The Ice

by Laline Paull

  ‘Thomas! As if I’d compromise my crew like that. Everyone’s a fully consenting grown-up.’

  Tom didn’t smile back. ‘So you’ve started up in the CAR again?’

  ‘Sure. Last time I looked, mining was legal, as was helping the local economy, setting up health centres after the epidemic, and bringing prosperity to a lot of people. Tom, you’ll give yourself a hernia trying to police the whole world.’

  ‘I don’t want to police it, I just want—’

  ‘Things done your way – I remember. The good way, the green way, the right way. I know, and please god, don’t change – it’s why we want you here. But let me tell you, you go looking under stones and you know what you’ll find? Good clean dirt and the creatures that live there. It’s called a financial ecosystem, and I’m just as keen on protecting that one as you are with any of yours. That’s how the world works and it’s prudish to deny it, any more than your own bodily functions. Come out of denial and join the party!’

  ‘What am I denying, Joe?’

  ‘That the ice is going going gone, and there’s nothing we—’

  ‘There absolutely is: all of us together—’

  ‘Time’s passed, there’s no political will. Look at the US! Much easier to make all you bleeding hearts feel guilty for flying on vacation than change a trade deal. Governments would rather invest in space and leave the mess behind. Few centuries later, and it all turns to holy relics anyway. Your beautiful idea of everyone pulling together only happens in the movies, war, and sport. Real life, it’s everyone for themselves and their families – and there is nothing more selfish than a new family.’

  ‘Joe, you’re wrong.’

  ‘I’m not.’

  ‘But it’s my job at Midgard to convince people exactly like you.’

  ‘There’s no one remotely like me—’

  ‘—that it’s better to think collectively than selfishly, and you’ll make more money when you do.’

  ‘You’re fighting human nature.’

  ‘People are better than you think.’

  Joe Kingsmith turned to Sean. ‘I love this boy.’

  ‘Man.’ Tom didn’t smile. ‘And we both know you don’t.’

  ‘OK. But I give you respect.’ Kingsmith stopped the joking. ‘So seriously, Tom, let’s get you down to the CAR, the DRC, even South Sudan, if you want.’

  ‘Are you crazy? You’re in there?’

  ‘Aha, you see – right there, that’s what I’m up against. South Sudan has a lot of talented, hard-working people developing the infrastructure – come see for yourself what I’m up to, I’ll set your mind at rest.’ Kingsmith paused to admire his plane rolling past towards the runway.

  When it had gone, a small figure was revealed in the arc lights, crossing the snow-swirled tarmac towards the terminal building. She entered in a blast of cold air and the glass slid shut behind her. She wore a long brown parka with a fur-trimmed hood and rummaged in its pockets for her ringing phone. They all watched as she unzipped the parka, trying to get to it in time – revealing it was in the pocket of a bloodstained white lab coat. She cursed as she missed the call, then realised people were watching her. Her look turned to shock as she saw Tom.

  ‘I look that bad?’ He went up to her. She was speechless. They kissed so clumsily, their past as lovers was blatant. Martine and Radiance exchanged a look.

  Sean took a deep breath and went forward.

  ‘Ruth!’ he called out. ‘Fancy seeing you here!’

  They greeted each other like the old friends they once were.

  ‘Everyone,’ Sean took control, ‘this is Dr Ruth Mott, eminent biologist specialising in …’

  ‘Ice-obligate marine mammals,’ said Tom. ‘Ursus maritimus in particular.’

  ‘No longer in the field,’ she said, ‘but covered in the blood of the one I’ve very sadly just prepared for autopsy.’ She looked round them all. ‘Hello. Sorry about the gore, I’ve just removed the head. And, um, more small talk like that.’

  She looked at Martine and Radiance, then Tom. ‘Well, I better …’

  ‘No. Don’t go.’ Tom looked at Sean. ‘We’re here for the night, aren’t we? So we have to eat.’

  Sean knew what was coming. Get out in front.

  ‘We are. Ruth, if you’re free, would you like to join us for supper?’

  ‘Thank you, but I wouldn’t want to gatecrash your party.’

  Radiance pointed to Kingsmith. ‘That one’s mine tonight.’ She pointed to Martine, and Sean spared them all.

  ‘Martine is with me.’

  ‘Martine?’ Something went through Ruth Mott’s eyes. ‘Hello.’

  ‘Yes, the Terrible Homewrecker herself.’ Martine smiled. ‘Please don’t hate me until you know me first-hand.’

  Despite herself, Ruth smiled. ‘I can’t promise, but I’ll try.’

  ‘Good enough.’ Martine focused her charm. ‘And please do join us.’

  ‘You must.’ Tom was completely focused on Ruth, Kingsmith forgotten.

  ‘You can tell us about the bear!’ Radiance was as eager as a child for an ice-cream. ‘Or maybe we could even see it now? I’m fine with blood. What happened?’

  ‘Tourist stupidity. I’m sorry, right now I’m really upset about it all.’

  ‘Were there many casualties?’

  Ruth Mott looked at Kingsmith.

  ‘Upset about the bear.’ She turned to Tom. ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘Going up to Midgardfjorden.’

  ‘That’s – you? But that’s amazing! The whole world was after that.’ She turned to Sean. ‘Wow. You are never to be underestimated.’

  ‘That’s the truth.’ Tom looked as proud as if she’d meant it for him. Sean felt a mixture of shame and gratitude, and a lot warmer towards Ruth. She’d only ever been a loyal friend to Gail. And until Rosie had involved her, she hadn’t interfered.

  ‘Guilty as charged, this is the purchasing consortium. Ruth, if you are free, please do join us tonight. It’s been ages.’

  Ruth smiled, and Sean noticed how Tom smiled too. ‘I’m supposed to be talking to drunken eclipse tourists after dinner,’ she said. ‘Let me see if I can find a stand-in.’

  Auks pickled in oil. This is done by killing a seal and skinning it through its mouth without splitting the skin. Not every hunter can do this, but when it is accomplished satisfactorily it makes a magnificent poke, because most of the blubber still clings to the skin.

  The person intending to fill the hide takes it along with him to a spot where the birds are thicker than fish in any aquarium and, with a net attached to a long stick, he catches the auks as they fly past, often bagging enough in one day to fill his sealskin, which is then latched and covered with stones. The sun must not reach it or the oil will turn rancid. During the summer the blubber turns to oil and soaks the birds, which decompose slowly without interference from the air.

  This makes a dish which tastes like nothing else in the world, and one loved by young and old alike. The white feathers turn pink, and may be easily plucked out. The birds are often eaten frozen, but some connoisseurs say they are better warmed up. In fact, frozen meat never tastes as strong as it does when it is thawed out. When frozen the diner must chop the birds out of the poke with an axe, but after they become soft, they may be eaten with grace and elegant manners. The gastronomist takes them by the legs and bites off the feet. Then with a deft twist of his hand he removes the feathers – or most of them. After that he skins them, from the bill backwards, and, having turned the skin inside out, sucks the most delicious fat from it. Finally he swallows the skin at one gulp, and then begins on the meat.

  Arctic Adventure: My Life in the Frozen North (1936)

  Peter Freuchen

  23

  Across the courtroom and without directly looking at her, Sean felt the force of Ruth Mott’s steady stare. He wanted to be kind, but in case she did not – and the way she’d spoken to him at the funeral suggested she wouldn’t – he had brief
ed Sawbridge about her. It had to be done.

  ‘We all checked into our hotel,’ he said, ‘the Polar Dream – then we went for supper at a restaurant called Amaruq, where Dr Mott joined us. We had supper, then we came back to the hotel.’

  ‘All of you?’ asked the coroner.

  ‘Ruth was staying somewhere else. In the morning, we met in the lobby and took a car back to the airport, where Danny Long flew us up to Midgard as planned.’

  ‘When you say we—’

  ‘Myself, Tom, Joe Kingsmith, Martine Delaroche and Radiance Young. Just the consortium partners.’

  Amaruq, which the menu explained meant Wolf in the Inuktitut language, was the new restaurant just outside the town limits. Already famed for its bold interpretation of traditional gourmet Inuit dishes alongside its regular Nordic menu, its proprietors were a Danish couple who had lived in Greenland, and supported one of the last remaining traditional communities through exporting their food. They offered a literal taste of a lost world, and it was impossible to get a reservation for the whole of the summer season. Sean felt gratified that one phone call to Skadi Larssen’s secretary in Oslo had sorted that out.

  They’d had one round of cocktails before Ruth Mott arrived, flushed from her skidoo ride. The men all rose to greet her, and Sean enjoyed the eyes of the other diners on their glamorous table. Both Radiance and Martine, au fait with wilderness chic, were understated but had each put on a serious cocktail ring as a token to their status at this business dinner, even if was happening in the Arctic. Ruth wore jeans and a black silk shirt, which gleamed – Sean could not help noticing – where her breasts pushed against it. Her eyes had changed too. She was wearing makeup.

  ‘Something wrong?’ She smiled at him.

  ‘You haven’t changed a bit.’ He thought the opposite; she was much less strident, and seemed to have softened with the years. More drinks came. Sean ordered one Inuit tasting menu to share, and the six-course Nordic set menu for each. Both Tom and Ruth asked for substitutions for the ‘whale beef’, which could be served either as carpaccio or seared as a steak. Sean looked forward to his, which tasted like nothing else and he ate on every ethically sourced and defensible occasion, which was the great USP of the restaurant.

  Kingsmith ordered vintage champagne from the extensive wine list, and they toasted the success of Midgard Lodge. Ruth Mott was preoccupied by the bear, she said. They should not mind her. The animal was pregnant but with strange complications. And in the wrong season.

  ‘Don’t say any more.’ Martine shuddered.

  ‘I wasn’t planning to.’

  Radiance studied Ruth, unabashed.

  ‘You and Tom. Exes, right?’

  Ruth glanced at him before she answered. ‘That’s right.’

  ‘If that’s your final word.’ Tom looked at her.

  Radiance grabbed up a menu and fanned herself.

  ‘Something on fire here!’ She nudged Kingsmith. ‘Hey: sexy old man: when do we have our special talk? Like you said, on the plane?’

  Sean burst out laughing at Kingsmith’s look of agitation.

  ‘Radiance, you’re too good for me. Also, you might kill me.’ Then he said something in her ear that made her slap him playfully. Ruth and Tom sat side by side, not speaking, but obviously intensely aware of each other. The waitress passed among them with the bottle.

  ‘Bad idea,’ Martine said it so low Sean barely heard it, but they were both thinking the same thing: Tom must not invite Ruth up to Midgard with them.

  ‘So, Ruth,’ Sean broke them apart without knowing what he was going to say next. ‘How is the world of tourism?’

  ‘Disasters waiting to happen. Oops, they already are. The Arctic’s the new Mediterranean, and Svalbard its Ibiza. Watch this space.’

  The waitress brought the first course of the Inuit tasting menu. She set down a board of small blocks of terrine, fine strands of a dark meat, threaded with translucent lines of fat.

  ‘This is pickled auk,’ she explained. ‘The little birds from the cliffs? We serve it just thawed, so it melts in the mouth like foie gras. Enjoy.’

  They each took one, Radiance’s eyes bulging as she tasted it. She had another. Joe Kingsmith took one, looked like he was going to throw up, and had a big gulp of his wine. Sean did the same, Ruth ate one and declined more, Martine shuddered and passed, so Tom and Radiance ate all the rest.

  ‘You know how they make them?’ he said.

  ‘Don’t,’ said Sean. ‘I remember.’

  ‘He’s right,’ said Ruth. ‘Seriously.’

  ‘But what about my knowledge of the minutiae of Greenlandic culture?’ Tom said to her. ‘And my superior knowledge that I like to parade, even when other people might know better? Or have jobs equally valid?’

  ‘Well, that’s not me, not any more,’ Ruth said. ‘Now it’s just you. I hope.’

  ‘What if I’ve changed? Lost all my bad qualities?’

  ‘I’d be very sorry. I haven’t lost mine.’

  ‘Good.’

  ‘We saw them made,’ Sean announced loudly. ‘In Greenland – remember, Tom?’

  ‘That’s right.’ Tom smiled but he didn’t want to relive it, he wanted to stay connected to Ruth.

  Sean continued, trying to catch Ruth’s eye. ‘We spent some time in an Inuk village, while we were students, living with the people, eating like they did.’

  ‘I didn’t know that.’ Martine didn’t look like it pleased her either.

  ‘What was the girl’s name, who made us those mittens?’

  ‘I can’t remember any girls.’ Tom looked at Ruth. ‘Not one.’

  Sean turned away from their separate dinner for two, feeling a dull wash of deprivation that he didn’t have that kind of communion with Martine. They shared lust and excitement and passion, and thrilled to the deals to be done – here they were, right this very moment, in the middle of one – but where was that ineffable sparkle between a man and a woman? With a stab of pain, he recognised it as love.

  ‘Sean: don’t stare.’ Tom winked at him.

  Sean laughed, despite himself. ‘I’m not fucking Roxy.’

  ‘Who’s Roxy?’ Radiance looked at Martine for a reaction. ‘Cute name.’

  ‘Their Greenland rescue dog,’ Ruth said. ‘Who ruled them.’ She looked at Martine. ‘You must have heard.’

  ‘Many times.’ Martine forced a smile. ‘Forgive me,’ she said, ‘but being an Arctic biologist sounds so fascinating. Why did you stop?’

  ‘I haven’t,’ Ruth said calmly. ‘I am still a scientist or I wouldn’t have been asked to carry out the post-mortem of the bear today. That’s not a job for a cruise-line speaker. Hasn’t Sean filled you in on why I left fieldwork?’

  ‘He hasn’t,’ Martine lied. ‘But please excuse me: I didn’t realise it was a painful story for you.’

  They were all silent for a moment. Then Radiance tinged her fork against her empty champagne glass. ‘Very serious! I have the glass with the hole!’

  Kingsmith agreed, and requested more champagne when the waitress returned with the whale steaks and cloudberry sauce. This, she stated with cheery defiance, was a traditional food from sustainably harvested right whale, which was plentiful in the region and whose stocks were restored. There was evidence. She strafed the table with her smile, checking for troublemakers.

  ‘If you really want to know,’ Ruth Mott said to Martine, when the waitress had gone, ‘I’ll tell you. I killed a bear by accident. A sponsored bear, of viable reproductive age. We were due to take new readings and I darted her.’

  Ruth Mott paused, and Sean watched Tom take her hand under the table. ‘She suffered a reaction to the tranquilliser,’ she continued, ‘and she died. No reason, correct dosage, it just – happened. But they said that I’d got the dosage wrong, that I was over-tired. I was forced to take a sabbatical. While I was gone, the story got twisted. Now I can’t get another research job. But I still love the Arctic, so I’ve found a way to be here. And, as you saw
earlier today, I can still be trusted with dead ones. If there’s no one better around.’

  ‘There never has been, there never will be.’ Tom said it so directly, she looked at him in shock. To cover her feelings, Ruth took out her phone and scrolled for a picture, hiding her shining face as she searched.

  ‘But today, look what I found.’ She showed Tom her phone. ‘A lip tattoo like we did in Qarrtsiluni. Imagine if she’d come all the way from there.’ She put it away, her face glowing. ‘Sorry. No one needs to see that. I don’t need to talk about this any more.’

  ‘Everyone makes mistakes,’ Martine said. ‘It’s healthy you’ve moved on.’

  ‘It was not a mistake.’ Ruth looked at her fiercely. ‘I know it wasn’t.’

  Kingsmith replenished her glass.

  ‘Qarrtsiluni?’ he pronounced it effortlessly. ‘You know that place?’

  ‘Do you?’ Ruth gratefully disengaged from Martine.

  ‘Sure. We were considering a couple projects with the government – when I say government, I mean everything was clear from the Danish side, but the natives – the Greenlanders—’

  ‘Inuit,’ Ruth said. ‘That’s what they call themselves.’

  ‘Sure,’ Kingsmith agreed, ‘the Inuit – so tricky to work with. Charming, extraordinarily talented people, but no idea of timekeeping, non-existent administrative system – long story short, things just didn’t pan out.’

  ‘Pan out,’ Ruth Mott repeated. ‘Things, meaning mining? In Qarrtsiluni?’

  When he thought back to this moment, Sean knew that what was about to happen was completely his fault. He could have headed this off at the airport, he might have prevented all that followed. Instead he had succumbed to that old competitive urge with Tom where women were concerned, and got in first to invite Ruth to join them. Now here she was, facing off with Kingsmith. Two elements that should never have been mixed.

  ‘Prism Mining.’ She stared at Kingsmith. ‘That was you.’

  ‘Proud to say so.’ Kingsmith could not have been more relaxed. ‘Back in the day, what a great company! Sadly, long gone. Too many delays, too much bureaucracy. Leave them on the table too long, and some deals spoil like meat. Prism Greenland was one. We wanted to bring prosperity to those poor people – if you’ve worked there you know how desperate their lives are. My god, the poverty, and the problems it brings. All very well being nostalgic for Arctic Past, like these two boys here – but you and I know that old romance is a complete crock. Arctic Future is what they want: TVs, iPads, foreign travel, all the rest of it. You can’t keep kids in the last century.’ He went back to his food. ‘Losing battle, but we gave it a good go.’