Cold Earth, page 14
‘Yeah,’ said Ben. ‘More bone injuries.’
The left collar bone was severed, an injury which ran on across the ribcage and into the pelvis.
‘So it was a battle?’
‘With whom?’ asked Catriona.
‘Pirate raiders, other Norsemen, the Inuit,’ I said. ‘Unless you can think of anyone else who might have been around. Lost tribes of Israel.’
‘And the survivors buried the dead?’
‘Can’t see the enemy doing it.’
‘No friend buried this one. Or threw him in. And I don’t see why pirate raiders or other Norsemen would be using stone axes.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But this wasn’t done with a stone axe. Maybe he was on the other side.’
‘We’ll see,’ said Yianni. ‘Just get him out, OK? Careful, but quick. I really want to get these guys out before we have to leave. However many there are. I’ll bring you some lunch. And this afternoon we’ll all be up here.’
If asked, I would have said that I thought it was a bad idea to leave Nina unsupervised with all the finds.
When we came down at dusk, Nina’s tent was dark.
‘Perhaps she’s asleep,’ said Catriona.
‘Have a look,’ I said, opening my own tent. ‘I’m going to wash and brush up. Who’s cooking?’
‘Jim.’ Ben stood by his tent, gazing at the dark sea. ‘Only Yianni told him to get on with the computer instead. I’ll do it.’
I looked round at Catriona. It’s hard to mess up the food we make here, but we’ve both seen Ben pick his ears while cooking.
‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘You help Jim.’
It’s easier to let men believe that machines and gadgets work better with more Y chromosomes in the immediate vicinity.
‘If you’re sure.’ He scratched his head slowly, and then began to dig at his scalp with a fingernail, trying to dislodge something the rest of us didn’t want to know about. I turned away, and then back.
‘How come they’ve still got power? For the computer?’
‘There’s not much,’ said Ben, still scratching. ‘That’s why Yianni’s getting frustrated. Here they are.’
Jim and Yianni came down the path, carrying another long, coffin-like box containing the earthly remains of someone whose afterlife was about to relocate to a university lab. Most of James was beyond recycling, but he carried a donor card and his mom went on and on about his heart, which had come through just fine in its cage of bone. Apart from the small fact of it not beating anymore. She liked the idea of her baby’s heart still beating to someone’s tread, but I needed him whole, needed to be able to follow him to the point of dissolution. And then, I suppose, one day, to let go.
They slid the box into the tent, next to my guy with the stone in his head, and came down to us. Catriona knelt by the stores tent.
‘Yianni? Can I ask something?’
‘What?’
‘Have you tried the satphone?’
He looked over her head, towards the river. ‘Why do you ask?’
She pulled the tent zipper up and down, making a noise like tearing paper. ‘I was thinking. If we haven’t got the internet anymore. We can still make contact, can’t we?’
‘We’ll get it working,’ he said. ‘Don’t worry. The plane’s booked for the fifth, anyway. I said we’d confirm but they know we’re here, they’ll come anyway.’
‘How do you know that?’ Ben’s shoulders hunched. ‘If you said we’d confirm?’
‘They know we’re here, OK? Come on, Jim. Let’s get that machine going. I’ll light the lamp.’ He looked around.
‘Where’s Nina?’
Catriona began to pull things out of the stores, holding them up to her eyes in the dullness.
‘Are you hoping they’ll turn out not to be noodles?’ I asked.
‘Maybe they changed into couscous while we were away,’ she said. ‘Or cake mix. What else comes in little boxes?’
‘Gauloises. Tampax. New make-up. Jewellery. If you could have one little box, what would it be?’ I reached in for my hairbrush and stood there, working up from the tangled ends. Catriona shook some of the packets.
‘Honestly, probably orange juice or cherry tomatoes. Really ripe ones, you know? Though I wouldn’t turn down one of those heat packs you can put in boots or pockets to warm them up. You?’
I began to work down from my parting.
‘A ring,’ I said.
She put the box down.
‘You mean a particular ring?’
‘No. Just an idea. I mean, I could have brought a particular ring, couldn’t I? Nina did.’
She took the stove out of its box. ‘Does it help, being here? Did you think it would?’
‘Maybe. I sometimes wonder if I’m doing this instead of therapy. I mean, I think I’m a practice-based person. Better to keep busy. It’s no worse, here. I don’t know what going home will be like.’
‘Yeah. I can imagine. I hope – well – I’m worried. What do you think is wrong with the computer?’
The last streaks of light faded over the sea.
‘I’ll get the lamp,’ I said. ‘No idea. Maybe when testosterone has failed we’ll be allowed to try. I wouldn’t worry. Like Yianni says, we don’t really need it, do we? As long as they come and get us at the end.’
‘Mm. That’s what’s worrying me.’
‘We’ll be OK,’ I said. ‘I’m less sure about Nina.’
I went to fill the lamp. I think it seemed as if losing James gave me some immunity to further disaster, as if there’s a quota for misfortune and once it’s filled, it’s full. No cancer for me, no more sudden loss, no house fires. Masonry won’t fall on me, my building won’t have legionnaires’, my car won’t crash. I won’t get stranded on the west coast of Greenland with winter closing in and a psychotic British woman in the next tent.
Yianni reappeared.
‘It still won’t fucking work. There’s nothing wrong with it, it just won’t work. Fucking thing. Now it’s run out of power.’ He bit his lips and blew like a horse.
‘Must be something wrong,’ I said, dangerously.
He grabbed a handful of hair on each side of his head and pulled until the skin on his temples curved out.
‘Of course there’s something bloody wrong. We just can’t see what the hell it is.’
Catriona poured water into a pan. ‘Maybe it’s not the computer,’ she said. ‘Maybe it’s the websites. Have you tried anything hosted outside Europe and North America?’
‘Oh, shut up,’ said Yianni. He knelt by his tent, reached in for a torch, and set off towards the river. ‘I’m looking for Nina,’ he called. ‘Go on and eat.’
We were examining some gelatinous brown foam concocted by Catriona and called, she claimed, ‘angel delight’, when we saw the light again.
‘Do you think he’s found her?’ asked Catriona.
‘If not, I don’t know what we do.’ Jim bounced his spoon on the brown foam, making an unpleasantly wet noise.
‘Coastguard on the satphone, I suppose.’ Ben lifted a spoonful, looked at it and turned it over. The angel delight peeled off the spoon and landed wetly back on the dish. ‘Though there’s not much they can do in the dark. I think my nan used to eat this. And tinned rice pudding.’
‘My gran used to make it for us,’ said Catriona. ‘A secret treat. We only liked butterscotch, the others were too chemical. Though she used to make them all anyway, as if you had to eat the pink ones to get the butterscotch. Like seeing bad films as the price of good ones or snogging frogs to get to the princes. I’m a bit worried about the satphone. Yianni won’t talk about it.’
‘Butterscotch?’ asked Jim.
‘Like toffee.’ She took a spoonful and swallowed. ‘Is it always a mistake, nostalgic eating?’
The torchlight came closer. There was only one pair of legs moving behind it.
‘She’s not with him,’ I said.
Catriona dropped her plate, angel delight down, and stood up.
‘Yianni? I thought you’d find her?’
‘I have. On the beach.’
‘She’s not –’
‘She’s OK. She says she has to stop them landing. I’d have had to pick her up and carry her back here.’
‘Stop who landing?’
‘Men with knives, apparently.’ He switched his torch off and stood at the edge of the circle of light. ‘I don’t know what to do. She’s not OK, is she?’
‘Nope,’ I said. ‘You need to get her out, Yianni. Seriously. She’s not safe and the finds aren’t safe and if she’s going on about knives it seems possible that we’re not safe either.’
‘Don’t,’ said Catriona. ‘She’s not like that. She’s just scared.’
‘People who are scared are dangerous.’ I put my plate down. ‘Really, Yianni. Call the coastguard. We could have her out of here at first light. She needs help.’
‘Ruth, there’s a difference between delusional and psychopathic,’ said Ben. ‘Her ghosts aren’t doing you any harm, are they?’
Yianni sat down. Catriona handed him a plate of cold noodles.
‘It’s just the insurance. We’d be liable. The department would be liable. I’m worried I’d never work again. It’s only a few more days.’
‘And she’s sitting on the beach in the dark talking about men with knives. Come on, Yianni, she’s sick.’
Catriona picked up the torch. ‘I’m going to her,’ she said. ‘If she wants to wait for men with knives, I’ll wait with her. We can’t leave her there on her own. They’re real for her, whatever we think. Imagine how you’d feel.’
She scrabbled about in Nina’s tent and came out with a greying pale blue lambswool sweater, which she folded. Then she went into her own and emerged with a bar of marzipan chocolate.
‘I was saving it for emergencies,’ she said. ‘And I think this counts. Did she have any lunch?’
‘I don’t think so,’ said Yianni. ‘I did offer. She just went on reading.’
‘I’ll take some water, then.’ She filled a half-litre bottle from the big cask.
‘Catriona?’ said Ben. ‘Don’t get sucked in, OK? The only danger she poses is to your mind.’
Catriona wasn’t listening. ‘I’ll try to get her back here for the night. If I can’t, I’ll move my tent down there. You can’t just abandon her.’
The torch swung away over the grass.
‘And then there were four,’ I said. ‘Shall we clear away? I’d like to get to bed early. It’s been a long day and it’s my guess we’re in for a short night.’
I was right. I lay floating in warmth and the softness of my sleeping bag, wondering what it will be like to lie on a mattress near a radiator and hear traffic and see streetlights and an alarm clock. After a while rain began to patter on the canvas, masking the sounds of other people going to sleep. It’s a different kind of night, I find, when you can’t see what time it is, but I was still more or less aware of my thoughts when feet came stumbling behind a careering torch beam and someone breathed hard.
‘Wake up! Quick! Yianni?’
It was Catriona, as expected. I presumed Nina was walking into the sea or fighting off her imaginary pirates. I adjusted the hood to keep my ears warm.
‘I’m coming. What’s happened?’
A zipper went.
‘I’m still dressed. On the beach?’ Jim. I can’t think what he’d been doing, fully clothed in a dark tent alone. Praying, perhaps, although one could do that in sweatpants and a sleeping bag.
‘There are lights. Someone’s coming. Run!’
Catriona was recovering her breath. The sea reflects moonlight and starlight, which is why the most important navigation lights are coloured red and green. I pushed my hood back. ‘What colour lights, Catriona?’
‘Yellow. Like lanterns. Coming closer. Ruth, please come.’
‘It’ll be moonlight,’ I said. ‘There’s no one out there.’
Another zipper went, and the beam from the big torch swept my tent, picking out the label on the body butter I bought from the Soins de Soi concession in Macy’s two months ago.
‘I’ll go,’ said Yianni. ‘Ben, keep an eye on things here, OK?’
There was rustling from Ben’s tent, on my left. ‘OK. What things?’
‘All of them.’
He was gone. The night settled again around me. I tucked myself away from the sides of the tent to keep dry, felt for James’s cashmere scarf, folded under my pillow, and curled up. It stopped smelling of him months ago. He was wearing it the first time I saw him, wandering up and down Hemlow Street trying to find Ros and Hugo’s party, and on nearly all our dates that first winter. He wore it like a Frenchman, twisted at the side with the ends flowing over his shoulders, and once when we sat on a bench having a conversation about whether to move in together and watching snow fall on Central Park, I braided all the tassels so tightly they stayed like that for weeks. Now it lives folded flat, though I have resisted my instinct to wrap it in a shroud of tissue paper.
‘Ruth?’ Ben called.
I turned over. ‘What?’
‘You awake?’
‘I am now. Obviously.’
‘Do you think we should look over the site?’
‘No. What for?’
‘Just to see. To confirm that there’s nothing.’
‘Go ahead. I’m staying here. And going to sleep. If any spectral pirates come, tell them not to wake me.’
Silence, and then more rustling.
‘Jesus, Ruth. You’re not rattled? Not at all?’
‘What rattles me is Nina. She’s not here. I’m going to sleep. Good night, Ben.’
He rustled about in his tent, sighing and coughing, but he didn’t go up the hill, and after a while, with James’s scarf pulled under my cheek, I went back to sleep.
I dreamt for the first time of Greenland. I went down to the beach and James was sitting on that rock, the one where the seals wait for whatever it is seals are waiting for. He was looking out to sea and I called and waved, James, James, they told me you were dead. I’m here, sweetheart, I’m coming. He didn’t turn but I could see the sun on his hair and the curve of his back and I walked into the water, which sparkled like sun-warmed sea. It wasn’t warm – even in dreams I am cold now – but I waded in, knowing that when I got to him he would turn round and hold me and death would have been a bad dream. I floated and swam and the waves cut off my view, but at the tops I could still see him, and as the troughs pulled me back I knew he was there. Spray stung my eyes and cold salt water crashed up my nose. I coughed and kept going. I clung to the rock, scraping my hands, and reached towards him. The sea pulled me back but I held on. The returning wave banged my head on the rock. Before the next surge, I got both hands over the edge and pulled up, scratching my shoulder and grazing my chest. He was gone, traceless as a seal. The dreams used to end there and I’d wake newly bereft, without the habit of grief, but now they go on. I sat on the rock watching the waves. Light went out of the sky. I looked back to shore and there were no tents, no cairns on the beach, just ruins and empty sky. I sat there and nothing changed, and then I woke up and it was all the same. James crushed in a burning car, blood and muscle eaten by flames and still not dead.
‘Wake up.’
‘For God’s sake, Ben, it’s the middle of the night. Now what?’
‘There’s someone uphill. Crouching at the grave.’
‘Tell her to go to bed then.’
‘Come up.’
‘No, I fucking well will not come. Deal with her, Ben. Good night.’
When I woke next it was light. I couldn’t hear Ben snoring, nor Nina murmuring in her sleep. The stove wasn’t roaring, spoons weren’t clattering. A sheep bleated, nearer than usual. I sat up and opened the tent. The grass was stiff and white with frost. The sheep, behind Catriona’s tent, looked at me. Droppings fell from under its tail and steamed on the turf. I grimaced at it and it loped away. The other tents were closed. The sky was pale with cold sun, and the waves streaked white.
‘Hello?’ I called. ‘Good morning!’
Someone sighed.
‘Hello? It’s gone nine.’
Yianni yawned. ‘What?’
‘It’s past nine. Where is everyone?’
‘Oh fuck.’
He unzipped the tent and looked out, greasy hair over encrusted eyes. I was glad I wasn’t close enough to smell his breath.
‘Fuck. We can’t waste time. Wake up! It’s morning!’
‘Bad night, then?’ I asked.
‘Oh, God. Weird night. Poor bloody Nina. Come on, people. It’s late. Get up, everyone.’
I looked at him. ‘Weird?’
‘There was a boat.’
‘What, here?’
‘Can we get up, please? We’ll talk later, OK? Come on. Jim? Catriona?’
‘I’m awake,’ said Catriona. ‘With you in a minute. Nina?’
‘Hello,’ said Nina.
‘You OK?’
‘Fine,’ she said. Her tent opened. Her face was gaunt. The most effective ways of losing weight are not worth it.
‘Hi, Nina,’ said Yianni. ‘You want breakfast?’
She shook her head. ‘Not hungry.’
‘You’re getting really thin. What’s David going to say?’
She shrugged. ‘If I see him again.’
Catriona closed her eyes. ‘You’ll see him next week, Nina. Come on. You’d feel better if you ate.’
She shook her head and sat there like a snake peering out of a hole.
‘Come on,’ said Yianni. ‘Get dressed. Ben? Jim?’
‘Yeah,’ said Jim. ‘I’m coming.’
‘OK,’ said Ben. ‘I’m fucking tired.’
I shut the outer flap and unzipped my bag. Cold bit immediately. I unbuttoned the pyjamas and tried to lift my top but the cold was paralysing. It was like trying to put a hand into boiling water. I pulled the top back down again and struggled into a clean turtleneck, and then added a wool sweater and cardigan. All those layers, no one knows if you’re wearing a bra or not and one day isn’t going to make anything sag. I put on clean inner socks and old wool socks before squirming out of the pyjama trousers and into leggings and jeans, but even through the leggings the jeans felt stiff and icy. I shuffled forwards, put on my boots and went off over the turf to brave the need to pee. I don’t think Greenland is a place I will want to revisit.
