by Iain Maloney
I went through the house checking the plugs, the windows and doors. Mike was in Auckland for a conference so I emptied the fridge into a plastic bag and handed it to Graeme. I’d been running the contents down for a week so there wasn’t much: a pepper, some broccoli, pesto, cheese. My mobile rang. ‘Shit, he’s early. Move.’ I pushed by him and closed up the bags, hoisted the suitcase and backpack to the door. ‘Stand there and don’t move.’ A final check. Graeme carried my bags to the taxi while I checked the garage. Bags in the boot. ‘Airport, please.’
‘Forgetting something?’ said Graeme.
‘What?’
He held his arms out. Hug. Quick kiss. ‘Take care, give me a call, have fun.’
‘It’s not a—’
‘Yeah, yeah. Still, have fun. Love you.’
I got in the back, closed the door. ‘See you,’ through the window.
At the University of Hawaii a project researching issues around geothermal energy production was underway. As an expert in subterranean mapping, I’d been able to secure a research grant and a place on the study. I thought of myself as an anatomist of the planet. Blood circulation was a puzzle for thousands of years until the early anatomists from Galen to William Harvey got in there and demonstrated the network of veins, arteries and the role of the heart and lungs. I was trying to do the same with the planet, in a way.
My – everyone’s – ultimate goal was eruption prediction but if I could help find a safe way to produce electricity through geothermal heating, that would be a hell of a contribution. To produce electricity you heat water, in this case by sending it into the earth to be boiled and turned into steam. Unfortunately it could cause seismic events as a side effect. The project was trying to find a way to understand the process and then make it safe.
The flight to Auckland was just under two hours. Beth Osbourne, a seismologist at the University of Auckland was also joining the project. These trips could be intense, long hours and cramped conditions. Being able to get along with your colleagues was essential. Dressed in a long purple skirt, DM boots and a Guns N’ Roses T-shirt, bottle-blonde hair with at least two inches of black roots showing, like the last ten years happened to other people, Beth and I had always got on fine, as long as we stayed away from politics.
‘Carrie, how are you? Let’s take a look at you? I wish I could be as thin but then I remember, I hate exercise and love chocolate. You’ve redyed your hair since last time. Is that purple?’
‘Plum.’
‘It suits you like that. I sometimes think about cutting my hair short too, it must be so much less hassle, but I don’t think I ever could.’
She cleared some space for me next to her. Beth was a voracious reader. Newspapers, magazines and a fat fantasy novel cascaded over the two seats beside her.
‘And how is that gorgeous snowboarder of yours?’
‘Graeme’s fine.’ Beth had been down at Otago the year before for a conference and had taken a shine to Graeme. She’d been all but chasing him around Albar, flirting outrageously. ‘How are things at Auckland?’
‘Oh, God, don’t ask. Jarvis is on a kick to improve teaching standards. As if we weren’t busy enough. I’ve been looking forward to this trip for months. Have you been to Hawaii before?’
‘No, Indonesia and Mexico. Merapi and Popocatépetl.’
‘You’re going to love it. It’ll be a nice change for you after the South Island. It’ll be a nice change for me too. My last trip was Erebus.’
‘I can see Hawaii being more your style than Antarctica.’
The flight wasn’t full so Beth shifted seats, blowing my chance of getting any work done. I didn’t mind so much, Beth was a huge gossip and I usually ended up learning something interesting.
‘Have you heard about Kevin Logan?’
‘No.’ Kevin was in Beth’s department, a lecturer in geophysics. He’d written an interesting paper on geomagnetism and I’d been meaning to call him about it.
‘Turns out he was having an affair with a student,’ she hissed in a stage whisper trying to sledgehammer the drama through her voice. ‘And the student has accused him of demanding sexual favours for grades.’
‘Did he?’
‘He denies it of course, but it’s word against word. And what’s worse, the student was male.’
I wasn’t going to rise to it. I wasn’t sure whether she knew about my sexuality, but it had been a topic of conversation in Otago for a while so there was a chance it had reached her. I’d always been bisexual, but since Mark all of my partners – at least all the ones that lasted more than one night – had been women. The first public appearance of Graeme and I as a couple caused enough hot air to shift weather fronts.
‘What’s going to happen to him?’
‘Suspended pending an investigation. I imagine he’ll move on and never darken our doors again.’
I let her witter on about who was sleeping with who and the internal politics of Auckland, idly wondering how she’d get on with Professor Lau, a feminist of Chinese heritage. This was, of course, my other big reason for being a stressy mess. My hero, Professor Lau, was still at Manoa and was, in part, overseeing everything I’d be doing. My copy of Dislodging Fossils nestled in my hand luggage.
It was good to get away from Dunedin for a while. I’d been there four and a half years, the longest I’d been anywhere since Aberdeen. I still loved working at the university but the town itself was getting old. Maybe when I went back I’d be refreshed. The ski season would have started by then and I could get out on the slopes and Graeme could do some work, get out from under my feet.
He retired. Who retires at twenty-eight? He retired and moved to Dunedin, got himself a flat. He made enough money as a pro to be comfortable for a while, taught during the season and had a design contract with a snowboard manufacturer back in Scotland. He was quite keen on that in the early days but recently… well recently he hadn’t been doing much of anything, just surfing, skateboarding, climbing and getting stoned with guys he met at the skate park. And hanging around me.
Our food came and went, we exhausted departmental gossip and slowly descended into that numb silence only long-haul flights can elicit. Beth got her book out. I’d taken Richard Fortey’s latest as well as Dislodging Fossils but I wasn’t in the mood. I was tired. I’d been tired for some time. I closed my eyes and sank into the engine hum.
We were based at the University of Hawaii Manoa in Honolulu. In order to understand what’s going on inside a volcano and move towards predicting eruptions, we need to be able to map the magma chamber and the plumbing system. What’s happening in the top kilometre of the volcano conduit determines the size of the eruption, and whether it will be explosive or effusive. In this top kilometre the magma loses gases which control the fragmentation of magma. Degassing, particularly the rate, is very important. Beth and I were there to join a team imaging under the big island using seismic waves, electric conductivity, magnetism and a plethora of techniques. Some were long-term, others like the seismic tests were shorter. Putting together thousands of readings and collating them on the computer would build a three-dimensional picture of what was going on down there. Every day we would rise early, spread out around the island to set up equipment, conduct our experiments, take readings, usually not returning until nightfall. Those whose job it was to set off the blasts that sent seismic waves through the rock worked at night and we’d rotate this honour.
The project was managed by Professor Ben Seung, a Korean-American in his mid-forties. His paper on magma conductivity had been a huge influence on my PhD. The Head of Department at Manoa was Professor Kiana Lau.
The first morning was an induction day, learning the layout of the campus, where we could go, where was out of bounds. We had the freedom of the national parks, since we could be trusted not to destroy anything of value. Safety warnings were in place for certain craters and slopes, and we’d just have to work around the activity. Volcanoes were no respecter of schedules.
In the afternoon a small party gathered, with coffee and cookies. I took the opportunity to get to know Dr Halabi. I’d read his paper on the recent rise in activity of Anatahan, in the Northern Mariana Islands. He didn’t seem all that keen on talking about it, though. I saw in him the traits of a passionate researcher – that paper done, his mind was already on the next thing.
‘Have you seen what’s happening in Turkey?’
‘The Cos complex? I know there’s a big study on there but I don’t think I’m right up-to-date with the findings.’ Some academics would hide their ignorance, play along. I’d found that admitting ignorance meant I learned faster.
‘Some fascinating data coming out. I’d love to be on the ground there but…’ he stiffened at something over my shoulder. ‘Professor Lau,’ he said, ‘may I introduce you to Doctor Caroline Fraser?’
I took a breath. Controlled myself. ‘Professor Lau, it’s an honour to meet you.’
‘Fraser? Otago, yes?’
‘That’s right, Professor.’
‘Yes, I read your paper on mapping. Very good. Meyer must be proud to have such a young star in his department.’
She’d read my paper. My paper.
‘How is Christopher?’ The blockage in my brain shifted. Chris Meyer. My Head of Department.
‘He’s fine, Professor. I’ll pass on your regards.’
‘Please do, not that he’ll welcome them.’
Dr Halabi had made his escape and was standing next to Professor Seung waiting to be noticed. I tried to find something, anything to say. How do you make small talk with your hero? ‘Professor, if… could I… one moment, please.’ I got my bag and returned brandishing the battered paperback and a pen. ‘I was wondering if you’d sign this for me.’
‘My, that has seen better days. Well-loved or mistreated?’
‘Well-loved.’
‘A good answer.’ She signed it, a simple best wishes, K Lau and handed it back. ‘It’s been nice meeting you, Doctor Fraser. Welcome to Hawaii.’
I could’ve just died, right there.
After the three-day conference, listening to papers by postgrads and postdocs, things quickly relaxed into a routine. The first month I was assigned an area on the west side – on the southwest rift zone – of the Kilauea summit caldera, the most active volcano in the Hawaiian islands, to set up and monitor magnetotelluric instruments. Kilauea is a shield volcano 1247 metres high but which rises only gradually above the big island of Hawaii. Rather than shuttle back and forth between the islands, Beth and I would stay in the national park’s visitor housing and return to Honolulu only when necessary.
Kilauea is the centre of volcano tourism and the first stop for visitors. It was weird to be working under the ever-present gaze of tourists, to know that when they got home their photos would contain a figure in the background digging holes. Kilauea had broken out in May, small tongues of lava creeping down the seaward side. Things were calm now, though the image I’d had as a child on Sakurajima of the lava bubbling away under my feet never left me, the ground beneath me never as sure as it seemed.
Initially, every morning I’d park at the side of Crater Rim Drive, the Kilauea Visitor Centre or the Thomas A. Jagger Museum where the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory was based. We were working alongside the US Geological Survey, but as they only hired US citizens Beth and I couldn’t actually join their team. I’d hike into the next zone, my tools, water and food in my canvas backpack, and I’d spend the day walking over lava flows from 1919, 1921, 1954 and 1961 or the lush greenery on the eastern side. At the end of the day I’d return home exhausted.
Beth wasn’t as easy to share with as Mike, and wet towels, used coffee cups and spat-out toothpaste quickly became a part of my day. I discovered a campsite near Kilauea, Kulanaokuaiki, and scrounged a tent, a sleeping bag and various bits of camping gear from people in the department. I thought Beth might be offended but she obviously wasn’t too happy with my whining about cleanliness, so by the start of the second week I slept every night on the edge of the volcano. Just me and the mountain learning about each other.
Towards the end of that week I was working in the zone around the Visitor Centre and took advantage of that to hide from the midday sun. Initially I’d tried to eat on a bench in the public area but it was too busy. Gillian, a woman in her fifties who had moved to Hawaii from Ohio in her twenties, took pity on me and invited me into their staff room. It was Gillian who reminded me of something I’d failed to connect. She came in with a coffee and dropped into the seat opposite me.
‘Oh, I need this. I’ve had to listen for the last twenty minutes while some Englishman bent my ear about Tennyson, as if working here all this time I’d completely failed to learn about Tennyson’s poem.’
‘Lord Tennyson? What’s his connection with Kilauea?’
‘You scientists, no time for the arts. You’re going to make me go through it all again, aren’t you?’
‘If you don’t mind?’
She sighed but I could see she really didn’t mind. Gillian was one of those people who loved teaching others but hated to admit to the pleasure. ‘Tennyson wrote a poem called Kapiolani about a High Chiefess who helped convert the islanders to Christianity. She descended into the crater to prove that Pele didn’t exist and came back unhurt. A missionary wrote about the event and Tennyson read it.’
Someone called from outside, ‘Gillian, the line’s building up.’ She took a big gulp of coffee as she rose. ‘There’s a book about it in the shop if you’re interested. It’s quite a story.’
Pele. I knew she was from Hawaii but I hadn’t connected her with the volcano I was working on. Kilauea was her volcano, the Halema’uma’u pit crater was her home. In a flash the memory of Sakurajima, I felt again the warmth of her fire, saw her high above the magma chamber, passionate and fiery.
When I finished my lunch I went through to the bookshop and found what I was looking for, a thin paperback about Pele. That evening I sat on a rock near my tent with a cup of camomile, a soft sea breeze blowing over the island and the smoke from Halema’uma’u rising into the twilight, and renewed my acquaintance with the goddess.
There were a few versions of her origins, but my favourite was this: Pele lived with her parents, Kanehoalani and Haumea and her siblings. Her older sister, the sea goddess Namakaokaha’i, feared her ambition would smother the land so Pele was banished. She set off in a canoe for Hawaii but Namakaokaha’i wasn’t satisfied with exile and chased after Pele, tearing her apart. Her bones became a hill, her spirit fled to the big island of Hawaii.
The story Gillian had told me about came much later, in 1824. Kapiolani was the daughter of a chief and one of the first to embrace Christianity on the island. With true born-again zeal she decided to smash once and for all the worship of Pele so she set off for Kilauea. A couple of missionaries heard what she was doing and tagged along. To go near the crater was to anger Pele but Kapiolani was determined. The lake of lava must have been terrifying but she climbed down into the crater and there prayed to her God. She returned unhurt and, as Tennyson put it, ‘drove the demon from Hawa-i-ee’.
Each day as I walked the trails, Mauna Iki, Byron Ledge, Halema’uma’u, Kau Desert and Crater Rim, planting my devices, I was aware of the spiritual power of the land under my feet. I was lucky to be allowed to walk there. Until Kapiolani, it had been forbidden for fear of angering Pele. Now it was closed to the public because of Health and Safety. Fences and taboos, the fear of Pele’s anger, give it any name you want, you get the same result. And I was able to walk over it freely, day after day, alone with my memories, Pele’s fire burning beneath me.
A month passed and we were called back to Honolulu. At Beth’s insistence we decided to make a weekend of it. We could’ve got a room through the university but Beth wanted pampering so we booked a twin room in a beach front hotel. I wasn’t all that keen but after weeks in a tent I could see the attraction of a real bed.
We checked in and Beth went off to
find a shopping mall. I threw my sunscreen and book into my bag and checked my emails in the lobby. There were a load from Graeme, a couple from my postgrads, a couple of old ones from Hannah I hadn’t bothered replying to, and a new one from my dad. I left them unread, glancing only at the names and vague subject titles and logged out, walked onto the beach.
Sand in my toes, that smell of salt. The beaches I’d seen in my life, all those shores heavy with memories. Wild beaches on the west coast with Dad and Hannah, camping. Sicily, with the local boys posing. Aberdeen beach with Graeme, hot chocolate in Café Continental. Bouldering on Long Beach in Dunedin, pushing off sea kayaks. The sea has played such a part in my life. The night of Piper Alpha, I remember standing on the grass outside the hospital thinking about how grass meant home to me after all those holidays to dry, dusty places. But it’s not grass, it’s sand and sea. The boundary between the two. Land and the oceans between us.
I sat back in the sand and breathed deep, filling my lungs with the Pacific air. For a volcanologist, Hawaii is the hub of the ring of fire. Four hundred and fifty-two volcanoes in a twenty-five thousand mile belt, seventy-five percent of the world’s volcanoes and so much we still don’t know about them. I could spend a lifetime there and not even scratch the surface. But that was the way of science. If I could move us one step closer to predicting eruptions, it would be a life well spent.
If I could just work without distractions.
Emails from Graeme, from Hannah.
From Dad.
‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ I squinted up into the sun at the silhouette that spoke. Female, long hair and a silk scarf floating in the currents of wind. ‘I never tire of it,’ she continued. ‘I get sick of all that, sure enough,’ she gestured at the cafés and bars, the hotels and tourists, ‘but it’s worth it. You look like you need a drink.’
‘I don’t drink.’
‘See, told you. Come on, I hate drinking alone.’
I watched her walk, the beckoning curve of her hips, followed her up the steps to a hotel. She picked a table where we could both sit under the parasol and ordered a bottle of Mâcon-Villages, two glasses. She was a bit shorter than me with long, auburn-tinted hair, a round face, mostly hidden by large sunglasses. Her clothes were expensive, tailored and even in the wind it was clear her hair was salon-styled.