New Brighton by Helen Trevorrow

Author:Helen Trevorrow [Trevorrow, Helen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781914480980
Publisher: Red Dog Press/Bloodhound Books

27

Ivan speaks to me. I hear him, but now and then I can tell by his lack of emphasis, or the quickening of his voice, that I am hearing his inner thoughts. It is not always obvious which is which, but I can see what he sees, sometimes feel what he feels, and I know he is showing me for a reason. He talks to himself like I do.

“What a place this is,” he says out loud, but it is meant for me only—or whoever he is recording these messages for. I wonder whom he is telling? He stands on a high metal walkway between a ship and a dock, disembarking after a long trip. He is thinking; “According to the United Kingdom, under whose sovereignty we operate, this is categorised as a scientific experiment. A necessary incursion onto a piece of land that has lain under a mile of ice for more than thirty million years.”

Ivan has secured a tiny plot, but it is big enough to fit in all of his dreams. He arrives at this piece of land in the evening—although it makes no difference here right now because it never gets dark. To Ivan, this is unusual, remarkable in fact. He has never experienced anything like it. To me, of course, in the now, this is normal.

“I’m doing it for you,” he says. I don’t think he can mean me, but rather the true intended recipient of these messages, whoever that might be.

Ivan is struck by the lack of ice. Out at sea, he has seen so many huge cliff-like bergs sheared off the glacier and floating. In the distance, to both the north and the south, he can make out the white-tipped mountains covered in snow. The temperature is moderate. He considers that the technology must be working well because the rocky earth is free of ice and snow.

He thinks that Antarctica is more than sixty times the size of the United Kingdom. More comparable in size with the continent of South America. He thinks that we have no idea what fossils might be found or what life once lived here, but we do know that it was not always covered in ice. We know that soon enough, perhaps even in his own lifetime, it will not be covered in ice once again.

Ivan asked for four thousand square kilometres. They awarded him one thousand square kilometres with a two thousand kilometre ‘dead zone’ around the settlement where the environments transition from terra-firma to its natural ice state.

He waves, overcome with excitement and emotion. There are fifty people waiting for him on the dock. It makes him think about ships returning to New York filled with sailors peppered with red, white and blue streamers—stars and stripes. He is romanticising, his heart has turned tender. His throat constricts, he chokes back tears of pride and sadness. How amazing it would be to have Elizabeth waiting for him here to circle her arms around his neck, kiss him, and then whisper that they were starting again, right here—starting over.

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