by Jeremy Page
‘Careful,’ I whispered.
We sat on the settee behind the mast while she looked at the sketches. My approximation of the dock at Liverpool, with the tangled riggings of dozens of ships, the distant coast of Ireland, with its small fishing harbours, a view into Simao’s galley in the fo’c’sle, his colourful pendant to remind him of his island home pinned to the shelf. A pot on the range and the pie hole behind it, where food was passed through to the men. More sketches, of the masts and their sails, of seascapes and clouds, and the isolated view of Rockall that she had been so affected by. Gannets, cormorants, the gulls that had followed the ship before Bletchley and the officers shot them, then the half-finished sketch of the poor greenfinch, held between the strong fingers of Martin Herlihy. Finally, an impression of the polar bear, lying on her slab of ice, in the darkly confined lower deck of the whaling ship. Clara examined this drawing for a long time, tracing her finger along the line of its head.
‘Edward told me about this bear in great detail. I’m glad I stayed on the Amethyst. I don’t think I could stand seeing something as sad as that. Did you touch it?’
‘Yes. I held the paw.’
‘Like this?’ she asked, reaching across and holding my hand. Her skin felt smooth and cold.
‘This way,’ I said.
‘What was it like?’
‘It was heavy, and the claws had a cruel hard curve. They were not retracted.’
‘I meant not how it felt, but how you felt?’
‘I felt afraid. It made me think of a total whiteness, and only this white bear within it.’
‘Yes,’ she said, thoughtfully. She turned to a blank page in my sketchbook. ‘So, now to a challenge for you. Do you think it possible to draw me?’
It must have been her intention all along. ‘I would be honoured.’
‘Good,’ she said, ‘although I can instantly feel myself blushing—it is a weakness of mine. Shall I sit here?’
‘Yes, under the skylight.’
I fetched my drawing charcoals and immediately started drafting her outline, noticing as I did how she grew poised and stiff. Her hands held each other in her lap and her shoulders grew tense.
‘You must relax,’ I suggested.
‘I am sorry. It feels strange for a man to be drawing me. Should I look at you?’
‘If you feel comfortable.’
She considered it, then turned directly towards me, looking steadily into my eyes. I was struck by the flat brown quality of her irises, large and innocent, yet with a pooled darkness within them that was troubling. I began to draw the curve of the line below her eye. The placing of her ringlets either side of her face. The youthful jut of her chin and the sadness of her mouth, pursed and thin lipped.
‘Do you think you will find the birds you are looking for?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘Why are you so certain?’
‘The great auk is extinct. However, there’s a part of me that refuses to believe it. I suppose that’s the part of me that is known as hope. There is always a chance that remains of them might at least be found, on the breeding ledges. Even those would be valuable, not just in monetary terms, but because man should have a reminder of what he has done.’
‘Because of hunting?’
‘Entirely. They used to be plentiful, swimming across the ocean—you are aware they were flightless? To think, they’d been doing that for thousands of years, and it has only taken a couple of hundred years, since ships like this began to plunder the Arctic, for them to face extinction.’
‘I can tell you are a man of belief. So if they are to be found, it is you who will achieve it. If only there was a place where man had not reached.’
‘Yes.’
‘I used to have this notion, when I was a child, that God had created a special place beyond the edges of the world, where all the lost souls could go in order to live their lives in peace. I used to imagine it was an island—like the ones in the Norfolk Broads—that are tangled with trees. Only, you could never see this island, unless you too were a lost soul. God had made it, as an afterthought, knowing man would be cruel enough to drive all that was precious away from him.’
‘I like that.’
‘A piece of the world that was left over, when it was made. I still think of it. I think of it when I make pastry, curiously, with the pieces that are left behind after the cutting. I cherish them.’
‘Then I shall, too, in future. Do you still believe in this place—for all that has been lost?’
She shook her head sweetly. ‘Not since I found it.’
‘You found it?’ I asked. ‘What do you mean you found it?’
She held a hand to her chest. ‘It’s in here. It’s in you, too.’
I laid the charcoal on the paper. Her eyes shone with feeling. I was quite enthralled by it.
‘I would like to know more about you,’ she said. ‘Edward told me you are an agent for private collectors. Are your employers very influential?’
‘Well, they are rich.’
‘But are they naturalists, such as yourself?’
I wondered how to answer. There were four men who, over drinks at White’s club on St James’s Street, had made a wager that, contrary to belief, they could procure the last great auk in the world and bring it to London. White’s was famous for such wagers. One of the men was associated with the British Museum, but beyond that, no, they were not naturalists. They were men who liked to make wagers, whether it was gambling on which door might open first to their private lounge, or whether a species could be pulled back from the oblivion of extinction. They had read the reports in the newspapers, they had been drinking, it was a February afternoon, and they made wagers.
‘No,’ I replied. ‘They are merely collectors. They want to own something that no other man has.’
‘Is it really that simple?’ she asked.
‘Yes. Men are really that simple.’
She looked a little surprised. ‘So why did you agree?’
‘They paid my passage. More than that I am free to do as I wish.’
‘But what if you return empty-handed?’
I shrugged. ‘They will bet on something else. Their whims are not mine. If they wish to waste their money on idle wagers, so be it. For me, I have studied birds my whole life and the chance to find one of this species, to find the merest feather that once belonged to them, or even stand in the place where they have so recently vanished—it would be a privilege.’
‘Yes, I understand.’
‘I … I would love to save something.’ I suddenly felt my feelings were open and might easily become beyond my control. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, ‘I am forgetting to draw you.’
She gave me a reassuring smile. ‘Are you happy with the likeness?’
‘I think so.’ I considered it. ‘It’s so very hard to capture what you see.’
‘Do you think my face is a pleasant one?’
I halted. ‘Yes. Very pleasant.’
‘I’m not so sure. Edward says I’m attractive, but there again he says what you wish to hear. He’s like my father in that respect. My father is excellent in knowing what people want to hear. Personally, I think my face is too thin, and my eyes are too dark.’
‘You told me you live with an aunt?’ I asked.
‘In Aldeburgh, on the Suffolk coast. A very damp and creaky house, but it has a view of the North Sea. And mobbed by gulls every hour of the day. Have you been to the town?’
‘Yes,’ I answered, briskly. ‘But several years ago.’
‘It changes little.’
‘I expect so.’
‘It will be washed away one day, God willing. What was the nature of your visit?’
I decided to lie. ‘A funeral,’ I said. A funeral is rarely questioned. If I told her the truth, my identity would likely be revealed. Although I grew up in Suffolk, for the last ten years I had been afraid to set foot in Aldeburgh, knowing that her father often went there as a county magistrate,
and would spend his evenings hunting for birds and coursing for hares on Orford Ness. If I had run into her father again, I did not know how he might have reacted or what he would have done to me. He might have shot me.
‘I may not ever see my father again,’ she said, quite unexpectedly. I was alarmed, having just thought of the man, to hear him mentioned. ‘I don’t know why he sprang to mind just now,’ she added. ‘Thinking of Aldeburgh, I suppose. He wanted me to stay in sleepy Aldeburgh, and I’m here, with Edward. Can you believe it?’
‘Does he know you are on this ship?’
‘Oh yes, he knows,’ she replied, implying a subject that was still raw. ‘And I can feel his disapproval, even here in this room. He has not always been a kind man,’ she said, as if it needed explaining. I looked at her, noticing a new liquid quality to her expression. The shape of the mouth I had drawn no longer resembled that of the woman before me.
‘Why do you say that?’
She shook her head, sadly. ‘We don’t choose our parents. We don’t choose ourselves either. If only we could. I would start with brighter eyes and a brighter outlook to go with them.’
‘Clara, did Edward persuade you to come on this journey?’
She regarded me curiously. ‘Edward needs to prove himself as a hunter.’ The idea brought a very private smile to her face. ‘He still believes every man needs a trophy wall. He is so young, he still has those boyish dimples, doesn’t he? But he’s already old enough to think he’s a failed hunter.’
‘But why should you agree to accompany him?’ I persisted.
‘He … Always I am talking about Edward as if he owns me! It’s ridiculous. He needs me, in a way that is quite unusual. It’s absurd—I should never have come. But I did, and shall have to face the consequences when I return.’ She sighed, exasperated. ‘What am I saying—it was Edward’s idea. He wanted to shoot seals and I needed to escape.’
‘Escape your father?’
‘Escape myself. The truth is, Edward likes to keep an eye on me. That is why I’m here. I receive medicine, Mr Saxby. Edward administers it to me in the morning and at night.’
I continued to draw, glad to be occupied by the charcoal, but feeling uneasy listening to a growing confession. The face that was emerging on the page already felt a betrayal of what was truly there, before me. Clara had changed in a matter of seconds, her skin had darkened below her eyes and her expression looked haunted and captive.
‘I don’t sleep, Eliot.’
I tried to remain composed, but felt quarried by a changing situation. She must have planned this, intending either to reveal something to me, or extract it. ‘Is it the motion of the ship?’ I asked.
She smiled, quickly. ‘No, it is not that at all. I am afflicted with night terrors. If I sleep, I have visions.’
She looked at me with a directness that effortlessly pinned me to the spot. I felt paled by the force behind her eyes.
‘What visions?’
‘The cruelties of mankind,’ she replied, quickly. ‘When I dream, I see people—some are my family, but most are unknown. Blue devils. They are real and very present in my room. They sit and tell me what is in their hearts, and it feels as if they have no concealment. It is quite horrible.’
As she told me this, I closed the sketchbook, unable to continue. I conjured up the image of how she had been as a girl of just sixteen, her name not Clara Gould, but Celeste Cottesloe. How she used to whisper similar things to me, through the locked door to her bedroom. Her nightmares and daydreams, a world full of anguish and fear. I had heard this same voice in that chilled corridor at the top of her parents’ house. My poor Celeste! She had told me about visions she’d had of a poacher living in the woods. A frightening man wreathed in smoke, who would not cease to chase her.
My mouth felt dry. ‘Do these visitations appear every night?’
‘No. Sometimes my medicine is very strong. It renders me a dreamless sleep that I remember nothing of.’
‘And it is only at night that you suffer in this way?’
She considered the question carefully. ‘There are times, during the day, when my mind relaxes. I feel that my mind, it …’ she did a curious motion with her hand, a sliding motion, ‘… it slips. At those moments I feel as if I am among shadows. That I am not entirely alone.’
Celeste, I thought, just reach out your hand and hold me. Remember I loved you, I wanted to save you, I still want to save you.
‘May I be honest with you, Mr Saxby?’ she continued. ‘I sometimes care little for my well-being. You may be shocked but I care little whether the ship is cut open by the ice and is quickly sunk.’
‘Please, do not talk like this.’
‘You asked why I am on this voyage? Well, I feel I can tell you. I sometimes think I would like to walk across the ice sheet into that total whiteness you spoke of, and—’
‘And what?’
‘Vanish.’
‘Clara,’ I insisted. ‘You must stop talking like this.’ Instinctively I leant forward and held her hand. It felt cool and thin in my own, and totally without resistance. I continued to hold her, and gradually I felt her fingers begin to curl into my own. She gave a shy smile.
At that moment, a cabin door was wrenched open, and like a gust of wind Bletchley was standing in the saloon, in disarray, with wild hair and an expression of having just woken. Instantly he saw that I was holding hands with Clara and he gave me a most livid glance. Quickly, as soon as it had appeared, he managed to control it, collecting himself and turning to his cousin.
‘Why, are you feeling all right, my pippin?’
Clara, immediately composed, met her cousin’s question head on. ‘A little faint, Edward. I wonder what concoction you have for me in your doctor’s chest?’
Bletchley ran his hands through his hair, brushing it one way, then the next, confused and placed on the spot. ‘Now, now, Clara,’ he said. ‘Don’t be silly.’
I saw that I had released her hand. Bletchley walked up to her and took her by her wrist. He did it quite firmly.
‘Let me take you for a lie down,’ he said, giving her no choice in the matter. As he led her away to her cabin, she smiled gracefully at me.
‘You have a poetic soul, Mr Saxby. I will listen to the mast, as you have taught me to do. Thank you.’
I found it difficult to sleep that night. I lay, troubled, worrying that Clara might be visited by known and unknown visions. The sea sounded restless beyond the ship’s wall. Increasingly, I had found the ocean harder to contemplate at night. During the day, the horizon gave both a connection and continuity to a world I understood. There was always busy work and duties to be performed around me. But the night was different. The sea had a terrible black depth, fathomless and intense, which gave it a menacing aspect. It seemed to disappear, becoming a noiseless void that terrified me. Looking down the side of the Amethyst I would see a glimmer of black water, nothing else. Sometimes a passing flicker of phosphorescence. I would quickly retreat to my cabin, but the lamplight shining on the wooden surfaces only emphasised what was out there, beyond the ship. Nothing.
Perhaps it was for this reason that the crew drank heavily in the evenings. The alcohol mollified them, they became more relaxed, but I had also noticed they became more reflective. It was at these times they told me their true feelings about the Arctic. During the day the stories tended to be practical: the hardships of working with ropes that have iced over, or the effort of cleaning and storing sail. They bragged about a cold so intense that skin would freeze to metal, how it burnt inside the nostrils with a hot dryness, how a mug of boiling tea would turn to ice as it was thrown, and how the ship’s woodwork, exposed to a frost-rime, became as serrated as a saw, as if it had grown multitudinous rows of shark’s teeth. There were tales of frostbite, of applying spirits of lime to blackened fingers or rubbing them with snow. Some of these tales were tall, and were said to impress me, I knew. Or scare me. But at night, when rum had been drunk, different stories emerged.
They described seawater growing thick and sluggish, as if it developed a new nature that was not entirely lifeless. How it spat and hissed as a wave rolled through it. Some had seen God in the water there, in the way the ice would encircle a ship. They’d told me of the air that arrives, gritty and stinging, although it looks no different. Or the beasts that surface from time to time through the limpid water. Dead fish, floating with monstrous size, their bodies inflated with gas, passing the side of the ship. Or pale bleached whales—the solitary beluga or the spectral narwhal—seen at midnight across the distance of the ice sheet, with risen tusks, jousting in the ice pools.
In all these stories, I felt the presence of ice itself. Frightening, moving unpredictably, spreading in brittle sheets across the ocean—reaching out with living intent for the small pocket of warmth that is brought with each person who ventures to the Arctic. It is as though the ice searches for the glimmer of fire that burns in the hearths, and the pulse of warm blood that flows through our veins.
8
‘OVER THERE,’ CONNOR HERLIHY said, ‘you see the blink?’
He was standing at the bow of the ship, his boot wedged into the hawse hole, so he might lean on one leg. In his hand he held a smoked bloater, and was eating the flesh of the fish straight from the skin.
‘Blink?’ I asked.
He held his hand level, towards the distant horizon. ‘Some of the lads say they see the blink already. It’s the light shining off the ice sheet. A glow’s what it is, you might say.’ He grinned and turned his level hand into a questioning gesture. ‘Meself, I’m not so sure, not till I’m standing on it. But you have good eyes, sir?’
‘Yes, good eyes.’
‘So, will that be an ice blink or not?’
I stared towards the horizon, where the sea was black and solid. A perceptible glow was there, low in the sky, in a wide band. But it was difficult to tell what it might be.
‘There is something there—a lightness.’
‘Aye,’ he replied, taking another bite of the fish. ‘You’ll be a sailor, sir, for sure you will. You have good eyes.’