The Surfacing (11 page)

Might it be me?

I hadn't thought of that, he said. Then: No.

Might it be you yourself, future, present or past? Might that be who it is, in that
box?

I don't know.

We're not getting very far, are we? she said, now with something brighter in her
voice.

If I felt one of your answers rang more true than another, I should say, he said.
Or do you want me simply to give you a good answer, to keep you quiet? Is that it?

If you wanted me quiet, you wouldn't have come in, she said.

He didn't answer. They listened to the men's voices through the wall. To Morgan,
they were a summons he did not always know how to resist.

You say you felt fear, she said. Nothing else?

Both fear and relief, oddly enough.

She let him talk. He seemed less drilled, just now. It was a strange tangent they'd
taken, but the farther they followed it the more something in him seemed loosened,
undone.

It seems strange, he said, staring at and addressing the wall. It seems there has
been some definite occurrence, perhaps even a death, as you say, yet I have no definite
feeling about the thing. Perhaps by dreaming it I was testing myself, to see my reaction.
And I honestly can't tell you, did I pass muster or fail.

Why don't you unhitch yourself, she said, and walk on without it?

How can I, if I don't know what it is? Why don't I simply open it up?

It might be many things, she said.

I must want to keep it.

Perhaps. Or perhaps you like the definite burden, which you can unload and leave,
eventually, in a definite time and place.

But how can I mean to unload it? he said, now with protest in his voice. I've hauled
it down the gangway and set it on the sledge, and hitched myself up, and presently
I'll trail the damned thing behind me out over the ice.

You seem determined to think of it with resignation, as something . . . perpetual,
she said. I don't see why. As I said, it may be you're merely bringing it away from
the ship, and will come back alone.

There are some things you can never rid yourself of, he said.

But you said you felt relief.

I did. I don't understand it, but I did. I'm not much of a witness, I'm afraid.

Out in the corridor, familiar footsteps passed. They both paused, to let Myer get
to his cabin. They waited to hear his door shut.

Is it me in the coffin? she said.

He didn't answer. He was thinking, visibly. To hide the fact, he had started to rummage
through the mess on her desk. He was admiring her woman's implements, one by one.
One of her stray hairs, she noticed, clung to the back of his coat.

I have a set of possible answers, he told her mirror. No one of which . . . He paused
again for a long time. He was peering at his own face, leaning in, tweezers at his
nostril, poised for the kill. Here is one answer which occurs to me, just now, he
said. Whether it be true or false is hardly for me to say. My mother is in the coffin.
That's what I think.

Now you've surprised me, she said. The first time you've ever done that, I believe.
Suddenly she felt herself scrambling, flailing for a sure hold. You've never so much
as mentioned the lady before.

Enjoy it while you can, he said, with lashings of charm. You might never hear her
mentioned again.

The tweezers gave a little jolt and he waited for the pain to come; it came, did
its worst, then quickly moved away. Carefully, he emptied his lungs, his eyes filled
with water, and he breathed again. Only then did he turn to face her. He stared her
straight in the eye, unblinking. For the moment, she knew, she wasn't meant to look
anywhere else.

But do you really think that's true? she said, determined to get him talking again,
not let him fritter the moment away with his little act. Do you really think it's
her face you'll see, if you remove the lid?

He thought again, and she refused to interrupt him.

Here's what I think is the right answer, he said finally. He had laid the tweezers
down, and sat round to face her full square. I myself am in the coffin, alive. That's
who it is I'm dragging through the world. Perhaps that's it. She could hear, now,
the first note of retreat in his voice. Or perhaps that's merely a nice fantasy,
he said, that has just this minute occurred to me.

I'm surprised you are so ready to talk about this, she said. Any other man I'd take
for drunk.

Drink tends to have the opposite effect, I'm afraid. It shuts me up.

I've noticed. Perhaps you're drunk in the dream, she said, offering a smile. Perhaps
that's why you insist on leaving the lid on. Perhaps you're not curious at all. She
was half joking, and half wise. She wanted somehow to be careful and carefree, all
at once.

Another possibility is that the coffin is empty, he said, as though he'd not heard.

Would that be good reason not to want to open it? To be afraid?

Perhaps it is not a person. Or not only. Perhaps it is not a specific thing.

What could that be? You've mentioned your mother. You've mentioned me. Who or what
remains?

Maybe you're all in there together, he smiled. Having a ball.

Perhaps you're in there with us, she said. Perhaps you're in there with her, alone.

An interesting proposition, he said.

Perhaps what is inside the coffin is a moment. A moment in time.

For half an hour that afternoon there had been progress. Then the wind had died again.
That gave them time to dismount and grease the capstan, to be ready for the next
ebb. That was the banging that came again now.

You must have many happy moments from your boyhood, she said. Every child does.

He seemed physically to recoil at that, if only an inch. But he was suddenly quiet
and still, and stayed quiet for some time. As usual, she supposed, he was making
all his concessions in advance. Agreeing to whatever judgment he thought she would
reach for. He seemed to take a particular pleasure, always, in imagining the worst.
Confirming every slight he'd ever felt. How often she'd imagined him doing what he'd
done today – coming down to talk to her. How hard that seemed to be. She saw the
scene unfold. Morgan walking down the corridor to her door, everything narrowing.
Savouring the indignity he was about to undergo in there – in here, as he seemed
to be undergoing now. Her every misplaced word less like a wound than a surgical
incision. Specific and precise. The effect not pain but relief.

It feels like two different people, he said finally. That woman, and that boy.

Your mother, you mean?

I can remember her cutting my hair, when I was very small. That wasn't something
she usually did. I can remember long days at the beach. She's upright, walking comfortably,
in her dayclothes. There's nothing remarkable about the thing, no special warmth
or affection, but nothing cold either, no distance. It just seems – seemed – a regular
part of the everyday. What came afterwards?

Afterwards, it was different, he said.

How so?

He suddenly stood up to go. That's it, he announced. I've said far more than I meant
to say. I don't at all know how you managed to get so much out of me, but bravo.

The session is adjourned? she said, as lightly as she could.

The session is closed.

16th September

Under a clear sky they stood to the westward. They were sailors again, riding the
waves, canvas bragging overhead. Already they had forgotten. As in the old days,
there was shouting across the spars. The insults were brazen, but glanced off the
new armour harmlessly. They were invincible now.

I hate to piss on the fire, Morgan said, but I think we're going to be a little late
for the party.

We're not late, we're
last
, DeHaven said. Which is far, far worse.

They had lost too much time going back to Disko. The other ships had passed this
way long before.

God knows where they're going to send us, DeHaven said. Where nobody else wants to
go, I suppose.

Surely a commander of Myer's stature, Morgan said, but the joke was stale. What his
friend said was true. There was no telling what part of the map the
Impetus
would
be assigned. Arriving last, they would have to fall in with what had already been
decided in their absence, by other men.

In the evening they stared over the water towards the
undying sun, that they were
too eager to serve. Beneath it were what looked like ink-spills on cotton wool. That
was Devon Island, Myer said – the great northern pillar of their gate.

For a day and a night they galloped through thick fog with men hanging from every
tree, scouring for danger. They were sailing blind, but Myer promised they had entered
Lancaster Sound, the last leg to Beechey.

It was the 17th of September, first watch. They were making eight knots. Suddenly
canvas was called out. By the time Morgan got up they were alongside. She was a schooner,
with a queer little lug foresail, pitiful small, being bounced like a barrel by every
wave. A man in an oilskin clung to the mast. As they came alongside, they saw him
open his mouth, roar. Myer stood at the stern with a bull-horn and they bellowed
back and forth across the wild sea. The voices, in shreds, drifted by on the wind.
He was barely audible, impossible to understand, but they were all cheered by the
sound of a strange voice.

Near breakfast-time land was announced to the north. Myer wrote his guesses in the
log. Cape Warrender? Cape Bullen? He could not keep away from the map, but they did
not really need it. They needed only to follow the coast, until it turned north into
the Wellington Channel, at Beechey Island.

PART II

20th September

Three headboards were planted in the slate of the eastern shore, to guard three mounds
of shale, shovelled from the ground round about. They lay in a neat row, facing east.
Each had an inscription burned into the wood. Morgan took out his little notebook
and wrote them down verbatim. They were all three much the same. The name and the
ship, then the date and the age. William Braine RM. HMS Erebus. Died April 3d 1846
aged 32 years. John Hartnell AB. HMS Erebus. Died January 4th 1846 aged 25 years.
John Torrington departed this life January 1st AD 1846 on board of HM ship Terror
aged 20 years. Choose Ye This Day Whom Ye Will Serve, said Braine's marker, the marine.
Consider Your Ways, said Hartnell's. Torrington's had nothing but the bare unbending
facts.

Down by the shore, Austin's men had found hundreds of food tins, filled with shale.
Ballast, Morgan said. To bring them home. All about the island they'd found scraps
of paper, canvas, cloth. Spent and unspent matches, heaps of cinders, heaps of nails.
Austin had found a cairn, too, on the island's highest point, and dismantled it to
the last stone. They'd found nothing near it but a tiny silver key, as for a trinket-box.

Grouped together, so many clues could be made to mean something, Myer told his officers.
Morgan knew better than to contradict him. His captain obviously could not think
straight for hope and sympathy and ambition.

A raked patch of ground showed rows of mountain sorrel and saxifrage, all shrivelled
and black, years old. It was a garden, Myer announced. And no one plants a seed but
expects to tend it, or later to harvest. It was an anchor, Myer went on. Or a marker
to come back to. In either case, it spoke of journey's end.

Mr Myer, your reasoning is quite sound, DeHaven said, but neutered by plain fact.
Farmer Franklin, where is he now?

Later that day, Morgan and DeHaven walked the island alone. Coming over each new
hill, Morgan expected to find
something waiting for him. He was not sure what. He'd
been to Easter Island, and a hundred times had met that stern, unflinching stare.
It followed you around the landscape. It remembered everything, and could not be
appeased. It had decided where exactly to lay the blame. Somehow, he expected to
meet similar sentries here.

Afterwards, the two men walked to the isthmus that led inland, north. They were like
tourists on a schedule, visiting the sights. Next, the famous sledge-tracks, that
Austin himself had found. In places, the bootprints of those who'd hauled it could
still be seen in the snow, that freeze and thaw had turned to stone. Gently, Morgan
placed his foot in one of the frozen prints. It had been made by a foot much bigger
than his own.

21st September

The
Resolute
was Austin's ship, the expedition commander. She sat well inside Beechey's
bay, alongside the
Intrepid
, the
Assistance
, the
Lady Franklin
. There was also a
supply steamer, the
North Star
. Myer had not brought the
Impetus
in to join them,
but dropped anchor just outside the mouth of the bay. He's shy, DeHaven said, but
Morgan knew it was the shoals Myer was afraid of. With all the other ships watching,
hoping he would run aground. At first, Morgan had been pleased with this new embarrassment,
that might distract a little from his own.

This evening, for the reception, they would have to row all the way over, in heavy
rain.

Am I invited? Kitty asked Morgan, when she saw how he was dressed.

Your name wasn't mentioned, Morgan said. As far as I can recall. Besides, the reception
is not only a matter of pleasure, he told her. They were also going over to discuss
where the
Impetus
was to search.

You could just turn up with me on your arm, she said. It would give them a nice surprise.

I'm not sure the humour would be to everyone's taste.

Are you ashamed of me?

No I'm not.

You're ashamed of yourself, maybe? Is that it?

In the
Resolute
's stateroom, there were charts on the table, prints on the walls.
At Morgan's back, the room was crowded with the other ships' officers, all waiting
for Austin to appear. Since coming down he had looked no one in the eye. He knew
none of them, and was not willing to presume. In any case, he supposed, they had
only a single subject they wanted to discuss. With unusual attention, one by one,
he was studying the framed pictures screwed to the wall. He was desperate to have
something to do with his hands.