The Quality of Silence (23 page)

The truck’s thermometer showed that it was minus forty-four outside, colder still with the wind chill. The thermometer inside the cab read five. They were dressed in as many layers of clothing as they had, but she didn’t know how long they’d survive if the engine cut out.

She put on the CB in the hope that she’d discover the police were braving the hurricane and storm and coming to get them after all, knowing even as she thought it that it would be insane. But the only voices on the CB were truckers stuck at Deadhorse, Coldfoot and Fairbanks, complaining about delayed trips and lost pay. Their voices were nonetheless comforting, so she left the CB on.

Beside her Ruby had fallen asleep. Yasmin remembered her pale face and shaking body when she saw the email of the Arctic fox cub and known that the emails weren’t from her father. Ruby had thought then that he didn’t have any survival tools or shelter.

She remembered looking for a place to turn around.

No! We can’t leave him!

She saw a place ahead they could turn

‘He might die! Mum, please!’

Ruby was pushing her laptop at her as she pulled into the turning place.

‘I’ll be alone!’

And the tanker was right behind her, headlights blinding her, and she’d had to drive on, the road steep and windy and treacherous and she hadn’t been able to think about what Ruby had said or read what she’d written on her computer; but she’d felt her failure as Ruby’s mother following her in the darkness.

She opened the last document on Ruby’s laptop.

These are my words Mummy. This is me talking.

This is me

SHOUTING!

This is my voice.

This is me.

Matt had understood that. And she loved him more for it.

She stroked the fleece of Ruby’s face mask, as if she could smooth away the crease of tiredness and anxiety on her face beneath.

She opened Ruby’s blog.

aweekinalaskablog.com

Hi, this is a blog about our time in Alaska by Matt Alfredson, who’s a wildlife cameraman and Ruby Alfredson.

(do you think that’s OK, Dad? You’ll probably write something much better and I don’t mind AT ALL if you change it. I’m not going to publish anything till you’re here too. I’m putting the musk ox photo in first for now. We’ll delete these bits before we publish it!)

Ruby had uploaded the photo of the mutilated musk ox and had meticulously copied down all the numbers.

(Is this is for your work, Daddy? Hope so because people reading our blog might feel sick if they see it. I think that you took a photo because it’s a big musk ox, and wolves don’t usually kill big ones? Was he ill or hurt? But we’ll see a musk ox who’s alive, won’t we? So I’ll write about musk oxes and then we can put a different photo and you can add everything I’ve left out.)

Yasmin remembered Ruby’s face as she’d tried so hard to make this grotesque image something that was a part of the natural world; something her father would have sent. She’d realised that Ruby no longer took on trust what she told her; that Ruby had to create evidence for herself that her father was alive. She felt fury now and anguish that Ruby had been tricked, however willingly, into thinking these photos were from her father; that she’d so carefully blogged what this man had sent her.

Musk Oxes look really big and frightening but they’re gentle vegetarians and they only have big hooves so they can crack the ice and get water and walk around on the snow without sinking. Inupiat people call a musk ox
umingmak
, which means ‘the bearded one’.

Yasmin remembered Ruby telling her about musk oxen, but she had interrupted, telling her to use her words, focused only on wanting Ruby to talk with her mouth. And Ruby must have sensed her lack of interest – did she even try to disguise it? She read what Ruby would have told her, had she allowed her to speak.

Musk oxes are very brave. Wolf packs hunt musk oxes and they always kill the smallest ones (nearly always). So when they see a wolf pack, all the grown-up musk oxes make a circle around the babies and children. They put their bottoms inwards to the circle and their horns out, to look fierce. About a hundred years ago, people hunted them and the musk oxes did their circle around the babies and didn’t move and the hunters just shot them and shot them. And when one of them was injured they surrounded the injured one and tried to protect him or her too. Hunters thought they were stupid, but really they were brave.

Yasmin was moved by Ruby’s description of the musk oxen and by her knowledge. She clicked on the next page of the blog.

Ruby had uploaded the photo of the dead raven and scrupulously copied down the numbers.

(You’ve told me lots about ravens, so I’m going to write what I know and then you can put in all the things I’ve left out.)

Ravens are the largest of all the songbirds and sing lots of different songs. They sing when they’re frightened, or sometimes when they’re just talking to each other. They do croaking sounds and knocking sounds, but mainly they like to sing.

Ravens choose a husband or wife and stay together all their lives. They’re very loyal. Sometimes they get as old as thirty together.

When they fly, they like doing somersaults and barrel rolls. Sometimes they carry sticks when they’re flying, or feathers, and they pass them to each other, like playing catch in the sky.

Yasmin could hear Matt chatting to Ruby about ravens and Ruby’s delight in it; she could feel the warmth between the two of them.

After baby ravens are born, they stay with their parents for a year. Sometimes there’s a third raven, like a godparent raven, helping the parents get food for the young ones and helping to teach them. Ravens are super-coolio copycats and play jokes; they can imitate other animals and even humans.

Ravens stay in Alaska all winter. If there’s a snowy hill, they love sliding down it, like they’re tobogganing, and they take turns, going one at a time. And they don’t just play with each other, they play with animals too, even animals like wolves and bears. Isn’t that amazing?

Yes, thought Yasmin, it is. She looked again at the photo and instead of seeing the demonic bird of Western literature and the ugly captive symbol-laden birds at the Tower of London she saw birds who sang and tobogganed and kept a mate for life. No wonder Ruby liked ravens so much; no wonder Matt did. She’d already realised that there was wildlife here for Matt to film, but now she had a glimpse of why he might want to.

Ruby had wanted to tell her an Inupiaq story about a raven. But she had told Ruby to use her proper voice. And then, when Ruby didn’t speak with her mouth, she’d thought that there probably wasn’t any story.

She clicked onto the next page of the blog.

The photo of dead wolves, almost buried in snow, filled the screen. She saw again the glint from a harness in the bottom right-hand corner, a husky dog just visible.

Ruby hadn’t told her anything about wolves. Not one single fact. She hadn’t even attempted to.

How often did she silence Ruby, without even being aware of it?

(Why did you take this photo, Dad? Was it because the poor wolves had got trapped in the snow? I thought animals in Alaska were really good at not getting trapped in the snow. I think that these photos aren’t for our blog, but work. And you’ll tell me all about it when you see me.

But I really want to write our blog anyway, because when I do it’s like you’re with me.

And we’ll see wolves, won’t we? Ones that are alive and with their thick white coats? So I’ll write about those now, the wolves you and I are going to see.)

Yasmin heard the sound of her name on the CB.

‘OK, Yasmin, I’m bankin’ on you listenin’ into the CB.’

She’d kept the CB radio on to have the company of voices, but hearing her name she turned it up. It was Coby.

‘If you’ve heard me before, like a dozen times, then I apologise for gettin’ repetitive. And anyone ANYONE who interrupts me on the CB because they’re gettin’ sick of this stuff, has me to answer to in Coldfoot.’

It was as if the raging storm had a calm answering voice.

‘Right. So you have a child with you,’ Coby continued and surely he must despise her for that, but his tone was warm. ‘We need to look after her, right? Keep her and you warm so that the both of you get through this storm OK. Bin askin’ the fellas here at Coldfoot and we’ve put together a cheat sheet on the best things to do.’

She thought how when this was over she’d enjoy the idea of a cheat sheet on how to survive a polar storm in the middle of the arctic tundra. With Coby talking to her, she believed that there would be a time when this was over.

‘So first thing you gotta do is put on every single piece of clothin’ you have with you. If you’ve got three hats then you put on three hats, got that? Sleepin’ bags, towels, anythin’ like that, get ’em wrapped around you.’

She felt like he’d give her a gold sticker at the end and wanted to boast that she had indeed done exactly that.

‘You probably got that nice warm heater goin’ full blast, right? But we need to make sure your exhaust ain’t leakin’ carbon monoxide.’

Yasmin knew that people who got stranded in cars sometimes got poisoned by carbon monoxide because of snow blocking the exhaust outlet. But the outlet in a truck was very high so she’d thought that wasn’t a danger.

‘Can you see what’s comin’ out of your exhaust?’ Coby asked. ‘If you can, does it look funny, like thick and billowin’? That’s a sign that you’ve got some damage.’

So it was damage that would be the problem, not a blockage. But it was impossible to see the exhaust in the dark and snow. Even if she could, the turbulence from the wind would disperse it immediately.

‘Now I’m guessin’ the wind’s roarin’ its head off, but before the wind started yowlin’ at you, did you hear any noises from the bottom of the truck. Like a loud rumblin’? The holes can make a rumblin’ noise.’

Yasmin hadn’t noticed a strange noise, but there was so much else she was focused on she probably wouldn’t have done. She had seen ice wedged in the wheels, iron hard and destructive; it could have caused holes in the exhaust system. And if it was in the section running under their cab carbon monoxide could leak in.

She’d left the heater on before, when she’d fallen asleep after Coldfoot, but the truck had taken much more of a battering since then.

She pulled the sleeping bag up over Ruby, then turned off the engine; the heater and the light went out immediately.

Coby’s voice continued in the dark.

‘Let’s go assumin’ a worst case situation and you’ve got yourself damage. So when you’re runnin’ the engine keep the windows open a little bit, both sides, keep good air comin’ in so the poison can’t build up. Brady here says to run the engine for ten minutes each hour, so I’m guessin’ it would be OK to run it for five minutes every half an hour.’

She looked at the clock on Ruby’s laptop, which was backlit and fully charged. She’d time half an hour before putting the engine on again.

‘Adeeb’ll have a toolbox in the cab,’ Coby continued, calmly and slowly. ‘Most likely in the middle compartment, if his cab’s like mine. In the toolbox, he’s sure to have a knife. You need to cut into the seat covers and get out the insulation. Then pad yourselves out with it. Your heads too.’

Yasmin looked in compartments and found Adeeb’s toolbox. Inside was a Stanley knife, thick tape, screwdrivers and a small ice pick. She took out the Stanley knife.

‘Not sure if you’ve been hearin’ the police puttin’ out messages to you?’ Coby continued. ‘But they’ve been tellin’ you, you mustn’t get out of the cab. Not till this thing’s blown over. Not for any reason. Hold on here, other people are tellin’ me what I’m missin’.’

She imagined these drivers around a table in the café in Coldfoot, hot coffees in front of them, stamping their feet perhaps to keep warm because she imagined it was cold even inside. They didn’t know if she was alive, let alone listening to this, and it moved her that even so they were trying to help.

‘OK, so listen up, Yasmin. This is real important. You’ve gotta stay awake, because you need to remember to turn the heater off. If you start gettin’ cold then move your arms and legs as much as you can, keep the circulation goin’. I know the cab ain’t that big, but move as much as you can.’

She was cutting her seat open with the Stanley knife. There was wadding inside. If she made a long enough cut she’d be able to take a sheet of it out and wrap it around Ruby as an extra layer.

‘Gabe, here, says to tie something colourful to the radio antenna, once you’re safe to go out. But I reckon a chopper’ll be able to see you pretty clearly, only thing out on the road, so don’t worry too much ’bout that.’ He paused a moment and Yasmin was worried he’d gone.