The Ice

by Laline Paull

  Twenty-seven degrees south in London, the Saharan dust storm that had blown over Europe for the last three days also ceased, leaving a fine gritty red film on cars smart and shabby, on the window sills of palaces and high-rises and added respiratory patients to overcrowded A&E departments and private surgeries alike. Entrepreneurial Londoners sold white paper masks by tube stations and only the reckless still went running.

  Age fifty (but looking younger) and mindful of what happened to his mental state without hard exercise, Sean Cawson was one of them. Although his knees now protested and his thoughts clawed at him for the first two or three miles, afterwards he felt good, and that was rare. He left Martine sleeping, or pretending to, and slipped out of the apartment. He knew last night’s conversation was only on pause. He would have to deal with it before long.

  He jogged past the neighbour’s door, smelling coffee and hearing their new baby crying. His was almost grown up, and hated him. At the beginning, Martine had said she wasn’t interested in family life, and he’d been relieved: one failure was enough. Now she’d changed her mind, and he felt slightly betrayed.

  He pulled the heavy black door shut and stood for a moment on the empty street while he chose his running music. It was early but muggy, the sky was grey and no birds flew. The white porch pillars of the houses were shaded with the ochre Saharan dust, which also grouted the black and white tiles underfoot and gave an autumnal cast to the plane trees of the communal garden. As he chose a random mix and set off to the park, London looked and felt wrong.

  The music matched it – harsh declamatory rap in African-inflected French that fitted the dislocated feel of the city. His feet caught the hard pounding rhythm and as he entered the park by the Kensington Palace gate he felt fierce and strong. The grass was browned with dust as if it had been passed under some great grill, and he left a trail rising behind him. If there was a good gym he might have used it, but the kind of place he had in mind, that stank of effort and crackled with energy – those places belonged to a distant world.

  The water of the Serpentine was a dull grey mirror to the June sky. Sean’s lungs and muscles were burning, but his will was breaking through his resistance. As if in reward, there ahead of him was one of his favourite sights, one of the privileges of early risers in certain parts of London: a troupe of army horses being exercised. Sometimes he’d pause to watch them cantering on the sand track that ran alongside Park Lane, a powerful river of satiny chestnut and bay muscle. The heavy rhythmic vibration of their hooves into the earth had risen through his feet into his body and connected him to some elusive feeling he could not name – but today he knew it. That lost feeling of wildness inside him, like a wolf hunting.

  It was a crazy thought and the horses would easily outstrip him, but he wanted to run alongside them. He pushed himself harder, the punching syllables of the French rap synching with his muscles. He could smell the fragrance of the animals as he cut across the grass, he was straining with the effort but in his mind he was a wolf cutting them off as they turned on the sand track for their canter – he would sprint and burn himself out until they left him behind—

  His phone buzzed from his arm holster. There were only two people he set to bypass his Do Not Disturb – his estranged daughter Rosie, who never called, and the other whose name now flashed on the screen, his mentor Joe Kingsmith.

  ‘Joe!’ he panted. ‘I’ll call you back. I’m doing something crazy …’ The riders were gathering up their horses, the animals were stamping, knowing what was coming.

  ‘Don’t, Sean, stay: it’s an emergency.’

  Sean stopped short.

  ‘Joe, I’m here. What’s happened? Are you hurt?’

  ‘Me? No. Sean, are you home?’

  ‘I’m in the park – what’s happened?’

  ‘Sean boy, I’d have called you at home but no one has a landline any more. I want someone there with you.’

  Sean stood still. ‘Tell me.’

  There was a silence, and by its quality, Sean guessed Kingsmith was airborne. He tried to slow his breathing.

  ‘Sean, I am so, so sorry. I’ve just spoken with Danny at Midgard. Tom’s body washed out of the Midgard glacier two days ago—’

  ‘What?’ Sean heard the words clearly, but his mind rejected them.

  ‘They had the positive ID this morning. It’s definitely him. I’m so sorry, Sean. I wanted to be the one to tell you.’

  The park vanished. Sean’s world contracted to the rumble of Kingsmith’s voice. ‘Out of the glacier?’ He felt stupid and slow.

  ‘Shit. I knew I shouldn’t have told you on the phone, but how else?’

  Sean stared like a blind man. ‘No, it’s fine. Tell me everything.’

  ‘I don’t know that much. There was this huge calving almost in front of Midgard Lodge – that’s when his body came out. Some cruise ship was down there and saw it all. Danny got sent away by the coastguard when he went to look, they were holding it as a crime scene—’

  ‘A crime scene?’ Sean came back into his body. ‘There was no crime, everyone knows that!’ He was shouting but he couldn’t do anything about it.

  ‘Sean boy, I’m trying to tell you, will you please listen? They call it that for protocol when they want to record everything. Of course there was no crime. Now I know you haven’t been up there for a while, but Midgard is still a business and this could have a PR effect, so we need to handle it right.’

  ‘They’re sure it’s Tom?’

  ‘One hundred per cent. They had a good idea it could be and they matched DNA with a family member, apparently.’

  ‘No one told me. No one’s rung. They’ve known for two days?’

  ‘I guess you haven’t been in touch so much lately. We knew he was dead but … this is still a big shock.’ Kingsmith paused. ‘Sean?’

  Sean walked away from the people coming towards him, out onto the great grassy plain of the park, the horses forgotten. ‘Yes. We knew.’ He sank to his knees on the dusty red grass.

  ‘Sean.’ Kingsmith’s voice was kinder, quieter. ‘Without a body to mourn, people are in limbo. They can’t move on.’

  Sean felt the fingers in his right hand start to burn, as if they still had frostbite. He stuffed them into his left armpit. He was shaking, but not from cold.

  ‘Danny should have called me.’

  ‘I wanted to be the one. I only know because I had to call him about something.’

  ‘What thing?’

  ‘Look: I completely get why you haven’t been up there. But you’ve got a lot of catching up to do, and now isn’t the right time. I’m glad you’re interested again, but you’ve got an awesome team taking care of things so don’t even worry right now.’

  ‘I should be helping bring him back, I should be there.’

  ‘You can’t do anything: it’s all in progress. You weren’t next of kin, but I guess they’ll be in touch with you, they’ll be able to have a funeral at last. And an inquest, but that’s separate.’

  ‘An inquest?’ The word was so ugly. ‘But we know what happened, I’ve said it all, we’ve been through it.’

  ‘I know, but it’s what happens when someone’s brought home. Same in the States as in the UK – just a formality. I’ll be there to support you, I promise … Sean, can you hear me?’

  ‘Yes.’ The grey sky pulsed above him.

  ‘You get yourself home, get back to Martine. She’s got a good head on her shoulders, she’ll know what to do. Sean, say something.’

  ‘What were you talking to Danny about?’

  He heard Kingsmith’s bark of a laugh.

  ‘Boy, are you persistent! But I’ve always liked that. OK, mea culpa, I put in a retreat, very small and last minute, a favour for a pal. I saw a void in the schedule and he’s paying top dollar. But this is hardly the time—’

  ‘I’m still the CEO. Everything goes through me.’

  ‘And if you are thinking like that at a time like this, you are the right man for the job. P
oint taken. Sean? You’re breaking up but I hope you can still hear me: you need to speak to your friend in Oslo, about keeping traffic away from Midgard – it’s important—’

  The phone connection dropped out – Kingsmith’s signature goodbye – and the French rap blasted back into Sean’s skull. He ripped out the earphones and found himself alone on the dusty red plain of Hyde Park, trembling and burning.

  Martine was in the wet-room shower when he came in, sweat-soaked like it was raining. Still in his clothes, he walked into the torrent and held her. She smiled, her eyes closed – and then she looked and saw his stricken face.

  ‘Oh my god, what’s happened? Tell me – has something happened to Rosie?’

  Sean hit his forehead against the streaming wall. ‘They’ve found Tom.’

  ‘Stop! Come here.’ She held him to her, keeping them under the streaming hot water, undressing him until he was naked. She kicked the clothes away from the drain and held him until he stopped shaking, then she turned off the water and helped him out and into a robe. As she put on her own, he went into the kitchen. She followed, watching while he took a bottle of vodka from the freezer and poured a big slug into a tumbler.

  ‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Handle it without that.’

  He knocked it back. Then he told her, in the barest detail, about Kingsmith’s call, and the facts he knew, including the fact of the inquest. Martine nodded slowly.

  ‘I’m so sorry, my darling. But Joe’s absolutely right: this is closure at last, and if there’s an inquest we’ll get through it. I need to plan how we handle it. First thing is I’ll work on a statement on your behalf, and then we’ve got a bit of time.’

  Sean listened to her as she walked around their dressing room preparing for work, thinking aloud. Joe was right, she had a good head on her well-set shoulders, working out which journalists could be trusted, how she would cancel certain invitations so they were not seen out enjoying themselves for a while …

  He wished she had burst into tears. He wished she cared more about Tom, and less about damage control. Her voice went on as he stared at the rails of his clothes. Martine had shared her space very fairly, and everything was well spaced, perfectly clean, flatteringly lit like an expensive boutique. She had even had a library built in the hall for all his polar books. Abruptly she pushed her scarf drawer shut.

  ‘What am I doing,’ she said, ‘dressing for work? I’m staying with you.’

  ‘No,’ he said, getting up. ‘You go. I’ll be OK.’ He pulled open a deep drawer and took out his Arctic travelling clothes, now alien with lack of use. ‘I’m going to Midgard. I booked a seat on the afternoon flight.’

  Martine held his arm. ‘That’s crazy. You’re in shock. Look at yourself.’

  He did. The mirror showed him a beautiful young woman standing there half-dressed, her dark hair wet, beside an older man who stared back at him, eyes haunted and dangerous. Sean turned away.

  ‘Joe put in a retreat. Without telling me.’

  Martine frowned. ‘Really? He shouldn’t do that.’

  ‘It’s because I haven’t been there. I’ve dumped everything on the team.’

  ‘No. You’ve delegated. You can’t personally run every single one of your clubs, you pick right then you trust people.’

  Sean threw some clothes into the bag and zipped it. ‘I’m letting everyone down.’

  Martine tried again, embracing him and pressing herself into him from behind.

  ‘You’re not! Forget about last night, forget all that. Just come back to bed and let me look after you.’ She ran her hand down his chest and closed it over him. ‘Be sad in my arms. I won’t go in today.’

  ‘No, go. I’ll be OK.’ He kissed her, to deflect the rejection. She stared at him in the mirror as he went out into the bedroom and found his car key. She followed.

  ‘You can’t drive, you’ve just had a huge vodka. And if you’re on the afternoon flight you’ve got plenty of time – where are you going?’

  Sean looked out into the square garden.

  ‘It’s bad to hear it on the phone.’

  ‘Oh. I see.’ She moved away.

  ‘Martine, please, you know how fragile she is.’

  ‘Actually no, I don’t think she is, not at all.’

  ‘She loved Tom as well.’

  ‘Fine. But I think she was prepared to pull any stunt to try to stop you leaving. I think she’s manipulative and angry and she’s turned your own daughter against you, and me, and it’s totally a mistake to keep being sentimental about a marriage that was over long before I came along.’ She sighed. ‘I’m sorry. That sounded harsh. I just want to protect you from more pain at a time like this.’

  ‘You’re right.’

  ‘Yes, I am. But if you don’t want me to stay with you today, or to come with you to Midgard, if you want to just be alone with the bad feelings—’

  He pressed her hand to his chest. ‘Something’s clawing inside me.’

  ‘Maybe the slug of vodka at seven thirty in the morning.’

  ‘Yes! I’m a fucking mess, I told you I was a bad deal—’

  ‘I never make bad deals.’ Martine pulled back and looked in his eyes. ‘But I do know that if you want healthy boundaries you’ll have them, and if you want to put yourself through the wringer, you’ll do that too.’ She kissed him on the lips. ‘So I really care that you’re so sad, but as you won’t let me help you, I am going to work. Let me know when you’re back. I’ll be here.’

  He listened to her light step down the outer hall, then the click of the front door. He went back to the freezer, but stopped. Martine was right, of course. He was in a terrible state. And if he was going to drive, he should not have another.

  The easiest way to learn, of course, was to inquire of an angakoq (wizard), and in the course of my long conversations with Igjugarjuk I learned many interesting things. His theories, however, were so simple and straightforward that they sound strikingly modern; his whole view of life may be summed up in his own words as follows:

  ‘All true wisdom is only to be learned far from the dwellings of men, out in the great solitudes; and is only to be attained through suffering. Privation and suffering are the only things that can open the mind of man to those things which are hidden from others.’

  Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition (1927)

  Knud Rasmussen

  3

  Sean once knew the sequence of lights so well that he never got caught on red. Now the route had become as alien as his old home and he misjudged every stretch. To keep his mind away from thoughts of Tom, he focused on driving impeccably and not as if he had gulped three fingers of vodka in the last hour – but the morning rush-hour traffic was infuriatingly slow and he suddenly felt self-conscious in his car.

  It was a beautiful Aston Martin Vanquish in a custom missile-bronze colour, and part of its appeal three years ago – the longest he had ever kept a car – were the looks he caught as he flashed past other drivers. But today, passing slowly made him uncomfortable. Was it gaudy? Perhaps he should change it for a Tesla to show what a good, upright, ecologically concerned citizen he was, as well as a flash bastard. Perhaps he should get a personality transplant – but surely that was the point of alcohol.

  Perhaps the lights were stuck. The white van alongside him made little feints forward, and he glanced over. Two schoolboys in green uniforms clambered over each other like puppies, waving at him and pointing in admiration of his car. They tugged at their driver dad, a tough-looking young man with a shaven head, who stared straight ahead.

  Red-and-amber – the white van surged ahead the very instant the lights changed to green, and Sean saw the boys cheering and goading their father faster.

  He drew alongside then fell back a couple of times, pulling faces as if he were striving and failing to overtake, so that the boys screeched with joy and bounced up and down on the bench seat. As he saw the filter lane for his exit, Sean pretended he was giving up, and
the boys pumped their fists in triumph as he let the white van surge past him. The tough young dad flashed him a grin and he felt a wave of good feeling. Then he indicated, tipped the wheel and the feeling frayed like a thread as he wound back on the roads of his old life.

  He drove slowly for the last few miles, surprised to see it had rained heavily. There was no sign of the red dust of London and the fields were green. The track to the house was badly potholed and he felt irritated – it wasn’t as if Gail couldn’t afford to get it graded. The thought of the settlement still pricked him. He would have been generous had she let him, instead of taking out her anger against Martine in financial terms. He had not thought her capable of being so petty. But put that aside: he was here to deliver a terrible blow. He knew he was also here to share its impact, with someone who cared.

  Gail, I’ve got some bad news. Gail—

  Something on the track ground against the undercarriage and he cursed and slowed down. He would go out the other way. The grading of the lane was not his business and this would be the last time he would come here, so it didn’t matter. But still, his eye ran over the orchards in some dismay. The fruit was retarded and the leaves too heavy. All the rain without the sun.

  Instead of the old blue Saab in the garage, there was a new silver BMW four-wheel drive. Only now did he consider the possibility that Gail might not have been home, or not been alone. He pulled up, blocking the garage, the way that always made them look out. And there she was, coming to the kitchen window. To his surprise, she waved. He walked down the path, hoping she had not got the wrong idea. No flowers, no bottle, a bad time of day to visit. He brought bad tidings of great pain. Gail, I’ve got some bad news …

  She opened the door before he knocked. One year younger than Sean, the glaze of youth had cracked into a filigree of lines around her eyes. Her face was softening and dropping and she wore her clothes sexlessly loose. But she was still wearing perfume.

  ‘Sean, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’