Out of the Ice (13 page)

A whole new world opened up. Thousands of icicles dangled from the clear white ice of the ceiling. A vivid blue light emanated further back in the cave. There was a thick layer of ice around the seawater, forming a ledge. I hauled myself up and looked around in wonder. It was the biggest cave I’d seen in Antarctica, stretching far into the distance, its roof undulating with soft, sculptural folds of ice. It was easily high enough for me to stand up in. I took off my flippers and laid them down carefully, then pulled off my mask, mouthpiece and tank, trying to calm down, trying to catch my breath. I placed the tank so it was clearly visible in the cave entrance, and peered out to sea, desperate to find Kate. The air in the cave was cold but not freezing, naturally insulated by the dense blanket of ice. I was warm in my drysuit and my face tingled. I took a step back and glanced into the cave. Somewhere deep inside there must be a funnel travelling up to the surface, because light was pouring in. I stopped in shock.

Behind an icy wall, clear and translucent, stood a boy, tousled dark hair, huge brown eyes, skinny arms raised high. He was calling to me through the ice, trapped like an insect in amber.

All I could hear was the gentle splashing of waves, but I could see his mouth open wide in a yell. ‘
Help me!
’ He pounded his hands against the ice. ‘
Help!
’ Then, as quickly as he appeared, he was gone.

I blinked, stunned, and quickly made my way along the ledge to where he had been. But there was no sign of him, and the ice looked a clear white–blue. Confused, I pulled out my camera and photographed the wall, replaying the images, not trusting my eyes. There was nothing in the ice.

A voice roared behind me. ‘Thank God you’re here!’ I dropped my camera in fright and turned to see Kate hauling herself up out of the water, taking off her tank and putting it beside mine.

‘I’ve been looking for you everywhere,’ she said. ‘What’s wrong, you’re as white as a ghost.’

‘This is going to sound crazy, but I thought I saw a boy.’ I looked around again. ‘In the ice. Just here.’ I walked right up to the wall and slapped my hand against it, then put both hands against the ice and peered in. There was just more ice. But as I looked further I thought I could make out the form of a ghostly cavern, a mirror image of the one we were in.

Kate hurried up beside me. ‘You’re right, that’s crazy.’ She put her face close to the ice and sucked in her breath, surprised. ‘Is that a cavern back there?’

‘He was calling for help. He was desperate.’ I shivered, remembering his face filled with fear, the urgency of his movements.

‘But what would a boy be doing down here?’ said Kate. ‘It’s unlikely. If not impossible.’

The ice wall was metres thick, and now just translucent white, with hints of blue. I couldn’t get the image of the boy out of my head. His huge brown eyes, dark hair framing an impish face. I knew who he reminded me of. My first husband, Cameron Stewart.

‘Alvarado, do you think you might have a case of Toast?’ said Kate.

Perhaps I had been down in the ice too long and was getting ice fever – growing increasingly removed from the world, spending too much time in my head, starting to imagine things.

‘How old was he, this boy you claim to have seen?’ Kate walked around, checking to see if she could find a way through the ice into the cavern.

‘About twelve,’ I said and my voice cracked. The age my boy would have been; the baby I’d lost. If Hamish had lived, he would have looked like that. I broke into a sweat. My mind must be playing tricks. It had been a strange time at Alliance and Fredelighavn and I’d been unnerved, separated from Kate. And I
had
been down in Antarctica longer than usual.

‘There’s no way in,’ said Kate. ‘And now I’m not even sure there is a cavern through there.’ She took out her torch and swung it around. Reflections bounced everywhere. ‘Do you think it might have been your own reflection? An optical illusion. The more I look, the less I think that is a cavern. It’s just thick ice, Laura.’ Kate paced along the ledge, bending down and rising up on her toes, trying to view the ice from every angle.

I took more photographs, then turned to movie mode, recording everything again. ‘It’s so weird. I could have sworn there was a boy.’ Why was I even saying it when I knew that it was so unlikely?

Kate stared at me. ‘How did we get separated, anyway? One minute you were there, the next you were gone. I was going to scream the crap out of you for heading off without me. Is this just a ploy so I don’t get angry?’

‘It was the whales.’

‘What whales?’

‘Humpbacks. A mother and her calf came really close to me.’

‘I didn’t see any whales,’ said Kate, her voice a mixture of concern and impatience.

My head started to spin. I took deep breaths as images of the boy flashed faster and faster in front of me. It was Hamish. My little son. Grown tall and strong with his father’s face.

I rubbed my eyes. Hard. Trying to concentrate. Trying to pull myself back to reality. I had never, in all these years, let my imagination run this far. Grief poured through my body like a rushing tide. Everything I’d held back surfaced in a howling yearning.

The boy’s face swam before me. The dark eyes. Hamish, my Hamish, had come back.

‘Laura?’ Kate’s voice sounded far away, as if she were calling down a well.

I leaned against the ice where I’d seen Hamish in the white-blue cavern. Was it his ghost, starved of oxygen? I slapped the stupidity of the thought away. I was losing my mind. Panic bubbled up. We were in an ice cave far away from land. Or was there another way out? I suddenly raced towards the back, to the light. I heard Kate following. She had no way of knowing what I was thinking – I’d never told her about Hamish.

The opening high above was tiny. The light expanded as it filtered in, forming a pool of phosphorescent blue. I walked through, watching the skin on my hands turn a lurid sapphire colour. I couldn’t remember taking off my gloves. My heart raced in lunging bursts. I peered up through the jagged shaft and could just make out the sky far above.

‘There’s no way out here,’ said Kate, resting a hand tentatively on my shoulder. ‘Are you okay? Do you feel up to swimming? We should get back.’

‘I’d like to stay here a while,’ I said, my voice breaking. How could I tell her that I couldn’t leave? Hamish might return. I knew my thoughts were irrational but they kept pouring in. My Hamish. Down here.

Ignoring Kate’s worried face, I strode back to the wall where I’d seen him. I shone my torch through. There was nothing but ice. And now I couldn’t discern a cavern. I slumped down on the ground, exhausted and confused.

‘If there was a boy,’ I mumbled, ‘he needs our help.’ Tears pricked my eyes and I started to weep, gasping sobs like hiccups as I struggled to take in air.
Calm down
, I told myself, to no avail.

‘Laura, get a grip. You’re scaring me.’

I nodded, ‘I’m sorry, I’m really sorry.’ The sound of my own voice, distant, foreign, made me cry more, thoughts of the birth drowning my mind. Blood everywhere. Hot, boiling. A vivid scarlet, so red it looked unreal, like jam. Thick blood, viscous and flowing. Washing my tiny baby into the ice in Antarctica.

Kate sat beside me and put her arm around me, wrapping me into her warm body. ‘It’s okay, you’re just a bit toasty,’ she said gently. ‘Deep breaths. It’ll pass. Just let it pass.’ I could feel her intake of air, rapid but steady. I tried to think of that and not Hamish. I pushed Cameron’s face, puffed and swollen with grief, out of my mind.

Finally, my breathing started to slow. I blinked at the wall of ice. It was just a solid white wall, tinged blue, with a layer of pale mint-green.

‘Ok-ay,’ said Kate slowly. ‘Shall we head back? Do you think you’re up to it?’ She looked deep into my eyes and I could see her fear.

‘Yes,’ I said reluctantly.

‘And this time we keep hold of each other, no matter what,’ she said firmly. I murmured agreement as I picked up my camera and took several more shots of the wall and the cave. I found my gloves further along the ice ledge and put them on, realising my hands were frozen, even though the rest of me was hot and clammy in the drysuit.

At the water’s edge we put our tanks, flippers and masks back on, bit into our mouthpieces and submerged into the sea. I tried not to notice the weightlessness that now reminded me of Hamish in my womb. Panic rose, but I fought my fear. I wasn’t going to drown out here. What if there had been a boy, in spite of the odds? He needed my help. The boy the same age as Hamish, who had his face.

8

O
n the beach we stripped off our drysuits, towelling sweat from our bodies and putting on warm clothes. There was a slight wind that chilled bone-deep as soon as it came into contact with bare skin.

‘How are you feeling?’ Kate’s face was full of concern.

‘Fine. Thanks. Let’s dump the gear in the Hägglunds and then get the penguin.’ I quickly helped Kate pack the sled, then put on my skis and left. I didn’t want to talk about what had happened. I was still lost in my own world, and my feeling that I had seen a boy calling for help was growing stronger. I would have expected, now I was back on land, that I’d be even more certain I’d imagined it. Yet I still felt I’d seen him. My mind raced with possibilities as to who he was and what he was doing there. Argentinians brought families to their Esperanza base, in Graham Land on the Antarctic Peninsula; so, too, did the Chileans, at Villa Las Estrellas –
The Town of Stars
– a research station and civilian settlement on their President Eduardo Frei Montalva base on King George Island. Unlike the British, Australians and Americans, they were keen to normalise existence in Antarctica and for years had experimented with having children accompany their parents down here. Both bases were relatively close to South Safety Island, the Chileans to our west, the Argentinians to our south-east. Perhaps I’d been right that the Argentinians were coming into Fredelighavn. Or the Chileans. Maybe there was a way down into the ice at the end of the village near the Adélie rookery. It would explain the behaviour of the penguins if children had been allowed to play there.

But the boy didn’t look like he was playing a game. He was crying for help.

The image was seared into my brain. His open, screaming mouth. His hands slapping against the ice. Was there terror in his eyes? I shut my own, trying to remember.

I could see it. His eyes frantic. In the glimpse I’d had, I’d seen a boy scared for his life. I needed to go to the cliff top near the rookery and look for an entrance down into the ice, just to double-check. Because if I hadn’t imagined it, the boy was out there somewhere.

•  •  •

‘Laura?’ We had arrived at the russet house with the whitewashed furniture, and Kate was standing waiting for me to open the response kit. We put the disposable overalls over our clothes, covered our boots with the disposable booties, and slipped on the gloves and surgical masks. I knew that if I was near the dead penguin now, I wouldn’t be able to go back to the rookery today. Even with the disposables, I couldn’t risk passing on infection. I looked at my watch. It was growing late. We needed to get the bird, and head back to base.

But the boy’s image burned my eyes. ‘What if the boy had come over from Villa Las Estrellas or Esperanza? You know they have kids on those bases,’ I said. My rational mind kept telling me I’d had an hallucination, but my voice kept speaking. ‘I want to go and look for him. Try to find an entrance in the ice near the Adélie rookery.’

Kate swung around. ‘That’s insane, Laura. We have to get back to Alliance. The lab’s booked for us. I need to know what happened to this poor bird.’

‘What about the boy? There’s a slight chance he was really there.’

Kate sighed. ‘I don’t think there was a boy down there. It was thick ice, there couldn’t have been. It was just a trick of the light.’

I planted my feet firmly in the snow. ‘I need to go. Now.’ Was I losing all scientific process and self-control? But there
was
logic. He
could
have come over from another base. Maybe he’d arrived with his parents and something awful had happened to them.

‘You can’t. It’s a wild-goose chase,’ said Kate.

‘Why don’t you take the penguin, and I’ll stay here overnight? You don’t need me in the lab, you’re more than capable.’

‘As if I’d leave you alone. This place, this whole area, Alliance and especially Fredelighavn – it’s unsettling. Think about it. It’s so completely unlikely. We can all have hallucinations down here, it’s no big deal. How about those guys at the South Pole who just walk off into the ice, convinced they’ve seen angels or bears or giant Hershey’s bars? Or the ones who sit weeping into their dinner for no reason, and can’t remember they’ve done it. You’re toasty, my dear – admit it.’ Kate punched me in the arm.

‘What if the boy was with his parents? Or separated from—’

Kate cut me off. ‘And when we looked hard, there wasn’t even a chamber there for him to be in. It really was just ice. Now, I’m getting this penguin and you’re coming back with me. Before you go really bonkers and start attacking me with a screwdriver.’

That was a legendary occurrence. A few years ago at our base, a carpenter who was usually a gentle giant had gone off the rails because he didn’t like the gravy on his steak. He attacked the cook with a screwdriver and nearly killed him. A bad case of Toast.

I didn’t move. All I wanted was to run in the other direction and go up to the cliff and start looking for the boy. I slumped down, my head in my hands. He’d seemed so much like Hamish would have looked. I tried to think rationally. Kate was right about the ice. It was thick. There was no sign of any space where a boy could have been.

Was I just getting toasty? Separated from Kate, I’d panicked.

But a compulsion to search fired up in me. I tried to push it away, but it kept coming back; I felt like a madwoman.

I stripped off the disposable overalls and booties. ‘Sorry, Kate, I have to go.’

When I was halfway to the rookery she joined me.