“I guess.”
“Just take it easy—don’t overextend yourself—and we’ll talk again, maybe in a day or two.”
“Sure.”
“And Michael—in the meantime, why don’t you check in with the doctor on the base? Have him make sure—”
“Her. It’s a woman.”
“Okay—have her look you over. Can’t hurt.”
“Will do.” Michael waved the phone in the air, then rubbed his sleeve against it to create some more static. Whatever bromides Gillespie was offering next, he didn’t hear. Michael mumbled a good-bye into the receiver, hung up, then sat with his hands hanging down between his knees. He still wasn’t sure, but he suspected that he’d just done the dumbest thing in his life. He’d always operated on instinct—picking which route to take up a cliff face, which fork in the rapids to run, which cave to explore—and just now he’d gone with his instincts again. And he wasn’t even sure why. All he did know was that something inside him had rebelled—recoiled, even—at the thought of delivering Eleanor. To Joe Gillespie. To the world. Sure, what he’d done was a lie, but anything else would have felt like a betrayal.
Michael, he said to himself, you have well and truly fucked yourself.
He trudged alone to the commons, where he grabbed a sandwich and a couple of beers. Sam Adams Lagers, which only served to remind him of the flyers that Ackerley had written his last notes on. Uncle Barney had laid out a tray of Christmas cookies—gingerbread men decorated with pink icing—and Michael had a couple of those, too. But the Christmas spirit, which ought to have been easy to come by in a snowy landscape like the Pole, wasn’t anywhere around. Yeah, they’d all sung Danzig’s favorite songs at his memorial service, but he hadn’t heard a lot of singing since. A kind of pall still hung over everything and everyone at the Point.
He thought about stopping off at the infirmary on the way back to his dorm, but kept on going instead; he had no heart to face Eleanor just then, much less to lie to her about Sinclair, as he had been enjoined to do. He had some serious soul-searching to do—especially since he had derailed things with Gillespie. He just needed to be alone with his thoughts.
That was getting to be a constant refrain for him.
What had started as a fleeting question, in the back of his mind, was becoming something more than that, something that his mind kept returning to. What was going to happen to Eleanor? She couldn’t stay at Point Adélie forever, that was for certain. But how, and under what circumstances, could she leave? Did Murphy have some secret plan of his own? As far as Michael could see, she was going to require a friend, no matter what—someone she knew and trusted, to usher her into the modern-day world. And he also realized that, without any conscious deliberation, he had cast himself in that role.
In the communal bathroom, he took a long look at his own weary face in the mirror, and decided to shave. Why not shave before bed? At the South Pole, everything else was upside down.
But it wasn’t just Eleanor—there was Sinclair to consider. The two of them would want to be together. And what role would he serve then? He’d wind up as a kind of chaperone, shepherding the two lovers back into a brave, new, and bewildering world.
His beard was so rough the razor kept snagging, and drops of blood appeared on his cheek and chin.
If he was honest with himself, what other scenario had he been imagining? Brewing inside him, he knew, were feelings that did not bear close scrutiny. He was a photojournalist, for Christ’s sake, there on an assignment—that was it, and that was what he needed to focus on. The rest was just noise in his head.
He wiped some steam away from the mirror. His gaze was wide but dull—was he skirting the edge of the Big Eye?—and he needed a barber, too. His black hair was thick and unruly and curling over his ears. A couple of guys were yakking in the sauna behind him—from their voices he thought it might be Lawson and Franklin. He splashed some cold water on the spots where he’d cut himself, then took a quick shower and went back to his room.