by Stef Penney
She pulls on the cigarette and visibly steadies herself.
‘Please don’t judge Frank harshly. He wasn’t the only one.’
She gives a sharp sigh, and speaks without looking at him: ‘Did you all do it – have . . . companions?’
It is the question he has been dreading, but supposes he can’t sink any lower in her estimation than he already has.
‘All of us except Shull.’
She lets out a half laugh. ‘Why not him?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘So it’s possible to resist.’
‘I can’t speak for anyone else. I’m only trying to speak for Frank because—’
‘You surely don’t include Mr Armitage – he’s married . . . His wife was at school with Angie!’
Jakob is provoked into glancing around him, and lowering his voice. ‘For that matter, some of the women were married. Armitage’s, er, companion was, and her husband knew of it. They don’t think of these things in the way we do.’
‘They’re true, then, the rumours of wife-swapping?’
‘Perhaps, when you know death is so close, such things are less important.’
‘What was she like, this girl?’
‘Meqro wasn’t married. She was a nice girl, very quiet and loyal. And truly fond of Frank. He didn’t . . . for months, he resisted all approaches. It was only when he knew he was going on the northern journey, and realised what it involved; he became frightened. He got the idea in his head that he wouldn’t return. When you’re afraid, you take comfort where you can find it.’
‘Does comfort have to be . . . that?’ She spits the words out.
‘I’m trying to explain how it is – perhaps not very well. To be somewhere so remote, so harsh; to live for months in darkness. To feel that cold. You walk outside in a blizzard and, within five yards, you’re lost. To not know whether the hunt will be successful, but to know that, if it isn’t, you will starve.’
Clara folds her pasteboard coaster in half, then in half again, then unfolds it and starts again.
‘You said it wouldn’t be dangerous.’
‘I didn’t know what I was talking about.’
‘Can I see it again?’
Jakob hands her the letter.
‘May I keep it, for the time being?’
‘Of course.’
He must have hesitated a fraction too long.
‘Mrs Athlone’s Christian name is Flora.’
‘Yes.’
Clara puts the letter away.
‘I’ll return it. I’m sure she will think of you whether the letter is in your possession or not.’
Then, seeing the look on his face, she says, with a gentleness he has done nothing to deserve, ‘I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.’
.
Jakob walks home, glad to eat up a couple of hours in movement, letting the clamour of the city wash over him and drown his thoughts. In the middle of the Brooklyn Bridge, he stops to look down at the boats heading out to sea. Far below, the surface of the water is a wrinkled grey-green, arrowed with wakes that all seem to point the same way: to the north.
Chapter 25
Siorapaluk, 77˚47’N, 70˚38’W
Summer 1893
At the end of June, the British expedition has been in the north for almost a year. Two months remain before Captain Traill and the Resolve will return to take them home, but Flora is convinced she has failed. The programme of exploration they planned has not come about. The Americans’ achievement in mapping new ground means that to reach areas on the map that are still blank they need more time, but the weather throughout the spring sledging season has been appalling – worse than anything Flora can remember. Gales blow without cease. Smith Sound is a mass of grinding floes – there is never either clear water or safe ice for more than two days on end, making travel to Ellesmere all but impossible. Not a single whale ship is seen. Siorapaluk, known for being an oasis in summer, with its sandy beach and grassy meadows, is never free of snow. Though neither weather nor Americans are Flora’s fault, she fears that neither will be seen as sufficient excuse.
If the season is bad for them, it is worse for the Eskimos. Though the presence of the British and their supplies mean that no one starves, hunting is poor, and three young men drown during a walrus hunt. Bad news comes without ceasing. The bones in Ayakou’s leg fail to knit, and Seddon says he will be permanently lame. Ayakou’s wife takes their children to live with a man whose wife has died. In February, they heard of an elderly couple who had frozen to death.
.
They do what they can: Flora has her data on the aurora, although the equinoxes have not produced their usual spectacular show. Magnetic readings reveal unusually low levels of activity – but she cannot say which caused the other. She has kept a full year’s meteorological record, with stations on the shore and on the ice cap, but it is frustrating; she accumulates the data, but cannot explain it. Are the poor auroras and the bad weather interrelated? Could they have been predicted? Even knowing the value of observation, it is disheartening to realise how tiny and insignificant her one-year’s results are.
Ralph Dixon and Edwin Daneforth spend the summer making magnetic and geological observations around Melville Bay, and map a portion of its coast. Maurice Seddon collects an elegant set of data on Eskimo physiology. Flora spends the rest of her time writing a dictionary of their language, and has begun a compilation of their myths.
She hopes to expand this into an entire mythic cosmogony – a description of Eskimo religion – but knows it is scrappy and incomplete. Sometimes she has the feeling that people do not want her to know their stories, despite her telling them that, if the white man knows they have a religion, they will be taken more seriously. The elders look at her in puzzlement. Many of them say, ‘Why do you want to know this? They are only silly stories, only for the Inuit, not for kallunat.’ They also ask her, continually, ‘Where is Mackie? Where are the upernallit?’
The whalers were predictable: they arrived in spring, they hunted and traded, took meat and ivory, left tools and nice things, and went away. Sometimes they left behind a child: Ivalu is one such – her biological father was a Scottish sailor whose name no one can remember. (And there are rumours – rumours Flora ignores, as she has no way or intention of knowing if they are true – that there is, somewhere, a boy whose father is Mackie.)
.
Flora encourages Ayakou to tell her stories. He sits around the house, mending things occasionally, but mainly moping. Meqro brings her baby and keeps Flora company. Despite her bereavement, Meqro is cheerful. Perhaps she had never expected to see Frank Urbino again. Flora cherishes the hope that Ayakou and Meqro might find solace in each other, but when she brings up the idea, in a light-hearted way, Meqro bursts out laughing.
‘Fellora, no! Ayakou does not like me. He likes you!’
Flora shakes her head, smiling, expecting that, as usual, she is being teased.
‘Yes, Fellora. He asks me, do I think she wants another husband?’
‘I have a husband, Meqro. I don’t want another.’
Meqro looks down at her sleeping daughter as she sews the pieces of a shirt together.
‘But your husband does not give you children. Ayakou can give you children. He may have bad leg, but he has good usuk!’
She collapses with laughter. Flora blushes, but tries to cover it with a smile.
‘Well . . . please tell Ayakou, I’m not looking for another husband, thank you. I love Freddie.’
Meqro smirks and sews for a minute, and then says, ‘Do you not miss kujappok?’
‘Ah . . .’
Kujappok is their everyday term for sex, which is much discussed, without embarrassment, by men and women alike.
‘I don’t really think about it, here. You know, Meqro, people don’t talk about kujappo
k in Britain.’
‘No? But still . . .’
Flora shakes her head, smiling, meaning: please stop.
.
She does think about it. She thought about it particularly after an incident in December. Ralph had accompanied Maurice to visit a sick woman along the coast, and she was alone in the hut with Edwin Daneforth. They had had an enjoyable morning, poking through their stores and discussing preparations for Ralph’s forthcoming birthday.
‘We can use the raisins. I’ll make a suet pudding. That’s his favourite,’ said Edwin.
‘I will make the pudding, Edwin. After last time . . .’
The last time, Edwin’s pudding had exploded. Subsequent investigations revealed he had used bicarbonate of soda instead of flour.
‘You mean, when I invented the patent Daneforth suet-weapon? Ha ha! It would be festive – you have to agree.’
Flora shook her head. ‘Still . . .’ She laughed at the memory. ‘I think it wiser . . .’
They smiled at each other. In the ensuing silence, the fire in the stove popped suddenly, making her jump, and Edwin suddenly seized her by both hands.
‘Flora, I can’t stay silent any longer. I have long wanted to speak to you alone.’
The look on his face was shocking; familiar, although she had not felt that peculiar, visceral thrill since her student days, with Mark Levinson. Freddie never looked at her like that: that was her first thought. She froze.
‘You must have noticed. I know that we . . .’
Flora came to her senses, wrenched her hand away and walked blindly to the door, calling for Ivalu. She did not look round, was waiting for him to seize her from behind, but he did not follow. She walked outside, into the freezing darkness of the day, where an aurora was crackling audibly, sending white streamers writhing across the sea. The dogs were barking – their infernal din, worse when they were inactive. Flora realised she was not wearing gloves. Her heart pounded. She was afraid, and did not know what she was afraid of. She waited for him to come after her . . . but nothing happened. Eventually, Simiak came out of her illu, shouting at the dogs, and Flora went over to her, with a feeling she assumed was relief.
.
That evening, Edwin was his usual self, chatting to the others when they came in. He did not look at Flora, but did not entirely ignore her. Still, she was disturbed. Feeling it was her duty, as leader, to clear up the matter, she took the earliest opportunity to speak to him alone.
‘I want you to know that, the other day . . . I attach no importance to it whatsoever. Of course, I have not and will not mention it to anyone.’
Edwin turned to her, a pleasant smile on his face.
‘I’m sorry, Mrs Athlone, I don’t know to what you refer.’
Annoyingly, Flora blushed.
‘I refer to the day before yesterday, when you . . . when you took my hand. I’m sure it was just a passing moment, and meant nothing. I regard it as of no importance. It’s quite forgotten.’
Edwin raised his eyebrows, his smile turning puzzled.
‘I’m afraid I don’t know what you mean.’
He looked at her quizzically. Flora felt a chill – one not entirely explained by the minus-ten-degree breeze off the sea-ice.
‘Oh. Yes. Then there’s nothing more to say.’
‘Of course, Mrs Athlone.’
Edwin laughed pleasantly, yet his laugh somehow managed to insinuate that she herself had said something strange and extraordinary.
Incredulous, Flora tramped off to the weather station alone.
In the dark of winter, people do strange things. The Eskimos talk of winter madness, perlerorneq, which manifests itself in an outburst of violent mania that can last for hours. Years before, Flora watched Aniguin’s mother, Simiak, tear off her clothes and run out in the snow, screaming obscenities and eating the excrement of dogs. Flora was terrified: Simiak was almost like a mother to her. Restrained from attacking another woman by a handful of men, she at length fell into a sleep that lasted a day and a night, then awoke with no memory of what had happened, once again her normal, cheerful self.
Flora tried to behave as though nothing had happened between her and Edwin, but she could not forget it. The way he had seized her hand, the look in his eyes, awoke something inside her. He was personable, handsome even, but . . . unthinkable, of course – let alone his caddishness in denying what he had done. He was, anyway, having a relationship with a local woman. The men did not talk about such things with her, but she knew.
In February, the sun returned. The lengthening light and increasing warmth made everyone’s blood run quicker. Flora wondered whether her colleagues had any idea what was in her head. She observed as shy, quiet Ralph began a relationship with the widow, Ainineq. She tried to imagine what would happen if she did the same with (for the sake of argument) Ayakou. It was unthinkable – well, not unthinkable, since she was thinking it – but absolutely, utterly beyond possibility.
Increasingly, as the depressing summer wears on, she leans on Aniguin. It is he who tells her most of the myths in her collection, and explains any words she doesn’t understand. He has become – as he told her he would – an angekok: a shaman. The former orphan is respected – not exactly popular, but people come to him, ask his advice. He married Ivalu, the most beautiful girl on the coast. Flora is glad for him, thankful that their friendship has survived.
Yet it was Aniguin who told Armitage about the meteorite. She had assumed that he would help her, and not the Americans. Flora knew about it, but it had not occurred to her that anyone would want to take it away. She assumed that would be impossible. It was another sign of her failure as a leader – she lacked vision, drive, the ability to make the seemingly impossible happen.
As their plans for exploration come to nothing, she looks at the tally of achievements – notebooks of tables, facts and measurements; cases of rocks, plants, skins; stories, sketches, photographs – but nothing to match de Beyn’s glaciers; Edwin turns out to have little aptitude for photographing the subtle light here. His attempts to capture the aurora are hopeless. She quietly asks Maurice for his help, and is refused, on the grounds that he had been relieved of that responsibility against his will. Perhaps he would have done no better.
Before they left him behind in Godthåb, Freddie impressed on her the need for the spectacular. Something the papers could get their teeth into. She didn’t think, in this extraordinary place, the spectacular would be so elusive.
In July, with their time in Greenland running out, Flora, Ralph and Maurice make a journey along the coast, and Pualana, the hunter who knows the land like no one else, leads them to a tiny, secluded bay – really a cleft in the mountainside that runs down to the sea. They leave their packs on the beach and climb for an hour. For once, there is sun and a faint warmth, but they quickly leave it behind, climbing into shade. Despite that, they sweat into their furs.
They reach a spot where the slope becomes even steeper, and Pualana stops. There is what looks like a fall of rocks filling a hollow in one side of the cleft. An overhanging rock-face keeps rain and snow off the site, and it faces north, so is never touched by the sun. Ralph turns to her.
‘You may as well wait here. It will take a while to lift the stones.’
Ralph is unhappy about the whole thing. He will not defy her, nor will he hide his disapproval.
She sits down, glad of her fur parka now, and the men set to work. After half an hour, Pualana climbs out of the hollow and fills his pipe, refusing to look at them.
‘Mrs Athlone.’ Maurice beckons to her.
The men stand in silence. Flora feels a throb of disquiet. Ralph holds out his hand so that she can steady herself, and she looks at what they have uncovered.
Upside down, a face – empty-eyed, bone-white, the lips drawn back in what looks like a scream – gazes back. A thrill of horror passes thr
ough her, but she forces herself to look at the woman – she knows it is a woman because the head is covered by a sealskin hood of a similar pattern to those of her friends. The uncanniness of it is that the whiteness of the face is not bone, but flesh – mummified, but intact. The blackened lips have shrunk, baring the teeth in that alarming way.
Ralph is upset. ‘Are you sure about this? Are we really going to take them from their resting place?’
Flora moistens her lips. ‘Pualana, how old are they?’
Without looking round, Pualana says, ‘Very old. Many, many years.’
‘I don’t want to move them if they are anyone’s ancestors. We respect your feelings in this.’
Pualana, who is being handsomely rewarded for his services, says, ‘They are no one’s ancestors. We don’t know who they are.’
‘All right then.’
She nods at Maurice and Ralph. Maurice is unmoved by the sight of the mummy, but he has presumably seen worse things in his career.
They uncover the whole body – the woman lies in the cleft as if she were pressed into it, her arms huddled to her chest, knees bent, feet neatly together. She was buried in her furs, is dressed just as Meqro or Ivalu would be in life: pointed hood, long sealskin jacket, short fox-skin trousers, bear-fur kamiks. Maurice supervises the lifting of it out of its resting place, and wraps it in a length of canvas, like a winding sheet. It is rigid, but light. He and Ralph carry it down to the sled without difficulty. Pualana refuses to touch it.
.
There are four bodies in all, one lying on top of another. There are no signs of violence. Maurice thinks they probably died together, in an epidemic, or of hunger. But someone took the trouble to carry them all the way up here, and bury them where animals would not disturb them. Flora insists they take all of them. She tells herself – and the others – that, if they do not take them, another expedition – there is bound to be one sooner or later – will do so. She is demonstrating vision. Maurice concurs. Ralph complies with a face of studied blankness. When she repeats to him that they are not the relatives of anyone living – are so old as to be without an identity, like the Egyptians – he frowns and says that they are still someone’s ancestors.