The Nature of Ice Read online

  The sun tracks below the horizon, the deepening light resisting its pull. Elisia points to their ride home beating through the sky—always too soon. Elisia makes her way down the rocks but Freya lingers, loading her last roll of large format film, only now registering Adam sitting quietly beside her. She photographs the fading shimmer of the plateau, her motor drive burning a ribbon of exposures until she has no more frames to shoot.

  ‘DETOUR.’ THE VOICE OF THE helicopter pilot crackles through the headphones as he veers away from their path home. ‘One of the science teams has left their GPS and a pair of boots at Bandits Hut.’

  ‘How does anyone leave their boots behind?’ Elisia squawks from the back seat. ‘Or a GPS.’

  Adam laughs. ‘That’s the boffins for you.’

  Bandits Hut glints in the last of the sun. The rotors form shadows across its roof as the helicopter descends upon the wooden landing pad. The first time Freya laid eyes upon this hut was during field training; she was so struck with disappointment that she had to force herself to photograph it. People at the station had spoken in glowing terms about weekend jollies to Bandits—a favourite escape from the station. She had romantically imagined it to be the kind of cabin published in calendars her auntie sends from Norway, a fairytale vision that fell as flat as a poorly told joke when she set her eyes upon this metal box—a shanty, she had deemed it then— driven into a hillside of rock.

  From the front seat of the helicopter she has easy access to the door and offers to retrieve the truant articles. She cowers as she passes beneath the spinning rotors; even after a season in her studio beside the heliport she’ll never grow accustomed to the way the blades cut the air to pieces.

  The inside of the hut looks dim, timeless, achingly familiar. She picks up the GPS from a shelf but can’t see the boots. She checks the porch, peers into the darkness below the deck. She returns inside and finally notices the boots staring at her from beneath the table.

  Field training could be a time from another woman’s past, as if then she were a painter’s wash of who she has become. Her second visit to the hut was at New Year, when she rolled her bike crossing the rift in the fjord. That night the hut offered refuge, a sanctuary she had never wanted to leave. Her body aches with the memory of touch, the pain of her injured leg eclipsed by bodily pleasure so sensual and sweet that now, alone in the room, she is reduced to tears. Afterwards, they had lain entwined, midnight light golden on the walls. She spoke of her girlhood, of images and light, he of timber and boats and his life beside the bay—his trust in her, giving up the sadness of his past, each exchange, every offering, tender and true. They talked until morning, as leisurely as lovers with all their lives ahead.

  Dusk deepens to twilight as they fly back towards the station; Venus, the first night light, sits low in the sky.

  The rotors wind down, this time to close her season on the ice.

  ‘That’s everything.’ She thanks the pilot, taking her tripod from the hold and wishing, as she does so, that she could wind back time.

  ‘I’m off to wash my hair before the rush hour,’ Elisia shouts, slinging her pack onto her shoulder. Freya watches her stride towards the road.

  ‘With you bevy of beauties on station,’ Adam says, ‘it’s no wonder we’re on water rations.’

  The echo of the rotors still rings in her ears. Her back and shoulders ache from the weight of her pack.

  ‘Thanks for coming out today, Adam. For all your help.’ She feels ashamed of her prejudice against him. Before turning to Adam she had asked two other trip leaders to join her today. Everyone was frantic finishing projects, packing gear inside containers ready for the ship. Adam had put aside all he had to do to accompany her.

  ‘Hey, we’re not finished yet. Let’s haul this gear upstairs.’

  At the landing she pulls open her studio door. ‘I’ll miss this old rust bucket.’

  ‘You know you’ve been here too long when you’re growing sentimental over a sea container.’

  She turns to him. ‘Adam, I’m sorry about the start of the season. That you didn’t get to come out earlier.’

  He holds open the door. ‘Ancient history.’

  He lays his bags on the floor and slides the pack from Freya’s back. ‘That’s way too heavy, even for an independent woman.’

  She stretches and releases the tightness in her shoulders.

  ‘Am I allowed a sneak preview of your exhibition?’ he asks.

  ‘I can show you some digitals from our day at Beaver Lake.’

  He stands behind her chair, humming as she fires up her laptop.

  ‘Glacier.’ She tilts the screen so he can see. ‘Here we go. Landing on Beaver Lake. Apple field huts … more Apples.’ She swivels on her chair. ‘You still awake?’

  ‘No chance of losing me.’ He squeezes her shoulders.

  Freya tenses at his touch. ‘Grab a chair, if you like.’

  ‘I’m happy here.’

  She opens a new folder of images. ‘People photos. Here you are on our walk.’

  He leans down, his chin brushing her hair. ‘The Devil’s Teeth.’

  She hears her voice flutter. ‘They were remarkable.’

  Click.

  ‘Snow petrels.’

  Click.

  ‘More snow petrels. My favourite.’

  ‘My favourite, too.’ He rests the palms of his hands on her shoulders and presses down. She feels his thumbs knead the flesh around her scapulae.

  ‘Adam.’ She murmurs the warning.

  ‘Hush.’ He rolls his knuckles along her spine. ‘Other women say I should be paid to do this. Two minutes of Adam Singer therapy and you’ll feel brand new.’

  He massages her shoulders again with both hands. His thumbs work harder through her shirt, the pressure increasing until it edges into pain, the coarse woollen fibre chafing her skin. She winces.

  ‘Too hard?’ He eases off.

  She shakes her shoulders free and clicks to the next photo. ‘Pagodroma Gorge. My husband says that Pagodroma nivea is the Latin name for snow petrel.’ She’s babbling now.

  ‘Those small white birds were a long way from home.’ She feels his hand glide under her collar, his fingers slipping beneath her bra strap.

  She catches his reflection in the screen. ‘Please don’t.’

  He gives her a wounded, puppy dog look. She shakes her head. But Adam won’t stop. He takes the nape of her neck in one hand and crawls the fingers of the other over her scalp. When she tries to squirm free his fingers fasten like a clamp.

  She forces her chair back against him and yanks free of his hold. She stands to face him. ‘I don’t want this,’ she says. ‘Don’t you understand?’

  ‘I understand, alright,’ he says. ‘Did you put up a struggle when McGonigal fucked you? Is that what you like?’

  Freya edges past her desk. The strength of her voice belies her fear. ‘I want you to go.’ She pushes on the door handle. A wall of cold air rushes in.

  She stands in the doorway with one foot on the landing so she is in view of the helicopter team. ‘I don’t want to make any trouble. I just want you to go.’

  ‘Trouble.’ He smirks, reaching for his pack. He raises his knee hard between her legs, pushes into her, his breath warm on her face. ‘Your troubles, cunt, have only just begun.’

  FANG

  PEAK

  IS THERE ANYTHING AS DRIVEN as a katabatic wind hell-bent on scouring snow from the icecap, hammering Fang Peak as it rolls downhill from the plateau, and blowing the stuffing out of a work crew who are struggling to patch the field hut’s leaky roof? Though Chad positions his weight against the flashing of the roof hatch, squalls from all directions threaten to knock him from his knees and hurtle him on his belly across the blue roof like a tobogganing penguin. Welcome back to Mawson Station, the wind might be yelling. May we take your coat? Make that peel his coat—whose dodgy zipper Chad has neglected to fasten—up over his head like a spinnaker set to sail him across to Casey Range.
Chad drags off a glove and clenches it between his teeth. As he battles with the zipper of his coat he catches Barney’s smirk. Barney Foot, fellow chippie and Chad’s best mate, rolls his eyes and grins.

  It’s not even close to dinner time and Chad’s worn out, not just from lack of sleep, but from the physical effort of the day: the weight and restriction of layers he’s compelled to wear against a minus-forty windchill, from aching fingers no gloves can keep warm. Most of all he’s fed up with this mad dash against time—winter closing in, the Polar Bird, his ride to Hobart, due in Horseshoe Harbour any day—to finish repairs to this last field hut in the midst of a gale that refuses to let up. The squeal of the wind pierces his dreams and stalks him through the night until even the otherworld of sleep offers small reprieve. Too late he grabs for a screwdriver that skittles across the roof out of reach. Welcome back to Mawson, McGonigal. Anyone mention the wind?

  CHAD WAKES TO SILENCE. HE opens his eyes and savours the utter, glorious calm. His watch reads eight am. He can hear his breath, can count his heartbeat pulsing slow and steady in his chest—he fancies he can even hear the voice that whispers through his thoughts. Barney stirs in his bunk and then props himself upright in his sleeping bag, a silver-haired mummy rejoining the living. The bunk above creaks and Robbie, the junior communications technician, leans down to inform them that Vaughan, in the other top bunk, is still out for the count. Robbie stares out the window and blinks. ‘What’s that noise?’

  ‘That’s the sound of silence ringing in your ears.’ Barney scratches his balls.

  CHAD’S BODY FEELS WEIGHTLESS AFTER days encumbered by windproof layers. He wears overalls and a woollen shirt; thin gloves are all he needs to protect his hands. Chad, Barney and Vaughan, the wintering plumber with a perpetual yawn, finish the roof in the space of the morning. They forgo lunch to help Robbie remount the radio mast and stays that snapped off during winter.

  Fang Peak is the last of Mawson’s field huts up for repair; by mid-afternoon Barney, coordinator of the summer maintenance program, declares their work complete.

  ‘Barney, think it’s worth driving all the way back to station today?’ Other than field training, it’s Robbie’s first time off the station. Who can blame him for wanting the chance to stay out? ‘We’re not officially due back until tomorrow,’ Robbie angles.

  ‘Ask Chad,’ Barney says. ‘He’s the one with a ship to catch.’

  ‘Okay by me,’ Chad tells him.

  Barney elbows Vaughan whose jaw, agape, snaps shut like a flytrap. ‘What d’you say, young fella: first up the mountain?’

  All four of them climb up to the saddle of Fang Peak. A million-dollar view, Barney says, across to the Masson Ranges, before them Mount Parsons running down towards the coast. For the first time in weeks Chad feels the warmth of the sun radiating through him.

  Though Robbie could be easily persuaded, he shows allegiance to Vaughan who won’t be talked into climbing to the top, no matter how Barney ribs him about being twice his age and fitter by half again. Finally Vaughan speaks the magic words. ‘Carn, Robbie. Let’s take the bikes and drive down to the wind scour.’ Offer Robbie a quad and he’ll follow you to the end of the earth.

  ‘Stay well away from the edge!’ Barney barks after them. He turns to Chad. ‘Do you suppose that pair have a fully functional brain between them?’

  ‘Nowhere near as cluey as you and I were.’

  Chad and Barney rope up at the final section to scramble up the couloir. Fang Peak’s tip looks sharp enough to pierce the sky and rises one thousand metres above sea level. Up here the Antarctic air feels noticeably colder. Chad exhales vapour as he levers his body upward through the final cut of rocks.

  At the crest he turns in a full circle, absorbing each degree of scenery. He pulls his camera out of his pack to snap mountains that burst through the icecap; rivers of rippled blue ice give way to snow banks, the flow lines of the plateau run steadily downhill to the coast. A real photographer would think herself in paradise up here.

  The Mawson hinterland has the most raw and rugged feel of the three continental bases. Beyond the cane line the plateau becomes a crevasse-riven field of ice. Through his binoculars he pans over the blue ice to the east until it gives way to waves of sastrugi that roll on forever. This region has an ominous quality—fiercely beautiful, hostile, unforgiving—you feel it the first time you step off the station, as if it could be warning you, watch out.

  He and Barney cradle mugs of sugared tea, backs to the sun like a pair of old dogs. The air in Antarctica is so clear that someone might guess it a ten-minute drive from Fang Peak to the coast, yet here they are twenty-six k’s inland, alone on top of the world. There’s no whisper of yesterday’s wind, no calls of birds, no drone of planes winding through the sky. The Casas left Mawson Station weeks ago and by now will have gone from Davis, their summer of field work complete. Davis Station must seem like a ghost town this week, with Freya and the other summerers aboard Aurora Australis and on their way home.

  Each evening the sun dips down below the horizon minutes earlier than the evening before, a presage of winter closing in. On a clear evening Venus shines through the twilight—give it a few more weeks and the night sky will cascade with stars, auroral lights will sway.

  Barney produces a hip flask from his pack and pours a slug of amber liquid into his tea. He passes the flask to Chad. ‘Mother’s milk.’

  Chad runs his finger over the initials inscribed in the stainless steel, a little cartoon foot etched below. ‘Maggie give you this?’

  ‘A long time ago now.’ He gestures to the ice: ‘Thought I’d give it all away after Mags. Yet here we are, my friend, still fools for the place.’

  The shimmer of icebergs dipped in golden afternoon light, brings Freya to the surface of Chad’s thoughts. The two men sit in silence long past the time it takes to finish their thermos of tea.

  ‘What’s on your mind, lad?’

  If a person hadn’t known Barney Foot for as many years as Chad, they might think him an odd choice of confidant, his manner gruff, questions harsh, a man seemingly as rugged as rock. But on this cold, clear afternoon above the plateau, Chad speaks for the first time of Freya, knowing anything he says will go no further. He speaks to ease the heartache that won’t go away on its own, to shift the weight that builds up from keeping things held down too long.

  THE WORK PARTY—TWO QUAD bikes in the lead, the blue Hägglund bringing up the rear—follows the cane line back towards the station at what must feel to Vaughan, who’s been shanghaied into joining Barney in the Hagg, a glacial pace. Chad can see Vaughan slumped in the passenger seat, headphones on to drown out the engine noise. Barney, on the other hand, with his huge knuckles raised like a ridge line over the steering wheel, could not be more content cruising along in a heated over-snow vehicle at fifteen kilometres an hour. Leaving them behind, Chad and Robbie sprint ahead on the bikes. Each time Robbie gets the nod from Chad he veers off the marked route to wind donuts across some irresistible slick of blue ice while they wait for the Hagg to catch up. More speed than sense, Barney will be muttering in the Hagg. Robbie’s alright, he’s a good guy; his first season down here, been cooped up at the station too long.

  Chad sees it first, a kilometre away down the hill: the bronzen sheen of the Russian aircraft wreck glinting in the sun. In the late sixties the DC 3 landed on the plateau to refuel. The old colour photos in the yearbook show it readying for takeoff on its way back to the Russian station. One second the plane was taxiing down the skiway, the next a katabatic gust shunted it off course, its starboard ski smashing through the lid of a crevasse and damaging a wing and a propeller. A forlorn crew of Russians escaped unscathed but their plane lay in the ice for the remainder of summer. Finally, the katabatic took charge of the plane one last time and flipped it belly up.

  Yet in a slow, quiet way the plane’s journey continues. The great dome of ice, two and a half thousand kilometres from pole to coast, three thousand metres thick at
its deepest, gradually ferries the wreckage seaward as it inches downhill.

  Even with the snow blown away, it’s a fluke Chad even spotted the wreckage—apart from a wing, a ski and half an engine—the wreck is buried in ice. He pips his horn to catch Robbie’s attention and points out the plane. He doesn’t for a moment expect Robbie to interpret his gesture as a signal to bolt down towards the wreckage, which he does at breakneck speed. Chad shouts after him, then blasts his horn. He can see the Hagg approaching, Barney through the windscreen shouting and throwing up his hands.

  Chad signals that he’ll bring him back.

  As he follows warily over the same bumps and ridges that Robbie bounded across, he wants to wring the young guy’s neck. Robbie finally slows, sensing something ahead. He brings the bike to a halt and stands tall on the foot braces. Chad swings his bike and brakes to avoid a ridge of névé obscured momentarily by the glare. His quad slides onto a patch of blue ice and he feels the front wheels spin. A sound like shattering glass cuts the air. Robbie turns to look back. But Chad already knows what it means. Too late he knows.

  As the snow bridge gives way Chad loses his grip on the handlebars, slides backwards, his limbs flailing as if he were backstroking through sheets of tinted glass. He has time only to register the glow of ice, the surreal hue of the crevasse, before the wind is punched from his lungs by the bulk of a two-hundred-and-fifty-kilogram bike rammed up against him. Time ceases to be linear but curls around itself as the shine of red metal dims. So this is the end, Ma says matter of factly—hers is the voice that winds through his head.