The glue’s dry. The seal comes fully up. It blinks big eyes at us all and lumbers slowly across to its mate who’s been scared across to the next floe. There’s relieved laughter. Max comes across to me and hits me softly on the shoulder. I stop the recorder. Cameras click and whir and there’s a shout from above. We turn. The orange side of the ship looms large. Spectators line the rim of the bow like tin soldiers. Jim’s one of them and he holds a cardboard scorecard high. EIGHT. There’s laughter and more camera clicks and I turn and walk away. Jim and I ignore each other now.

In ten minutes I’ll be back on the ship. I want to savour for just a little while standing on the patchwork quilt of ice over the ocean’s surface. The floe feels solid. I walk across it. Then fall with surprise from concrete hard snow into deep softness. There’s a sudden panic as I plunge to my thigh into slush.

I hope Jim isn’t looking.

I follow quickly after, in the footsteps of others.

Payback takes two passionfruit positioned carefully in a pair of men’s swimmers, some persuasion from several women on the ship, and courage. I’m not sure how much I’ve got when I make the decision to get Jim back.

My ammunition’s a pillow for a beer gut, a texta beard from Blanca, Jim’s North Queensland holiday resort T-shirt procured from his delighted bunkmate, a baseball cap back to front, Jim’s ever-present video camera, shorts, and over them speedos stretched tight. In them are two passionfruit, handpicked and polished by Henry the cook.

‘Excuse me,’ says Mark as his fingers fumble under the swimmers and jiggle the passionfruit into position. I try not to giggle. It feels good. He gives me a lesson on how a man scratches his balls.

‘That’s it. Just sort of reposition them. Try again. Yeah.’

As I walk out the door of my cabin Mark hands me a pile of stickmags. ‘They’re not mine, they’re from the bunkmate.’

I laugh. ‘I believe you.’

Blanca gives me advance reports. Expeditioners have crowded the rec room for my talk. Several people have requested that I fill in a slide-show spot with a lecture on my profession. I ummed and aahed because I’m good at blushing in public. The talent night decided me, though, and I walk into the expectant room. As Jim. The room erupts. Laughter comes at me and lifts me high. I drop the stickmags and aim the video camera and mimic his voice and scratch the balls and at the end of it present the real Jim with his honorary testicles.

‘They should have been rockmelons, mate.’

‘Well actually, Stiff, we tried jellybeans at first but they disappeared.’