The White Darkness Read online

  Out of one side of the blanket I could see the woman whose eyes shivered beneath her lids as she dreamed. I couldn’t tell from outside whether she was dreaming in black and white or color. Out of the other side of my itchy plaid tent, I could see Uncle Victor, wide-awake, his overhead light encasing him in a cone of yellow. His eyes were stretched wide as he made calculations on a paper napkin—noting down the facts on the screen: the ground speed, the temperature outside, the remaining flight time . . .

  Keep up, Titus. Planes go so much faster than trains.

  Chapter Five

  Sigurd

  As far as I could tell, Uncle Victor didn’t sleep the whole way to Buenos Aires. I dozed now and then, without shedding any weariness, but whenever I woke up, Victor was still sitting bolt upright in his seat, checking on the progress of the plane.

  He has what people call a “military bearing.” His spine is very straight. At home he doesn’t sleep in a bed. He has a vibrating chair that he bought at the Ideal Home Exhibition back in 1980. I put it down to that. That chair was always the first place I went when I was little and we visited his house. It looked like a dentist’s chair standing in the middle of his living room, and at the turn of a knob on the left arm, it would start to throb. It can throb in two directions—upward from the feet or downward from the neck—or just quiver all over like a rabbit on a highway. Apparently, that improves circulation.

  It looks bigger standing in our living room, now that Uncle Victor has moved in with Mum. Oh, I don’t mean it like that: “moved in with Mum”! Just “moved in”—in case we need tight jars unscrewed or gutters painted or the benefit of his advice. It helps with paying the huge mortgage too, of course. His Therapeutic Vibro-Chair® doesn’t face the fireplace but turns its back slightly on the other furniture: a home-educated chair. We have to walk around it to get to the kitchen—but it has to face due north, apparently, because of the atoms in the body.

  “Hammer a slab of pig iron when it’s lying in a north-south magnetic field, and the atoms all swing about to face north. There now. I’ll leave that with you. Think on.” Twenty-five years of sleeping north-south in the Therapeutic Vibro-Chair® must have aligned the atoms in Uncle Victor’s body and brain into a little fleet of ships all sailing the same way. That’s the object, anyway. Over the years, he has measured an increase of ten points in his IQ.

  And maybe the Vibro-Chair® is why Uncle Victor was content to sit upright all the way to Buenos Aires. Me, I craved to lie down. My legs were twitching as though I were wearing the red shoes in that story: the shoes that skip and jump of their own accord and dance you to an early death.

  Uncle Victor’s tea bags caused a stir at customs in Buenos Aires. The guard dogs patrolling the Nothing-to-Declare area took a keen interest, pushing past me to sniff at the big suitcase. I felt their stiff fur, hot and greasy and terrifying, pressing against my arm. We were summoned to a table by a man with epaulettes and a gun, and instructed, with huge arm gestures, to open the bag. But the customs officers, when they unearthed Victor’s tea bags, were merely amused. They said something to the effect of “The English and their tea!” and grinned at me. After all, why would anyone smuggle drugs into South America? The cold-weather gear did hold their interest for several minutes. The blazing sun boring its way through the roof of the concourse made ski suits look outlandish: like aliens living in our suitcase.

  “From here you go . . . ?” asked the man with the epaulettes, although he had already looked at the label on the case.

  “Tell them, Sym,” said Victor.

  “Antarctica!” I said proudly, and the customs officers bared their teeth at me again in nicotine-stained smiles.

  Beyond the barrier, Jon, the representative of Pengwings, was waiting to greet us. Jon was young and rugged, with huge circles of sweat around the shoulder seams of his shirt. Within two minutes we knew that he had traveled to China, Peru, and Lebanon. Within half an hour he had gathered up four more Pengwings passengers arriving by plane and loaded us into a bus to take us to the hotel. The four wanted a tour of the city, and so did I, although I was daunted by the sight of the bus wavering and sweltering in its own heat haze.

  As it turned out, the air-conditioning was so powerful that we shivered in our seats. The sun’s heat could no more board the bus than the skinny dogs and cats jumping out of its path. As we cruised up and down, I could feel Victor shuddering, and I turned to say that I was cold too. But when I looked, he had his lips bunched up between his teeth and he was trembling, not with cold, but with pent-up rage.

  “Waste of time! Airport hotel. Would have saved all this traipsing back and forth. Save three hours easy.” And I realized that he was still traveling—would still be traveling until the moment he set foot on Antarctic ice. I nestled close to him, partly for warmth, partly because I understood how he felt. Also, I had just realized what lay in store. The four in the coach were only the tip of the iceberg. There were going to be other people on this expedition—the ones my new clothes were intended to impress. And I don’t do strangers.

  None of the people on the bus or gathered in the hotel lobby looked as if they would ever stay at L’Hotel Gide. No strangers to hardship, mind you. Some had been trekking in the Andes or safariing in the Okovango or had walked the Great Wall of China. They were, for the most part, bronzed and polished; their watches showed Pacific time and the phases of the moon. Most seemed to own handheld computers, cameras with lenses as long as my forearm, and tiny mobile phones. (The richer you are, I’ve worked out, the smaller your telephone and the bigger your telephoto lens.) Not that their mobiles would work once we reached Antarctica, but the fact was, our fellow passengers, with the exception of Tillie and Brenda, all possessed lots of everything and had brought most of it with them. They were rich in years, too: The majority were over sixty.

  Everyone said, when they saw me, how glad they were to see a young face. But I’m not sure I believed them. When I’m struggling with arthritis and gout, I think the last thing I’ll want to see is someone fourteen. Anyway, whatever they said, they said it very loud and slowly, seeing my hearing aids and assuming I was a halfwit. I said nothing to disabuse them. Halfwit is what I do best.

  Mr. Pogsbaum (already asking if the hotel had a pool table) had a body like the net under a corner-pocket bulging full of balls. Mrs. Pogsbaum was as thin and stiff as a pool cue, unable to bend at the waist or knees because of arthritis. Extraordinary, to go south with joint pain. But perhaps Mr. Pogsbaum did not give her any choice, or perhaps she had not stiffened up until after they left Florida.

  Colonel Oliver (retired) and Hue Fah were on their honeymoon; a garland of dead flowers still hung around the bride’s neck as they stood waiting in the lobby. They had been living together for twenty years, but apparently Hue Fah had suddenly “taken it into her head that she wanted a piece of paper, odd woman.” Bewilderment still lingered in Colonel Oliver’s milky blue eyes.

  Tillie and Brenda were friends and had been vacationing together for years, escaping their husbands to visit Petra by bus or St. Petersburg by train; every year somewhere more ambitious. Antarctica was to be their best—Brenda had inherited some money—but their last, because next year they were both retiring, and money would be eaten up by duller things.

  There was an African-American journalist—a travel writer—preparing an article on the trip, but he had either written it already or was convinced it would be tedious past bearing, because he had brought eight paperback thrillers to read, a laptop, and sixteen movies on DVD.

  Clough—I don’t know if that was his first or last name—was a Lancastrian, so he instantly took against Uncle Victor for being “Yorkshire.” (It’s a pity God put the two counties next door to each other on the map, seeing how much the inhabitants hate each other.) Clough was a bird-watcher, so he naturally assumed the trip would be chiefly given over to bird-watching. At first he parked his luggage trolley alongside Ms. Adolphus, who had penguin stickers all over her suitcases. Bu
t he moved farther off when he discovered she was a one-bird enthusiast. Ms. Adolphus knew everything there was to know about penguins—“the most wonderful creatures alive!”—and made yearly visits to commune with them on a spiritual level.

  A blond man and boy were standing on the stairs of the hotel, surveying us all as we milled about in the lobby. While Victor was checking in, the man caught my eye and smiled as if he had known me all his life, and yet I had never laid eyes on him or his son before. If I had, I wouldn’t have forgotten.

  “Who’s that?” I asked Uncle Victor, tugging on his sleeve, but he said how was he to know and not to stare. The man looked like Beowulf, Viking-slayer-of-monsters. His son, too, had shoulder-length, curling blond hair and Viking-blue eyes. He came down the stairs without needing to look down at his feet. I was still thinking, “I wish I could do stairs without looking,” when they introduced themselves: Manfred and Sigurd Bruch from Norway.

  Victor spun around and grasped the man’s outstretched hand between both his. “Grand!” he said—which Manfred certainly was, in his white jeans and whiter collarless shirt. Sigurd was all in black.

  “So you too are heading south,” said Mr. Bruch to me. “How agreeable for my son.” His voice was rich to the point of opera; he rather put me in mind of our school headmaster, who’s Welsh and given to singing.

  And then they had gone, out into the sunshine and the garish racket of the street, to see something of the city. I thought for an odd moment that Victor was going to run after them. But the receptionist was thrusting registration forms at him, and there was a line forming behind us.

  Madame Mimi Dormiere-St.-Pierre arrived late, magnificent in a big pink snowsuit that made her look like a baby in rompers, what with her sparse tufts of hair and the big rattle of a microphone into which she dictated her thoughts. She was writing a novel, and quickly promised to include us all in it. The stopover in Buenos Aires had come as a surprise to her, she not having read the itinerary very closely—“All those boring papers!” Hence the snowsuit. She was about as French as apple pie, and discovered to her joy that she owned a beach house very near the couple from Florida. Mimi was so rich, she even had a satellite radio phone that could be used anywhere in the world, including Antarctica.

  All this I found out by watching and listening, of course, not asking. (God forbid!) And I tell you, it’s no mean feat to eavesdrop when you’re wearing hearing aids. A lot of voices all talking at once in an echoing hotel lobby blur together into a blizzard of sound.

  I couldn’t wait to get to my room with its seven satellite TV channels and mini-fridge, sofa, writing desk, double bed just for me, and a view so sunny that the light ricocheted sharp as poison-tipped arrows off the cars far, far below.

  “Can I phone Mum?” I called through the connecting door.

  “Best not,” came the reply.

  Stretching out full-length on the satiny bed, I was faced with an envelope on the pillow. It was for a Pengwings party in the penthouse restaurant at seven o’clock, calling itself—predictably—The Icebreaker. My heart sank.

  For some crime committed by my ancestors in the dark and forgotten days, I came into the world already tarred and feathered. With shyness. It hurts terribly—every bit as much as hot tar choking every pore—and I wish I could be rid of it. But it hurts a lot less than having someone try and peel the shyness off. That’s like being flayed alive.

  Also, Titus and I went to a good deal of trouble to surround ourselves with pack ice. We don’t appreciate icebreakers, do we, Titus? “How about you and I have room service and watch I Love Lucy in Spanish? I’ll tell Uncle Victor I’m ill.”

  “You’re going to have to harness up with these people sometime, you know. Have to decide who you’re going to pull with. Who’s going to be on your team?”

  “I thought I’d use dogs.”

  “Not quite the thing. Not quite in the spirit of British endeavor,” said Titus rather bitterly.

  “Ponies, then.”

  “I shot them all, remember? Or brained them with an ice axe.”

  “Cold hands, Titus. Ease up. I’ll be on your team, then—with Teddy Evans and Birdie Bowers and Cherry and Atch—”

  “Currently unavailable.”

  “Manfred the Viking, then, and that nice Brenda woman, and Jon the tour guide . . . and you.”

  “What about Sigurd?” said Titus.

  “Who?”

  Uncle Victor came in and unfastened the suitcase, looking for the washbag and his shaving kit. My red silk skirt spilled out onto the carpet like blood.

  “Sooner or later, you have to meet them, you know, Sym,” said Titus, putting his arms around me from behind and resting his chin on my head. “I need an opportunity to size them up.”

  “And I suppose it is a chance to wear the red silk,” I conceded.

  “I shall come as I am.”

  “And you won’t wander off, will you?”

  “Not for a minute.”

  The whole noisy hubbub of the penthouse restaurant engulfed me the moment I was through the door. Rods of sound pierced my head like a magician’s swords rammed into a box full of magician’s assistant:

  —pans banging in the kitchen;

  —the sharp twang of Mr. Pogsbaum’s Texan accent: “When we were in Afghanistan before the war . . .”;

  —the headwaiter swearing at a waitress in Spanish;

  —Ms. Adolphus saying, “So they monitored the heartbeat of these poor little preggie Adélie penguins and they got all stressed out as soon as anyone came closer’n thirty yards.”

  Oh yes, little penguins, I know how you feel.

  Me, I stood beside the coat stand, rubbing sleeves with someone’s linen coat on one side, holding hands with Titus on the other, and baring my teeth at anyone who came within thirty feet. Smiling. I like people. I like watching them. It’s just that I’d prefer to do it from a mile away using very powerful binoculars.

  I scanned Colonel Oliver and Hue Fah from head to foot, looking for concealed Romance. But there wasn’t any—unless it was in the way she slipped the medication between her husband’s lips between fetching him glasses of water.

  Madame Doolier-St.-Pierre had exchanged her snowsuit for a gypsy blouse with mirror sequins, but her fuchsia-pink crinkle skirt still overlapped big, fleecy, après-ski clogs. She was intent on cornering the American journalist to discuss creativity and publishers, but he left after ten minutes to telephone his children in Maine. She should have caught him at home: She proved to have another weekend villa in just his neck of the woods.

  On a round table, Clough had spread out his map of Antarctica, which was smothered with small, neat handwriting. The round, white, frilled shape of Antarctica was dwarfed by the larger, white, frilled circle of the tablecloth underneath. People glided up, pored over the tiny writing, and read out the euphonious names of birds: black-browed albatross, great shearwaters, prions, sheathbills, black-bellied storm petrels . . . while Clough frowned and nodded and rocked up and down on the balls of his feet, swallowing huge gulps of champagne to hide his delirious happiness.

  Jon was handing out sheets of paper about the trip, and I wanted one so badly that I almost ventured away from the wall. Almost but not quite. Still the swords of sound slammed through my head, sharp enough to shred everything sensible I had thought of to say, if anyone spoke to me.

  “This your first time on The Ice?” Everyone was using the name as often as possible—The Ice—to prove they knew that professionals and experts always refer to Antarctica as “The Ice.” They were like actors talking about “Sir Larry” to imply they were once on hugging terms with Laurence Olivier.

  Someone dropped a pile of plates beyond the green baize doors. I turned down my volume.

  Beowulf the Viking moved effortlessly from group to group. It did not surprise me to learn that he was a film director (though I made a mental note to write and tell Nikki). Like a camera, Manfred fetched full-face smiles from everyone he spoke to. Like a
photographer, he placed his beautiful son strategically alongside him—an arc lamp that quickly lit up every face. Clearly Sigurd was as charming as his father. “Sigurd.” What an amazing name. What an amazing phenomenon: a teenage boy who could charm! Long hair is a rarity around our way: boys wear theirs plush (like those bus seats that leave marks on the backs of your thighs) or spiky, as if they’ve been electrocuted. I never saw the point of hair if it wasn’t to grow, keep your head warm, and feel nice to the touch. Sigurd’s hair invited touching. At least, it would have, if I weren’t me.

  I began a kind of mental diary, editing events, selecting the highlights, ruthlessly slicing away any unsatisfactory fact.

  Pengwings travelers are all millionaires: film producers, honeymooners, and novelists, beautiful young men with long golden hair, lovely young women in red silk skirts, one moment sipping champagne, the next thrown together by danger on a frozen continent, forming fleeting friendships only possible far from home and dull routine. . . .

  Except, of course, who would believe one word, knowing Sym Wates? Not me.

  Uncle Victor was explaining to Tillie: “Think on. T’bubbles in yon champagne, they cleave to t’oxygen in’t bloodstream and remove it in t’urine. Sap t’body of oxygen.” He always gets more Yorkshire when he’s talking to strangers.

  “It does make me weepy,” Tillie admitted, furiously sipping at the sparkling flute glass in her hand.

  “Say again?”

  “We prefer sherry, really,” said jolly Brenda. “But we’ll drink anything if it’s free.”

  “I bring you a drink.”

  I cracked my head against the wall because I had not heard him coming. It was Sigurd, holding two glasses of orange juice. The Adélie penguins’ heartbeats raced with terror. “I don’t drink,” I said.

  “Nor I. This is why I bring you juice. It is you or it is your father who chooses to visit Antarctica?”

  “Both he’s not my father he’s my uncle Dad’s dead thank you.” I took a sip from the glass and declared it to be very noisy. Inside me, Adélie penguins were reeling to and fro, banging into each other in their panic, knocking each other over domino style.