The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,70

and go south again. You know how it is.’

Yes. I know how it is. ‘How long have you been back?’ I ask.

‘Just a few weeks. Haven’t even unpacked my bags.’ She laughs. ‘Maybe I won’t bother.’

I watch her fiddling with her glass.

‘You look forward to coming back,’ she says, ‘and then you hit Hobart and all the confusion starts and you just want to run away again.’

She flutters a tentative smile my way and I nod in understanding. ‘How long before you go back down south?’

‘Four months. And counting.’ She shifts restlessly in her seat, scanning the room. ‘I can’t wait to go.’

I understand her anxiety. After spending summer on base with just fifty people a bar like this must seem packed. ‘How was it at Mawson Station?’ I ask. ‘I’ve never been there.’

‘Well, you missed out. Where did you go?’

‘Davis.’

‘Summer?’

‘Over winter.’

‘Nowhere else?’

‘We stopped overnight at Casey Station on the way home.’

‘Kept you on the ship, did they? With the shrink?’ She laughs. ‘I bet a few of you needed it. The antdiv’s worried about the number of maladjusted people they keep bringing back to so-called civilisation.’ She glances at me, more serious now. ‘How did you go? Coming back, I mean.’

I shrug. ‘Messy, I suppose.’

She drains her beer. ‘Isn’t everyone?’

She goes to the bar to order more beers while I wait at the table. I try to assess how things are going, but I’m not sure whether we’re having a good time or not. She comes back and sits down heavily, pushing a beer across the table to me.

‘Well, south can be a pain when you’re a woman,’ she says. ‘I should try to remember that when I’m desperate to go back. If I wasn’t in the field most of the time, I don’t think I could handle it.’ She stares into her beer. ‘You know how it is. You can’t even fart without everybody knowing about it. And if you’re a woman you only have to look sideways at someone and everyone thinks you’re having an affair.’

‘Some people turn into animals down there,’ I say.

She shakes her head. ‘No, it’s worse than that. They choose animals to go down there. It’s the army psych test. Designed to select lunatics.’

‘I passed,’ I say.

Emma grins. ‘Me too. Remember the first question? Which would you prefer: to live in a social suburb or to be alone in a deep dark wood? For God’s sake.’

I like the way her face opens up when she laughs. She loses her Antarctic guardedness.

She becomes serious again. ‘So what was it really like? Overwintering?’

‘Same as for everyone.’ I try to dodge the question—there’s too much weight behind it—but she’s watching me intently, so I’ll have to find a better answer. ‘Winter’s a strange time. Humans aren’t meant to live without light.’ I don’t tell her how the dark penetrates everything. Or how it can sink you if you’re carrying anything into it.

‘At least you’ve overwintered,’ she says. ‘So that makes you a real expeditioner. Not like us summerers. It must be good when the light comes back.’ She’s letting me off lightly. Perhaps there’s sadness in my face.

‘Yes, it’s magic,’ I say. ‘All those fragile pinks and mauves.’

She gazes pensively at her glass. ‘I’m not sure I’d want to do it. Everyone I know who’s overwintered is more than a little bit mad.’ This could be a subtle insult or simply an observation.

She glances up quickly and laughs. ‘I wasn’t meaning you,’ she says. ‘I don’t even know you.’

With that comment she’s underlined our lack of acquaintance, and I hesitate, unsure how to restart the conversation. Emma helps me.

‘Let me tell you about Mawson base,’ she says. ‘That’s what you wanted to hear about, isn’t it?’

I nod.

‘Well, it’s every bit as amazing as they say. Even better than the photos. It blows you away.’

Her face lights up and she looks through and beyond me to another place. ‘Station’s ordinary,’ she continues. ‘Just a bunch of sheds up from Horseshoe Bay. But then there’s the plateau and the mountains. And that’s where the real Antarctica starts. I love it up there.’ She smiles to herself. ‘It’s cold in the mountains, and tough for the fingers, but when you sit up on one of those peaks and look out, the plateau goes on forever. It’s like something out of The Lord of the Rings. And then you turn and look out to sea, and there are islands and icebergs scattered through the sea ice as far as you