I gather his torso, gather up his heat, into my arms.

‘I want to try going into this without fear. I’m sick of fear busting up my relationships. Does that make sense, Max?’

He nods yes, yes, yes.

Max whispers that no animal in their world is taller than them so that’s why we have to stay low. We crawl on our bellies on the wet surface of the sea ice. Our bodies snake on a pivot of our elbows as we approach the harem of seals. A new pup cuddles his mother’s face with a flipper. The pup makes suckling noises like an amplified human baby. He sneezes. His black nose kisses her.

We crawl closer still. The mother’s sudden searching nose veers in our direction. The pup wriggles fearlessly forward towards us in a hello. Its wet black nostrils quiver in and out, learning the newness of us. Its small body is encased in folds of luxurious pelt. It’s like a human baby that’s wrapped in a fur coat too big for it.

‘I reckon that if I held it up by its tail, all its bones would rattle to the bottom like a bag,’ I whisper.

We giggle and wriggle across the ice to another mother and pup. There’s the spread of blood in a two metre circle behind the animals. The clump of the afterbirth. The sac frozen flat. The baby seal is just a day or so old and its umbilical cord is still attached, snap-frozen in a stick to its belly. The seal flops its flippers, flips over onto its back, looks at us upside down and then with a roll is onto its belly again. We laugh with the seal. Deep, soft brown eyes stare at us. They’re clear with curiosity and an absolute trust. It’s humbling.

The sky’s a strange green-grey and it’s very low. I say we’d better think about getting back to the hut. We walk to the quads past a stillbirth obscured by snow. The afterbirth and the sac are tangled among the mess the skuas have made of the body. Max kicks snow at it.

The weather’s kicked up and my thumb aches as I push the quad into the wind. It’s slow work getting to the hut. When we’re finally there I take off my helmet and stare at the furious sky and a bit of grit comes searing into my eye. I shake my head and scream and it slithers sharply further in and I can’t get it out. Max takes my face between his hands and yells hold still and he licks and licks at my eyeball until the speck is gone and I come up from it smiling and still.