Out of the Ice

by Ann Turner

  Georgia turned to dusting for footprints. One lot were clearly mine, the others looked like the size of Kate and Travis.

  ‘But the man was definitely in here,’ I said.

  ‘Did he walk on thin air?’

  I led Georgia upstairs. In the room where we had found the T-shirt, she studied the timber floorboards. ‘There are smudge marks,’ she said. ‘They could have put disposables over their boots, or simply worn socks.’

  ‘Why do you think they’re here?’ I asked.

  ‘Well, it’s odd, isn’t it,’ she replied matter-of-factly. ‘Several theories. One, they’re from another base, and I agree that means Esperanza or Villa Las Estrellas, because they’re the ones with families. They could have just been looking around out of curiosity, and weren’t expecting to encounter anyone. It’s November, they can get in by Zodiac. Could have been dropped off here by a bigger ship and are waiting to be picked up. Of course hiding from you, so they know they’re not meant to be here. Two, they’re a family in a yacht – tourists, adventurers.’

  ‘But where’s the yacht?’

  ‘Exactly. So less likely. But only some of the family might have come ashore – say, Dad and his son. Mum could come back for them after sailing around with other family members.’

  That hadn’t occurred to me – I supposed it was a possibility.

  ‘There are families who do that. Rip the kids out of school and take off,’ said Georgia, seeing my scepticism. ‘Or three,’ she continued, ‘the man and the boy are somehow connected to Alliance. And beyond that, it would be mere conjecture. We need to find more facts.’

  ‘The boy was upset. Really traumatised. Calling for help.’

  ‘Which could mean anything. My kids get upset all the time. And a young teenage boy, let me tell you.’

  ‘It was more than that,’ I said firmly.

  ‘And it seems likely he slept here after you saw him. With, perhaps, his father. I hope his father, in any case.’ Georgia turned away and continued to search for clues.

  A chill ran through me at the way she said hope his father.

  After filming the house, we went back into the street, where Georgia turned her attention to hidden cameras. She looked around, dark eyes hawk-bright. ‘If the men at Alliance are up to something down here, they could have removed any cameras, of course,’ she said. ‘It was hardly a secret that I was coming.’ She strode down the street, calling back. ‘It’s a remarkable village, by the way. Highly suitable for opening up to tourists.’

  My heart sank.

  ‘I hope you’ll put that in your report,’ she called.

  ‘Would you like to see the Adélie colony?’ I said, catching up with her. I needed to show her the importance of keeping tourists away.

  ‘Not yet. We’ll stick to this part today.’

  We moved through house after house, methodically numbering, photographing and noting GPS coordinates. There was nothing different to what I’d seen before: some places were furnished; a few were empty. There were no trapdoors down into the ice.

  I didn’t run into the ghost of Ingerline. Or anyone else.

  We had dinner in the purple house: dehydrated meat and vegetables that we boiled up on a tiny paraffin camping stove, biscuits, no alcohol. That night we slept on the ice. Our tents of reinforced fabric would keep us warmer than if we were in a freezing house, and with four of us, I’d felt it less disruptive. Georgia and Rutger were in separate tents; Kate and I were together. I was glad for Kate’s body heat but she was in a foul mood.

  ‘It’s bullshit she won’t let me go back. And Rutger is the most boring handsome man I’ve ever met.’

  ‘So you find him good looking?’ I tried to make light, but I was in a bad mood myself.

  ‘Not any more,’ she said. ‘If you have a bland personality and bond with men like Connaught, you can’t expect women to find you appealing.’

  ‘Does he have a wife? Kids?’

  ‘You’ve got to be joking. Rutger Koch is married to his work. Which he takes very seriously, from what he’s bored me with all day. He loves Antarctica. That’s about the only good thing about him.’

  ‘Does he like penguins?’

  ‘No.’ Kate shook her head emphatically. ‘He finds them stupid.’ She hunched down into her sleeping bag and closed her eyes. ‘I hate my life.’

  I leaned over and massaged her shoulders, which were rigid with tension. ‘I’m sorry. We’ll have you with your Adélies soon, I promise.’

  • • •

  The tent was flapping wildly in a vicious wind, pelted by powdered ice that, from the shadows inside, I could see was piling high. I hauled on my coat and trousers and peered out. It was a horrible day. Our skidoos were already encased in drifts of snow that had been hurled off the ground.

  ‘This is crap,’ said Kate. ‘I’m staying here.’

  ‘Suit yourself,’ I said, irritated and impatient. Of course the weather would turn just when we were camped down here.

  ‘Grub’s up,’ said Georgia, appearing through the flap of the tent. ‘Breakfast’s in the purple house.’ She disappeared.

  I pulled on my boots. ‘Coming?’

  Kate sighed deeply.

  ‘The sooner we’re through here, the sooner you can go home,’ I pointed out. She pulled herself out of her sleeping bag, emerging like a butterfly from a chrysalis, as I headed into the freezing air. Tiny pieces of ice pelted my face as I pushed against the ferocious wind into the house. I could smell oats cooking. When I entered the kitchen, Rutger looked up briefly from his bowl of porridge. He may have grunted hello but I didn’t hear it. He ate sloppily. No wonder he was single.

  ‘So how did you sleep?’ Georgia asked as she dished up my porridge and poured a cup of steaming tea from a huge blue and white teapot.

  ‘Did you bring that?’ I looked at the teapot.

  ‘Found it. Don’t worry, I’ll put it back just where it was.’

  ‘Make yourself right at home,’ I said disapprovingly.

  ‘Always do,’ Georgia replied cheerfully. ‘So, up to venturing out?’

  Rutger put his bowl down with a thump. ‘I’ll catch up with my notes. I can’t go out in this, particularly after my operation.’

  Kate clambered in. ‘Me neither.’ She rubbed her hands over the flame of the camping stove, and then moved to inspect the oven. ‘What does this run on, anyway? Can we get it going?’

  ‘No,’ said Rutger, ‘that would be dangerous, even if we had fuel. It runs on coal. The electricity at the station was saved for the whaling operations and lighting.’

  ‘It’s probably warmest in the tent,’ I said supportively.

  ‘Is it okay, Georgia, if I stay back with Rutger? I can’t go out alone,’ said Kate.

  ‘That’s fine,’ Georgia replied. ‘But Laura, you’ll come with me? I thought we might go up to the church?’

  I paused, looking out the window at the weather. I hadn’t been to the church, and I wanted to see it and check for an entrance underground.

  ‘Okay,’ I said.

  ‘Good girl.’ Georgia’s face lit up as she poured me another cup of tea.

  • • •

  The wind was howling. We strapped on skis and headed along, bent forward, trying not to be blown backwards. I had a waterproof fleece hat with ear-muffs, my scarf was wrapped tightly around my mouth and I wore dark goggles, but still the needle-sharp ice found a way to pelt my face.

  I led the way, Georgia behind me getting a little shelter from my body like the pageboy who followed in the warm footsteps of Good King Wenceslas. The thought of protecting Georgia spurred me on through the foul weather.

  Visibility was poor in the streets between the houses, but once we reached the bay it was a complete whiteout. I couldn’t even see my hand in front of me; space was disoriented.

  ‘You sure we should be out in this?’ I screamed above the wind.

  ‘We don’t know how long it’ll go for and I don’t want to waste time,’ shouted Georgia
. ‘Since when have you been soft?’ She belted me on the back and I headed off to the right. If I followed the bay and then went up the slope at the far end, I’d be to the left of the Adélie rookery, and heading straight for the church.

  But it was hard to sense where the water was to get my bearings. Georgia was being impatient and foolish: it paid to wait when the weather turned. I suspected that being out in the blizzard made her feel like a true Antarctic explorer. I chuckled to myself and kept going, hoping it was the right direction.

  The shriek of the wind was so loud I couldn’t even hear the penguins, who would be hunkered down on their nests. They knew what to do, even if we foolish humans didn’t.

  I listened for the sea but it was drowned out. My lungs were burning. I wanted to turn back but I was so bitterly cold, it was probably closer now to get to the church and have shelter and rest before facing the elements again.

  I felt the ground slowly incline upwards and I knew I needed to be careful with the skis – the hill was rocky. But snow seemed to cover everything now. As it became steeper I had to lift each ski up, dig in my poles, and step up slowly. By the time the church loomed close, my eyes were painfully dry and sore from the cold and the impenetrable white. I climbed up a snowdrift in front of the entrance, pressed myself against the door and fell in, dropping a couple of feet to the ground, and feeling it. Georgia almost landed on top of me.

  ‘That was great,’ she wheezed.

  ‘Crazy woman.’ My voice sounded harsher than I felt – it had been an exhilarating journey, like doing an extreme sport. The sensible part of me thought it was unnecessarily dangerous and we were lucky to have arrived in one piece.

  I looked around. Windows high up illuminated everything in a white light. It felt heavenly, eerie. Timber pews lined both sides of the room, and we were close to a stand with a stack of neatly piled hymnbooks. I took off my skis, pulled out my camera and went to investigate.

  The hymnbooks were in Norwegian, with beautiful gilt-edged, wafer-thin paper.

  Georgia walked up the aisle to the font and I followed, filming. Sound was muffled, the wind now a dull throb. I scanned the floorboards, searching for an entrance underground but the boards were all smooth and consistent, with no unusual breaks.

  It was a Lutheran church, simple and austere. There was a pulpit with a minimum of carving, on which was propped an immense, heavy leather-bound Bible the length of my arm. Had Ingerline organised to bring such a massive tome here? I looked back and visualised the congregation listening to the sermon. The church would fit about a hundred people. Whalers and their families, led by Ingerline. Who was the minister? Or ministers. Through the years, there would have been a number of them. It was frustrating how much about Fredelighavn I didn’t know. I longed for historians to be let in, to trigger research, to unearth records. It was as though Ingerline’s ghost were whispering for me to do it. What are you waiting for? She seemed to say. Get them down here.

  Georgia opened a door on the right that led to a tiny room, where the dark shadow of a minister’s robe hung on a hook, and a huge book lay open on a small wooden table. A registry. I peered over Georgia’s shoulder and took photographs. There were dates and names; details were in Norwegian. The last date entered was 15.3.57. Was that when the place had closed? Or perhaps just when the last sermon had been given.

  I leaned past Georgia and turned the pages to the front of the register. It began on 3.1.38. It must be a second register, as the church had been built around 1910. I searched the bare timber walls looking for the first one but there was nothing. Georgia moved off and I heard the creaking of a door being opened. I followed to the back wall, where the door was swinging shut.

  Entering the room behind the chapel I stopped, astonished.

  I was in a library. Books lined every wall, rows and rows sitting at right angles on low-slung shelves around the room. There were thousands of leather-bound volumes and also hardbacks and paperbacks. A vast collection. I filmed the room, careful to record everything, and then turned off my camera and picked up a few books. They were in Norwegian. And then I came to several in English. The whalers must have also come from America: Nantucket, judging by a leather-bound biography I picked out, written by Captain Erling Halvorsen, who had dedicated the book to his father Captain Lars Halvorsen and mother Ingerline. I flipped through, entranced. It was a history of Fredelighavn, as well as Erling’s exploits on the high seas and his emigration to Nantucket. I sat on a small wooden chair and was quickly absorbed.

  The book had been published in 1954. And to my astonishment, Ingerline was still coming to Fredelighavn at the time. Another son, Olaf, was running the whaling station. The Halvorsens were a dynasty, the directors of Larvik Fishing Company, who owned the entire operation. Here was the history that I’d craved.

  ‘What’s the book?’ Georgia leaned in close.

  ‘A history,’ I said, unable to wrench my eyes from the book.

  ‘Fair enough.’ Georgia walked away.

  I flicked through the chapters, searching for photographs. In the middle was a glossy page of black and white images. At the top, Ingerline stood with her sons, both in neat captain’s uniforms – Erling, the proud author, and Olaf, whose caption read, Fredelighavn Station Manager, Larvik Fishing Company. Ingerline was older, stouter, and the photo had made her eyes eerily pale. Her sons were upright and handsome with neatly clipped beards. Their eyes, too, were pale and seemed to look right through me. A shiver ran down my spine. I couldn’t resist looking around, in case they were all here.

  ‘You okay? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,’ said Georgia from across the room.

  I grinned. ‘Nah, we’re the only ones here.’ But I couldn’t shake the feeling that wasn’t true. Thankfully all I could see were the mellow-coloured books lining the walls of this most inviting library.

  ‘We should be heading back,’ said Georgia. ‘The wind’s letting up.’

  ‘Just a little longer,’ I implored.

  ‘Take the book. You can put it back later.’

  She was practical as always. I was keen to see what else was on the shelves before we left, so I placed the book in my backpack and went quickly in search of others while Georgia jittered from side to side to keep warm.

  The books in English were mainly novels and hobby titles, from knitting and cooking to building kit ships.

  There was a swag of books on Nantucket, Erling’s adopted home when he wasn’t stationed on South Safety Island. I wanted to sit and look through them.

  ‘We’re out of here,’ said Georgia. ‘Now.’ She hauled me off by the elbow, just as a scrap of blue material caught my eye. It had been shoved between books in one of the smaller bookshelves in the middle of the room.

  ‘Hang on.’ I went over. Carefully parting the books – two nameless, leather-bound volumes – I lifted out a cotton T-shirt. It was plain and worn and sported no manufacturer’s tag. It could have been here from the 1950s. But it was an odd place for it to be. A thought occurred with such force sweat pricked my brow: was the boy leaving a trail for me? Like Hansel and Gretel?

  ‘What is it?’ said Georgia.

  ‘A boy’s T-shirt.’ I laid it out on the library table. ‘About the same size as the other one.’

  Georgia grabbed it up, inspecting it closely. She held it to her nose. ‘Sweat. I don’t think this is old.’

  ‘Do you think he’s deliberately leaving them for us?’

  Georgia nodded slowly. ‘I wouldn’t discard that theory.’

  ‘What are we going to do?’ I desperately hoped Georgia could find an answer.

  She sat heavily, her face lined with worry. ‘I hate it when kids are involved.’

  I felt a sudden, deep yearning. This boy could have been Hamish. ‘We must find him,’ I said.

  ‘I just have no idea how. They could have already left by boat.’

  ‘Or be underground. If he’s leaving a trail, maybe he’s written something somewhere.’ I went to the books w
here the T-shirt had been. The first was a diary, hand-written in Norwegian in loopy writing. On the front page the author’s name was proudly stated: Ingerline Halvorsen. My heart thumped against my chest. I flipped through the pages but nothing fell out; no loose note from the boy. I couldn’t understand anything, other than dates, and Lars, Olaf and Erling – and more names that were perhaps other children of Ingerline, or just people at Fredelighavn.

  The second book was another diary – also by Ingerline. I checked the dates. The first diary went from 1915 until 1938, the second from 1946 to 29.3.57. Ingerline had been here seemingly until the end, with a large gap during the years of the Second World War. Or perhaps there was another diary. I looked around but couldn’t find one.

  Without understanding the content, I could see that Ingerline only wrote occasional entries each year, and all from November until March – the months when the ships were able to sail into Placid Bay after the sea ice had broken up.

  I longed to have the diaries translated, but foremost in my mind was why the T-shirt had been left here. Why did the boy think I’d be looking for Ingerline? Or was it just coincidence, a random space where he could tuck his T-shirt when the man wasn’t looking? My stomach twisted into a painful knot. What was the relationship between the boy and the man?

  Georgia dusted the shelf for fingerprints, but there were none. This made sense: I was wearing gloves in the freezing air; it was logical the boy – if it was the boy – had done the same.

  Georgia then dusted for footprints, and found my boots and hers – and smudges.

  ‘Someone’s going to a lot of trouble to leave no prints. I don’t think it’s a coincidence,’ she said grimly.

  ‘Do you think Connaught is involved?’

  ‘Or Snow,’ she replied firmly.

  ‘But the more I think of Snow, I don’t think he could be involved,’ I said, wanting to defend him, feeling guilty I’d placed him as a suspect in Georgia’s mind. ‘He’s an internationally renowned scientist. A top one.’

  ‘That doesn’t put him out of the picture. The whole base is in awe of him and I’m guessing would do anything for him.’ She sucked in her breath. ‘And our mate Rutger could well have been sent to watch over us. Well, you in the first instance, and now me too.’