The Nature of Ice

by Robyn Mundy

  Two am at Davis Station, in front of her computer and too wired for sleep, Freya’s mind is aswirl with replays and imaginings. Flakes of snow catch on her studio window only to be whisked away by the next flurry of wind. She watches the last of her images download. Those she took tonight could as easily belong to Hurley’s time—the evening sunlight diffused by falling snow, the distant glow of Davis Station, and everything around them sepia soft.

  She opens the photo that Marcus attached to his email: two tents staked upon the plateau. In nine weeks of sledging south across the ice cap, how did Frank Hurley, restricted to a single camera and a handful of glass plates, determine which of the prime times to preserve on film? She pictures him standing at a distance, absorbing the meagre camp amid the endless expanse. He captured this moment for the same pictorial qualities she sees in her own evening’s images of the sea ice—low atmospheric light, everything soft-edged with low scudding drift, sky aglow.

  How did you become so enthralled by Hurley? Chad had said tonight as they returned across the ice to their bikes.

  I love his passion for photography, that he saw it as art, that he strived to be good and taught himself all he knew. I think he was adventurous and good-humoured, and he loved nature.

  Chad nudged her. So many of my own fine qualities.

  That struck her as true, though she hadn’t said.

  On Hurley’s man-hauling trek from winter quarters to the south magnetic pole, he kept a sledging journal. Calm conditions one day, the next, frigid wind that parched and stung our faces; the extract in Marcus’s email brims with undiluted joy:

  >> In spite of these conditions there is something grand and inspiring in treading these virgin snows and breaking trail for the first time across the unknown.

  Her own days are a joy, the place a meditation, riding across tracts of ice with the tireless help of a quietly self-assured man. In a different setting she might have overlooked such absence of pretence. In different circumstances, if she were free—Freya halts her thoughts.

  You think you would have liked Hurley, as a person?

  I know I would, she’d said to Chad tonight. He was a bit of a showman, but that’s okay. Marcus says he lived his whole life as an idealistic adventure, playing out his boyhood hero quest.

  There’s a touch of the adventure hero in all of us, I’d like to think. Chad propped against her bike while she tied on her camera gear. I wish you could see winter quarters. To some it’s just an old wooden shell slowly filling up with ice and disintegrating by the year, but it stands for so much more. The final piece of the planet to be explored.

  The last great region of geographical mystery—so Marcus had written, revising her proposal to the Arts Council—the first to be explored in conjunction with the camera. Freya scrolls down the screen.

  >> Call me this morning when you read this; I’ll be heading over to your mother’s around ten. I have your gifts ready to take.

  Chad had glanced at his watch, Midnight. It’s Christmas Day.

  Freya placed her arm around his shoulder. She kissed him lightly. Happy Christmas. I’m so glad you’re here.

  He drew her towards him, held her gently, flakes of snow falling through the silence that closed around them and ushered in the day.

  FREYA WAKES A FEW HOURS later, showers and dresses. She makes her way toward the living quarters, shunted along the road by an assault of wind that squeals and swirls through Davis Station. Gusts eddy around foundations of buildings, gathering up a mix of grit and snow that sprays against her hood and jacket.

  A hardy few linger outside the main building: Freya sees their bodies turned from the onslaught of snow, clinging to railings, shielding their eyes as they wait for Santa and the traditional Christmas parade.

  Hurrying indoors, she finds a seat at the window beside Kittie. Both of them watch the road for Santa through the blindness of white. From a corner of the room the choristers belt out a repertoire they’ve been practising for weeks. Big Davo, the strongest tenor, has been positioned at the back, but he still overpowers the singers in the front. Giant baubles hang from ceiling beams, bookcases are draped with fairy lights, and gifts form a rickety, unkempt pile around a disfigured plastic tree.

  Through the window, four quad bikes emerge into view with an old sleigh in tow. Santa sits atop the wooden relic encircled by a huddle of shivering elves. Freya chortles when his elasticised beard blows up over his goggles and is scooped from his face by the wind. ‘It’s Malcolm!’

  Cheers and applause herald Santa’s entry to the room, his windblown elves prancing after him. Last to enter is a herd of blokey reindeers sauntering incognito behind reflector sunglasses and plastic noses, all the more photogenic, Freya takes up her camera, in their Hazmat suits and weather-beaten antlers.

  Sixty people squeeze into a room designed for forty. Bodies spill into the foyer, congregate on stairs and line the walkway while the kitchen, with its promise of a banquet, remains strictly out of bounds.

  Across the room, Chad returns her smile. He leans against a wall, his hair tied back, clean-shaven, wearing good trousers and a chambray shirt, a thorough contrast to his appearance last night.

  Santa booms out names as vociferously as he does the fire drill roll call: ‘Bertram.’ Here! ‘Morgan.’ Over here! ‘Jorgensen.’ Yes! Elves leap over legs and sidle around chairs distributing Secret Santa gifts to those hemmed in at the back.

  ‘Scott. Scott? Don’t tell me bloody Charlie’s still up at Comms.’

  ‘Bugger off,’ Charlie calls from the doorway, striding forward to collect his gift and plant an audible kiss on Malcolm’s cheek.

  ‘Seagram … Wazza … Davo.’

  Secret Santas watch furtively as anonymous gifts are peeled of wrapping. Freya focuses on Charlie, her recipient, who unties the bow from bunting strapped around the photographic box. He slides reading glasses from his pocket to study the weddell seal print. ‘That’s a beauty,’ she hears him say.

  ‘One guess who gave you that.’

  Charlie catches Freya’s eye and sends her a nod.

  The package on her lap is wrapped in a Saturday duties roster. She pulls from it a pre-owned book, This Everlasting Silence, The Love Letters of Paquita Delprat and Douglas Mawson 1911–1914. On the title page the former owner’s name has been neatly whited out and a message inscribed: TO FREYA. A NEW SIDE TO YOUR HERO. SECRET SANTA.

  Did Chad wangle the draw to get her name?

  She hugs the book and beams across the room to proffer thanks, however Chad is intent, not on her, but on Kittie beside her who unties the hessian sacking from her gift.

  ‘Oh, my gosh,’ Kittie says, showing off a turned wooden bowl.

  The bowl is an extraordinary thing, an art piece, the grey-blond wood streaked naturally with green and inlaid with a spiral of burnished copper. The slip of paper resting inside reads sassafras. Kittie runs her finger around the bowl’s wafer-thin lip. ‘I love it. I adore it!’

  Freya watches Chad, sees his unabashed delight.

  A holler from the doorway. ‘Call for Freya! Her husband’s on the blower.’

  Through the receiver, Freya hears corellas shrieking in the background. She tries to picture the line of sassy white cockatoos descending into the branches of their jarrah tree, gumnuts cascading on the roof. ‘You’re still at home.’

  ‘No, I’m at your mother’s place. Is everything alright, Freya?’

  ‘Everything’s fine.’ It is more than physical distance. More than standing in the station foyer surrounded by other people’s conversations. She feels utterly indifferent to the man at the end of the line. She barely recognises the timbre of her husband’s voice.

  ‘Hang on,’ Marcus says. ‘Sophie’s about to bowl me over.’

  Her niece’s voice sounds shrill through the earpiece. ‘Is it true,’ Sophie launches in without preamble, ‘that your fingers snap freeze if you go outside without your gloves?’

  ‘Who says that?’

  ‘I�
�m reading this raunchy novel set in Antarctica. The guys are so sex-starved that the women have to walk around in packs to protect themselves from being ravaged … ravished, whatever.’ Freya can hear Mama in the background clucking disapproval at Sophie’s talk of sex.

  ‘Bestemor, hello?’ Sophie outsquawks the corellas. ‘I’m thirteen and a quarter!’

  Freya steers them to safer ground. ‘What’s been happening there?’

  Sophie falls into singsong mode. ‘Everyone’s here except you. I showed Uncle Marcus the photos you emailed.’

  ‘Which were those?’

  ‘You on the motorbike and the one of you standing in front of the blue iceberg. Uncle Marcus says you hate having your photo taken. Dad goes, Apparently not, Marcus! I’ve never seen her look so radiant.

  ’ Freya winces at her own thoughtlessness.

  ‘Is it freezing there? Are you having a blizz?’

  ‘Not officially,’ Freya says, thinking how, when speaking to her niece, so many topics are canvassed in so short a time. ‘But it is blowing like crazy.’

  ‘Wicked! Bestemor’s doing the whole Nordic thing. She’s cooked enough to feed an alpine village. She gave me some gold earrings that belonged to Great Aunt Ålsa.’

  Freya privately bows to Sophie for showing more interest in their heritage than either Freya or Astrid ever have. Together, on Sophie’s laptop, she and Mama are compiling a family tree.

  Sophie crunches through the ear piece.

  ‘Are you eating celery?’ Freya hasn’t eaten salad greens since the last of the station’s perishable supplies wilted a month ago.

  ‘Snow peas. Want one?’ Crunch. ‘Do people still get scurvy? Bestemor’s worried about you. She had one of her psychic dreams.’

  Freya hears her mother calling in the background, ‘Let me speak to my precious baby girl.’

  ‘Here’s Bestemor. Ciao for now.’

  A fresh round of cheers rises from the Davis Station lounge. Santa emerges clanging his bell and charges past, knocking Freya with his sack.

  ‘… there, elskling?’

  ‘Merry Christmas, Mama.’

  ‘Has something happened? I saw you shivering. The sky was golden and pretty but you were frozen white. I saw your face as clearly as I see your father’s. Are you eating enough red meat?’

  Her mother’s so-called clairvoyance always makes her smile. ‘I’ve never eaten so much in my life. I’m too scared to stand on the scales. How’s Marcus managing on his own?’

  ‘Does the man helping you wear his hair in a ponytail?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘I saw him there beside you.’ Her mother’s voice trails off as it does when she knows she’s struck a chord. ‘Well, never mind. You’re safe and well, that’s the important thing. I have to check the duck and finish off the salads. Marcus is here now. He’s picking up the phone in the other room. Take lots of good photos. We miss you. We love you, elskling. Merry Christmas.’

  ‘I love you too,’ Freya says, startled when she glances up to see Chad easing by. He gives her a hollow look and veers away, taking the steps two at a time.

  ‘… waited an extra hour at home, expecting your call.’

  ‘Marcus? I’m so sorry. I read your email and I planned to call you first thing but then I slept in and I was in a rush to get over here in time.’

  ‘You read my email last night? What were you doing still up at that hour?’

  She hesitates. ‘Chad and I went over to one of the islands to get some shots.’

  ‘That’s odd. When I checked the Davis webcam it was snowing. It didn’t look like any kind of night for photography.’

  Freya feels herself bristle. ‘Well, it was, and I managed to get what I think might be a wonderful series for the exhibition. The photographs are really coming together, Marcus. It feels like it’s evolving in such a good way.’

  ‘Didn’t your donkey have anything better to do with his time on Christmas Eve?’

  She hears her husband clearly now, the old familiar edge. ‘His name is Chad McGonigal. Don’t be mean.’

  The double doors of the kitchen burst open. Sandy and Tommo emerge in full chef’s regalia carrying platters of baked ham and salmon.

  ‘What’s the din?’ Marcus says.

  ‘They’re about to serve lunch.’

  ‘Then you’d best join them. We wouldn’t want to keep you from your party pals.’

  ‘Marcus, please don’t do this. It’s Christmas. Tell me how you are, what you’ve been doing. Have you opened the gifts I left for you?’

  Silence. A great stream of disapproval reverberating through the ether. Freya’s cue to rush in and fix things, be the dutiful wife. She can’t do this anymore.

  ‘Marcus, I’ll email you tonight. Okay?’

  She takes a breath, waits for a response—nothing—before returning the receiver to the cradle.

  EACH PLACE SETTING IS ADORNED with a rolled gold-coloured napkin and a keepsake copy of the special menu. Candles flicker, stemmed glasses gleam ruby red with wine.

  Three cheers for the chefs!

  However exhausted Sandy and Tommo are from their four am start, their faces shine before the appreciative crowd and the sumptuous feast. Tasmanian trout, salmon, platters of crayfish, yabbies and prawns, honey-baked ham, roasted turkey, pork with crackling, baked pumpkin, onion and potato—the only vegetables left in cold storage—and not forgetting the vegetarian frittata, the vegan dishes, the specially made soy bread stuffing for the one coeliac on station. Who could have imagined such abundance? The applause grows louder. People rise from their seats to throw streamers. As celebrated as a pair of Olympians returning home with medals, the chefs pose victorious before their adélie ice sculpture.

  Only when the clatter and clang of dining subsides does Malcolm, restored to officialdom by his navy blue jacket and ANARE tie, stand and chink fork to glass to bring the room to silence.

  After the reading of faxes from Canberra politicians, emails from divisional heads, past expeditioners and well-wishers at home, Malcolm draws a slip of paper out of his jacket pocket.

  ‘Here we go,’ whispers the biologist opposite Freya. ‘The Christmas pep talk.’

  Kittie leans over from the next table. ‘So long as he doesn’t start rabble-rousing about Australia’s allegiance to the monarchy.’

  Malcolm takes a sip of water and begins. ‘Now, every scientist in the room—and not forgetting those who are doing some real work out in the field today—understands the importance of symbiotic relationships. Here at Davis Station we have a working example of just such a mutually dependent and beneficial association, in the form of the trades and the sciences.’

  A snort issues from the science laboratory manager.

  ‘As we all know, one of our charters for being here in Antarctica, for maintaining an Australian presence begun by pioneers such as Douglas Mawson and John King Davis, in whose honour two of our three continental bases are named, is the advancement of science.’

  Snickers and hisses rise from one of the far tables.

  ‘At least we like to think so,’ Malcolm says. ‘This summer we have a record undertaking. Forty-two science projects and one arts project. All running smoothly—’

  Apparently not, by the roar issuing from the seismology group.

  ‘Settle down, settle down. One or two hiccups.’ Malcolm flicks his hand dismissively. ‘Seriously folks, here’s the thing I want to say. Not one of these science projects—or arts project,’ he nods to Freya, ‘could be carried out safely or effectively—or at all—without the marvellous technical support we have here at the station: the expertise to construct equipment, operate plant machinery, service and repair vehicles, expand our living quarters and maintain an impressive infrastructure—this heated building whose comforts we enjoy today—that our tradeswomen and tradesmen provide.’

  Kittie sighs. ‘That’s nice.’

  ‘Could be worse,’ the building supervisor concedes.

  ‘The fact of
the matter is that here in Antarctica, when it comes to the trades and the sciences, one would not and could not exist without the other.’

  In spite of themselves the tradies scattered through the room look chuffed.

  Freya turns to look for Chad at a far table. She knows he knows she is watching, but he won’t meet her eye.

  ‘Without any more carry-on from me,’ says Malcolm, ‘please raise your glass for our official Christmas toast.’

  Freya holds her wineglass by its stem and looks through the red wine to the candle beyond. The flame flickers like a bird’s wing bound by a teardrop of glass. Light shimmers in the wine.

  Freya taps the glass and hears it ring.

  ‘The trades and the sciences,’ the station leader says.

  ‘The trades and the sciences,’ Freya whispers. Voices roar.

  She brings the glass to her lips and drinks, mouthful after mouthful until the glass is empty and the bird has flown.

  Christmas Day

  1912

  DOUGLAS ADDED AN OUNCE OF butter to give the paws a festive touch.

  Mertz gripped his hand, tears welling up in his eyes. ‘I hope to share many merry Christmases with my friend Mawson, if possible in the civilised world.’

  ‘We will, Xavier. Next Christmas you and I will sit down and feast on the very best dishes. Stuffed turkey roasted until the skin sizzles, Yorkshire pudding with gravy, platters of baked vegetables, a Christmas pudding full of sixpences and drizzled with brandy sauce and so heavy it takes two of us to carry it to the table.’

  ‘We’ll finish with cream cakes drizzled in strawberry sauce.’

  ‘And toast our good health with porto wine and a box each of your fancy Swiss biscuits.’

  Every conversation, every dream, the sum of conscious thought, centred on this aching need for food.

  In their makeshift camp fashioned from the tent cover which had been stored on Douglas’s sledge, two sleeping bags obscured the floor of snow. Only one man could move about at a time, and neither could rise from sitting. It was impossible not to knock an elbow or crack a skull against the wooden frame Mertz had jigged from the legs of the theodolite, the instrument now set up on the cooker box to calculate their bearings.