The Dark

by Emma Haughton

  It’s enough to make anyone paranoid.

  ‘Luuk, I’d like to speak to you in my office,’ Sandrine says, ignoring me. ‘Alex, go back to your room and sober up.’ With that she disappears. It’s then I notice Tom hovering in the doorway, observing us all. I try to catch his eye, but he turns and vanishes in Sandrine’s wake.

  A hand squeezes my shoulder. Drew. ‘Don’t take it to heart,’ he says as he gets the mop out of the cupboard to help Caro clean up. ‘She’s under a lot of strain.’

  I flash him a grateful smile, but I’m angry and humiliated. Can’t Sandrine see I’m trying to do my best? What the hell is her problem with me anyway?

  However hard I try, I can’t get past the feeling the station leader resents me for even being here. Though, thankfully, there’s been no mention of my missing pills – it seems whoever took them wanted them for themselves.

  I glance over at Arne, who’s standing in the corner, his expression deeply troubled. Without a word, he turns and leaves. I hear him heading up the corridor towards the skype room, probably to call his girlfriend.

  The thought is oddly painful. For the first time since losing Ben, I find myself wishing I had someone else. Someone I could confide in. Someone who could soothe and reassure me, even from a distance.

  In all my life, I realise, I’ve never felt more alone than now.

  12

  12 June

  ‘You seem low.’

  The screen flickers, and my sister’s face blinks out for a moment. I pray we’re not about to lose the connection again. Skype calls, given our limited bandwidth, are hazardous at the best of times, and we’re restricted to one ten-minute slot a week.

  Not that I often use mine.

  ‘I’m fine,’ I lie, knowing she won’t be fooled. Even ten thousand miles away with a dodgy internet connection, Clare’s emotional radar is infallible.

  ‘You don’t look it.’ She studies my grainy image in her monitor. ‘You look pretty terrible, actually.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I mutter, although my sister’s right. With no sunlight, my skin is pale and pasty – a fate only Rajiv and Sonya have escaped – and the pink line of my scar looks worse than ever. Plus I’ve lost weight since my body clock went haywire – it’s hard to eat when your brain insists you should be in bed.

  ‘You sleeping okay?’ Clare wears the expression I’ve come to know well since the accident – a mix of concern and barely suppressed exasperation.

  ‘Only a few hours at a stretch,’ I admit, shifting on the plastic seat in the tiny box room reserved for these calls. ‘It’s the lack of light.’ Despite the disorienting effect of twenty-four-hour days when I arrived, waking to darkness is worse, both demoralising and physically draining. I feel as if my body is falling apart, little by little, the longer I’m here.

  ‘So are you taking anything for it?’ My sister’s tone is loaded.

  ‘Pills, you mean?’

  She gives a curt nod.

  I inhale, wondering how to reply. Clare’s already read me the riot act and threatened to report me, back when she rumbled the contents of my bin. But it’s not illegal for doctors to self-prescribe in the UK, just severely frowned upon, and I knew Clare wouldn’t risk losing me my job. It was the one thing I had left, after all. I had to sell the house after Ben had gone, unable to pay the mortgage on my salary alone, and was forced to rent somewhere smaller.

  ‘No, I’m not,’ I lie again, keeping my expression deadpan as shame washes through me. If Clare knew the truth, that I was helping myself to precious station supplies, she’d probably disown me.

  I wait for her to call my bluff, but she evidently decides it will get her nowhere. ‘Are you eating?’ she asks instead.

  I imagine my sister working through a mental checklist. Sleep – tick. Addiction – tick. Eating habits – tick. Next she’ll be asking if I’m getting enough fresh air – to which the answer is obviously no; I go out into that impenetrable darkness as little as possible.

  ‘Yes, I’m eating.’ I try not to sound annoyed. I owe Clare patience and politeness at the very least. With our father dead and our mother so far away, it fell to my sister to keep vigil by my hospital bed in those first days following the crash. To warn me about the extent of my injuries before handing me the mirror I was demanding. To take me into her busy family home during those weeks of recuperation before I could find a new flat and return to work.

  ‘You sure?’ Clare looks unconvinced.

  I ignore the question. ‘So how are things your end?’ I ask instead, hoping to divert her from ‘project Kate’.

  ‘Same old,’ she sighs. ‘Eleanor hates her new school, and Toby … well, you know Toby. I’ve had to hide his Xbox. He’s currently mounting a one-boy war of psychological attrition.’

  This makes me smile. My nephew has inherited his mother’s obstinacy and doggedness, which naturally leads to frequent clashes.

  ‘And John?’

  Clare grimaces. ‘In Bahrain.’

  I pull a sympathetic face. My high-flying brother-in-law, with his position in the Foreign Office, is more frequently out of the country than in it, leaving my sister to manage the bulk of the childcare and domestic responsibilities on top of a demanding job as a human rights lawyer.

  I often wonder how she puts up with it. Then again, I’m hardly the oracle on relationships.

  ‘Plus it’s insanely hot here,’ she complains. ‘Another bloody heatwave. As soon as John comes home he’s promised we can go away for a week. Take the kids to the beach.’

  I try to imagine a world that isn’t endless ice, where water is liquid without being heated, and you can sit outside in a T-shirt and shorts. It seems impossible. My sister lives on another planet. In another galaxy.

  A couple of seconds of blankness as the call stalls again. When it resumes, I only catch the tail end of Clare’s question: ‘… you’d tell me if there was something wrong, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Of course,’ I lie a third time, but I’m betrayed by the tears that suddenly prick my eyes. How does my sister do that? Manage to home in on the core of my unhappiness? Perhaps it’s her job – I guess you develop an instinct for other people’s anguish.

  Clare chews the side of her lip and sighs again, and I wish I could confide in her. Could tell her about someone stealing my pills and going through all my things, and how it has played on my mind ever since. How, despite my best efforts, it has made me suspicious of almost everyone.

  But it’s out of the question. I consider telling her instead about the atmosphere on the base. Though there’s been no more actual fights since the incident in the laundry room two weeks ago, the general mood hasn’t improved. Everyone is on tenterhooks, either avoiding company or sticking to safe little cliques. Luuk and Rob are rarely seen apart, while Caro hangs out with Alice and Alex, who’s still shunning me. I spend most of my free time with Drew, who thankfully seems happy with life in the friend zone. Arne too, although mostly he keeps himself to himself.

  But why burden my sister with all this? The last thing I want is her worrying about me even more.

  ‘Lisa messaged me the other day,’ she says out of nowhere. ‘She was asking how you are. Said you hadn’t replied to her recent email.’

  I feel my cheeks flush. ‘I’ve been busy.’

  My sister narrows her eyes at me. ‘She’s your best friend, Kate. She worries about you. For Christ’s sake email her. Mum too. She says she’s written to you twice and not heard anything.’

  A commotion breaks out in the background. Toby’s voice, indignant, yelling something at his sister.

  Clare rolls her eyes. ‘I’d better go. It’ll be open warfare if I don’t intervene.’

  ‘Give them my love,’ I say quickly. ‘Tell Toby to cut you some slack, or I won’t bring him back a penguin egg.’

  ‘There’s no penguins where you are,’ my literal-minded sister points out. ‘Nor would you be allowed to take one home.’

  ‘Nope. But he won’t know that
.’

  She grins, gives me a little wave. ‘Call Mum,’ she says again, then logs off.

  I sit in the Skype room for another ten minutes, trying to pull myself together, swiping my eyes with the heel of my hand. Speaking to my sister makes me feel lonelier than ever – as if she were my sole connection to the outside world.

  Hell. She pretty much is my sole connection – though that’s largely my own fault. Most of my friends – bar Lisa, who I’ve known since med school – have melted away. Or rather been pushed; after my first meet-up post-accident resulted in actual tears from a work colleague, overwhelmed by the sight of my injured face, it felt easier to keep my distance.

  I didn’t deserve all that sympathy, that concern. Nor could I endure everyone carefully avoiding the topic of Ben.

  My mother, on the other hand, can never leave it alone, on those rare occasions we talk. Always asking probing questions about him, as if I’m a patient rather than her daughter. Trying to get into my head in a way I can’t handle.

  I’ll email her tomorrow, I resolve, glancing at my watch.

  Nearly supper time.

  ‘Reckon it might be quite a show tonight,’ Sonya announces over a delicious lasagna, made to a recipe Raff taught to Rajiv.

  ‘You think?’ Alice looks hopeful.

  ‘Weather conditions are perfect. No cloud cover or bright moonlight. Fair chance of a good display – if not, it’ll be great for stargazing. We’re bound to spot a few meteors.’

  ‘Yes, let’s go outside when we finish up here.’ Sandrine sounds excited. With the upcoming midwinter festivities – the highlight of the Antarctic social calendar – still a couple of weeks away, she seizes any opportunity to raise morale with some group bonding.

  Everyone murmurs agreement – all except Alex, I notice. Sure enough, when we’re kitting up in the boot room, there’s no sign of him.

  ‘Anyone know if Alex is coming?’ I ask. I’ve been trying to keep tabs on him since the fight in the laundry room, given his wild accusations about what happened to Jean-Luc. But he’s become increasingly elusive outside meal times, hiding away in various corners of Beta and avoiding almost everyone.

  Caro shakes her head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘I’ll go check.’

  I make my way to the cabins. Knock on his door. No answer. I check the common areas, then give up, returning to the boot room to put on my outdoor gear as quickly as possible. The trick is to get kitted up and out of the building before you start to sweat – there’s nothing worse than damp clothes next to your skin in temperatures well below freezing.

  Grabbing a torch and ignoring the pain in my lungs from breathing so hard, I hurry to catch up with the others – the thought of being alone out in the darkness fills me with dread.

  I find Sonya leading everyone a good distance from the station, so any internal lights won’t detract from the show. Standing in a rough line, we switch off our torches and wait. Above us, countless stars crowd the sky, the pale band of the Milky Way more pronounced than I’ve ever seen it. A small crescent moon, low on the horizon.

  Sonya was right: this is the perfect time and place for stargazing. I should do it more often. Get someone to come with me who knows their constellations.

  After ten minutes or so, my fingers start to go numb, so I put my torch down by my feet and shove my gloved hands deep into the pockets of my thick down jacket. Somewhere to the left of me drifts a faint smell of marijuana.

  Has Sandrine noticed? If so, she’s studiously ignoring it. Picking her battles, I suppose.

  Another five minutes and I’m concluding we’re out of luck, when Alice gasps. ‘Look!’ she exclaims, pointing over my left shoulder.

  I turn to see. At first I can’t discern anything more than a faint glow on the horizon, but gradually it grows, spreading across the sky in a fire of purple and green, twisting and undulating, sometimes brighter, other times fading almost to blackness.

  Aurora australis. The Southern Lights.

  ‘Wow!’ I gasp, and Luuk lets out a long low whistle of approval as the aurora expands, building into huge columns of violet and green that soar ever upwards, running from south-east right around to the north-west. The sky has transformed into something solid, a bright fabric that billows and bends in a magnetic wind.

  I grab my phone from my jacket. Shielding it from the cold inside my sleeve, I take a few quick snaps and stuff it back in my pocket. Then stand and admire the show. It’s truly mesmerising. Ethereal, too, though I understand the physics – charged particles from the sun striking atoms in the Earth’s atmosphere, causing them to release photons of light.

  Knowing this, however, doesn’t make it any less awe-inspiring.

  I watch, entranced, the vicious cold forgotten, losing all sense of time, unable to look away for even a second, spinning on the spot to follow each dancing column of light as it moves across the sky.

  I feel suddenly, gloriously, elated. As if everything in my life has conspired to bring me to this moment.

  Around me, various people call it a night, but I can’t yet tear myself away. It’s like a magic show, and I’m filled with the same wonder as when my father set up a firework display in the garden for my fifth birthday. I thought they were the most amazing thing I’d ever seen.

  He’d have loved this, I think, with a pang of old grief as I remember his passion for astronomy, how he used to coax me outside on cloudless nights to show me the stars. Always keeping a few lights on in the house behind us so I wouldn’t be afraid.

  ‘Coming in?’ Alice asks.

  ‘I’ll stay a bit longer.’ Drew’s voice.

  ‘Me too.’ Luuk.

  A moment later another beautiful plume of jewel colours ripples across the sky, even brighter than before. I watch it, fascinated, unaware of the minutes ticking by. It’s only as the aurora finally starts to fade and my feet and fingers throb with cold that I realise I’m alone.

  ‘Drew?’ I call into the darkness. ‘You there?’

  No reply.

  Where have they gone? Surely they wouldn’t have left without me?

  I bend to retrieve the torch, but my fingers close on empty space. I drop to my knees, peering in the dwindling light of the aurora.

  Shit. Where is it?

  I feel around me, gripped by a surge of anxiety. Where is my torch? It was here. I’m sure it was. I’ve barely moved from this spot the whole time.

  How could it have disappeared?

  My phone. I get back onto my feet, retrieve it from my pocket and turn on the flashlight, holding it tight in my glove to protect it from the cold. It’s pitifully weak, but casts enough light for me to check the surrounding area. Advancing cautiously, keeping to the footprints in the snow made by the other winterers, I swing my phone to either side of me to look for my torch.

  Nothing.

  I retrace my steps, anxiety building towards panic.

  Where the hell is it?

  A second later my phone dies – whether from the cold or a flat battery, there’s no way to tell. I stand there, heart thudding in my chest, deciding what to do. I peer back to where I reckon the base should be, but there are no lights visible from this side. Turning slowly, I try to find Alpha’s silhouette against the dark sky, but can’t see anything at all.

  Fuck.

  With a rush of dread, I realise I’ve lost all sense of direction. I gaze up into the cloudless heavens, into the crush of those billions and billions of tiny stars, but now it all seems so vast and inhospitable it makes me dizzy. I have a sudden sharp sensation of vertigo, an urge to lie on the ground and cling to the ice, as if I were hanging upside down and might fall upwards.

  Shit, Kate. Pull yourself together.

  Trying to steady my breathing, I turn on the spot again, but the blackness around me is absolute, and I’ve no idea which way to go. My pulse quickens as I try to work out what to do. I’m getting seriously cold; I need to move, and fast.

  But what if I start walking in
the wrong direction? What if I head away from the station? I could end up truly lost, and freeze to death in a matter of minutes.

  The only sensible option is to stay still and wait for someone to realise I haven’t returned. But how long might that take? What if no one notices, or simply assumes I’ve gone to bed?

  Stupid, I think, with a moan of fear and frustration. Why was I so careless? I should have returned with the others. None of us is supposed to be outside alone in the dark, but as with many station rules, observance has slackened as the winter progresses.

  ‘Help!’ I yell into the endless night, stamping my feet on the ground – my toes now so numb I can barely feel them and I’m shivering so violently I can hardly stand.

  I’m going to die out here, I decide, in another wave of pure, blind panic. I’m going to freeze to death in this fucking hellhole.

  ‘Help!’ I shout again, listening for a reply. But it’s pointless. I’m too far from the base for my voice to carry; besides, the buildings are so well insulated that barely any outside sound penetrates.

  Desperate, I plunge forwards into the darkness in what I hope is the direction of the building; if I stay here any longer, I’ll die anyway. But almost immediately I stumble over a ridge in the ice. A searing pain rips through my bad knee, making me gasp and pitch forwards. An audible crack from my goggles as my head hits the ground.

  ‘Shit.’ I start crying in earnest, but that only serves to near blind me as the tears instantly freeze, clinging to my lashes.

  I squeeze my eyes tightly shut, forcing myself to stop, and for a second or two I’m back in that car, pinned at an impossible angle. Time suspended. The ticking of the engine as it cools. A sensation strangely like peace.

  Everything resolved at last.

  Everything forgiven.

  Isn’t freezing to death supposed to be like falling asleep? How easy it would be, simply to give up and let go, succumb to the inevitable.

  Then I hear it. A noise, somewhere out on the ice.

  A voice, calling my name.

  I scramble to my feet, peering into the night. ‘Here!’ I yell, waiting for a response, but nothing comes. I spin around, unsure if it was simply my imagination. Perhaps this is what dying of cold is really like, a slow fading into dreams.