Chapter Twelve
Allie
Today will be better. This is something I’m chanting silently to myself this morning, as I stand outside the tent.
It has to be better. I’ve been given no choice – I’ve been told off by Iris.
Something that rarely happens, but when it does, it must be heeded.
Because Iris never disagrees with me unless I am in the wrong in some way, and that means – like always – she’s probably right.
Last night, I’d laid down in my sleeping bag and, as Polly snored, Iris had turned to look at me – her head twisting in her bed like a haunted doll.
‘What is it?’ I’d whispered.
Her eyes went wide and she looked over at slumbering Polly. ‘She asked me what was going on,’ whispered Iris. ‘She worried there was something she was missing. That, I don’t know, Milo had upset you or was making you uncomfortable—’
‘Oh, shit.’
‘I know.’
Then she’d reached over and pushed hair out of my eyes, gently. The gesture, after the intensity of the day with Milo, almost made me cry.
‘Look. This was always going to be a bit of a reckoning. You know? This knobhead that allegedly did the unthinkable.’ Iris often says allegedly about Milo.
It annoys me normally. Last night, it didn’t so much.
‘But you’ve got to be professional, Allie.
It’s quite obvious you two are . . . at loggerheads. Or obsessed with each other.’
I put my middle finger up at her when she said that.
‘But just – try to get along with him. Try to push this aside, yeah? Polly’s Polly, but she’s essentially your boss, mate. Don’t let this . . . thing overshadow your job.’
And I knew she was right. You’d have to be pretty brainless to not pick up on the fact that there was something amiss yesterday between Milo and me.
So, Iris passed me some paper, I dug out a biro, and I wrote what Polly had said during the game – Iris said she wouldn’t be surprised if that story was for my benefit.
Within minutes, I’d passed it to Milo and he’d passed it back, and Iris had fallen asleep like she always does – like someone turned off at the mains.
It helps that we have a lot to do today, here on Cote Rock.
On today’s itinerary is checking on my little auk colony on the south-side, conducting an observation, then checking for egg presence.
Iris will be collecting samples from that end of the island too, Jameson will have various things to film, and Polly and Lars will be staying at camp together. As for Milo, he’ll be shadowing me.
I’m always better when I have a quest.
I’m always better when I have my work to immerse myself in.
That’s the best thing about this job. There is always a quest, a mission – and a mission that’s more important than just me.
*
‘So, where’re the pancakes around here?’
There it is. A ridiculous, bad joke delivered with that charming smile of his and a croaky, deep morning voice. My first post-note test. To keep this to work; to act as if Milo is someone I met just yesterday. Polly falls for it. She laughs, touches Milo’s jacketed arm with a motherly hand.
‘Oh, it’s energy bars, instant coffee and a little Arctic air instead here, I’m afraid, Milo.’
‘Arctic air. They probably charge three hundred dollars for that in the city.’ He grins, takes a cereal bar from Polly’s hand, and thanks her (a flurry of ma’ams and thank yous and awesomes. Charm charm charm).
We’re standing just outside the tents, in brilliant morning sunshine.
Steam rises from the ground; the large white sun thawing the hardened ice at our feet, and just a little way from us, Iris crouches next to a fire with Jameson; she’s chatting to him and he’s nodding, listening intently, camera videoing the fire.
She pours from a metal camping teapot; the familiar ding of metal spout on metal camping mugs resonating in my gut.
Iris always makes me tea, every morning.
Regardless of whether we’re at the station, or in the field.
It’s one of my favourite parts of the day.
Something about that first sip. Slowly waking me up.
I can’t put up with much until that first sip . . .
‘Good morning, sunshine,’ Milo squints over at me.
Another test. Post-note but pre-first-tea.
He’s standing, open-shouldered, an arm as a visor against the sun, head cocked to one side.
His hair is full bed head. Glossy and thick, all hands-just-run-through-it.
Exactly how it was on our very first debrief video call, sleepy and bare-chested . . .
I pretend not to hear him. I know we said professional, but sunshine?
‘I said good morning, sunshine,’ he repeats as Iris and Jameson join us.
‘Oh, sorry, you’re talking to me?’ I say. ‘Good morning, Milo.’
Polly chuckles nervously.
Iris watches us, hands me my tea. I can almost hear her, as if via telepathy, ‘Remember the rules, amigo.’
‘And how’d you sleep, Allie?’ he asks. ‘It was Allie, wasn’t it? I’m so lousy with names.’
I freeze – is he having a laugh? I blow into the mug, steam unspooling like ribbon into the air. ‘Like the dead,’ I reply. ‘You?’
‘Wish I could say I also slept like the dead. Like a . . . polar bear got me? The gunwoman on my team, fast asleep . . .’ He grins and I can’t help but smile.
I press my lips together to try to stifle it, but it comes unwanted.
Polly seems delighted I’m not scowling. ‘But, unfortunately, yeah,’ he says, as if to the group, ‘characteristically, classically bad.’
‘Aww,’ coos Polly. ‘Poor you, Milo.’
He looks very bright for someone who has been awake all night, though.
Probably all that . . . what is it celebrities do?
Botox? Collagen? Beef fat? My sister used to swear by some sort of beef fat.
Maybe still does. Ugh, and is it silly that sometimes I would give anything to know the answer to whether she uses bloody beefy skincare or not?
I miss Sian. A lot. We had a stifled phone call last month – I called her at the holiday camp she’s working at in Norfolk – but, as always, since the leak and leaving the cottage, she seemed to want to get me off the phone fast. My heart hurts when I think about her.
The themed breakfasts. Clive. Even her gnome.
It was all so misplaced, but she was trying.
She was grieving too. And I’ve offered many apologies. She’s just not ready to accept them.
‘I’m used to no sleep,’ Milo carries on.
‘Really?’ asks Polly.
‘Unfortunately.’
‘An insomniac, then?’ I ask, pointedly, and he smirks at me, bites into his energy bar.
‘Mhm,’ he speaks between chews. ‘Always awake. Sometimes panicking. Sometimes reading obscure novels.’
And despite myself, that sends a little thrill zig-zagging through me.
Stupid. I’m only doing this to show Polly and Iris I’m trying, so why is my bloodstream full of lightning bolts?
But this is what has always been the hardest. Worse than the whole leak thing, the whole betrayal of interviews and memes and screenshots from my phone and cold publicists, is that I know Milo.
Or thought I did. Or, maybe, know parts of him that are real.
I know he doesn’t sleep. I know coffee shop ambience helps him drift off because his mum always held dinner parties downstairs and he’d fall asleep, listening.
I know he has hobbies he’s too afraid to say aloud – crafts.
Karaoke. Words. Even I still collect words because of him .
. . Pernoctate. That’s one I learned last week.
Means ‘to stay up or out all night’. And what are you supposed to do with all that fondness?
All that like that feels like a ball of energy that can’t be dispersed.
It’s why I was so sure the leak had been a mistake. A crime even.
Until the publicist.
Until the audience, laughing. What felt like the whole world, laughing.
Then the fallout. My old university, in Gloucester, asking me to take some time out, that the attention they were getting, that the Bermuda project was getting, was making a mockery of it.
They’d received donations, for the funding, but I had to sit it out.
Then, my sister. Dad finding us. Us having to face him again.
Sober now. Yet another new family now. Transformed, apparently, but not quite enough to not want what he was owed from June House. A polar winter, alone . . .
‘Allie?’
I clear my throat. ‘Yes. Sorry?’
‘Would you . . .’ Milo moves in. ‘Leak break? Partner.’
Leak. Is he joking? ‘Oh. Yeah.’
And now, another test: we have to accompany each other to the bathroom.
On fieldwork like this, we have to get creative.
A bathroom becomes a ‘section’ of the island.
We erect what’s essentially a windbreaker, and we ‘go’ behind there.
There are bottles of water there too, for cleaning our teeth, and the rules are, we can’t do anything unless a partner is nearby, within reason, with a rifle and bear-scaring flares.
This is the kind of thing that has lit a fire behind Jameson’s wide, hazel eyes.
Everything is different. From the landscape and the total absence of night, to toilets and teeth brushing.
Iris must’ve recorded at least an hour of conversation with him last night, as I hid in the tent and pretended to sleep early.
We crunch along. The gun taps, taps, against the zip of my jacket pocket with my step, like a steady beat. I’m trying to think of how to start. Of what to say, now it’s just us two.
Nice. I promised Iris I’d be nice . . .
‘Thank you for the note,’ says Milo. Of course he speaks first. Milo always does. Decent opener too.
‘Yes. I . . . wanted to apologise,’ I say. ‘Because when you said about being professional, on the dinghy, that was . . . the smart suggestion. And the right one.’
He nods. ‘I’m glad you think so.’
‘So, we keep this professional?’
‘Yeah,’ says Milo. ‘Keep it to the doc. The work.’
‘Exactly.’
‘Because this is not exactly a warm and comforting place to start extracting confessions and truths—’
‘I don’t have any confessions,’ I jump in.
Milo stops, and replies, warmly, ‘We said professional, right?’
‘Yes. Sorry. OK. Agreed. Plus,’ I say. ‘You’re an actor, right?’
‘Right,’ he smiles, slowly.
‘So, I’m sure, between us, we can just pretend it didn’t happen. That we’re strangers, just for the next three days. Well, actually, I suppose we sort of are. Factually speaking, we never properly met.’
‘No?’
‘No.’
‘Hmm.’ Suddenly, Milo swings around and looks at me. Intense liquid-brown eyes, the edges narrowed. A total, total smoulder, worthy of a magazine cover. He strides in front of me, boots crunching on icy sand. ‘Hello.’ He holds out a hand.
‘Um. H-hello?’
He leans in, voice low and raspy, as if telling a secret. ‘I’m in character, Allie. As Milo who doesn’t know you at all.’
‘Oh. Oh, OK—’
‘My name’s Milo. It’s so nice to meet you.’ His voice is low and husky; like he’s slipped into some sort of smooth, sultry version of himself. ‘And you are?’
I stare at him and then can’t help it – another smile takes over my face. I don’t even try to stop it. He takes my hand, eyes fixed on mine, all caramel and concentration.
‘Hi, Milo. I’m Allie. Allie Lake. It’s nice to meet you too.’
He shakes my hand then, squeezing a little, and I realise it’s the first time I’ve ever touched him, skin to skin.
Last night, even if one of the hands was Milo’s, there were gloves between us.
All that intimacy, all that closeness back then, and yet, this is the first time.
And despite myself, I can’t help the goosebumps.
‘Great,’ he says. Then he releases my hand; drops it as if it’s a hot rock, and tucks his hands into his pockets. ‘I mean, you could work on your fluidity. Really embodying the fictional circumstance, you know?’
‘I thought I was fine.’ And I’m trying to pretend I’m not just a little wounded by his critique.
‘Fine doesn’t win awards.’ Then he laughs, a wonky slice of white teeth. ‘But yeah, feels better. Right?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Like . . . the prana feels better.’
‘The prana,’ I repeat, and he grins slowly.
‘Oh, I’m still so down with the prana.’ And the grin irritates and amuses me all at once.
I’m not just going to forget, I want to say. This is just an arrangement. A note. But, instead, I gesture to the makeshift bathroom.
‘Off you go then,’ I tell him. ‘I’ll stand by with the bear scarers. Then we need to make a move.’
Over my shoulder, I meet Polly’s eyes. She smiles.
‘Why, what’s today’s plan?’ calls Milo.
‘An hour hike,’ I say. ‘To check on auk nests. We need to climb a cliff.’
‘Uh, who needs to climb a cliff?’
‘Us,’ I tell him. ‘Me and you. Partner.’