Call of the White (33 page)

‘Congratulations! I'm Sean,' he introduced himself. I'd been told to expect to meet Sean, the ALE representative at the South Pole whose job it was to look after us once we arrived. ‘You've got everyone here in a bit of a stir,' he continued. I looked at him in confusion, unsure what we could have done within our first five minutes of arrival to upset anybody. ‘You seem to be heading straight for the science buildings and tourists aren't allowed near that part of the base,' Sean explained. I noted our description as tourists.

‘We're just trying to follow a flag route to the ceremonial pole,' I explained. ‘But there are so many flags it's a bit confusing.'

Sean pointed away to our right and I recognised it immediately: a semi-circle of flags arranged around a shiny metal sphere not more than 100 metres in front of the main base building. The South Pole.

Sean walked with us as we crossed the runway, the team still skiing in single file behind me. He chatted companionably as we moved but my attention was transfixed on our goal. We were less than 100 metres away and a sense of the enormity of the moment started to build within my chest. I knew it was ridiculous to think that I wouldn't cry.

Sean sensed my thoughts and faded into the background, moving down the line to shake hands with the rest of the team and thoughtfully collecting our team cameras to take some shots as we drew close to the end of our journey. I glanced behind me at the six women skiing neatly ski-tip to sledge-back as we had done for the last 900 kilometres. I raised my arm in our accustomed communication to check that everyone was OK, more in sentimentality than necessity. I couldn't see the faces of my team but I knew exactly what each was feeling. One by one, they raised their arm to mirror my own signal. I noticed with a familiar pain in my throat that without exception each of the girls had steamed up their goggles – like me, they were all shedding a private tear. Searing affection for this incredible, unconventional, unlikely team flashed through me, burning like a shot of adrenalin.

Covering the last 100 metres stride by stride, I made myself think back to the very beginning, to the interview at the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust, and dragged my mind forward through my memories of Ghana, India, Jamaica; I saw the faces of the women I had interviewed and of all those people who had given so generously of their time to help me. I remembered the late nights agonising over proposals and emails, the nerve-wracking elation of our first contact with Kaspersky Lab, the desperate early-morning Land Rover journeys through Norwegian blizzards and the twisting mountain roads in New Zealand. For a moment I allowed my ego to soar as I thought of those who had been disparaging or sceptical, those who thought we were a joke. ‘And look at us now,' I thought to myself with satisfaction.

I stopped a metre or two from the silver orb and waited for each member of the team to catch up, so that we stood side by side. I stretched across to hug Era and Steph, both next to me in the line. I noticed Kylie waving her arms in triumph and heard her muted cheers from behind her face mask. She threw her arms around Reena, who had already lifted her goggles and was weeping openly, unable to speak. A group of employees from the South Pole base had come out to watch our arrival. They all cheered and applauded as we took the last step together in a confused mass of tangled sledges and crossed skis. The seven of us hugged around the silver ball, arms around each other, leaning forward like a sports team discussing tactics. I looked around at the six faces beaming at me and pulled my face mask away from my mouth so that they could all hear me clearly. ‘If ever in life someone tells you that you can't do something,' I began, ‘or you take on a task and you're not sure that you're up to it; think of this moment. This moment proves that you can do anything you want, and don't let anyone make you believe otherwise. We may be at the bottom of the planet but in the last thirty-eight days we have conquered the world.' I paused to look around at the faces of my team. ‘Always be proud of what we achieved today. Always.' We hugged each other tighter for a second before breaking away to acknowledge the spectators that now crowded around to pat us on the back and take pictures.

‘Do you know,' said one of the women who had come out to congratulate us, ‘that it was exactly forty years ago that the first women arrived at the South Pole.' I hadn't known about the anniversary but I remembered the story. Five researchers working at another American Research Station on the coast, McMurdo, had been flown into the South Pole in a Hercules. Not wanting any one woman to claim precedence the five had decided to walk off the back loader of the plane side by side with arms linked so that they all set foot on the snow at the same time. The accidental coincidence of the anniversary pleased me. I was glad that this time the women arriving at the South Pole had skied the whole way, every step, right from the edge of the continent.

I felt slightly removed from the scene as I hugged and congratulated and cheered, trying to soak in the fact that our journey was over, that we were standing at the South Pole, all seven of us. Inwardly I tried to analyse my feelings. I felt relief, I decided finally; overwhelming mental and physical relief. I seemed almost to float through the scenes playing out around me. I had the strange certainty that I could just drift, that nothing could hurt us now, that we were safe. Then as I posed for photographs with my team I realised how proud I felt to be skiing into the South Pole with this spectacular group of women. The thought brought fresh tears to my eyes and I hugged the team around me even closer. I knew that from this moment this team would never be quite the same again but that we would remember the camaraderie we had shared over the last 38 days for the rest of our lives. Even at that moment, at the zenith of our celebrations, I was already mourning the beginning of the end.

Freed at last from our skis and sledges we all wrapped ourselves in our down jackets and were led the few hundred yards to the ‘real' South Pole. The silver sphere was for ceremony but the actual point of 90 degrees south appears to move as the thick ice layer it sits on flows steadily northward. Therefore the ‘real' South Pole is measured every year and marked with a small brass-headed pin and a large signboard. The board displays an outline of Antarctica. On one side is a quote from Amundsen, the Norwegian explorer who was the first man in history to reach the South Pole. It read ‘So we arrived and were able to plant our flag at the geographical South Pole' and is dated 14 December 1911. On the right-hand side of the sign is a quote from Robert Falcon Scott who arrived at the South Pole more than a month later but who died on the return, ‘The pole. Yes, but under very different circumstances from those expected.'

I thought about Scott and his team of men who had stood at this very spot nearly a hundred years before and considered the gulf of difference between our experiences in getting here. Scott's journey had been longer, and once at the pole he knew he had to return. We didn't have to ski any more. We simply had to wait at the pole until a plane was available to come and collect us. I wondered what those men would have thought of this multicultural team of women who had followed in their footsteps.

I dialled the number of the voicemail that would automatically upload my message onto the expedition website so that everyone who had followed our progress, from anywhere in the world, could listen.

‘Hello, this is Felicity reporting that at nine minutes past eleven on the twenty-ninth of December the Kaspersky Lab Commonwealth Antarctic Expedition arrived at the Geographic South Pole. We're all standing around the mirrorball that sits at the South Pole and surrounded by the flags of all the Antarctic Treaty nations with the South Pole base in the background. Standing next to me is Era Al-Sufri, the first Bruneian ever to ski to the South Pole.' As I spoke her name I looked at Era who grinned at me, squeezing her hands in front of her face in excitement.

‘Next to her is Stephanie Solomonides, the first Cypriot ever to ski to the South Pole.' I deliberately looked at Steph as I spoke. As our eyes met I could see the disbelief in her face at her own achievement, which was still so at odds with her own self-image. The others cheered and Era put her arm around her.

‘Next to her is Reena Kaushal Dharmshaktu, the first Indian woman to ski all the way to the South Pole.' Reena wore her unforgettable smile, with tears in her eyes.

‘Next to her is Sophia Pang, the first woman from Singapore to ski to the South Pole.' The team cheered and Sophia, as imperturbable as ever, looked unruffled.

‘Next to her is Kylie Wakelin, the first woman from New Zealand to ski to the South Pole.' Kylie cheered and waved her arms in the air like a boxer in triumph.

I met Helen's gaze who stood next in line and smiled as I chose my words. ‘Next to her is Helen Turton who has fulfilled a long-held ambition to ski to the South Pole.'

I paused as I realised I was next. ‘And I've also fulfilled an ambition: to take a team of inspirational women all the way to the South Pole.' The team hugged each other in silence.

‘I'm incredibly proud of the team and I think the feeling that we all have right now is that if we can do this then you can do anything that you'd like to, and that's the message that we really want to send to everyone. We're all incredibly happy and we're standing here, seven women at the bottom of the planet with the biggest smiles on our faces. Thanks to everybody out there for supporting us and getting us here.'

I rang off and breathed deeply. I looked around at the girls. They still had their arms around each other and their faces were a mixture of smiles and tears.

Sean gently shepherded us away from the pole to a base camp some 50 metres away where he had already set up a mess tent. We crowded inside, perched on small stools forming a horseshoe around Sean as he produced mugs of hot tea and soup as well as dense chocolate brownies. We gratefully hoovered up the goodies and I munched as I listened to the team relate tales from our journey like seasoned professional explorers. I pulled the satellite phone from my jacket and handed it to Sophia who was next to me. Steph dug out our back-up handset from her sledge, slid a warmed battery into the back and switched it on to make a call. For the next half an hour there was an amalgamation of foreign languages in the tent as my teammates called their loved ones to let them know that we had made it safely to the bottom of the planet. Sophia finished her call and handed the satellite phone to Kylie. ‘I rang my mother,' she told me. ‘She is happy now that she knows I am safe.'

I let myself sink into the atmosphere. I knew that there were still things I needed to think about: publicity for our sponsors back home, delivering images to the right people, calling the journalists who had followed our progress, confirming our flights home, and sorting through our equipment. But I knew all of that could wait; there was nothing that needed to be dealt with immediately. For now I allowed myself to hang in limbo, to sit and enjoy the moment with an empty head. I could pause and rest – just for a moment. As the calls in the tent came to an end I began to think of my own family. The girls had begun to drift away to pitch the tents nearby and prepare for the sleep of their lives. Before I followed them I tucked the satellite phone in my pocket and walked alone to the South Pole. I stood in front of the infamous silver sphere and looked away from the base to the distant horizon we had just travelled over. More than ever before I understood the truth in the saying that it is the journey and not the destination that matters; the travelling not the arrival that is the true gift.

My fingers were already stiff with cold as I carefully dialled my home number hoping that my boyfriend would answer. I tried to work out what the time would be in England but my brain refused to even make a start on the calculation. I forced the handset awkwardly between my hat and the fleecy neck gaiter that was pulled up over my nose. Straining against the noise of the wind and my own breathing I could just hear the ringing of a phone. There was silence as the phone was picked up and then I heard my own voice telling me there was no one home. I hardly recognised myself. The voice was cheerful, full of energy, warm. I left a message, aware that my words were drawled as my jaw struggled to operate in the numbing cold. I sniffed loudly as I thought for a second before ending the call. I wiped my nose on my glove, laughing at the irony of leaving a message on my own answerphone from the South Pole, before laboriously pressing the digits of my parents' number at Crofton.

The phone picked up instantly and as soon as I spoke my mum guessed the implication of the call. ‘Are you there? Are you at the South Pole?' she asked in excitement. I described our arrival, aware that my dad had picked up an extension elsewhere in the house so that he could hear. ‘And how do you feel?' she asked when I had finished. I paused for a moment and looked at my reflection in the silver sphere in front of me. I looked into my own eyes and noticed how tired I looked. ‘Now that it's all over are you happy?' she asked again. I searched for an answer, glancing around thoughtfully at the circle of flags and the endless blue above. What was it that I felt?

‘I don't know,' I answered honestly. ‘I really don't know.'

Ripples into Waves

Perhaps the reason I didn't know how to feel when I arrived at the South Pole was that in many ways, completing the expedition was only the start of the challenge we had set ourselves. I had created the expedition in order to say something about what women are achieving around the world but also to make the point that there is a long way to go before all women enjoy the equality I have been fortunate enough to experience. Now that the team had made it to the South Pole, we were determined to apply ourselves to the task of sharing our story with as many people as possible.

This was a mission that we were all eager to start but first we had to get home – and that proved to be more difficult than expected. Leaving Antarctica was easy enough, but half an inch of snow on the runway at London Heathrow left us stranded in Spain. We sprawled on the hard marble floors of the airport terminal in Madrid, counting the hours that passed without a flight and growing ever more desperate. An audience of 100 guests, including the Commonwealth Secretary-General, were due to arrive at the Commonwealth Club at 6 p.m. that evening to hear the team give a presentation about their experiences. As morning turned into afternoon the chances that we would make our own welcome-home event looked increasingly unlikely. In an act of stubbornly blind optimism I asked the team to write and practise their talks as we waited in the terminal, even as the latest batch of flights appeared on the information board followed by their status: DELAYED, DELAYED, CANCELLED.

Our last hope was a 4 p.m. flight that would get us to Heathrow just an hour before we were due to be onstage in central London. The girls crowded around the gate, brandishing their passports menacingly as an inscrutable airline official tapped at her computer to determine the status of the flight. ‘The plane will go,' she announced finally, handing us our boarding passes. We breathed a collective sigh of relief as we boarded the plane but it wasn't until the aircraft was actually rumbling down the runway and we were airborne that I finally allowed myself to believe we were on our way.

My family were waiting for us at Arrivals. They greeted the whole team like long-lost relatives, presenting each of us with a large helium balloon in our team colours. With the balloons tied to our wrists, and still excitedly hugging our hellos, we ran together from the airport terminal to the Heathrow Express which would take us directly into central London. Inside the subterranean station, the ticket clerk eyed us suspiciously as only a hardened Londoner can. Once we explained that we had just skied to the South Pole she treated us to an unexpected smile and a free upgrade to first class. ‘It's the least I can do after what you girls have done. You are all amazing,' she enthused, passing us the tickets. Mum produced her
pièce de résistance
as we took over the entire first class carriage on the train: a make-up bag bulging with cosmetics, some new vest tops to replace the ones we had been wearing for the last 48 hours, and a round of sandwiches for each of us. The carriage suddenly resembled a girly slumber party as we peered into pocket mirrors, passing on mascara and blusher to one another in an attempt to make ourselves look presentable.

I rang Tim, who was already at the venue. ‘They're all going into the auditorium now,' he reported. I estimated that we were still half an hour away at least. ‘Don't worry, the Commonwealth Secretary-General is giving a speech and I've asked him to string it out a bit. We'll keep the audience busy until you get here.'

We leapt off the train as it arrived and ran along the platform to the nearest exit where a line of black cabs sat waiting. Our frantic party filled two cabs, complete with seven large green balloons pressed against the windows. ‘We're in a massive hurry,' I called to the cab driver but I needn't have worried. He seemed to relish the challenge and soon we were lurching from one side of the cab to the other, screeching through the backstreets of London.

Grasping my mobile as I was flung around the taxi I called the venue and spoke to Kate, who was taking care of the expedition PR. ‘Tim's just gone onstage to introduce you,' she whispered down the phone from the back of the auditorium.

I peered out of the window of the cab to see Admiralty Arch fly past at an alarming angle. ‘We're in Trafalgar Square, we're almost there.' Finishing the call, Kate held up five fingers to poor Tim who had to fill five whole minutes on stage in front of 100 people. The two black cabs pulled up in front of the Commonwealth Club almost simultaneously. As we entered the building I could hear the applause which was our cue to go onstage. The auditorium doors were pulled open and we walked into the room, down the aisle dividing the audience – still trailing the green balloons tied to our wrists – and onto the stage.

That night at the Commonwealth Club the team gave our first ever talk about our journey. Each member spoke about a different part of the expedition and I was struck by how confidently the girls engaged the audience and how eloquently they spoke, despite having no training or previous public speaking experience. They were brimful of enthusiasm, each word saturated with the emotion of our experiences. It was clear that the adventure had had a profound effect on us all but also that the girls were going to be able to communicate that strength of feeling to others in a meaningful way. Over the next couple of days as we sat on the BBC
Breakfast
red sofa and flew to New York to appear on the NBC
Today
show, the team were equally unfazed, taking all the attention in their stride and remaining focused on the task of reaching out to anyone willing to listen to our story.

I had always hoped that there would be enough excitement surrounding the women's achievement to provide each of them a platform when they returned to their own country but I don't think any of us were ready for the level of celebrity that awaited them all when they returned to their home countries. Reena was completely overwhelmed by the mob of press, well-wishers and family that welcomed her at the airport when she returned to India, as she described to me in an email:

Members of the press, radio and TV, folks from my
neighbourhood, friends, family and many people from my husband's home town, turned up with flowers and banners to receive me. There was also a band of traditional musicians. At my home a lot of women and children had gathered at the gates to greet me and I was accompanied by a procession all the way to my home, my neighbours sprinkling flowers on me on my arrival.

I felt I needed to visit Darjeeling, since that was the place I grew up and I was invited to my old school, Loreto Convent, to give a talk. I stood on the stage and was taken back to my school days. I used to watch my classmates and other girls going to the stage for debates and dramatics with awe, wondering when I would be able to do the same. Now I was a celebrity standing on the stage and talking about my experiences and inspiring the girls. I told them, ‘Education gives you wings. You can use it to do whatever you want to do in life. If you follow your dreams then there is great power in it.'

Like Reena, Era too was met by a number of journalists when she arrived home and her story covered the front pages of the major newspapers in Brunei. Soon after, she was accorded the ultimate honour of a dinner which was attended by the Crown Princess of Brunei. But a greater joy was to come. Era is now expecting her first child. Nobody in the team was surprised when we heard the news. She had talked often in the tent during the expedition about starting a family. We may not have been surprised but of course we were all thrilled for her – in some way we all feel like distant aunties.

Sophia was contacted by the president's office soon after she returned to Singapore. The president was keen to arrange a dinner so that Sophia could relate her experience to him personally. She was shocked and humbled when a few days later he used her achievement as a rallying call to the whole nation in his speech to mark Chinese New Year, the most important speech in the president's annual calendar.

Kylie may not have been welcomed home by heads of state but her countrymen afforded her a uniquely Kiwi honour. After complaining during the expedition in her podcasts from the ice that she was craving marmite on toast, she arrived home to find parcels of marmite and bread piled up on her doorstep that had been sent from all over New Zealand by well-wishers who had followed the expedition. Kylie was delighted. Shortly after, the Sir Edmund Hillary Alpine Centre got in touch, asking Kylie to donate the skis and boots she used to reach the South Pole to their national exhibition. They will now be displayed alongside the ice axe used
by Sir Edmund Hillary, an honour that makes us all proud.

I heard from Kim shortly after our return. Her injury was healing well and the feeling had returned to her fingers. Surrounded by friends at home, she had found a way to cope with her disappointment. I emailed her the picture we had taken for her of the team at the South Pole – flying the Jamaican flag on her behalf, just as I had promised.

As a team we have spoken to literally thousands of people about our adventure but have reached out to many more through media appearances, press articles and the web. As a result, the expedition has received a steady stream of emails from men and women who have been inspired by our story to make a decision in their own lives. It might be that they've decided to run a marathon, start a business, volunteer their skills to a cause or simply encourage someone else to achieve their dream. Whatever the decision, the fact that our actions have had such a direct impact on the lives of others and the choices they make is astounding. This is what I feel has been the real success of the expedition and our greatest achievement.

At the South Pole my mum asked me ‘How do you feel? Are you happy?' Thinking back over the expedition I'm still not sure how to answer that question. I feel pride. I feel pride in the girls and I feel pride in myself for pulling it all together – but am I happy? Am I finally content? That is a harder question to answer.

When I was in my early teens a woman who had climbed Everest came to speak to our school. I don't remember much about her talk except that she had once been told that there were two paths in life and that taking the harder path would always lead to greater fulfilment. There and then I decided that I would always seek out the ‘hard path' and I think, more or less, that that is what I have done ever since. As I write, new ideas for new adventures are forming in my mind and being rolled around. If they don't fade soon I'll be forced to do something about them. So, you see, I'm already seeking the next ‘hard path' and I have a suspicion that it might always be that way.