By early June, their correspondence had deteriorated further:
This is the week we should be decorating the flat together, the week we agreed we’d find the sofa, the bed and all the things we need. I thought about going and choosing on my own, but what’s the point … it’s supposed to be us, doing things together, that was the whole point of us getting married, wasn’t it? Now, I walk into the flat and it just feels so empty and hollow. I’m going to stay at home with my parents until you get back.
Richard had sat at the computer screen in the radio room for a very long time that day, searching for the words which would console, the words which would heal, the words which would make everything absolutely one hundred per cent all right. Then he had given up and retreated, deeply depressed, to the sanctity of his bedroom.
Now he made his way to the mess room, where he sat at the bar for a beer.
‘What’s up, Rich?’ Murdo asked. ‘Got the blues?’
‘Kind of.’ Richard toyed with his glass.
‘Any particular reason?’
‘You could say that. Today’s the day I should be getting married.’
‘Christ, that’s a toughie. How’s your dearly beloved taking it?’
Richard sighed. ‘How do you think?’
‘Oh dear.’ Murdo went behind the bar and flipped open the fridge.
‘She’s had to cancel the church and the reception, her parents have lost money on the deposits for the caterers. You don’t realise how much stuff goes on around a wedding until you have to cancel the damn thing.’
‘Can’t you just reschedule it?’
‘That’s what I keep telling her. I’ll be airlifted out of here by October, so why not a November wedding? But no, that would be too bloody simple for Sophie, wouldn’t it? She wants a summer wedding; that’s what she’s always dreamed of, and that’s what she’s sticking out for. So now we’re looking at waiting a whole year before it can happen.’
Murdo cracked open a Guinness. ‘Try and put it out of your mind,’ he told the journalist. ‘If you dwell on what’s happening fourteen thousand miles away, you’ll end up talking to the pixies.’
‘But it’s here. It’s in my head. It doesn’t matter how far away I am. How about you? You got someone back home?’
‘Oh, aye. Got a girlfriend called Jan, she works in the kitchens at one of the big hotels in Aberdeen. We’ve been together since school.’
‘Miss her?’
‘To bits. But we’re used to time apart, before I got into these Antarctic bases, I was working the rigs, and that’s even tougher on a relationship, believe me.’
‘You ever think of getting married?’
‘Nah. No point really. We’re both saving at the moment, getting psyched up for a big trip round the world. Twelve months on the road, no responsibilities, just the two of us living out of rucksacks on the quest for the perfect beach. That’s what keeps me going when I get blue down here in nowhere land.’
‘The really dangerous thing…’ Richard continued hesitantly, ‘is that I think I’m beginning to have second thoughts. I mean, Sophie and I were going through a hell of a rough patch last year, and then everything got a lot better after we decided to get married … but now, well, she’s just giving me such a hard time over this bloody mess I’ve got myself into here. And it’s not my fault. It’s just not my fault at all.’
‘D’you fancy a game of darts?’
‘You know what, Murdo? You’re really kind. But I’m not in the mood. I’ll just take my beer to my room.’
As he passed the radio station, Frank called out:
‘Richard. You’ve got mail.’
Frank tactfully left as Richard sat at the terminal and opened up his hotmail file.
Dear Richard,
I went to the church today. I had to, even though I know you’ll be angry with me for doing it. It was a lovely afternoon, the sun as bright as I ever dreamed. The gardens smelled of jasmine and roses.
There was a couple just coming out, they must have taken our slot I suppose. And they just looked so bloody happy it made me want to scream. I didn’t, of course. I just drove home, but I had a good scream in the car. And I need your shoulder to cry on now, more than ever before. Why haven’t you sent me a message today? I need to hear from you now, not tomorrow.
Richard clicked on the mouse and closed the file, then sat for a long time just staring vacantly out into the dark otherworld of the Antarctic night.
God, I hate this place, he thought. When is this winter ever going to end?
40
Lauren went to the sun room and stripped off to her underwear for her session on the sun bed. The machine was still cooling off from the previous occupant, and she could tell from the sweet smell of coconut sun-tan oil that Murdo had been the last one on. She wiped down the surface with a towel (Murdo wasn’t always the most fastidious of the Capricorn crew when it came to sweat removal, Lauren had discovered previously) and climbed onto the machine, the plastic creaking a little as she did so.
She placed the tiny protectors over her eyes and stretched out luxuriously beneath the buzzing brilliance of the ultraviolet tubes, enjoying the tingling sensation as her skin soaked up the rays. She let her body relax, putting all thoughts of work aside and thinking instead of the party that was being organised for that evening—the team’s one hundredth day without sun, and the halfway point of the winter night.
From the sun bed it was straight to the sick room, where Mel was waiting with her scissors newly sharpened. Hairdressing was one of Mel’s secondary duties, not that she liked it particularly, but she did as good a job as she could do on Lauren before taking the hot seat while Lauren returned the favour.
‘We’re not talking Toni and Guy, but it’ll do,’ Lauren said as she admired her handiwork.
‘Doesn’t matter anyway,’ Mel told her. ‘I’m not planning to pull tonight.’
‘Men not up to your standards?’
‘You know what they say, by the middle of winter there are no ugly women in Antarctica. But the darnedest thing is, there are still plenty of pig-ugly men.’
Lauren showered to remove the loose strands from her hair and dressed in a light-blue silk shirt and a clean pair of jeans—the nearest thing she had to partywear.
At the store, she found Murdo and Frank hard at work. They had pulled what looked like half a ton of canned and packaged food out into the corridor, and only the rear end of Murdo was visible as he searched the darkest corners of the cupboard.
‘We’re buggered without the bubbly!’ he exclaimed, rummaging ever deeper.
‘He’s misplaced the champers,’ Frank explained, ‘and it seems to have made him a little stressed.’
There was an ecstatic yell from the depths of the cupboard, and a moment later Murdo emerged, beaming, with the case in hand.
* * *
The meal was a triumph, a ‘candlelit extravaganza’—as Murdo put it—‘fit for a king’. Assisted by Richard and Frank, the chef had roasted three chickens to perfection, lining them up with roasted potatoes, parsnips and all the trimmings. There were cheers from the crew as each steaming plate was brought in, and the champagne got a standing ovation.
The knowledge that they had successfully reached the halfway stage of winter had put the entire crew in an excellent frame of mind. There was a contented buzz of laughter around the table, eyes alive with candlelight as the champagne bottles emptied one by one.
For dessert Murdo produced caramelised apples with custard and cream, a dish which cunningly made good use of the dregs of their bruised apples. As the last of the desserts were finished, Lauren chinked a spoon on her glass and got the room quiet.
‘I just wanted to say thanks,’ she told them, ‘for the first hundred days. We’ve had our problems, the genny failure and so on, but on the whole it’s been pretty much how we planned it, and that’s all down to your hard work. Murdo, you’ve kept us fed and watered, better than we could have ever hoped. Keep the brea
kfast pancakes going and we’ll love you for ever! Mel, you’ve done wonders in the sick bay, the way you set Richard’s legs was textbook stuff, and no matter how much frostbite and wind-burned flesh we throw at you, you still keep healing us and making us laugh.
‘Frank, where would we be without you? Lost in a world without radio calls or e-mails, that really would be hell. And, Sean, well, apart from the genny problem, you’ve kept those engines—and the drilling operation—as sweet as pie, and that’s a hell of a thing in these conditions.’
Lauren turned to Richard, Carl and Julian Fitzgerald. ‘As for our three squatters, what can I say? Given the circumstances, you’ve all settled in better than I could have hoped.’
‘Tell the truth, Lauren,’ Murdo shouted good-naturedly. ‘They’re a bunch of wankers!’
A smiling Richard lobbed a chunk of bread across the table, hitting Murdo on the forehead.
‘The most important thing,’ Lauren continued, ‘is that I want all of you to feel a part of the Capricorn team. I know you never asked to be here, I know there’s been tension, and a bit of conflict here and there. But I want everyone to put that behind them and concentrate on making the next hundred days as positive and productive as we can. We’re halfway through, guys, and it’s all downhill from here. So let’s raise our glasses and drink to Capricorn!’
‘And the sun!’ Frank added. ‘Wherever the hell it’s gone!’
‘To the sun!’ The team raised their glasses and downed their champagne.
Then Julian Fitzgerald stood.
‘I wanted to add a brief word,’ he told them, ‘more in the way of an announcement, I suppose. I’ve been thinking about the way that my trans-Antarctic expedition failed, and I’ve realised that the potential is still there to finish off what Carl and I started. I’ve decided I’m going to give it another try. At the end of the winter. Go back to the place where I was forced to postpone the expedition, and set off—solo this time—to try and reach the edge of the continent. That way, the enterprise can still be successful, and I will still become the man to have crossed the Antarctic continent at its widest point!’
Fitzgerald raised his champagne glass.
‘To adventure!’ he exclaimed and sat back in his seat as a muted ripple of applause went round the table.
‘I think that’s very courageous indeed!’ Richard called out. ‘And may I be the first to wish you the best of luck!’
Cigars were circulated, and the base’s single bottle of vintage port breached and distributed. Then it was over to the dartboard for a tournament which was destined to last into the early hours.
Lauren stayed at the table, and so did Fitzgerald.
‘I don’t want to pour cold water on your plans, Julian,’ she told him, ‘but how are you planning to get back to where you left off on the trek?’
Fitzgerald puffed on his cigar.
‘Snowmobile, of course. Simply drive back down to the Blackmore.’
‘And if I can’t spare a snowmobile?’
‘You’ve got four, haven’t you? I’ll pay you back when we all get back to Europe.’
Lauren was furious.
‘Those snowcats cost eight thousand pounds.’
Fitzgerald shrugged.
‘I’ll talk to my sponsors,’ he told her. ‘That type of money’s a drop in the ocean to them.’
‘Don’t you think it would have been courteous to ask me first? You’re talking about using the base’s resources as if they’re your own. Well, they’re not, and they’re in limited supply.’
‘You can spare a couple of kilos of food.’
‘Maybe, but that’s not all you’ll need. You’ll be asking for navigation aids, drugs, camping equipment, skis and boots, a sledge … stuff that’s irreplaceable out here and which we might need.’
‘It’s to the greater good,’ Fitzgerald told her. ‘I’m surprised you can’t see the merit in the idea.’
‘There’s another thing,’ Lauren continued. ‘We’ve already put massive resources into one rescue; how do I know you won’t screw up again and call us out for a second time?’
Fitzgerald’s face puckered up with anger.
‘That’s one step short of slander,’ he hissed. ‘It was Carl that decided to quit.’
‘That’s not what he says.’
‘Oh yes?’ Fitzgerald leaned towards her, his eyes glittering. ‘What does he say exactly?’
‘Maybe you should read his book.’
Lauren regretted the words as soon as they had left her mouth.
Fitzgerald’s eyes narrowed.
‘So that is what he’s doing in that sick bay all day? He is writing a book?’
‘He’s transcribing his diary. I gave him a laptop to get him interested in something. When I said a book, I mean he’s copying his diary down … nothing more as far as I know.’
‘As far as you know…’
For a while they sat in silence at the table, watching the darts tournament as it began to get heated. Then Fitzgerald broke the pause.
‘I know about you and Sean,’ he told her. ‘You thought you’d kept that one quiet, didn’t you?’
Lauren felt the blood drain from her face. ‘What are you talking about?’
‘I’ve seen enough. Very romantic … but not terribly professional to embark on a sexual relationship with one of your crew. Just the sort of blunder that causes friction, don’t you think? I do hope the others don’t find out.’
Fitzgerald blew a smoke ring, the rich blue circle drifting perfectly for a few seconds before breaking onto the back of an overturned bottle.
41
‘Lauren, can we talk?’
Lauren turned away from the microscope and gave Sean her attention. ‘Sure. What’s up?’
‘There’s something bugging me, and I wanted to run it past you.’
‘Talk.’
Sean pushed the laboratory door to and pulled a stool up to the workbench.
‘Carl showed me a section of his expedition manuscript yesterday. And there’s something about it which just doesn’t add up at all. He’s written this really graphic chapter describing in pretty gruesome detail the pain his body was going through and the starvation he was suffering after the rescue plane crashed.’
‘And?’
‘So what about the food and drugs which were in the plane? They must have been eating pretty well after Fitzgerald found that stuff.’
Lauren shook her head. ‘I’m not getting you, Sean; which food and drugs are you talking about? As far as I remember, after you went down there our only conversation was about the state of the wreck and the conditions of the dead pilots.’
‘In the back cabin there was a whole pile of debris, the remains of a big emergency food box. It’d all been eaten. There was a medical kit too, with morphine and bandages and so on, most of that was still intact.’
‘Really? Why didn’t you mention it to me?’
Sean looked a little shamefaced. ‘Why should I have done? I just assumed they’d been sharing the stuff between them and anything left down there was excess to requirements.’
Sean paused as footsteps sounded in the corridor. He waited for whoever it was to pass.
‘There’s another thing,’ he continued quietly. ‘You remember how strange Fitzgerald was about me going down the crevasse … how insistent he got when I said I wanted to see the plane?’
Lauren nodded. ‘You’re right. He was pretty adamant about it. Why do you think that was?’
‘Maybe there was something down there he wanted to hide. Maybe that’s also why he was giving me such a weird look when he saw me with a packet of biscuits I picked up at the crash site … that confirmed to him that I had been down to the plane … and that I knew about the food.’
‘You think he kept it all for himself,’ Lauren asked, incredulous, ‘and let the others starve?’
‘Well … yeah. I don’t see what else could have happened.’
A flash of fear crossed Lauren’s f
ace. ‘You didn’t mention this to Carl or Richard, did you?’
‘I’ve got a mind to. Don’t you think they deserve to know?’
‘No, I don’t! If we alert Carl and Richard that something’s wrong, we run the risk of a row that could go on all winter. It could blow up in our faces, and that’s the last thing we need. I’ll find another way to check this out.’
Ten minutes later Lauren was back, her expression even more disturbed than before.
‘I told Richard I was compiling a chart of his daily calorific intake to put on his file. He confirmed that from the moment of the crash to the time we arrived for the rescue he ate absolutely nothing whatsoever. And nor did Fitzgerald give him any medical supplies.’
Sean whistled.
‘This is starting to look really bad. How could Fitzgerald do such a thing? He deliberately let those two men starve while he set about saving his own life.’
‘Hold on,’ Lauren said. ‘One thing doesn’t add up … if Fitzgerald was stacking himself up with calories, how come he was so weak when we arrived? You remember how he fell onto the ice like a baby?’
Sean shrugged. ‘Maybe it was an act. Maybe he wanted us to think he was at death’s door. I’m beginning to think he’s capable of that. And he certainly wasn’t that weak, because he’d been down to the aircraft several times, and that was pretty damn physical. Also, his recovery was astounding … he was back on his feet within a day, as right as rain.’
‘You’re right. He was way stronger than the other two.’
‘We can’t let him get away with this, Lauren.’ Sean went to the door. ‘We have to tell them what he did. It’s going to eat away at me all winter if we don’t.’
Black Ice Page 15
