Chapter 21
CHAPTER
I’ve been on Morrison Island for almost a week when Dougie from HR takes the chair next to mine in the mess. Lunch today is DIY sandwiches and wraps.
‘Settling in well?’ he asks with his customary smile.
‘Is this an HR query?’
‘A query from a friend.’
‘Even though it’s you and Clarissa who get to decide if I can stay.’
He holds up his hands. ‘As far as I’m concerned, you’re in. Professor Johnson will also be on your side.’
‘He’s been good to me.’
‘The prof has spent more time out here than anyone.’ Dougie takes a bite of his wrap. ‘Do you think he’ll ever retire?’
‘He’d have no reason to professionally. He’s great.’
‘Not at IT.’
‘He’d be the first to admit he needs help with that.’
‘Has he told you I let him down?’
Dougie has run orientation sessions for all the newcomers and takes responsibility for social activities, particularly card games, in the evenings.
Professor Johnson wasn’t happy with his work on the journals, but Dougie wouldn’t have made a mess of things deliberately.
He’s eager to please. Sometimes too eager to please.
‘The professor likes things done in a certain way. It would have been difficult for you to decipher the entries, including the terrible handwriting, with little knowledge of birds.’
‘Thanks for making excuses for me.’ He smiles. ‘Are you still using the template I created for entering the journal data? That was the one thing the professor approved of.’
‘It’s brilliant, much more sophisticated than anything I could have set up.’ In addition to dates, times, bird populations and distributions, the template has columns for water and air temperatures, wind strength and direction, precipitation and tides. I smile. ‘I like it too.’
‘What year are you up to?’
‘Nineteen seventy-five.’
‘I appreciate I wouldn’t get a loading for the work like I did last time, but if you ever need help with any of it, I’m your man.’ He gets up and stretches. ‘No need to tell the professor.’
‘Thanks, but I’ll be fine.’
‘Will you also be fine at Bailey Point? It’s early days for you to be going out on your own.’
‘I want to prove myself—’ I stand and stack our plates, ‘—and this is a good way to do it.’
Hood toggled tight against the cold and hands shoved deep into my pockets, I walk to the building where the professor and other scientists have their offices and labs. Three members of the maintenance crew smile as I pass.
‘G’day, Flick. How’re you doing? Happy to see the sun out?’
The greys of the ocean and sky and the greens of the mosses and grasses are perpetually wild and beautiful, but today they have a golden glow.
‘I miss it.’
‘In a couple of hours, it’ll be raining again.’
‘Drizzle or downpour?’
‘A bit of both, as well as sleet.’
I scrape sand and dirt from my boots on the grated metal doormat outside the squat prefabricated building before walking down the corridor to Professor Johnson’s tidy office.
His computer has a screen the width of his desk.
I sit in front of another computer set up on an ancient laminated table on the opposite side of the room.
‘You’re in late today, professor.’
He’s only sixty-six but, with a perpetually worried expression, he looks older. ‘I had trouble sleeping.’
‘I hope to get through more than I did yesterday.’
A distracted smile. ‘What year are you aiming for?’
‘Nineteen seventy-six.’
For the past twenty years, field workers have recorded their observations on devices and backed them up electronically, but for decades before that, the professor, his colleagues and field workers, mostly postgraduate students, recorded data by hand in notebooks and journals.
A few years ago, the thousands of pages of information about the bird colonies were scanned.
My job is to extract information about numbers and behaviours of the birds, and air and water temperature, water quality and habitat.
Photographs are useful, particularly for confirming locations, but there’s far more information in the notes of the people who observed and recorded, firsthand, bird populations and the environments in which they lived.
Professor Johnson’s long-term goal was to put the journal information in a form ornithologists and other scientists would find useful.
As it turned out, Sebastien’s UN team was also interested in this data. Hence the funding of my position.
‘You’re making excellent progress on the journals already.’ His brows lift. ‘Our UN benefactor is appreciative of your efforts.’
‘How often do you update him?’
‘Generally, weekly, though he’s called three times this week. Ostensibly about our progress but …’
‘He wants to know that I’m capable?’
‘There’s no question of that, in his mind or mine. My impression is that he was perturbed by recent events.’ The professor shakes his head. ‘This trial situation is most dissatisfactory. Have you spoken with him?’
There’s nothing to say. Nothing. I fold my hands neatly in my lap. ‘Not since he left.’
‘I see the value of your work to the UN’s project, but …’ The professor taps his head. ‘I suspect our Captain Thorsen has a broader interest in this region than environmental matters.’
‘He introduced me to his colleague, Nathan Gillespie, who talked about the importance of keeping Antarctica free of commercial exploitation and military operations.’
‘Russia has committed to substantial upgrades of two of their stations. China has commissioned yet another state-of-the-art base. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Sebastien’s interests go beyond shipping routes.’
‘He hasn’t said anything.’
The professor chuckles. ‘I don’t imagine he would.’
If not for our conversations those last two nights on the ship, I wouldn’t have known how badly Sebastien had been injured.
And it’s clearly not the first time he’s taken risks.
Under what circumstances would I find out other things?
I shouldn’t care. And every night as I lie on my bed, I do my best to convince myself that I don’t.
‘I’m grateful the UN is funding my role. Thank you for your support.’
‘Dougie’s IT skills were transferable, as shown in the useful template.
But as to the rest …’ He huffs. ‘Some field workers were excellent, and others were sloppy, ergo some observations are valuable while others are not. You worked that out immediately. Dougie transcribed what had been written without thought. Considering the time he spent on the work, and the remuneration he received, there was very little to show for it.’
‘Why did he want the work, anyway?’
‘Earlier this year, the UN expressed an interest in the data locked up in the journals. I had little time for the work but, when it came up in conversation over dinner, Dougie put his hand up. He told me he was keen to enhance his scientific credentials and the money would come in handy. I dipped into university funding to pay for it.’
‘He didn’t meet your expectations.’
‘Given he’d been paid from the public purse, I gave serious consideration to making an official complaint.
But, after informing Sebastien of Dougie’s unsuitability, he offered to fund a position.
I made it abundantly clear that you would fit the bill—top-notch assistance with the journal work, and other work besides. ’
‘Dougie does a good job in his HR role.’
‘True enough, though I’m not the fussy old fool that he imagines. No one is pensioning me off just yet.’
‘He seemed unhappy that he’d let you down.’
‘What he was unhappy about was losing the work. I now have someone capable.’ The professor points his silver pen in my direction. ‘You leave for the Bailey Point hut tomorrow morning?’
‘I have a checklist to work through. If there are problems with the generator or anything else, there’ll be time to address them before autumn.’ I smile. ‘As Bailey Point also has a nesting pair of albatrosses, I can’t wait to get there.’
I’m sitting at the desk in my room, doona draped over my lap, when a notification comes through on my laptop.
Can you talk? Seb.
That last morning in the ship’s cabin, as I sat sleepily on our bed, Sebastien said I should go to the upper deck with Gregory and he’d collect our things.
My bag, crammed with my possessions, was sitting on the end of the bed when Gregory opened the door.
On my way out of the cabin, I added Sebastien’s jumper, the jumper I’d worn for the past five nights, to his clothes stacked on the chair.
On my first night on Morrison, when I was burrowing in my bag for socks to wear to bed, I found Sebastien’s jumper.
I’m turning the cuffs when my phone rings.
‘Felicity.’
‘Sebastien.’
‘I can explain how air pressure relates to flight.’
‘Why would you want to do that?’
‘You said you don’t want personal. Flight isn’t personal.’
‘It is when you’re afraid of flying.’
‘Are you interested?’
I’ve missed him. I’m wearing his jumper and I want to hear his voice. I don’t like those facts, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t true.
‘I could be.’
‘Air is a mixture of oxygen, carbon dioxide and nitrogen. These are gases.’ He speaks quickly, as if I might hang up at any time. ‘Molecules in air move around and that’s what makes air pressure. It moves kites.’
‘And birds.’
‘In a plane, the air will move faster over the top of the wing, and that decreases the pressure of the air. Because the pressure on the top is less than the pressure on the bottom, the wing will lift.’
‘You have to get the plane up there first.’
‘The engines do that.’
‘That’s where the demons come in.’
‘Lisse …’ He speaks quietly. ‘Have you had a migraine?’
‘If so, you’d be the last person I’d tell.’ I smooth the doona over my knees, tuck my feet into the folds. ‘I want to learn about turning a plane. How do you do that?’
‘A plane will roll if you raise one aileron and lower the other.’
‘What are ailerons?’
‘The flaps on the wings.’
‘They turn a whole plane?’
‘The nose of the plane will face the same way as the rudder. That’s also important.’
‘What if you want to go higher?’
‘That’s pitch. Lift the nose by adjusting the elevators. Lower the nose the same way.’
‘Where are the elevators?’
‘On the tail.’
The tail goes up. But also down. ‘Being in a cabin is like a bird getting trapped in a cage.’
He sighs so deeply I hear it. ‘Are you warm enough?’
My shirt sleeve peeps out of the cuff of his jumper and I push it back. ‘Giving me your jumper was personal.’
‘Have you forgiven me?’
‘In addition to answering Clarissa’s questions, you gave unsolicited information.’
‘You haven’t forgiven me.’
After I end the call, I stare at the floor. Personal is feeling jittery and warm when I hear his voice. Personal is missing him.
Personal is wearing his jumper.