits; as the sun grew in strength, I wandered the hills and watched the skies. There was solace to be found in landscapes and in distance and ice. The light was my saviour, and the colours of ice and sky: pinks, mauves and apricots, gradually intensifying to orange, silver and white. Light brought balance. In the shed, work increased. Spring was barely underway but preparations began for the summer season. I started talking to the others again.

  And soon the Adelie penguins came tobogganing over the ice.

  The first ship arrived in late October.

  After seven months of isolation, we made a pretence at excitement about the new arrivals. But dread and anxiety soon took over. None of us was sure we could cope with the invasion. Who would be coming? How would they behave? What changes wou
ld they impose on the patterns of our lives? We were ready to prejudge the new expeditioners as insensitive, loud and pushy. And they were all three; how could they not be, after the months of quiet we had lived through, the months of space we had known, and our knowledge of the dark that we could not share? The summerers waltzed in like they owned the world. They violated our peace and privacy. They were boisterous, overly enthusiastic.

  I avoided them by immersing myself in unloading the resupply ship. We worked around the clock, snatching meals when we could. The new biologists wafted around the LQ and skied out to the islands. Now that they’d escaped the ship it was as if nothing mattered beyond their leisure. In the dining room, the new crowd was amused by us, not understanding our strange little routines—the anchors that had carried us through the long days of darkness.

  When the ship pulled away at the end of resupply, I sat along the wall of the LQ with a few other overwintering men and drank beer, speaking little. It was somehow shocking to watch the young women, some of them drinking too much and flirting outrageously. They danced provocatively and laughed too loudly. The old dieso sitting beside me grunted and stood up with his beer.

  ‘They shouldn’t be here,’ he said. ‘I can’t stand it. I’m going to my room.’

  Our world had transformed: giggling in the corridors, crowds in the computer room, always someone in the dining room, talking and making coffee.

  I retreated to the workshop, trying to find normality among the machines. One of the new helicopter engineers came in to book a quad bike. ‘Got your eye on any of the sheilas?’ he asked jovially.

  The question floored me. ‘No,’ I mumbled. ‘I have a wife at home.’ Still in denial.

  He laughed. ‘I didn’t think any of that mattered down here.’ He winked as I passed him the keys.

  As usual, there was no privacy on station. Word quickly spread that I needed cheering up because of my marriage breakdown. People invited me into the field. The new scientists soon learned I was useful. On a remote island, I helped the biologist studying snow petrels. With a different scientist, I captured and tagged Adelie penguins, helping to monitor populations on the icebound islands near station. I also assisted Sarah, who was working on Weddell seals for the summer. She hadn’t worked with Weddells before and she appreciated the advice and experience I’d developed helping out the previous summer.