The Split

by Sharon Bolton

‘You have no idea how many times you nearly did,’ the male sounds amused. And also, a little tired. Freddie does not recognise either of the voices.

  ‘Why we couldn’t have flown.’

  ‘You could have flown. I don’t have a broomstick license.’

  The pair have made it to the bottom of the stairs. The woman is in her early fifties, blonde and a little overweight. The man is younger, tall and dark-haired. Neither wear the orange ship-issue jacket.

  Freddie has seen neither of them before.

  The blonde woman’s skin looks like uncooked pastry and there are mascara smudges under both eyes. She looks Freddie up and down in a way that, had they been in a bar, would feel predatory. ‘I see you haven’t been tangoed either,’ she says.

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘You’re not wearing orange.’

  She is talking about jackets. ‘They didn’t have one to fit,’ Freddie lies.

  These two must have joined the boat in Stanley. He feels sure he would have spotted them if they’d been on the trip since London. The woman in particular, seems incapable of not making an impact upon her surroundings.

  She gulps and takes a deep breath. ‘We didn’t want to frighten the wildlife.’

  Freddie gives a tight-lipped smile.

  ‘You know, not everyone thinks you’re hilarious.’ The younger man holds out his hand. ‘Joe Grant. Don’t think I’ve seen you in the dining room.’

  ‘You didn’t see me in the dining room either,’ the woman says. ‘Don’t remember you complaining about that.’ She turns to Freddie. ‘Were you sea sick?’

  ‘Wasn’t everyone?’ Freddie replies, although he hadn’t been.

  ‘I’m Delilah,’ the woman offers. ‘As in the Tom Jones song.’ She begins to sing the unforgettable lyrics.

  ‘I beg her not to,’ the man called Grant says. ‘She will insist.’

  ‘There you are!’ A voice with a hint of the West Country sounds from above as a pair of dusty black boots appears. ‘Sorry to keep you. I tripped in my cabin and knocked myself out. I had to sit down for a few minutes.’

  The newcomer is a police officer. Freddie doesn’t recognise the badge on her hat but has a feeling it indicates a senior rank. She is in her late-forties, with curly red hair cut just under her chin. Her skin is fair, and finely lined, her hands seem huge and she wears a gold wedding ring. She too has avoided the orange jacket. Over what is presumably her uniform, she wears a police issue high-vis coat.

  ‘I’m Skye.’ She beams at Freddie. ‘Five times I’ve done this trip. It never gets easier.’

  Her uniform says she is on official business. The frequency with which she makes the visit means she is probably the police superintendent from the Falkland Islands and the fact that she knows the odd couple, might even be travelling with them, suggests they too could be police.

  ‘Not a problem, I hope?’ he says.

  The boat rocks at anchor and the blonde woman gives a low moan.

  ‘No, no. Just routine,’ Skye says. ‘I always come out at the end of the summer. If I can’t get anyone to volunteer to take my place that is. And funnily enough, I never can.’

  ‘You travelling alone?’ the blonde woman asks Freddie. ‘Don’t mind me, I’m nosy.’

  ‘As you see.’ Freddie gives a tight smile and half turns away. Thank God others are coming down the stairs now.

  ‘Lot of equipment you got there,’ the blonde woman says, her eyes fixed on the rucksack at his feet.

  ‘I’m a photographer,’ he tells her.

  ‘Me too,’ says a man who’s just arrived. ‘What shutter speed are you planning for the birds in flight?’

  The boat rocks again and Freddie fakes a stagger to avoid the question.

  ‘Oh my God.’ The blonde woman, Delilah, is clutching her stomach. ‘I’m going to chuck. I’m actually going to chuck.’

  ‘Everyone get back,’ the man with her calls.

  It is too late. With a sound like that of a cistern emptying, the blonde woman vomits over the policewoman’s shoes. In the ensuing chaos, when the three of them return to their cabins to get cleaned up, Freddie quietly stakes his claim to the front of the queue.

  10

  Felicity

  Trembling, fighting back the urge to leap into the RIB and speed out of the bay, Felicity watches the first launch getting ready to leave the ship. She has to be sure. It’s a common enough name. There is still a small chance that all will be well.

  For a moment, she lets herself imagine the day she might yet have. Breakfast watching the ocean, checking the levels on the blue lake, relieving Jack of penguin duty. It could still happen.

  The passengers to go ashore have all taken their seats. The lines are released and the skipper steers them across the bay towards Grytviken. It will take them less than five minutes to reach shore. Unloading will take some time, the jetty is narrow and unstable. Even so, every half-hour the launch will unload more passengers until everyone has left the ship. They’ll spend the morning looking around the museum and those parts of the old whaling station that are safe to visit. They’ll walk up to the church and to Shackleton’s grave. Some of the fitter ones might climb up to the hydro dam. After lunch – sandwiches supplied by the ship – they’ll be taken around the bay to the penguin and seal colonies. If the weather holds, some might hike into the interior.

  Knowing that he could easily be on the first boat ashore, Felicity checks each passenger in turn. At the front of the launch are a youngish couple. Most of the other passengers look older, people in their late forties, fifties, even early sixties. Visiting the Antarctic is expensive, out of reach for most young people.

  Only one is not wearing the regulation orange jacket. He sits at the back of the launch with his face turned away. He looks tall, though, and about the right build.

  Her mouth has turned dry as bone.

  Telling herself that she has to hold it together, Felicity looks back towards the ship. The boat has turned with the tide and its bow is facing out to sea. The passengers who aren’t below waiting for the launch to return are all at the stern, lining the rail and staring out at the mountains, the whirling sea birds, the derelict whaling station. Felicity gives herself time to be sure, but he isn’t among them.

  Her eyes are drawn back to the man in the dark jacket at the rear of the launch. He seems to have no interest in Grytviken or the seals that play in the shallower waters. Instead, he is looking at the collection of low white buildings that make up the research station at King Edward Point. He too holds binoculars to his eyes.

  Fighting the sudden panic, the almost overwhelming temptation to duck and hide, Felicity lifts her own binoculars. She sees a large, oval face topped with thick fair hair streaked with silver. She knows those deep-set eyes are the cold blue of hard-packed ice. His binoculars are moving slowly along the coastline. They freeze. It is impossible to be sure, but they seem to be fixed directly on her.

  Felicity and the man on the launch look at each other across the bay. As one, they both lower the magnifying instruments. Neither need them any more. Both know who they are looking at.

  It’s Freddie. He’s found her. And he’s minutes away.

  11

  Freddie

  He’s found her. She’s actually here. He hadn’t quite believed it until this moment. Freddie watches Felicity turn and run to the water’s edge, then vanish inside a boat house. He has to restrain himself, physically, from standing up in the launch and yelling at her across the bay. Vaguely, he registers someone asking him if he’s all right and he flicks up a hand to ward off the unwanted attention.

  For the ten minutes it takes to get to shore, he sits in silence, knowing that every passing second takes her further away. He hears the distant roar of a RIB and knows she has speed on her side.

  He can hardly restrain himself from pushing everyone out of the way to leave the launch first but after what seems an age they are all on dry land. Immediately, the ship’s tourism officer starts fig
hting with the wind to tell them about the settlement they’ve just reached.

  ‘So, when the whaling industry of the southern ocean discovered the riches of the seas around South Georgia, they needed sites to build on,’ he yells. ‘Grytviken’s sheltered harbour, its large area of flat land, and plenty of fresh water made it the obvious choice. At its height, over a thousand men lived and worked here.’

  Faces creased against the wind, the visitors look around at the ramshackle collection of rust-red iron, faded ochre paint and dull grey-white wood that lines the head of the coast. They see abandoned factories, lodging houses and oil tanks. Behind them a steam whaling boat, the Petrel, lies abandoned at the oiling jetty, firmly embedded in the mud of the bay.

  Freddie has no interest in Grytviken but he tells himself to be calm. He cannot draw attention to himself by leaving the group too soon.

  ‘By the 1960s, though, dwindling whale populations made continued activity uneconomic and Grytviken closed in 1966.’ The officer waves his hands around at the derelict buildings. ‘The infrastructure of the whaling station – its oil tanks, blubber factory, chimneys, machinery, accommodation and stores – was kept intact for the day the whales returned. They never did.’

  ‘Ghost town,’ a man at the back mutters.

  Following the rest of the group, Freddie makes for the museum. As they wander around the exhibits, he goes into the shop and approaches the woman behind the counter.

  ‘Has Felicity been in today?’ he asks.

  She gives him a quizzical look. ‘Felicity Lloyd, you mean?’

  ‘That’s right. She’s an old friend. We arranged to meet up.’

  The woman plants her feet apart. ‘You’ve come a long way to see an old friend.’

  Like it’s any of her business. ‘That’s right,’ he says.

  The woman frowns. ‘Does she know you’re coming today?’

  Jeez, he’s knifed men in the showers for less. ‘I think so,’ he says. ‘Why? Is there a problem?’

  She turns to the man with her. ‘You were here when Flick came in yesterday, weren’t you?’

  Flick? She is known as Flick now? That shouldn’t bother him. It does.

  ‘Aye,’ the man says and then he too looks Freddie up and down. ‘She said something about going up the coast for a couple of days.’

  The woman nods. ‘That’s right. She was stocking up on provisions.’

  Another customer approaches the counter, standing far too close to Freddie. ‘To Bird Island, wasn’t it?’ the man says.

  ‘I thought that’s what she said. Thanks, love. That’ll be nine pounds fifty.’

  ‘And is that far?’ Freddie asks. There are tiny islands dotted all around South Georgia. Without the chart he can’t remember them all.

  ‘’Bout as far as you can get,’ the woman tells him. ‘Why don’t you ask up at the base?’

  ‘I’ll do that,’ he says. ‘Thanks.’

  * * *

  At the rear of the museum, out of reach of the wind, Freddie unrolls his chart. Bird Island is at the most north-westerly tip of South Georgia, a good sixty, maybe seventy miles away. He cannot possibly reach her there. Panic churns inside him. He cannot have travelled so far to have it all slip away.

  He wants to talk, that’s all. To explain. And maybe hold her again, just once. Just the tips of her fingertips will do.

  He can’t give up now.

  Jogging back down to the beach, he catches the skipper of the launch before it sets off back to the Snow Queen.

  ‘I’m going up to the scientific base.’ He points to the buildings across the bay. ‘I know someone who works up there. I’ll get them to bring me back to the ship, probably after dinner, so don’t worry about collecting me.’

  The boatman frowns, but it is early in the day and he has a lot of other passengers to ferry to shore.

  Freddie sets off walking towards King Edward Point.

  12

  Felicity

  If Grytviken is a grim place, Husvik is worse. Bigger than its sister settlement, long since forbidden to visitors, it lies in the southern arm of Stromness Bay like a malodorous corpse. Grytviken might be dreadful, but Husvik is dangerous. Riddled with asbestos and dripping with broken glass, Husvik is entirely unstable. More than half the settlement’s buildings – the catcher’s store, guano factory and carpenter’s workshop – have caved in on themselves and the frequent gales send their roof tiles scurrying around the bay like missiles. The few buildings still intact seem to be holding together just long enough to collapse on an unwary intruder.

  Oil tanks, pipework, factory chimneys and vast sheets of corrugated iron lie strewn around the settlement in disordered heaps while the skulls of long-dead animals grin up from the shale. When the winds blow down from the mountains the whole unruly mess jumps and sings and dances like a ghostly percussion band.

  Felicity’s heart sinks as she steers into the bay. She hates Husvik and is already regretting her decision to come here. She is hardly any distance from King Edward Point by boat and Freddie has seen her. He might persuade people to come looking. He might get hold of a boat somehow. He could be here within hours.

  Scattered along Husvik’s foreshore is a graveyard of ship’s propellers, and a huge old whaling ship is beached near the water’s edge. The colour of dried blood, it lies on its side, beaten and exhausted, denied even the watery grave of other shipwrecks.

  For a moment, Felicity is tempted to turn the RIB, head out to sea again, but there is nowhere else to go. Apart from King Edward Point and Bird Island, the only place on South Georgia where people can stay in anything close to comfort is the BAS station at Husvik. And since she left base, the weather has turned. A storm is getting up. She has no choice.

  She avoids the crumbling jetty. Seals risk it, and most of them weigh more than she, but they’ll survive a plummet into icy water when the rotting planks give way. She might not. Instead, once she reaches the shallows, she cuts the engine and paddles into the shell of an old boat house. Only when the RIB is securely tied does she unload her stuff. The rucksack goes onto her shoulders. The rest of the kit she carries in two holdalls.

  The BAS station is housed in the villa that once belonged to the manager of the whaling station. It is only half a mile along the waterfront, but the rail locomotives that would have made the journey easy in the old days lie rusting beneath scattered stones. Nor can the coast path be attempted. Since she was here last, the buildings that were the meat freezers and the blubber cookery have become unrecognizable. Wood, tiles, bricks and pipework are strewn down to the shore and beyond. She will have to make her way through the settlement.

  She sets off, walking inland, careful where she puts her feet, because machinery parts in the tussock grass have become treacherous as mantraps. A penguin chick, separated from its parent, stares at her curiously as she reaches the first corner and for a second, she wants to pick it up, because its soft brown feathers and mild gaze offer a crumb of comfort in this horrible place. She’s almost stooped to touch it when a clatter of falling tiles a few yards away sends it scurrying into the tussock.

  Reluctantly leaving the chick to its own devices, she makes her way between the barrack blocks and the boilers. The wind, rarely still on South Georgia, seems to revel in the old whaling settlements. It bounces off sheets of corrugated iron and whistles through felled chimneys and broken pipework. On the wrecked ships, it echoes the moans of dying whales. In Grytviken, it is easy to remember the years of slaughter. In Husvik, one need only close one’s eyes and hear it happening still.

  Halfway along the remains of the street, when she is surrounded by the creaking, groaning buildings, Felicity hears someone call her name.

  13

  Freddie

  Freddie has already spotted the accommodation block from the deck of the ship, and he makes his way over to it as soon as he reaches King Edward Point. A one-storey, white-painted, red-roofed building, it lies in the centre of the linear settlement. He keeps h
is hood up as he approaches. Tourists do visit King Edward Point, mainly to have their postcards franked in the harbour master’s office, but they typically arrive in groups. A lone traveller will raise questions. In particular, he doesn’t want to be spotted by the policewoman from the ship or either of her two companions. Something about that trio didn’t feel right.

  He leaves the track as he draws near, crossing mossy ground to cut the corner. Up to thirty people work for the British Antarctic Survey in summer but two thirds, he reckons, will be away from the base at any one time on field trips. Some will be in the boatsheds, others in the lab. He steals a glance through the lab window as he passes but the white-coated bloke rinsing glass tubes at a sink doesn’t look up.

  The accommodation block lies like the rest of the buildings a few yards from the shoreline. He walks along its rear and the rooms he glances into seem identical. Small, single-occupancy, simply furnished. The fourth window along has a pair of enormous hiking boots drying on the ledge. The fifth has its curtains closed. The next room, the sixth, is neater than the rest, the only visible sign of an occupant a white dressing gown hanging on the back of the door. It looks small, a woman’s size.

  There is no one around, so he steps closer and presses his face against the glass. On top of the bedside cabinet is a trinket box that, with a start, he recognises, and a wooden framed photograph of a young blonde woman, dressed all in black, standing amid blue, white and grey columns of glacial ice. On the desk is what looks like an incubator, but he cannot see what, if anything, is inside.

  Counting windows, he walks quickly to the corner of the block. There is a side door and he isn’t surprised to find it open. There is no need for security here. He hears voices, the blare of a radio and the rattling of crockery as he walks down the corridor. A credit card slid into the gap between door and frame makes short work of the simple Yale lock.