Under a Pole Star: Richard & Judy Book Club 2017 - the most unforgettable love story of the year

by Stef Penney

  ‘You believe them, then?’

  ‘The previous letters were anonymous, so I ignored them. This one is signed. By a Mrs E. Levinson.’

  Flora feels a slither of shock.

  ‘Mr Levinson is in charge of conserving the mummies. You know I see him.’

  ‘I don’t imagine you were conserving mummies at fifty-seven Calthorpe Street. Last Friday.’

  Flora is silent.

  ‘Do you have nothing to say?’

  Flora drifts over to the window. She has thought of this moment, but it is nothing like she imagined.

  ‘No.’

  She had been almost sure that he suspected her affair with Jakob, and chose not to confront her. It seems bizarre to be found out now for something that matters so little.

  ‘I know there was a connection between you at university. Perhaps you’ve always loved him? Has it . . . gone on ever since?’

  ‘I hadn’t seen him for years, until we met at the museum.’

  ‘Are you in love with him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I suppose what I mean is, do you want a divorce?’

  ‘Oh, Freddie . . .’ She passes her hand over her eyes, an immense wave of tiredness threatening to engulf her. ‘I’m sorry. It doesn’t matter in the least. It’s not important.’

  ‘You don’t love him?’ He sounds incredulous.

  ‘What is it that matters to you, Freddie? I have no idea! I’ve taken advantage of . . . of you, I suppose. I’ve often wondered why you went on with the work on my behalf. It’s not as though you love me – it was never that, was it?’

  ‘Of course I do! Since the accident, I know I’ve not been a husband to you – with this wretched body . . .’ He gestures at himself, grimacing with disgust.

  Flora stares. ‘No, not “since the accident”! You were never a husband to me. You never wanted me!’

  Freddie stares at her with a terrible sincerity.

  ‘It was you who never wanted me, Flora. Have you forgotten?’

  Flora feels her head spin.

  ‘Not . . . like that.’

  ‘So Mr Levinson gives you whatever it is you want?’

  Flora stares past him, shaking her head. ‘For God’s sake . . .’

  ‘After the accident, when my own hopes were destroyed, I was comforted because I still had you. You carried my hopes with you. I told myself we had something finer than a mere animal connection – affection, a purpose . . .’

  ‘If it is finer, then we still have it. If not, then . . .’ Flora takes a deep breath. ‘You can divorce me, of course. But I’ll be gone in a few weeks, anyway.’

  They stare at each other; Flora is frightened by what she has just said. Despite everything – everything – they are used to each other. Being his wife is the only adult existence she knows.

  ‘That’s not what I meant,’ he says at last.

  ‘Then what do you mean? What is it you want?’ It comes out as a cry. And, for a moment, she thinks he is going to tell her.

  ‘As you say, you are shortly to leave. That is my priority. As it must be yours.’ He looks at the letter, as if surprised it is still in his hand. He drops it on the table. ‘I’m sorry. It upset me.’

  ‘Don’t be sorry! Whatever she alleges, it’s true.’

  ‘But you don’t love him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Yet he makes you happy.’

  ‘Actually, I was about to end it.’

  ‘Then we don’t need to speak of this again.’

  Flora makes an inarticulate noise, but cannot bring herself to go on. Indeed, does not know how.

  The following week, Gilbert Ashbee signs on as a member of the expedition. The final argument – to which she has no answer – is the five thousand pounds contingent on his participation. Without it, she will not see Aniguin, and she will not (perhaps) see Jakob de Beyn – although she believes this last plays no part in her calculations. And London has become intolerable. Pride and integrity are luxuries she cannot afford.

  Money is the crux of it. Sacrifices have to be made – exploration demands them of everyone involved, and of some who are not involved and will not even benefit, like Ralph’s unborn child, who will not meet its father until it has spoken its first words, and may never meet him at all.

  .

  Flora writes her final letter to Mark. She finds herself weeping over it, recognising a truth she has been avoiding: her tenderness was all for the brilliant youth he was, and that youth is gone, just as the girl she was has gone. Had she assumed that intimacy with her would be a healing balm? That she could wipe away bitterness, self-pity, time? If so, she overestimated her charms.

  Chapter 42

  New York, 40˚42’N, 74˚00’W

  April 1897

  Jakob has not set foot in the Natural History Museum since Ayakou’s funeral in its grounds. Inside the porticoed entrance, he pauses to breathe in the atmosphere. It acts on him like a salve. With the endless worry of expedition-planning, he has no time to himself, but as a student he used to spend hours in the mineral halls, sketching and making notes. He would lose himself in the almost sanctified air of the place; a hushed antidote to the teeming city.

  Finding himself early for his appointment with the assistant curator, he takes a roundabout route to White’s office, where he is due to talk about fossils, wandering past familiar displays and through the Choate Hall of Mankind. In the domed space with its cathedral echoes, there are signs of change: his eye is drawn to a new case, the card of which is snowy-white, and, before he has read it, a cold finger of unease runs down his spine. On the card is typed: Eskimo male, around thirty-five years old. North-West Greenland. Acd. 1896.

  He knows that Armitage is only the latest in a line of explorers to bring back remains of the dead, but the cold feeling deepens. The bones are not an ochreous brown, like those of the ancient hominids; they have not been unearthed. Then he realises what his brain registered before he consciously noticed it: the damage to the bones of the right leg, which had, in life, been badly broken and poorly knitted together. Jakob is sure of one thing: that he was there when the damage was done, and he was there when the bones were splinted, in Siorapaluk, four years ago. He looks at the grinning skull, and cannot discern the face that covered the bone. But he looks at the leg, and he knows – he knows – that he is looking at the skeleton of his friend Ayakou.

  A father with two young sons drifts over to stand close by.

  ‘It’s so short,’ says one of the boys. ‘It’s a midget!’

  They all laugh.

  ‘Savages are always small,’ says the father. ‘They’re primitive, like that Neanderthal man, there.’

  Blood rushes loudly in Jakob’s head.

  ‘His name was Ayakou.’

  ‘Excuse me?’ The man’s voice is hostile.

  Jakob looks at him. ‘His name was Ayakou. This man, here. He wasn’t a savage, and he died only a few months ago, right here in New York.’

  The man lifts his lip in a snarl, puts his hands on his sons’ shoulders and hustles them away, muttering, ‘Crazy . . . Shouldn’t let people like that in here . . .’

  .

  Outside, he locates Ayakou’s unmarked grave. It looks undisturbed; a thin haze of new grass covers the earth. Does this mean his fears are unfounded? He was there himself, for God’s sake! Or had they . . . (surely unthinkable) dug him up immediately? Then, as he stands, surrounded by impudently blooming daffodils, an even more terrible possibility strikes him: was it even Ayakou’s body they had buried in the first place?

  .

  In White’s office, Jakob is excited and distracted and cannot remember what he came here to say. He finds himself interrupting the initial small talk with an abrupt laugh, and says, ‘I wonder if you could set my mind at rest . . . It may be the craziest thing, but
I noticed, as I was coming here, a new exhibit in Choate Hall . . . Eskimo male, from north-west Greenland. Acquired last year. Where did it come from?’

  White glances down at his desk, in which moment, Jakob knows he is right, and that White is going to lie.

  ‘I’d have to look at the paperwork. Can’t remember every exhibit offhand, I’m afraid! I’m pretty sure it came with Mr Armitage’s last consignment.’

  Across the desk, backlit against the arched window, White’s outline seems to sparkle.

  ‘Now, ah, the fossils you mentioned . . . We would be interested in some examples of—’

  ‘Because I was with Ayakou when the meteorite was taken, Mr White,’ Jakob interrupts, a hot energy coursing through him. ‘When his leg was broken in two places. I was there. And that skeleton has the right leg broken in the exact same two places. That skeleton is Ayakou’s, isn’t it?’

  White gapes at him, managing somehow to look shocked, ignorant and uninterested, all at the same time.

  ‘You and I were there, along with his wife Padloq, when we buried him in the garden. Can you explain that, Mr White?’

  White gives him a tight smile. ‘I cannot comment on individual exhibits, Mr de Beyn. But the museum has the perfect right to mount its specimens in the way that best educates and informs—’

  ‘He’s not a specimen! He’s a man you knew! His name is Ayakou. You knew his wife! You can’t just stick him in a case for people to gawk at! I thought you had a conscience—’

  ‘You’re excited, Mr de Beyn. The tragic case of the Eskimos has been upsetting for everyone involved, myself included, and—’

  Jakob finds himself on his feet, clenching his hands. ‘If your wife died tomorrow, would you send her body upstate, boil it in a vat until the flesh fell off her bones, then stick them in a case for everyone to look at?’

  ‘Mr de Beyn, that is . . . a . . . an outrageous . . . ! How dare you mention—’

  ‘How dare I? How dare you do it! Apparently things like respect and consideration don’t matter to you! As long as it educates and informs!’

  White’s jowls quiver with rage. But he keeps to the shelter of his desk, as though Jakob is a dangerous prospect.

  ‘You don’t deny it.’

  ‘I think . . . I think you should leave, Mr de Beyn.’

  Jakob turns to go, and has his hand on the door when he remembers he carries a note from Aniguin in his breast pocket.

  ‘Aniguin gave me a letter for you. He wanted to tell you that he doesn’t blame you for anything. But then he doesn’t know what you did to his friend. Shall I tell him? According to you, it shouldn’t matter in the slightest.’

  White makes an whinnying noise. Jakob throws the envelope on to the man’s desk. Only then does another thought occur to him.

  ‘I’m going to Mount Olivet now. If I find that any attempt has been made to remove the bodies that are buried there, I will take it to the press.’

  As he walks down the corridor, he hears Mr White calling after him, ‘You have no proof! I admitted nothing, d’you hear?’

  .

  Jakob walks at high speed away from the museum. He cannot imagine setting foot in the place again. After a few minutes, he slows down, still trembling with the aftermath of his outburst. The streets are grey with old slush. A keen wind blows off the East River. Once the heat of his anger subsides, he finds that he is freezing. In the course of his melodramatic departure, he has left his overcoat in White’s office.

  Cursing and shivering, he turns and walks back to the museum, passing red-nosed New Yorkers – pinch-faced, mean-eyed, squalid, self-centred, importunate city-dwellers – the sort of people who stand in front of a man’s mortal remains, consuming the spectacle without knowing or caring where he came from, or what was his name. He hates them all. He, Jakob, (now climbing the steps of the building he just vowed never to enter again) is as squalid, as ridiculous, as any of them.

  Suddenly, the urge to leave is overwhelming. He has to stop and put his hand on the banister. He shuts his eyes and pictures the hillside on the coast of Ellesmere – the austere, endless light, the uncomplicated joy he knew there. Only a few weeks until he sails away from this place, these people, the worst parts of himself.

  He straightens, and continues on up the stairs.

  PART SEVEN: THULE

  Chapter 43

  Gander, Newfoundland, 48˚57’N, 54˚36’W

  April 1948

  ‘I’m sorry folks, but we’ve just had the weather report.’

  Commander Soames holds up the offending piece of paper and glances round at the gathering in the dining room. (Why do scientists have to be so scruffy? Straightening a tie and polishing a belt can hardly be beyond their capabilities.)

  ‘There are high winds across Baffin and Ellesmere, and I’m afraid we’re going to have to wait until they die down. We need the best possible conditions if we are to land. We should get another report in around four hours, and then we’ll take a decision. So, until then, if you could be patient with us . . .’

  His smile has a certain perfunctory quality. It’s not as though anyone has a choice. Randall Crane is disappointed. Then, as he often does, he sees the upside.

  He has been watching the Snow Queen this morning. She did not seem inclined to meet his eye at breakfast. She was lively at the dinner last night, smiling – flattered and charmed by the men’s attentions. The flattery – or the wine (or both) – made her seem younger, warmer. Perhaps she was, as he had been, invigorated by the sense of occasion. There had been an air of something exciting and momentous – history, perhaps – in the dining room. They were going to be the first people to stand – incontrovertibly stand, that is – at the North Pole. The previous claimants, whose accounts are clouded by various densities of fog – uncorroborated reports, dubious navigational sightings, unfeasible speeds, the sheer impossibility of proof – all can be swept aside. No one here is pretending to be an explorer, but they are the chosen ones, chosen because they deserve it. This morning, that exhilaration is hard to recapture. It is cold, cloudy and beginning to drizzle.

  .

  Flora, who told her father she was going to the North Pole when it was the centre of white space on the map, now feels little excitement at the prospect. Instead, she merely experiences some curiosity, some fear that the headache she developed overnight will intensify and spoil things. This morning, she is tired. Being questioned by the young man, being here – it brings memories of the north close, and all that went with it.

  .

  Randall runs her to earth in the lounge, where she sits with a cup of coffee and a newspaper. She looks up at his greeting, without warmth.

  ‘Mrs Cochrane, good morning. I have a confession to make.’

  ‘Really? I’m sure it’s of no great consequence, Mr Crane.’

  ‘I think it might be. I’m afraid that I rather annoyed you with my questions yesterday. You asked the nature of my interest in Armitage and de Beyn, and I wasn’t entirely frank with you. I apologise for that.’

  She folds the paper and puts it on the table. He sits down beside her and takes a deep breath.

  ‘Before she married, my mother’s name was Vera de Beyn. Jakob de Beyn was her uncle.’

  The Snow Queen stares at him. Her mouth is a frozen ‘O’ of surprise. Her eyes are wide; she seems to be scrutinising him in minute detail. Then she says, ‘I see. And you didn’t you tell me this yesterday because . . .’

  Randall laughs, embarrassed. ‘I suppose, because I’m here in a professional capacity and I have a job to do. It so happens that I also have this family connection. It’s why I became interested in the Arctic in the first place . . . I wanted you to take me seriously. And I didn’t know how you would . . .’ He shakes his head and smiles, hopeful. ‘Anyway, I’m sorry.’

  ‘His niece Vera is your mother?’

 
; ‘Yes, that’s right.’

  There is a long pause.

  ‘I can understand your interest in what happened to him. But it doesn’t mean that I can tell you any more than I could yesterday.’

  ‘You do believe me?’

  She looks cunning. ‘His niece was crippled. He was afraid she would never marry.’

  Randall nods.

  ‘She had polio as a baby. She’s always been lame. She married late – she met my father after the first war. He was demobbed in 1919, with wounds, and she was working in the hospital. She was quite a bit older than him. He says his recovery was all down to her.’

  Her face changes; the suspicion is melting away, he thinks.

  ‘I’m sure Mr de Beyn would have been happy to know that. I think he was very fond of her.’

  ‘Mom adored him. She always said that, when she was a little girl, she wanted to marry him.’

  He watches her, but has no idea what is going on behind that impassive face.

  ‘Mrs Cochrane, I hope you’ll forgive me for saying this, but we have so little time.’ He looks around him to check that no one else has come within earshot. ‘After Jakob’s death, my grandfather – that is, his brother, Hendrik – went through his things. He found your letters.’

  She blinks rapidly. ‘Oh.’

  There is a long pause. Randall waits.

  ‘I’m sorry, I’m not sure I remember . . . What letters were these?’

  Randall takes a deep breath. ‘You corresponded with him after the first Greenland expedition in 1892, and then I believe you met again, when he went to Europe in ’95.’

  .

  He doesn’t know how to go on. He has read the letters. In fact, he has them with him. At first, the letters from Flora Athlone to his great-uncle are formal, friendly. The first one deals with a child that a friend, Frank Urbino, fathered in Greenland, and an Eskimo man who was hurt in the accident that killed Urbino. It is the passing on of news – careful, concerned. Over the next two years, the correspondence becomes increasingly easy and familiar, until, in the spring of 1895, it suddenly changes: from a letter every few months, there is a spate, and the tone has become passionate, intense. They have met again, in Europe, and the relationship – it is fairly clear – has been consummated. There is mention of her joining him in Switzerland. There is passion and longing. There are doubts, delicately expressed, about his feelings for her, although not about her own for him. Letters from a woman in love, you would say.