Cold Earth, page 21
‘Oh, for goodness’ sake,’ said Nina. ‘Have a book to read.’
‘What?’
‘I can’t concentrate with you looming and fidgeting like that. Have a book.’
‘I’ve got a book.’
‘Have one you feel like reading. I can offer you Persuasion, but you won’t like it. Villette? It’s a good distraction, set in Brussels. Lots of interiors and cooking.’
‘Is it still about someone getting married?’
She looked at me as if I were a particularly foolish student.
‘No men attended weddings in the making of this book. She doesn’t get married. The anti-heroine does but it’s no big deal.’
I looked along the horizon again. ‘What else?’
‘I’ve finished Middlemarch. That’s got a wedding but they make each other miserable. All of them, really. Or there’s Return of the Native, but it’s full of wuthering heath and special effects and we’ve probably got enough of our own. What about Waverley? You’d like that. Walter Scott.’
‘What’s it about?’
‘Masculinity and national identity, mostly. Whether it’s better to be Scottish and Romantic or English and reasonable.’
Nothing out to sea, either. The only thing that moves here now is the grass and the water.
‘No, what’s it about really? What happens?’
She raised an eyebrow.
‘Waverley goes to the Highlands and gets involved in several battles and a competition over the girl.’
Catriona rinsed the brush and began to give the pebbles shadows they didn’t have.
‘Oh, all right then.’
Shortly after one o’clock I saw Ruth working her way down the hillside. The sky was still empty. Catriona had laid out a miniature gallery of watercolours on the padded back of her pack, and was winding braided reeds around a stone. Nina was more than halfway through Romola. Ben was pretending to be asleep again and Yianni was composing something that didn’t look much like work in his notebook. Waverley has the kind of slow-motion plot that needs a captive audience. You’d need an intercontinental flight, probably an intercontinental flight on your own where the movie was in a foreign language, to make the most of Waverley. I’d been trying not to think about it, but my stomach rumbled so loudly Catriona looked up from her braiding.
‘You’d be wanting your lunch, aye?’
Nina grinned at her. ‘Aye, he would that.’
‘Shut up,’ said Catriona. ‘You can’t do Scottish.’
‘I can.’ Nina put her finger on her page and closed the book. She glanced to the North. ‘My dad grew up in Edinburgh, I’ll have you know.’
Catriona shook her head. ‘You never would know. Look, what do you think? I was thinking about a jeweller at home, she makes sort of silver seaweed round shiny stones.’
She held out the chalky pebble in a net of gleaming green reed.
‘Ritual or ludic object, significance unknown,’ said Nina.
Catriona appraised it.
‘I bet we could come up with a ritual.’
‘I expect we will, if we stay here much longer.’ Nina looked up again. ‘Incantation for calling a machine out of the sky. It’s going to be easier, isn’t it, when we agree it’s not coming.’
Yianni threw his notebook on the ground.
‘Sorry,’ said Nina. ‘What about lunch? Jim’s hungry.’
‘Aren’t you?’ I asked.
She shrugged. ‘It’s not very appetising, what we’ve got.’
Catriona put her pebble down.
‘What have we got, exactly? I mean, say the plane doesn’t come. How long?’
‘It will come.’ Yianni picked up the notebook and stuffed it into his briefcase.
‘Imagine it didn’t. Imagine there’s a storm and they have to turn back. Imagine a freak meteorite lands on the runway at Nuuk. How much of a margin have we got? How many days?’
Yianni frowned at his bag, pushing the clip in and out of its socket.
‘Catriona, we don’t need to have this conversation.’ He stood up. ‘If you wave to Ruth, I’ll get some lunch out.’
It wasn’t lunch. It was crackers and water. I looked up and met Catriona’s gaze. She looked as if she’d just been hit.
‘This bad? This bad already?’
‘There’s more dry stuff,’ I told her. ‘I guess there’s no point lighting the stove.’
‘It’s one more thing to put away. They might come any time. We can’t keep them waiting.’ Yianni scanned the sky again. I feel as if I’ve got some kind of radar in my head, something sweeping the ether for a hum or a linear movement. Or a plucking hand or signal call. Dear God, let us get out of here.
‘There’s no one up there,’ said Ruth. ‘Or in the next valley. The cairn must have been there all along.’
Catriona turned a cracker in her fingers. ‘We’d have seen it, Ruth. Wouldn’t we?’
By 3 pm we were all reading Victorian fiction. Even Ben attempted some Dickens. By 3.30 the words were blurring on the page and it was too dark to land a small plane on an unlit field. Ruth sighed and put down Villette, which Nina had claimed would fit her like a high-heeled shoe. On the cover there was a picture of a girl in a white low-cut gown sitting on an armchair with her head bent over a letter and sausage-like curls hanging down on each side of her face. It lay on the turf.
‘Yianni? They’re not coming today. It’s too dark. We should put our tents back up for the night.’
Catriona made a muffled sound. Yianni looked at the fading sky, and then quickly round to the new cairn. I shivered.
‘They’ll come tomorrow,’ he said. ‘They must think we wanted an extra day. Waiting for us to call.’
‘No.’ Catriona dropped Middlemarch. ‘No.’ Her gaze flicked from one face to the next.
‘No, we don’t put the tents back up, or no, they won’t come tomorrow?’ Ruth is calm as if this is how we planned it all along. As if she came here meaning not to go back.
Catriona started to cry. ‘No, this isn’t happening. No. Just no.’
The sea was beginning to merge into the sky and colour was already leaching out of the hillside above. No seemed about right. I couldn’t think of anything comforting to say.
Nina moved over to Catriona, her finger still marking her place near the end of Romola. She put her arm round her. Catriona went on crying just the same. Crying doesn’t change anything.
‘Cat?’ said Nina. ‘There’s nothing we can do about it now. You just – you just have to believe that they’re all right. Your family, or whoever. You just have to believe they’re getting up and – and going to work and working.’ There were tears in her eyes. ‘And you have to think of them going home and you’re not there. You’re not there but they’re OK. They’ll be OK.’ The tears ran but she went on talking. ‘And you have to think of them eating and going to bed – without you – and reading and cooking and watching TV and they’re all right. And they will be all right. We won’t be, but they will.’
Catriona’s shoulders shook. Nina hid her face on Catriona’s shoulder and went on, her voice rough. ‘You have to think, if you were dying, they’d still have a future, wouldn’t they? They’d see places you’ve never been and they’d cook things you’ve never heard of and they’d meet people you’ve never known. And you have to think – that they’ll do that. You have to.’
Catriona turned and they held each other. The rest of us looked away. The dusk thickened, hiding the cairn above us and the horizon where no plane buzzed. Waves washed the shore.
‘We might as well put the tents up here, mightn’t we?’ asked Ruth.
Yianni shrugged, face averted. ‘Saves carrying everything back across the stones.’
He looked at the long boxes we’d been not looking at all day.
‘We’ll have to put the finds tent back up. In case it rains.’
‘Nina?’ Catriona rubbed her knuckles into her eyes and looked up, blotchy and damp. ‘Do you think – will they come here, too? You know.’
She tilted her head towards the hillside and the grave. The plateau was clearer from this side of the river. We’d put the turf back but it wouldn’t take root again until spring.
Nina’s face was dry but pale. ‘We’re closer to the chapel.’ She paused a moment, listening. ‘I hear bad sounds from there. There was someone inside, you know, when it burnt.’ She looked over at the ruins. ‘I wish there wasn’t another night here. I’ve – I’ve heard him trying to get out. From the fire.’
‘Catriona?’ said Ben. ‘Be careful. Seriously.’
‘OK.’ Yianni handed Jane Eyre back to Nina. She took it without looking at him. ‘We’ll get the tents back up. Finds first. I suppose we can just put tarps over the stores. Then our tents. We’ll need to be up early again to get ready.’
Catriona and Nina exchanged glances.
‘Yianni?’
‘What?’
Catriona looked down at Middlemarch, on the cover of which a woman in a black dress and a man in a black suit stand by a table in a room with orange curtains.
‘How long are we going to keep doing this? I mean, how many days? Before we decide they’re not coming.’
‘Shut up.’ He stood up and stood over her. ‘Shut the fuck up.’
I got up and put my hand on him.
‘Cool it. OK? She’s scared.’
He turned, squared his shoulders, tilted his chin. I can see straight over Yianni’s head. The last time I fought anyone was when Bobby Martin said Hannah looked like a squashed red alien when we took her to church that first time. I won then, you might remember. I sat on him and banged his head on the grass until he said what I told him to say and you and Mr Martin came running. I heard you talking about jealousy and new babies to Mrs Martin and then you took me home and locked me in my room for the afternoon and we all had to pray for me to see Jesus in my heart before we could eat dinner. I looked back at Yianni. His nose hung out over his facial hair like a sign swinging outside a shop. Bullseye.
Nina reached out and touched his elbow.
‘It’s not your fault, you know. No one’s blaming you. Yianni?’
‘Of course it’s my fucking fault, you silly cow. I brought you here. Oh, leave me alone.’
He walked off down the river. The shoreline was dimming and the wind moaned through the grass. You, I thought. That ‘you’ was singular.
‘Is that his problem?’ asked Ben. ‘He’s blaming himself?’
‘Makes sense.’ Ruth handed Villette to Nina. ‘Though why men have to threaten women when they’re blaming themselves remains a mystery. Come on. I guess we’d better get those tents up.’
Nina took the book. ‘It is his fault. He’s in charge. And it appears there’s no plan B.’
‘Tents,’ I said. ‘Come on.’
I offered Nina my hands and pulled her up. Catriona stayed huddled on her rock. I held out my hands again.
‘I almost don’t know if I’m more scared of Yianni or the Greenlanders,’ she said. ‘I keep hoping I’m going to wake up.’
‘I’d be more scared of the Greenlanders,’ said Nina. She offered her hands as well and between us we pulled Catriona up. They’re both light now, lighter than the girls. ‘They’ve got less to lose.’
The longer we stay here, the less any of us have to lose.
Yianni came back when we’d put the tents up in a corral and got the lamp and the stove going. The finds and the stores were well up the hill and even Ruth hadn’t objected to that.
‘If you’re worried about fuel you shouldn’t be using the lamp,’ he said.
Nina, who was shredding bits of thyme into a pan of water, noodles and garlic, looked up.
‘I thought you weren’t worrying about saving things?’
I nudged her foot.
‘I’m not. You are.’ He came and looked into the pan. ‘Sorry I was rude, Catriona.’
She was sitting in the darkness behind him, the lantern light flickering on her glasses so I couldn’t see her eyes.
‘That’s OK. I didn’t mean to be provocative.’
Nina dropped some more twigs into the water.
‘You weren’t,’ she said.
I kicked her foot again.
‘What’s for dinner?’ asked Ben. We all knew. We’d talked about whether to use the last of the pesto.
‘Noodles in garlic consommé,’ said Nina. Her voice was hard. ‘Noodles with garlic and fresh seasonal herbs. The cuisine of West Greenland is characterised by a spare, neo-Japanese minimalism. Noodles in a clear broth garnished with locally foraged organic vegetables. Get used to it.’
Catriona pulled her feet closer in to her body.
‘Vegetation, more like. Nina, is that grass?’
There was a handful of soft blades in the upturned pan lid at Nina’s feet.
‘Not the right kind of grass, I’m afraid. D’you suppose the Greenlanders just got drunk in winter?’
‘Nina, I’m not eating grass,’ said Ben.
‘We can’t digest it.’ Ruth sounded as if she were correcting a student. ‘We have no way of processing the nutrients. You’d need an extra stomach. Or two.’
Nina picked up the grass and let it run through her fingers. ‘I know. But I bet there’s not a lot of nutrition in herbs anyway. I just thought it would add texture. And it tastes a bit sweet. Surely we can process the sugar? I bet you could call it herbes du Nord or something and use it to garnish something.’
She put a few blades in her mouth and chewed a moment.
‘A mild fish. Freshwater trout. I mean, watercress is traditional but it’s too strong a flavour, really. Better with salmon.’
My scalp prickled and I glanced around, but could see nothing outside the small pool of lamplight. The stove and the lamp purred.
‘Nina,’ I said. ‘Stop it. You’re creeping me out.’
‘One of them’s at the grave,’ Nina continued. ‘And I don’t like the feel of the chapel. I’ve never been this close to it in the dark before. Anyway, I was only going to sprinkle some on each bowl. To make it look better.’
‘It’s dark,’ I said. Dark, and cold. The grass under my boots crunched with frost and my fingers were too stiff to move. When Nina cooks, at least she gets to warm her hands.
She tipped the grass onto the ground.
‘OK. Fine. No garnish. No consommé. No fresh seasonal herbs. No nouvelle cuisine. Stale noodles with water and garlic. Fewer calories per portion than a piece of toast, and make the most of it because after this it’s mostly water, at least for as long as the fuel holds out to melt ice. Enjoy.’
She turned the stove off and began to dump noodles on plates. The pan tipped and she caught it in a gloved hand, but hot water sloshed out.
‘Oh fuck. Fuck and fuck. Now I’ve got fucking burns as well as fucking frostbite.’
Catriona took the pan by its handle.
‘Get that glove off and put your hand in the frost.’
Her hand steamed when the glove came off. A blister was already forming.
‘First aid kit,’ said Yianni.
Nina cradled it in the other hand. ‘It’ll be all right. I’ve done worse. Just not in the sodding Arctic.’
She licked the burn.
‘Put a dressing on it.’ Ruth hadn’t moved. ‘You’d be stupid to get it infected.’
‘OK,’ said Nina. ‘Jesus.’
Ben passed Yianni the first aid kit. Unzipped, it’s frighteningly small. I’d guess Nina’s scald is at about the limits of what we’re equipped to deal with. The kit you had in the car is bigger. Nina held her hand up while Yianni peeled back her sleeve. He was about to squeeze antiseptic cream onto his finger when Ruth spoke again.
‘Wash your hands. Or you’re rubbing whatever’s on your fingers into blistered skin.’
‘I know that. Bloody hell, Ruth.’
He opened a wipe and cleaned his fingers. I watched. He held Nina’s bare arm with one hand and spread the cream over her damaged skin with the other.
‘You’re not looking,’ said Ruth. ‘Either of you.’
Nina’s hair hung down over her face.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Well. As Jim says. It’s dark, isn’t it?’
I looked away.
‘Sit down,’ said Yianni.
I looked back to see him kneeling in front of her, her upturned hand resting on his thigh while he unrolled the bandage. They were looking at each other now. You can see in the air, here, when people are breathing fast. Catriona was watching them too. She caught my gaze and turned away to serve dinner.
It was so cold, last night. We went to bed straight after dinner, too cold to sit out in the wind any longer. I wore everything except my coat and boots: shorts, long johns, two pairs of pants, inner and outer socks, two t-shirts, polo neck, two sweaters. Mittens and hat, and the hood of my sleeping bag pulled close round my nose and eyes. The ground was frozen hard under my bones, and after a while my condensed breath on the sleeping bag began to freeze and crackle. My guts twisted with hunger. Hunger hurts, I find. I’m never going to walk past a homeless person again. I lay there. Shaking uses energy, which I haven’t got spare, but it generates heat, which I need. I was trying not to think about home, about my bed with Mom’s quilt and my stereo with friendly voices and the model airplane and Grandma’s rag rug. I want you to know, Dad, if you get this, if I’m not writing into the wind and the dark here, that the time we spent making that plane includes some of the happiest hours of my life. Winter, and the snow swirling outside the garage window, just the fiction of a journey on the path we cleared between the workshop and the kitchen where Mom and the girls were baking the Christmas cookies. Before I’d understood that one day I’d grow up and leave you. Before you started talking about leaving us.
