Northwest Passages Page 2
Both sit silent, listening to the metal voices, near and distant, resounding from towers of various heights, in tones more various than their situations. When these at length cease, all seems more mysterious and quiet than before. One disagreeable result of whispering is, that it seems to evoke an atmosphere of silence, haunted by the ghosts of sound—strange cracks and tickings, the rustling of garments that have no substance in them, and the tread of dreadful feet, that would leave no mark on the sea-sand or the winter snow.
The intruder stood stock-still on his side of the desk, his chest heaving as with some great physical effort. He could see part of Henry’s body, lying on its side where it had fallen, and he watched it for any movement, any sign of life. There was none. The job had been done well. The knife was still in his hand, and he gazed at it dispassionately. A box of tissues stood on a corner of the desk, and he took out a handful and wiped the blade off before placing the knife back in his pocket. He looked at the body again, his mind working as his breath came more easily and he found that he could think with something approaching clarity.
First he moved to the door, locking it and pulling down the blind, unconsciously carrying out the very actions which would have saved Henry’s life. Then he returned to the desk and stood looking round the shop thoughtfully. Various bays formed by the arrangement of bookshelves stretched down both walls, all neatly labelled with signs hanging above them describing the books to be found therein. In the middle of the shop were a few armchairs, surrounding a small table which contained a coffee maker and a plate of cookies. The intruder helped himself to a handful of cookies and made a more thorough survey of the shop.
A door at the back caught his eye, and he made his way towards it, alert and cautious. The old man had said there was no one else there, but you never knew . . . He opened the door carefully, and saw a short hallway leading to what appeared to be a kitchen. A staircase, its upper reaches in darkness, led to the next floor.
He remembered Henry’s words. I live by myself. The old man must have an apartment behind the shop, then! This was getting better and better. He’d be able to get the cash out of the register, have a good look round the apartment—there must be stuff worth taking from there, too—fix himself something to eat and drink, maybe even wait out the rain, before being on his way long before anyone discovered something wrong. What a stroke of luck!
A sound behind him in the shop made him jump, and he whirled around, knife at the ready.
Nothing.
He moved swiftly back towards the desk and looked at Henry. The body had not moved. The intruder turned his attention to the cash register, and in a matter of seconds had it open. He cleared out the contents, stuffing the money into his pockets, then looked to see if there was anything else worth having.
A book lay open on the desk. He flicked it shut and looked at the cover. Bleak House by Charles Dickens. The old man wouldn’t be reading that again anytime soon.
Another noise disturbed him; this one came from the back of the shop, and for a moment he thought that someone had come through the door from the apartment, for a shadow seemed to pass lightly into one of the bays. He moved along the shop and peered between the shelves. There was no one there.
More sound; this time from the front of the shop. The intruder whirled around, and again thought he saw a shadow pass into one of the bays, this one near the window. He narrowed his eyes, peering through the gloomy shop. Was it his imagination, or were the lights getting dimmer?
“As to dead men, Tony,” proceeds Mr Guppy, evading this proposal, “there have been dead men in most rooms.”
“I know there have; but in most rooms you let them alone, and—and they let you alone,” Tony answers.
Of course there was no one there when he reached the front of the shop. The door was locked tight, and no one could have come in through the door at the back without being seen. The intruder shrugged his shoulders and tried to laugh. Crazy. Imagining things. That’s what it was. All these books, lined up, watching him, waiting . . .
Waiting! That was good. Waiting for what? He shook his head, then went back to the plate of cookies for another handful, as if to prove that he wasn’t afraid, there was nothing to be afraid of, just a dead guy behind the desk and he wasn’t going anywhere, wasn’t going to be calling for any help, there wasn’t even anyone to call except a load of books, and what help could they be? As if to prove his point he moved to the desk (although he was careful not to look too closely at Henry’s body) and picked up the copy of Bleak House, gazing at it with contempt for a moment before flinging it to the back of the shop, where it fell with a flutter and crash.
And, mingled with these sounds, a cry, as of pain.
The intruder’s head swivelled round, trying to locate the source of the cry. It sounded as if—this was crazy—as if it had come from the book. He moved through the shop towards the book, which was lying face up on the floor. He moved closer, almost against his will, looking to see if perhaps the book had hit something—a pet of some kind, was there an animal in the shop?—and touched the book gingerly, almost delicately, with his foot. It was just a book.
Mr Guppy takes the light. They go down, more dead than alive, and holding one another, push open the door of the back shop. The cat has retreated close to it, and stands snarling—not at them; at something on the ground, before the fire.
Another sound, behind him. He whirled around, eyes trying to adjust to the dimness—there must be something wrong with the lights—as a figure moved in front of the door and disappeared behind a bookshelf in a curious gliding motion. The intruder stared, heart pounding. The old man had said he was alone. How could anyone else be there? It wasn’t possible. There was no one else in the shop; just him and a dead man, and a load of old books. No one else.
A murmur came from behind him, halfway along the shop, in a bay labelled—he could barely make out the sign, so dark had it become—Literature. There was an answering murmur—or so it seemed to the intruder—from a bay on the other side of the shop, this one labelled Children’s. A dim memory stirred within him, and he was reminded of a time, impossibly long ago in what seemed another life, when he had played hide-and-seek, and had tried to track down those hiding by listening for the tell-tale signs of giggles and whispers. He could almost imagine people hiding behind the bookshelves, breath held, trying not to give themselves away, watching him to see what he would do.
“Who’s there?” he called out roughly. “Come on out, where I can see you. Come on!”
No answer. But there was movement. He could sense it, rather than see it, as if shadows were massing behind the shelves, dark clouds of movement, full of purpose. His head swivelled from side to side, trying to pin down the danger, define it, attack it. His hand clenched the knife, poised in front of him, ready to strike.
A small sigh behind him, at the back of the shop. He twisted round, every nerve alert, ready to face whoever—whatever—had come in.
They advance slowly, looking at all these things. The cat remains where they found her, still snarling at the something on the ground, before the fire and between the two chairs. What is it? Hold up the light?
It was a boy. The intruder could see little of him, apart from the fact that he looked thin and pale. He was holding something; a funny sort of broom. The old man’s grandkid, come downstairs to see what’s up. A wave of relief washed over him. A kid with a broom: pathetic. He could deal with this, no problem. He put the hand with the knife behind his back and adopted a sickly, wheedling tone.
“Hey, kid, sorry you were bothered, okay? Me and your granddad were just talking about business; you know, business—nothing for you to worry about, so why don’t you just . . . ”
The boy wasn’t listening to him; wasn’t even looking at him. He was looking at something else, something behind him. The intruder turned around, and stared in disbelief at the figures moving towards him. It couldn’t be . . . it wasn’t possible . . . it was just him and a dead man and
a load of old books, for Christ’s sake . . . nothing else . . .
There was something wrong with them; something which his brain tried to comprehend even as he moved backwards, unaware of the figures advancing towards him from the rear of the shop, led by the child with the broom. The clothing—they looked like figures from old movies, or from pictures in books.
Help, help, help! Come into this house, for Heaven’s sake!
Plenty will come in, but none can help.
ENDLESS NIGHT
“Thank you so much for speaking with me. And for these journals, which have never seen the light of day. I’m honoured that you’d entrust them to me.”
“That’s quite all right.” Emily Edwards smiled; a delighted smile, like a child surveying an unexpected and particularly wonderful present. “I don’t receive very many visitors; and old people do like speaking about the past. No”—she held up a hand to stop him—“I am old; not elderly, not ‘getting on’, nor any of the other euphemisms people use these days. When one has passed one’s centenary, ‘old’ is the only word which applies.”
“Well, your stories were fascinating, Miss Edwards. As I said, there are so few people alive now who remember these men.”
Another smile, gentle this time. “One of the unfortunate things about living to my age is that all the people one knew in any meaningful or intimate way have died; there is no one left with whom I can share these things. Perhaps that is why I have so enjoyed this talk. It brings them all back to me. Sir Ernest; such a charismatic man, even when he was obviously in ill-health and worried about money. I used to thrill to his stories; to hear him talk of that desperate crossing of South Georgia Island to Stromness, of how they heard the whistle at the whaling station and knew that they were so very close to being saved, and then deciding to take a treacherous route down the slope to save themselves a five-mile hike when they were near exhaustion. He would drop his voice then, and say to me ‘Miss Emily’—he always called me Miss Emily, which was the name of his wife, as you know; it made me feel very grown-up, even though I was only eleven—‘Miss Emily, I do not know how we did it. Yet afterwards we all said the same thing, those three of us who made that crossing: that there had been another with us, a secret one, who guided our steps and brought us to safety.’ I used to think it a very comforting story, when I was a child, but now—I am not as sure.”
“Why not?”
For a moment he thought that she had not heard. Her eyes, which until that moment had been sharp and blue as Antarctic ice, dimmed, reflecting each of her hundred-and-one years as she gazed at her father’s photograph on the wall opposite. He had an idea that she was not even with him in her comfortable room, that she was instead back in the parlour of her parents’ home in north London ninety years earlier, listening to Ernest Shackleton talk of his miraculous escape after the sinking of the Endurance, or her father’s no less amazing tales of his own Antarctic travels. He was about to get up and start putting away his recording equipment when she spoke.
“As I told you, my father would gladly speak about his time in Antarctica with the Mawson and Shackleton expeditions, but of the James Wentworth expedition aboard the Fortitude in 1910 he rarely talked. He used to become quite angry with me if I mentioned it, and I learned not to raise the subject. I will always remember one thing he did say of it: ‘It was hard to know how many people were there. I sometimes felt that there were too many of us.’ And it would be frightening to think, in that place where so few people are, that there was another with you who should not be.”
The statement did not appear to require an answer, for which the thin man in jeans and rumpled sweater was glad. Instead he said, “If you remember anything else, or if, by chance, you should come across those journals from the 1910 expedition, please do contact me, Miss Edwards.”
“Yes, I have your card.” Emily nodded towards the table beside her, where a crisp white card lay beside a small ceramic tabby cat, crouched as if eyeing a mouse in its hole. Her gaze rested on it for a moment before she picked it up.
“I had this when I was a child; I carried it with me everywhere. It’s really a wonder that it has survived this long.” She gazed at it for a moment, a half-smile on her lips. “Sir Ernest said that it put him in mind of Mrs. Chippy, the ship’s cat.” Her smile faded. “He was always very sorry, you know, about what he had to do, and sorry that it caused an estrangement between him and Mr. McNish; he felt that the carpenter never forgave him for having Mrs. Chippy and the pups shot before they embarked on their journey in the boats.”
“It was rather cruel, though, wasn’t it? A cat, after all; what harm could there have been in taking it with them?”
“Ah, well.” Emily set it carefully back down on the table. “I thought that, too, when I was young; but now I see that Sir Ernest was quite right. There was no room for sentimentality, or personal feeling; his task was to ensure that his men survived. Sometimes, to achieve that, hard decisions must be made. One must put one’s own feelings and inclinations aside, and act for the greater good.”
He sensed a closing, as of something else she might have said but had decided against. No matter; it had been a most productive afternoon. At the door Emily smiled as she shook his hand.
“I look forward to reading your book when it comes out.”
“Well”—he paused, somewhat embarrassed—“it won’t be out for a couple of years yet. These things take time, and I’m still at an early stage in my researches.”
Emily laughed; a lovely sound, like bells chiming. “Oh, I do not plan on going anywhere just yet. You must bring me a copy when it is published, and let me read again about those long ago days. The past, where everything has already happened and there can be no surprises, can be a very comforting place when one is old.”
It was past six o’clock when the writer left, but Emily was not hungry. She made a pot of tea, then took her cup and saucer into the main room and placed it on the table by her chair, beside the ceramic cat. She looked at it for a moment, and ran a finger down its back as if stroking it; then she picked up the card and considered it for a few moments.
“I think that I was right not to show him,” she said, as if speaking to someone else present in the room. “I doubt that he would have understood. It is for the best.”
Thus reminded, however, she could not easily forget. She crossed the room to a small rosewood writing desk in one corner, unlocked it, and pulled down the front panel, revealing tidily arranged cubbyholes and drawers of various sizes. With another key she unlocked the largest of the drawers, and withdrew from it a notebook bound in leather, much battered and weathered, as with long use in difficult conditions. She returned with it to her armchair, but it was some minutes before she opened it, and when she did it was with an air almost of sadness. She ran her fingers over the faded ink of the words on the first page.
Robert James Edwards
Science Officer
H.M.S. Fortitude
1910–11
“No,” she said aloud, as if continuing her last conversation, “there can be no surprises about the past; everything there has happened. One would like to think it happened for the best; but we can never be sure. And that is not comforting at all.” Then she opened the journal and began to read from it, even though the story was an old one which she knew by heart.
20 November 1910: A relief to be here in Hobart, on the brink of starting the final leg of our sea voyage. The endless days of fundraising, organisation, and meetings in London are well behind us, and the Guvnor is in high spirits, and as usual has infected everyone with his enthusiasm. He called us all together this morning, and said that of the hundreds upon hundreds of men who had applied to take part in the expedition when it was announced in England, we had been hand-picked, and that everything he has seen on the journey thus far has reinforced the rightness of his choices; but that the true test is still to come—in the journey across the great Southern Ocean and along the uncharted coast of Antarctica. We sh
all be seeing sights that no human has yet viewed and will, if all goes to plan, be in a position to furnish exact information which will be of inestimable value to those who come after us. Chief among this information will be noting locations where future parties can establish camps, so that they might use these as bases for exploring the great heart of this unknown land, and perhaps even establishing a preliminary base for Mawson’s push, rumoured to be taking place in a year’s time. We are not tasked with doing much in the way of exploring ourselves, save in the vicinity of any base we do establish, but we have the dogs and sledges to enable us at least to make brief sorties into that mysterious continent, and I think that all the men are as eager as I to set foot where no man has ever trodden.
Of course, we all realise the dangers inherent in this voyage; none more so than the Guvnor, who today enjoined anyone who had the least doubt to say so now, while there was still an opportunity to leave. Needless to say, no one spoke, until Richards gave a cry of “Three cheers for the Fortitude, and all who sail in her!”; a cheer which echoed to the very skies, and set the dogs barking on the deck, so furiously that the Guvnor singled out Castleton and called good-naturedly, “Castleton, quiet your dogs down, there’s a good chap, or we shall have the neighbours complaining!”, which elicited a hearty laugh from all.
22 November: Such a tumultuous forty-eight hours we have not seen on this voyage, and I earnestly hope that the worst is now behind us. Two days ago the Guvnor was praising his hand-picked crew, and I, too, was thinking how our party had pulled together on the trip from Plymouth, which boded well, I thought, for the trials which surely face us; and now we have said farewell to one of our number, and made room for another. Chadwick, whose excellent meals brightened the early part of our voyage, is to be left in Hobart following a freakish accident which none could have foreseen, he having been knocked down in the street by a runaway horse and cart. His injuries are not, thank Heaven, life threatening, but are sufficient to make it impossible for him to continue as part of the expedition.