Dark Matter

by Michelle Paver

  Funny what you come across when you’re not looking for it. Again I’ve gone through all our books on Spitsbergen, in case I missed something about what happened here. One of them was published in 1913; it describes Spitsbergen as a miner’s paradise. Rich coal seams, easily dug. Deep anchorages. No taxes, no mining dues, no laws. Each summer, a small army of prospectors and miners arrives from Russia, America, Germany, Norway, Britain. Disputes are frequent, and with no adjudicating authority, are summarily settled. Settled how? Is that what this is about? A fight?

  I couldn’t find any mention of Gruhuken, but in another book there’s a chapter on Spitsbergen folklore, which I’ve skipped. Damned if I’m going to let it put ideas in my head. I’ve got enough of those already.

  In among Gus’ volumes on botany and birds, I found a memorandum book bound in blue American cloth. I didn’t know he’d been keeping a private journal, I thought he was making notes for the expedition report. It gave me such a jolt to see his handwriting. Sounds ridiculous, but I got all choked.

  I put the journal back where I found it. Unread, of course.

  25th October

  AMAZING NEWS! A transmission from Long-yearbyen! GUS OP SUCCESS STOP ALL FINE STOP HAVE WIRED HIS PEOPLE STOP BEAR UP OLD CHAP BACK SOON STOP ALGIE STOP

  Thank Christ. I’ve only just realised that I’ve been carrying the anxiety inside me like a coiled spring.

  When I received the transmission, I was so relieved that I could hardly take down the words. He’s OK. He’s going to be OK. In a few days he’ll be back and it’ll be as if he’s never been away.

  To celebrate, I laced my breakfast porridge with Golden Syrup and whisky. Then I came over all dutiful, and got the Austin going for the weekly dispatches to England. (Which is easier said than done, as it’s a recalcitrant beast and dislikes the chill at this end of the cabin, so I pamper it by warming the valves in the oven.) I’m quite proud of my dispatch to The Times. I kept it matter-of-fact, business as usual: Expedition Leader temporarily indisposed, Wireless Operator taking over in the interim. I don’t want them getting all sensational about me being here on my own.

  It was a clear ‘day’, with enough light at eleven to justify calling it that, so I took the dogs for a run on the beach.

  My God, what would I do without them? They’re the liveliest, most affectionate creatures. I love the sound of their paws pattering over the snow as they hurtle off to investigate things, then hurtle back to tell me about it. Upik isn’t as fierce as I’d thought, but she is fearless; and her mate Svarten might be shy with me, but he certainly keeps the rest of his pack in line. Kiawak is also black, like Svarten, with long soft fur and tawny eyebrows; he hates getting his paws wet. Eli is creamy-white, and none too bright (I call him the Dumb Blond). Pakomi, Jens and Anadark have wolf colouring: shaggy grey-and-tan fur, tipped black at the ends. They’re full of mischief, and love jumping on top of the doghouse to survey the scene; I think they have designs on the cabin roof. Isaak also has wolf colouring, but a handsomer face than the others, and arresting light-blue eyes.

  To think that I wanted to leave them behind. That I actually suggested shooting them.

  Later

  There’s a thin film of ice on the bay.

  I didn’t notice when I was out with the dogs, but I saw it this evening after the five o’clock readings. It’s very thin. When I threw a stone, it shattered into long, jingling slivers. The tide will disperse it. But I’ve got to face facts. At some stage, the sea is going to freeze over.

  When?

  I remember Eriksson talking about the colliers at Longyearbyen and how they only stop running some time in November. But Gruhuken is further north than Longyearbyen.

  What if the sea freezes before Gus and Algie get back? What if I’ve got to stay here alone until spring?

  26th October

  Nothing happened, I just gave myself a fright. Stupid, stupid. I’ve got to watch that. An accident out here wouldn’t be funny.

  Another still day and very overcast, so no twilight. Six thirty in the ‘morning’ and I’m letting the dogs out, when it starts to snow. Softly, insidiously, shutting out the world. No sea, no mountains, no sky. The dogs appear and disappear in the greyness like – well, like shadows. I bless Eriksson for making us put up those guide ropes.

  But that bloody Stevenson screen. The louvres are supposed to protect the instruments from the sun, but since there isn’t any, all they do is become crusted with frost, which has to be removed three times a day. The only way of doing that is to scrape it off with your knife, and it’s damned awkward, partly because you’re wearing snowshoes, which makes it tricky crouching down, and partly because you’re screwing up your eyes against flying particles and your headlamp’s shooting disconcerting beams into the gloom. You long to hear Gus crunching towards you through the snow. Hell, you’d even settle for Algie, whistling ‘All By Yourself in the Moonlight’.

  It happened just after the five o’clock reading. The dogs were off somewhere, but I knew they wouldn’t have gone far, as it was less than an hour till feeding time. It was snowing hard, with a light, persistent wind making the flakes eddy and whirl.

  I’d just finished at the screen, and was plodding back towards the cabin: my headlamp off, spindrift streaming towards me like fingers, and me hunched into the wind, with one hand on the guide rope. I could hear the rasp of my breath and the scrape of my snowshoes, and I made a point of not looking back. I don’t when I’m in snowshoes, as I’ve learnt that they create a not very pleasant auditory illusion: you fancy you hear the scrape of other snowshoes, following right behind you. But of course it’s simply the echo of your own.

  I was wiping the snow from my eyes when I saw someone standing at the door.

  I was so startled that my snowshoes crossed and I fell, bashing my hip on a rock.

  And of course it wasn’t anyone, it was only the bear post.

  Stupid. What’s the matter with you, Jack? Next you’ll be scared of your own shadow! From now on, you watch your step, my lad. What if you’d broken your leg? What if you’d hit your head and knocked yourself out?

  Later

  It stopped snowing around six, and we’re back to the stillness. The windless calm. Except it doesn’t feel calm. You can have stillness without calm. Gruhuken has taught me that.

  I find myself creeping about the cabin, taking care not to make too much noise. It’s as if I don’t want to attract the attention of – what? I think of those trappers in the cabin on Barents Island. For terror of the deadness beyond.

  It’s hard to concentrate on anything. Often I break off to trim the lamps. I replenish them when they’re still three-quarters full. I keep checking my torch batteries, and when I go out, I don’t rely on my head-lamp, I have a torch in either pocket and take a Tilley lamp, too. Even then, I worry. If the battery fails. If I drop the lamp.

  Until now, I hadn’t understood the absolute need for light. I hadn’t appreciated that there’s an unbridgeable difference between a stretch of ‘twilight’ every twenty-four hours, and nothing at all. Only an hour or so of twilight is enough to confirm normality. It allows you to say, Yes, here is the land and the sea and the sky. The world still exists. Without that – when all you can see out the window is black – it’s frightening how quickly you begin to doubt. The suspicion flickers at the edge of your mind: maybe there is nothing beyond those windows. Maybe there is only you in this cabin, and beyond it the dark.

  Fear of the dark. Until I came here, I thought that was for children; that you grew out of it. But it never really goes away. It’s always there underneath. The oldest fear of all. What’s at the back of the cave?

  Eriksson was right. One mustn’t think too much. Keep busy, walk every day, that’s what he said. I’ve got to follow that to the letter. Especially the walks.

  29th October

  Three days of rain. So no twilight, no moon, no stars. And this is ice rain, colder than anything I’ve ever experienced.

  M
aybe I lost my nerve a little after that incident at the Stevenson screen, because I couldn’t face my usual back-and-forth along the beach. Instead I’ve been taking my walks by going outside and circling the cabin, with one hand on the wall, so as not to get lost. I keep my headlamp on at all times.

  Round and round I go, and by now I know every nail in the planking, every loose corner of tarpaper. Each circuit has its scares and reassurances. Turn right out of the door and head past the woodpile and the drums of paraffin and petrol. Past the outhouse and the coal dump, with the dog sledge propped against it. Then I’m off the boardwalk, but I don’t mind, as this is the best bit because I’ve reached the doghouse. I undo the latch and out comes a flurry of whiskery muzzles and flailing paws. For a circuit or two they accompany me, then they get bored and scatter – although Isaak stays close for a while longer, probably because he knows I’ve brought him a butterscotch. Sometimes I keep him with me on a rope, but usually I don’t have the heart to deprive him of his run, so I’m left alone.

  Past the doghouse it’s worse, because my mittened hand must leave the cabin wall and touch naked rock. As I near the end of the boulders, I slow, fearing what I might meet around the corner. I shout to scare off – what? Foxes? Bears? Although the pack ice must still be miles out to sea, so there’s not much chance of bears, and with the dogs about, they’re even less likely.

  Now I’m past the boulders, and my hand finds the planks of the cabin again, and I’m back on the board-walk. You’d think it’d be a relief, but I hate this end of the cabin, I can’t forget that it’s the site of the old trappers’ hut. So I hurry, my gaze fixed on the blessed glimmer of the storm lantern hanging from the antlers over the porch. I try not to catch sight of the bear post, three paces from the door. I hate it if the beam of my headlamp cuts across it.

  I reach the door and bang on it for luck. Well done, Jack. One circuit done. Only nineteen more to go.

  Twenty circuits per day, that’s my rule, and it must not be broken. Like the readings and transmissions, it’s a peg on which my routine depends, a fixed point in my existence.

  Drying out my gear has become another. I spend hours turning gloves inside out, hanging socks over the stove, checking that nothing has scorched. Every item of clothing is a trusted friend. This afternoon I had to stop myself talking to my muffler.

  The stove is a friend, too, albeit a fickle one, and when it’s windy, we have a love–hate relationship. I fuss over it and cajole it into doing better. I keep the door open and watch the flap of the flames, and praise the flaring hiss of a recalcitrant log. I swear at it when it refuses to burn.

  I thought I was lonely back in London, but it was never like this. Lonely? I was among millions of people! Here I’ve got no one. I’m the only human being for

  Shut up, Jack. This isn’t helping.

  Later

  Message from Algie. GUS WELL BUT DOC SAYS CAN’T COME FOR AT LEAST TWO WEEKS STOP SORRY OLD CHAP STOP

  Two weeks?

  I’ve been pacing the cabin, trying to take it in. I’ve done a week on my own already. It feels like a month. How can I bear two more? And why did he say ‘at least’? What did he mean?

  Two weeks. That’s mid-November. Jesus. Will the sea still be clear by then? Will they be able to get through?

  Whisky. Lots of it. That’s the ticket.

  30th October

  I read that chapter on folklore. I wish I hadn’t.

  Most of it wasn’t even about Spitsbergen, not specifically. It was just a rather dreary account of Scandinavian beliefs, some of which I recognise from old English customs. The idea that seabirds bring good luck when you’re out fishing. And scattering salt to ward off witches; Mother used to do that when she ate a boiled egg, a pinch of salt over her shoulder. I’d forgotten.

  It says that ‘some places in Spitsbergen’ – it doesn’t say which – are haunted by draugs.A draug is the unquiet spirit of a drowned man who lurks in the shallows, waiting to drag the unwary to their doom. When a corpse is washed up, there is always a dilemma. If you bury it, are you cheating the sea of its due? If you do not, will you be haunted by the draug?

  I like the ‘when’. How often is a corpse washed up here, anyway?

  And then there’s this. Those who know the islands maintain that the beginning of the polar night is a time for particular care. Some say that seven weeks before Yule, the graves of Spitsbergen open.

  Seven weeks from Christmas. That’s October the 31st. Hallowe’en.

  But Jack, so what?

  When I was a boy, Father gave me a book called Folk Tales from the North. Most of the stories were about witches and trolls and ghosts playing havoc on All Hallows’ Eve – which, when you think about it, is completely understandable, a natural response to living in the north. Of course you’d believe in things like that when you’re facing a long dark winter, and the whole world feels dead.

  But what you’ve got to remember is that there’s nothing new in any of this. Nothing you didn’t already know.

  The 31st of October is tomorrow.

  10

  31st October

  Did I make it happen? Was I more ‘open’ to perceiving it because of what I’d just read? Because of the date?

  It snowed in the night. When I went to take the seven o’clock readings, it was warmer, only minus nine, and a clear ‘morning’, thank God, the moon a brilliant crescent in an indigo sky prickling with stars. Fresh snow clothed the camp in weird grey radiance, and I could see: the pale curves of the whale bones on the beach, the icebergs on the sea. (The sea is mercifully unfrozen; I checked. From now on I’m going to keep an ice watch three times a day.)

  I felt ashamed of my cowardice over the past few days. Those dismal circuits around the cabin, with me clinging to the walls – as if I’d be lost for ever if I didn’t maintain contact. I can’t let things affect me like this. Not with two more weeks to go.

  So in a spirit of defiance, I took the dogs for a walk on the slopes behind camp.

  To begin with it was beautiful. The dogs raced about, yelping, chasing each other. Isaak tugged on his rope – I’m training him to accompany me – but I was firm, and soon he was trotting along docilely; which was just as well, as I was wearing snowshoes and had a ski pole in either hand and a rifle over my shoulder.

  As the twilight strengthened, we followed the frozen stream uphill, and I congratulated myself. See? All it takes is a bit of grit. And look how beautiful it is! The undulating white slopes, the glimmering peaks, the drooping heads of grasses poking through the snow. Even the mining ruins were transformed.

  Isaak gave an excited wuff – and in the distance I made out black dots moving on white. Reindeer!

  See? I told myself as I restrained an eager husky. There is life out here. You just need the guts to go and find it.

  The dogs hurtled after the reindeer, which tilted back their heads and galloped off at surprising speed. The dogs quickly realised it was hopeless, and bounded back to me.

  It was hard going uphill, and soon I was bathed in sweat. Climbing in snowshoes means digging in with your toes so that the spikes underneath can get a grip, and hauling yourself up with your ski poles till your elbows ache. And after all that rain there was ice under the snow, so each step made a glassy crunch – or an alarming scrape when I hit exposed rock – or a jolting whump in a drift.

  One snowshoe came off, and I knelt to rebuckle it.

  When I rose, the land had changed. The mountains floated above long drifts of fog. A gauzy curtain veiled the bay. As I watched, the fog thickened till I could only distinguish features by contrast: the inky sea against the lighter grey shore.

  ‘Time we were getting home,’ I told Isaak, and we started back. He plodded ahead, glancing back at me from time to time as if to say, why so slow? I kept my eyes down, watching my footing.

  When I looked again, the mountains were gone. Sea and camp had vanished, obliterated by fog. I felt its clammy chill on my face.

  �
�Sooner we get home the better,’ I told Isaak. My voice sounded jittery in the stillness. And it was so very still.

  Defiantly, I snapped on my headlamp. Isaak’s shadow loomed: a monster dog. My light scarcely illumined a yard ahead of me, but it showed my tracks clearly enough, leading back to camp. The best thing about snowshoes is that they make such unmistakable tracks. An idiot could follow them.

  I don’t know how I lost the trail, but I did. In disbelief I looked about me. Gone. I took the torch from my pocket and tried that. No good. Like the headlamp, the beam scarcely lit a yard in front. And ‘beam’ is too strong a word. It was more of a diffuse glow, dissolving into the grey.

  Downhill, I told myself. That’s the ticket.

  But around me I saw only grey, and with all contrast gone, it was impossible to make out the lie of the land. I swayed. I couldn’t tell up from down. I headed off again. My snowshoes slid on an icy patch. At the same moment, Isaak caught a scent and lunged forwards. I fell. The rope slipped out of my hand. He was gone.

  ‘Isaak!’ I shouted. My voice sounded muffled. He didn’t come back.

  Cursing, I groped for my ski poles and struggled to my feet. The fog pressed on me from all sides.

  ‘Svarten! Upik! Anadark! Jens! Isaak!’

  Nothing. I stumbled on.

  No, Jack, this is the wrong way, you’re going uphill.

  I backtracked. But there were no recognisable features to backtrack to. By now my trail was a mess of churned snow, no use following that. I thought of the storm lantern hanging from the antlers above the porch, where I couldn’t see it. I wished I’d had the sense to hang one behind the cabin, too.