Chapter 20: The Countdown
The house sat in quiet anticipation, its halls filled with the soft, blue-tinged light of early dawn. A heavy stillness hung in the air, echoing with the unspoken weight of a looming departure. Javier lay on his back, one arm tucked behind his head, watching the ceiling. Beside him, Roisin breathed slow and deep, her body warm against his side, one hand splayed across his chest as if she might anchor him there.
He knew the date by heart. July the fourth. Hobart, Tasmania. The itinerary lay in a drawer in his study, page after page of coordinates and resupply dates and equipment checklists, but he did not need to look at it. The days were counting down inside him, each one a small stone dropping into a well.
He turned his head to look at her. The new house was still unfamiliar in this light, the bedroom walls a pale sage she had chosen from a swatch book in a shop on Grafton Street. She had been so happy choosing it. He remembered the way she had held the square of fabric up to the window light, squinting, tilting her head, asking him if he thought it would suit. As if he cared. As if he would have lived in a cave as long as she was in it.
Her hair was spread across the pillow in a blonde wave. She was heavier now than when they had first met, her weight having crept up over the winter months, and she had confessed to him one evening in a low voice that she had never been this heavy in her life. He had kissed her then, soft and slow, and told her she was beautiful. He meant it. There was more of her to hold, more of her to love. He knew she did not see it that way, but he could wait. He had learned to be patient.
She stirred. Her eyes opened, that brilliant blue still clouded with sleep, and she smiled up at him.
"You're awake," she said.
"I couldn't sleep."
"Thinking about it again?"
He nodded. There was no point lying to her. She knew every line of his face by now, every tell.
She shifted closer, pressing her face into the hollow of his shoulder. Her hand moved up to his chest, fingers tracing the silver chain that lay against his skin.
"Four months," she said. Her voice was muffled against him. "Four months is an age."
"I know."
"And you'll be cold, and I'll be here alone, and I'll worry every single day."
"I know that too."
She lifted her head, and there were tears in her eyes already, bright and glassy in the dawn light. "I don't want you to go."
He pulled her close, wrapping both arms around her, and she came willingly, her weight settling on top of him. She was heavy and warm and she smelled of the lavender soap she kept in the bathroom, and he thought he could lie like this forever and still not have enough of her.
"I have to go," he said. "But I'll come back. I promised you I'd come back, and I meant it."
She sniffed against his chest. "I know. I just hate it. I hate that you have to be so far away where I can't reach you."
He stroked her hair, slow and soothing. "Greta's got satellite phones on the base. I'll call when I can. It won't be every day, but it'll be as often as I can manage."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she said, in a different voice, "Make love to me, Javier."
He turned his head to look at her, and she met his eyes with a fierce, almost defiant certainty. "I want to feel you before you go. I want to remember this."
"Róisín..."
"I mean it. I know it's early. I don't care." She sat up, her nightgown falling loose around her shoulders. "I want you so badly, and I don't want to waste a single minute feeling sad when I could be feeling you."
He reached up and took her face in his hands. She was so beautiful like this, her eyes bright, her skin flushed, her hair wild. He kissed her, slow and deep, and she melted into him with a sigh that seemed to come from somewhere very deep inside her.
The morning light grew stronger as they made love. He was gentle at first, learning the rhythm of her body again the way he always did, relearning the places that made her gasp and the places that made her laugh and the places that made her go very, very quiet. She took him inside her with a soft cry, her head thrown back, her hands gripping his shoulders, and he moved inside her with a steady, patient pace that made her whimper and plead.
She came once, then twice, then a third time, her body shuddering around him, her cries muffled against his neck. He held her through it, whispering in her ear, telling her she was beautiful, telling her he loved her, telling her he would come back to her no matter what the ice threw at him. She came one more time after that, her whole body arching, her hands fisted in the sheets, and when it was done she collapsed against him, trembling and breathless and weeping.
He held her while she cried. He did not try to stop her. He knew these tears were not sad ones, not entirely. They were relief and love and fear all tangled together, and he let them fall.
"I love you," he said against her hair. "I love you so much."
"I know," she whispered. "I know you do. I love you too."
They lay together in the growing light, sticky and warm and bound to each other, and for a little while the departure did not matter. There was only this room, this bed, this woman in his arms.
Later, they made breakfast together in the big, bright kitchen. The house was still a work in progress, full of half-unpacked boxes and furniture that had not yet found its place. The previous owners had painted the kitchen a soft butter yellow, and Roisin had decided she liked it so much she would keep it. She stood at the stove now, scrambling eggs in a big pan, her bare feet on the cold tile, humming a song he did not recognize.
Javier watched her from the table. She wore one of his old t-shirts, loose and faded, and she moved with that particular lazy grace of a woman who had been thoroughly loved that morning. He could not take his eyes off her.
"Stop staring," she said without turning around.
"Can't help it."
"You're making me self-conscious."
"You're beautiful. I'll stare all I want."
She laughed, that bright, warm laugh that had first hooked him in a coffee shop over a year ago. She brought the pan to the table and slid eggs onto his plate, then hers, and sat down across from him.
"After breakfast," she said, "I want to hang the curtains in the sitting room. The light gets in terribly at this time of year."
"I'll do it."
"You'll fall off the ladder."
"I won't fall off the ladder. I'm a trained professional."
"You're a marine biologist. You spend your life underwater. Ladders are not your domain."
He grinned at her. "Then you'll hold the ladder and tell me I'm doing a brilliant job."
"That I can do."
They ate their eggs, and then they did exactly that. Javier climbed the ladder with the new curtain rod, and Roisin held the bottom and gave him directions in a voice that was not nearly as confident as she pretended. The curtains were a deep burgundy velvet, heavy and rich, and when they were finally hung and properly drawn, the sitting room felt transformed. Roisin stood back and looked at it with her hands on her hips.
"That's lovely," she said. "That's really lovely."
"Told you I was a professional."
"You told me you wouldn't fall off the ladder. Let's not overstate things."
He laughed and came down the ladder and kissed the top of her head. She leaned into him, and they stood together in the middle of the room, looking at the space they were building.
"I like this house," she said quietly. "I like that it's ours."
"Me too."
"I never thought I'd have this, you know. A house of my own, a man who loves me, a future." She looked up at him. "After Seamus, I thought I was done. I thought I'd just have the shop and a quiet life and that would be that. And then you walked into that coffee shop..."
"I walked into that coffee shop looking for a room."
"And you found me instead."
He kissed her again, and she made a small, satisfied sound against his lips. They spent the rest of the morning decorating. They hung pictures in the hallway, placed a vase of fresh flowers on the mantelpiece, moved a heavy armchair from one corner to another and then back again because Roisin could not decide. Javier did not complain once. He liked this. He liked the simple domesticity of it, the shared decisions, the way she would ask his opinion and then ignore it entirely.
In the afternoon, he went out on an errand while Roisin took a nap. He had been planning this for weeks, ever since they had moved in and he had seen the mortgage documents on the kitchen table one evening when she had left them out by accident. The figure had made his stomach drop. She was paying far too much, and she was doing it alone.
The solicitor's office was on a quiet street in Ballsbridge, and Javier had made the appointment in his own name, using his own money, keeping it entirely from Roisin. He signed the papers with a calm hand, answering the solicitor's questions with an easy nod, and wrote the bank draft without flinching.
When he came home, the light was beginning to fade, and Roisin was in the kitchen again, this time with a glass of wine and a cooking pot on the stove. She looked up when he came in, and her face broke into that smile that always undid him.
"There you are," she said. "I was beginning to wonder if you'd got lost."
"I had an errand."
"What errand?"
He crossed the kitchen and took her face in his hands and kissed her. "I'll tell you tonight. After dinner. It's a surprise."
"A surprise?" Her eyes lit up. "What kind of surprise?"
"If I told you, it wouldn't be a surprise."
She pouted at him, which he found absurdly endearing. "You're impossible."
"I know. You love me anyway."
"I do. I really do."
They had dinner together, a rich beef stew she had been cooking all afternoon, and they talked about nothing and everything. She told him about a customer at the boutique who had tried to negotiate a discount on a silk slip, and he told her about Fergal's latest story from the farm in Clare. They laughed, they argued playfully about the right way to season a stew, and they lingered at the table long after the plates were empty.
When the dishes were done, Javier took her hand and led her into the sitting room. He sat her down on the sofa and knelt in front of her.
"What are you doing?" she asked, laughing. "You look like you're about to propose."
"Not yet," he said. "Soon, maybe. But not yet. This is something else."
"What is it?"
He reached into his pocket and pulled out an envelope. She looked at it with a puzzled frown, and he watched her expression change as she opened it and saw what was inside. The colour drained from her face, then flooded back, and her hands began to shake.
"Javier," she breathed. "Javier, what is this?"
"It's the mortgage. It's paid off."
She stared at him. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out.
"I saw the papers on the table a few weeks ago," he said. "I know you've been stressing about it, love. I know the shop's been tight, and I know you've been carrying it all on your own. So I fixed it. It's done."
"You paid it off," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "You paid off my house."
"Our house."
"Javier, that's... that's two hundred and forty thousand euro..."
"I know."
"You... you can't just..."
"I can. I did." He took her hands, the envelope still clutched in them. "I have money, Róisín. More than I need. And there's nothing in the world I want to spend it on more than you."
She was crying now, tears streaming down her face, her hands shaking. "You didn't have to do this."
"I wanted to."
"I don't deserve..."
"Don't," he said firmly. "Don't say that. You've given me everything. You've given me a home, you've given me love, you've given me a reason to come back from the ice. This is nothing compared to what you've given me."
She threw her arms around him and sobbed into his shoulder. He held her, stroking her back, letting her cry it out. When she finally pulled away, her face was blotchy and her eyes were red, and she was still the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.
"I'm going to marry you," she said fiercely. "When you come back from Antarctica, I'm going to marry you."
He smiled at her, his heart swelling in his chest. "Is that a promise?"
"It's a vow. It's the only vow I've made in my life that I know I'll keep."
He kissed her, and she kissed him back with a ferocity that left him breathless. They made love again that night, slower this time, more tender, savouring every moment as if it were their last. She came with her face buried in his neck, her body shuddering around him, and afterwards she wept again, but they were happy tears, and he held her until she fell asleep.
In the morning, over breakfast, she told him about the gym.
"I've joined," she said, not meeting his eyes. "There's a women's gym on the corner of Camden Street. I signed up yesterday."
"That's great, love. That's brilliant."
"I need to lose weight." She put her mug down and finally looked at him. "I know you say I'm beautiful, and I believe you mean it, but I look at myself and I don't like what I see. I want to be healthier. I want to be lighter. I want to feel like myself again."
He reached across the table and took her hand. "Then you should do it. For yourself. Not for me."
"You're sure you don't mind?"
"Róisín, I love you. I loved you when you were smaller, and I love you now, and I'll love you no matter what you weigh. If you want to go to the gym, I'll support you every step of the way. I'll drive you there if you want. I'll make you smoothies. I'll cheer you on."
She laughed, a watery, embarrassed sound. "You're going to make a scene at the women's gym?"
"I'll wait outside. I'll be the handsome one on the bench."
"You're incorrigible."
"I know. You love me anyway."
She came around the table and sat on his lap, wrapping her arms around his neck. "I do. God help me, I do."
He held her there, in the bright morning kitchen of their new house, with the smell of coffee in the air and the taste of her on his lips. Somewhere an Australian survey in Antarctica, an itinerary waited for him. Somewhere in the south, ice was calling his name. But here, in this moment, there was only her, and the promise they had made each other, and the future that was waiting for them on the other side of the cold.
The kitchen light was warm and golden, and for a long moment neither of them moved. Then Roisin shifted on his lap, pressing her forehead to his, and let out a long, slow breath.
"You know," she said softly, "I think I might actually be happy. For the first time in years, I think I might be properly, completely happy."
"Good," he said. "That's the plan."
"The plan," she repeated, smiling. "You and your plans."
They stayed like that until her coffee went cold, and then she got up and made them both another cup, and the morning drifted on as mornings do when they are perfect and small and full of love.
The days that followed went by quickly. Javier's master's programme was approaching its final exams, and the library became his second home. He would leave the house early, his bag heavy with textbooks and printed journal articles, and he would not return until the light was fading. Molly was his constant companion in the long study sessions, her laptop open beside his, her presence familiar and comforting in a way that no longer carried any romantic tension, just the easy warmth of friendship.
"You're going to do brilliantly," she told him one afternoon, shoving a stack of papers across the table. "You always do. It's obscene, really."
"It's called hard work."
"It's called being annoyingly clever. There's a difference." She grinned at him. "I've accepted my mediocrity. You should embrace your brilliance."
"I'm not brilliant. I'm just persistent."
"That's the same thing, basically."
Fergal was there too, his great laugh booming across the quiet library floors, earning him glares and shushing from the librarians. He was struggling with the statistical methods module, and Javier spent long afternoons walking him through regression analysis while Molly made notes in the margins of her own work. Saoirse came and went, bringing them coffee from the machine on the ground floor, her own exam timetable less punishing than theirs. Declan was a quiet presence at the far end of the table, painting small figures in the margins of his notebooks when he thought no one was looking.
They were a group, Javier realised. A family of sorts, patched together from coursework and shared stress and the strange alchemy of being thrown together in a foreign city. He would miss this when it was over. He would miss all of it.
At home, Roisin had found her rhythm at the gym. She went three mornings a week, before the boutique opened, and she came home flushed and energised, smelling of sweat and lavender soap. She was losing weight, slowly, steadily. The numbers on the scale were not dramatic, but she could feel the difference in her clothes, in the way she moved, in the way she climbed the stairs without getting quite so winded.
"I'll never be slim," she said one evening, sitting on the sofa with her bare feet tucked under her. "I've always been fat. I'll always be fat. But I want to be a fat woman who can run up the stairs without dying."
"That's a noble goal," Javier said.
"It is, actually. I looked at the scale yesterday, and I've lost eleven pounds since I started."
"That's brilliant, love."
"I know. I'm proud of me."
He leaned over and kissed her temple. "I'm proud of you too."
"I know that too." She smiled at him. "You're very good at being proud of me. Is that a skill you learned at university?"
"It's a natural talent."
The weeks rolled on. Exams came and went with the blur of sleepless nights and too much coffee. Javier wrote essays with his hand cramping, sat through three-hour examinations with his heart pounding in his throat, and came out of the final one feeling like he had run a marathon. Molly hugged him outside the exam hall, Fergal lifted him off his feet in a bear hug that made his ribs creak, and Saoirse produced a bottle of cheap prosecco from her bag that they drank in the courtyard while the late spring sun warmed their faces.
"It's over," Molly said, staring at the sky. "It's actually over. We're done."
"Until the results come out," Fergal pointed out.
"Don't ruin the moment, Fergal."
"I'm just saying."
"Don't say."
They laughed, and Javier felt something loosen in his chest. The master's was done. The thesis was submitted. All that remained was the waiting, and he had other things to occupy his mind.
A week before his departure, his phone rang while he was sitting in the back garden, watching the bees work the lavender that Roisin had planted along the fence. The screen lit up with Greta's name, and he answered with a smile already spreading across his face.
"Javier." Her gruff voice crackled through the speaker. "How's the academic life treating you?"
"Exams are done," he said. "I'm a free man."
"Good. You'll need your wits about you for what's coming."
There was a rustling sound, as if she were shuffling papers. He could picture her in her study, her weathered face lit by the glow of a laptop screen, a mug of something strong at her elbow.
"The survey plans are finalised," she said. "We've got the base confirmed. It's a small operation, nothing like the Reef Ranger. The ship will hold, let me see, eighteen of us in total. You, me, Anke, and a crew of fifteen. There will be a separate team of scientists joining us on the ice, but they'll be based at the research station proper. Our group will be discrete."
"Eighteen people," Javier repeated. "That's a tight ship."
"It is. It'll be cramped and cold and sometimes you'll want to strangle someone, but it's manageable. The diving team is just you and Anke. The rest of them are support staff, meteorologists, a couple of glaciologists, a cook who spent six years in the Falklands and doesn't take shit from anyone. You'll like them."
"And you'll be in command?"
"I'll be commander of the base, aye. It's my operation. I answer to the funding board, and everyone on that ship answers to me." There was a pause, and when she spoke again, her voice was softer. "I'm looking forward to having you under my command, son. Properly this time. Not just for a survey run but for the whole enterprise."
"I'm looking forward to it too, Greta."
"Good. I need divers I can trust, and I trust you. I trust Anke as well, but she's still recovering from that leg. If it gives her trouble on the ice, I'll have her on deck duties and you'll be doing the deep work alone."
"That's fine."
"It's not fine, it's hard work. But you've got the nerve for it. I've seen it."
He was quiet for a moment, thinking about the cold, the dark, the crushing pressure of the deep. It had been months since his last real dive, and he could feel the pull of it in his bones.
"When do we sail?" he asked.
"Hobart, July the ninth. The ship's berthed there already, being fitted out. Supplies go aboard on the fourth. We sail on the ninth, as long as the weather holds."
"And we'll be at the ice for?"
"Four months, give or take. We'll be back in Hobart before Christmas." She paused. "That's the plan, anyway. The ice has a way of changing plans."
"I know."
"Tell your woman she has nothing to worry about. I'll bring you back in one piece."
He smiled. "I'll tell her."
"You do that. And tell her I said she's got good taste."
"I'll tell her that too."
The call ended, and Javier sat for a moment holding the phone in his hands. The garden was peaceful, the light soft and golden, and somewhere inside the house Roisin was humming as she tidied the kitchen. He could hear the clatter of dishes, the faint sound of the radio on the windowsill.
Four months. Eighteen people. One diving partner who might not be fit for the deep work. And a woman who loved him, waiting at home.
He stood up, pocketed his phone, and went inside.
He found her in the kitchen, drying her hands on a tea towel, the radio murmuring something soft and melodic in the corner. She looked up when he came in, and her face asked the question before her mouth could.
"Greta," he said. "The ship sails July the ninth. She called to confirm."
Roisin set the towel down and came to him, folding herself into his arms without a word. He held her, breathing in the familiar scent of her hair, feeling the solid warmth of her against him.
"July the ninth," she repeated against his chest.
"That's the plan. We'll be back before Christmas."
She was quiet for a long moment. Then she pulled back, squared her shoulders, and gave him a smile that was only a little bit wobbly. "Then we've got a week and a bit to make the most of it. I'm not spending it crying."
"You can spend some of it crying. I expect you to."
"I'll budget it. A little in the mornings, a little before bed. The rest of the time we'll be happy."
He kissed her forehead. "That's a good plan."
They had a good week. They went to the cinema and held hands in the dark like teenagers. They walked along the canal in the evenings, and Roisin pointed out the houses she had always admired, the ones with the big windows and the wild gardens. They cooked elaborate meals together and ate them slowly, savouring every bite and every moment. At night, they made love with a tenderness that bordered on reverence, and in the mornings they lingered over coffee, postponing the moment when they would have to face the day.
Four days before his departure, Javier's phone rang at six in the morning. The number was Australian, and his heart lurched before he even answered.
"Javier." Greta's voice was sharp, clipped, the voice she used when something had gone badly wrong. "You need to sit down."
He was already sitting, at the kitchen table with a mug of coffee in his hand. Roisin was still asleep upstairs. "What's happened?"
"There's been a problem with your visa. The Australian authorities have revoked your entry clearance."
"What?" He set the mug down, his hand suddenly unsteady. "Why?"
"There's been some kind of administrative cock-up. A clerical error, from what I can gather. They're saying your clearance was tied to the previous expedition, and it was never extended for the Antarctic survey. It's a paperwork issue, nothing more, but it's flagged you in the system."
"Flagged me for what?"
"For a security review. They're saying you didn't declare certain travel history. It's nonsense, absolute nonsense, but it's going to take time to sort out."
"How much time?"
There was a pause. When Greta spoke again, her voice was strained. "Potentially weeks. Maybe months. It depends on how quickly the appeals process moves."
Javier closed his eyes. Weeks. Months. The survey sailed in four days.
"I'll sort it," Greta said firmly. "I've got contacts. I spent twenty years in this field, and I know half the people in the Australian Department of Home Affairs. I'm going to start making calls this minute. You do nothing. You don't call anyone, you don't email anyone, you don't poke the system. You wait for me."
"Greta, if I can't get a visa—"
"You'll get a visa. I won't let it fall through. You're on my crew, and nobody tells me who I can and can't have on my crew." Her voice softened, just slightly. "Give me forty-eight hours. Then we'll know."
She hung up before he could say anything else.
Javier sat in the kitchen, the phone cold in his hand, his mind racing. Four days. Forty-eight hours to fix a visa that had somehow been revoked. He thought about the itinerary in his drawer, the coordinates and resupply dates, the promise he had made to Roisin. He thought about Christmas, about coming home to her. He thought about all the ways this could go wrong.
Roisin came down half an hour later, still in her dressing gown, her hair a mess. She took one look at his face and stopped dead.
"What is it?"
He told her. She listened without interrupting, her hand pressed to her mouth. When he was done, she came to him and wrapped her arms around him and held him for a long, long time.
"Greta will fix it," she said finally. "If anyone can, she can."
"I know."
"But you're scared."
"I'm terrified." He looked up at her. "I'm terrified of losing this. Of losing you. Of watching it all slip away because some clerk in Canberra ticked the wrong box."
"You won't lose me. You couldn't. I'm stuck to you like glue, Javier Barreiro. And no Australian bureaucrat is going to change that."
He laughed, a hollow sound, but it was something. She held him until the coffee went cold, and then she made them both another cup, and they sat together in the growing light, waiting.
Greta called back the next morning.
"Sorted," she said, and Javier felt the breath leave his body in a rush. "It was an administrative mistake. The initial clearance for the last expedition was filed under a different classification, and when the system renewed your records, it flagged the discrepancy. You're clear."
"Clear completely?"
"Clear completely. I made three calls. The third one was to a woman I knew in Hobart who happens to be married to the deputy commissioner of immigration. She made one call, and suddenly the whole thing was resolved. Twenty years in this business, and it still comes down to who you know."
"Greta, I don't know how to thank you."
"Don't thank me. Just get on that ship on the ninth and do your job." There was a pause. "I meant what I said, Javier. You're on my crew. I look after my own."
He closed his eyes, the relief washing over him like water. "I'll be there."
"I know you will. Now go tell your woman the good news. I expect she's been worried sick."
Roisin was in the sitting room, pretending to read a magazine. She looked up when he came in, and he crossed the room in three strides and took her face in his hands.
"It's sorted. Administrative mistake. We're clear."
She burst into tears. He held her while she cried, his own eyes stinging, his own heart pounding with the release of it all.
"I thought I'd lose you before you even left," she said, her voice muffled against his chest.
"You could never lose me. I'm too stubborn."
"I know. I know you are." She pulled back, wiped her eyes, and laughed. "God, I'm a wreck. I'll be a wreck for the next four months."
"I'll call you every chance I get."
"You better. You promised."
"I promised, and I keep my promises."
The next day, the exam results arrived by email. Javier opened the message in his study, his heart pounding in his throat, and read the words over twice before they sank in.
First class honours. Distinction. All As.
He stared at the screen, blinking. He had known he had done well. He had felt good coming out of the exams, confident in his answers, but this... this was more than he had allowed himself to hope for.
He printed the email and took it downstairs. Roisin was in the kitchen, chopping vegetables for a salad, and he set the paper on the counter in front of her without a word.
She read it, looked up at him, read it again.
"Javier."
"All As," he said, and his voice cracked on the words. "I got all As."
She dropped the knife and threw her arms around him, and they danced around the kitchen, laughing and crying and knocking a chair over in the chaos. It was ridiculous and wonderful and perfect, and for a few minutes neither of them could speak.
"I'm so proud of you," Roisin said, her voice fierce and thick with tears. "I'm so, so proud of you."
He held her, his face pressed into her hair, and let himself feel it. The years of work, the late nights, the sacrifices, the loneliness of London and the strangeness of Dublin. It had all been worth it. Every single moment had been worth it.
The phone in his pocket buzzed. He pulled it out and saw a message from Molly.
Me too. Can you believe it? We did it. Pub tonight. The whole gang. You have to come.
He smiled and texted back.
I'll be there.
They went to a pub in Temple Bar, the one with the sticky floors and the live music that started at nine. Fergal had reserved a table in the back, and he raised his glass the moment they walked in.
"The man of the hour! First class honours, all As, the lot of it. Come here and let me shake your hand, you magnificent bastard."
Javier laughed and let himself be pulled into a crushing hug. Molly was there, her face bright with joy, and she hugged him too, a real hug, full of warmth and friendship.
"You did it," she said. "You actually did it."
"We did it. You said you did well too."
"I got a distinction. First class honours." She grinned. "I still can't believe it."
"Did you ever doubt it?"
"I doubted everything. That's my natural state." She laughed. "But I'm happy. I'm really, really happy."
Saoirse arrived with a bottle of prosecco in each hand, and Declan drifted in behind her, quiet as ever, a canvas bag over his shoulder. They pushed tables together, ordered pints and crisps and plates of nachos, and the evening spiralled out into laughter and stories and the easy, comfortable chaos of friends who had been through something hard together and come out the other side.
"To us," Fergal said, raising his glass. "To the greatest cohort this university has ever seen."
"To us," they echoed, and they drank.
At some point, Molly pulled Javier aside. They stood by the window, looking out at the river, the lights of the city glittering on the water.
"I'm moving to London," she said. "I've got a job. Teaching biology at a secondary school in Hackney."
"That's brilliant, Molly. That's exactly what you wanted."
"I know. I'm going to miss it here, though. I'm going to miss all of you." She looked at him. "I'm going to miss you, Javier. Not in the way I did before. I'm past that. But I will miss you. You were one of the first people in Ireland who made me feel like I belonged."
"You'll find that again in London. You'll find it everywhere you go. You've got a gift for it."
"Maybe." She smiled. "What about you? Antarctica. That's a big deal."
"It's the project of a lifetime. I still can't quite believe it's happening."
"You'll do brilliantly. You always do." She leaned in and kissed his cheek, quick and warm. "Keep in touch, okay? I want to hear about the ice and the penguins and whatever else you find down there."
"I will. I promise."
They rejoined the group, and Fergal launched into a story about a sheep and a tractor that somehow took twenty minutes to tell and had all of them weeping with laughter. Declan produced his latest painted miniature from his bag and passed it around, a tiny knight in silver armour, and they all marvelled at the detail.
"I'll write to you," Declan said quietly, when the miniature came back to him. "From wherever I end up. I'm not good with phones, but I'm good with letters."
"Send me one," Javier said. "I'll be in a station in Antarctica soil. A letter would be a welcome thing."
"I will. I'll write to you about the weather and the miniatures I'm painting, and you'll write back about the ice and the whales, and neither of us will read each other's letters, but we'll keep writing them anyway."
"That's the most Declan thing I've ever heard," Molly said, and they all laughed.
The night wound down slowly, in the way that good nights do. They spilled out of the pub into the cool Dublin air, the streets quiet and still, the city settling into sleep. Fergal hugged Javier hard enough to lift him off the ground. Saoirse squeezed his hand and told him to be careful. Declan nodded, one short nod, his eyes bright.
"You'll be grand," Declan said, and Javier believed him.
Molly was the last. She stood on the pavement, her coat pulled tight around her, and looked at him for a long moment.
"Come back safe," she said. "You've got people who love you here."
"I know. I will."
She hugged him, fierce and brief, and then she was gone, walking away down the street with her hands in her pockets, not looking back. Javier watched her go, thinking about the strange path that had brought them here, the tangled threads of their history, the way love could change shape and become something else, something no less real.
He walked home through the quiet streets, the city familiar to him now in a way it had not been when he had arrived, a year and a half ago, searching for a room to rent. He thought about the coffee shop, the first glimpse of Roisin's smile, the way she had looked at him across the table. He thought about everything that had happened since, the secrets and the fears and the joy, the house they had built together, the future stretching out ahead of them.
Roisin was waiting for him when he got home, curled up on the sofa with a book in her lap. She looked up when he came in, and her face softened into that smile he would never tire of.
"Good night?"
"The best. I'm going to miss them."
"They'll be here when you get back. All of them. They'll be different, maybe, but they'll be here."
"I know." He sat down beside her and pulled her into his arms. "I'm going to miss you most of all."
"You'll be too busy looking at penguins to miss me."
"I'll look at the penguins and think about you instead. That's what I'll do."
She laughed, soft and warm. "You're ridiculous."
"I know. You love me anyway."
"I do. I really do."
The night before his departure, they lay in bed together, the lights off, the curtains open so the moonlight spilled across the floor. Roisin was curled against him, her head on his chest, her hand tracing patterns on his skin.
"You'll call me when you land in Hobart?"
"The moment I get signal. I promise."
"And every week after that?"
"I'll try. The satellite phone might not always be available, but I'll use it every chance I get."
"Write me letters," she said. "Real letters. I want to hold something in my hands that you wrote."
"I will. I'll write you long, boring letters about ice cores and water temperatures."
"I'll read every word."
They were quiet for a while. The house settled around them, creaking and sighing, the sounds of a place becoming home.
"Tell me about the wedding," she said softly.
"What wedding?"
"The one we're going to have when you come back." She lifted her head to look at him, her eyes bright in the moonlight. "Tell me about it. I want to picture it."
He considered for a moment. "It'll be in Ireland. Somewhere in the west, maybe. A small church by the sea. I'll wear a suit and you'll wear something beautiful, and your friends will spoil you and my family will fly over from Valencia."
"And the reception?"
"A big tent on the cliffs, with lanterns and music and too much food. There'll be dancing. My aunt will cry and my mother will cry, and you'll laugh at all of us."
"And we'll live here?"
"We'll live here. In this house. We'll fill it with books and plants and maybe a dog."
"A dog?"
"Whatever you want. A dog, a cat, two cats, a parrot. I don't care. As long as you're in it."
She kissed him, slow and deep, and when she pulled back her eyes were shining. "That's the most beautiful thing anyone's ever said to me."
"It's all true."
"I know it is." She settled back against his chest. "I'll be counting the days."
"I know. I will too."
In the morning, they drove to the airport. Roisin's car was a small, practical thing, and Javier's bag filled the boot, leaving barely enough room for their legs in the front. She drove with steady hands, her eyes fixed on the road, and neither of them spoke much. There was nothing left to say that had not already been said, no words that could hold the weight of what was happening.
At the terminal, they stood in the drop-off zone, the traffic noise around them, the glass doors ahead leading to a world he was about to leave behind.
"Your passport?" she asked.
"In my bag."
"Ticket?"
"On my phone."
"Warm clothes?"
"Five jumpers and a parka that Greta had sent up from Hobart. I'm ready."
She nodded, a little shakily. "Okay. Okay, you're ready."
He took her face in his hands and kissed her, long and sweet, a kiss that tried to say everything his words could not. When he pulled back, tears were streaming down her cheeks, and he wiped them away with his thumbs.
"I'll be back before you know it."
"I'll be here."
"Every day, Róisín. Every day I'll think of you."
"Good." She laughed, a wet, tremulous sound. "I expect a letter every week. Thick ones. Lots of detail."
"I'll write you a thousand words a day."
"More."
"Ten thousand."
"That's better."
He kissed her one more time, and then he picked up his bag and walked toward the glass doors. He looked back once, and she was still standing there, her hand raised, her face bright with tears and love and hope.
He walked through the doors, and the world beyond swallowed him up.
The flight to London was short, barely an hour, and then he had a layover that stretched into an eternity of airport coffee and terminal pacing. He called Roisin from a pay phone, just to hear her voice, and she laughed and told him to stop being so sentimental and get on his plane.
The flight to Santiago was long, fourteen hours across the Atlantic and down the South American coast, and he slept fitfully, dreaming of ice and open water and a woman with blue eyes.
In Santiago, he met the rest of Greta's crew at a small hotel near the airport. There was the cook, a wiry Falklands veteran named Margaret who shook his hand with a grip like iron. The two glaciologists, a married couple from New Zealand who seemed to finish each other's sentences. A meteorologist from Canada who had spent three winters at the South Pole and talked about the cold with a kind of reverence. Anke was there too, limping only slightly, her broad shoulders braced with anticipation.
"Javier," she said, and hugged him like an old friend. "I knew you'd make it."
"I never doubted it."
"Liar. You look like you haven't slept in a week."
"I haven't. But I'm here now."
"Good. The rest is easy from here. Just a ship ride and some ice."
Greta was the last to arrive, sweeping into the hotel lobby in a heavy coat, her grey hair tucked under a woollen hat. She spotted Javier and crossed the room toward him, and there was something in her face, a softening, a warmth.
"You're here," she said. "I told you you'd be here."
"You did. I believe you now."
"Good. Because we're leaving for Punta Arenas in two hours, and from there we board the ship, and after that there's no turning back."
"I wouldn't turn back if I could."
She clapped him on the shoulder, a hard, affectionate blow. "That's my boy. Now let's go. There's ice waiting for us."
They flew south, to the windy edge of the world, and then they boarded the ship, a sturdy ice-class vessel named the Stella Polaris that would carry them across the Drake Passage and into the white, silent heart of Antarctica.
Javier stood on the deck as the ship eased away from the dock, the Chilean coast receding behind them, the open water stretching ahead. The sky was grey, the wind cold, and somewhere beyond the horizon lay the vast continent of ice that would be his home for the next four months.
He thought of Roisin, standing alone in their bright kitchen, making tea for one. He thought of the wedding they would have, the small church by the sea, the dancing and the tears and the joy. He thought of everything he had left behind, and everything he would come home to.
"You okay?" Anke appeared beside him, her own eyes fixed on the water.
"Yeah. I'm okay."
"Missing her already?"
"Every minute."
"That's good." She nodded, satisfied. "That's the way it should be."
The ship pushed on, south and south and south, toward the ice.
The Drake Passage did its best to shake them apart. For two days the Stella Polaris rolled and pitched through grey-green swells, and half the crew stayed in their bunks, pale and groaning, while the other half took turns at the rail. Javier had weathered worse in the North Sea, but even he felt the strain as the ship fought its way south through the shipping lanes that funnelled the world's fiercest ocean toward the Antarctic Sound. Margaret the cook served thick soup and dry biscuits, and those who could keep it down swore by her remedy. Those who could not stayed below and prayed for land.
The ice began as a line on the horizon, white and unbroken. Then it rose, towering and silent, great cliffs of it descending to a sea that had turned the colour of steel. The wind carried the smell of it, cold and clean, a scent like nothing Javier had ever known. He stood on the foredeck with Anke beside him, both of them bundled so thickly they could barely move their arms, and they watched the white continent come to meet them.
"Hard to believe," Anke said, her voice muffled by her balaclava.
"Yeah."
"I keep thinking I'm going to wake up and still be in the hotel in Santiago."
"You're not dreaming."
She laughed, a short, breathy sound. "That's what I'm afraid of. That this is real and I'm going to mess it up somehow."
Javier turned to look at her. "You won't. You're the best diver I've ever worked with. And I'm not just saying that."
"You're a terrible liar."
"I'm not lying. I mean it."
She shook her head, but he could see the smile in her eyes. The leg was still giving her trouble, he knew. She had confided in him on the flight south that the bone was healed but the muscle still ached in the cold. She had sworn him to secrecy, and he had kept it, but he watched her now with a private worry he would not speak aloud.
The ship rounded a headland of black rock and sheer blue ice, and there it was: the base. Three buildings set in a rough triangle on a low shelf of gravel moraine above the water. They were low, utilitarian structures, painted a faded orange that stood out sharply against the white and grey of the surrounding land. A small jetty extended into the sheltered bay, and a couple of tracked vehicles sat near the buildings, half-buried in drifted snow. Beyond them, the land rose sharply into a wall of ice that seemed to go on forever, ridge after ridge, until it disappeared into the pale sky.
Greta appeared on the bridge wing, her bulky frame wrapped in a heavy red parka that made her look like a particularly sturdy lighthouse. She raised a field scope to her eye, scanned the base, and lowered it with a grunt of satisfaction.
"Fifteen days early," she said to no one in particular. "That's a first."
The Stella Polaris eased alongside the jetty, its engines rumbling down to a murmur as lines were thrown and made fast. The maintenance crew was already waiting on the dock, a small knot of figures in bright cold-weather gear, waving and calling out greetings that were snatched away by the wind. A stocky man in a yellow hat came forward to shake Greta's hand as she descended the gangway, and they stood for a moment, heads together, speaking over the groan of the wind.
Javier helped the crew unload. The supply crates were heavy, packed with instruments and food and the endless matériel that a remote research station required to survive a season. They worked for hours, moving boxes from ship to shore, stacking them in the main building's storage annex. The cold bit at exposed skin, and the wind never stopped, but the work kept them warm, and there was something good in it, the communal rhythm of hands passing boxes down a line, the grunt and shuffle of boots on gravel.
By late afternoon, the job was done. The ship had pulled away to re-anchor in the bay, and the base was suddenly quiet, the only sounds the wind and the creak of the buildings and the distant crack of ice calving somewhere unseen. Javier stood on the gravel shelf and turned in a slow circle, taking it in. The ice was everywhere, an infinite white expanse broken only by the dark water of the bay and the small, brave patch of human habitation that was now his home.
Greta appeared at his elbow. "First time on the ice?"
"Yes."
"Gets in your blood. You'll see. You'll be back here a dozen times before you're done."
"I think I believe you."
She nodded, satisfied. "Your quarters are in the second building. You and Anke are sharing. It's not the Ritz, but it's dry and warm. Watch: the bunks are narrow, so don't snore. The walls are thin and I have better things to do than listen to complaints."
"Understood."
"Good. Dinner's at six. Don't be late."
She was gone before he could reply, striding across the gravel with that rolling, determined gait of hers, her red parka a beacon against the white.
The second building was warm inside, heated by a diesel stove that ticked and rumbled in the corner. It held four rooms, two on each side of a narrow common area. Javier found his and Anke's on the left. The bunks were narrow racks, one above the other, with thin mattresses and thick sleeping bags. A small desk sat against one wall, and a portable gas lamp stood on it, waiting for the long polar night that was still weeks away. A window looked out over the bay, the glass frosted at the edges, the Stella Polaris a dark shape on the water.
Anke came in behind him, testing her leg with a wince she tried to hide.
"Top or bottom?" she asked.
"Bottom. I don't trust myself not to roll out."
"Smart. I'll take the top. I used to climb trees as a kid. I feel at home up high."
She climbed the ladder carefully, favouring the leg, and settled onto the top bunk with a sigh. Javier unpacked his bag slowly, stowing his clothes in the metal locker beside the desk. He set his photographs on the desk, propped against the lamp. Roisin's face looked up at him, caught mid-laugh at the cottage in Scotland, her hair wild in the wind, her eyes bright. He touched the edge of the frame with one finger.
"She's lovely," Anke said from above.
"Thank you. I think so."
"You're going to be insufferable about her, aren't you? Reading her letters a hundred times, sighing over her photo."
"Probably."
"That's good. It's good to have someone worth missing."
He finished unpacking and went to the window. The light was beginning to fade, the sun sinking low over the ice, painting the white world in shades of rose and lavender and deep blue. It was beautiful, and terrible, and he loved it already, and he wished she were there to see it.
Dinner was in the main building, a long common room with a galley at one end and tables arranged along the walls. Margaret the cook had prepared a feast: roast beef with potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, a mountain of roasted vegetables, and a rich gravy that made Javier's mouth water before he had even sat down. The crew filed in, shedding layers at the door, hanging parkas and cold-weather gear on a row of hooks, and taking their places around the tables.
There were twelve of them, Javier counted, including Greta. The other crew had worked at the base and arrived ahead of the ship's company. There was Margaret, the Falklands cook, and her assistant, a young man named Piotr from Poland who had worked on fishing boats in the Barents Sea. The two New Zealand glaciologists, Martin and Shona, sat side by side, sharing a plate of bread and butter. The Canadian meteorologist, Hugh, had a bushy red beard and a fund of stories about the South Pole. There were technicians, a surveyor, a young man from India who maintained the communications equipment, and a quiet woman from Scotland who managed the base's power systems.
At the head of the table sat Greta. She looked around the room, and the quiet chatter died down. She did not need to raise her voice.
"Welcome to the base," she said. "I don't need to tell you why we're here. We're going to spend the next four months studying the fastest-warming region on Earth, and we're going to do it properly, safely, and with a minimum of bickering. I've run twelve surveys in my career. This is the thirteenth, and by the grace of God it will be the smoothest."
A murmur of laughter ran around the table.
"We've got a good crew here. Experienced, capable, and not afraid of hard work. I'm going to say one thing, and then we're going to eat, because my stomach is doing a drum solo and I won't tolerate it." She paused, her eye sweeping the room, touching each face in turn. "When I give an order, I expect it to be followed. I don't care if you think you know better. I don't care if you've been on the ice a hundred times. Every order I give, I give with the safety of everyone in this room in mind. Question me privately, if you must, but on the ice, we do it my way."
She let that sink in.
Chapter excerpt truncated at the edge.