The Ice Shelf: An Eco-Comedy

by Anne Kennedy

  The inward suck of breath from one or two of my fellow students was followed by a long silence disturbed only by the buzz of the fly. It seemed we’d be going home for semester break before any further developments occurred, but finally the Pig reared up on his trotters. ‘What do you suggest?’ he asked in a round timbre.

  When I peeked, he was eyeballing me, his brows a squiggle, the jolly manner gone entirely. A few names I’d stumbled across in SOC 113: Gender Studies flitted through my mind—Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, bell hooks—but I hadn’t actually read them (there was just too much to do), and I blushed.

  The Pig was smiling again. ‘Can I ask you, Miss—’

  I supplied my surname and mumbled hopefully, ‘You can call me Janice.’

  Everyone laughed.

  ‘Janice.’ The Pig joined the tips of his fingers into a whare shape. ‘Can I ask you a question, Janice?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. This wasn’t going so badly.

  ‘Why don’t you teach the class?’

  More laughter erupted around the cushions. The room seemed to heat up astronomically and I worried briefly about global warming. It shouldn’t be this hot in autumn. I mopped my upper lip. (Also, a few days before this there’d been the falling away I mentioned, and inside me was a strange cold space.)

  ‘Now,’ said the Pig, settling back on his cushion, ‘unless anyone else has any complaints …?’ He flashed his gold-rimmed glasses and smiled, so it didn’t feel aggressive. There were no takers. ‘Then I suggest we get on with making it new.’ He ended with a special, comical angling of the head at me, which sparked a fresh round of laughter, and I was grateful that Cinema of Unease was alive and well in the Theory of Creative Writing classroom.

  But the Pig’s wholesale disregard for feminist discourse or otherness of any kind is not why I want to thank him in these pages. No, I have a much bigger debt.

  The purpose of the class, as outlined at the beginning of these Acknowledgments, was to ask—and perhaps answer; who knew?—the question *why write?* We tossed this question around the class, with robust input from the Noa Valley contingent (I didn’t feel I could join in, due to insecurities packed down in childhood, for which I’m supremely grateful and without which I’d be a smug, self-satisfied Gen-X brat). The answer we came up with was *to make sense of things*. Who would’ve thought of that? I certainly *never* could’ve come up with such an insightful theory. If we didn’t write, opined the Noa Valley peeps, we wouldn’t understand what was going on; we couldn’t unpack the complexities of our existence. Wow! I was just in awe of those guys. The Pig was getting really excited at the calibre of the answers and was up and pacing about on the balls of his feet, asking more questions in an Aristotle kind of way. But what if, but what if …?

  Quietly to myself, I wondered if it was in fact being brainy, which is why we’re so industrially and technologically advanced, that has fucked us up the most. I didn’t say it because then I’d have to blush to the roots of my hair again. So I simply pondered it, there on my cushion in the fly-zone, and I came up with this little equation, of which I’m quite proud, in answer to the question, ‘Why write?’

  I have no idea!

  ∴

  I have no ideas.

  I would like to extend my enormous thanks to Big Julie the Pig for offering me several invaluable experiences during my time in ENG 209. The first of course was my immersion in the literature of white men. If this hadn’t happened at university, I have no idea where I would’ve encountered this particular group. I’d probably be entirely ignorant of the thoughts of white men. And I’m certain that having only male literary role models set me back, scarred me even, and was therefore hugely beneficial for me, as a writer. If I’d read the words of women in my chosen field, where would I be today? Likely I’d be strong and secure with an unshakeable sense of my own history and culture, but where would I *be*? I’d also like to thank the Pig for posing as a lefty feminist, when, in fact, he is a reactionary misogynist. The dramatic irony, the mask—what a gift for a writer! I cannot thank him enough. I also want to express my deep gratitude to the Pig for humiliating me in class on the 7th of May 2012. The sense of shame I’ve carried with me has fed my writing and will continue to do so for many years to come.

  But my biggest debt to the Pig is for helping me understand that there is no answer to the question *Why write?* This has left me deeply unsettled and worried for not only my own existence but the existence of humanity. Thank you, thank you, thank you muchly, Professor Big Julie the Pig.

  Lastly, I am hugely indebted to my fourteen fellow students in ENG 209. We enrol in courses such as this because we’re passionate about writing, but it turns out camaraderie is one of the best aspects of the whole exercise, a wonderful byproduct like casein. You get to know your peers very well indeed in the course of four and a half months, meeting every Wednesday morning as you do, for three long hours in a stuffy room. Perhaps too well. You might even catch something off some of them as they as they slobbered and spit their way through reading aloud their early drafts. Or from one of them in particular from whom you needed to protect yourself with an umbrella if you sat anywhere near her. A metaphorical umbrella of course, or raincoat, but I did not have any such techniques-of-fiction rainwear. I tried not to sit near this student, learning from experience early in the semester that one needed to hurry to class so one could choose a cushion far away from her. And most Wednesday mornings I was successful in this modest goal, running up Church Street Steps and arriving in somewhat of a lather, but it was certainly worth it, even if I were called upon to read early in the session and could barely get the words out. I simply mopped myself with tissues, took some deep breaths and rasped my way through whatever section of The Ice Shelf that I was workshopping.

  In particular I want to thank one especially lovely peer, Emma Lloyd-Edwards. Emma hails from Noa Valley and no doubt grew up in a warm bungalow in a leafy street with two parents and a golden retriever and went to the same two or three lovely tight-knit schools and ∴ has *no fucking idea*, but that’s splendid, that’s all part of the rich mix of people who make up our marvellous world. The reason I single out Emma Lloyd-Edwards from among all the students of ENG 209 who are worthy of gratitude is a comment she made one day in her confident ringing voice. Emma Lloyd-Edwards’ observation about a crot by yours truly was hugely instrumental in aiding my development as a writer.

  We were workshopping two crots from The Ice Shelf. The Pig was going around the class one by one in an agonising way, letting *everyone speak*. Inevitably we came to the cushion of one Emma Lloyd-Edwards, who needed no invitation to speak but it is her comment I want to focus on here. And I quote: ‘The second crot is self-absorbed; in fact both of them are, but the second one is worse. It’s a question of authorial distance.’ Having delivered her wisdom, Emma Lloyd-Edwards lolled back and played with her blond dreadlocks.

  I looked up the term ‘self-absorbed’ on Merriam-Webster on my phone then and there. My studies at university trained me to take no prisoners when it comes to definitions. As I’d suspected: ‘Self-absorbed: absorbed in one’s own thoughts, activities and interests’.

  I found the comment of Emma Lloyd-Edwards strange, I really did. Surely one needs to maintain a level of self-absorption in order to do anything, let alone create. Let’s suppose Virginia Woolf had been enrolled in ENG 209 in 2012. Let’s suppose she’d been in one of her good spells and had been writing A Room of One’s Own. (Let’s suppose that that was the project she’d pitched to get into the course, and let’s suppose she’d got in straight away, rather than waitlisted and let in at the eleventh hour.) She arrives on a Wednesday morning with copies of the first section, which she hands out busily, and the class settles down on their tuffets to analyse it. First off is a long section about Virginia Woolf sitting on the grass outside Virginia Woolf’s old college thinking Virginia Woolf’s thoughts. Then a detailed description in Virginia Woolf-language about what Virginia Woolf imagine
s the men are having for lunch, followed by a detailed description of what Virginia Woolf and her fellow women scholars are going to have for lunch.

  Excuse me, but isn’t this a bit like posting a picture of your lunch on Instagram? And, not only that, the lunch you *imagine* the men are eating. Isn’t that letting your own thoughts run a little riot? I can just hear Emma Lloyd-Edwards’ contribution to the group about this work by Virginia Woolf: ‘The second lunch is self-absorbed. In fact, both of them are, but the second one is worse. There’s no authorial distance.’ The rest of the class mumble assent because it’s Emma Lloyd-Edwards after all.

  Later on in the semester, Lloyd-Edwards goes to town similarly on Virginia Woolf’s *room*, which is even more self-absorbed than the lunch.

  I didn’t write about what I was having for lunch, but perhaps I should have, and joined the excellent company of Virginia Woolf.

  For the record, the self-same crot that Emma Lloyd-Edwards deemed ‘self-absorbed’ went on to be part of The Ice Shelf, which is the reason I’m going to Antarctica. I don’t seem to remember seeing anything of that stature appearing from the pen or no-doubt parent-funded Apple MacBook Pro of one Emma Lloyd-Edwards. And I think A Room of One’s Own got published too, despite its lunch. I rest my case. I am, however, supremely grateful to Emma Lloyd-Edwards for pointing out to me my self-involvement in the area of the crot, and I suppose if I’d grown up in a bungalow in Noa Valley and spent my education at two private schools and had years of uninterruptedness in which to make friends and build my academic career, I’d be pointing the finger at others for their *differences* as well.

  Until I met Emma Lloyd-Edwards and others like her in ENG 209, I wasn’t aware how fortunate I am that I didn’t grow up cushioned, cosseted and boring, with *no fucking idea*. So thank you, Emma Lloyd-Edwards, just for being there.

  I must add that I did, in fact, revisit the crot because I took the comment about its self-absorption in the spirit in which it was given, not in spite or jealousy or plain stupidity; no, in the spirit of generosity of ideas, given freely towards a further draft. I actually would have changed this crot based on Emma Lloyd-Edwards’ learned opinion gleaned from her vast knowledge and experience of writing, I really would. But as it happened, my editor looked at this crot too (Tree Murphy, who will be thanked later in these pages), and *she* didn’t see anything about it that needed the least bit of changing, and so in the end I deferred to her professional advice. And if Emma Lloyd-Edwards ever has occasion to read The Ice Shelf, or, if she ever picks up the book in a bookshop by accident and put it down quickly, realising her terrible mistake, she might in a fleeting flick-through notice that the crot she so casually derided in a workshop in ENG 209 in 2012 is now printed on a page in a book in a bookshop.

  I’d like to express my sincere thanks also to five students in ENG 209 who never talked to me, not once, during the whole four months, despite my saying ‘Hi’ multiple times on the way past in the corridor and again as we sat on our cushions, although by that time I must confess to being a little jaded from being cold-shouldered. Some people might regard their actions as rude or exclusive or snooty, but I saw it as enabling me to concentrate on my writing instead of taking part in wittering conversations about new flats and upcoming readings and literary magazines (I was only party to the Wednesday conversations, but I do have an imagination, and I did observe them trot off down Church Street Steps in a jostling bunch after class and it seemed they were going off to *not* write). The fact I was able to get on and complete my Ice Shelf without distraction means so much to me, and I’m truly grateful to these five students for allowing me many empty evenings. I’d thank them by name if I could remember them, but unfortunately they’ve sunk without trace as sometimes happens to people who’ve studied creative writing and achieved an A grade, whereas others who might’ve got a B, due to being indisposed at the time the Portfolio was due because a certain person showered them with droplets of infected saliva, go on to publish a book.

  Getting to know my peers in ENG 209 made me realise just how lucky I’d been having Sorrell and Harry as parents. University didn’t come cheap. You could see that as you glanced around at the sprawled bodies with their well-fed faces, fashionable clothes and $300 dreadlocks. They were being bankrolled by Mummy and Daddy. Most of these talented writers were younger than me by a good ten years and were still being spoonfed with never an inkling of what it’s like to live in the real world apart from their fun little flirty waiting jobs which funded their Karen Walker jackets and ecstasy tablets. Mummy and Daddy forked out for every damn thing. To this day, I’m grateful that Sorrell’s itinerant lifestyle and Harry’s succession of marriages and left-behind progeny requiring child maintenance, not to mention his substantial weed habit, presented me with the opportunity to make my own way in the world. I wouldn’t be the writer I am today if Sorrell and Harry had found it within themselves to fund one, just one measly qualification for me. Some people might think that having involved parents is to be enfranchised, but really, I’m the privileged one. It was a privilege to put the school fees on a credit card, the sort they banned in 2012. I can use the concrete significant detail. I know that plastic tastes like bile; I have the smell of debt in my hair, the grime of hard work under my fingernails. Those young writers whose parents have grubstaked them through writing school—what do they write *about*?

  Lastly, I would like to thank all involved in the saga leading up to Portfolio Delivery Date.

  On a cold June morning, I was waylaid going up Church Street Steps by a certain dog crap. The dog crap necessitated me rubbing my shoe against each and every clump of grass all the way up the hill, then visiting the toilets on campus, where I needed to practically empty the reservoir to clean my shoe and to cause a five-week power cut like the one in Auckland in 1998 because of my use of the hand dryer to dry said shoe. Only then could I show up at class. You can guess whom I ended up sitting next to. And no, I did not have the requisite Driza-Bone. And yes, I was then showered in minuscule globules of spittle, which were the fallout from a piece of fiction that seemed to have been written with this express purpose in mind; and yes, I caught a nasty flu bug. I would like to thank this precipitating student, whom I will not name, not because I am being coy but because my complaint to the University Council is still pending. But she knows who she is, and also knows I am so, *so* grateful to her that I was sick as a dog leading up to Portfolio Delivery Date. I applied to have my grade averaged from my performance during the rest of the year, which would’ve taken a lot of stress off my shoulders, but the university (meaning Big Julie the Pig) said *everything* rested on the portfolio being turned in. However, I prevailed, sitting up all night with a temperature of 39 degrees Celsius to finish my portfolio, and struggling up Church Street Steps in the morning to turn it in was one of the most formative experiences of my life so far. And of course, the portfolio was an early draft of The Ice Shelf, the very book you are reading. My sincerest thanks go out to the Typhoid Mary of ENG 209.

  I notice that the artists with whom I will go to Antarctica are looking at me strangely. It seems the conversation has been bubbling on for some time without me amid the general pub din, but I don’t care. I feel an edit coming on. In search of privacy, I get to my feet and wend my way through the crowded bar towards the bathrooms. But as I pass a coat rack thick with the suit jackets of public servants, it occurs to me that snuggling behind them would be as good a place as any. I push my way through the garments, and feeling I’ve entered Narnia, I crouch down on the floor where the flagstones are veined like leaves and cooler than expected under my fingertips, and in this shadowy place I tug out my manuscript. I find not just one part, but section after section which needs to be dispensed with. For the record, this is what goes west: the bit where the protagonist applies for Theory of Creative Writing and is, astonishingly, waitlisted, but gets in at the last minute when one of the chosen few is struck down with Mad Cow Disease. Unlike some of the other students who
were chosen ahead of her, our heroine goes on to have the manuscript she began in the class published with a big fat spine that is very noticeable even when it has its toes to the wall in a bookshop. The upshot of this episode is that the protagonist comes face to face with her own creative survival—make that simply survival. The crisis is her moment of self-doubt, experienced when sitting cross-legged on a cushion in a big pale room daggered with Wellington light. The climax is her realisation that writing is the only lasting thing, then that it isn’t, then that it is, then that it isn’t.

  Sitting under the coats, having finished my edit, it occurs to me—duh, hello!—that there will be WiFi in the pub. I haul out my laptop to take advantage (remember, my phone was in a bag of rice) and tweet quickly, Thanks muchly to the good folk at the Antarctica Awards of which I am a winner. So humbled!! Not bad going—two retweets and favourites immediately, and I reply, Thanks for the RT @heartwriter! Mwa mwa xxx, and Thanks for the RT @fringefestdweller! No retweet from Mandy, but I don’t give a fuck.