The Surfacing (38 page)

I know you could. But I think you'll have enough on your plate. In any case he's
not fit to bring along, as matters stand. You see the state he's in.

But if he stops drinking?

I don't know. I don't think he wants to. I don't think he can.

They talked of Disko, of before. Those people seem like strangers to me now, she
said. Living a very strange life. Doesn't it seem that way to you?

I don't think of it too often, he said. It's hard to imagine, out here.

I sometimes wonder how it would appear to me, if ever I was able to go back.

Perhaps you will, some day.

Perhaps, she said.

We live in hope.

I thought you said hope is not a strategy.

It's not. Not a good one, at least. Not advisable, but inevitable, I suppose.

I've been thinking of it recently. Of what happened there, between us.

What's done is done, Morgan said. What's the use of going over all that again?

She was looking him straight in the eye, had something she had rehearsed, and was
waiting to say.

Perhaps you thought you were doing what you did for my own good, she said. Leaving
me behind, I mean. I can see that now, but at the time I couldn't help asking myself
if in some way I did not deserve it. As if it wasn't in some way a judgement or a
punishment.

Kitty, I gave you no great thought in those days. It was an entirely selfish decision,
I can assure you.

What I'm trying to say, she said, is that before I was sure I was with child, and
I thought I would allow you leave Disko without me, I felt not just betrayed and
abandoned, but totally destroyed, by everything that had taken place between us.

Destroyed? he said.

I don't know if that's exactly the right word. But it feels right to me.

Rather strong, Morgan said. Humiliated, I might understand.

It was more than that. And it wasn't merely at Disko. It stayed with me for a long
time after coming aboard. I don't feel that way anymore.

I'm glad to hear it. I know well it hasn't always been easy, with me. I know I haven't
been much of a help.

Now I'm glad it happened, she said, even the way it did.

When Morgan said nothing she asked him directly: Aren't you? Hasn't it all worked
out for the best?

I'd hardly say that. Given our circumstances. They could be better, to say the least.

But are you not glad it happened? she said. Are you not glad he is alive?

Yes I am, Morgan said.

Despite everything else.

Yes.

But you don't like saying it.

I don't need to say it. Not for you and not for him. Haven't I shown it a thousand
times, in a thousand different ways? Is that not enough?

He was now standing by the stove, leaning forward, both hands flat on the wall, as
though to support it. As though there were a storm outside, as in the old days, and
he needed to feel it, physically, every twinge. But there was no storm. For months
now there had been nothing new to her tilt. There was no more creaking, no complaint.
She sat proud on the surface now, safe from all immediate harm.

Why are you asking me all this? he said. Why are you forcing me to say it out loud?
Do you want me to stay, is that it? I thought we'd been over all that twenty times.
I don't want to go, but in my heart I know it's the best and maybe the only chance
he has.

16th May

Before he even opened his cabin door he could tell something was wrong. There was
too much fresh air. The voices were too loud. They had left the hatch open again.
Climbing up, he could hear a dozen voices chanting, stamping uselessly on the boards.
He stood watching. Tommy was in the middle of the circle, swaying on his feet. Kitty,
Cabot, DeHaven. A slow handclap, all together, as he started to dance. The handclap
quickly wilted and died. Tommy had staggered into the mast.
He stood hugging it with
both arms, drunk with fame and fright. The men were laughing. They seemed outraged
at their own audacity, at how easy the boy would be charmed. Now they grabbed his
arms and legs and carried him wriggling across the deck. They were going to throw
him over the side. The little body swung back and forth. There were shrieks of terror,
brilliant shrieks of delight. All at once, the hands let go.

17th May

For days now Petersen had lain unconscious. In the main mess, in quiet moments, they
could hear every amateur breath. In the evening the men flung down their cards more
noisily. For once they were glad when Tommy cried. Otherwise, someone was always
tinkering on a whistle, or tinkering with a song. They were smothering the dying
man. They were shouting him down.

Finally, on the morning of the 17th, they woke to a sinister silence, and no one
said a word, afraid to disturb it, as often they had been afraid to wake the sleeping
child. They said it was a relief, a deliverance. They reminded themselves of how
much he had suffered. They said he was better off now.

They hauled the bundle ashore. They stood in silence facing the wall of rock. Inland,
the first bruises showed now on the south-facing slopes. MacDonald read something
from the Bible and improvised a speech. The man had been a brother in adversity,
he said. He had been party not only to their fleeting doubts, but to their enduring
hope. They planted a small marker deep in the pile of rocks, almost to the cross-tree,
to keep it straight.

20th May

Waking early, he felt a nice kind of tiredness, one that wanted to be indulged, and
he would have liked to stay in bed all day. But that was a bachelor's fantasy. He
could hear her already fluttering about next door. He could hear the fuss of hammers
and saws, too – last adjustments to the sledge – that came gnawing through the ship,
calling him up. Still he did not move from his bed. He had not the courage yet. He
remembered the haul to Beechey, and hardly knew how to approach it, the idea of starting
anew, of making a like effort all over again. It seemed a mockery of what they'd
done on that trip, to presume it could be reproduced, mechanically. There would be
nothing new out there, the second time. Only the same scenery, the same weather,
the same work. The thousand tiny laws of that other empire, and the rigour with which
they were imposed. And here, now, in a warm ship, in a warm bed, it felt harder than
ever to brush the thing up, make it shine. Here, now, his body believed it had found
its final home, its final comfort and its reward. Even as it tried to tell him so,
he knew it was wrong. On the far side of the planks The Pack was alive, gathering
strength. The world was circling the sun. The clock was counting down, rushing towards
consequence, as it had been for the past two years. A mere two years of his life,
but it felt now like a squandered inheritance.

He left her door ajar, to let in a little light. He stood watching a long time. Tommy
had rolled onto his back. A hand was clawing at the empty air. The mimic of a dream?
Morgan stood in silence, listening. Soon he too was drawing in deep, greedy breaths.
The air of that room was flavoured with something deeply familiar, that he could
not name. He could not separate it from the rest. Even from his own clothes now there
came a troubled song.

The hair was longer now, starting to darken, and starting to curl. Morgan leaned
closer, approached the knife. The
hand that held it was trembling. Fear was bearing
its lamp into all the dark corners, driving every living thing before it, out into
the open. He touched the edge of the blade to the little tress, began to saw back
and forth. The first strands curled into the air. Gently, he told himself. Another
minute was all he needed, before she came back.

He had brought one of DeHaven's tiny glass specimen jars. ‘No luxuries' had been
their new commandment for the past several weeks. Ever so gently, he lifted the curl
of hair. He had succeeded. Still the boy slept carelessly. Outside, the sun was rising,
and the world was in decline. On the maps, in the drawers, the vast unfolded space.
The long days and nights, the seasons, had brought him to bloom. He was floating
in the darkness. The solid world had fallen away.

And then all that was spoiled.

Morgan heard it even as he spotted it, in the very corner of his eye. A fly. Here.
Now. It was not possible, he thought. It was perfectly possible of course. He listened,
tried to find it in the dark. It was a worn metallic spinning, meant to irk, to chafe.

He watched it drift down. It wandered blindly back and forth across the face, the
eye. Morgan watched it feel its way. He could hardly believe its audacity, its contempt.
He wanted to crush it, to hear that tactful little noise. He took a towel from the
bed, knotted the end, but he could not strike. It had settled on the forehead. The
legs were working fiendishly. The boy refused to notice, could accept everything,
even this indignity. He lay perfectly still, poised, as for an illustration. He would
wake easily, in a familiar place, needing nobody, enjoying himself. Morgan stared
helplessly. It could not sting, could not feed, could not lay. How many days had
it left? What was the point?

His hand swept silently past, and the threat lifted it into the air. It swam frantically
on the undertow. He willed it to quiet and settle again. He found it on the locker,
the marble top. He slid closer, assassin. He began to lift his arm – a crisp thump,
he thought, a purple streak – but it was too late, the fly was gone.

He pulled the door full open. The light might draw it out. Maybe he could herd it
– waving comically, like a shipwreck – out into the corridor.

The crew were all gathered out on the ice. The sledge party all in furs. Several
with gutta-percha masks. Banes and Blacker and DeHaven were stamping around in a
circle, laughing at the tracks they made. Their new boots looked like the boots of
giant men. Morgan stood apart looking south, at their new home. He knew what was
waiting for him. The space was vast, made them small. The rewards seemed more doubtful
than ever now. All he had to cheapen the bitterness was the trial to come. At least
they could not be accused of taking the easy way out.

This trial now before us – , he announced. He could not see their faces. They could
not see his. As we turn to face it together, he said, I call on every man now fully
to indulge his faith in the resilience and courage of his companions and captain,
and reassure himself that whatsoever men can do to attain their object will be done
by them. The rest we leave to powers higher than our own.

He could hear the boy crying, felt himself begin to gag. She had gone back down to
see to him. It was as good a moment as any to start.

PART V

20th May

They had whitewashed the name of the ship on the cliff face, in letters twenty feet
high. The word was waiting for them, soaking through the twilight, as they approached.
The ice lay in devastation all along the shore. The best path, he had decided, would
be along the bottom of the cliffs. That narrow ledge was scattered with boulders
and broken slabs of ice, so much rubbish deposited there by the last, incomparable
storm. Nothing was level and nothing straight. It would have been easier, of course,
to abandon the boat and carry everything on their backs, except that they would
need the boat when they came to the open sea.

As a general rule, he wrote, the mornings are worst. The great thirst, he wrote.
The great pains in the soles of our feet. Offshore, great pillars of steam rose up
out of the cracked floe. They slouched along at once resentful and penitent, and
the sweat froze on their faces even as they pulled. The horizon marched ahead of
them, at whatever pace they set. Already, he wrote, it seems a ridiculous way to
proceed. Time after time we must empty the boat. Time after time we have to hack
our way through a solid wall. Often, at such moments, I have been tempted to pipe
them down. He did not. He was desperate, those first days, to put as much distance
as possible between himself and the ship.

They stood straining in the traces, mouths pumping smoke. From every footprint, steam.
The fine slick coating on everything was very like sieved flour. The frozen air rustled
incessantly. With an endless groan the runners dragged over the hard snow. They were
all waiting for the first man to complain. Then there would be a chorus, he knew.

He usually called a halt about midday, for about an hour. He would have preferred
a shorter stop, but they needed all that time to erect the tent and get their food
at least lukewarm. Had they brought her along, he told himself, they could have set
up the conjuror in the boat, under the housing, let her
nurse the flame even as they
were on the move, to have the food heated by the time they stopped. They could have
given her the frozen tins to keep under her furs with the boy, to thaw.

This afternoon, he wrote, at the moment of departure by some shrewd instinct I turned
around. The man directly behind me was Cabot, and at just that instant he was pushing
a handful of snow into the middle of his face. The picture softened me an instant,
I confess. I have experienced personally the dry heat of the Afghan desert, and now
rate the Arctic a fair rival.

He could not help but stare hatefully at what was being stuffed into the open mouth.
Cabot froze, and the snow scattered down the front of his smock. Morgan made no comment.
There was no point. It would soon be running out of the man. It is everything their
precious religion tries to teach them, he wrote that night. Desire and surrender,
fleeting joy, then long painful punishment.

Three times that day the men had to gather around Cabot, to form a shelter from the
wind. They turned their backs on him, and listened as he emptied his bowels again.
By the end he could barely stand, and could not haul, regardless of any threats Morgan
might concoct. Neither then nor subsequently did I make the slightest rebuke, Morgan
wrote. I am no longer the enemy. They have enemies enough out here, is what I want
them to understand.