Chasing the Light

by Jesse Blackadder

  Lars shook his head. ‘Now you’re being disingenuous. You know as well as I do they tore down that whaling station only because they believed – with no proof – that whaling was damaging their fishing trade. It had nothing to do with the whale stocks.’

  ‘The fact remains, the Norwegian fleet killed more whales last year than in the past two hundred years put together. You can see what’s going to happen in the Southern Ocean.’

  ‘Well, there you and I are in disagreement,’ Lars said. ‘I’ve assessed the numbers of whales and taken the advice of scientists – our harvest can be sustained, they assure me. I’ve given employment to four thousand men and no one in Norway has to live near the stench of a whaling station any longer. Surely that’s not a bad thing?’

  ‘Employment that will collapse in a few years. We’ve seen already what’s gone on with the layover! How many companies closed this year?’

  Lars put his hand on Bjarne’s arm and gave him a warning look. ‘Whalemen have just had the most welcome news of the year. I’ll be employing extra men next season, so those who’ve lost jobs elsewhere can find new ones with me. We’ll have to agree to disagree on this. It’s time for a toast. To Norwegian whalers and seamen!’ Lars raised his glass.

  ‘Norwegian whalers and seamen,’ Bjarne said after a moment, raising his own glass, his mouth set.

  They drank and Ingrid forced a smile. She wasn’t ready to think of the months Lars would be away and the emptiness of the Norwegian winter without him.

  ‘I have a surprise for you,’ Hjalmar said, wiping his mouth and laying down his napkin. ‘I’m bringing a photographer this year. I want a proper record of any new discoveries we make.’

  Ingrid sat up, relieved at the change of subject. ‘Well, that’s good news. We only have such basic photographs from your earlier voyages.’

  ‘Knowing you, he’ll be someone famous,’ Lars said. ‘Not Frank Hurley?’

  ‘I’m taking Mrs Rachlew.’

  The pain in Ingrid’s chest was so sharp and sudden that her hand flew to her sternum. Lars stared at Hjalmar, his brow furrowed.

  ‘You know her husband of course,’ Hjalmar continued. ‘Anton Rachlew, the Norwegian naval attaché in London. Perhaps you’ve met the lady herself? She was Miss Enger before they married recently.’

  A face flashed before Ingrid’s eyes. Lillemor Enger. They’d met in Oslo, some years earlier. Charismatic and predatory, Ingrid recalled. A woman who knew how to get what she wanted, it seemed.

  ‘I didn’t know she was a photographer,’ she said, her voice tight.

  ‘That will be quite a turn-up for the history books,’ Bjarne said. ‘Is her husband travelling with you too?’

  ‘I haven’t worked out the details yet,’ Hjalmar replied.

  ‘Good.’ Lars’s voice was hard. ‘You’re the captain, Hjalmar, but on this matter I have the last word. Find yourself someone else.’

  Ingrid looked down at her plate, feeling the heat rise in her cheeks.

  ‘Lars, surely you’re not so old fashioned,’ Bjarne said. ‘A landing place named for a Norwegian woman who has stepped there herself – well, it would be much harder for the English to ignore.’

  ‘That may be, but I have indeed met Mrs Rachlew and she attracts scandal like a magnet. Hjalmar, you don’t want a woman like that on your ship.’

  Hjalmar shrugged. ‘You’re in charge.’

  Ingrid’s heart was still pounding when Bjarne turned to her. ‘What do you think, Mrs Christensen? Is it time for a woman to go to Antarctica?’

  ‘Why not?’ she said, keeping her voice even. ‘Miss Arner Boyd has been leading her own expeditions to Greenland for years now. But it seems like the Americans are far more progressive than the Norwegians when it comes to women.’

  ‘I think Lars should take a woman down himself,’ Bjarne said. ‘I’d be most interested in a female perspective on the whaling activities. Don’t you think, Mrs Christensen, that a woman would be more likely to see the hunt for what it is? An overfishing of a limited stock that can only end in collapse?’

  Ingrid took a breath. ‘Now, Bjarne, I can’t agree with you there. Lars is too good a businessman to do that.’

  She glanced at Lars and saw a quick, grateful look in return. She rose and pushed her chair back. ‘Hjalmar, I’m sure you and my husband have much to discuss. Children, it’s bedtime. Bjarne, why don’t you come with me for a walk down to the seashore?’

  He took the hint. ‘That’s most kind of you, but I should be getting home. Consul, I look forward to hearing more about your voyage when you’ve finalised the details.’

  They all rose and the children filed inside. As Ingrid closed the terrace door behind Bjarne, she heard Hjalmar say, ‘Of course, I’ll find someone else if you wish. Now …’

  In truth there was nothing for Ingrid to do once she had ushered the children from the terrace and sent Bjarne on his way. There were servants to clear the dishes and bring aquavit and cigars for the men when they moved in to Lars’s study. There were servants to undress the younger children and ready them for bed, and servants to turn down the covers in the marriage bedroom and draw the curtains against the light of the long summer evening. When she’d kissed the younger children on their warm, clean cheeks and stroked their hair on the pillows, Ingrid stood in the hallway at a loss. In the past she would have joined the men again, listened to their discussion, made suggestions. She felt at a loss.

  Motte came up behind her in the hallway. ‘Mama, we’re going for a paddle. Come with us?’

  Ingrid slipped her arm into Motte’s and they went outside, kicking off their shoes before stepping onto the grass. Bolle, the chubby one, was standing by Lars Junior, her arm flung affectionately over his shoulder. As she turned to see them coming, Bolle’s face went blank. Ingrid sighed. She knew her eldest daughter, Motte, like a slice of herself, but why pretty Bolle ate so much, ruined her looks and always rebelled against Ingrid, and why Lars Junior hunched his shoulders and stammered, she couldn’t understand, nor easily tolerate. She must be a poor mother, she knew, for not loving them equally, but it seemed beyond her.

  As the three of them ran ahead towards the beach, Ingrid skirted around the rocky outcrop that lay at the bottom of the stairs and climbed up the small knoll that overlooked Ranvik’s stretch of sand. She settled herself on the warm rock of the headland and faced south, the sea wind in her face.

  She and Lars had moved to Ranvik as a young couple and at first the house seemed too large and too grand, with its commanding view of the fjord and the rocky headland separating it from Sandefjord like a haughty shoulder. They were the first to know what ships were coming in, but some older, primal part of Ingrid felt the danger of being the lookout, the first place that invaders spied. Lars had to have all the new inventions – phone, car, electric light – and there was no hiding Ranvik’s illuminated brilliance through those big windows overlooking the water. Lars had chided her for such foolish fears and Ingrid tried to ignore them. Eventually she did fall in love with Ranvik the way she’d fallen in love with Lars, relaxing into its solid embrace. It became their foundation, the constant in their lives as the world tipped and changed around them, as new decades came and went, as their children were born and as Sandefjord grew from a sailing port to a steamship port to a fuel-powered ship port.

  Cato would be six soon and when he’d slid out of her she’d felt the relief of it in her bones, knowing that he was the last. She could never have been one of those farm women who carried a dozen or more and watched half of them die along the way. Six healthy children. Lars should be content.

  Ingrid turned her head to the sun, so the glare of the light on the water dazzled her. She could feel a light breeze from the ocean on her face, blowing from the south, the direction of Antarctica. When she could feel the light burning her eyes, she closed them, so the backs of her eyelids were red and warm.

  The children’s laughter drifted up towards her and she wished she could switch off their
sounds and find the silence she craved. The six of them always wanted something from her; always crowded her with warmth and noise and energy. Sometimes she had to go out in the snow just to get away from them and try to find some quiet place for herself.

  She and her mother were alike in that, she thought. Ingrid was still young when Alfhild had begun wandering in the snow on nights lit by the moon or the aurora borealis, disappearing from the house for hours at a time.

  At first Thor had laughed. ‘I’m off to look for the Snow Queen,’ he’d say, pulling on his jacket and boots. He’d return leading a shivering and elated Alfhild by the arm. But her absences grew longer and Thor stopped joking when he had to go searching for her. She seemed unaware of how frozen she was when he brought her back, her lips dark and her eyes far away.

  One night he was gone for many hours looking for her. He finally returned after dawn, carrying his wife into the kitchen where Ingrid was sitting eating porridge the cook had made. There were claw marks on his cheeks and although Alfhild was limp in his arms, her blue eyes were wild, lit with a strange, inner glow.

  ‘Mommo’s not well,’ he’d said to Ingrid. ‘I’m taking her to the doctor. Stay inside.’

  Mommo had never come home again. Thor said, ‘Your mother’s gone with the Snow Queen,’ in answer to any question. It wasn’t till Ingrid was ten that he revealed the truth. He’d told her in anger, dragging her inside yet another time from her contemplation of the patterns of light on snow in the garden. ‘Don’t turn into another mad woman like your mother,’ he’d bellowed, shaking her. It turned out that Alfhild had been committed to an asylum, and by that time there was no prospect she would ever come out.

  The last time Ingrid saw her mother was a few months before Cato was born. One final try to elicit recognition in those faraway eyes. She’d failed, and Alfhild had died not long afterwards.

  Ingrid opened her eyes again and stared at the flickering light on the water, squinting till she could see only patterns of light and dark. If she did it long enough, the burning afterimage of the light stayed with her for minutes, blinding her to everything else. If she did it long enough, she could sometimes see her mother.

  An image wavered in the light, then clarified. It was Alfhild, but not as the gaunt, demented creature she’d visited in the asylum. She was a young woman, her skin alabaster white, her eyes aquamarine. She was suspended in the water like some nymph creature of the deep, her pale hair floating around her like a cloud.

  What was it Alfhild had gone seeking when she followed the light? Ingrid leaned forward, mentally reaching for her. A yell came from below and a splash. Ingrid blinked, startled. Lars Junior had fallen over in the shallows and from his prone position was splashing his older sisters. Bolle bent down, scooped up a handful of wet sand and threw it at him. Laughter drifted up to her. The moment was gone.

  She rubbed her eyes, feeling her head start to ache. Such glimpses of her mother were invariably frustrating, for she was always just out of reach. But this time, for once, something remained and Ingrid felt her veins humming.

  Alfhild had gone mad looking for something out in the snow. If Ingrid had learned anything from her mother, it was the danger of never finding what you were seeking. Had Alfhild appeared to remind her that if she gave up on her dream now, she’d never go to Antarctica?

  Ingrid got up quickly and dusted herself off. Her mother had given her an idea.

  When Lars came to bed, so late that the long dusk had deepened to true darkness, Ingrid pretended to be asleep. He undressed quietly. She heard the swishing of fabric as he draped his clothes neatly over the chair and pulled his socks off. He went to his side of the bed, lifted the covers silently and slid in. After a few moments of expectant silence he sighed, turned away and pulled the light covers up to his shoulder.

  Ingrid waited a few heartbeats more and then slid across the sheets until her skin met the warmth of his back and she curled around him. He was a small man, and their bodies had always fitted well together. She wrapped an arm around his waist and he responded, easing back into her. His hand reached for her and he exhaled when he found she was naked.

  ‘Ingrid?’

  She pushed him onto his back, slid on top of him and kissed him, feeling his astonishment.

  She broke their kiss. ‘You’ve made some good deals tonight,’ she said softly.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Now I have a deal.’

  He tried to move but Ingrid shifted her weight to keep him still.

  ‘Yes?’ he said warily.

  ‘The first man to the South Pole was Norwegian, and your expeditions are the first to see many new lands in the south. Norwegian names are all over Antarctica. The first woman to land there must be Norwegian.’

  ‘So everyone seems to think,’ he said, his voice resigned. ‘Even Bjarne!’

  For the first time in months Ingrid felt a moment of hope. ‘It will happen, Lars, this season or next. Someone will do it soon, and the chance will be lost. If I’m the first, your reputation and your business will benefit, and Norway will benefit too.’

  ‘Where does the deal come in?’

  ‘I’ll come with you to Antarctica and while we’re on board, we’ll try to make a child.’

  He lay very still underneath her and Ingrid waited, conscious suddenly of her ageing skin and the fact that she was straddling him.

  ‘Do you have any idea what you’d be in for?’ he asked. ‘It’s a rough voyage and whaling can be revolting close up.’

  ‘I can skin an elk, for God’s sake,’ Ingrid said. ‘I won’t be squeamish.’

  ‘It’s a few years since either of us have skinned an elk,’ he said. ‘But you don’t want to be alone on a ship full of men, especially as I’ll be busy. You’ll need a female companion.’

  Ingrid kept her delight in tight check. ‘What about Mrs Rachlew? She can take photos.’

  Lars shifted and slid out from under her. He sat up and switched on the bedside lamp. The sudden blaze of it was shocking.

  ‘There are so few chances to be first at anything these days,’ he said, looking down at her. ‘If you want your name to be remembered, you mustn’t take Mrs Rachlew. She’ll want the glory herself. You need someone who’ll let your name shine, the way Balchen let Richard Byrd take the honour of flying first to the South Pole, though he was the pilot.’

  Ingrid felt a rush of relief. ‘Very well. I’ll find another woman who’ll stay in the background, and I’ll try to get you a child upon the sea. A deal.’

  ‘A deal, my dear. Though we should keep it quiet. If the British hear about it, they might try to get one of their own women down there before us.’

  ‘We’ll be like Amundsen,’ Ingrid said, ‘and announce it only when we’re leaving.’

  They hugged, and then Lars drew back, his face serious. ‘But I have a condition too. I need us to be friends again. I can’t bear how it’s been.’

  ‘Me neither,’ she said. ‘Come here.’ She drew him down, and they kissed again, body to body. Ingrid wanted to lose herself in the feeling, so long had it been. But a mistake in timing now, an early conception, would be the end of it. She pulled away from him.

  ‘Not until we’re on board,’ she said, rolling away. ‘Something to look forward to.’

  Lars started to laugh and after a moment Ingrid joined in. He switched off the light and they lay there in the dark, their hands entwined.

  ‘I’m not taking Bjarne, though,’ he said, after their laughter died away. ‘That man’s become obsessed with whaling and I don’t think he’ll ever finish the history of Antarctica. I’m going to find a new historian.’

  Lars fell asleep quickly, but Ingrid lay awake. The chances of conceiving a child were slim, she thought, and a risk she was ready to take. She’d heard of the Stopes birth-control clinics causing scandal across the world, and knew they trained women in using the time of their cycles to avoid conception. She would learn the technique and apply it on the voyage. Her ageing body mi
ght not still be fertile at any rate.

  She was too excited to sleep. In just a few months she would leave the darkness behind and follow the light around the girth of the world. She sent a quick thank you to Alfhild, and felt something like the flicker of the aurora deep inside; the feeling that had come upon her the night of their anniversary. She would go there, at last. Perhaps she would finally discover what it was Alfhild had gone looking for out in the snow.

  CHAPTER 8

  Mathilde halted at Ranvik’s imposing gates and tightened her grip on the children’s hands. There was no need to be intimidated by Ingrid, she reminded herself. The woman was known all over Sandefjord for her kind-heartedness. It was just that the volume of it could be hard to take.

  She could hear distant shouts of children’s voices. How many did the Christensens have now? Six, she was fairly certain, apparently immune to the illnesses and accidents that beset other children of the district, whose fathers were farmers and whalers. The Christensens were short, but handsome. The signs were there that Ingrid would be a solid woman in her later years, but she still had much of the beauty of her youth. Not needing to work hard – or at all – did wonders for keeping a woman looking young.

  Mathilde shook her head to try to remove such uncharitable thoughts. The anger that had carried her this far was wavering in the face of Ranvik’s grandeur and she stood up straight to bolster herself. She would just calmly speak her mind to Ingrid about Hans Lund, take a cup of coffee, let the children play for a few minutes and then go home. They’d had social visits with the Christensens before, back when Jakob was still alive and it never occurred to her to question the normality of daily life. Back when the difference in their social standing hadn’t seemed so wide. Ingrid needn’t know that this was the first time Mathilde had stepped into another house, apart from that of her in-laws, since Jakob died.

  Ole pushed the gate open and they walked up the tree-lined drive. Flowers grew in the soft grass on either side of the path and the light was pleasantly dappled. Strawberries gleamed through the green, but when the children tugged at her hands to pick them, she pulled them up hard and they marched along the drive. When they reached the front door, she took several deep breaths and knocked.