The Lightkeeper's Wife - By Karen Viggers Page 0,49
vulnerable?’
‘Something like that might have helped.’
She paused. ‘It wouldn’t have changed anything. These things happen, you know. Sometimes, you don’t see them until it’s too late. I’m sorry, Tom.’
The silence of a man drowning.
Then she hung up.
She had called me on the cusp of winter and her rejection destroyed me. It was too much to come to terms with. Too much to accept. My wife with another man—my replacement. And our relationship over.
The last ship was gone. The days getting shorter. There was no way back.
During those early weeks, I rang Debbie many times. If I found her at home, we talked and she cried.
‘What can we do to fix this? I don’t want it to be over.’
‘There’s nothing. It’s too late. You’re stuck down there.’
‘If you’d just told me earlier . . .’
‘But I didn’t. Please don’t blame me. I didn’t want this to happen.’
‘But I was doing this for you. For us.’
‘I’m sorry it hasn’t worked out.’
‘Me too. I love you. I’m your husband. You’re my wife.’
‘I’m sorry, Tom. How many times can I say it? We couldn’t have foreseen this.’
But perhaps we could have. At the pre-departure briefing they gave us the figures on marriage breakup. It was something ridiculous, like eighty per cent for overwintering staff. But you think you’re immune from it. You think your own relationship is different, that you’re stronger than everyone else, and that the figures are just numbers. And then, there you are, just another statistic. The Division of Broken Marriages and Shattered Lives.
She wouldn’t tell me the new man’s name or anything about him. ‘It won’t help, Tom. It’ll just make things worse. You need to get on with things. Enjoy your stay down there. That’s all that’s left now.’
She was patient and she listened to my long silences. Often when I called she wasn’t there and I’d sit dialling her number over and over, waiting for the phone to ring out and then dialling again. Her absence meant she must be with him. That man. She must be talking to him. Or making love. He was there, and I was in Antarctica. Trapped by winter. I couldn’t even fight for her.
Then she asked me not to ring anymore. She said she’d cried all her tears, and there was nothing left. It was best to move on.
But move on where?
Nothing consoled me, not even the shimmering auroras that raged across the sky. Walking up to the workshed each day, I’d push myself as fast as I could, inhaling great breaths of freezing air, never quite managing to release the hysterical sensation of breaking apart. During blizzards, I’d force myself to work when others stayed inside. I’d drag myself up the rope that had been rigged from the LQ to the workshop, fighting with needling ice and blasting snow, almost wishing the roaring wind would blow me away. After battling the shed door shut, I’d hide beneath an engine, finding order in symmetry and pattern, the logic of pulling machines apart and putting them back together.
Alone in the upstairs lounge of the LQ, I passed long hours staring at the light slowly fading from Prydz Bay. Darkest winter came quickly and somehow I was at home in it. The long hours of night matched my internal wilderness. I wanted to suffer. It was as if I had been eaten by darkness and it had seeped into all the corners of my being until there was nothing hopeful left.
Around me, station life carried on. The two overwintering women fixed themselves in safe liaisons, causing resentment among some of the men. I was only vaguely aware of the friction. Strange antics emerged with the shortening days; none of it made sense to me. One of the scientists started talking to his dinner plate. Names appeared on mugs and people became furious if someone sat in ‘their’ chair. With a party of only eighteen on station there were few choices for friends. Rifts developed.
Twenty-four-hour darkness brought my worst moments. People moved around me but I rarely engaged. I spent blocks of time in bed without eating or sleeping. By the time the sun appeared I was hollow and empty, eroded by grief.
It was my job that saved me. The winter cold meant that planning was required to complete any task. A machine that wasn’t housed indoors needed three to four hours of heating before it could be started. If there’d been a recent blizzard, piled-up snow had to be moved first. This meant prewarming