Sun at Midnight

by Rosie Thomas

  She climbed down, enjoying the stretching of muscles and the precise search for toeholds with the tip of her boot. She exchanged a solemn stare with the nearest penguin as she passed by. Over the next rocky outcrop she found yet another crescent, smaller and more intimately enfolded by rock. The sound of waves breaking was caught and amplified here, filling her head with music. She stood looking out to sea. Her mind was empty, all the questions and doubts that nagged her soothed away by the wonder of the scenery and by sunshine at midnight. The sun steadily lifted clear of the horizon and turned to a flat disc of blazing gold.

  Alice turned slowly round, with coppery-green pennies of light dancing on her retinas. She looked up at the folded and crimped bands of rock, at the centre point of the beach’s arc, and through the fading rain of sun spots she saw a flight of pale stone steps. They led straight from the shingle up to the overhang of snow at the clifftop, as precise as if a stonemason had just chipped them free.

  It was a common geological formation, known as a dyke.

  A column of hot magma had intruded into a crack in the existing layers of sand- and mudstone. The igneous rock showed as a shaft of a completely different colour and texture from the surrounding folds, and differential weathering had sliced it into horizontal and vertical planes, just like the treads of a staircase.

  Alice knew all this as well as she knew her own name, but she didn’t think of it. She saw the pristine steps leading from water to white skyline, perfect in their own mysterious logic, and she knew for certain that this was a remarkable place. She felt its holiness, just as if a hand had been laid on her head in blessing.

  She sat down on a flat-topped stone to look at the steps and to let the atmosphere seep into her. This place was a temple, she thought, with the endless waves for music and with nature’s flawless architecture to contain its spirit.

  A breath of premonition stirred, coming from nowhere like a cold wind fanning her cheek.

  Superstitiously, she tilted her head to look up at the summit of the steps, but they led to nothing more than a curling overhang of unmarked snow.

  It wasn’t that the temple disturbed her, just that its crystalline calm had opened up a new channel. Somewhere within her there was a buried fear, but she couldn’t grasp what it was. It lay deep, but as she groped around its outlines she felt sure that when the time came, when she needed to, she would be able to face it and then reach beyond it.

  It was very cold. The temperature was dropping as the skies cleared. Alice jumped up, flapping her arms and stamping her feet to restore the circulation. She was surprised by the direction her thoughts had just led her. She didn’t believe in signs or warnings and she wasn’t religious, but this place was the holiest she had ever known and she couldn’t explain what she had just experienced as anything other than a premonition. She shivered.

  ‘I’m a scientist,’ she said aloud, trying a firm, cheery voice modelled on Roger Armstrong’s, her parents’ neighbour. But it came out thin and flat, hardly a voice at all, and was swallowed up by the immensity around her. Why am I thinking about Roger, of all people? she wondered. Was Antarctica unbalancing her, between a blizzard and a sky painted with more colours than she had ever dreamed of?

  The circulation was coming back to her feet, but her nose and ears and fingertips were nipped with cold. Alice turned deliberately away from the temple steps and scrambled up and over the first rock tongue. She passed the penguins and scaled the second outcrop. From the top she saw the warm lights of the base and the broad sweep of the water, now as flat as mercury. Then she stopped short. There was a man sitting below her, looking out to sea, directly in her path to the beach.

  She looked left and right for another route that would lead her safely down. She didn’t want to disturb him. Even though his back was to her, every line of his body indicated disconnection, distance, abstraction. His hands hung loosely between his knees and his head and shoulders drooped.

  Alice hesitated but there was no other way to descend. She began to down-climb, moving deliberately but noisily to announce herself. At last, when she was almost on top of him, the man looked round. It was Rooker.

  ‘Be careful,’ he said in a low voice. He moved aside a little and she was about to step past when he indicated a rock seat beside him. In silent surprise she sat down.

  ‘Are you warm enough?’ he asked.

  Alice thought these were the first remarks he had addressed to her, except for ordering her to put on the life jacket in the Zodiac. Without waiting for an answer he took the whisky bottle out of the pocket of his parka, wiped the flat of his hand over the neck and passed it to her.

  Alice took a long gulp. The spirit’s heat flashed through her. Rooker took the bottle back and absently tilted it to his mouth.

  ‘I didn’t mean to disturb you,’ she said.

  He said nothing and the silence erased even the echo of her words. There was a force field around Rooker. It made her skin burn under the heavy fabric of her parka. She wanted to get up and move away, but she was rooted to the flat rock. She watched the sun sliding up the sky and the burnished track that it laid over the water, and her awkwardness slowly dissolved. Rooker sat so still, it made her wonder what he was thinking about that absorbed him so totally.

  When he did finally speak, it made her jump. ‘You are quiet. I mean, you don’t talk all the time. You didn’t disturb me.’

  ‘Do you know the steps? Back there?’

  He glanced at her. ‘Yes. It’s a good place.’

  She wondered again what it was that turned his face opaque and gave his eyes the look of always staring inwards.

  ‘It’s a dyke. The rock formation. I’ve seen thousands. But…’ She shrugged. She wouldn’t try to put into words what she had felt there.

  He only nodded and lifted the bottle to his mouth again. If he was drunk he was intentionally, almost doggedly so. ‘Look.’

  Alice followed his pointing finger. A supple dark shape was gliding through the waves close to the water’s edge. A big head broke out, and powerful shoulders, then the body heaved itself through the line of surf to reach the shingle. It was a leopard seal. The cruel wide mouth showed as it turned its head to check the lie of the land, and the narrow hips undulated as it propelled itself up the beach. It flopped down to rest, its head pointing out to sea.

  ‘Leopard,’ Rook said.

  ‘My mother studied them. She made films for television.’

  Why am I telling him this? Alice wondered. I am proud of her, yes. But it’s as if I’m offering what Margaret did because I don’t want to give anything of myself away. He’s right, I am quiet. Not just now, but always.

  Another thought followed this one. She didn’t argue about art because she didn’t want to commit herself, or reveal too much. It wasn’t a matter of language so much as inclina tion. She had bundled up her feelings about Pete and hurried south with them, relieved not to have to reveal how much he had hurt her. But she was beginning to realise that down here it wouldn’t be so easy to be noncommittal. For strangers living in a cramped space with a wilderness outside, reality lay close to the surface. There was nowhere to hide, no place for smokescreens.

  It was partly anticipation of what this might mean that had touched her in the temple.

  She said quickly, to get it out of the way, ‘Perhaps you saw her films? Her name’s Margaret Mather.’

  ‘There’s a plaque with that name, waiting to be put up on the lab block.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I wasn’t watching much television around the time when your mother was probably making her films.’

  He had never heard of her. Alice was pleased to realise it because it made her feel less circumscribed.

  ‘Where did you grow up?’ she asked. His accent was an odd mixture that she couldn’t quite place.

  ‘All over,’ Rooker said shortly. He was getting tired of her questions.

  The seal rolled on its back and folded its flippers against its spotted belly. I
t looked as though it was asleep.

  Alice stood up. ‘I’m heading back to base. I’ll leave you in peace.’

  The idea must have amused him, because he gave a snort of laughter. But he stood up too and she found herself dismayed at the prospect of having to walk back with him. Would they try to talk, or scramble in awkward silence?

  He was much taller than her. As she turned to go he put a finger on her shoulder and then touched the Velcro label on the breast of her parka. He lifted one black eyebrow and the sun caught the side of his face. The cropped hair above his ear glittered.

  ‘Is that an order? Or an invitation?’

  She was suddenly aware of a raw sexual challenge that was so direct, and so at odds with his usual inscrutability, that it took her breath away. She stared at him as shock subsided and anger fluttered in her throat, making it harder to speak. ‘Neither. It’s my name.’

  Rooker grinned. He raised the whisky bottle in a salute and abruptly sat down again on his rock. ‘Don’t go too close to the seal.’

  It was not unknown for leopard seals to make aggressive lunges at solitary intruders. ‘I know that, thank you. My…’

  ‘Your mother told you not to.’

  A furious retort rose in her – along the lines of don’t patronise me, you pisshead – but she swallowed it. She turned her back instead and carefully climbed down the rocks to the beach. She made an exaggeratedly wide circuit round the sleeping seal and walked on up to the base. She didn’t look round, but she was sure that Rooker had resumed his motionless contemplation of the water.

  The hut was quiet. Philip was sitting in a corner, plucking at his guitar and softly humming. Niki sprawled in another chair, his long arms dangling to the floor, the picture of melancholy.

  ‘Scotch always gives Nik the blues,’ Philip murmured. Alice stroked the Lithuanian’s shoulder as she passed him and he grabbed her hand and held it briefly to his cheek.

  ‘We are all lonely people.’ He sighed. ‘Islands, just tiny islands in a cold sea.’ There was a tear on his cheek.

  Richard was working on his notes at the end of the table. He glanced up and said, ‘Go to bed, Niki.’

  Niki ignored him and Philip went on humming.

  ‘It’s beautiful outside,’ Alice said. The hut’s warmth made her cheeks burn.

  ‘Wait until you see the rocks, out at Wheeler’s Bluff,’ Richard said.

  If everything went according to plan they would be out in the field in eight days’ time.

  In the women’s room, surprisingly, Laure was still awake. She was brushing her hair in front of the tiny wall mirror. She tilted her head one way and then the other, arching her white neck. Alice squeezed past her to reach her bunk and began taking off her layers of clothes.

  ‘Did you go for a walk?’ Laure asked.

  ‘Yes. Not very far. I haven’t got my bearings yet.’

  ‘No,’ Laure agreed thoughtfully. And after a pause, ‘You like him, don’t you?’

  Alice was startled. As far as she knew Laure didn’t go in for personal observations. ‘Who?’

  ‘Richard.’

  ‘Of course I like him. He’s the expedition leader. I think he’s very good.’

  Laure smiled. ‘I meant, you like him.’

  ‘Laure, I haven’t thought about him in that way. It wouldn’t be advisable or professional, would it?’

  The other woman put her hairbrush away and climbed under the tidy covers of her bunk. ‘You English. Why are you so afraid of what you might feel?’

  Alice turned the question around in her head. A month ago, or even a week ago, she would have said that she was afraid of disease, of incompetence, even failure, but never of her own feelings. Now she wasn’t so sure. Antarctica had already peeled away a layer of her defences. There was raw skin underneath.

  By the time she had worked out a deflecting answer she saw that Laure had already curled on her side, back to the room, and retreated into the appearance of sleep.

  Alice lay down too. She heard some of the men using the bathroom, a door opening and closing and a loud burst of music that was quickly muted after someone had turned the knob on the CD player the wrong way. Usually the hut settled quickly but tonight there was unrest. She thought about Richard’s attempts to control his team members. Alcohol was only a detail, really. He would think that it was important to establish command over the group from the outset and then to maintain it at all costs. With his background, Richard would think it was essential.

  There was quiet at last. As she lay and waited for sleep, Alice thanked heaven for the absence of the wind.

  A week went by and the weather improved enough for Alice almost to forget the force of the blizzard. The sun shone out of a fierce blue sky and the scientists worked long hours out of doors. Alice embarked on several days of safety training with Phil Idwal Jones.

  The slope was steep, and slick with ice where the sun’s heat had melted it the day before and it had refrozen overnight. Alice slid downhill, head first. She had fallen on her back and a kaleidoscope of sun and sky flashed in her eyes, faster and faster as she gathered momentum. Her grip tightened on the ice axe held across her chest, then she gathered all her strength and rolled over on top of it. The pick bit into the ice and she clung on, feet slithering down the hill as her headlong descent abruptly stopped.

  A black figure outlined with a halo of fuzzy gold light appeared on the skyline above her. It stood with hands on hips, gazing down to where she lay hunched over the axe.

  ‘Not bad, girl,’ Philip shouted.

  Alice spread her arms and legs like a starfish pinned on the sheet ice and laughed delightedly at the sky. She was warm with scrambling up and down the steep hill, and the sun was so bright that it was hard to believe that the temperature was fifteen degrees below zero. She was happy with the long morning’s training that Phil had put her through and she was very hungry.

  ‘Phil? What about something to eat?’ she shouted.

  ‘Food? You’ve got to earn your dinner. I’m sorry to tell you that half a dozen ice-axe arrests and a bit of glacier travel’s not nearly good enough.’

  She scrambled to her feet and plodded up the slope yet again.

  ‘If you do trip and fall, at least you stand a chance now of stopping yourself before you get to the cliff edge,’ Phil judged.

  ‘Thanks. What’s next?’

  ‘I’m glad you asked me that. We’re going down a crevasse.’

  They spent an hour gripped in the blue jaws of a shallow specimen while Phil showed her how to use a loop of cord to drag herself painstakingly up a rope, in the event that she might find herself dangling at the end of one. It was hard work.

  At last she half rolled and half scrambled over the icy lip and lay prone in the snow. ‘Will that do?’ she begged.

  ‘I’m marking you down on powers of endurance,’ Phil threatened.

  ‘What? My will to survive is indomitable, given that we’ve been out here for hours on end and I know quite well there are two box lunches in the pannier of that skidoo.’

  ‘All right, then,’ the Welshman said. ‘You can have your dinner now.’

  They sat in the lee of the skidoo, passing a flask of coffee between them and rooting through the contents of the boxes Russell had handed them.

  ‘You’re not bad, really. I’m quite impressed,’ Phil told her.

  Alice’s face lit up. ‘Truly?’

  ‘For a geologist, that is. You’ve been in the hills before.’

  ‘My dad used to take me to the Alps when I was a kid. He used to go climbing and mountaineering quite a lot.’

  ‘Did he? You were dead lucky, weren’t you? I grew up in Pwllheli. Hitched out to Chamonix when I was sixteen, that was my first trip abroad.’

  ‘We’re a long way from Pwllheli,’ Alice said softly.

  They sat looking at the view. In the bright light of the middle of the day the landscape was reduced to its basic components of black rock, water like a silver mirror an
d oblique snow slopes puckered and cratered with depths of cold blue and grey shadow.

  ‘Yeah. Good, innit?’

  ‘So you like it down here, then?’

  Phil shook his head, grinning disbelievingly at his own good fortune. ‘It’s a bloody paradise. Look at all that. And there’s nothing crap, is there? No rusting trucks down the bottom of the valleys. No litter bins with half-eaten Big Macs and fag ends and cans of Special Brew. No people, ’cept for us lot. You like it too, I can tell. You’ve brightened up no end since we got out here. I thought you might be a bit of a sad case, like, when you got here. But you haven’t stopped laughing and smiling since we started. It’s good, that, and I’m not such a bighead that I think it’s because I’m a top teacher.’

  ‘But you are, Phil.’

  It was true, Alice thought. She enjoyed his company and learning from him. These exhausting, invigorating days of practising survival techniques had been some of the most enjoyable she had ever spent. But there was much more to it than that. They didn’t often stop to admire the scenery, but however absorbed she was she saw how the light and the texture of the whiteness changed with every hour of the endless day. There was nothing static or frozen about this place. It continually shifted and re-formed itself, molecules of water and ice and the forces of wind and cold fretting against each other, dissolving and crystallising, creeping in the glacier bottom or flying before the blizzard. She tried to look harder, to bring her senses to bear more intently, so that she would miss nothing.

  She had almost forgotten her initial insomnia. As soon as she lay down now, sleep rolled over her like a warm snowdrift. She never woke until her alarm clock pinged under her pillow, and then she sat up immediately to look out of the window at the colour of another day.

  Phil finished his food. They collected up the scraps of crumbs and wrapping, and stowed them carefully back in the lidded boxes, then shared the last of the coffee.