Out of the Ice Read Online Free
Author: Ann Turner
be in Antarctica or I’d drive them crazy. Even Alex weighed in. Just as long as I call every day, he said. And David sends his regards,’ she added casually. I froze.
David White was my second ex-husband. Yes, I have two of them: the one area where I’ve outdone my mother. In my early thirties I was desperately lonely when Antarctica called again. Returning to the icy wilderness had given me the first twinge of happiness after the loss of Hamish. It was a summer assignment studying whales in the Southern Ocean, with emphasis on how global warming might be affecting all the different species.
Our Station Leader that season was David White. He was tanned, blond-haired, blue-eyed, with a footballer’s body; the physical antithesis of dark-haired, brown-eyed Cameron – and the difference didn’t stop there. David, like Georgia, was a police detective who’d held a lifetime fascination with Antarctica. He’d won the job because he was gregarious, solid and adult, like he’d never even been a child. He made us all feel secure.
I was out in the field much of the time but when I came back, David was keen to hear my stories, particularly when I dived with the humpbacks and saw Lev again – now a fully grown forty-tonne whale, still with his diagonal scar and the black and white fluke markings I remembered vividly. As I swam near, Lev had moved his giant body gently with his long pectoral fins, like wings, so as not to crush me. He was as friendly as ever.
When the season ended David and I went back to Victoria, and two months later we caught up. He was stationed in Torquay on the Surf Coast and had a house further along the shore at Aireys Inlet. From his family room, perched high on a cliff, I saw migrating humpbacks the first day, their sleek black bodies surging through the aqua sea, hurling themselves high out of the water, breaching, then rolling playfully onto their backs to reveal their white pleats. They were following us from Antarctica, migrating to warmer waters for the winter. I grabbed David’s binoculars from the windowsill. I could barely believe it as one whale started to lobtail, beating the water with its tail, its giant flukes rising up like a black and white butterfly – with a diagonal scar running through. My skin prickled, I flushed with joy: it was Lev. As I noted with excitement the date, time and location of the sighting, I couldn’t help thinking it was a sign. I spent the rest of the year commuting up to Melbourne for work, returning to the fresh sea air at Aireys that revitalised me, and David who made me feel better than I had for a very long time. One morning he carved a question in the sand. Marry me? We were so happy, how could I not?
It was David who had introduced Georgia to Antarctica. That was a year before everything went wrong between him and me.
‘DVD night tonight,’ said Georgia. ‘I’ve chosen a ripper. Quite arty-farty. Reckon you’ll like it. Now do the vacuuming.’
Saturday was chores day at base. I considered myself lucky only to be vacuuming. Bathroom duty was much worse.
• • •
The dining room lights were dimmed and Georgia, beer in hand, stood at the front to introduce the film to the audience of winter tradies and newly-arrived scientists, mechanics, electricians, engineers, and an extra cook for the summer season. And Fran, our doctor, who had spent the past months growing a crop of hydroponic tomatoes but now faced the prospect of many more people to care for. (We loved Fran for those tomatoes – it was the only fresh fruit we had all winter.) We’d grown from a group of nine to about four dozen. The base was buzzing.
‘This is a classic, set in the place I love almost as much as here. Can you guess where?’ Georgia swigged her beer and topped it up straightaway from a large bottle. ‘Open your eyes to Venice. Take it away.’ She motioned dramatically to a bearded engineer who stood at the back of the room working the projector.
A
David White was my second ex-husband. Yes, I have two of them: the one area where I’ve outdone my mother. In my early thirties I was desperately lonely when Antarctica called again. Returning to the icy wilderness had given me the first twinge of happiness after the loss of Hamish. It was a summer assignment studying whales in the Southern Ocean, with emphasis on how global warming might be affecting all the different species.
Our Station Leader that season was David White. He was tanned, blond-haired, blue-eyed, with a footballer’s body; the physical antithesis of dark-haired, brown-eyed Cameron – and the difference didn’t stop there. David, like Georgia, was a police detective who’d held a lifetime fascination with Antarctica. He’d won the job because he was gregarious, solid and adult, like he’d never even been a child. He made us all feel secure.
I was out in the field much of the time but when I came back, David was keen to hear my stories, particularly when I dived with the humpbacks and saw Lev again – now a fully grown forty-tonne whale, still with his diagonal scar and the black and white fluke markings I remembered vividly. As I swam near, Lev had moved his giant body gently with his long pectoral fins, like wings, so as not to crush me. He was as friendly as ever.
When the season ended David and I went back to Victoria, and two months later we caught up. He was stationed in Torquay on the Surf Coast and had a house further along the shore at Aireys Inlet. From his family room, perched high on a cliff, I saw migrating humpbacks the first day, their sleek black bodies surging through the aqua sea, hurling themselves high out of the water, breaching, then rolling playfully onto their backs to reveal their white pleats. They were following us from Antarctica, migrating to warmer waters for the winter. I grabbed David’s binoculars from the windowsill. I could barely believe it as one whale started to lobtail, beating the water with its tail, its giant flukes rising up like a black and white butterfly – with a diagonal scar running through. My skin prickled, I flushed with joy: it was Lev. As I noted with excitement the date, time and location of the sighting, I couldn’t help thinking it was a sign. I spent the rest of the year commuting up to Melbourne for work, returning to the fresh sea air at Aireys that revitalised me, and David who made me feel better than I had for a very long time. One morning he carved a question in the sand. Marry me? We were so happy, how could I not?
It was David who had introduced Georgia to Antarctica. That was a year before everything went wrong between him and me.
‘DVD night tonight,’ said Georgia. ‘I’ve chosen a ripper. Quite arty-farty. Reckon you’ll like it. Now do the vacuuming.’
Saturday was chores day at base. I considered myself lucky only to be vacuuming. Bathroom duty was much worse.
• • •
The dining room lights were dimmed and Georgia, beer in hand, stood at the front to introduce the film to the audience of winter tradies and newly-arrived scientists, mechanics, electricians, engineers, and an extra cook for the summer season. And Fran, our doctor, who had spent the past months growing a crop of hydroponic tomatoes but now faced the prospect of many more people to care for. (We loved Fran for those tomatoes – it was the only fresh fruit we had all winter.) We’d grown from a group of nine to about four dozen. The base was buzzing.
‘This is a classic, set in the place I love almost as much as here. Can you guess where?’ Georgia swigged her beer and topped it up straightaway from a large bottle. ‘Open your eyes to Venice. Take it away.’ She motioned dramatically to a bearded engineer who stood at the back of the room working the projector.
A
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