Half asleep on the carpet of the rec room. Listening to the slide and clank of objects in the hold. It’s as though I’m pressing my head to a hungry giant’s belly. I jerk awake in a big-ship tip. About twenty people in low chairs around me are watching a video and are sliding in unison two metres forward and then two metres back and then doing it all over again. It’s perfectly synchronised. Someone yells to turn off the video. Watching themselves is much more fun.

Aerobics are cancelled. Doctor’s orders. She doesn’t want to be fixing broken limbs.

I’m sick. I took off my patch because I thought I had my sea legs. It could be seasickness but I worry that I’m pregnant. The condom split and although he didn’t come, there could’ve been spillage and I don’t want morning sickness in Antarctica and God help me I don’t want a baby or an abortion. I do a sour heave into the toilet bowl and fall onto the bunk. A thudding head forces me up and there’s the rush to be sick again. I go to the doctor. She doesn’t seem surprised when I ask for a pregnancy test. It’s negative. I go back to the cabin. Blanca beside me is also sick. Andrea’s bouncily not. I put on a fresh patch and the nausea stops and Blanca asks for one too. It’s my last. I hand it across.

WHO NEEDS LUNA PARK WHEN YOU’VE GOT OUR SHIP?

The message is large on the whiteboard when I finally make it back to the mess for a meal.

The circle of far blue horizon around the ship contracts. Snow flurries. It nestles in corners and crevices on the decks and turns the vessel into a Christmas ship. We’ve passed the Roaring Forties and the Furious Fifties, we’ve passed the sixtieth latitude. We are now in Antarctic waters.

The ship’s roll stills as we sail into the thickness of mist.

Four: Trapping the Sky

FOUR

TRAPPING THE SKY

When the mist lifts the sky is white and the ocean disappears as we sail deeper south. On the first day, the water’s like heaving marble. It’s grey-black, with long veins of white through it. The next day there are giant icecubes bobbing in a bathtub sea. Then it’s ice pancakes. As far as I can see. Floating pancakes with their edges kicked up from nudging one another. Like an ocean of severed ears. Over the days the pancakes grow bigger and I peel off my seasickness patch. The ice has battened down the swell. I make a pilgrimage to the bridge every morning to check the changes.

‘Shit, you’re frightening.’