Chapter 18
CHAPTER
The dining room is humming with conversation on our last night on the ship as, determinedly not looking at Sebastien, I walk past the tables to the expansive recreation room.
Armchairs and sofas are grouped around oversized coffee tables, but I perch on a stool near a window to make my calls.
Like the sky, the sea is mostly grey. My mother is in Sydney.
Tomorrow, she’ll board the ship for the cruise to New Zealand.
‘I didn’t transfer the money for the helicopter trip because I didn’t have it,’ I explain yet again. ‘Maybe next year.’
Sebastien is talking to Angelina. Like me, she’s wearing jeans and a sweater, but her clothes hug her curves. She’s stylish and elegant. When Sebastien laughs at something she’s said, she puts her hand on his arm. I press the phone closer to my ear.
‘I wonder how Tilly’s team did in debating last night? I’ll call her next.’
‘If Katrina paid for her daughter’s education, you wouldn’t be so hard up.’
‘Katrina can’t afford it.’ I slide off the stool. ‘I know this is a difficult day, but I hoped—’
‘It’s Matthew’s birthday!’ Her voice breaks.
‘The meditation sessions on the cruise will be helpful.’
‘Yogi Bishnu and the therapists will try their best, but they won’t understand.’
‘I do.’
‘I was Matt’s mother. It’s different.’
Up until we lost Matt, I thought my mother had loved me in the usual way, that it was his death that’d changed her.
But one day, when I was newly out of detention and Matt’s best friend Beau’s mother, Carol, had taken me in, she gently told me I might be mistaken.
Carol said she wished she could have done more for me and Matt, but our neglect was hard to pinpoint.
She was also concerned that if she’d said anything to Mum, she and Mum would have fallen out, and that would mean she couldn’t take care of us while Mum was chasing my father, and after his death, her memories of him.
‘Matt and Beau were confident boys and so independent,’ Carol said.
‘I was independent too.’
‘You were like a little bird, flitting around the garden in an imaginary world.’
Flitting? Like a wren or a sparrow or a honeyeater?
When I was in detention, I learned to make origami birds (we weren’t allowed staples).
My birds could squeeze through the bars of a cage, which is what I wanted too.
Finish school, go to university, support Matilda.
Pippin the canary might not have survived, but, somehow, I would.
‘I’ll try to call again next week,’ I tell Mum. ‘Or you can call the number I gave you—it’s like a landline and goes straight to my room.’
‘Hey, Flick!’ Angelina whistles. ‘Come and settle an argument over here!’ Angelina’s arguments with Sebastien are clearly nothing like mine. No stinging eyes and resentment. No tight lips and frowns.
I hold up the phone. ‘I have another call.’ Fingers fumbling over the numbers, I eventually reach Matilda’s boarding house.
‘Flicka!’
‘Sorry to interrupt your homework.’
‘You sound the same on a satellite phone as you do on a mobile phone.’
‘Everything okay at school?’
‘Guess what!’
‘Hmm.’ As I count to three, I imagine Matilda bouncing up and down on the spot. ‘Didn’t you have a debating competition coming up?’
‘You know I did! You never forget anything!’
‘I’m sure your team was brilliant, whatever the result.’
‘It was really, really close, but we won! The final is in Perth in November, and that means we get to stay in a hotel for four nights.’
‘Every time I think I couldn’t be prouder, you prove me wrong. I’m sorry I can’t be with you in Perth.’
‘Even if you were here, it’d be a really long drive.’
‘I’ll organise your flights.’
‘It’s expensive to fly to Western Australia. I looked it up.’
‘I’ll get in touch with the other parents. I’m good at finding inexpensive flights.’
‘You already had to pay for a bigger blazer this month, so I asked Mum if I could have the flights for my birthday, but she said she can’t afford it.’
‘Please don’t worry, Tilly. I’ll work it out.’
‘Are you scared to be on the ship? Is it okay?’
‘It’s been too rough to go outside, but I haven’t been seasick. I’m getting better at sleeping in a cabin, so you don’t have to worry about me.’
‘Have you made friends with anyone? Have you seen your other friends?’
‘Angelina is a new friend, and I’ve been working in the kitchen with Jerry. Robin and Kingsley have been sick in their cabins, so I haven’t seen much of them.’
‘You’ll be on Morrison Island tomorrow.’
‘I can’t wait.’ Two plane trips. A sea voyage. I’m almost there.
‘I love you, Flicka.’
‘I love you too.’
Even though I blink like crazy, the phone blurs in my hand.
‘Flick!’ Captain Simpson bustles towards me. ‘I’d like to take the latest member of the kitchen crew on a personal tour of the bridge. Are you free?’
‘I’ll get my coat.’ Some passengers are playing cards or reading in the recreation room. Angelina is sitting on a table and drinking from a mug. Sebastien, leaning against the table, is next to her. I’m pushing an arm into the sleeve of my coat as I rush past.
‘Flick!’ Angelina waves. ‘Come over here.’
Tomorrow, I’ll start work in a role I’m qualified for. My room in the staff accommodation on Morrison Island will be small but it will have a regular rectangular window. No portholes. No panic attacks.
No Sebastien.
Avoiding him today was cowardly, but I’ve been busy and so has he. I feel his gaze on the side of my face as I reply to Angelina.
‘I’m meeting the captain for a tour of the bridge.’
‘Seb and I saved you a spot at our table. Have you had anything to eat?’
‘Thank you, but Jerry and I ate dinner in the kitchen.’
Sebastien’s nod is stiff. ‘I’ll wait for you here.’
Do I need him to walk me to the cabin? I might. But I also might not. ‘I’ll find Gregory.’
‘He’s working downstairs.’
Angelina taps Sebastien’s foot with hers. ‘I’ll keep you company till Flick comes back.’
The captain is waiting. ‘Button up!’
After walking up the steps, I follow the captain along a corridor to the bridge where we join six other members of the crew, all of whom I’ve met already.
There are windows on three sides of the room.
Banks of cabinets packed with monitors, screens and other equipment take up most of the rest of the space.
The sea is shades of grey—steel, silver and slate. Whitecaps dance wildly on the waves.
‘What an amazing view.’
‘If this weather holds,’ the captain says, ‘we should get you off the ship tomorrow morning.’
‘You’re going to Casey next?’
‘We leave Seb and a few others there.’
The captain reels off information about the capacity of the ship and how everything can be monitored from the myriad computers.
‘This vessel shares the complexities of an aircraft cockpit, but on a larger scale,’ he says.
‘Satellites and other navigation systems guide us, but we keep an eye out as well.’
‘It’s vast.’
‘As you’ve seen in the past few days, our crew has to be ready for anything. On that—’ he waggles his brows, ‘—we’ve appreciated all you’ve done for the crew and your fellow passengers.’
‘I was grateful I wasn’t sick.’
‘Seb Thorsen has also been busy with tasks outside his job description.’
Captain Simpson is smiling, but I’m suddenly uneasy.
‘As I understand it, you’ve required support.’
‘Has Sebastien said something?’
‘No more than he had to.’
‘I’ve appreciated his help.’
‘What gets expeditioners interested in Antarctica is the environment—with you, it’ll be the birds and wildlife—but what keeps them sane while they’re away from friends and family is the community.
Some of our closest connections are forged with those we might have originally imagined we wouldn’t get along with.
’ He crosses his arms. ‘Strengths and weaknesses. We all have them.’
‘I’m thinking you know mine.’
His smile is a little too bright. ‘Rather.’
The ship slices through most of the waves, but sometimes it tilts.
‘Given Seb’s military and professional background,’ the captain says, ‘I expected leadership skills and expertise in aircraft, but he has an extensive knowledge of maritime vessels as well. Then again, he’s done work with the navy. Diving and so on.’
We’re interrupted by a young officer who, sotto voce, asks the captain a question.
I’m doing my best to work out what the closest of the screens are conveying when the captain returns. He looks at his watch.
‘Would you like a tour of the engine room? We don’t have fires in the bowels of the ship like they had in the Titanic.’
‘I prefer the upper decks.’
He looks at me closely. ‘You suffer from claustrophobia, don’t you?’
‘Not exactly.’
‘Could you elaborate?’
‘I’ve already explained to Sebastien and Dr Leeton.
I don’t think I should have to do it again.
’ As if the captain has given me the task of finding land, I peer through the window before turning back to him.
‘In the past five days, as you’ve acknowledged, I’ve worked hard, and I’ll do the same on Morrison Island. ’
When the officer approaches again, the captain looks annoyed. Because he wanted to ask more questions? Or because he didn’t expect me to stick up for myself?
The thoughts nag as I retrace my steps.
When Sebastien and I walk down the stairs, he stays close without touching. Is that because, even though I’m pale and clammy, I’m upright? Angelina is chatting behind us as we walk along the corridor. When she says goodnight, I swallow hard and lift a hand. Ten more metres.
Sebastien opens the door and I walk past him and sit on the bed.
‘I’m okay.’
‘I want to explain about this morning.’
‘I want to be on my own tonight.’
‘As you won’t look at me, you are on your own.’
I glance at him, then turn away.
‘You can sleep on the bed,’ he says. ‘I’ll sleep on the floor.’
‘No, thank you.’
‘Do you want me to go to the other cabin?’
‘Yes.’