The Lightkeeper's Wife (30 page)
Right now, this seems overwhelming to me, so I focus on watching her instead. Shifting a little on her foothold, she reaches up, brings up her feet, and in no time she is ten metres above me, stopping to look for the next suitable crack or crevice to insert another piece of equipment for protection. It looks amazingly easy, and my heart swells with the excitement of watching her.
She’s good at this—carefully placing her feet on the rock and cleverly using her body to gain elevation. She moves smoothly and expertly. Even so, my hands are slick with sweat and my feet are damp in my runners.
Eventually, she climbs out of sight. Somehow it’s easier not watching; instead, I listen for her directions and pay out rope as she needs it. The clinking sound from above tells me when she is moving again.
Glancing below, I see the sea swelling and frothing over the red rocks. Small puffy clouds have appeared on the eastern horizon and out to sea a bulk carrier is moving slowly north. Standing on this dome of granite in the warm sun, I can smell the rock; it’s a dry hard smell, quite distinct from that of dirt. It mingles with the sweat of my fear, reminding me that I am yet to climb.
Soon Emma calls that she’s safe, and I take myself off belay then sit down to jam my feet into the tight little shoes. I lace them firmly and tie my runners to a loop on the back of my harness. Emma is pulling in the rope from above; soon it will be tight and then I will have to climb. I check my harness and knots for the tenth time. It’s a long way down if I fall. The rope tugs on my harness.
‘That’s me,’ I say.
‘Is that you?’ Emma yells. ‘I can’t hear you.’
‘Yes.’ I try to muster a bigger voice. ‘That’s me.’
There’s a pause before Emma’s voice floats down again. ‘On belay.’
So this is it. My heart is in my mouth. ‘Okay. Climbing.’
Emma tugs reassuringly on the rope, but the rock wall above me seems blank, with nothing significant to hold on to. A long time seems to pass and I haven’t made a move. My feet are already killing me in the tight shoes.
‘Are you all right?’ Emma calls down.
‘I’m not sure how to start,’ I say, wiping my arm across my forehead to dislodge the sweat.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Look up a bit and you’ll see a little crack. Can you get your fingers into that?’
I grope around to find the crack and push my fingers in, scrabbling for something to grasp.
‘Slide your fingers along. There’s an edge in there you can hook onto.’
A couple of seconds later, I’ve found it.
‘Now, look down and across to your right a bit. There’s a ledge you can put your foot on sideways. Place your other hand flat against the rock, push up on your right foot and pull with your hand in the crack. That’ll get you off the ground and you can look for something else.’
How can she remember all these nuances of the rock? I try to follow her instructions, psyching up with shaking legs, and then I take the first move off the ground. I feel air all around me. I grapple around for another handhold and find one, a reassuring lump near a crack.
‘Did you find that jug?’ Emma calls.
‘What’s a jug?’
‘A big handhold. Did you find it?’
‘I think I’m hanging on to it.’
‘Good.’
As I move slowly up the rock face, I find several solid locations to place my feet and there are plenty of cracks and edges to cling onto. I’m breathing like a windstorm, huffing with each breath. I try not to look down.
‘Make sure you unclip the rope from the clipdraws as you go and pull out all the gear,’ Emma reminds me. ‘I don’t want to have to climb back down to retrieve anything.’
Unclipping and pulling out the equipment is harder than it sounds. On trembling legs, I have to maintain my balance, hold on to rock with my left hand and try to wangle the rope out of the carabiner with my finger and thumb. Then I have to work out how to remove the gear—a camming device or wire with a blocky sinker on the end of it—and hook it into a loop on my harness. After removing the first piece, I feel exhausted.
‘How are you going?’ Emma calls.
‘I think I’m okay,’ I say, hoping I sound more confident than I feel.
‘I’ve got you.’ Emma pulls up on the rope. ‘Do you need a rest?’
‘No,’ I pant. ‘I’ll keep going.’
Still out of sight, Emma gives me instructions and makes helpful suggestions, and I make slow progress up the rock face. She seems to know when to call out and when to leave me alone to work it out myself. Always, I am conscious of the voluminous feel of air and space around me, of the awful drop below me, the headiness of height, my tenuous grip on the rock face.
Eventually, I drag myself over a ledge and there’s Emma, sitting about three metres above me.
‘You’re nearly there.’ Her smile is luminous. ‘How is it?’
‘Great,’ I puff.
‘How did your legs go? Did you get sewing-machine leg?’
I remember one point, when I was partway up the rock with my right leg shaking uncontrollably.
She smiles knowingly. ‘It happens to us all.’
She points out some good footholds and finger cracks for the last moves, and I finally haul myself up onto the rock beside her.
‘Sit down and have a rest,’ she says. ‘It’s beautiful up here.’
I lean back weakly against the rock and look out across the flat expanse of the sea. The beach is a sheltered cove below. I didn’t realise we had gained so much height.
‘Look at the light on the rocks,’ Emma says. ‘I just love all those oranges and reds. Impossible really—such bright colours in nature.’
We sit together a long time, eating the snacks we brought and drinking water. I’ve sweated buckets.
‘I generally prefer to keep my feet on the ground,’ I say.
‘But how do you feel now?’ Emma asks.
I notice the unweighted feeling of my body, the spreading looseness of my mind, the pleasant sensation of cool air on hot sweat.
‘Euphoric.’
‘That’s why it’s fun,’ Emma says. ‘You feel more alive. The hardest part is learning to block out the distance below you. You have to delete it somehow, so that when you look down, you don’t register how far you could fall.’ She catches me shaking my head, and smiles. ‘If you see the height, you’ll get vertigo,’ she says. ‘It paralyses you. And then you can’t climb. All you’ll be able to think about is the risk, and you’ll miss out on the buzz. But taking risks is part of climbing. The trick is to take only calculated risks. Then you can look up and out without worrying about falling. It’s all about enjoying the ride.’
She reaches out and squeezes my hand. And it seems to me she’s not just talking about climbing. She’s talking about life.
That night, sated, mellow, every muscle aching, we drink red wine with dinner. The shared experience, the dark around us, the campfire with its glowing embers and gently flickering flames, the wine—it all breeds an atmosphere of intimacy.
Emma admits she’s finding it difficult to apply herself to grinding through all the data she collected last season. All she can think of is the news that comes dribbling back from Mawson Station. It’s like an addiction, the way she has to dash into the lab each morning and check her emails to find out what happened overnight. After a few seasons she thought she’d be over it, but the yearning is as strong as ever.
‘It’s the freedom,’ I say. ‘The distance from normal routine and responsibility.’
Emma shakes her head. ‘I have routine down there. Every day is routine. Rugging up for the cold. Checking the weighbridge. Catching birds. Water offloading. Data entry . . .’
‘But you’re not hemmed in to ordinary life.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘You don’t have to go shopping. Or buy petrol. Or clean the house.’
‘I suppose that’s part of it,’ she says. ‘Life isn’t very ordinary down there, is it? It does have its own routine, but each day is special and there’s something different to look at. Like a leopard seal hauling out on the sea ice and scaring the hell out of the penguins. Or a skua hanging around the hut trying to steal the soap. Or a visitor you didn’t expect making a trip out across the sea ice for dinner and a glass of wine.’
I watch Emma’s face glowing in reminiscence. Her cheeks have a red sheen from the fire. She stares into the flames and there’s a soft smile on her lips. I feel the warmth of the wine in my veins.
‘I’m leading you astray,’ she says. ‘You were normal and stable before you met me, weren’t you?’
‘What’s normal?’
‘Were you thinking of Antarctica every day? Every waking moment? Like you are now?’
It’s not Antarctica I’m thinking of every waking moment. ‘I’m thinking of you,’ I say.
Emma laughs. ‘You’ve got things mixed up in your head. Me and Antarctica. You can’t separate us. You can’t think of one without thinking of the other.’ She’s gazing into the fire again, her eyes glistening in the liquid light.
‘You don’t have to go,’ I say.
She looks at me blankly.
I say it again. ‘You don’t have to go south.’
‘Everyone wants to go south.’
‘If you want to settle back into life here, you could find something else to do . . . You could get a job at a university.
Research, or something.’
‘Who said I want to settle?’
‘You’ll have to eventually. You can’t keep going south forever.’
‘Why not?’
‘Eventually you’ll want a normal life.’
‘I don’t want a normal life. And neither do you. That’s why you’re here with me. Because you want to go south again.’
She doesn’t understand. Being with her is about much more than wanting to go south. I like being with her. I like the feeling of her body wrapped around me. Her smell. Doing things with her, even climbing. The possibility of Antarctica is an added bonus.
‘I like you even without Antarctica,’ I say.
She shakes her head. ‘No, you don’t. You’re wrong. It’s Antarctic magic that has drawn you to me. If it wasn’t for that, I’d just be another person in the street. And do you really think you could work with me down there?’
‘Yes.’
‘How do you know?’
I hesitate. ‘I’m not very imposing.’
She laughs and winks at me. ‘I don’t mind a bit of imposition.’
I pretend to ignore the hint. ‘I’m talking about the workplace. I’m not a bulldozer. There are ways to work things out.’
Emma stares off over the fire into the dark. ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘There are always ways to work things out.’ She seems suddenly abstracted and I wonder what she’s thinking. ‘We had a successful season,’ she says eventually. ‘Lots of data.’ She pokes the fire with a stick and a log crumbles and flickers into energised flame. ‘My assistant was good most of the time—when she wasn’t trying to run back to station to see her beau. But this year I’ve decided I need a man. To help with the heavy work.’
I swallow the tightness in my throat, waiting for her to tell me whether she thinks I’ll get the job, but she remains silent, and I force myself to speak. ‘I’d really like to go south with you,’ I say. ‘But only if you think it can work.’
‘If what can work?’
‘Us . . . and being together in the field.’
Emma lifts her head and laughs. The light of the flames flickers on her throat. ‘You want to try it?’ she asks. ‘Even after your marriage breakup?’
I nod, unable to speak.
‘And it’ll be all right this time?’
‘Yes.’
She studies me carefully. ‘How can you know?’ she asks.
I shrug and her face softens in the firelight.
‘You loved her, didn’t you?’ she says.
‘Yes.’
‘So why did you go?’
‘To pay off the mortgage.’
Emma stabs at the coals with a stick and stands up. ‘We all think we’re safe,’ she says quietly. ‘But all of us are vulnerable.’ She tosses the stick into the fire. ‘Let’s go to bed.’
‘The scouts are here!’ Leon burst through the door with a blast of fresh air, enthusiasm written all over his face.
Mary was on the couch, folded up in her rug. She was slow and bleary-eyed after a bad night; Jacinta and Alex had stayed over again and she’d relinquished two of her pillows. Unable to prop herself up she’d had no rest, struggling to breathe through fluid-filled lungs. They left early to catch the ferry back to Kettering and it was a relief to collapse on the couch, drifting in and out of weary slumber.
She peered blurrily up at Leon, trying to look responsive.
‘Are you ready?’ he asked.
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know what I’m going to say.’
He brushed away her reluctance. ‘You’ll think of something. And they’re looking forward to it. I’ve told them all about you.’
‘I can’t do it. I’m too tired.’
He continued as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘Just think! You could be sitting in a hospital bed accepting cups of tea from grumpy nurses. But instead, here you are, still giving public speeches.’
