The Lightkeeper's Wife (29 page)

She sits up and looks at me directly, a hint of aggression in her eyes. ‘What do you think about women in Antarctica?’ she asks.

This is not quite the conversation I had in mind. Perhaps this is my interview with Emma, now that I’ve passed the test with Fredricksen. To delay answering, I pick up my tea and take a sip.

‘Come on,’ she says. ‘Which camp are you in? Do you think women balance the Antarctic community? Or do you think they cause trouble?’

I set my cup down carefully.

‘You’re against it, aren’t you?’ Emma says.

‘No, I’m not against it.’ I choose my words cautiously. Emma’s face tells me it’d be easy to offend. ‘But I do think people should be careful about how they behave down there.’

‘You’re referring to some of the flirting that goes on,’ Emma says.

‘Flirting, yes,’ I say. But I’m really thinking of women dancing provocatively at parties. Women drinking too much and leaning up against men without thinking how it affects them. Such a lack of awareness. Women playing more than one man at a time. Not all women, but enough to destabilise things. Enough to breed resentment. Feelings like that are magnified in a small community.

‘Women should be allowed to have a good time down there without being crucified for it,’ Emma is saying. ‘What’s wrong with a bit of flirting? Men flirt too. There’s nothing abnormal about it—just go to a bar or a club in Hobart sometime.’

‘Antarctica isn’t Hobart,’ I point out.

Emma runs a hand through her hair, considering. ‘It’s tricky, isn’t it? Women want to go to Antarctica. They want to share the so-called last frontier, and it
is
more normal to have them down there. But there’s all this resistance in the male ranks. If you flirt or get involved with someone, then you’re causing trouble, and if you try to fit in by acting like one of the boys, that’s wrong too and some of the guys look down on you. It’s this us and them thing. And there’s the tradies versus the boffins too. I’m not sure how to resolve it.’ She looks at me thoughtfully. ‘I suppose it’s partly to do with this melding of two separate worlds. I mean, how many women do you have to deal with in your workplace?’

‘None. They drop cars off for me to service and then pick them up again. The front desk deals with it.’

‘That’s just it. Tradies aren’t used to working with women, whereas most of the women that go south are scientists who come from a mixed workplace. At university they’re used to being respected for what they know. But down in Antarctica it’s all reversed. The tradies rule because they run the station. No wonder it’s difficult.’

In my mind, I hear Bazza carping on about how high and mighty some of the young female scientists are, and how they expect you to drop everything to cater to their work demands. But Bazza’s not as old-fashioned as you might think. He says it’s not about whether women should be there or not, but how they behave while they’re down there. And how the men behave too. He says it’s about people working out how to get on together, and about leaving some of their entrenched attitudes at home, or at least being able to keep a lid on it when things rile them.

‘I try to avoid it all by staying out in the field,’ Emma says.

I think of the man in her lab today and I wonder if she’s as innocent and detached as she makes out. I want to believe her, but I know how it is down there.

Emma picks up her tea. ‘I think all the problems boil down to a few bitter old men who don’t want to share Antarctica with women,’ she says. ‘They want to keep it as a boys’ club like it was in the past. They don’t want to accept change. I’m sure they’re the ones who insist on hanging porn all over the place.’

‘All over the place?’ I only remember a few pinups in the workshop, and they were pretty tame. It’s the same in the garage where I work in Sandy Bay. Some of the men like having a few posters up. It’s almost cultural for them. After a while you don’t even notice.

‘Normal women don’t look like that,’ Emma says with disdain.

‘Nobody looks at those posters,’ I say.

‘I do,’ she says. ‘And I don’t want to.’

I’d like to ask her how often she goes into the workshop when she’s south. When I was down there we rarely had visitors. Especially not women. ‘I think it helps some of the guys cope,’ I say.

‘With what?’

‘Abstinence.’

‘You shouldn’t defend them. Can’t they just work it off in the gym?’

‘They do.’ I remember the guys laughing about how strong they were from all the hours in the weights room. ‘But it can still be difficult for some of them.’

Emma’s laugh is hard. ‘Because they’re missing out? How pathetic. Women don’t have that problem.’

How can I explain to her how it is to be in the body of a man? We’re biologically different. Women don’t seem to understand that.

‘How about you,’ Emma asks. ‘How did you cope?’

I flush and mumble something inane. I don’t want to tell Emma about Sarah helping me to survive the end of my marriage. ‘It’s a long time for people to be away from their partners,’ I say.

‘Then people with partners shouldn’t go south.’ Emma grins suddenly. ‘That’d limit the application field, wouldn’t it? . . . You know, the Brits only send down people who aren’t married.’ She laughs again. ‘I wonder how many of them come back and get married to someone they’ve met down there? But sending married couples doesn’t work either. They’ve tried that. Too much friction if they blow apart and the girl takes up with someone else. I’ve seen it happen.’

‘It isn’t safe for relationships,’ I say, thinking of Debbie.

‘No. And nobody should expect it to be safe. The problem is that people don’t understand the risks.’

She’s right, of course. You don’t understand until it’s too late. And then that which is broken can’t be mended.

I stare out the window, wondering how things would be now if I’d been wiser, if I had stood up to Debbie and refused to go south. We’d have paid off most of the mortgage in a few years anyway, if we’d worked hard. We might even have two or three kids by now. A swing set in the backyard.

‘I’m sorry.’ Emma’s voice draws me back into the room. ‘That wasn’t very sensitive of me.’

‘It’s okay,’ I say, managing a smile. ‘It’s been a long time. I ought to be over it.’

She goes to the bathroom while I step outside. The porch is already in shadow and the air is cool. I sit on an old wooden chair and watch a rosella feeding on the bird tray. I watch it pick up a seed and crack it deftly with its beak, tucking the kernel into its mouth with its knobby grey tongue and then discarding the husk. Jess comes out and sits beside me. The birds are so accustomed to us they don’t fly away. I watch the light over the water on the channel. When Emma comes out, I’m settled and calm. She touches my face with her hands and runs her fingertips over my lips. I am so easily undone by her.

‘Come on,’ she says, taking my hand.

Inside, she kisses me and releases my passion all over again.

When her strong brown hands are on me and when I can feel the boldness of her curves, she is mine and I am hers.

21

In the pale light before dawn on Friday morning, I guiltily desert Jess, leaving her at home with a large bowl of dog food and an enormous placatory bone. Then I collect Emma and we hump piles of gear into my car: tent, sleeping bag, sleeping mats, an esky full of food, and milk-crates containing gas bottles, plates and pots. Emma tosses in an old rucksack weighed down with climbing equipment, as well as a rope and two harnesses. With her things added to mine we could be going for six weeks, not just overnight.

We drive north out of Hobart. At the wheel I am fizzing with excitement. Emma sits beside me, my hand warm on her knee. The sunlight is spreading across a watery blue sky. Nothing could be better.

The campground at Freycinet National Park nestles beneath the jutting rocky peaks of the Hazards. It’s dotted with contorted old banksias, their bark as thick and wrinkled as an old man’s skin, and it’s rimmed by an arc of golden sand and softly lapping waves that hiss gently on the shore. As Emma and I step out of the car blue skies and cool air wrap around us. Honeyeaters dart between banksia flowers, twittering.

We’re alone in the campground, so we can pitch our tent wherever we like. It all looks fine to me, but Emma fusses over flat ground and aspect until she settles finally on a spot beneath an ancient, gnarly banksia. We make a game of putting up the tent, flicking each other with tent poles and having mock fencing duels with the pegs. It’s been a long time since I played like this with another person.

After organising our camp, we make tea over a small gas stove and have something to eat. Then Emma hauls out her climbing pack and lays her gear on a tarp. She tosses me a pair of funny little rubber shoes and tells me to try them on. They’re as tiny as women’s ballet slippers, but somehow I manage to cram my feet into them and stand up. Emma laughs, telling me to stand straight and to stop looking so awkward. She says I’ll see how useful these shoes are when we’re climbing; for now, it’s a relief to change back into my runners. Next she pulls out a harness she has borrowed from a housemate, and I adjust the leg loops—my thighs are clearly not as bulky as those of the owner.

Once she has sorted out her gear, she packs everything away again and we drive through the coastal bush, winding onto a gravel road that takes us to a carpark above a small cove with golden sand. We’re some distance above the beach, and I can see two people strolling along the water’s edge. At each end of the beach are mounds of rocks painted red with lichen. The air is still and the steady rushing sound of the waves rises up to mingle with the smell of dew on the damp bushes.

Emma leads me along a tiny path that branches off the main beach trail, winding through prickly scrub and over rock slabs until we arrive at the base of a smooth granite dome. The view from here is stunning. Above and below us and stretching around the headland are sheets and domes of granite. The sea laps energetically at the lower rocks, and to the north I can see the couple still walking on the beach.

We unpack and wriggle into our harnesses. Emma clips an armoury of metal equipment around her waist and then tugs on her climbing shoes. As she moves, the belt makes a pleasant clinking sound. She has a furrowed look of concentration on her face as she goes over everything again, making sure she has all she needs. She seems capable and confident, calm and in control. It’s both reassuring and sexy.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Let’s check you out.’

She tests the fastenings on my harness. Then she starts teaching me how to tie a figure-eight knot, but I stop her, showing her I already know this, at least. When I went south, we had to learn some basic climbing knots, how to rope up for glacier travel and how to rig a pulley. I use knots for work too, tying loads, securing tarps. Still, Emma seems surprised. ‘I thought you’d have forgotten all this,’ she says.

‘I’m good with knots, and I’ve worn a harness before, but I’m not comfortable with heights. I’ve never been climbing.’

She grins. ‘You’ll be all right.’

Concentrating, she watches me tie in to my harness, and then she hooks me up to a big camming device she has placed in a crack near our feet. It expands to wedge itself tightly in the crack.

‘I’m not particularly heavy,’ she says. ‘And even without this you should be able to hold my weight if I fall. But I prefer to be safe and make sure we have backup.’

I like backup too, especially when I’m off the ground. Emma ties herself into the free end of the rope then shows me how to thread the rope through the belay device attached to my harness, and how to feed out length as she climbs. If she falls, the belay device will lock the rope so I can halt her descent. There’s a trade-off between having the rope too tight or too loose. She wants enough slack so that I’m not pulling on her as she ascends, but not so much that she’ll fall a long way if she comes off the rock face.

I have to be ready, she says, and I have to watch her all the time. She’s not planning to fall off, but it’s important that I’m prepared if she does. Then she runs through climbing communication, all of which sounds funny to me, but she says that after a couple of times it will become automatic; climbing is a dangerous sport and it requires a thorough and pedantic approach. Watching Emma’s serious face I have to resist the urge to kiss her.

Now we are ready to begin and I have so many things to think about I barely notice the view. I start to get nervous. The rope is in my left hand, running through the belay device to my right hand, which is ready to tighten the rope at any time. Emma gives me a final check over. My palms are sweating.

‘Okay,’ she says. ‘Climbing.’

I feed out some rope and watch her inspecting the rock for finger- and toeholds. She reaches up to a tiny ridge, sticks her toe in a little crack, makes a few swift moves and is already a couple of metres above my head. How did that happen so easily? Emma pokes a camming device into a crack above her and tugs on it firmly once it’s in place. She snaps a clipdraw into it and pulls on the rope. ‘Rope,’ she puffs. In my anxiety, I am holding on too tightly. Quickly I feed out some slack and she clips the rope through the hanging carabiner.

‘Good,’ she says, wedging her hand in the crack next to the camming device. She pauses to inspect the rock above and plan her next moves. ‘What you have to remember on granite,’ she says, ‘is that the footholds may not be obvious. It’ll seem scary at first, but if you put your weight on your foot, you can use friction to help you step up. This climb is not too steep, so take your time and you’ll work it out.’