Chapter 9
CHAPTER
I was tired after Friday’s panic attack and slept well.
But for the past two nights, after completing module after module of training with three other expeditioners—and being quizzed about OH&S, biosecurity, communications and many other things—I’ve tossed, turned and had nightmares.
Not that I’d confide any of that to the doctor, middle-aged, dour and meticulous, responsible for the medical checks.
‘Ah!’ Even though he told me to return to his surgery at two o’clock, the doctor looks surprised to see me. ‘Come in. Come in.’
After closing the door, I perch on a chair at his desk. ‘How did I go?’
The doctor holds up his iPad. ‘I have the results of today’s examination and yesterday’s pathology and fitness tests. It’s a green light from me.’
My heart leaps. ‘Thank you.’
‘I understand you’ll be at Morrison Island at the behest of not only Professor Johnson, but Captain Thorsen.’ A lift of his brows. ‘An impressive young fellow.’
‘I assume he passed the medical too.’
‘I’m not at liberty to discuss another patient.’
‘Did he say anything about me? I suspect he did.’
The doctor’s brows knit together. ‘I make assessments based on objective criterion and my own professional opinion. Most importantly, you’re over whatever illness you might have had three days ago.’ He walks to the door and opens it. ‘I’ll see you at the function this evening.’
‘I might have an early night.’
He blinks. ‘All expeditioners and locally based Antarctic Division personnel are expected to attend. It won’t be a late night.’
Can I fail the medical after I’ve already passed it?
I paste on a smile. ‘I’ll be there.’
The doctor is sitting in a booth in the hotel bar with two other grey-haired men. As I pass, he holds up a hand.
‘If you come across Sebastien Thorsen, could you send him this way? My colleagues would like to meet him.’
After nodding politely to the doctor, I walk to the bar to join the other expeditioners travelling to Morrison Island. On the ship, we’ll be joined by the fifth expeditioner, a woman with a media and communications role at the Antarctic Division.
‘Flick! About time you got here!’ Robin, thick salt-and-pepper hair held back from her face with a scarf, is perched on a stool at the bar.
She’s in her early sixties and is an eminent authority on Antarctic species of lichen.
Having spent two seasons at Casey and Davis, mainland Antarctic stations that are icebound for most of the year, she has no fear of the cold, wet and windy conditions she encountered on Morrison Island last time she was there.
‘My biggest fear is the medical,’ she’d said yesterday.
‘I spend too much time sitting at a desk. Also, I’m addicted to red frog confectionery. ’
‘How did you go?’ I ask her now.
She raises her glass. ‘I passed.’
Jerry Bolton, who’ll take over the chef’s role at Morrison, is in his mid-twenties and infectiously upbeat. He clinks glasses with Robin. ‘She aced it.’
‘I suggested to our doctor friend over there that it might be considered ageist to fail me on BMI alone,’ Robin says.
‘Want to see the tattoo I got for the trip?’ Jerry rolls up his sleeve. ‘The tatt artist said it’s a fairy penguin.’
‘Fairy penguins are restricted to Australian and New Zealand territory,’ Robin says.
‘Are you saying I was ripped off?’
‘As you won’t find that species where we’re going, perhaps.’
‘Fairy penguins also nest in Chile.’ I look more closely at the tattoo. ‘But this isn’t a fairy penguin.’
‘Please don’t tell me it’s a well-dressed duck.’
‘It’s an Adélie penguin, one of the species that nest in mainland Antarctica.’
‘No joke?’ Jerry grins. ‘A hardcore penguin. You sure?’
‘Adélie penguins have white rings around their eyes.’
After the bartender passes my juice over the counter, I join Kingsley Maitland, who is sitting alone.
A prodigiously fit physiotherapist, Kingsley has run marathons in Sydney, New York and London.
He’s four years older than me and, after ten years working with elite athletes in Canberra, is enthusiastic about joining Morrison’s medical team.
He peers at my drink. ‘Is there vodka in that?’
‘Oranges, water and ice. I don’t drink.’
‘Why not?’
‘Long story.’
‘This is my third drink, maybe my fourth.’ He lifts his glass. ‘You know, you get more beautiful every time I see you.’
‘It must be your fourth.’
‘Didn’t you see the head turns when you walked in?’ He waves his arms around. ‘Sensational face, fabulous smile, great legs and—’
‘If you don’t shut up, I’ll leave.’
‘Are you going swimming again?’ He slurs the word ‘swimming’.
‘I might.’
‘Do you have a partner?’
When I turn my glass, the ice spins. ‘I don’t want one.’
‘That’s honest.’
‘I presume you don’t either.’
Kingsley spends the next ten minutes telling me about Georgia. They’d been together for four years when she’d told him she had to move interstate for work. It was only when he told her he’d resign and go with her that she let him know it was over between them.
He stares morosely into his glass. ‘What’s your position on second chances?’
As I’ve had little experience of even short-term relationships, let alone second chances, I’m hardly qualified to say, but Kingsley looks at me expectantly.
‘As long as the parties have resolved their earlier differences, I guess it could work.’
He lifts the glass to his mouth before putting it down again. ‘Georgia and I still get on well. She wants me to be happy, and I want that for her too.’
‘That sounds promising.’
‘She met someone else the week she moved to Melbourne.’ He sighs dramatically. ‘They’re moving in together.’
‘In those circumstances, I’m less confident about second chances.’
He groans. ‘Tell me something I don’t know.’
‘Maybe it’s time for you to move on too.’
‘That was what I was thinking this afternoon.’
I lift my glass in a toast. ‘Go, you.’
Suddenly brighter, he takes my hand and kisses it. ‘Let’s start again.’
I laugh. ‘Friends, Kingsley, that’s it.’
He’s smiling too as he looks over my shoulder. ‘Better smarten up. Seb Thorsen is here.’
‘I don’t—’
‘Shh. He’s coming over.’
Kingsley is easy company. He’s also good looking and has a friendly smile. Thorsen is unreadable and has a knack for turning up when I don’t want to see him, which is pretty much always. Even though he’s behind me, even though we’re not touching, my pulse ramps up.
‘Kingsley. Felicity.’
‘She prefers Flick,’ Kingsley says as I turn.
Black dinner suit and crisp white shirt. Thorsen’s tie is undone and drapes around his stiff white collar. His chestnut eyes stay on mine as Kingsley raises a glass.
‘Nice kit.’
‘Fundraising dinner.’
‘Seb!’ Robin calls out. ‘Over here!’
After a brief look in Robin’s direction, Thorsen’s gaze returns to me. ‘Can we talk before you leave?’
‘Seb!’
As soon as Thorsen walks away, I turn to Kingsley. ‘It’s already nine. I’m off to the pool.’
He waggles a finger. ‘Seb wants you to wait and from my observations, what Seb wants, he gets.’
‘Isn’t it time you went to bed? Do you want me to walk you to your room?’
A lopsided smile. ‘Have you changed your mind?’
‘No!’
The indoor pool at the hotel is only twenty metres long but the water is warm and, just like last night and the night before, I’m the only one here.
Rani might prefer that I be in my room, imagining the stages of catching a plane—the check-in, boarding, take-off, flight and landing—but lowering anxiety levels by swimming must be helpful too.
After fifty laps of freestyle punctuated by tumble turns, my limbs grow heavy and my ears hum.
I push off the wall one last time, twist and float on my back.
The lights in the ceiling, a hundred or more, resemble sparkling stars.
On the far wall, three dolphins and a whale frolic in iridescent mosaic whitecaps.
I never swam competitively because we moved around too much, but if there was ever a pool in town, Mum let me go there under Matt’s supervision.
He’d meet his older friends and I’d amuse myself in the water, taking note of the other kids’ strokes and the way they swam lengths.
I applied myself to mimicking what they did until my swimming improved and I grew stronger.
If there was a diving board, I’d wait in line, dive as deep as I could and fly to the surface.
When the overhead lights flicker and dim like they have for the past two nights, signalling the ten o’clock close, I leave the pool and collect a hotel robe, thick white towelling and one size fits all, from the deckchair where I left it.
I roll back the cuffs, wrap the robe around my front and secure it with the broad towelling belt.
I hear Thorsen’s voice before, head down and phone to his ear, he walks towards the pool. Speaking in what I presume is Norwegian, he says something brusque, then laughs at the response.
‘God natt, Kit.’ He disconnects and puts his phone in his pocket before looking up. Our eyes meet and I tighten my belt.
‘What are you doing here?’
‘Why didn’t you wait at the bar?’
‘We can talk tomorrow.’
He’s determinedly looking at my face even though, unlike last time he caught me swimming, I’m wearing a robe twice as large as it needs to be and there’s nothing of my body to see.
The door behind him opens and the pool caretaker appears. He lifts a hand. ‘Hello, Miss Flick.’
‘Hello, Mr Louis.’
Louis speaks very little English, but with smiles and stumbled sentences, we’ve managed to communicate. Right now he seems nervous, glancing at Thorsen before looking away.
‘I’ll clean now.’
‘This is Sebastien, Louis. He’s …’ What? Not a colleague, or at least not yet. He’s not a friend, even though I’ve taped up his fingers and he’s taken my pulse. I point to Thorsen then back at myself. ‘We’re going to Antarctica together.’
‘Louis.’ When Thorsen holds out his hand, Louis blinks before shaking. ‘Seb.’