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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 03 June 2023
The ice-strengthened ship Endless Sea powers south of Tierra del Fuego into the Antarctic Ocean.
Phyllis leans on the guard rail and watches the seabirds dip and soar above the waves, her heart pounding with excitement more and more as the temperature plummets. The rail is now rimed with frost, and the deck covered in grit to prevent the passengers sliding on the ice.
An albatross glides over the ship’s wake – a wandering silhouette against the sun that doesn’t quite set – gliding over gigantic wave tops also silhouetted, like a range of mountain peaks.
Phyllis pulls herself off the rail, her gloves leaving a deposit of suede fibres and a few tufts of lambswool from the wrist bands.
She flew out the day of Melissa’s wedding. It had been coming for five years. The five years since Melissa left home.
She had started putting more time into her painting and had exhibited every year for the five years. She had sold quite well – developing a line in abstracted doors and gates, arches and porticos which spoke of possibilities, journeys, fresh revelations. But after five years she realised they weren’t going anywhere. When Melissa announced she was getting married, Phyllis sat down and made a list of things she wanted to achieve. The top one was ‘adventure’ and, after much thought, she decided on a trip to the Antarctic. She wanted to see a new landscape – to be inspired by a different light, to find meaning in the beauty of the place, in nature itself, in humanity’s place in it. The second thing on the list was leaving Henry. There was no way forward with him. The doors and gates and all the other portals kept beckoning, but he kept her from moving through them. She told Henry as Melissa drove away with her new husband. She flew to South America that same evening. She had no intention of returning to him. Her real life was beginning now.
The first ice they see is a white crag, like a slice of glass fractured and split, sharp against the featureless grey sky. The next day they see the underside of a whale’s tail flip high out of the water before disappearing beneath the iron-grey swell. The others gasp, but Phyllis wonders how the creature can live in that ghastly cold darkness.
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