by Ann Turner
So Rutger did know Connaught well. My stomach tightened into a thick knot as I flashed on what he might have done on his past trip – or trips – to Alliance. I braced myself as I asked the next question. ‘What about my father and Snow?’
‘They’re trying to persuade us they knew nothing about what Connaught and Simon were up to, and they’re adamant they were only doing safe experiments on the boys. And Stan, Simon’s co-pilot, is saying that he knew nothing either. He managed to fly with Simon on all the flights except the ones with the boys.’
People who chose not to see, I thought, my temples throbbing. Like people close to atrocities throughout history, who convinced themselves that doing nothing meant that they weren’t complicit. My father and the others had made choices. Choices, without conscience. Thinking that no one was watching, or would ever find out. And that no one would ever judge them for their decisions.
‘Snow’s still trying to be a leader,’ David was saying as I tuned back in. ‘Refused to name the multinational pharmaceutical company that’s clearly involved in the drug trial. Won’t admit government involvement either, but he can’t substantiate how he could have funded the whole operation himself. Everything was financed through accounts in Snow’s name in the Cayman Islands. The boys were paid. Every fortnight, money was wired to their families.’
My father had been telling the truth about that after all. They were kids who had been sent out to make money, and they had succeeded, I noted miserably.
‘Their families didn’t know where they were. Snow kept that vague. He was pretending they were working somewhere in Europe.’
I listened tiredly, my limbs heavy, my blood feeling thick and slow, as David outlined how my father and Snow were facing prosecution for unlawful drug testing on humans, for which they had pleaded guilty, and charges relating to the trafficking of children, which they were fighting. They were also to go before an international court for having placed protected wildlife in grave danger with their experiments, letting children out among the penguins and seals. If the flu had spread to the penguins as avian flu, the whole ecosystem could have been at risk. They were claiming everything was carefully controlled, and the children never had active flu. As for their pragmatism in keeping Connaught and Simon compliant, by looking the other way to the sexual abuse of the boys, the law seemed not to have caught up to charging them with that. Yet. But laws were changing, and inquiries could be retrospective, so one day they might be brought to account for that too. It was distressing to think that the boys who had been hurt and dumped in Venice were unlikely ever to be found, or helped. In my mind, my father was as guilty for allowing the abuse to happen, as he was for everything else. I was disgusted, depressed and haunted to be his daughter.
• • •
‘I won’t go back there! I told you yesterday, and I’ll tell you tomorrow, I won’t!’ Santo’s pale face was flushed with fear and anger, his voice raised, as he spoke to Doctor Ramos.
My heart wrenched as I sat with them in a room that looked out across a field of ice to the sea, grey and choppy under thick clouds, matching the mood inside. Santo’s parents had been killed in the Guatemalan drug wars, and Santo had been sent across the border from Mexico to the United States by an uncle who had eagerly received the money wired to him by Snow’s Cayman Islands company. Santo was adamant he didn’t want to go back to the relative who had exploited him, and he had no other close family.
The ten boys who were found at Fredelighavn had now all been brought to Base Martinez for psychological and medical assessment. After two emotional days it had been established that five wanted to go back to their families in Guatemala, and the rest, like Santo, were begging not to return to their homes. Professor Fabio Natuzzi had graciously accepted my apology for doubting him, and was already working to settle boys in schools and families in Italy, but Santo didn’t want to go there either. And so I’d asked Professor Natuzzi for help, and was desperately waiting for his answer.
My phone rang and I trembled as I saw it was him. His voice came down the line, full of calm authority. ‘I’ve pulled a few strings, Laura,’ he said, ‘and I’ve managed to organise for Santo to be placed temporarily in your care.’
It took me a few moments to register what I’d just heard, and then I looked across to Santo, my body humming, a broad smile stretching across my face.
24
It was early afternoon in April when I finished the final draft of my report to the Antarctic Council. I had almost met the deadline, which would have pleased Georgia. I sighed deeply. Georgia appeared most nights in my sleep, usually her vivacious self, but on a few occasions her bloated body swam slowly through dark water towards me. The Italian police had arrested a man from Naples, linked to the mafia, who had given up the name of the detective in the Venetian police force. The detective then implicated Simon and Connaught. The trial would take place later this year, and David and I would be there, ensuring our dear friend, who we missed so deeply, at least received this justice.
I looked back at my report, thinking Georgia would have hated my recommendations.
In summary, taking all aspects into consideration, this remarkable wilderness has a chance of not only keeping its vast number of species, (refer appendix 1), but also increasing the population of each species.
The industrial architecture and streets of detached domestic dwellings at Fredelighavn Whaling Station are unique and would attract large numbers of tourists. However, given the importance of the wildlife, it is my strong opinion that this piece of Antarctica should remain an Exclusion Zone in perpetuity.
Regarding the buildings, due to their special nature, I suggest a photographic display of them be housed at Grytviken Museum on South Georgia Island; deposited in the archives of the Nantucket Historical Association in Massachusetts; and approaches made to Commander Chr. Christensen’s Whaling Museum in Sandefjord, Norway, situated in the Vestfold region where the Larvik Fishing Company was based, to include a set of photographs in their archives.
Ingerline Halvorsen was instrumental in creating a domestic summer village on an island south of the Antarctic convergence and for this, I believe, she deserves a place in Antarctic history alongside the explorers we already commemorate. An oral history could be sought from her granddaughter Helen Halvorsen, a Nantucketer who spent four summers at Fredelighavn, between 1950 and 1955. I would ask the Council to consider repatriating a gramophone player, records and family portraits back to Helen Halvorsen. The other contents of the houses could be placed with museums.
The buildings themselves could be left to decay with the weather and the years, or, if funds were supplied by participating treaty nations, all structures could be removed by a specialist company. I have spoken to several leaders in the field who estimate it would take five Austral summers to complete the dismantling. They would be happy to quote if the Council feels this is the appropriate path.
Given the difficulties of monitoring the activities of the nearby Alliance Base, and in light of recent violations of the Exclusion Zone at Placid Bay, I would recommend the base be relocated elsewhere in Antarctica and that South Safety Island, in its entirety, be closed to all human visitors.
I pressed send, dispatching it to my Australian superiors. My email pinged – it was Kate, who, writing up her Adélie research, was sending daily photographs of the penguins and their chicks, who had hatched, grown and headed out to sea. Today’s image was of penguins Isabel and Charles with their two fluffy chicks, standing happily between the tripod legs of the fixed camera. Smiling, I emailed Kate back, reminded that human presence didn’t have to hurt wildlife in Antarctica. As scientists we couldn’t leave everything alone, or we would miss learning important facts.
Was I then a hypocrite to want to close South Safety Island? Nancy on Nantucket swept into my mind; her justification of the whalers. I didn’t agree with her – but I knew that she was also right. The whalers, including Erling and Ingerline and their families, hadn’t thought
what they were doing was wrong.
Incredibly, I didn’t think my own father did either. Or Snow.
My head started to ache and I closed my computer. Sunlight played through the gauze curtains, which billowed in the breeze. I looked out to a dusty patch of ground and saw Santo kick a soccer ball high into the blue sky, and Travis race to it and bounce it off his head. My mother, tall, brown-eyed, tufts of grey-brown hair sticking out like a penguin chick after her bout of chemotherapy, ran to the ball and kicked it. I was surprised by how far it went.
I stood up stiffly and walked outside, where the sweet scent of cherry blossom filled the air. It was my first time in Spain, and we had rented a house in Valle del Jerte in Extremadura, where Granny Maria and Papa Luis had spent their idyllic childhood, before Franco. The cherry trees were in full bloom, as white as driven snow, stretching far into the distance. Bees buzzed contentedly, gathering nectar for honey. Behind, mountains rose in a purple haze.
Santo ran and hugged me. ‘Kick the ball, kick the ball!’ He squeezed tightly.
Professor Natuzzi was helping us with the legalities required to allow Santo to continue to stay away from Guatemala. In time, after passing through a maze of bureaucracy, we hoped to adopt him.
In the meantime, Santo was going nowhere without me. He’d made his choice; and he was as stubborn as I was. I bent and quickly kissed the top of his head, and he tickled me, laughing merrily as I squealed.
My mother came towards us, the awkward run she’d always had, lopsided, hands splaying out to the sides. She was happy with life after her breast-cancer scare – a scare for which I’d given no support because I hadn’t answered her calls. I realised, now, how much I loved her, and how unfair I’d been to her over the years. She’d been looking out for me all this time, saving me from the darkness she knew was in my father. She’d seen his lack of ethics early on, had argued with him – and then asked him to leave when his sense of right and wrong was crushed beneath his overwhelming ambition. My mother had given me a moral compass. I’d misunderstood her – and now, like a lens flipped, I saw her for the brave, caring woman she was, and was sorry I hadn’t noticed before. With her reprieve from cancer, I was grateful I’d get a second chance to be as good to her as she’d been to me.
I smiled at Mum and she caught my eye; a moment passed between us, solid and strong, and then I kicked the ball and she cursed playfully as it went flying. Santo ran like the wind, glancing it off his boot and darting it to Travis.
• • •
Crickets chorused gently in the still air and an owl hooted somewhere far in the distance. The night was crisp. Santo and Mum were asleep in the adjacent rooms, and I stretched my body into the bend of Travis’s arms, luxuriating in his warmth. Next week, he planned to take us all for the promised lobster dinner in Kennebunkport, Maine. On our way, we would stop in Nantucket. Helen and Nancy were excited to meet Santo, and he was keen to try their famed chocolate-chip cookies and blueberry muffins.
I’d finally learned Travis’s age – twenty-seven. As he shifted and held me tight, his breathing light and steady, it didn’t escape me that he was the same age as Cameron had been when I was pregnant with Hamish.
Just as the Spanish Civil War had sent my grandparents to England for a new beginning, the Guatemalan drug wars had sent Santo in search of a new life in America. Now I was having a new beginning with Santo, a boy the age that Hamish would have been if he’d lived, and with Travis.
Migration. A shifting world. The sea of humanity seeking new homes.
We were lucky to be here.
• • •
‘Look!’ Santo pointed excitedly, binoculars glued to his eyes. ‘Here they come!’ The wind buffeted us as we stood with Travis and Mum on the cliffs at Aireys Inlet on a cloudy, late autumn afternoon, where we’d been scouring the water for hours.
A spout of mist shot up above the grey waves, and Santo yelped as a humpback leaped into the air, breaching. Near it, huge flukes rose, black and white, and slapped the sea. The whales were on their annual migration from Antarctica to the warm waters of far north Queensland.
‘Is it Lev? Is it Lev?’ Santo cried. Through my binoculars I studied the giant flukes as the humpback lobtailed again.
‘Different pattern. It’s one I don’t know.’ I ruffled Santo’s hair as his face dropped in disappointment. ‘It’s a new one, just for you. You must name it,’ I encouraged, and my boy’s face lit up. ‘I’ll call it . . . Travis 2.’
‘Travis 2 can be my little brother,’ joked Travis, and I pulled my binoculars down just in time to catch his twinkling blue eyes meet mine. ‘You dag,’ I said, inwardly pinching myself that this beautiful man was here with me.
‘Don’t worry Gran, I’ll call the next one Cristina,’ promised Santo. Mum grunted and put her arms around him. ‘I might call it Santo instead,’ she replied. ‘I already feel like too much of a whale.’
I was so relieved that Mum had gained weight steadily in our travels, a reassuring sign of her recovery.
‘Ooh! There she is! Cristina 2!’ called Santo happily as another whale shot its flukes out of the water like a black and white butterfly in the dwindling light. I held my binoculars closer. Was I imagining it, or could I just make out the markings I knew so well, with a diagonal scar running through?
‘That one already has a name,’ I went to say, but my voice caught in my throat. Was it possible? Could it be Lev? But before I could utter a word, he slapped his flukes one more time and disappeared down into the darkening sea.
As night gathered around us, and a lighthouse swept its yellow arc across the water, we made our way back to Melbourne, where we were living with Mum in the too-big house in the leafy street, and I had a family of my own.
25
Sometimes I wake in the middle of the night to whale song. I imagine the humpbacks swimming in the harbour, Fredelighavn creaking in the wind. Penguins and seals overrun the buildings, as they slowly decay.
On a sparkling day, the Adélies dance on the ice, heads to the sun, tiny wings flapping, leaping from foot to foot.
And the white–blue ice cave sits, pure and still.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I owe an enormous debt of gratitude and thanks to Roberta Ivers, Managing Editor at Simon and Schuster Australia, and to Head of Publishing, Larissa Edwards. Roberta has an extraordinary ability to see exactly what I am trying to write, and make it so much better. Her keen eye for themes and storytelling, and her astonishing flair has helped this book in a myriad of ways. Larissa Edwards is astute and generous, and gave pivotal suggestions that enabled the story to take flight. I am very lucky indeed to be guided by such talented women.
Thanks also to Dan Ruffino, Managing Director, for the great care he takes of authors and our books, and to the entire team at Simon and Schuster, who are so committed and hard-working. A special thanks to Carol Warwick, Senior Marketing and Publicity Manager, who comes up with fantastic ideas and is a dream to work with; to Marketing and Publicity Director Anabel Pandiella for her clever thoughts; Anna O’Grady for her work with festivals; and Ellin Williams for her diligence.
Sales Director Elissa Baillie does an exceptional job, and I thank her. I owe a particularly large debt of gratitude to Nicki Lambert, Account Manager, for her excellent suggestions on the manuscript and her inspiring support, and for the magnificent work that she does handselling into the beautiful bookstores in Melbourne, Adelaide and Tasmania. I thank, too, Melinda Beaumont, Key Account Manager, for her wonderful feedback on an early draft and her great encouragement, and for her tireless work handselling my books into the equally beautiful bookstores in Sydney. Liz Bray, Vicki Mayer and Georgina Rhodes undertake incredible work, which makes such a difference to the life of my books. Jo Munroe does a spectacular job with the ebooks, and also deserves my deep gratitude.
Claire de Medici I thank for her copyedit and her insightful advice, which made such a difference to the manuscript.
I am indebted to my pat
ient readers: Jenny Sweeney, Katie Edwards, Julie Wells, Carmel Reilly and Rivka Hartman, who gave brilliant suggestions. I thank Mary Damousi, and Kathy and Myles Vinecombe for their helpful feedback and Evangelina Vinecombe for her energetic encouragement. Sue Maslin gave razor-sharp advice, David Cramond shared my enthusiasm for Antarctica and provided insightful comments, and Ruby Kerrison read a late draft and gave me a valuable perspective – I thank them.
I am very grateful to Kerry Landman for her support through the writing of this book. Kerry was so generous in allowing me to co-opt the use of Superstar for the purposes of my story, and for helping me gain insight into the workings of a scientific mind. Her suggestions were always inspiring. Annette Blonski has taken a very long journey with me: the idea of writing about Antarctica took hold over twenty-five years ago, and Annette has shared my passion for this landscape through all these years. With this manuscript, she has patiently read drafts and given invaluable comments, and I thank her very much.
For their professional help along the way I would like to thank Mike Middleton for sharing his pilot’s knowledge of planes, and the ins and outs of skis and floats on Twin Otters (all mistakes are my own); Warwick Anderson for his medical guidance (any mistakes are definitely mine); and Leigh Dale for her expert advice regarding a key moment in the book. Thanks to Mary Tomsic for her help that allowed me to travel overseas for research, and my sister Judy Turner for introducing me to the beauty of Nantucket and Cape Cod.
I would also like to thank the booksellers, reviewers and readers who were so supportive of my debut novel The Lost Swimmer. I am indebted to you, and delighted by you.
And finally, my love and thanks go to Joy Damousi, for her encouragement, patience, support, wisdom, endless enthusiasm, and inspiration, for which I am truly grateful.