I rush forward, my heart whamming in my chest, and he turns and tells me it’ll be better off in its own world and he can’t bear to watch it anymore and as I say don’t! his hands throw Fin-tu out and away and down and I’m leaning far over the railing with my feet on the bottom rung and Fin-tu is dropping and trying to work his wings and dropping and dropping as the ship moves swiftly on and is gone.

I don’t cry. I’m very calm. There’s a core of ice-composure within me.

‘He’ll be much better off down there,’ says Tyrel. It’s like there’s an anger in his chest as tight and as hard as a tinfoil ball.

My face feels very set and very old as I turn and look at him, then walk away.

Blanca draws up the blankets and kisses me on the forehead like my mother used to. I turn to the wall and feel a sudden hot rush behind my eyes. I don’t cry. I don’t sleep for a very long time. When I finally do, I dream I’m sleeping with my eyes wide open. Or maybe I am.

Meg’s a woman who absorbs secrets. She doesn’t smile with her mouth open. She grins and it never seems generous. Her teeth are like chips of amber. She’s a vet, the senior woman on the voyage who’s been down south several times before. She’s fierce at the helm of what she calls a get-together for the women on the ship. To discuss ‘female issues’. I want to record it but I don’t dare ask. I settle for a notepad instead.

She tells us to remember there are no secrets in Antarctica. She tells us we’ll have to get used to pissing and shitting in company if we’re going to be camping in the field. She tells us plastic bags are for solid waste, and plastic film cartridges are good for tampons.

‘What’s that like, going to the toilet in front of the guys on your team?’ asks Callie.

‘Well, they don’t exactly stand around and watch. It’s just done. Everyone’s got bodily functions. If you’re at all inhibited about that sort of thing, you’re in the wrong place.’

Anya, a biologist, wants to go on the pill to stop herself menstruating in the field. She thinks it’ll be too messy to have to deal with, and too smelly. Helen says it’s not such a good idea. She says the pill will create a buildup in her uterus, and she could get irregular and continual bleeding. Not good, on the ice.

‘Dammit’, Anya says.