Knowing that he could easily be on the first boat ashore, Felicity checks each passenger in turn. At the front of the launch are a youngish couple. Most of the other passengers look older, people in their late forties, fifties, even early sixties. Visiting the Antarctic is expensive, out of reach for most young people.
Only one is not wearing the regulation orange jacket. He sits at the back of the launch with his face turned away. He looks tall, though, and about the right build.
Her mouth has turned dry as bone.
Telling herself that she has to hold it together, Felicity looks back towards the ship. The boat has turned with the tide and its bow is facing out to sea. The passengers who aren’t below waiting for the launch to return are all at the stern, lining the rail and staring out at the mountains, the whirling sea birds, the derelict whaling station. Felicity gives herself time to be sure, but he isn’t among them.
Her eyes are drawn back to the man in the dark jacket at the rear of the launch. He seems to have no interest in Grytviken or the seals that play in the shallower waters. Instead, he is looking at the collection of low white buildings that make up the research station at King Edward Point. He too holds binoculars to his eyes.
Fighting the sudden panic, the almost overwhelming temptation to duck and hide, Felicity lifts her own binoculars. She sees a large, oval face topped with thick fair hair streaked with silver. She knows those deep-set eyes are the cold blue of hard-packed ice. His binoculars are moving slowly along the coastline. They freeze. It is impossible to be sure, but they seem to be fixed directly on her.
Felicity and the man on the launch look at each other across the bay. As one, they both lower the magnifying instruments. Neither need them any more. Both know who they are looking at.
It’s Freddie. He’s found her. And he’s minutes away.
11
Freddie
He’s found her. She’s actually here. He hadn’t quite believed it until this moment. Freddie watches Felicity turn and run to the water’s edge, then vanish inside a boat house. He has to restrain himself, physically, from standing up in the launch and yelling at her across the bay. Vaguely, he registers someone asking him if he’s all right and he flicks up a hand to ward off the unwanted attention.
For the ten minutes it takes to get to shore, he sits in silence, knowing that every passing second takes her further away. He hears the distant roar of a RIB and knows she has speed on her side.
He can hardly restrain himself from pushing everyone out of the way to leave the launch first but after what seems an age they are all on dry land. Immediately, the ship’s tourism officer starts fighting with the wind to tell them about the settlement they’ve just reached.
‘So, when the whaling industry of the southern ocean discovered the riches of the seas around South Georgia, they needed sites to build on,’ he yells. ‘Grytviken’s sheltered harbour, its large area of flat land, and plenty of fresh water made it the obvious choice. At its height, over a thousand men lived and worked here.’
Faces creased against the wind, the visitors look around at the ramshackle collection of rust-red iron, faded ochre paint and dull grey-white wood that lines the head of the coast. They see abandoned factories, lodging houses and oil tanks. Behind them a steam whaling boat, the Petrel, lies abandoned at the oiling jetty, firmly embedded in the mud of the bay.
Freddie has no interest in Grytviken but he tells himself to be calm. He cannot draw attention to himself by leaving the group too soon.
‘By the 1960s, though, dwindling whale populations made continued activity uneconomic and Grytviken closed in 1966.’ The officer waves his hands around at the derelict buildings. ‘The infrastructure of the whaling station – its oil tanks, blubber factory, chimneys, machinery, accommodation and stores – was kept intact for the day the whales returned. They never did.’
‘Ghost town,’ a man at the back mutters.
Following the rest of the group, Freddie makes for the museum. As they wander around the exhibits, he goes into the shop and approaches the woman behind the counter.
‘Has Felicity been in today?’ he asks.
She gives him a quizzical look. ‘Felicity Lloyd, you mean?’
‘That’s right. She’s an old friend. We arranged to meet up.’
The woman plants her feet apart. ‘You’ve come a long way to see an old friend.’
Like it’s any of her business. ‘That’s right,’ he says.
The woman frowns. ‘Does she know you’re coming today?’
Jeez, he’s knifed men in the showers for less. ‘I think so,’ he says. ‘Why? Is there a problem?’
She turns to the man with her. ‘You were here when Flick came in yesterday, weren’t you?’
Flick? She is known as Flick now? That shouldn’t bother him. It does.
‘Aye,’ the man says and then he too looks Freddie up and down. ‘She said something about going up the coast for a couple of days.’
The woman nods. ‘That’s right. She was stocking up on provisions.’
Another customer approaches the counter, standing far too close to Freddie. ‘To Bird Island, wasn’t it?’ the man says.
‘I thought that’s what she said. Thanks, love. That’ll be nine pounds fifty.’
‘And is that far?’ Freddie asks. There are tiny islands dotted all around South Georgia. Without the chart he can’t remember them all.
‘’Bout as far as you can get,’ the woman tells him. ‘Why don’t you ask up at the base?’
‘I’ll do that,’ he says. ‘Thanks.’
* * *
At the rear of the museum, out of reach of the wind, Freddie unrolls his chart. Bird Island is at the most north-westerly tip of South Georgia, a good sixty, maybe seventy miles away. He cannot possibly reach her there. Panic churns inside him. He cannot have travelled so far to have it all slip away.
He wants to talk, that’s all. To explain. And maybe hold her again, just once. Just the tips of her fingertips will do.
He can’t give up now.
Jogging back down to the beach, he catches the skipper of the launch before it sets off back to the Snow Queen.
‘I’m going up to the scientific base.’ He points to the buildings across the bay. ‘I know someone who works up there. I’ll get them to bring me back to the ship, probably after dinner, so don’t worry about collecting me.’
The boatman frowns, but it is early in the day and he has a lot of other passengers to ferry to shore.
Freddie sets off walking towards King Edward Point.
12
Felicity
If Grytviken is a grim place, Husvik is worse. Bigger than its sister settlement, long since forbidden to visitors, it lies in the southern arm of Stromness Bay like a malodorous corpse. Grytviken might be dreadful, but Husvik is dangerous. Riddled with asbestos and dripping with broken glass, Husvik is entirely unstable. More than half the settlement’s buildings – the catcher’s store, guano factory and carpenter’s workshop – have caved in on themselves and the frequent gales send their roof tiles scurrying around the bay like missiles. The few buildings still intact seem to be holding together just long enough to collapse on an unwary intruder.