Chasing the Light

by Jesse Blackadder

  She and Lars stared silently and then by common, unspoken assent, turned and climbed down again. Lillemor thought Lars looked a little pale as he faced Ingrid.

  ‘What’s wrong?’

  He shook his head. ‘Just some orcas. But best you don’t look.’

  ‘Why not?’ Ingrid asked.

  ‘The whale was pregnant,’ Lillemor said.

  The stink was spreading over the boat, as though the creature had died a week ago and not a few minutes earlier. The engine started and the catcher shuddered and began to move.

  Lars took his wife’s hand and Lillemor turned away from them. It was no use being sentimental now. Lars should be pleased – this one would bring in plenty of oil.

  She looked up at the sky. An Antarctic gloom hung low on the horizon and the wind was starting to groan and whistle around them. It began to snow.

  CHAPTER 29

  Mathilde cocked her head to one side. Was that a knock on the door? The wind was groaning and whistling around the ship, and the bone saw whined without respite. But the sound she was hoping for didn’t come and she slumped down again. She picked up her glass, but it was empty. She shook the aquavit bottle but it was empty too. Had she drunk it all? She couldn’t remember how full it had been.

  She’d locked herself in her cabin, trying to shut out the world. The short moment of beauty she’d experienced that morning had been destroyed. But neither the small space around her nor the alcohol had been enough to block her vivid memory of the humpback’s death. She could still hear the whistle of the harpoon, the impact of it hitting living flesh, and the sound the whale made before it died, a shriek growing in intensity in her memory rather than receding. It was now mixed in with the scream of the bone saw, which was probably at that moment slicing the humpback into pieces. She’d wanted to drink herself into insensibility, but the alcohol had run out and she was still awake. She shook her head and put her hands over her face. What a fool she’d been to think she’d cope better with the second factory ship. It was worse. And her first song since Jakob died had helped lure the whale to the harpoon.

  An hour ago a storm swept over the two ships. The temperature dropped, the wind picked up and flurries of snow began surrounding them. As she’d closed the curtains she’d seen the men on the factory ship working under spotlights. Ice had gathered on the ship’s surfaces and some of them were labouring to chip it away from the stays and railings, a joyless job by the look of it.

  She scrabbled on the floor for Lillemor’s cigarettes and lit one with trembling fingers. Her belly turned at the taste, but at least it blocked the smell of the factory.

  She was alone. No Hjalmar coming with his soft knock at the door to see if she was coping. No Ingrid or Lillemor to jolly her along, or even to mock her. She wished she’d gone to the sanatorium as Ole and Gerd had threatened rather than coming on this trip. Here, everyone acted as though the slaughter of whales was a sane activity, and she the only one disturbed.

  She inhaled hard again and then coughed out the smoke with a convulsive sob. Perhaps she was mad. Perhaps she was the only person in the whole of Norway who thought this was wrong and cruel.

  No, not the only person. Hjalmar disapproved of it too. She never felt mad around him. When they were together, she felt they made an island of sanity in the midst of craziness. Why didn’t he come?

  She stood up and opened the curtain a crack again. She could hardly see the flensing deck through the flurries of snow and ice, but every so often the murk lifted enough to reveal snow-covered figures moving about their tasks. Nothing seemed to stop them; nothing halted the bone saw’s whine.

  She heard the door rattle and started back from the curtain, a movement so sharp that she lost her balance and swayed. The door flew open, sending in a gust of wind and snow and two human figures. It was Lillemor and Ingrid, their outer clothes crusted in ice.

  ‘Mathilde!’ Lillemor’s voice rang out, shattering the cabin’s silence. ‘Are you partying alone?’

  She tried to focus on the two blurry figures before her as they came into the cabin. ‘What?’

  Lillemor laughed. ‘Have you finished all the aquavit? You’re a wild one. Or did you share it with Hjalmar?’

  The door closed, shutting off the sound of the wind. ‘Are you all right, Mathilde?’ she heard Ingrid ask.

  No, she wanted to say. No, not all right at all. She opened her mouth but couldn’t form the words.

  Lillemor and Ingrid stripped off their outer layers and hung them by the door.

  ‘Lucky I’ve got another stash; I need something to warm me up,’ Lillemor said. She crossed the cabin, opened a little drawer in her wardrobe case, and pulled out a bottle. ‘I’m glad you didn’t find this one.’ She poured three drinks and handed them out. ‘We bagged ourselves a blue,’ she said, raising her glass. ‘To the world’s biggest hunting trophy.’

  Mathilde’s fingers felt slippery but she craved another drink. Perhaps this one would put her to sleep. She raised the glass and touched it to theirs. ‘You’re disgusting,’ she said, and swallowed it.

  ‘What did you say?’ Ingrid stared at her.

  ‘I don’t know how you can do it.’

  ‘Well, you see, Mathilde,’ Lillemor leaned forward, ‘we wanted to give you some time alone so you could be with Hjalmar. We did it for you, my dear. I hope it was worth it.’

  Mathilde felt her knees wobbling and sat down on the bunk. The cabin seemed to be rocking back and forth.

  ‘So did you?’ Lillemor asked.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Have your little fling with Hjalmar? You look drunk enough.’

  Mathilde shook her head, a movement that caused the cabin to rock more violently. ‘How dare you?’

  Lillemor laughed aloud and sat back. ‘All prim and proper suddenly, Mrs Wegger?’

  Mathilde looked at her with distaste. Lillemor had a soft side, she knew, but mostly she showed her ability to sense weakness and zero in on it.

  ‘Oh, leave her alone, Lillemor.’ Ingrid’s voice sounded weary.

  Ingrid would be pleased to know Hjalmar had rejected her, Mathilde thought. She felt a rush of anger and nausea.

  ‘You’re no different!’ she said. ‘You’d prefer to keep Hjalmar hanging around you like a dog than let someone else have him. You with your perfect marriage and your beautiful children and all your money.’

  It was a thought she’d kept buried, but it was out in the open now. Mathilde didn’t care that Ingrid was staring at her in shock. The words seemed to rush out of her without stopping. ‘There’s never a moment when you’re not watching him. You just want him for your own.’

  ‘For God’s sake!’ Ingrid got to her feet. ‘Maybe he just doesn’t find you attractive.’

  It felt like a slap across the face. ‘Fuck you,’ Mathilde snapped.

  Lillemor laughed. ‘You sound like one of the flensers now. What’s happening to you, Mathilde?’

  Mathilde stood up, swaying slightly, her eyes fixed on Ingrid. The woman was determined to bring her down, by any means she could. ‘I’m here against my will!’ Her voice rose. ‘You don’t care how many whales you murder or how many people you tread on to get your own way.’ She brought her face close to Ingrid’s. ‘First woman on Antarctica. Ha!’

  Ingrid put a hand on Mathilde’s shoulder and pushed. ‘Get away from me. You’ve drunk too much.’

  The shove was surprisingly hard. Mathilde staggered, any sense of balance upended. Her fury surged. This was the woman who would help Ole and Gerd take her children. She hit out at Ingrid, arms flailing. Her volley of slaps and blows landed on Ingrid’s head and shoulders. It was richly, horribly satisfying, and she didn’t notice Lillemor coming up behind her until the woman managed to grab one of her arms, pinning it. Mathilde turned her head to protest and Ingrid stepped forward and slapped Mathilde on the cheek.

  The fierceness of the slap just inflamed Mathilde’s desire to hurt. She balled up her free hand into a fist and drove it tow
ards Ingrid’s face.

  It was an inexpert punch, but it landed in Ingrid’s eye and the woman made a noise of pain and clapped both hands over her face, staggering backwards. She collided with the side of the bunk, slipped and fell. Mathilde heard the crack her head made as it struck the floor.

  ‘Oh Christ,’ Lillemor said, letting go of her. ‘What have you done now?’

  CHAPTER 30

  There was a long moment of pain and disorientation, and a roar seemed to assault Ingrid’s ears. She could feel hands on her and she twitched.

  ‘Ingrid?’ It was Mathilde’s voice, sounding frightened.

  ‘Are you all right?’ That was Lillemor.

  Ingrid managed to open her eyes. She was crumpled on the narrow floor beside the bunk, her head throbbing viciously. Lillemor crouched next to her and Mathilde was peering down over her shoulder, her eyes wide.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Mathilde asked.

  Ingrid flinched at the sound of her voice. ‘Get away from me.’

  Mathilde’s face disappeared. Ingrid put her arms out and scrabbled until she found a handhold on the bunk. She pulled herself up to sitting. Her head swam and for a moment she thought she might faint.

  ‘Don’t get up yet,’ Lillemor said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

  ‘Get me away from her,’ Ingrid managed. She got to her knees and slowly pushed herself into a standing position, with Lillemor’s help. She couldn’t tell if the dizziness was her own head or the boat’s swaying, and she wondered if she was going to be sick.

  ‘Ingrid, I’m so sorry.’ Mathilde was at the far side of the cabin, her face stricken, but Ingrid didn’t care.

  ‘Get my coat,’ she said to Lillemor.

  ‘Maybe we should call the doctor,’ Mathilde said uncertainly.

  ‘Shut up, Mathilde,’ Lillemor said, putting her arm around Ingrid’s waist. ‘You’ve done enough.’

  ‘Take me to my room.’ Ingrid leaned on Lillemor, who helped her across the cabin. Mathilde stood still, her face dead white. When Lillemor opened the door, the wind hit Ingrid like another punch. They staggered the few steps to her cabin and Lillemor helped her inside. Ingrid leaned on the wall as Lillemor pushed the door shut. Her hands were shaking.

  Lillemor examined her face.

  ‘How bad is it?’ Ingrid asked.

  ‘You’ll have a shiner, I’d say.’

  ‘Let me look.’

  Lillemor helped her to the mirror and Ingrid took a deep breath and raised her eyes. Her left eye was swollen where Mathilde’s punch had landed. She touched the puffy flesh and flinched. On the side of her head a painful lump attested to whatever she’d hit on the way down. Her hair was wild and there was a graze on one cheek.

  ‘I’ll get the doctor,’ Lillemor said.

  ‘No!’ Ingrid put her hand on Lillemor’s arm. ‘I’m fine.’

  ‘You were knocked out!’

  ‘Only for a moment. I just want to be alone.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s a good idea.’

  Ingrid tightened her grip. ‘I’m not asking you, Lillemor. Lars will be coming to bed soon. I don’t want you to mention this to anyone, understand?’

  Lillemor eyed her uncertainly. ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Imagine if they think we women have had a fight. How shameful! Not a word. Mathilde is raving drunk, that’s all.’

  ‘Can I help you to bed at least?’

  ‘No. I’m fine.’

  She waited until the door closed behind Lillemor before she turned to the mirror again. The image in front of her swam in and out of focus. A middle-aged woman with lines under her eyes and a body wearied from bearing children. Ingrid felt a rush of exhaustion. At all costs she mustn’t have another one, not conceived in this bloody place. It could indeed be a child to run a whaling fleet, and the idea sickened her. She thought of Cato and Soren running down the dock at Sandefjord, laughing and fair-haired. Every flenser, caked in a season’s whale viscera, had been such a boy once, sweet-smelling and innocent.

  Her eye throbbed and she put a hand to it. What on earth had made Mathilde angry enough to hit her? She must be desperately in love with Hjalmar to react so.

  Ingrid lowered her eyes. It was true; she couldn’t bear the thought of Hjalmar and Mathilde being together. Was it really because she wanted him herself? He understood ambition; he was a man whose life was built on beating other men to remote places, doing what was needed to get there first. He was strong and proud, not beholden to anyone. An adventurer, like Amundsen.

  That’s why she liked him so much.

  There. She’d thought it. She stared in the mirror. It had come to this between Mathilde and her, and partly she was glad of it. Mathilde had stepped across a line, a demarcation between their usual world where such violence would be unthinkable, and this world of the factory ships, where blood and guts were all. Ingrid felt a strange satisfaction looking at herself. Inner and outer suddenly matched; the chaos of her feelings writ large on her body.

  She washed her face, wincing, stripped off her clothes with still-shaking fingers, pulled on her nightwear, climbed into the bunk and pulled the covers around her like a cave. Outside the blizzard shrieked.

  Waking was like swimming up from far underwater through increasing layers of pain. When Ingrid’s head broke through the surface, headache gripped her skull and her eye throbbed.

  The curtain dragged on its tracks with a squeal. She opened her eyes. Lars was standing at the porthole looking out. When he heard her stir, he turned. The smile faded from his face as he saw her. He was by the bunk in two strides.

  ‘My God, what happened to your face?’

  ‘Oh,’ Ingrid said. ‘A bit of an accident. I fell.’

  He bent over and looked at her closely. His fingers ran lightly over her cheek and touched her eyebrow. She flinched.

  ‘I haven’t been in a fight since school,’ he said. ‘But this is usually how they looked afterwards.’

  Ingrid felt a sob rising up inside her and her chin began to tremble, an awful feeling as if she had no control of the muscles of her face. Lars stroked her hair, concerned. When his hand found the bump near her temple, she drew her breath in sharply.

  ‘Tell me,’ he said.

  That was it, two tender words. Ingrid’s throat convulsed. ‘She hit me,’ she managed to say, like a child telling a parent. He gathered her into his arms and pressed her face to his chest, rocking her back and forward while she clung to him.

  ‘You have to tell me what’s going on,’ he said.

  Ingrid snuffled and drew away a little. He pulled out a handkerchief and she blew her nose and wiped her face.

  ‘Mathilde is quite beside herself. She can’t stand the factories. It was a mistake to bring her.’

  ‘What’s that to do with your face?’ he asked.

  ‘We had a disagreement and she punched me. I hit my head when I fell.’

  ‘What!’ Lars shook his head. He shifted her so she was leaning back against the pillows and he could look at her face. ‘Ole warned me she might be unstable, but this is outrageous.’

  Ingrid blinked, confused. ‘You never told me Ole said that.’

  He peered closely at her face. ‘I’ll have to deal with this. Is there anything else I should know?’

  Ingrid didn’t want to face Mathilde again. She’d thought Lillemor was the more unpredictable but Mathilde was just as dangerous. She might throw herself on Hjalmar’s mercy, force him to take her on Norvegia. She couldn’t bear the thought of it. She felt herself coolly calculating her next words, observing in a detached way what she was capable of.

  ‘Mathilde’s got some foolish notion of falling in love with Hjalmar and she’s lost her sense of propriety. She’s quite out of control.’

  ‘What do you think we should do?’

  ‘I think you must confine her to her cabin for a little while. Perhaps until we drop Hjalmar at Norvegia. I’m sure once we’re heading home she’ll be better.’

  ‘I nev
er expected it to get to this.’ He sat back and shook his head. ‘I’ll get Stevensson to give her a sedative.’

  ‘I doubt she’ll take it,’ Ingrid said.

  ‘We’ll see about that.’ He stroked her head again. ‘Do you have something to cover up that eye?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Get ready for breakfast. I’ll sort this out.’ He stood. ‘We’ll keep this quiet, eh? There’s quite enough unrest about you three as it is.’

  Ingrid watched him leave, his brow furrowed. She hadn’t mentioned the way she’d slapped Mathilde’s face. It wasn’t really violence. That was what one did for hysteria, wasn’t it?

  CHAPTER 31

  The sun had set, but not far enough below the horizon to bring darkness, and the evening colours of mauve and purple lingered and intensified. By the time Lillemor got back to the cabin, Mathilde had rolled herself into bed and was facing the wall.

  She got into her own bunk and switched off the light, but sleep didn’t come easily. That moment when Ingrid’s head cracked on the floor kept returning. It was just a foolish spat, a child’s tantrum, a few hits thrown. If Lillemor had managed to pin down both Mathilde’s arms, it would have been just that, and they’d have never mentioned it again. But Ingrid had an egg on her skull and a black eye that would take some explaining, and somehow the whole sorry incident had tipped into something much more serious.

  Damn Hjalmar! How hard would it have been for him to slip into the cabin when he had the chance? A bit of happiness that would have meant much to Mathilde.

  In truth, the punch was meant for her, Lillemor knew. Ingrid had been fairly kind to Mathilde, all things considered. But Lillemor had used her mercilessly, had toyed with her feelings, and then taunted her about them. No wonder the woman had reached breaking point.

  She squirmed uncomfortably in her bunk and hit the pillow a few times to get it into shape. She didn’t like feeling guilt. But there was no avoiding what had happened and her own part in it. Lillemor didn’t fall into a fitful sleep until after light started to filter through the curtains.