The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,46
look in her eye that reminds me of being south? ‘It’s the wildlife,’ I say. ‘Especially the birds.’
She picks up her bags. ‘Well, thanks. I’ll let you know if we need someone.’
‘Should I give you my name and number?’
She sighs and sets her bags down again. ‘Yes. I suppose so. Just in case.’ She finds some paper in her backpack and hands it to me with a pen. I write down my name, address and phone number. ‘Thanks,’ she says. ‘I’ll give you a call if we’re interviewing.’
It’s cold in the car and Jess is curled up in a tight circle on the floor. She sits up and smiles at me as I climb in. It’s part of our routine greeting. Next, I’m expected to pat her and ask her how she’s going.
‘What would you think if I went south again?’ I say, as I reverse out of the carpark and turn for the highway.
She pants, then drops her chin onto the passenger seat and gazes up at me. Her eyes glint yellow in the glow of the streetlights. She doesn’t know what I’m suggesting and perhaps that’s just as well. Then she’d know my loyalty is not as deep as hers.
‘It’d help if you could talk,’ I say. ‘Then at least we could discuss this thing.’
A car toots behind me and Jess lifts her head abruptly. In the rear-view mirror I see a small white car, and Emma is behind the wheel. She probably thinks I’m a daydreamer sitting here at the highway intersection in the dark, going nowhere. Embarrassed, I bang on my indicator and swing left. Emma turns right towards the city.
As we head south through the roundabout, Jess whines and fidgets. She may not know what I’m thinking, but she knows I’m preoccupied. I forget to dip my headlights when another car approaches on an unlit stretch of highway and the driver hammers his high beams on just before he passes me. It’s like a flash straight into my soul. I see my mind skittering like a kite let loose in the wind. On the floor, Jess starts panting with agitation. She leaps on the seat and I yell at her and she dives to the floor, cowering as if I might hit her. I shrivel with guilt.
‘Jess, I’m sorry.’ I reach to pat her head, almost veering off the road. ‘I’ll make it up to you. You can have extra food tonight. Just this once.’
Extra food! I’m breaking all my rules. How could a few slides of penguins do this to me?
At home, I pour dog kibble into Jess’s bowl and toast a few slices of bread for myself. It’s not much of a meal, but this evening it’ll do. From the hall cupboard I pull out my old slide projector and set it up on a chair in the lounge room. I switch it on and place a couple of books under the legs so the light is at the right height on the wall. Then I insert a pre-loaded carousel and turn off the lights. Jess finishes her dinner by lapping up some water and drops onto her mat to watch the show. It’s been years since we’ve done this together.
I have tons of slides from my fifteen months down south. Back then, everyone was taking pictures with slide film; we used to develop the film ourselves in the darkroom using special kits.
It was fun dipping the film in the different solutions and seeing pictures appear like magic. I suppose if I went south again I’d have to update to something digital. Everybody seems to be into it these days. Although I think it’d feel strange to move away from my old manual SLR.
If someone looked through my slide collection without knowing about Antarctica, they’d think every day was fine during my stay. But when you’re down there for months, you can choose when to take your photos. And nobody takes photos during a blizzard. I took great shots of many things: the brightly coloured station buildings, the folds of the undulating Vestfold Hills, Weddell seals like black slugs on the ice, Adelie penguins tobogganing in lines, icebergs lit pink by the sun, snow petrels fluttering against a steel grey sky. But among all my slides there are five that stop me. These are the ones I linger on now.
The first is a picture of a newborn crabeater seal pup lying on an ice floe beside his mother. He’s all dark eyes, loose