When Nights Were Cold (7 page)

‘I knocked.'

‘You didn't wait for an answer.'

‘For goodness' sake. I don't expect better from you, Locke, but, you, Farringdon, I won't have you in my team if you can't be responsible. I have to get up early for my exercises and now I won't get enough sleep.' Her right hand rose to her clavicles and she rubbed at her skin. ‘I'm too distressed.'

Each morning, from half past five precisely, rhythmic crashes and bumps came from behind Parr's bedroom door. In the first week of term, several of us had gathered in the corridor worried that she was having some sort of fit and wondering whether it would be all right to barge in. The door had opened and Parr's head popped out, red and boiled-looking, to tell us to clear off.

‘Your exercises wake us before the bell,' I said now. ‘And we don't complain that you seem intent on bringing the building down. Perhaps we ought to, since you are so enthusiastic about rules and regulations.' I should not have said this, of course. I should have apologized for the noise and let her leave satisfied, but her criticism that I was somehow unfit for the hockey team was cruel.

‘What business is that of yours? When you're working as a governess for some grim family you found in the
Morning Star,
you'll wake up when you have to. I should think you'd want to prepare yourself for what's to come. Goodnight. If you disturb me again, I'll make a proper complaint.'

Parr left and slammed the door, being careful not to catch her nightgown. A framed photograph of Locke's brother fell from the dresser and the glass shattered.

‘She's insufferable.' Locke took the coal brush from the fireplace and knelt to sweep up the glass. ‘She'll never have to work in her life – or marry either – if she doesn't want to. She's an heiress, you know. I heard that she owns two houses in London and another in the countryside.'

‘And perhaps I'll have to be a governess in the end, but I am going to fight it all I can.'

‘What's that smell?'

Leonora jumped up and came to the fire.

The toast was burnt. I opened the window and waved the pieces around in the cold night until they stopped smoking. Then I dropped them into the bin. Locke cut more bread and put it on the forks.

‘If one has money, one can probably do anything.' I pictured Parr sweeping through grand houses and gardens, in her nightgown and cap, with no one near but cowering servants.

‘She can't vote, though.'

‘No, so then we're all in the same boat after all.'

I knew nothing then of the tragedy in Parr's life or how she had come to be so wealthy. Poor Cicely Parr. A tragic beginning and a nasty end. In between she met Locke and me, which may or may not have been compensation. But we were eighteen or nineteen years old and not able to be much better than we were.

‘Why should you care what she thinks?'

But I did care what Parr thought. I cared because she was the captain and, despite her strange manners and eccentric qualities, I looked up to her. It was what Father had taught me and what I had learned from all my reading about explorers and heroes. We must respect our leader, even in difficult times. I wanted her to think well of me but, of course, Locke was right and I should not care.

Chapter Six

The
Nimrod
had sailed from the East India Dock to Temple Pier for exhibition to the public. Admission was 2s 6d. I had the money in my hand before I reached the Embankment. It was a cool day in late October but the crowds were pink-faced and sticky-looking. A group of boys played at the river's edge, trying to get a dog to jump over sticks and into the water, laughing and cheering as it splashed and panted. I became distracted watching them, tripped over a man's foot and fell into a shoe-shine boy, sending him sprawling. The boy waved away my apology, set out his stall again with a stoical shrug. I fought through families, couples and groups of young men to reach the pier, wondered why so many had come to see what I wanted to believe was my own private interest, and then I stopped. The sky and river thickened and thinned as I stared. Sounds flattened until there was just the soft lapping of water.

The ship was as long and narrow as the pictures had suggested, striking with its black hull and high masts. It lay calmly in the water as though, after its turbulent voyage, it wanted sleep. I had heard that members of the expedition team might be here to explain things to visitors and I prayed that there might be the smallest possibility of meeting Shackleton.

When I stepped onto the ship, the spirits of the explorers were so thick in the air that, were the real men here, I would not have noticed them. I peered into the men's sleeping quarters – they called them Oyster Alley – and the areas for the ponies and dogs and sledges, the food stores. Everything was just as the newspapers had described it and almost as I had imagined, but the ship was not thousands of miles away at the bottom of the world. It was here and my feet were touching the deck and its dust and air were going into my nostrils and down into my lungs. I reached to touch the wall. My hand rested on the wood as crowds shoved past. I shut my eyes to feel the place better.

We were out on the ocean, sailing across the Weddell Sea, icebergs hunched and sleeping. The men shuffled in and out of their quarters, up and down the ship, some silent, some muttering, one shouting to another. Water sloshed around my feet and sprayed my hair. Salt seared my cheeks and pricked my eyes. Ernest called out to me, asking for my help.

Farringdon, make sure that the ponies are all right.

Aye, Captain.

Aye, Captain?

What a fool. If I did not try to keep a grip on reality, I might lose my mind and slip into the wrong world, just as my father always did, and wind up talking to ghosts and sea spirits when I needed to concentrate on studying and learning.

I crossed the Embankment to the Medical Examination Hall to see the exhibition of stores and equipment. Photographs lined the walls, windows to a crumbly white world where coal-eyed men huddled to light pipes with mittened hands, where ice made an atlas of the sea, and the ship tilted, tall and black against the sky, as birds wailed above the masts. Around the room were stuffed seals, penguins, skua gulls, positioned as though ready to jump or to fly. A dummy explorer stood by the door of a weather-beaten tent all prepared to set out onto the ice. He was dressed in the clothes of a real expedition member. He looked as though there was warmth in him, as though he might open his mouth and exhale a white ball of breath. I wanted to touch him and I lifted my hand but didn't dare reach out, lest I disturb or interrupt him. There were two sledges, one loaded and ready for its journey, and the smashed-up remains of another.

There were sleeping bags, finnesko boots, ski boots, oil lamps and cookers. There were scientific instruments: the theodolite, for surveying and taking observations for position; the aneroid barometer, for taking the altitude of mountains; the hypsometer, for ascertaining the altitude by the boiling point of water; and the thermometers which were carried on the sledge journeys. I catalogued each item in my notebook.

I saw a small printing machine and a copy of
Aurora Australis
, which the members of the party composed and printed. There were several cameras, a gramophone and a sewing machine. I examined every item carefully, then I returned to the figure at the tent and watched him for some time, as though I expected him to speak to me. What might he say? I tried to shut out the chatter so that there were just the explorer and me. How I would have liked to enter that room, at night, and stand alone with him.

‘Splendid to see the public so excited. We must celebrate this and encourage it.'

The voice was rounded and carried a sense of its own importance. I twisted around to see whose it was. My knees softened and I put my hand to my mouth, then snatched it away and tried to appear composed. It was Ernest Shackleton. He was as tall and handsome as he seemed in photographs and was addressing a group of men and women near the door. I must speak, I thought, and ask him about the expedition, real questions that others wouldn't ask, about the feeling of boots on ice, of frozen hair, the smell of burning whale oil. Would he ever consider taking someone like me on his next expedition? There was too much in my head. If only these people would go away, I could think of my words. I moved closer until I was just behind him. He didn't notice.
It's me!
I wanted to say.
Don't we know each other so well by now?
The crowd swelled and shoved around the door and this gave me my chance to do something I didn't know I was going to do. A tan kid glove protruded from his pocket. I snapped it out and put it up my sleeve.

I committed the act of theft without much control, but I held the glove firmly in the crook of my elbow and walked away. Yes, it was shameful, but Shackleton was a polar explorer and must have plenty of gloves. I might knit a pair myself and send them to him, so that this one, this very glove that had warmed the flesh and muscles and bone of the great explorer's hand, could stay with me.

I dawdled along the Embankment, turning sometimes for another glimpse of the
Nimrod.
I had three years at college in which to lay my plans. I would return to my room and work harder than ever, not only at my studies but at my research and preparations. Shackleton may have failed, again, to reach the Pole, but we were closer now and within the next few years someone would certainly make it. The glove would sit on my desk and keep me sure of my way.

And it was dark when I reached the college. Curtains were drawn in most rooms around Main, but a muted light shone through and made the college shimmer. Only the top floor, as yet uninhabited, was dark. I saw spectres of future students bustling and laughing behind the black panes. I passed under the clock tower and followed the edge of the lawn around the quad to my door. In the long windows of the dining room and kitchen, silhouettes of cooks and maids moved. We were passengers and workers together on an ocean liner. I thought of my mother and sister at home, keeping the fires going and tending to my father in his bed, sailing on a different sea.

I arrived in my corridor to see that students were already closing their doors and leaving for dinner. The hem of my skirt was damp and dirty so I went to my room and changed quickly into my best dress, cream and brown with stiff, fiddly buttons. I dashed through the building to join the others.

Staff and students processed each night in fine gowns and jewellery. We gathered at the east common room and found our dining partners, all chosen and approved at the beginning of term. There were about a hundred and fifty students that year. Miss Hobson, the principal, would then lead us to the dining hall. The selected student of the day would walk beside her, required to make interesting and erudite conversation. No one enjoyed this privilege and each dreaded her own turn.

The procession passed through the library and then into the museum, bright with grand candelabra. A few latecomers waited in the shadows each evening, ready to creep out and join the back of the line. Tonight I was the only one. I fell into place after the others, catching phrases of the conversations, something about a sick uncle in Littlehampton and a tiresome classics lecture that no one had understood. I shut my ears and remembered the exhibition. The picture that came to me now was not the ship itself, or any item on board, but the figure of the explorer, setting out with his sledge, in the middle of a noisy hall in London, exquisite in his peace and determination, oblivious to gaping crowds. This was my lesson. I must keep him in mind, must be like him. I lifted my hands slightly as I walked and let them find his, just inches away.
Where is my glove? I had two.
I smiled and touched his fingers with mine.

The dining hall crossed the width of Main, separating the two quads. The senior staff and two chosen students sat at high table as the rest of us took our seats.

I joined Locke, who was with Hester Morgan and Cicely Parr. She was relating a meeting she'd had that afternoon with Miss Hobson. Locke knew how to amuse her audience, had eyes that flicked easily from one listener to another, knowing just how long to rest with each person before pulling in the next. Her hands made quick, graceful gestures. Hester Morgan laughed as Locke spoke. Morgan was a pleasant, always smiling girl with a pink bulbous face, thick limbs and a voice that had the quality of a lowing cow. She was standing to be president of the Suffrage Society and always wore an ivory
Votes for Women
button on her lapel. She was friends with Edith Foot and, later on, the pair were to spend time in prison for suffragette activities. Morgan kicked a policeman in the face and Foot took to sleeping on the roof of a house belonging to a Tory MP. Neither ever married and they shared a house after the war, not far from Dulwich but I didn't keep in touch. Perhaps they are still there now.

‘Are you all right, Farringdon?' asked Morgan. ‘Noticed you weren't in the lab today.'

‘I'm fine.' I wondered whether I should pretend to be unwell. In fact I was still quite tipsy on my adventure and was sure I glowed with good health.

‘She has a cough,' said Locke, who knew where I had been. ‘And the fumes from all the chemicals make it worse.'

‘Oh dear,' said Parr. ‘Will you be playing hockey tomorrow or should I drop you from the team?'

Parr regarded physical infirmity as a sign of mental weakness. If a player were ill or injured, she showed no sympathy but bossed them out of the way. We put up with it because so often she led us to victory, but we sometimes asked each other what Parr would do if she twisted an ankle or felt unwell. We suspected that it would never happen. I laughed with the team but I aspired to be as strong as Parr. I had even taken up her regime of daily exercise before chapel, only making sure not to make noise and wake the others.

‘It's nothing.' I gave a pathetic cough.