Chapter One
Allie
I meant it when I said it two years ago.
It was basically a vow. Both a logical and relief-inducing promise to myself, the world, and time and space.
I will never see or speak to Milo Ford again.
Because a) Milo was the very last person I ever wanted to see or speak to again, and b) Milo was the last person I was likely (from an odds perspective) to see or speak to again.
After all, why would I, a British scientist now working at a small, extremely remote Arctic research station in Norway, ever be in a position to see or speak with a privileged, American Hollywood actor?
We live thousands of miles apart, both in location and lifestyle. Worlds apart, as the saying goes.
And yet, I’m here.
Somehow, I’m here.
Crouching in a musky research station dorm that has been my home for almost two years next to my best friend’s bed, internally freaking out.
Because it’s been 732 days since I have spoken to Milo Ford, and that counter – and I can’t believe I’m about to say this – might be about to be reset to zero.
‘Iris?’
Iris doesn’t so much as stir.
It’s 8:30 p.m. in the depths of the relentless polar summer, the sun a constant never-setting spotlight here, and just an hour ago, Iris took herself off for an early night.
Back when everything was normal.
Back when we had just eaten dinner in the station canteen and our only worry was whether we had packed enough energy bars for our expedition tomorrow.
Iris is already asleep of course, and deeply. Classic Iris. Tired, so sleeps. Fancies learning how to act, so joins an am-dram club in the UK, makes friends, enjoys it, says no more.
‘Iris,’ I say again, closer to her face this time, leaning onto her bed in the gloom. ‘Iris—’
That does it. She sits up like a Halloween vampire in a coffin. ‘Allie, what the – what the hell?!’ Her hand flies to her chest as if to stop her heart catapulting out into the tiny bedroom.
‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, shh shh!’
I’m kneeling next to her bed like I’m praying or something (and at this point, it couldn’t hurt).
She’s in fleece pyjamas covered in miniature Christmas snowmen even though it’s May; her oil-black hair in a bun on the top of her head, a pink sleep mask now resting on her forehead, two cartoon eyeballs printed on each soft pad.
‘Something’s happened,’ I say to her. ‘Or about to happen and I . . . I don’t know what to do and – I don’t know if I’ve just got the wrong end of the stick or . . . But . . . I don’t think I have. I mean, I hope I have—’
‘Allie, what’s going on?’
‘I can’t believe I’m about to say this.’
‘Oh my God. What?’ She grabs for her glasses on the bedside table.
‘And the thing is, I might be wrong, or it might just be that they have the same name or something, or—’
‘Allie, what are you talking about?’
‘Milo,’ I blurt. ‘I think . . .’ I can hardly get my words out. I can barely face saying them. ‘I think Milo is coming here.’
Iris stares at me, as if waiting for a punchline. ‘. . . Milo?’
‘I . . . I saw his name. On a sheet on Oliver’s desk. You know . . . The visitors who are coming to stay? The people coming to do the YouTube documentary thing.’
A totally pointless explanation because of course Iris knows of the documentary.
All of us at the station do. Oliver, our principal investigator keeps talking about it, but news here, at the very remote Brimcote station, near Svalbard, Norway, travels fast, regardless.
Our station and the surrounding settlement has a permanent population so small, we could all fit into one double-decker bus, but, in summer, visitors can triple that, and we’re always interested in who, what and why.
Scientists make up a lot of the numbers, or station workers arriving at the base to work in the kitchens or in medical, but occasionally, like today, people arrive to film.
This is something that always causes rumbles of either irritation or excitement among the team, especially when, like now, details are embargoed until they land.
I am mostly part of the irritation group, and I’ve been quite relieved to know that when the ‘influencers’ land to film their documentary for a climate campaign, Iris and I will be a boat ride away researching on the field in Cote Rock, gathering data, looking in on some of my colonies.
They’re mostly always pleasant, filmmakers and YouTube do-gooders, but last year, one group filmed some scenes of a space movie here, and not only was it like an Apple store had exploded, some of us found the director meditating cross-legged in the computer room wearing furs during the tiny window of internet time we get here.
Iris wiggles on her glasses. ‘The visitors,’ she repeats, half asleep. She checks the time, almost as if she’s doing a sanity check. Is Allie sleepwalking or suddenly very feverish and in need of the emergency chopper? (I wish it was either.) ‘I – I thought they were coming tomorrow?’
‘The flight changed.’ I jabber. ‘But there were waivers on Oliver’s desk, Iris, and it said his name. Milo Ford. Milo is coming here.’ I face-plant her duvet. Milo is coming here ricochets around my brain, like a tennis ball.
‘Allie, are you—’
‘Serious? Yes!’ I peel my face away and glance up at her. Stray hair falls over my face like cobwebs. ‘I saw it. Milo Ford. Emergency contact and waiver.’
‘But – I mean, it’s not that unusual of a name—’
‘I saw the other one and it said J Merritt. Jameson? Jameson, his best friend, Jameson. The influencer. The Watch Me Try The Worst-Rated Restaurants in the US guy—’
‘Oh. Oh.’ That seems to have convinced her. Her eyes widen like shining coins in the dark. And there’s something unnerving about it. Iris is always a steady ship. ‘See it as it is, not worse than it is,’ is one of her sayings. But even she looks haunted. ‘Jesus, Allie.’
‘I know.’
‘This is . . . And they’re actually coming here? Now?’
‘Yes.’ I swallow. ‘It says J Merritt. It says Milo Ford. Milo who leaked the screenshots of our entire relationship and laughed about it on TV.’
As if she needs reminding. Iris lived every awful moment with me, back then, after the phone leak.
She was there. It was Iris who called me the day Milo and I were meant to swap phones back and asked me if I’d checked social media.
It was Iris who drove at full speed to meet me at the airport after Milo had finally got in contact, and we’d agreed to still meet, both of us – or so I thought – wobbling on the line.
It was Iris who force-fed me sweet tea to stop me shaking.
It was Iris who spotted two paps at arrivals, so met Milo’s location assistant, Sierra, outside a tiny WHSmith to swap the phones so I didn’t get caught on camera.
It was Iris who tried to convinced me, too, after, that nothing fishy was going on; that Milo hadn’t, somehow, for some reason I did not understand then, expected this leak. And it was Iris who’d been wrong.
‘Bloody hell, Allie.’ Iris stands up on the bed now, reaching her hands high, as if summoning some sort of Arctic god from the skies to help us.
She accidentally thumps them against the ceiling.
If she’s hurt, she isn’t showing it. Instead, she brings her hands into a ball at her chest and stares down at me, now standing.
The room is quiet and hot and smells of warm wood, in the same way a sauna does, and sunlight tries to push its way through the gap around the square window’s shutter. The walls warp in my vision, like a fish-eye lens.
‘Jesus, you must feel . . . Bloody hell . . .’ Iris’s words evaporate.
‘I know. It’s . . . I have that odd feeling. Like I’m not really here.’
‘And they’re definitely coming today? Why?’
‘I don’t know. I mean, well, clearly to film a documentary.’
‘Yeah,’ Iris nods. ‘Yeah. Yikes.’
‘And logically, it has to be a coincidence. Right?’ I say. ‘Or a ploy for – who knows what reason? Gosh, I don’t even know what I’m talking about.’
Iris swallows, eyes darting, like she’s reading invisible lines in the air. ‘How’re you doing? You look pretty mad, to be fair.’
‘Absurd,’ is all I say. ‘This whole thing . . . And like, I feel like Polly should’ve known, or something. She’s our supervisor. You know? Saw his name and warned me. Got me an emergency bloody helicopter. Hidden me in a bunker.’
Iris tips her head to one side, half sympathy, half oh-come-off-it-Allie. ‘Polly may be our supervisor, but Oliver did all the admin for the documentary.’
‘But surely he’d have mentioned his name to her, she’s been talking about it—’
‘This is Polly. She would never remember a name you probably mentioned once. She still owns floppy discs. Her favourite celebrity is Jason Donavan. As for Oliver, he doesn’t exactly follow celebrity gossip. Unless it’s whales at the center, of course—’
‘But . . .’
Iris stares at me. You’re being unreasonable, amigo, is right there, in the silent raise of the eyebrows she gives me.
I know what she’s thinking. That it may have been huge to me, the leaking of our messages.
But like most viral moments, the world and everyone else forgot it – or should I say, forgot me – quicker than it even happened.
As for Polly, the only world worth knowing, to her, is this.
Out here, in the Arctic, where she knows more puffins than celebrities.
Polly knew why I took the job here, for her project – I needed it, to escape what felt to me like the glaring of the world’s spotlight.
But Iris is right. She never cared why I came here, just that I did.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say.
‘Don’t be.’
‘Just . . . The whole thing’s ridiculous. Totally ridiculous.’
And it is.
Milo Ford is coming here.
To my place of work. To the Arctic. Thousands of miles from home.
In remote no-man’s-land – somewhere so far away, they say it’s the closest thing to space, to life on an uninhabited planet.
That’s why this place was perfect. Terrifying, but perfect.
Another planet is exactly where, after Milo, I wanted to be.
‘I mean, I won’t have to see him,’ I say, little fingers grasping at flimsy straws in my mind.
‘We’re going to Cote Rock tomorrow. For four whole days.
Just you, me and Lars.’ Lars is one of our boat captains here.
I’m almost tempted to go and find him – convince him to break rules, take us now, before they land.
He’ll be in the research station’s canteen.
Beer, peanuts, pack of playing cards, like an uncle on Christmas Eve.
‘Uh-huh. Deffo.’ Iris nods. ‘Although, you probably will have to acknowledge him.’
‘Well, what’s that? A second?’ I try to take my first deep breath of the last fifteen minutes. ‘I can do that. A nod, or similar. Right? I can nod at someone, right? For the sake of my supervisor? For science? A nod is nothing.’
‘Million per cent,’ Iris says, sinking back down to her knees. A warm hand slips over my shoulder. ‘Are you OK?’
‘No.’ My voice cracks, vocal cords bending like a guitar string. ‘I don’t want to see him.’
And why would anyone in this situation want to?
I trusted him. Not only with my phone, but with who I was.
For the first time, I pressed a finger to the jabbering mouths of all those scared voices inside of me, cracked open the door to my life and let someone see inside.
Ripe peach, placed in palm. And then he squashed it to coulis.
Blew the door off the hinges. Invited the whole world in to have a long, good look at the result.
I almost sadly and passively let them, too.
Because, at first, I really thought we’d been victims of some sort of hacking.
The final phone call we had the night of the leak, him in a London hotel, me, spooked by paps and in June House’s kitchen, Sian silently making tea, the air thick with that palpable charge of your world having changed suddenly.
‘I’m sorry this shit happened,’ he’d said down the line. Warmly. Familiarly, like all those phone calls before. ‘We’ll talk tomorrow. My publicist Sue is working on it. She’s a genius. OK?’ He even said, ‘I hope I can see you, Allie. I can’t believe how close we got to it today.’
Then – that was it.
The publicist called, and her genius plan was . . . for me to come to the hotel and be seen with Milo. ‘Play it,’ she said with you’ve-got-the-job! enthusiasm. ‘We can go all serious on this or we can play it. Things like this have worked very well in the past. It could be lucrative for you both.’
That’s when it landed. That’s when I blocked him. He’d done this on purpose and leaked our messages. He’d used the phone swap – used me – for publicity. ‘Outed’ himself. Elevated his profile. Garnered sympathy and adoration. Took back control.
I couldn’t believe it.
‘I hate that I’m now dreading even leaving this room,’ I groan, moving to sit next to Iris on the bed. ‘I was so excited for the expedition, to look in on my colonies. Hang out with Lars, you. Now I just feel completely rotten.’
‘Erm, excuse me, mate,’ says Iris. She pushes her face against mine.
Her cheek is cool, and she smells like the lavender facial oil she pats on every night.
‘This is where you work. This is your place. We bloody love going to Cote Rock and this is your research. Your birds. And it’s important. Really important.’
‘I know . . .’
‘So don’t let anyone dump on that. Whether influencer or knobby celebrity or first love—’
‘He was not my first love.’
No. First love would be silly.
And, in hindsight, the whole thing was silly, thinking I might be feeling real things for Milo Ford over texts and video calls.
It wasn’t real. I was simply grieving and vulnerable.
Certain birds for example, who lose an egg, will find a rock, or pebble, or similar, and they care for it, like an egg, to cope.
That’s what Milo was. Milo Ford was a pebble. A fake egg of a man.
‘Well, potato-potahto,’ Iris pffts. ‘This is your territory. They’re just . . . I don’t know. Luvvies without a clue in the world? Remember that—’
Someone taps on the other side of the door.
I sigh, meet Iris’s kind, brown eyes in the gloom.
‘You’re good, amigo. I promise.’
Then she gets up and pulls open the door.
Polly Sitaker, our supervisor, stands there, pink-faced, exhausted and perpetually contented.
‘I’ve been looking for Allie – ah!’ She puffs. ‘Our visitors are about to land and I wondered if you’d do me the enormous favour of welcoming them with me?’