Kitabı oku: «The Ice: A gripping thriller for our times from the Bailey’s shortlisted author of The Bees»

3

Sean once knew the sequence of lights so well that he never got caught on red. Now the route had become as alien as his old home and he misjudged every stretch. To keep his mind away from thoughts of Tom, he focused on driving impeccably and not as if he had gulped three fingers of vodka in the last hour – but the morning rush-hour traffic was infuriatingly slow and he suddenly felt self-conscious in his car.

It was a beautiful Aston Martin Vanquish in a custom missile-bronze colour, and part of its appeal three years ago – the longest he had ever kept a car – were the looks he caught as he flashed past other drivers. But today, passing slowly made him uncomfortable. Perhaps he should change it for a Tesla to show what a good, upright, ecologically concerned citizen he was, as well as a flash bastard.

Perhaps the lights were stuck. The white van alongside him made little feints forward, and he glanced over. Two schoolboys in green uniforms clambered over each other like puppies, waving at him and pointing in admiration of his car. They tugged at their driver dad, a tough-looking young man with a shaven head, who stared straight ahead.

Red-and-amber – the white van surged ahead the very instant the lights changed to green, and Sean saw the boys cheering and goading their father faster.

He drew alongside then fell back a couple of times, pulling faces as if he were striving and failing to overtake, so that the boys screeched with joy and bounced up and down on the bench seat. As he saw the filter lane for his exit, Sean pretended he was giving up, and the boys pumped their fists in triumph as he let the white van surge past him. The tough young dad flashed him a grin and he felt a wave of good feeling. Then he indicated, tipped the wheel and the feeling frayed like a thread as he wound back on the roads of his old life.

He drove slowly for the last few miles, surprised to see it had rained heavily. There was no sign of the red dust of London and the fields were green. The track to the house was badly potholed and he felt irritated – it wasn’t as if Gail couldn’t afford to get it graded. The thought of the settlement still pricked him. He would have been generous had she let him, instead of taking out her anger against Martine in financial terms. He had not thought her capable of being so petty. But put that aside: he was here to deliver a terrible blow.

Gail, I’ve got some bad news. Gail—

Something on the track ground against the undercarriage and he cursed and slowed down. He would go out the other way. The grading of the lane was not his business and this would be the last time he would come here, so it didn’t matter. But still, his eye ran over the orchards in some dismay. The fruit was retarded and the leaves too heavy. All the rain without the sun.

Instead of the old blue Saab in the garage, there was a new silver BMW four-wheel drive. Only now did he consider the possibility that Gail might not have been home, or not been alone. He pulled up, blocking the garage, the way that always made them look out. And there she was, coming to the kitchen window. To his surprise, she waved. He walked down the path, hoping she had not got the wrong idea. No flowers, no bottle, a bad time of day to visit. He brought bad tidings of great pain. Gail, I’ve got some bad news …

She opened the door before he knocked. One year younger than Sean, the glaze of youth had cracked into a filigree of lines around her eyes. Her face was softening and dropping and she wore her clothes sexlessly loose. But she was still wearing perfume.

‘Sean, I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘Are you OK?’

‘You know?’ He stared at his ex-wife. ‘How? I only just found out.’

‘Ruth called me.’ She stood back to let him in. ‘Crack of dawn.’

‘They told her first?’ Sean was assaulted by the smell of home. The old oak floors and stairs, the extortionate beeswax polish. He noticed a bowl of orange roses on the table. ‘You cut the Whisky Macs.’ They always left them blooming on the path, for visitors to enjoy their scent.

‘Saves them from the rain. Someone called her from Svalbard: Tom named her next of kin, apparently. But you already knew that.’

Sean touched a rose and its petals dropped. ‘I don’t remember every single detail of that time.’

‘I do … But they saw each other, didn’t they? That one last time.’

‘Yes, but I didn’t realise she was officially … next of kin.’

Sean winced at the idea of Ruth Mott relating her version of that last night. But that was the only way Gail could know, because at the time they were in the final throes of nisi to absolute, and only their lawyers were speaking. He looked up the stairs. Someone else was in the house, he could feel it.

‘Whose silver car is that out there?’

‘The colour’s called mineral white. And it’s mine.’

‘You said you wanted to keep the Saab forever.’

‘Out with the old. Apparently this new one’s attached to a satellite, so I’m tracked from space if I want and even if I don’t, unless I sit down online for hours and work out how to switch it off. It’s got this inbuilt—’

‘I’m glad you’ve got yourself a good car.’

She’d moved the pictures around. There was a new light on a table. Tom was dead, that was why he’d come. So that Gail could express his grief. She wasn’t doing that properly.

‘You and Ruth have made up then.’

‘I was unfair to her.’

‘She shouldn’t have meddled.’

‘I should have listened.’

Alarmed by the tremble in her voice, he went into the kitchen. A muscle memory prompted him: dump the coat, dump the bag – he looked down at the settle. The newspapers and the big tabby cat that slept there were gone.

‘Where’s Harold?’ He looked around, making the sound that called him.

‘He died too. Last year. Tea? Coffee?’ Gail filled the kettle, her back to him.

‘You didn’t tell me.’ He couldn’t help himself, he looked around. Each thing he recognised was like an accusation. ‘Isn’t this place too big for you now?’

Gail turned. ‘Sean, why did you come? You could have phoned.’

‘That’s what Martine said.’

‘Ah. She’s so thoughtful.’

‘You don’t even seem upset about Tom. Aren’t you upset? You could have called—’ He stopped. It was obvious she was upset.

‘Yes. I’m upset. But I don’t call you any more, about anything, unless it’s Rosie. I assumed you knew.’ She did not cry. ‘So, there’ll be a funeral, what else? Your knighthood’s finally arrived?’

‘Not yet, but it will.’ He felt bewildered. Gail wasn’t like this. She was soft.

‘Your services to British business. One in the eye for my father.’

‘Here’s hoping.’ He felt the trembling ghosts of parties and dinners, the familiar plates he’d eaten off, the cupboards that held them. The bunches of herbs hanging up. ‘The lane,’ he said abruptly. ‘It’s in a shocking state, do you want me to make a call? You’ll never get round to it and it’ll just get worse. I don’t mind.’ He had not meant to say that.

‘I know you’re a master of the universe and all that—’

‘Those are bankers, I’ve never been a banker—’

‘—but in case you hadn’t noticed, it’s been raining solidly for a month.’

‘It hasn’t rained a drop in London.’

‘I don’t care what happens in London! You can’t grade a flooded lane, you have to wait for it to drain. It’s all organised. But thank you for pointing it out.’

‘So you’re OK then. Not – clinically depressed.’

‘Sorry to tell you, I’m absolutely fine.’ She wiped her eyes, her back to him.

‘Is that Sean?’ His daughter Rosie swerved round the kitchen door in a long T-shirt that said OCCUPY, and her honey brown hair ruined into dreadlocks. Her ears were multiply pierced, and to his dismay, he noticed another tribal tattoo on her upper arm.

‘Rosie,’ he groaned. ‘What have you done to yourself?’

‘Grown up without you? Why is Mum crying? Sean, why are you even here?’ Rosie put her arm around her mother and glared at him.

‘I’m fine,’ said Gail, ‘really. We’re just talking.’

‘And I don’t like you calling me that,’ he said. ‘I’m still your father.’ The way she looked at him broke his heart.

‘Uh-uh, you sacked yourself. A father is someone you’re supposed to be able to trust, who gives his word and keeps it, who doesn’t cheat and lie again and again, when they’ve promised not to. Mum cries every day you know.’

‘Oh for goodness sake, I do not—’

‘My god! Why does everybody lie the whole time?’

‘Some day, Rosie,’ he said, ‘you might understand that things are not always black and—’

‘White,’ she finished for him, ‘I know. They’re in the grey, and in the grey, Rosie, is where people like me make their money and tell their lies and generally screw up other people’s lives. In the grey. I’ve got it. Sean.’

‘She doesn’t know,’ Gail said quietly.

‘Know what? Ugh: you’re expecting a little bébé with her. Well it’s never going to have anything to do with me.’

‘No, that’s not why I’ve come, and I didn’t know you were here, I thought it was term time. I came to tell your mother that Tom’s body has been found. And in person, Rosie, not to be insulted by you but to break it gently to her. Except she already knew.’

Rosie stared at her mother in shock.

‘Ruth called me this morning.’ Gail put her arm round her daughter. ‘I’ll tell you all about it.’ She looked at Sean over Rosie’s shoulder. ‘Thank you for coming. I appreciate it.’

He stared at his crying daughter, and his stranger of an ex-wife. He was being dismissed from his own home. Ex-home. But still his child.

‘Rosie,’ he said gently, ‘if you ever wanted to see me—’

‘Why would I want to do that?’ She didn’t look at him.

‘Because you’re my daughter and I love you.’

‘Don’t hold your breath.’ She ducked out from under her mother’s arm and ran upstairs, her face crumpling.

The Vanquish blinked an electronic greeting. Sean drove carefully down the rutted, waterlogged private lane, then into the long single-lane road. The numbness was definitely gone, the encounter had left him raw with failure.

A short sharp blast of a horn ahead returned his attention to the narrow road, where a battered red Land Rover pulling a trailer was upon him. A man and a woman in matching jackets – James and Emma Goring. OK, he could do this. He’d only just gone by a passing place so he waved then reversed, shaking himself out of his funk, ready to greet them. The shattered bones of the past, knitting back together. He would tell them what had happened.

James and Emma – he couldn’t remember their children’s names – but over nearly a decade they had eaten at each other’s houses, bought rounds at the Acorn, gone to firework parties, shared New Year – the stuff of life that slowly accretes into friendship. But they did not appear to recognise him. In fact, James raised a casual finger of thanks and was about to drive on, until Sean called out.

James did a double-take, and stopped. ‘Sean!’ he said. Emma lowered the phone she had been checking, and just that second also officially recognised him too, with a bright smile.

Engines running, they exchanged enthusiastic concerns about the weather and the state of the lanes, and Sean told them about the dust storm, which they’d seen on TV but only got a little of here, weren’t they lucky with their microclimate? And then the awkward pause.

Sean knew they wanted to go. He felt angry, he kept them talking, anything, about all the new vineyards, the farm, while he absorbed the fact they hadn’t wanted to stop. Pretending they hadn’t recognised him. People got divorced, people moved on – he looked pointedly at their trailer, where big sound speakers were covered with a tarp.

‘Of course!’ he said. ‘Your solstice party – here’s hoping for sunshine!’

‘Oh,’ James said quickly, ‘very small this year.’

‘Big speakers, for a small party.’

‘Not really.’

They looked at each other, their smiles fading. They were not going to invite him.

‘I came down to tell Gail a dear friend of ours died.’ Sean had to look up at them from his lower vehicle. ‘We’re still friends.’

‘Best way,’ said James. ‘And sorry for your loss.’

‘Absolutely,’ Emma said. ‘So sorry. Take care, Sean.’

James put the Land Rover in gear and the loaded trailer rattled dangerously close to the Aston as they passed, attention fixed on the lane ahead. Then they were gone.

Sean stared after them in the rear-view mirror, his heart pounding like he’d been in a fight. He’d thought of them as friends – he’d brought out his best wine and put up with their tedious company in the hope that they would surely reveal themselves at some point – he presumed it was just that English reserve—

No. They had never been friends; they had always been cold to him. It was Gail they’d liked, he knew they thought she’d married down. The loss of Tom burned through him again: Tom who had been a true friend and a gentleman, always showing the same kindness and self-respect whether he was talking to a tramp or a billionaire. Sean heard Kingsmith’s voice in his head, from the old days, when he’d taken a business loss. Learn, and don’t look back. He checked the time, and told the satnav Heathrow.

There is a power that we call Sila, which is not to be explained in simple words. A great spirit, supporting the world and the weather and all life on earth, a spirit so mighty that his utterance to mankind is not through common words, but by storm and snow and rain and the fury of the sea; all the forces of nature that men fear.

When all is well, Sila sends no message to mankind, but withdraws into his own endless nothingness, apart. So he remains as long as men do not abuse life, but act with reverence towards their daily food.

No one has seen Sila; his place of being is a mystery, in that he is at once among us and unspeakably far away.

Across Arctic America: Narrative of the Fifth Thule Expedition (1927)

Knud Rasmussen

4

Sitting in 1F, crammed against the plastic wall, the smell of his neighbour’s duty-free aftershave in his nose, Sean remembered Tom’s grim prediction that Svalbard would become the Ibiza of the north. The midnight sun, exotic locale, and public awareness of the fragility of the region had created the strongest driver for tourism the Arctic had ever seen. Now Longyearbyen even had its own club scene, a Mecca for outward-bound hen and stag parties and rich kids bored of skiing.

Sean watched the stewardess and her cart coming closer. The clink of ice made him swallow in anticipation. He must reframe the shock as closure. A stone – a literal heavy headstone, could be laid on Tom’s recovered body in its grave, and on the hope he would return.

‘Sir, any drinks or snacks?’ the stewardess repeated, with an economy-class smile. She passed him his two miniature vodkas, tin of tonic and a plastic cup with a single ice cube and moved on quickly before he could ask for more. He didn’t bother with the tonic, just poured in both vodkas and knocked it back. No matter what Kingsmith and Martine said, in his heart he knew this was anything but closure. He’d learned to live with the idea of Tom lost in pristine obscurity – that was how many Arctic heroes ended their story. His reappearance was unscripted, as if the glacier itself had moved against him.

Another shadow fell on his thoughts, provoked by Gail’s reference to his still-imminent knighthood. The New Year and Birthday honours had come and gone three times, but there was always a good reason he had to wait – bit of a backlog, wheels within wheels, don’t worry—

He guessed why it hadn’t yet materialised: there were questions about the accident. All right then, let the inquest lance that boil of suspicion. He’d tell them whatever they wanted to know and as he publicly cleared his name, he would also remind the world that risk and danger were at the very heart of exploration and even to this day the fittest and best-prepared polar adventurers still sometimes died. Surviving was not a crime, nor was making a fine living from Midgard Lodge, where the beloved Tom Harding had died. An aggrieved journalist, turned down for membership at Sean’s other clubs, had written about Midgard and called it ‘Dirty Davos’. This was not entirely untrue. Sean Cawson’s group of membership clubs around the world catered to a global elite, but Midgard Lodge was different. The northernmost hostelry in the world and converted from an old whaling station, it was inaccessible to all but its guests, and provided for those who valued discretion, whose reputations were not the holiest, but who wanted to improve their standing in the world as well as their profits. These were the people about whom the World Economic Forum felt squeamish, who would never be invited to actual Davos, but whose decisions were of great economic and political import. If they were excluded from the best business society – publicly, at least – they were welcome to meet, and talk, and explore different business models in the stunning environment of Midgard Lodge. Sean believed and Tom had agreed that it was pointless preaching to the converted; also that honey caught more flies than vinegar. A luxury retreat in a uniquely inspiring location, security assured, was part of the realpolitik of environmental progress.

The stewardess was at the rear of the plane. Sean felt anxiety coursing through him but he didn’t want to arrive blunted by alcohol. A delicate thing, for a CEO to re-establish the chain of command after so long an absence – but Danny Long was slipping up as general manager if he was reporting to Kingsmith first. Kingsmith might have recommended him, but he was only Sean’s sleeping partner in Midgard, not an official shareholder like Martine and her clean-tech investors, nor Radiance Young and her friends in Hong Kong. Sean always smiled at the thought of Radiance and her bare-faced insistence she was investing all her own renminbis, not those of the People’s Republic behind her. Fine, if that was what she needed to say. But she certainly brought the Party with her.

It would probably be a few days before details were released to the press and then the news cycle and the eulogising would start up again. ‘Glacier gives up the ghost’, or more soberly, ‘Body of missing British environmentalist discovered’. As if Tom Harding were Franklin’s lost expedition, the subject of national mourning for decades. And then, of course, there would be the pictures. Tom shaking hands with indigenous protestors at the line of jungle they had saved. Tom swimming with that bloody whale shark, as if he were the only person in the world ever to do that. Tom with actors draped on his shoulders, celebrity trading for rugged moral virtue.

The prospect of reliving the cult of Tom was as irritating now as it had been while he was alive, but the worst of it was, Tom had disliked it too. Sean couldn’t even call him on his ego – or his looks, which were not his fault. Women adored him, men admired him, and this idolisation was a large part of why Sean had so doggedly courted him for Midgard, refusing to take no for an answer. But it wasn’t the whole of it. Despite their years of distance, Sean knew that if Tom believed in Midgard, then he had truly created something of real value to this world. His old friend’s approval had really mattered – and Kingsmith was right, he must get out in front of all this and use the drama positively.