Sun at Midnight

by Rosie Thomas

  ‘Could be broken,’ Jochen said.

  Arturo gave a thin howl.

  ‘But I would have to X-ray to be certain and here I cannot, so I must do what I can for your pretty face and we will hope for the best, my friend.’

  ‘Jesus, Maria,’ Arturo moaned.

  By the evening he had two swollen black eyes and his nose was obliterated by a huge swath of splints, bandage and sticking plaster.

  ‘I dunno, Artie,’ Phil said. ‘I can see that it’s different all right. But I’m not sure it’s an improvement.’

  Arturo held up his middle finger, then winced.

  Valentin rapped the table for attention. ‘I am asking the company present for one decision. I am champion, yes, since Arturo here retired hurt?’

  There was a chorus of contradictions. Finally Phil and Rooker, as the game’s inventors, were allowed to adjudicate.

  ‘Rematch,’ Rooker pronounced. ‘Nose status permitting.’

  The night’s weather report indicated that conditions at Santa Ana were improving, with only moderate winds and precipitation. The pilots would assess the situation again in the morning. The news from the Bluff was that Richard and Alice were ending their fifth day in the tent, the fourth of their unscheduled extra stay. They were running low on food.

  ‘Tomorrow is always another day in Antarctica,’ Phil said.

  Alice opened her eyes. The pyramid reach of the tent over her head, the smell of her sleeping bag and her own unwashed skin, the hrggh sound that Richard made when he cleared his throat and prepared to turn a page of his book, were all as familiar to her as if she had grown up with them. She would not have believed it possible to spend so many hours confined in such a small space with a man she barely knew, but still she had done it.

  It was only a few seconds ago that she had woken from a deep, populous sleep – during the blizzard she sometimes wasn’t sure if she had been properly conscious for even one hour in twenty-four – but it was clear that there was something different happening outside. The tent walls bellied and then grew taut, but slowly. There was no roaring and banging, even when she shook her head to clear her dulled ears.

  Richard was kneeling at the radio box. She studied the outline of his profile and the fuzzy promontory of his beard as intently as if he were beloved to her. As if he were her lover.

  She did love him, in a way, after the six days that they had just endured together. They had sung songs, recited poems, played cards and talked until it seemed that they had no more memories to share. Alice had told him about her mother, and about how Margaret had already experienced and triumphantly survived even what they were doing right now. ‘Sometimes I feel as if all my life already belongs to her. That was one of the reasons why I was reluctant to come down here. I can’t do any of it any differently, any better, than she did. Is it the same for you?’

  Richard said, ‘I longed to come. I knew as soon as I was old enough to know anything that it was what I had to do.’ His eyes burned with zeal.

  We’re not the same, Alice thought. Not quite the same.

  When one of them feared that the wind would never stop blowing, the other joked and cajoled the sufferer back into optimism. They confessed to each other when they felt the grip of homesickness, took it in turns to stumble out to the barrel dug into a shelter a few yards from the tent, made each other laugh and listened to each other’s dream-ridden sleep. But they did not become lovers. That avenue had turned into a cul-de-sac.

  Alice hadn’t explained the reason why. Once or twice she felt the words forming, but this news was so momentous, so personal to her in the way that it was embedded in the tissues of her body, that she had never spoken of it.

  She had done plenty of thinking instead. She had chased reasons and plans and possible courses of action all through the claustrophobic hours of the blizzard. There had been moments of pure panic, but these had been balanced by incredulity and joy.

  She was pregnant. There would be a baby.

  She counted up the weeks and calculated that it would be in early July. It seemed a long way off, yet, but the day would come. It must come, that at least was one thing she was certain of. Alice had been with Becky after her abortion and had listened to her weeping. Even now, more than fifteen years later, Becky still grieved for the child she had lost when she had been little more than a child herself. This unplanned baby, hers, was hardly more than an idea but there could be no destroying it. The thought alone made her draw in her shoulders and hunch her spine to make a protective cage round it.

  But first there was her old life, the one she was used to living. That had to be given its due, too. Everything would change, but before it did there was this precious interval.

  Alice considered the possibility of making her announcement as soon as they got back to Kandahar. There would be surprise and concern – Richard, Jochen and Russ would say that a research base in Antarctica was no place for a pregnant woman. There would be a hasty helicopter ride, a flight onwards from Santa Ana to South America and the rest of the long journey home.

  For what reason?

  Her house was let for the academic year, her role in the Department was on hold, no one expected to see her before the early summer.

  If I go straight home from here in March, she calculated, instead of travelling for another couple of months, I will still only be twenty-one or twenty-two weeks pregnant.

  She had confidence in her body. It always did what she wanted it to, or had done until it sprang this surprise on her. It could look after itself for another two or three months, why not?

  I can finish what I promised to do here, Alice thought. No one need know until I get back home.

  She would not have to creep back early and tell Margaret, my coil failed, can you believe it? The device would stay inside her and be harmlessly expelled when the baby was born, she thought. She must have read that somewhere. I’m going to have a baby.

  Trevor would be delighted. He would want her to go home right away, whatever the circumstances. But Trevor always did the safest thing. Margaret, on the other hand…Alice could see how her face would tighten at the news.

  ‘Well, are you pleased? You must be,’ she would say. ‘But what a shame that it should happen right now. And what about Peter?’

  What about Peter.

  He had slipped into a corner of her mind, one that she didn’t often visit. This was her baby, not his, not anyone else’s. She would make her own decisions.

  The last factor in her reckoning was Antarctica itself. Even as the blizzard sucked and bellowed around their speck of shelter, making even the briefest dash outside a blind odyssey through choking snow and wind, Alice knew that she didn’t want to leave the ice. Not until it was properly time to go. Yesterday, with food and fuel running low, they had rationed themselves to one hot meal of a mug of porridge made with water, and divided the last of the chocolate and dried fruit between them for the rest of the day. They were hungry and the interior of the tent was a cold and squalid tangle, but Alice felt a bud of determination forming inside her, as strong and tenacious as the baby itself.

  She would not easily give up this savage and beautiful place. She was learning to live with it, not against it.

  Richard was searching for radio contact: ‘Kandahar, Kandahar, do you read me? This is Wheeler’s Bluff camp. Do you read me? Over.

  ‘Where are they?’ he muttered impatiently.

  Niki’s voice faded in and out through the static, then grew clear. ‘Good morning, Wheeler’s Bluff, Wheeler’s Bluff, do you copy?’

  ‘Yes of course we do, what are they playing at?’ He frowned at Alice.

  ‘Copy you, Kandahar. Sitrep, please. Over.’

  ‘We have some news, Wheeler’s Bluff.’

  Alice sat up. A shower of ice crystals from the roof of the tent fell over her head and neck.

  ‘Weather window now opening. Helo transport left Santa Ana at o-nine-thirty hours. ETA at Kandahar two-zero minutes from now, estimated de
parture time for Bluff eleven-thirty hours. Do you copy?’

  Alice gave a little whoop of delight.

  Richard had already taken the weather observations. He recited them to Niki.

  ‘Roger, Wheeler’s Bluff. Repeat contact in one hour.’

  ‘Hooray,’ Alice said.

  ‘I think it’ll be touch and go. But let’s get on with it.’

  They lifted their hands and clapped them together.

  Outside, it was still blowing. There was a lot of work to do. Their camp had to be packed up and and every bundle weighed, ready for loading on the helicopter. The last job of all would be to take down the tent and dismantle the radio antennae. If in the end the helicopter was delayed, they would need shelter and radio contact.

  The temperature was falling. Alice zipped up her onepiece padded suit over all her other layers of smelly clothing, wondering if it was only her imagination that made it seem much tighter than it had been a week ago.

  She began to work, packing the Primus components in the correct box, then starting work on the kitchen equipment. As each box was closed, she helped Richard to weigh it on a hand balance and made a note of the result. The work occupied her mind.

  En route from Kandahar to Wheeler’s Bluff, Rooker listened to the pilots’ laconic exchanges through his headset. The weather at Kandahar had been fairly calm, but out here over the glaciers and nunataks the visibility was steadily deteriorating. For the last five minutes it had been like flying through milk. The navigator peered forwards and downwards, his helmet rotating in Rooker’s sightline as he strained to pick ground features out of the wall of white. There were blue ridges of bare ice beneath them, visible for a few seconds before they were swallowed up again by the billowing mist and snow. Andy and Mick were as calm as if they were on a training run out of their home airfield, but Rooker knew there was no cause for celebration. He sat still with his hands loose in his lap, waiting for what would happen.

  The helicopter turned in a tight circle and a savage gust of wind made it buck and judder. The Bluff suddenly appeared below them, its black back jagged in the surrounding void. Then they caught sight of a tiny orange triangle out in the wasteland. Rooker stared down at it as they circled closer. The isolation of this place and the utter precariousness of the shelter struck him forcibly. People wouldn’t survive for very long out here if their little props were swept away.

  The pilot circled once again and Rooker saw two small figures next to the tent. A landing square, properly marked out with poles and flags, swam into view. The machine’s hover churned up a whirling wall of snow. A moment later the skis settled on the square and they were down.

  ‘Nice job,’ Rooker murmured.

  ‘Let’s get loaded up and back to the coast before we start to party,’ Andy answered.

  Cold and wind assaulted them as they stepped out. Richard and Alice were already shovelling snow and hauling rocks off the flap of their tent, ready to stow it. Rooker headed straight for the skidoo pegged under its nylon cover. With barely a word exchanged, all five of them set to work in a methodical rush to get everything packed away before the weather deteriorated further and left them all stranded there.

  When it was done, Rooker saw Alice look around her, just once, to where the marks of their campsite were already being rubbed away by blowing snow. Then she walked towards the helicopter.

  She looked different, even though her face was masked by her hood and snow goggles. She held her back straighter and there was a different angle to her head. Something has happened to her, he thought.

  When they were airborne again he leaned towards her. In the cramped rear seats their sleeves were rubbing together, but he couldn’t feel her arm under the layers of insulation. ‘Good trip?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, thank you,’ Alice answered. He noticed the warm flash of her smile.

  Richard hadn’t entrusted his new mollusc to the sample boxes stacked behind them. He had put the bag with the fossil sealed inside it into the inner pocket of his parka. Once or twice during the flight Alice saw his hand go to the pocket zipper, to check that it was properly closed.

  Over the coast there was a layer of clear sky sandwiched between snow and cloud. Its margins shimmered with silver and the undersides of the clouds were washed with a pale green as delicate as a bird’s egg. The red walls at Kandahar looked shockingly bright as the helicopter darted home over the glacier.

  The hut door opened and tiny people spilled out, ready to greet them. Valentin and Niki stood at the door of the lab hut, looking as they always did, like one another’s antithesis. Russell stood with his hands shading his eyes and Laure bobbed beside him. The helicopter circled once, then dipped to the landing square.

  They had been away in the field for thirteen days, but to Alice it seemed much longer. She was glad to see the huts and the jumble of antennae and stores, and she immediately noticed the new skidoo shelter with the light dully reflecting off its metal walls.

  ‘Hey, look.’ She pointed as the engines stopped.

  Rook grinned. He took off his headset and hung it up. ‘There’s a story attached.’

  Richard looked round immediately, but Rook didn’t elaborate.

  As Alice climbed to the ground a shaft of pure lemon-yellow sunlight shone through a slit in the clouds, reducing everything that it didn’t touch to gunmetal-grey. She remembered as she heard them again that there were homely, manmade noises here – the clink of metal, the steady thrumming of the generator, people calling to each other, and it made the remote place they had just come from seem even more unreal.

  We did it, Alice thought.

  A wash of triumph and joy swept over her. She was proud of her survival and happier to be back at Kandahar than she would have believed possible when she first came.

  She was sure, now, that she had made the right decision. She couldn’t think of leaving the ice until it was time to go.

  At the same time she noticed that Rooker was watching her. He inclined his head in a strange, small nod of collusion.

  There were people all around them. She saw Niki’s ruined smile, Valentin’s arms held out wide as if she had just walked in from the Pole itself, Laure who came straight across and hugged her. It was momentarily confusing to see so many faces after the days of isolation.

  ‘Don’t come too close. I stink.’ Alice laughed.

  ‘There’s hot water for a shower. I made sure,’ Laure told her.

  ‘There’s coffee and fresh doughnuts as well. Come on in. The guys’ll unload the helo,’ Russell insisted.

  ‘Hot water? Doughnuts? Have I died and gone to heaven?’

  ‘You would have done if I’d been there when you forgot Phil’s First Rule,’ Phil said. ‘Only without the heaven bit.’

  It was like coming home to the warmth of friends. Richard and Alice were swept into the hut on a swelling, confusing tide of voices. Inside, there was almost too much to look at and smell and hear. Alice sat down at the table and sipped her coffee. The warm, fatty, sugary taste of the doughnut was so potent that she had to close her eyes as she licked the crumbs off her lips.

  When she opened them again she saw someone who looked a little bit like Arturo, except that his eyes were almost invisible in circles of puffed-out crimson and purple bruises, and his nose was a shapeless plum-coloured mass twice its original size. ‘Arturo, whatever happened?’ she managed to ask.

  At the same time she saw Richard’s hands come down flat on the table. He stood up, leaning on his arms, and swung his head in Rook’s direction. Obviously, much too obviously, he was assuming that Rook must be the culprit. But he can’t be, she thought. He wouldn’t do that to someone who is only half his size.

  Rook said nothing. He stared flat-eyed back at Richard, one corner of his mouth lifted in a semi-smile.

  ‘My fault entirely. But was an accident, you know. A stupid thing.’ It was Valentin who broke the smouldering silence.

  ‘Just a game,’ Arturo muttered thickly.

&n
bsp; Richard’s face twisted. ‘A game? It looks as though it half killed him. Can’t I leave you, can’t I trust you to behave like reasonable people when I am off the base?’

  It was the wrong thing to say. A litle ripple of protest went round the table.

  ‘It looks somewhat worse than it is. A few days, the swelling will be going down and the bruise fading,’ Jochen interjected.

  ‘Before Lewis Sullavan gets here?’

  Jochen stared. ‘Not completely, no.’

  No one spoke for a few seconds.

  Then Richard collected himself. ‘Are you all right, Arturo? One of you had better tell me exactly what happened.’

  Out of sympathy for Richard’s clumsiness Alice swallowed her doughnut and slipped away from the table to the bunk room. A minute later Laure came in after her. The two women looked at each other.

  ‘He would be a better schoolteacher than expedition leader,’ Laure murmured.

  ‘I know. But he doesn’t mean it. He just wants very much to do it right, so much so that he does it wrong sometimes.’

  Laure regarded her, a shrewd and measuring look. ‘I think you don’t like him so much. After two weeks with him, perhaps you have decided that?’

  Alice coloured. ‘I do like him. I admire him. I just think he is like a lot of Englishmen, who feel and believe all the right things but find it hard to express them. Their inhibitions tangle their tongues.’

  Peter was the opposite, though. His tongue worked very well, artistically silvering and shining the less palatable truth. She took the Polaroid he had sent her out of her pocket and put it away in the drawer of her locker.

  Laure gave a graceful shrug. ‘Then I am glad to be French. But this way of Richard’s is not fair to other people. To Rooker, par example.’

  ‘I think maybe quite a lot of things in life have not been fair to Rooker. I also think that he can look after himself.’

  ‘Yes.’ Laure nodded. ‘You are right.’

  Alice went and took a shower. It was the first time she had stripped since going out into the field. To be naked felt vulnerable and delicious. She shivered with pleasure as the hot water sluiced over her itchy skin and when she soaped herself she saw with mild dismay that the suds as they swirled away were quite grey. Now, for the first time in two weeks, her hair and hands wouldn’t smell of kerosene. When she was clean she stood for another luxurious minute and let the water cascade over her bent head. Water was precious and hot water was Antarctic gold, but one more minute after two long weeks surely wouldn’t matter.