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

by Stef Penney

  ‘I wish you were staying. Can I put them here?’

  She shifted so that he could tuck his cold hands between her thighs.

  He said, into her hair, ‘I won’t do anything stupid, I promise.’

  Flora pushes herself into a sitting position and fumbles for the glass of water by her bed. She is thirsty, her throat painfully dry. Was she asleep? She has to dab at her eyes, which have a tendency to leak when she lies down. Something wrong with the tear ducts, she has been told. Not crying. She doesn’t do that any more. Never did, really.

  .

  Jakob planned to return to New York in September of ’99, a year after Flora had left Greenland, but by the end of that month, there was no word – no letter, or telegraph. She ordered herself not to worry. To wait, believing that all would be well.

  After a few more weeks, she wrote to his brother in New York. Just in case – she told herself – he had changed his mind about her. It was unthinkable, but it was also possible. It would not be the end of the world, but she had to know. Hendrik de Beyn’s reply confirmed that Jakob had not returned. He too, was worried, but knew that the north was an unpredictable place. His letter both relieved and depressed her. So Flora waited, starving her imagination. Freddie, who had agreed to a divorce, said nothing about it, until after the rumours and reports began to appear in the papers, late that winter. Flora ignored them; what were rumours, after all? But she wrote to her father: she was going to Greenland in the spring; please, please, Daddy, this time you must help me . . .

  One day in February, while they discussed a clause in the contract for her book, Freddie said, without looking at her, ‘Am I to take it that you no longer wish for a divorce? It’s quite all right. Up to you.’

  Flora walked out of the room without another word.

  Chapter 56

  Siorapaluk, 77˚47’N, 70˚38’W

  July 1900

  The air smells of salt water and juniper. The Vega noses her way between floes and drops anchor in the fjord, where she hangs, doubled by her reflection, like the icebergs, like the red hills. Ice clings to the shore in places. It is strangely quiet – no dogs bark, there are no shouts of welcome. Only the distant cries of wheeling dovekies disturb the stillness. The village, on its quiet sandy beach, looks deserted. She wonders whether some wholesale calamity has befallen it.

  Flora rows herself ashore. She would not let anyone come with her. Her father has brought her here – reluctant, critical, generally disapproving, but unable to deny her. He called in favours, made claims on men he hates to be indebted to, so that the Vega would be leased to him for the season. He doesn’t know what this will end up costing him. The crew, most of whom know, or know of, the renowned Captain Mackie and his oddly celebrated daughter, must have formed some idea of why they are here, on what strange mission that has nothing to do with whales, but they say nothing.

  .

  When she came to Dundee to beg for help, she knew he would not – in the end – say no. Her father did not rage and shout – that would have been out of character – but he was tight-lipped, judgemental, his face pinched with Presbyterian disgust, as though this were merely the last of very many straws: that was her payment.

  ‘What about your marriage vows? You made a vow before God to support your husband in sickness and in health. Till death do you part.’

  Flora refused to admit that hope was lost; she was divorcing Freddie to marry another man, who was . . . temporarily mislaid.

  ‘You assume the fault is all mine.’

  ‘No, I don’t. But no marriage is perfect, Flora. Life is not meant to be a picnic party.’

  ‘I know that!’

  Her father made her feel and behave like a child.

  ‘Life isn’t meant to be purgatory, either. I shouldn’t have married Freddie. I was twenty years old and unhappy, and I made a mistake. It never worked, not even before his accident. I deserve a chance to be happy, father. Marrying Mr de Beyn will not be a mistake.’

  If she hadn’t married Freddie, she would not have gone north – would never have met Jakob. And if Ashbee hadn’t died . . . There is no unpicking the weave of causality in her life.

  ‘And you say you intend to move to America’ – he seemed to find this more outrageous than the divorce itself – ‘where you know no one! Where you have no family or friends. You would cut all natural ties and be absolutely dependent on this man?’

  Flora sighed. ‘I’m not cutting all ties. The boat to New York only takes a week. And I don’t mean to be his dependant – I will work.’

  ‘How do you know you will be able to?’

  ‘I’ve as much chance of doing so there as here.’

  ‘There are storms in every marriage . . . temptations. It is almost always better to weather those storms. You’ve been a fortunate young woman, Flora. Perhaps that was my fault; I indulged you too much. You’ve not had to learn about sticking it out. That’s what most people do – they make a promise and they make the best of it.’

  Flora was goaded into attack, at last.

  ‘I “stuck it out”, as you put it, for eight years! And do you claim you made the best of your vows – your promises? Do you think I don’t know about Sorqaq, and Asarpaka? What you did up there?’

  Her father’s face went very still, his eyes fixed on the wallpaper. Only his nostrils moved. For a moment, she was afraid of what he might do.

  ‘I never set up to be a saint. Your father is weak, Flora. But your mother, God rest her soul, never knew, or suffered for it. I stood by her. I didn’t walk away.’

  ‘You did not stand by her! You were gone for two years at a time! Did you know that I blamed her for driving you away? I hated her for it! I didn’t know, then, that you were . . . For all I know, you spent as much time with them as you did with us!’

  Captain Mackie looked at her again, and she quailed.

  ‘No. I was away so much because my job entailed it – that was all. I regretted my weakness, every day. I am sorry if you . . . I didn’t know . . .’

  Flora glared back at her father, but her indignation was waning. It occurred to her that he would miss her – not that he would say so. She felt stirrings of pity for him, and did not want to.

  .

  She rows the dinghy as slowly as she can across the quiet surface, attuned to the dip of the oars, the hollow sound of the rowlocks, the soft glitter of water falling from the blades. She notices everything about the boat, and the fjord, and the ship drawing away from her. She is backing blindly into a future she does not want. She stops rowing. As long as she does not land, perhaps it will not happen.

  The boat grounds itself on the sand with a rasp. She climbs out. She has thought of all the bad news that she might hear, and how she will survive it. Except that, after a certain point, she cannot imagine herself surviving. She has forced herself to imagine terrible things – he is living with a woman here, with a half-Eskimo baby, having changed his mind. She has imagined him stranded on the other side of Smith Sound, like Greely and his men, weak, ill, starving . . . And she imagines – she can’t help it – Jakob walking out of an illu towards her. Seeing his dear smile. (‘Darling, I couldn’t write . . . I hoped you didn’t worry too much . . .’ How long his hair? Bearded or clean-shaven? How tanned?) She can feel, physically feel, his arms around her, his body against hers. For how much longer can she believe any of these things?

  Things have to be paid for. She has told herself that, as long as he is all right, she can bear to give him up – if that is what it costs. As if the outcome could be anything to do with what she wants.

  Now there is a barking from behind one of the illu. A small, half-naked figure runs out, stops and stares at the stranger. It is Aamma. Seven years old, tall for her age, fine-featured, imperious. Flora calls out to her, ‘Aamma! It is I, Fellora, remember? Fellora.’

  The child stares back
without recognition. Then she calls out the question you ask of people you don’t know, of whom of you have reason to be suspicious: ‘Are you flesh or are you spirit?’

  Flora says, ‘I am flesh.’

  Aamma calls over her shoulder. And Flora is thinking, not of the last time she saw him, but of the time they said goodbye in the London hotel, when she did not know when or if she would see him again. The force of it: not now . . . not now . . . please God, not now.

  Now Meqro is coming out of an illu, her face changing from worry and surprise to pleasure as she recognises her old friend.

  ‘Fellora!’

  Now Flora is walking up to her, smiling at Meqro, but her face feels like a mask.

  ‘Meqro, dear friend . . . Oh, tell me – is he . . . ?’

  But then it is now.

  Chapter 57

  Siorapaluk, 77˚47’N, 70˚38’W

  July 1900

  The hut, with its honey-coloured walls, is still standing, although parts have been dismantled and carried away. The foodstuffs they abandoned have gone and there is little of anything left. Furniture has been broken down for timber, planks prised away, nails pulled out, and the orphaned things – stove, mismatched bottles and tins – are broken, rusted and dirty, scattered in squalid confusion. Flora looks at it and feels rage and sadness, although what does it matter? She cannot cry. She is too angry – with Jakob, with herself. How could he have left her, after all those full-hearted promises? How could she have failed to keep him safe?

  Meqro can tell her little enough. She tells Flora about the strange incident when Armitage came to Neqi from the north, the winter before last, and fought with Jakob, and then went away, angry. She thought they had fought because of Flora – perhaps Armitage was jealous. Sorqaq would know more. He and Jakob were like brothers. They had been working on the glacier at the head of the fjord. They had gone up there many times after the sun came back. Sorqaq said they had climbed down inside it, into its blue heart. Then, after Sorqaq married, Jakob continued to go up on the glacier alone. One day, he didn’t come back. The men went to look, but there was no sign of him. The glacier was of the inland ice: haunted by spirits, unpredictable and dangerous. Its crevasses could swallow a man.

  Ayornamut.

  .

  The American kallunat must have angered the spirits. Some time after that, Welbourne went to hunt walrus with some of the men, and was drowned. His companions, who included Aniguin and Metek, found his body too late. Another death, but unconnected. Bad luck.

  ‘Sad. Both of them. I’m sorry, Fellora.’

  Meqro cries softly. Flora nods. Her throat has become too tight to speak. She keeps her lips pressed together. If she opens her mouth, she might scream.

  Meqro goes on, almost as if she is talking to herself.

  ‘He was a good man. And he was happy, with you. Qooviannikumut.’

  Meqro’s eyes are focused on her needlework. She does not look at Flora. She does not reach out and touch her. Flora did not expect that she would.

  .

  Her father is oddly tender with her – tentative, even – as if, robbed of disapproval, he does not know how to behave. He seems less sure of himself. Flora looks at him and thinks, in astonishment, But he looks like an old man! When did he become old?

  When she wasn’t there. All sorts of things happened when she was not there to prevent them: her father ageing, Jakob dying. She should have been there to keep him from harm. She had told him that she would, and did not.

  A few days before she left London, she went to see Iris. Her friend was in a terrible state. Helen Tomlinson had left her, which was no great surprise to anyone, but, in a stroke that seemed especially cruel, she had run off with Jessie Biddenden. They had gone to Egypt, or somewhere like that – somewhere hot and full of history. Iris went to pieces. She frightened Flora; it was as though her brain was unspooling in front of her, her thoughts landing on the floor in a chaotic jumble. Her hair was unkempt, her clothing dishevelled. Flora tried to buck her up, knowing it was probably futile. She couldn’t believe Jessie’s treachery; Helen’s she could believe only too well.

  ‘I know you used to warn me about Helen, Flora – everyone did. But you didn’t know how she could be . . . I wouldn’t have changed a thing about her. Not one thing.’

  Flora held Iris’s bony, fragile hand. Her wrists were white and unblemished.

  ‘Do you know, she had the temerity to write to me from Rome, and say that she was missing me! Missing me!’

  Iris looked demented, her eyes unable to focus on anything in the room.

  ‘Can you believe it? No acknowledgement of the agonies she put me through, as though this pain I live in were nothing! The feeling that she might, after all, change her mind, come back . . . Oh! It’s this constant dangling I can’t stand.’

  ‘You can refuse to be dangled. You have a choice.’

  ‘I can’t! I wish I didn’t. I don’t.’

  ‘You do.’

  ‘I couldn’t not choose her. And it’s torture.’

  Flora murmured in agreement. Iris lifted burning, tear-lensed eyes to her and gave her a ghastly smile.

  ‘Do you know what I find myself wishing? I actually wish she were dead. I wish she had died. Then I could just be sad.’

  Her voice broke on the last word, and the brimming tears flowed down her cheeks. It made her look more human.

  ‘I would know that I would never see her again; she could never write and twist the knife once more . . . It would be easier than this.’

  She sobbed for a minute and then dabbed her eyes with a handkerchief. The outburst seemed to have restored a little sanity. Her voice was calmer.

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, Flora, I don’t mean . . . I don’t know what I’m saying.’

  Flora shook her head, meaning, It’s all right. But she did know what she was saying. She knew.

  There is a youth walking around the village in one of Jakob’s shirts – an old flannel shirt, with thin stripes of red and green – walking around, with it unbuttoned and flapping, as though it were nothing. Flora does not know this boy, but she goes up to him.

  ‘You got this from the kallunat house at Neqi?’

  ‘Ieh.’ He smiles.

  ‘That was Te Peyn’s shirt.’

  He shrugs.

  ‘He was my husband. It was his shirt. Could I buy it from you?’

  The youth stares at her with shy curiosity.

  ‘It is a good shirt,’ he says. ‘Will you give me a gun?’

  This is so preposterous that Flora nearly laughs.

  ‘I can’t give you a gun for a shirt. I don’t have a gun. I will give you . . . some nails, some cloth . . . I can give you another shirt. A better shirt. Thicker than this. This one is old and worn-out.’

  She can see him calculating how much he can ask for. She could kill him without compunction. She reaches out her hand to touch the hem and he draws back.

  ‘Please . . .’

  Suddenly the tears are flooding down her face. The boy looks confused. Flora tries to explain, but finds she can no longer speak. Not only that, she can’t breathe. She is gasping for air, her throat working uselessly, making strange, inhuman sounds. She grows dizzy, but her throat has locked shut. She thinks, This is it; this is how I die. Grief will choke me.

  The next thing, she is lying on the ground on her side, her cheek pressed into the cold gravel. Her hands are covered in grit, and hurt. Above her, against the sky, the boy has taken off the shirt and is holding it out towards her. He looks frightened. He lays it down in front of her and backs away.

  Flora puts her hand on the cloth. She washed this shirt in the river at Onmogilijk Dal. Molecules of their glacier are in this shirt, atoms from their lake. She brings it to her face and breathes it in. It does not smell of him, she thinks. Then she thinks, I can’t remember what
that was like.

  Neqi, 77˚52’N, 71˚37’W

  They camp beside the remnants of the abandoned American hut, as ransacked and dilapidated as her own. Flora stands in the cramped space that was his darkroom, its partition wall nibbled away, the glass bottles broken. There are the few pieces of photographic equipment that no one could find a use for: some chemicals, which she pours away; a box of blank paper, stained and swollen with damp; a piece of amber glass that he used to filter snow glare, broken in two. On the wooden walls, at head height, lists of numbers are scribbled in pencil: developing times, perhaps. His writing. His thoughts. She thinks about asking Sorqaq to cut out the piece of plank for her, then thinks, This is so, so stupid.

  There is no sign of his cameras, his photographs, his films, notebooks, records. She can see where folders were once stacked on a shelf. There should be the photographs of his discoveries, his new land, the account of the circumnavigation of Thule, with his notes, drawings, painstaking measurements, samples . . . All that proof. These things are important. Less important, perhaps (but dearer to her), there are the photographs of the valley, the glacier and its lake. The caves of ice. The pictures she took of him (in his notes, credited to Naasut). And, somewhere, there must be photographs of herself among the flowers, and of him – the ones he promised no one else would see.

  There should be the account of his northern journey, and the evidence he has that proves Armitage a liar.

  The bunks are partially dismantled, but the blankets have been left, unwanted. Wool does not do well here; the blankets are damp; mildew and other forms of decay have stolen into the hut and begun their work. Flora lies down on the bunk they briefly shared, listening to its creaks, breathing in the miasma of wet wool.

  Sorqaq could add little to Meqro’s account. Last spring, he married a girl called Megipsu, and went with her to her village. Jakob worked on the glacier nearby. He continued to go up there after Sorqaq left. He knew it well, knew what to avoid . . . Glaciers are always dangerous, no matter how much care is taken.